CALIFORNIA 
 STORY BOOK 
 
09 
 
COPYRIGHT 1909 
 
 BY 
 THE ENGLISH CLUB 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
 Printed by 
 
 nlep^aplor 
 
 Sap;Francisco 
 
THE STAFF 
 
 MARGUERITE OGDEN, '10, Editor 
 SARA ASHBY/10 FRANCIS STEEL, '10 
 
 MARGARET HIZAR, '10 LEILA HIBBARD, '10 
 
 IRVING MARKWART, '10 EDNA HIGGINS, '11 
 
 BUSINESS MANAGERS 
 EARLE SNELL, '09 NAT SCHMULOWITZ, '10 
 
Introduction 
 
 project of the collection and pub- 
 h'cation of California stories was first 
 conceived by English Club in the 
 fall of 1908 and a committee was 
 appointed to follow up the rather vague sug- 
 gestion, to read over and select, from the files of 
 the Occident and the University of California 
 Magazine, stories, college stories if possible, wor- 
 thy of publication in a representative college 
 book. The work of the committee proved very 
 soon the unfeasibility of this first idea, and the 
 scope of the prospective collection was widened, 
 at the request of some of the contributors them- 
 selves, to include work done after graduation. 
 
 A short story contest, primarily in the interests 
 of the book, was opened by the Club at the end 
 of the spring semester, and the three stories rank- 
 ing first in the contest are included in the col- 
 lection. "YesterdayA Toast," by Sara Can- 
 terbury Ashby, '10; "Values," by Marguerite Og- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 den, '10, and "Bernice, Patrice and Clarice," by 
 Elizabeth Florence Young, '10. 
 
 In the final selection, the staff and the judges 
 have dwelt on the essentially literary merit of the 
 stories while still keeping in mind, as a desirable 
 element, the general tenor of western college 
 atmosphere. It is felt, too, that the appear- 
 ance of some of the stories in periodicals at vari- 
 ous times, as well as of the three stories, "The 
 History of Chop-Suey and Fan-Tan," by Gurden 
 Edwards, '07; "Phil," by Christina Krysto, '09, 
 and "Steve," by Francis Steel, '10, taken from the 
 California Occident, will in no way lessen the 
 interest taken in a book representative of the 
 best in short story writing of California grad- 
 uates and students. 
 
 Acknowledgements are due the judges in the 
 short story contest, Professor C. Wells, Dr. 
 George E. Smithson, '03; Richard Walton 
 Tulley, '01, Christina Krysto, '09, and Francis 
 Steel, '10; to Miss Grace Dickover, of Santa 
 Barbara, for the marginal illustrations used 
 throughout the book, and to Mr. Porter Garnet 
 for his invaluable assistance in the selection of the 
 title-page drawing and in the supervision of the 
 make-up of the book. 
 
 M. O. 
 
 Berkeley, California. 
 Nov. 26, 1909. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 .MATER GLORIA 
 
 By Isabel McReynolds Gray, '07 
 
 THE PASSING OF COCK-EYE BLACKLOCK i 
 
 By Frank Norris, '94 
 
 With acknowledgment to the "Century." 
 
 YESTERDAY A TOAST 20 
 
 By Sara Ashby, '10 
 
 Awarded first place in English Club Story Con- 
 test, 1907. 
 
 THE IDEALIST 30 
 
 By James Hopper, '98 
 
 With acknowledgment to the "Saturday Evening 
 Post." 
 
 - THE HISTORY OF CHOP-SUEY AND FAN-TAN 54 
 By Gur den Edwards, 'of 
 
 With acknowledgment to the "Overland Monthly." 
 
 PHIL 7 2 
 
 By Christina Krysto, 'op 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE RECORD QUARTER 85 v 
 
 By Grace Torrey, '97 
 
 With acknowledgment to the "Popular Magazine." 
 
 VALUES 102 
 
 By Marguerite Ogden, ' 10 
 
 ALL IN THE PLAY 118 
 
 3; Richard Walton Tully, '01 
 
 With acknowledgment to the "Saturday Evening 
 Post." 
 
 STEVE 141 
 
 By Francis Steel, '10 
 
 BUCK DU SPAIN 150 
 
 By Helen Duncan Queen, '07 
 
 With acknowledgment to the "Atlantic Monthly." 
 
 BERNICE, PATRICE AND CLARICE 161 
 
 By Elizabeth F. Young, ' 10 
 
 BILLY-TOG 169 
 
 By Abby L. Waterman, '04 
 
 THE SPOTTED DAWG 183 
 
 By Eleanor Gates, '01 
 
 With acknowledgment to Doubleday, Page & Co., 
 New York. 
 
Mater Gloria 
 
 learned a song when the world was 
 
 young. 
 
 Flowers of the heart and altar fires. 
 Winds of the earth and sea gave 
 
 tongue, 
 
 And down the world our prayer was flung 
 "Gloria, Mater ! Our desires ! " 
 
 We dreamed a dream when the day was new. 
 
 Bud and blossom and leaping flame. 
 
 The promise came that the dream was true 
 
 We sang on every wind that blew, 
 
 "Mater! Gloria! Thine the fame !" 
 
 Some work we do in the western light. 
 
 Withered leaf and fitful gleam. 
 
 At the threshold of the night 
 
 We raise the hymn that is thy right 
 
 "Gloria, Mater, for the dream ! " 
 
The Passing of Cock-Eye 
 Blacklock 
 
 m' son," observed Bunt about 
 half an hour after supper, "if your 
 provender has shook down comfort- 
 able by now, we might as well jar 
 loose and be moving along out yonder." 
 
 We left the fire and moved toward the hobbled 
 ponies, Bunt complaining of the quality of the 
 outfit's meals. "Cown in the Panamint coun- 
 try," he growled, "we had a Chink that was a 
 sure frying-pan expert; but this Dago my 
 word! That ain't victuals, that supper. That's 
 just a' ingenious device for removing superflu- 
 ous appetite. Next time I assimilate nutriment in 
 this camp I'm sure going to take chloroform 
 beforehand. Careful to draw your cinch tight 
 on that pinto bronc' of yours. She always swells 
 up same as a horned toad soon as you begin to 
 saddle up." 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 We rode from the circle of the campfire's light 
 and out upon the desert. It was Bunt's turn to 
 ride the herd that night, and I had volunteered to 
 bear him company. 
 
 Bunt was one of a fast-disappearing type. He 
 knew his West as the Cockney knows his Picca- 
 dilly. He had mined with and for Ralston, had 
 soldiered with Crook, had turned cards in a faro 
 game at Laredo, and had known the Apache Kid. 
 He had fifteen separate and different times driven 
 the herds from Texas to Dodge City, in the good 
 old, rare old, wild old days when Dodge was the 
 headquarters for the cattle trade, and as near to 
 heaven as the cow-boy cared to get. He had seen 
 the end of gold and the end of the buffalo, the 
 beginning of cattle, the beginning of wheat, and 
 the spreading of the barbed-wire fence, that, in 
 the end, will take from him his occupation and 
 his revolver, his chaparejos and his usefulness, 
 his lariat and his reason for being. He had seen 
 the rise of a new period, the successive stages of 
 which, singularly enough, tally exactly with the 
 progress of our own world-civilization: first the 
 nomad and hunter, then the herder, next and last 
 the husbandman. He had passed the mid-mark 
 of his life. His mustache was gray. He had 
 four friends his horse, his pistol, a teamster in 
 the Indian Territory Panhandle named Skinny, 
 and me. 
 
 The herd I suppose all told there were some 
 [2] 
 
PASSING OF COCK-EYE BLACKLOCK 
 
 two thousand head we found not far from the 
 water-hole. We relieved the other watch and 
 took up our night's vigil. It was about nine 
 o'clock. The night was fine, calm. There was 
 no cloud. Toward the middle watches one could 
 expect a moon. But the stars, the stars! In 
 Idaho, on those lonely reaches of desert and 
 range, where the shadow of the sun by day and 
 the courses of the constellations by night are the 
 only things that move, these stars are a different 
 matter from those bleared pin-points of the city 
 after dark, seen through dust and smoke and the 
 glare of electrics and the hot haze of fire-signs. 
 On such a night as that when I rode the herd 
 with Bunt anything might have happened; one 
 could have believed in fairies then, and in the 
 buffalo-ghost, and in all the weirds of the crazi- 
 est Apache "Messiah" that ever made medicine. 
 
 One remembered astronomy and the "measure- 
 less distances" and the showy problems, includ- 
 ing the rapid moving of a ray of light and the 
 long years of its travel between star and star, and 
 smiled incredulously. Why, the stars were just 
 above our heads, were not much higher than the 
 flat-topped hills that barred the horizons. Venus 
 was a yellow lamp hung in a tree; Mars a red 
 lantern in a clock-tower. One listened instinc- 
 tively for the tramp of the constellations. Orion, 
 Cassiopeia, and Ursa Major marched to and fro 
 [3] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 on the vault like cohorts of legionaries, seemingly 
 within call of our voices, and all without a 
 sound. 
 
 But beneath these quiet heavens the earth dis- 
 engaged multitudinous sounds small sounds, 
 minimized as it were by the muffling of the night. 
 Now it was the yap of a coyote leagues away; 
 now the snapping of a twig in the sage-brush; 
 now the mysterious, indefinable stir of the heat- 
 ridden land cooling under the night. But more 
 often it was the confused murmur of the herd 
 itself the click of a horn, the friction of heavy 
 bodies, a stamp of a hoof, with now and then 
 the low, complaining note of a cow with calf, or 
 the subdued noise of a steer as it lay down, first 
 lurching to the knees, then rolling clumsily upon 
 the haunch, with a long, stertorous breath of 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Slowly at Indian trot we encircled the herd. 
 Earlier in the evening a prairie-wolf had pulled 
 down a calf, and the beasts were still restless. 
 Little eddies of nervousness at long intervals 
 developed here and there in the mass eddies 
 that not impossibly might widen at any time with 
 perilous quickness to the maelstrom of the stam- 
 pede. So as he rode, Bunt sang to these great 
 brutes, literally to put them to sleep sang an 
 old grandmother's song, with all the quaint modu- 
 lations of sixty, seventy a hundred years ago: 
 [4] 
 
PASSING OF COCK-EYE BLACKLOCK 
 
 With her ogling winks 
 
 And hobbling blinks, 
 
 Her quizzing glass, 
 
 Her one eye idle, 
 Oh, she loved a bold dragoon, 
 
 With his broadsword, saddle, bridle. 
 
 Whack, fol-de-rol! 
 
 I remembered that song. My grandmother so 
 they tell me used to sing it in Carolina, in the 
 thirties, accompanying herself on a harp, if you 
 please : 
 
 Oh, she loved a bold dragoon, 
 
 With his broadsword, saddle, bridle. 
 It was in Charleston, I remembered, and the 
 slave-ships used to discharge there in those days. 
 My grandmother had sung it then to her beaux ; 
 officers they were ; no wonder she chose it, "Oh, 
 she loved a bold dragoon," and now I heard it 
 sung on an Idaho cattle-range to quiet two thou- 
 sand restless steers. 
 
 Our talk, at first, after the cattle had quieted 
 down, ran upon all manner of subjects. It is 
 astonishing to note what strange things men will 
 talk about at night and in a solitude. That night 
 we covered religion, of course, astronomy, love- 
 affairs, horses, travel, history, poker, photog- 
 raphy, basket-making, and the Darwinian theory. 
 But at last inevitably we came back to cattle and 
 the pleasures and dangers of riding the herd. 
 "I rode herd once in Nevada," remarked Bunt, 
 [5] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 "and I was caught into a blizzard, and I was sure 
 freezing to death. Got to where I couldn't keep 
 my eyes open, I was that sleepy. Tell you what 
 I did. Had some eating-tobacco along, and I'd 
 chew it a spell, then rub the juice into my eyes. 
 Kept it up all night. Blame near blinded me, but 
 I come through. Me and another man named 
 Blacklock Cock-eye Blacklock we called him, 
 by reason of his having one eye that was some out 
 o' line. Cock-eye sure ought to have got it that 
 night, for he went bad afterward, and did a heap 
 of killing before he did get it. He was a bad man 
 for sure, and the way he died is a story in itself." 
 There was a long pause. The ponies jogged on. 
 Rounding on the herd, we turned southward. 
 
 "He did 'get it' finally, you say," I prompted. 
 
 "He certainly did," said Blunt, "and the story 
 of it is what a man with a' imaginary mind like 
 you ought to make into one of your friction tales." 
 
 "Is it about a treasure ? " I asked with appre- 
 hension. For ever since I once made a tale (of 
 friction) out of one of Bunt's stories of real life, 
 he has been ambitious for me to write another, 
 and is forever suggesting motifs which invariably 
 I say invariably imply the discovery of great 
 treasures. With him fictitious literature must al- 
 ways turn upon the discovery of hidden wealth. 
 
 "No," said he, "it ain't about no treasure, but 
 just about the origin, hist'ry, and development 
 and subsequent decease of as mean a Greaser 
 [6] 
 
PASSING OF COCK-EYE BLACKLOCK 
 
 as ever stole stock, which his name was Cock-eye 
 Blacklock. 
 
 "You see, this same Blacklock went bad about 
 two summers after our meet-up with the bliz- 
 zard. He worked down Yuma way and over into 
 New Mexico, where he picks up with a sure- 
 thing gambler, and the two begins to devastate 
 the population. They do say when he and his 
 running mate got good and through with that 
 part of the Land of the Brave, men used to go 
 round trading guns for commissary, and clothes 
 for ponies, and cigars for whisky and such. 
 There just wasn't any money left anywhere. 
 Those sharps had drawed the landscape clean. 
 Some one found a dollar in a floor-crack in a 
 saloon, and the bar-keep' gave him a gallon of 
 forty-rod for it and used to keep it in a box for 
 exhibition, and the crowd would get around 
 it and paw it over and say : 'My ! my ! Whatever 
 in the world is this extremely cu-roos coin ? ' 
 
 "Then Blacklock cuts loose from his running 
 mate, and plays a lone hand through Arizona 
 and Nevada, up as far as Reno again, and there 
 he stacks up against a kid a little tenderfoot 
 kid so new he ain't cracked the green paint off 
 him and skins him. And the kid, being foolish 
 and impulsive-like, pulls out a pea-shooter. It 
 was a twenty-two" said Blunt, solemnly. "Yes, 
 the kid was just that pore, pathetic kind to carry a 
 dinky twenty-two, and with the tears runnin' 
 [7] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 down his cheeks begins to talk tall. Now what 
 does that Cock-eye do? Why, that pore kid that 
 he had skinned couldnt 'a' hurt him with his pore 
 little bric-a-brac. Does Cock-eye take his little 
 parlor ornament away from him, and spank him, 
 and tell him to go home ? No, he never. The 
 kid's little tin pop-shooter explodes right in his 
 hand before he can crook his forefinger twice, 
 and while he's a-wondering what-all has hap- 
 pened, Cock-eye gets his two guns on him, slow 
 and deliberate-like, mind you, and throws forty- 
 eights into him till he ain't worth shooting at no 
 more. Murders him like the mud-eating, horse- 
 thieving snake of a Greaser that he is ; but being 
 within the law, the kid drawing on him first, he 
 don't stretch hemp the way he should. 
 
 "Well, fin'ly this Blacklock blows into a min- 
 ing-camp in Placer County, California, where I'm 
 chuck-tending on the night shift. This here camp 
 is maybe four miles across the divide from Iowa 
 Hill, and it sure is named a cu-roos name, which 
 it is Why-not. They is a barn contiguous, where 
 the mine horses are kep', and, blame me ! if there 
 ain't a weathercock on top of that same, a gol- 
 den trotting-horse,- upside down. When the 
 stranger an' pilgrim comes in, says he first off: 
 'Why'n snakes they got that weathercock horse 
 upside down why ? ' says he. 'Why-not/ says 
 you, and the drinks is on the pilgrim. 
 
 "That all went very lovely till some gesabe 
 [8] 
 
PASSING OF COCK-EYE BLACKLOCK 
 
 opens up a placer drift on the far side the divide, 
 starts a rival camp, an' names her Because. The 
 boss gets mad at that and rights up the weather- 
 cock, and renames the camp Ophir, and you don't 
 work no more pilgrims. 
 
 "Well, as I was saying, Cock-eye drifts into 
 Why-not and begins diffusing trouble. He skins 
 some of the boys in the hotel over in town, and 
 a big row comes of it, and one of the bead-rock 
 cleaners cuts loose with both guns. Nobody hurt 
 but a quarter-breed, who loses a' eye. But the 
 marshal don't stand for no short-card men, an' 
 closes Cock-eye up some prompt. Him being 
 forced to give the boys back their money is busted 
 an* can't get away from camp. To raise some 
 wind he begins depredating. He robs a pore 
 half-breed of a cayuse, and shoots up a Chink 
 who's panning tailings, and generally, and vari- 
 ously becomes too pronounced, till he's run outen 
 camp. He's sure stony-broke, not being able to 
 turn a card because of the marshal. So he goes 
 to live in a' ole cabin up by the mine ditch, and 
 sits there doing a heap o' thinking, and hatch- 
 ing trouble like a' ole he-hen. 
 
 "Well, now, with that deporting of Cock-eye 
 comes his turn of bad luck, and it sure winds his 
 clock up with a loud report. I've narrated spe- 
 cial of the scope and range of this 'ere Blacklock, 
 so as you'll understand why it was expedient and 
 desirable that he should up an' die. You see, he 
 [9] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 always managed with all his killings and robbings 
 and general and sundry flimflamming to be just 
 within the law. And if anybody took a notion to 
 shoot him up, why, his luck saw him through, 
 and the other man's shooting-iron missed fire, or 
 exploded, or threw wild, or such like, till it 
 seemed as if he sure did bear a charmed life ; and 
 so he did till a pore yeller tamale of a fool dog 
 did for him what the law of the land couldn't do. 
 Yes, sir, a fool dog, a pup, a blame yeller pup 
 named Sloppy Weather, did for Cock-eye Black- 
 lock, sporting character, three-card-monte man, 
 sure-thing sharp, killer, and general bedeviler. 
 
 "You see, it was this way. Over in American 
 Canon, some five mile maybe back of the mine, 
 they was a creek called the American River, and 
 it was sure chock-a-block full of trouts. The 
 boss used for to go over there with a dinky fish- 
 pole like a buggy-whip about once a week, and 
 scout that stream for fish and bring back a basket- 
 ful. He was sure keen on it, and had bought 
 some kind of privilege or other, so as he could 
 keep other people off. 
 
 "Well, I used to go along with him to pack the 
 truck, and one Saturday, about a month after 
 Cock-eye had been run outen camp, we hiked up 
 over the divide, and went for to round up a bunch 
 o' trouts. When we got to the river there was a 
 mess for your life. Say, that river was full of 
 dead trouts, floating atop the water; and they 
 [10] 
 
PASSING OF COCK-EYE BLACKLOCK 
 
 was some even on the bank. Not a scratch on 
 'em ; just dead. The boss had the papsy-lals. I 
 never did see a man so rip-r'aring, snorting mad. 
 7 hadn't a guess about what we were up against, 
 but he knew, and he showed down. He said 
 somebody had been shooting the river for fish to 
 sell down Sacramento way to the market. A 
 mean trick; kill more fish in one shoot than you 
 can possibly pack. 
 
 "Well, we didn't do much fishing that day, 
 couldn't get a bite for that matter, and took off 
 home about noon to talk it over. You see, the 
 boss, in buying the privileges or such for that 
 creek, had made himself responsible to the fish 
 commissioners of the State, and 't wasn't a week 
 before they were after him, camping on his trail 
 incessant, and wanting to know how about it. 
 The boss was some worried, because the fish were 
 being killed right along, and the commission was 
 making him weary of living. Twicet afterward 
 we prospected along that river and found the 
 same lot of dead fish. We even put a guard 
 there, but it didn't do no manner of good. 
 
 "It's the boss who first suspicions Cock-eye. 
 But it don't take no seventh daughter of no sev- 
 enth daughter to trace trouble where Blacklock's 
 about. He sudden shows up in town with a 
 bunch of simoleons, buying bacon and tin cows* 
 and such provender, and generally giving it away 
 
 *Condensed milk. 
 
 [ii] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 that he's come into money. The boss, who's 
 watching his movements sharp, says to me one 
 day: 
 
 " 'Bunt, the storm-center of this here low area 
 is a man with a cock-eye, an' I'll back that play 
 with a paint horse against a paper dime.' 
 
 " 'No takers,' says I. 'Dirty work and a cock- 
 eyed man are two heels of the same mule.' " 
 
 " 'Which it's a-kicking of me in the stum- 
 mick frequent and painful,' he remarks, plenty 
 wrathful. 
 
 " 'On general principles,' I said, 'it's a royal 
 flush to a pair of deuces as how this Blacklock 
 bird ought to stop a heap of lead, and I know 
 the man to throw it. He's the only brother of 
 my sister, and tends chuck in a placer mine. 
 How about if I take a day off and drop round to 
 his cabin and interview him on the fleetin' and 
 unstable nature of human life ? ' 
 
 "But the boss wouldn't hear of that. 
 
 " 'No,' says he ; 'that's not the bluff to back in 
 this game. You an' me an' Mary-go-round' 
 that was what we called the marshal, him being 
 so much all over the country 'you an' me an' 
 Mary-go-round will have to stock a sure-thing 
 deck against that maverick.' 
 
 "So the three of us gets together an' has a 
 talky-talk, an' we lays it out as how Cock-eye 
 must be watched and caught red-handed. 
 
 "Well, let me tell you, keeping case on that 
 [12] 
 
PASSING OF COCK-EYE BLACKLOCK 
 
 Greaser sure did lack a certain indefinable charm. 
 We tried him at sun-up, an' again at sundown, 
 an' nights, too, laying in the chaparral an' tar- 
 weed, an' scouting up an' down that blame river, 
 till we were sore. We built surreptitious a lot of 
 shooting-boxes up in trees on the far side of the 
 canon, overlooking certain an' sundry pools in 
 the river where Cock-eye would be likely to pur- 
 sue operations, an' we took turns watching. I'll 
 be a Chink if that bad egg didn't put it on us 
 same as previous, an' we'd find new-killed fish all 
 the time. I tell you we were fitchered; and it 
 got on the boss's nerves. The commission began 
 to talk of withdrawing the privilege, an' it was 
 up to him to make good or pass the deal. We 
 knew Blacklock was shooting the river, y' see, 
 but we didn't have no evidence. Y' see, being 
 shut off from card-sharping, he was up against 
 it, and so took to pot-hunting to get along. It 
 was as plain as red paint. 
 
 "Well, things went along sort of catch-as- 
 catch-can like this for maybe three weeks, the 
 Greaser shooting fish regular, an' the boss b'iling 
 with rage, and laying plans to call his hand, and 
 getting bluffed out every deal. 
 
 "And right here I got to interrupt, to talk some 
 about the pup dog Sloppy Weather. If he hadn't 
 got caught up into this Blacklock game, no one'd 
 ever thought enough about him to so much as 
 kick him. But after it was all over, we began to 
 [13] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 remember this same Sloppy an' to recall what he 
 was; no big job. He was just a worthless fool 
 pup, yeller at that, everybody's dog, that just 
 hung around camp, grinning and giggling and 
 playing the goat, as half-grown dogs will. He 
 used to go along with the car-boys when they 
 went swimmin' in the resevoy, an' dash along in 
 an' yell an' splash round just to show off. He 
 thought it was a keen stunt to get some gesabe 
 to throw a stick in the resevoy so's he could pad- 
 dle out after it. They'd trained him always to 
 bring it back an' fetch it to whichever party 
 throwed it. He'd give it up when he'd retrieved 
 it, an yell to have it throwed again. That was his 
 idea of fun just like a fool pup. 
 
 "Well, one day this Sloppy Weather is off 
 chasing jack-rabbits, an' don't come home. No- 
 body thinks anything about that, nor even notices 
 it. But we afterward finds out that he'd met up 
 with Blacklock that day, an' stopped to visit with 
 him sorry day for Cock-eye. Now it was the 
 very next day after this that Mary-go-round an' 
 the boss plans another scout. I'm to go, too. It 
 was a Wednesday, an' we lay it out that the Cock- 
 eye would prob'ly shoot that day, so's to get his 
 fish down to the railroad Thursday, so they'd 
 reach Sacramento Friday fish-day, see. It 
 wasn't much to go by, but it was the high card in 
 our hand, an' we allowed to draw to it. 
 
 "We left Why-not afore daybreak, an' worked 
 [14] 
 
PASSING OF COCK-EYE BLACKLOCK 
 
 over into the canon about sun-up. They was one 
 big pool we hadn't covered for some time, an' 
 we made out we'd watch that. So we worked 
 down to it, an' dumb up into our trees, an' set 
 out to keep guard. 
 
 "In about an hour we heard a shoot some mile 
 or so up creek. They's no mistaking dynamite, 
 leastways not to miners, an' we knew that shoot 
 was dynamite an' nothing else. The Cock-eye 
 was at work, an' we shook hands all round. Then 
 pretty soon a fish or so began to go by big fel- 
 lows, some of 'em, dead an' floatin', with their 
 eyes popped 'way out same as knobs sure sign 
 they'd been shot. 
 
 "The boss took and grit his teeth when he see 
 a three-pounder go by, an' made remarks about 
 Blacklock. 
 
 " "Sh ! ' says Mary-go-round, sudden-like. 
 'Listen !' 
 
 "We turned ear down the wind, an' sure there 
 was the sound of some one scrabbling along the 
 boulders by the riverside. Then we heard a pup 
 yap. 
 
 " 'That's our man,' whispers the boss. 
 
 "For a long time we thought Cock-eye had 
 quit for the day an' had coppered us again, but 
 byne-by we heard the manzanita crack on the far 
 side the canon, an' there at last we see Blacklock 
 working down toward the pool, Sloppy Weather 
 [15] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 following an' yapping and cayoodling just as a 
 fool dog will. 
 
 "Blacklock comes down to the edge of the 
 water quiet-like. He lays his big scoop-net an' 
 his sack we can see it half full already down 
 behind a boulder, and takes a good squinting look 
 all round, and listens maybe twenty minutes, he 
 's that cute, same 's a coyote stealing sheep. We 
 lies low an' says nothing, fear he might see the 
 leaves move. 
 
 "Then byne-by he takes his stick of dynamite 
 out his hip pocket he was just that reckless 
 kind to carry it that way an' ties it careful to a 
 couple of stones he finds handy. Then he lights 
 the fuse an' heaves her into the drink, an' just 
 there 's where Cock-eye makes the mistake of his 
 life. He ain't tied the rocks tight enough, an' 
 the loop slips off just as he swings back his 
 arm, the stones drop straight down by his feet, 
 an' the stick of dynamite whirls out right enough 
 into the pool. 
 
 "Then the funny business begins. 
 
 "Blacklock ain't made no note of Sloppy 
 Weather, who's been sizing up the whole game 
 an' watchin' for the stick. 'Soon as Cock-eye 
 heaves the dynamite into the water, off goes the 
 pup after it, just as he 'd been taught to do by the 
 car-boys. 
 
 "'Hey, you fool dog!' yells Blacklock. 
 
 "A lot that pup cares. He heads out for that 
 [16] 
 
PASSING OF COCK-EYE BLACKLOCK 
 
 stick of dynamite same as if for a veal cutlet, 
 reaches it, grabs hold of it, an' starts back for 
 shore, with the fuse sputtering like hot grease. 
 Blacklock heaves rocks at him like one possessed, 
 capering an' dancing ; but the pup comes right on. 
 The Cock-eye can't stand it no longer, but lines 
 out. But the pup 's got to shore an' takes after 
 him. Sure, why not? He thinks it 's all part 
 of the game. Takes after Cock-eye, running to 
 beat a' express, while we-all whoops and yells an' 
 nearly falls out the trees for laffing. Hi ! Cock- 
 eye did scratch gravel for sure. But 't ain't no 
 manner of use. He can't run through that rough 
 ground like Sloppy Weather, an' that fool pup 
 comes a-cavortin' along, jumpin' up against him, 
 an' him a-kickin' him away, an' r'arin', an' 
 dancin', an' shakin' his fists, an* the more he 
 r'ars, the more fun the pup thinks it is. But 
 all at once something big happens, an' the whole 
 bank of the canon opens out like a big wave, 
 and slops over into the pool, and the air is full 
 of trees an' rocks and cart-loads of dirt an' dogs 
 and Blacklocks and rivers an' smoke an' fire 
 generally. The boss got a clod o' river-mud spang 
 in the eye, an' went off his limb like 's he was 
 trying to bust a bucking bronc' an' could n't ; and 
 or Mary-go-round was shooting off his gun on 
 general principles, glarin' round wild-eyed an* 
 like as if he saw a' Injun devil. 
 
 "When the smoke had cleared away an' the 
 [17] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 trees and rocks quit falling, we dumb down from 
 our places an' started in to look for Blacklock. 
 We found a good deal of him, but they was- 
 n't hide nor hair left of Sloppy Weather. We 
 did n't have to dig no grave either. They was a 
 big enough hole in the ground to bury a horse an' 
 wagon, let alone Cock-eye. So we planted him 
 there, an' put up a board, an' wrote on it : 
 
 Here lies most 
 
 of 
 
 C. BLACKLOCK, 
 
 who died of a' 
 
 entangling alliance with 
 
 a 
 
 stick of dynamite. 
 
 Moral: A hook and line is good enough 
 fish-tackle for any honest man. 
 
 "That there board lasted for two years, till 
 the freshet of '82, when the American River 
 Hello, there 's the sun !" 
 
 All in a minute the night seemed to have closed 
 up like a great book. The east flamed roseate. 
 The air was cold, nimble. Some of the sage- 
 brush bore a thin rime of frost. The herd, 
 aroused, the dew glistening on flank and horn, 
 were chewing the first cud of the day, and in 
 twos and threes moving toward the water-hole 
 for the morning's drink. Far off toward the 
 camp the breakfast fire sent a shaft of blue smoke 
 [18] 
 
PASSING OF COCK-EYE BLACKLOCK 
 
 straight into the moveless air. A jack-rabbit, 
 with erect ears, limped from a sage-brush just 
 out of pistol-shot and regarded us a moment, 
 his nose wrinkling and trembling. By the time 
 that Bunt and I, putting our ponies to a canter, 
 had pulled up by the camp of the Bar-circle-Z 
 outfit, another day had begun in Idaho. 
 
 19] 
 
Yesterday A Toast 
 
 "Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears 
 To-day of past Regrets and Future Fears: 
 To-morrow! why, To-morrow I may be 
 Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years." 
 
 URRAY has just rung me up to ask 
 if he might call for us with his 
 machine this afternoon." 
 
 Marjorie looked up from her sew- 
 ing to where Elizabeth stood in the doorway 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "Oh, I told him yes," answered Elizabeth, her 
 color a little heightened. "What else could I 
 say? You and he planned the affair together. 
 It's only natural that he should come for us." 
 Her aunt threw a glance of inquiry over the 
 billowy blue mull in her lap "Won't people 
 talk?" but Elizabeth had stooped to pick up a 
 piece of lace from the floor and did not answer. 
 Majorie jabbed her needle into the white cam- 
 bric "What nonsense, it's perfectly all right. 
 [20] 
 
YESTERDAY A TOAST 
 
 Everybody knows it's a class reunion and that 
 we're all old friends." 
 
 "Everybody knows, too," interrupted Mrs. 
 Marston, "that he sent his wife and baby to Mill 
 Valley yesterday." 
 
 "That's the way with these gossipy towns," 
 flashed Marjorie, breaking her thread with a 
 vicious jerk, "always attending to other people's 
 business !" 
 
 Elizabeth's head bent lower over her work, 
 her hair shading her face. "I suppose it is rash," 
 she said, "but it was so long ago, nobody remem- 
 bers." 
 
 Her aunt compressed her lips. "How can 
 you afford to leave your sewing?" Both girls 
 looked up reproachfully. 
 
 "Now Auntie, we'll only be gone an hour or 
 two and it would never do for us not to be 
 there." 
 
 Mrs. Marston said no more, but a little anxious 
 look crept into her face. 
 
 Exactly at three the girls heard the auto's shud- 
 dering stop at their door and then Murray's 
 quick bound upon the veranda. 
 
 Elizabeth stood before the mirror in her bed- 
 room noting critically the effect of a new pink 
 gown. It was becoming and she could not help 
 seeing that the rose-flush in her cheeks was as 
 delicate and her hair as dusky black as when 
 she was eighteen. She caught her breath. That 
 [21] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 was a long time ago it were better not to think 
 of it and yet . She began moving restlessly 
 around the room and stopped in front of an open 
 window. A warm breeze sent the curtains 
 swirling over her head and then streaming far 
 out the window. In the garden below the flowers 
 drooped in the hot afternoon sun and the faint 
 odor of roses floated up and wrapped her round. 
 As in a dream she heard Marjorie calling to her 
 and she did not answer. Then a quick tap at the 
 door and Majorie came in with a rustle of crisp 
 muslin skirts and a disapproving, "Why, Eliza- 
 beth, not ready ! Murray's waiting for us where 
 is your hat? We musn't be late." 
 
 Elizabeth turned from the window and began 
 mechanically to straighten the dresser. "I think 
 I'll not go," she said, without looking at Mar- 
 jorie. 
 
 Her cousin's patience gave way. "Any one 
 would think you were sixteen." She stamped 
 her foot. "What possible reason have you for 
 not going? You can't leave me in the lurch 
 this way at the last minute, here's your hat, 
 hurry ! " and Elizabeth, hardly knowing what she 
 did, found herself putting on her hat and gloves. 
 She gave one last glance at the mirror before 
 she turned away and the shadows left her face. 
 After all, what difference did it make? It was 
 all so long ago ; he had been married five years 
 [22] 
 
YESTERDAY A TOAST 
 
 and she well it was nobody's affair. She went 
 down the stairs with a defiant tilt of her chin. 
 
 It was this spirit that lent a little effusiveness 
 to her greeting of Murray in the cool living 
 room below. He, big and nonchalant, was talk- 
 ing with Mrs. Marston of summer plans, of his 
 settling his family at Mill Valley, of his own 
 bachelor condition all with the easy grace of 
 the family man. He took Elizabeth's hand cor- 
 dially and waved aside her apologies for being 
 late, then resumed his light talk with her aunt 
 until Marjorie appeared laden with punch bowl 
 and glasses. 
 
 A few minutes later he was helping them into 
 the automobile. Marjorie took the back seat, then 
 he turned to Elizabeth. Her cheeks were the 
 color of her pink gown and of the pink roses on 
 her hat. Murray's eyes took on a warmer light, 
 and for the fraction of a second they faced each 
 other, Murray motionless, with his square 
 shoulders and stubborn chin, Elizabeth wavering. 
 Then she shook her head and got in beside Mar- 
 jorie. He leaned over the wheel to tuck in her 
 skirt and as he did so their eyes met, her's were 
 very bright. "Do you remember," he said, "the 
 old bay horse. He was very faithful and steady, 
 wasn't he?" Then he cranked the machine, 
 sprang lightly into the front seat and turned the 
 wheel. 
 
 They went slowly at first. The warm air 
 [23] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 fanned them with its languorous breath of mag- 
 nolia blossoms and roses, and the palms stirred 
 their stiff fronds faintly. Ahead the road 
 gleamed white and the heat wavered up and beat 
 upon their faces. Then they turned into College 
 Avenue and came upon a stretch of level road. 
 Murray turned on the power and the machine re- 
 sponded to his hand with a leap. They slid along 
 easily and the curbings fled past them in a glare 
 of white, blended with the green hills beyond. 
 The wind scorched their faces and sang its wild 
 song in their ears. Still Murray sat motionless, 
 his broad shoulders set, his hand on the wheel, 
 and Elizabeth watched him with wide, dark eyes. 
 Once Marjorie clutched her hand and gasped, 
 "Tell him to stop," but Elizabeth shook her off 
 and said nothing. 
 
 They came at last in sight of the campus with 
 its ivy-covered buildings, set among the oaks. 
 Murray slowed down and rounding a corner with 
 a deft curve, stopped in front of Hearst Hall. 
 He jumped out and handed Marjorie down, then 
 turned to Elizabeth. She was very pale and 
 the dark hair lay in ruffled waves about her fore- 
 head and neck. Murray took both her hands. 
 They were cold and he held them tight as he 
 helped her to the ground. Elizabeth caught her 
 breath and turned away, to find a group of old 
 college friends coming up the walk. They 
 laughed and called out, "Well, this seems like 
 [24] 
 
YESTERDAY A TOAST 
 
 old times!" Elizabeth flushed but Murray 
 answered heartily, "Yes, doesn't it, we're all 
 young again today." 
 
 They entered the quaint, weather-browned 
 building under a pergola of clematis and purple 
 wisteria, and turned up the broad stairway to the 
 hall above. Marjorie hastened away with the 
 punch bowl but Murray and Elizabeth paused a 
 moment in the shadow of a palm. Neither had 
 been in the hall since their graduation six years 
 before, and its mingled strangeness and familiar- 
 ity set old chords vibrating until from out dusky 
 corners stole faint strains of forgotten music 
 and shadowy forms floated past them in a brief, 
 sweet vision of the past. Elizabeth's hand hung 
 at her side and Murray's was near. Their palms 
 touched for an instant and each felt the other's 
 thoughts. 
 
 It was Elizabeth who spoke first. "Let us 
 go on, we must speak to Professor Anderson." 
 
 The old professor, who had been a favorite 
 with the class and was its guest of honor for 
 the afternoon, stood in a circle of his former 
 students. Others came up at intervals and were 
 greeted with his old school courtesy and kind- 
 liness. Murray and Elizabeth entered the group 
 together and the professor recognized them with 
 more than his usual warmth. "Well, Murray, 
 so you're still doing politics booked for the leg- 
 islature next year, they tell me. Oakland is to 
 [25] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 be congratulated. That reminds me," and he 
 turned to Elizabeth with a cordial hand shake. 
 "You're to be married soon, I hear, to Jack Dan- 
 vers let me see a nought-one man, wasn't he? 
 You knew him in college of course. Well, my 
 best wishes," and he made her a stately bow. 
 He watched them as they walked away, Mur- 
 ray's broad shoulders bending over the girl's 
 slender figure, then he shook his head and turned 
 again to the chatter around him. 
 
 Murray and Elizabeth moved on through the 
 animated groups of men and women boys and 
 girls today greeting everybody, stopping here 
 and there to chat and laugh over some old es- 
 capade. They came across Dick Danvers, sur- 
 rounded by half a dozen girls as usual, and 
 keeping them all laughing. His boyish face, 
 topped by its tight gold curls, lighted up with 
 a flash when he saw them. "Just the people 1 
 want to see." He shook Elizabeth's hand and 
 clapped Murray on the back. "Well, old man, 
 how could Oakland spare you this afternoon. 
 You're one of the desperate despots we used to 
 hear about in college. Do you remember when 
 you ran for class president, and got beaten?" 
 
 Murray laughed in reply. "I did get turned 
 down a good deal in those days" he caught 
 Elizabeth's eye and became suddenly grave. 
 "Things go more my way now. I've caught the 
 trick." Elizabeth noticed that the slant of his 
 [26] 
 
YESTERDAY A TOAST 
 
 jaw was grim a mastiff's that hangs on to the 
 death. She shivered and started on. 
 
 A young matron came hurrying up with a 
 nod for Murray and an ecstatic embrace for Eliz- 
 abeth. "Oh, Elizabeth, you don't know how glad 
 I am, I haven't had a chance before; do let me 
 come and talk it all over with you. Jack's such a 
 splendid fellow, so like Dick, and he's a dear! 
 Of course you're terribly busy but " Eliza- 
 beth had extricated herself with difficulty from 
 the enveloping flounces and was smiling faintly. 
 "Yes, I am busy, I'm rather tired." "Why you 
 do look pale," her friend broke in, "it's this heat, 
 but you'll be out of it soon. Ah, Murray," she 
 turned upon him rapturously, "that baby! I 
 saw him yesterday at the ferry. How could 
 you let him go? But of course you'll be over 
 there half the time. And anyway you men always 
 amuse yourselves when your wives are away. Oh 
 I know !" she shook her finger coquettishly at him. 
 "I worm it out of Edward about your stag par- 
 ties and all that. When the cat's away " But 
 Murray and Elizabeth had torn themselves loose 
 and were trying to get out of the main stream 
 which was moving down the hall. 
 
 They found themselves finally in an eddy at one 
 side of the current, and stood again alone. Eliza- 
 beth was very tired and her whole body showed 
 the terrible lassitude that seemed to have seized 
 her. Murray stood with his broad shoulders 
 [27] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 to the crowd and faced her. His jaw had the 
 mastiff set that she dreaded. "Elizabeth," he 
 said, "look at me," and she pressed her hands 
 against the wall behind her and leaned hard 
 against it. "Don't," she said faintly, but his 
 insistence bore her down and at last he had her 
 eyes dark with pain and a great weariness. 
 "Elizabeth," he said, "aren't you tired of all this? 
 We've made a mistake, let's cut it all out and 
 live our lives as God intended we should, if you 
 still care." 
 
 "Don't," she moaned, and turned her face 
 away, but he held her relentlessly. She 
 was twisting her long, brown ringers and the 
 diamond glittered with a hard light and cut 
 into the tender flesh. His voice dropped to a 
 whisper as he bent over her. "Dear little Bess !" 
 
 A sharp voice came from an alcove near them 
 "Yes, she's old enough to know better, of 
 course ; he's only fooling with her, but I thought 
 she had more sense; and then you know every- 
 body said they were engaged when they were 
 in college. He was crazy over her." Elizabeth 
 started up as if awakened from a dream, and 
 Murray's face stiffened. "Let's get out of this," 
 he said, roughly, and led the way down the 
 hall. 
 
 Elizabeth, following at a little distance, noted 
 the imperious set of his head and shoulders above 
 the crowd through which he was pushing ruth- 
 [28] 
 
YESTERDAY A TOAST 
 
 lessly. There was an air of almost insolent tri- 
 umph in his face, and something in the full 
 throated voice sent a shudder over her. But 
 Murray was by her side again and they moved 
 on toward the group around the punch bowl. 
 
 Dick was proposing a toast. When he caught 
 sight of Elizabeth he sprang lightly upon a chair 
 and raising his glass with a flourish that included 
 them all, announced, "To our future !" Murray 
 turned to Elizabeth. She was quite pale and had 
 scarcely touched her glass. He looked down at it 
 and then at his own, untasted. His eyes held 
 hers a moment, then dropped to her lips with a 
 droop of the eyelids that was a caress. He raised 
 his glass, "To our past," he murmured, and 
 drained the last drop. 
 
 But Elizabeth was looking past him at Dick, 
 and in a swift vision there came to her another 
 face, stronger and graver, but with the same 
 hint of laughter in the honest grey eyes. It was 
 a face to trust a life-time and her heart suddenly 
 went out towards it in a great throb of thank- 
 fulness. She turned quickly to Murray and her 
 cup fell to the floor with a little shiver of broken 
 glass. "How careless of me," she laughed, and 
 looked him full in the face. 
 
 c 
 
 ^ -fv l_t 
 
 [29] 
 
The Idealist 
 
 long shadows of the autumn eve- 
 mn were creeping slowly across the 
 campus; already they had passed in 
 gentle undulation over the bleachers, 
 and to the imponderable touch the enthusiasm of 
 the men had calmed to something less ferocious, 
 finer and more tender. The rhythmic roars of 
 defiance, the concerted bursts of exultation had 
 ceased, and now they sang a little song, softly, 
 in the gloaming : 
 
 "Oh, here's to Charley Pringle, 
 Charley Pringle, Charley Pringle, 
 Oh, here's to Charley Pringle, 
 God bless him, heigh-ho ! " 
 
 To Thane, lying on the side-lines in a tense 
 
 stretching of his slender body toward the field, 
 
 the change was grateful, and the last of some 
 
 bitterness black within him evaporated to a glow 
 
 [30] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 of his whole being. Before him, vague in the 
 brown haze of the coming night, the team, with 
 sudden rushings of feet and catapultic shocks, 
 was tearing through the scrubs in the last prac- 
 tice before the big game. On the day following 
 the morrow they would go forth to battle for the 
 college, and the fact that he was now on the side- 
 lines meant that he would not be of them. 
 
 Four years before, a freshman, he had gone 
 out upon the field to strive for the golden honor 
 of service now finally denied him. Right away he 
 had been judged. From the bleachers his slen- 
 der body, his hazy blue eyes, his ingenuous fer- 
 vor had been immediately recognized as an ele- 
 ment of joy for the long practice evenings, and as 
 promptly had gained him the nickname of 
 "Girlie." And the coaches, discussing that night 
 the new material, had dismissed him from further 
 consideration with one curt word "Crockery" 
 the fragile crockery, material unfit for the grind- 
 ing team-machine. In his four years of furious 
 striving he had failed to modify the verdict. 
 "Crockery" he had remained to the coaches, 
 though at times often in this last season he 
 displayed flashes of something tense, almost 
 weird, that threw them men dealing with matter 
 and apt to forget the spirit into profound aston- 
 ishment; and to the bleachers he was still 
 "Girlie," the very ardor of his loyalty to college 
 having something exaggerated, emotional, almost 
 [31] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 mystic, that caused him to be regarded by his 
 fellows with a certain irony, half tender, half 
 contemptuous. 
 
 They started another verse on the bleachers, 
 now fading fast beneath the shadow of the giant 
 eucalypti, with another name, in successive trib- 
 ute to the members of the team. "Oh, here's to 
 Jimmy Whipple," they sang, 
 
 "Jimmy Whipple, Jimmy Whipple, 
 Oh, here's to Jimmy Whipple, 
 God bless him, heigh-ho ! " 
 
 To the vague melancholy of the hour they re- 
 sponded unconsciously. They sang in low key, 
 caressingly; the high voice of a tenor wailed a 
 little. Thane thrilled in one of 4he accesses of 
 fervor that made him slightly ridiculous a fer- 
 vor of love, of adoration for his College, his Alma 
 Mater, Mother of his Soul. A tumult of sensa- 
 tions, of sentiments, surged within him: tender- 
 ness, fealty, a desire for sacrifice; they mingled 
 with visions almost tangible : a great blue banner 
 with a golden C smacking high in the breeze, 
 marble halls upon tawny hills above an azure sea ; 
 and then all this seemed to blend like vapors meet- 
 ing in the sky and he saw Her, the Alma Mater 
 herself, the Soul-Mother, of whom he was at once 
 the son and the knight ; she, throned there above, 
 robed in clouds, distant, shadowy, inexpressibly 
 fair; upon her brow lay the marmoreal calm of 
 [32] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 purity and wisdom; her hair was as the streaks 
 of sun-kissed rain ; her eyes were as the sea. 
 
 But some one shook him, and he dropped out 
 of his fine frenzy. The practice line-up had 
 ended, the scrubs were trotting up the hill to the 
 gymnasium, and from the centre of the field 
 where the team waited the coach was calling him. 
 Such returns to earth usually left Thane some- 
 what crestfallen, but this night the exaltation did 
 not leave him; and as he walked out upon the 
 field, grave as for a sacrificial rite, his face 
 glowed with something that the others had not. 
 He passed Garvin, the quarter who had beaten 
 him out, on his way to the side-lines for his 
 sweater; he looked upon the squat power of his 
 form without the usual feeling of inferiority; 
 within him something thrilled finer than anything 
 Garvin might have. He came to the team. 
 "Run them through their plays," said the coach. 
 
 He placed himself behind the rampart of 
 muscle-bulging jerseys; lightly he passed his 
 hand from end to end, and each man beneath the 
 touch started uneasily, stamped his cleats deeper 
 into the earth, drew closer to his companion till 
 they were welded into one body as by a hoop of 
 steel; he passed a slow, heavy glance upon the 
 three backs, and the tense power of their expec- 
 tant crouch became vibrant ; he spoke two or three 
 quiet words, and the whole eleven, a moment 
 before like a dray mired and atilt in the mud, 
 F331 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 began to tremble with an inward ebullition, like a 
 locomotive feeling at the lever the hand of the 
 favorite master. His signal rang in clear bugle 
 note, and the human machine leaped forward in 
 a five-yard ramming. Another signal caught the 
 spend of its effort and hurled it forward again; 
 and to the crackling of repeated signals the 
 team swept across the field in pulses of power, an 
 irresistible body at the command of an ardent 
 soul. 
 
 "That will do," said the coach. 
 
 Immediately the team began to disintegrate, 
 the men smoking like wet straw, walking wearily 
 toward the subs, who held their sweaters. But 
 Thane stood motionless, rapt like the musician 
 who, long after his bow has ceased caressing its 
 last note, listens to the echoes of his unappeased 
 soul. This was the best he was to know. On the 
 day after the morrow the team would go forth to 
 battle, and he would not be with them. This was 
 the best he was to know ; it was the climax of his 
 career, this charge across the empty field, puerile, 
 against a vacuum. But it was something, a great 
 deal. To the innermost fibre he glowed with the 
 exaltation; for he had felt respond to his touch 
 the vibrant force of flesh and blood ; he had felt 
 it bound beneath his voice, to the inspiration of 
 his soul : that they could not take from him ; rapt, 
 he concentrated his being to drinking of it to the 
 dregs. 
 
 [34] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 On the bleachers they had at length come down 
 to his name. "Oh, here's to Girlie Thane, oh; 
 Girlie Thane, oh; Girlie Thane, oh," they sang, 
 and the blended voices were joyous with playful 
 irony: "Oh, here's to Girlie Thane, oh; God 
 bless her, heigh-ho ! " They weighed heavily upon 
 the "her," as had been the tradition. 
 
 Then with a rush and a shout they avalanched 
 down upon the field. The advance wave caught 
 up the men of the team on its crest, threw them 
 up on heaving shoulders. With a blare the band 
 started a double-quick march and behind it the 
 whole college danced the serpentine four abreast. 
 They undulated across the gridiron, then up the 
 hill toward the gym. Thane walked up slowly, 
 a little apart. The intoxication that possessed him 
 was a silent and repressed one. The roar of the 
 delirious multitude came to him as the beat of a 
 far-off sea. Like a flapping velvet cloak the 
 night was falling from the sky. Torches began 
 to flare here and there, then a long, lithe flame 
 shot up lickingly, reddening the walls of the 
 gym. The freshmen had started their bonfire. 
 
 In the dressing-rooms the assistant coach, paus- 
 ing as he started to pull off his sweater, said to 
 the head coach: 
 
 "By the way, did you notice how Thane ran 
 the team tonight?" 
 
 "Yes," said the coach ; "he certainly does make 
 [35] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 it go. But we settled that long ago. He's only 
 crockery. Garvin is the man." 
 
 "That's right," said the assistant. But he 
 could not shake off the picture, still in his mind, 
 of the team, one, concentrated, welded into a 
 machine, thrill to the touch, leap to the voice of 
 the slender young quarter with the rapt, spiritual 
 face. And unconsciously his head shook from 
 side to side in considering doubt. 
 
 Outside, like red devils, the freshmen were 
 whirling around the fire. And Thane, pausing at 
 the door of the gym, looked past and beyond 
 them, to the west, where yet lingered a last glow 
 of the set sun. And there, far, shadowy, inex- 
 pressibly fair, again he saw Her, the College, 
 his Alma Mater, Mother of his Soul. And his 
 
 whole being tensed in silent devotion. 
 
 *#*###* 
 
 Thane lay on the side-lines, as seemed his eter- 
 nal fate. About the quadrangle of yellow earth 
 there rose on all sides, high, almost to the skies, 
 palpitating human walls ; from behind him, pass- 
 ing over his prostrate form like puffs of com- 
 pressed air, came the rhythmic roars of his col- 
 lege men. Sometimes these roars rose to pierc- 
 ing, exultant shrieks that flattened him still 
 lower with their concussion. His eyes were out 
 upon the white-streaked gridiron upon which 
 his team, blue-jerseyed and gold-striped, were 
 battling with the men of flaming cardinal red. 
 [36] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 A vague uneasiness possessed him, for to his 
 practiced eye things were not going quite as had 
 been expected. The game had begun with an ex- 
 change of punts, then Thane's fellows, the Tigers, 
 as they had become popularly known, veterans all, 
 working together with the calm confidence of 
 their proven strength, resolutely took the offen- 
 sive. By a series of elastic lunges, almost jauntily 
 they swept back the Cardinal team, heavy and 
 strong as it was, clear across the field, back 
 almost against their goal-posts in a heaving dis- 
 ordered mass. There, however, Garvin, the 
 squat quarter, signaled for a drop kick. Kaars- 
 berg, the full, fell back, received the ball a little 
 high, juggled a trifle and the kick went wide 
 of the posts. Immediately, from their twenty- 
 five-yard line where the ball had been brought 
 out, the Cardinal team, with a strong breeze be- 
 hind, punted far down the field; and when the 
 Tigers secured the ball it was fifteen yards within 
 their own territory. 
 
 With the lesson of perseverance deep written in 
 their souls by many battles, the Tigers, undis- 
 mayed, started again. This time, however, they 
 did not sweep off their feet the Cardinal team, 
 which, though new and relatively inexperienced, 
 was heavy and tremendously powerful. The ad- 
 vance was slow a patient, stubborn pounding. 
 Three times the linesmen had to be called in for 
 accurate measurement of downs gained by inches. 
 [37] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 But finally, when in triumphant burst the striped 
 team gained the ten-yard line, again Garvin, 
 made sullen by his first failure, signaled for a 
 drop. To a drone of disapproval from the 
 bleachers, Kaarsberg danced back to position. 
 The ball sailed to him fair from the centre. Rais- 
 ing it with arms outstretched straight opposite his 
 eyes, he let it fall, at the same time stepping for- 
 ward with his left foot; his right swung sharply 
 forward, caught the lower oval upon the toe, and 
 the ball rose slowly up and forward. It soared 
 toward the goal, well-directed, but a little to the 
 right, hovered a moment as in doubt, almost over 
 the cross-bar ; then a fierce puff of the fast rising 
 wind deflected it. It swerved to the right, im- 
 perceptibly at first, then decidedly, and swooped 
 past the long perpendicular post, a few inches 
 outside of it. A roar of disappointment, quickly 
 drowned by an exultant cry from the other side, 
 came from the bleachers ; and in the turmoil the 
 Cardinals, bringing the ball out to the twenty- 
 five-yard line, kicked it atop a whirling gust of 
 wind deep into blue-and-gold territory. 
 
 Securing the ball, the striped team gathered 
 itself together for another effort, agrowl at the 
 failure of generalship that was robbing them of 
 their toil. The linemen, cleats deep in the earth, 
 lowered their heads, and the whole welded body 
 swung to and fro for a moment like a sullen bull 
 nursing its rage ; then with a catapultic shock it 
 [38] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 was on its way again, tearing through the red 
 opposition. But the Cardinal team was fighting 
 better every moment. Right in the game it was 
 getting the experience that solely it lacked ; min- 
 ute after minute it was being pounded into unity. 
 The gains became shorter ; at nearly every down 
 the linesmen with their sticks and chain ran out 
 upon the field to measure the bitterly disputed 
 yards ; and the blue-and-gold backs when tackled 
 clawed the ground for precious inches. And 
 then finally when the Cardinal team had been 
 backed up panting, sobbing, against its five-yard 
 line, the ferocious attacks of the Tigers broke 
 impotently upon it like sea-foam upon rock and 
 in three whirling downs the Cardinal eleven had 
 regained the ball and punted it back far down 
 the field. 
 
 But again the Tigers, iron-hearted, started for 
 the Cardinal goal. By this time it was not the 
 confident, jaunty team of the beginning. Each 
 gain took all their skill, their cunning, the lesson 
 learned bitterly in so many battles; each gain 
 took all of their concentrated strength which de- 
 spairingly they felt ebbing from them like sand 
 out of a torn sack ; and Thane, on the side-lines, 
 writhed to the agony of their toil. Behind him, 
 in the press-stand, a reporter was shouting into a 
 telephone, and his short, brutal sentences rang 
 inexorable like a pronouncement of doom. "The 
 Tigers are tiring," the reporter shouted ; "they're 
 [39] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 tiring, tiring! Their gains are almost nothing 
 now. Their strength is going. They can't score 
 now they can't, they can't! It's a busted team, 
 busted, clean busted ! " 
 
 And it was true. Those four tremendous and 
 unavailing sweeps across the field had sapped 
 their vitality; but that was not the worst. The 
 wind of panic was among them, of panic at the 
 unexpected and fearful resistance, at the suddenly 
 revealed weakness of their leader's judgment. 
 The rancor of men being beaten without their 
 fault fermented within them an unreasoning dis- 
 trust of their fellows, once so thoroughly trusted ; 
 and the team was disintegrating. Thane saw it 
 all, detail by detail. Greisberg and Athearn, the 
 two big guards, were working spasmodically, at 
 one time tearing immense holes in exaggerated 
 despairing effort the next, listless, allowing their 
 opponents to get the jump on them. Whipple, 
 the left tackle, was wrecking himself in unrea- 
 soning fury. Thane looked at Pringle, expecting 
 from him some of the typical encouraging shouts 
 that so often had pulled together a frenzied team ; 
 but right away he saw that the big, jolly captain 
 was lost in his own individual problem. Pitted 
 against him was a young freshman, a giant of 
 singular strength and agility, and Pringle was 
 calling to himself all his resources to uphold his 
 veteran's prestige which alone up to now had 
 enabled him to subdue his terrible antagonist. 
 [40] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 He knew that he must bluff the young fellow, 
 retain the moral ascendency, or be outplayed. So, 
 pale as death, big tears of sweat upon his brow, 
 he smiled in the face of his yet diffident opponent, 
 tweaked his nose, pulled his hair, joshed him in 
 a running stream of contemptuous talk, submitted 
 him to a thousand indignities, while within him 
 he feared the sudden realization of superior 
 strength which might at any moment come to the 
 novice. And so he had no time to give to his 
 fast-breaking team. Behind the line things were 
 as bad. Kaarsberg, disheveled, dilated-eyed, was 
 going wild. Hall was in one of his bad moments ; 
 a sneer upon his lips, he played aloof from his 
 fellows. Of that whole team only three men 
 remained unmoved : Cornish, the centre, grim and 
 silent, snapping back the ball steady as a me- 
 chanical feeder ; Smith, the right half, bucking 
 with his steady fury; and Garvin, squat and 
 stolid, passing the ball with the smoothness of an 
 endless chain, but running the team heavily, with 
 no vibration to his calls, no inspiration to his 
 gestures. 
 
 And yet the disorganized team, with jerky 
 attacks, forced the ball along for twenty yards. 
 They lost it, and the Cardinal Reds punted it 
 back forty. With another series of spasmodic 
 efforts the Tigers pushed forward fifteen yards; 
 and the Reds punted back forty. Then, sullen 
 and morose, Garvin gave up the offensive. 
 [41] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 Kaarsberg punted into Red territory; but the 
 Reds, cunningly evading the invitation to take 
 the lead, punted back and, with the wind behind 
 them, gained ten yards in the exchange. 
 
 And then came the disaster. Only ten yards 
 from his own last white line, the Tiger quarter 
 decided on a fake kick; but his signal, muffled 
 in the roar of the rooters, was misunderstood by 
 Cornish. Straight back between his legs the 
 centre hurled the ball to Kaarsberg as for a punt, 
 but the full-back was already galloping far to the 
 left for the fake. With a heart-bursting sense of 
 the irretrievable, Thane saw the ball, with none 
 to receive it, strike the ground, then roll on clean 
 over the Tiger goal-line; he saw Garvin strain- 
 ing after it, a whirl of Cardinal red behind, saw 
 him leave his feet, flash along the ground, cover 
 the ball with his body. But it was too late.- 
 Before he could rise and throw himself back upon 
 the gridiron, the red whirl was upon him, crush- 
 ing him back to earth and it was a safety, and 
 it scored two clear points for the Cardinal. 
 
 For a moment Thane was stunned; then his 
 blood heated within him in a burst of rebelling 
 loyalty. And as a few minutes later the half 
 being over he followed the team to the dressing- 
 rooms without knowing it he was repeating over 
 and over again: "We'll beat 'em, kill 'em, next 
 half; we'll beat 'em, kill 'em, next half!" Above 
 him in the penumbra of his heated imagination, 
 [42] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 he saw Her, the College, calm, pure, inexpressibly 
 fair. It could not be, it could not be ; her knights 
 could not fail ! A formidable desire to act, to do, 
 twitched at his muscles ; and on his bench, in an 
 obscure corner of the steaming room, he was 
 mumbling, without knowing it, his desperate 
 slogan : "We'll beat 'em, kill 'em, next half !" 
 
 The physical condition of the team had not 
 escaped the trainers, and for five minutes there 
 was heard nothing but the dripping of water, the 
 gurgle of wet sponges, the ripping of bandages; 
 then the coach sprang upon a bench and began 
 to talk. Thane listened, all ready for firm ap- 
 proval ; but a disappointment, vague at first, then 
 immense, overwhelmed him. The man spoke bit- 
 ingly of the mistakes made, of the going to pieces 
 of the team; but it was technical, technical, all 
 technical not at all what was needed, what 
 Thane himself longed to pour out; an evocation 
 of the College, the Alma Mater for whom they 
 fought, a call upon their fealty, their love, their 
 passionate devotion. It was not there, not there 
 at all, in that bitter upbraiding the flame of sac- 
 rifice, the rally to the Cause that would sweep 
 these men onward, irresistible, to victory. It was 
 not there and Thane, without knowing it, was 
 on his feet, had sprung upon the bench. His lips 
 opened ; a ringing "Fellows ! " was already upon 
 them 
 
 But the referee's shrill whistle, calling the re- 
 [43] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 newal of the battle, saved him from the ridiculous 
 demonstration. Thane followed the team out, 
 leaving them at the side-lines. The men in the 
 short recess, had regained their composure ; their 
 bodies glowing with comfort beneath the new, dry 
 jerseys, they trotted out solidly in a compact pla- 
 toon far different from the straggling rout that 
 had left the field at the end of the first half. 
 Thane noted this, noted the fixed eyes and grind- 
 ing teeth, and his soul grew firm with rock- 
 bound confidence. "Things will be different 
 now," he said to himself; "mighty different 
 now ! " 
 
 And for a while they were. Confidently the 
 Tigers took the offensive, and, working smoothly, 
 like well-oiled machinery, with a cunning check- 
 ing and sudden concerted release of strength that 
 pushed home eleven efforts as one, they swept 
 victoriously along the field. But a perverse Fate 
 hovered over them. A fumble lost them the ball 
 on the ten-yard line. The Cardinal full-back 
 punted, and Kaarsberg, slipping in the one puddle 
 of mud left on the field by a watering-cart, 
 dropped the ball, the Reds regaining it. On the 
 blue-and-gold thirty-yard line the Cardinal full- 
 back took his position for a try at a field-goal. 
 
 It was a critical moment, but Thane did not 
 fear. The Tigers were again the veterans of old. 
 Thane saw the line settle down in a crouch, tre- 
 mendous with resolve. From the bleachers came 
 [44] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 a rhythmic command: "Block that kick! Block 
 that kick ! " The ball sailed back from the centre ; 
 Thane saw the striped jerseys flash through the 
 Cardinal line like spray through a sieve; he saw 
 Pringle, ahead of the rest, leap up in the air, 
 remain as if suspended there, huge arms out- 
 stretched as upon a cross. There was a resound- 
 ing thump. Thane sprang to his feet electrified. 
 "Kick blocked!" he yelled shrilly. 
 
 And instantaneously he saw the victorious 
 stroke turned into defeat. By an extraordinary 
 chance the ball, bounding back from Pringle's 
 chest, nestled right into the arms of the Cardinal 
 full-back. With the rapidity of instinct he 
 swerved aside and then, the ball tucked securely 
 under his armpit, was loping at full speed around 
 the bewildered Tigers, huddled up by their con- 
 vergent charge to block. Kaarsberg himself was 
 off his guard ; at the telltale thump of the blocked 
 ball he had sprung forward. The impetus was 
 still upon him when the red jersey of the Car- 
 dinal full flashed into sight. He threw himself 
 sideways in a long, desperate tackle; his fingers 
 just tipped the heels of the flying man ; the latter 
 tripped, recovered, and then, off his balance, went 
 stumbling and reeling onward across the remain- 
 ing twenty yards, clear across the last white line 
 for a touch-down. 
 
 A silence of lead settled upon the blue-and- 
 gold bleachers, while the stands, the sky, the whole 
 [45] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 universe went red, and red screams pierced the 
 brain. But Thane's whole being rose in passionate 
 affirmation of devotion. At this last trick played 
 by Fate upon the unsullied honor of his college he 
 boiled in protestation. It was like some mon- 
 strous divine injustice. His innermost fibres re- 
 belled and he twitched upon the side-lines in a 
 mad desire for action in a spasm of will to con- 
 quer which he felt he could almost transmit to 
 the team out there beyond his voice and touch. 
 And he watched them, absorbed, watched them, 
 heroically persistent, thunder down the field, to 
 lose the ball: and see it swoop back over their 
 heads, stealing from them the yards bitterly 
 gained ; thunder down again, almost to the goal, 
 for another heart-breaking loss of the ball, and, 
 regaining it, again renew the long, hard, unavail- 
 ing effort for the last white line, the twofold 
 crossing of which alone could regain them their 
 lost honor. But surely the shadow of the irrevo- 
 cable was descending upon the doomed team. 
 One touch-down would not suffice to even up the 
 eight points of the Cardinal ; two were necessary, 
 and yet one seemed impossible. Each time, after 
 hammering back the Red team almost to the goal, 
 they failed in the subtle paroxysm of effort neces- 
 sary to push home the success, and the Reds, 
 maddened, hurled them back, sapped of strength, 
 like children. And the crushing knowledge of 
 how much was to be done, and how little they yet 
 [46] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 could do, began to steal into their hearts like a 
 paralysis. The gains became shorter; the ball 
 began to be lost farther from goal. The team at 
 times only crept; finally it stopped in the centre 
 of the field, as if mired, its efforts spasmodic as 
 those of a dying animal. 
 
 It was then that the coach, watching with white 
 lips his team going to pieces, stumbled upon 
 Thane. The sub-quarter was crouched upon the 
 side-line, his legs doubled beneath him, his 
 weight forward upon his hands and his whole 
 body quivering elastically like that of a feline 
 stalking its prey. A sudden inspiration came to 
 the coach. 
 
 "Get in there, Thane," he said shortly, "and 
 pull us out of that mess." 
 
 And Thane, rising lithely and casting off his 
 sweater in the movement, stepped out upon the 
 field. He went across the trampled ground, calm, 
 grave-eyed, as if to a sacrificial rite; the re- 
 strained exaltation of his being shone from his 
 face like a white flame, and the bleachers, mute 
 at first with astonishment and doubt, now catch- 
 ing the subtle emanation, broke out into a great 
 cry of joyous confidence. 
 
 He came to the team, took his position behind 
 the rampart of muscle-bulging jerseys. Lightly 
 he passed his hand from end to end; each man 
 beneath the touch startled, stamped the ground, 
 dug his cleats into the earth, snuggled close to 
 [47] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 his fellow, till they were bound as by a hoop of 
 steel. He turned toward the backs, and to his 
 glance they crouched low, vibrant with cumulat- 
 ing effort. He spoke a quiet word, and the team, 
 a moment before like an abandoned dray 
 careened in the mud, began to tremble with an 
 inward ebullition, like a locomotive feeling at the 
 lever the caress of the master's hand. It was a 
 third down with five yards to gain, but he did 
 not doubt. 
 
 "Four-ten-six ! " he shouted like a clarion, and 
 Hall, taking the ball from him, plunged ahead, his 
 whole weight forward, his feet drumming the 
 ground behind. With two thuds that sounded as 
 one, Greisberg and Pringle tore open the Car- 
 dinal line and Hall flashed through. He crashed 
 against the secondary defense, wavered a mo- 
 ment, his feet still furiously pounding the ground, 
 then, the whole team swirling behind him, he 
 swerved, broke loose, and, with a Cardinal back 
 twined like a snake about his legs, staggered on 
 for six yards. 
 
 "First down ! " called the referee. 
 
 Again Thane called upon Hall for another 
 gain ; then he cross-tackled Smith in a rhinoceros 
 charge, and, the Cardinal line now crouching low 
 for better resistance, he sent Kaarsberg hurdling 
 like a comet over their heads. 
 
 And thus they went down the field, an irre- 
 sistible machine infused with an indomitable 
 [48] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 soul. Ceaselessly running from one end of the 
 line to the other with word and gesture of en- 
 couragement he welded the eleven to the heat of 
 his faith. Fifteen yards from a touch-down they 
 lost the ball, and, taking it forty yards back, from 
 where it had been punted, they started again. 
 
 "Oh, we'll come back ! " he shouted to the Car- 
 dinal captain smiling derisively at this new check ; 
 "you can't beat us; you can't beat Her you 
 know ! " And his tone had a calm assurance that 
 froze the red-jerseyed man. And they began 
 again the long assault. With great whistling ex- 
 pulsions of breath as, of one man, as of some 
 gigantic wood-chopper felling some mammoth 
 oak, the team rammed and rammed with con- 
 stantly increasing fury. And all the time he was 
 playing upon the Cardinal line like a pianist upon 
 his instrument his ear attentive for the false note. 
 And at last he had found it the left tackle; it 
 was the left tackle that was weakening. The 
 great hoarse breath of the team quickened to his 
 spur redoubled its beats, and like a fiendish cata- 
 pult they battered the doomed man, broke him, 
 surged over him, drowned him, dazed, blinded 
 as by a gale-pushed surf. Five yards from goal 
 the Cardinal team stopped them for two downs, 
 and then, with one last chance before them, the 
 Tigers, throbbing with fury, hurled them back 
 and swept them across the last precious white line. 
 
 A moment later the goal was kicked. But this 
 [49] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 was not enough. This made six points only to 
 the Cardinal eight. 
 
 "We'll come again, in a minute ! " Thane 
 shouted to the Cardinal captain, and then, to the 
 referee : "How much time have we " 
 
 And then he sickened to the sense of irretriev- 
 able disaster. For the referee, pursing up his lips 
 significantly, had shaken his head in refusal to 
 answer which meant that the five-minute limit 
 beyond which time cannot be told was already 
 passed, that there were now left less than five 
 minutes to turn defeat into victory, less than five 
 how much less he could only surmise in exas- 
 perating doubt. There was still in his mind a 
 vague picture of the referee rushing to him with 
 open mouth between two scrimmages : that must 
 have been the announcement, but just when it 
 had come he could not remember. At one 
 moment it seemed but a second ago, the man's 
 voice still echoed in his ear; and then suddenly 
 it fell back, back in past time, and he started in 
 fear, imagining the shrill whistle that would her- 
 ald the end. 
 
 The Cardinal team spread out in a long line 
 across the centre of the field; the Tigers scat- 
 tered over their own half; from his position, 
 clear back, almost beneath the white arms of the 
 goal, Thane looked upon his men, and he saw 
 that they were crushed; that this last verdict of 
 Time, coming upon the fag-end of their endur- 
 [50] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 ance, had broken them. The touch-down must be 
 made immediately, it must be made by one man 
 it must be made by him ! 
 
 A heavy silence had fallen upon the arena ; the 
 bleachers, in a reaction from the delirious strain, 
 were numb ; motionless, as if wrought-iron, they 
 looked upon the beaten team, pennants and colors 
 hanging flutterless. Far across the trodden field, 
 barred by the Cardinal goal-posts, the sun was 
 setting. Thane thrilled in an ecstasy of resolu- 
 tion. In the glow of that descending sun, visible 
 only to him through the divination of love, she 
 appeared, his College, the Mother of his Soul, 
 throned there above earthly turmoil, serene in her 
 trust; and within the ample folds of her cloud 
 garments her arms stretched to him in calm, 
 assured appeal. 
 
 There was a shrill whistle. The man at the 
 centre of the spread Cardinal line ran forward 
 with shortened steps; there was a thump, and 
 far up into the depths of the sky the ball soared 
 slowly, while, following along the ground be- 
 neath, the red-jerseyed line thundered down the 
 field. And right away Thane saw that the ball 
 was his. It rose, rose, till it seemed but a little 
 black spot; it seemed to stick, pasted to 
 the heavens ; and then it began to come 
 down, down, down in long spirals, with ever 
 increasing velocity. Thane, changing ground 
 with each of its swoops, remained beneath it, and 
 [51] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 suddenly, with a vicious last burst it banged into 
 his arms. For a moment he was still, looking 
 above the far Cardinal goal-posts, into the sunset 
 depths where he saw Her calling to him in tran- 
 quil command. Then, with a side-step that threw 
 off the first red tackier, he lowered his head and 
 started down the field. 
 
 And then the multitude saw something that 
 lived ever after in the college annals. They saw 
 Thane, cunningly concealing himself behind the 
 team which had bunched before him, follow it as 
 it thundered down the centre of the field in a 
 living shield; then, as its impetus spent itself 
 upon the Cardinal charge, leave it and spring out 
 alone to the left. They saw him with a phenom- 
 enal burst of speed circle clear around a trio of 
 red jerseys, and, swerving back to a straight 
 course, make right for the goal-posts. He 
 struck a group of Cardinal men who had diag- 
 onaled to intercept him as he circled, and his 
 striped jersey flashed through them as if some- 
 thing vapory that glided through matter and 
 then he was clear, a red whirl in pursuit and two 
 men only in the way. The first approached him, 
 carefully measuring distance and speed. He 
 crouched ; his legs distended like springs, and he 
 flew low along the ground. Thane's left arm went 
 out straight like a lance, and suddenly the red 
 jersey collapsed like a rag. Thane wavered a 
 moment; he sent a queer, dazed look ahead and 
 [52] 
 
THE IDEALIST 
 
 above, seemed to find what he sought, and then 
 with a smile, his eyes ahead and up in a singu- 
 lar rapt expression, he sprang forward again, 
 straight for the last man in his path as if unaware 
 of his presence. He neared him with great 
 leaps; he was almost upon him. Suddenly his 
 whole body seemed to rise in air; his knees 
 snapped up to his chin and the red jersey 
 streaked impotently beneath, hurdled! A few 
 more steps and Thane was over the last white 
 line, fair between the posts. And there, with the 
 same ridiculous, rapt expression, he stood erect, 
 the ball under his arm, his eyes in the clouds. 
 
 All this the astounded bleachers saw; but 
 Thane didn't. All that he knew was of running, 
 with a longing burst that came straight from the 
 heart, through a great silence and a whirr of red, 
 straight for a vision that was throned in the 
 clouds. And he was still there in the clouds 
 two hours later when, at the delirious banquet 
 given in honor of the victory, to the coach's ques- 
 tion, "How the deuce did you do it " he answered, 
 "Oh, I just ran to Her." 
 
 Which raised a general laugh and straightway 
 regained him his nickname, "Girlie," that for at 
 least two hours he had been in danger of losing. 
 
 [53] 
 
The History of Chop-Suey 
 and Fan -Tan 
 
 "The living-idol Chop-Suey sat in the temple 
 for over a hundred years and then he disap- 
 peared, and no one knew where he went." An- 
 cient Chinese Legend. 
 
 XSAW the temple myself and the very 
 altar upon which he sat, so I, for one, 
 know that it is a true legend. And 
 there are many poems and stories 
 written about him, one of which I have trans- 
 lated for you, so that you might know more about 
 him ; of course, I have made a very free transla- 
 tion because it is hard to do Chinese into English, 
 and besides I wanted to make it rhyme, since that 
 is what makes good poetry. But, anyway, the old 
 poet-chronicler tells us that 
 
 "He was a god and a wise old god, 
 
 (And a god in a temple Chinee) ; 
 And he wore a smile (like a salted cod 
 From out of the salty sea, 
 [54] 
 
HISTORY OF CHOP-SUEY AND FAN-TAN 
 
 And he blinked at the punk that sacredly 
 
 stunk, 
 In a long smoke filigree.)" 
 
 That is the way I am going to make it rhyme 
 all the way through ; the parts in brackets I really 
 made up to help out, but all the rest is in the 
 words of the ancient author himself. Who goes 
 on to say: 
 
 "And he sat leg-crossed in an age old squat, 
 
 Holy and pensive (and queer, 
 Taking his time in the self-same spot) 
 
 For over a hundred year, 
 Absolving all sin (with his codfish grin) 
 
 For a punk and a penitent tear. 
 
 "(For he was all that a god should be 
 
 He'd swallow whatever you'd say, 
 Readily granting that two is three 
 
 If you'd mention it while you pray ; 
 So the people sinned and the good god 
 
 grinned, 
 And the punk- works seemed to pay,)" 
 
 Then the historian goes on to tell how there 
 was a big fat mandarin in the neighborhood who 
 used to sin all the time and used up prodigious 
 quantities of punk; but finally he got so fat that 
 he couldn't get down to the temple personally 
 [55] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 to make his sacrifices, so he used to send one 
 of his men to do it for him, with roast pigs 
 now and then as an extra offering for special for- 
 giveness, and the god used to send one of his 
 priests up to the palace with the grin. But this 
 hasn't really anything to do with the main story, 
 so I won't translate it. I only mentioned it be- 
 cause the fat mandarin had a wife named Fan- 
 Tan who has a lot to do with it, and this is what 
 is written about her: 
 
 "In the twilight came a slant-eyed maid, 
 
 And she knelt at the good god's shrine, 
 Penitent, daintily, half-afraid 
 
 Of the deified old divine, 
 And she sacrificed punk till the whole place 
 
 stunk, 
 And the god gave a gracious sign. 
 
 "(For he sneezed and he wheezed and he had 
 
 to cough, 
 
 Till a tear ran along his nose, 
 And hung on the end and trickled off 
 
 And tumbled among his toes. 
 When a god does so, it's a sign, and you 
 
 know, 
 Whatever you ask for goes.)" 
 
 This is what must have happened, for you must 
 remember that the god was not an ordinary 
 [56] 
 
HISTORY OF CHOP-SUEY AND FAN-TAN 
 
 bronze idol, but a real live man-idol, like they 
 have in some places in China, and therefore he 
 had to breathe, and if the lady burned so much 
 punk, it must have almost smothered him; be- 
 cause some ladies in this country burn punk in 
 their parlors when they are going to have com- 
 pany, and it makes the parlor so smothery and 
 choky that sometimes the company gets sick and 
 doesn't stay late. 
 
 But anyway the lady was very nice-looking, 
 as the old poet says in the following words: 
 
 "Ah, she was a daughter of old Cathay, 
 
 As sweet as the plum in spring, 
 And over her shoulders her long locks lay 
 
 As black as the oo-longs wing; 
 (And the poet concludes, in twenty-five 
 
 verses, 
 That she was a beautiful thing.)" 
 
 A textual difficulty is presented by the line 
 which I have translated "As black as the oo- 
 long's wing," but I think that I have construed it 
 correctly. It is quite true that oo-long is the 
 trade name of a variety of tea, and taken in this 
 sense, would hardly do in the above context ; but 
 I think that our author does not refer to tea so 
 much as to the other meaning of oo-long, which 
 is black-dragon; this theory is supported by ex- 
 ternal evidence, since black dragons have wings, 
 and tea, so far as I know, has not. 
 [57] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 Having described the lady, the poet proceeds: 
 
 "Then she told how she'd wed, as her father 
 
 had sold, 
 
 A mandarin fatly antique, 
 Whose head was hot, but his heart was as 
 
 cold 
 
 As a herrin's, and over her cheek 
 A hot blush spread and she hung her head, 
 And faltered, fearing to speak. 
 
 "So she seized some more punk and burnt it 
 
 amain, 
 
 Till the good god shouted for air, 
 And started him coughing and sneezing 
 
 again 
 
 Till the priest hurried in in despair, 
 And gave her a fan to revive the old man 
 And water to pour on his hair." 
 
 "And when they got him around at last" 
 
 I never saw such a lengthy old rhymester; I 
 think I had better translate the next six stanzas 
 into prose because they only tell how she con- 
 fessed that her husband didn't treat her just right, 
 and she had made up her mind to run away to 
 America and wanted the god to give her good- 
 luck before she started. And the god thought 
 and thought a long time, and thoughts arose in 
 [58] 
 
HISTORY OF CHOP-SUEY AND FAN-TAN 
 
 his head that weren't usual in a well constructed 
 idol's head, and finally he told her that he never 
 had had a case just like hers before, and he would 
 have to take the matter under advisement, but if 
 she would come to see him about the same time 
 next evening he would tell her definitely then 
 whether he would forgive her or not. And the 
 lady asked him if some li-chi nuts would help 
 him decide, and he said three bushels might, and 
 she said she thought she could bring four, and 
 he said he thought she had better do so to make 
 sure, and she said she would because her man- 
 darin could afford that many, and he said he 
 thought at least that many, and she said all right 
 she would, and he said alright, and she said 
 alright, and he said good-night, and she said 
 good-night, too. You can see for yourself how 
 unnecessary it would be to make all that into 
 poetry, but what comes next is very poetical, and 
 has to be put into verse in order to bring out its 
 beauty. This is how it goes: 
 
 "And after she'd gone he thought and 
 
 thought, 
 
 As only a god can think, 
 And he looked at the stubs of the punks she 
 
 had bought 
 
 With a reminiscent blink, 
 And he finally said, with a wag of his head 
 and a meditative wink: 
 [59] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 " Tve idled as long as an idol should, 
 
 And I've grinned till I look like a fish, 
 And the pay that I get is none too good, 
 
 Nor all that a god could wish!" 
 And he sniffed and he snuffed and impa- 
 tiently puffed, 
 And finally muttered Tish! 
 
 " There's not enough sin in this land any 
 
 more, 
 
 To really support a church, 
 And it's getting to be a horrible bore 
 
 To sit on the self-same perch 
 For a hundred years, when, from what one 
 
 hears, 
 If he'll only go out and search, 
 
 '' 'He can make his fortune washing clothes 
 
 For people across the sea 
 If I had a wife, why, nobody knows 
 
 How rich I might get to be/ 
 So he dreamed in the gloom of the silent old 
 
 room 
 Of the holy old temple Chinee" 
 
 late into the night, long after the last villager 
 had put his squeaky old fiddle away, waiting in 
 placid expectation, our poet goes on to say, in 
 stanzas more numerous than amusing, till the sin- 
 ful lady returned next evening with the four 
 [60] 
 
HISTORY OF CHOP-SUEY AND FAN-TAN 
 
 bushels of lichi nuts. I am going back to prose 
 again for awhile. And this is what he said when 
 she came to the temple again next evening with a 
 bundle : 
 
 "Did you bring those nuts ?" 
 
 And she said: "No." 
 
 And he said: "No?" 
 
 And she said: "No. But I brought a four 
 bushel pig instead. He looked just like my hus- 
 band before he was cooked." 
 
 And he said: "Is your husband cooked?" 
 
 And she said : "No. His pig is cooked. This 
 was his pig." 
 
 And he said : "I'll eat that pig." 
 
 So he ate the pig. After he had eaten the pig, 
 he said: "H'm. Let me see. What was it 
 that we were talking about last night? Tell me 
 again. I have forgotten." 
 
 And she said : "I hate that big fat mandarin 
 who is my husband, because he looks like a pig. 
 Also because he acts like a pig. I think he is 
 a pig. So I am going to run away from him and 
 go over to California and get rich. It's the days 
 of '49 over there now." 
 
 And he said : "I'll forgive you for that heinous 
 offense upon one condition, to wit, that you 
 marry me and take me along with you." 
 
 And she said: "You horrid old thing. You 
 have been an idol for a hundred years and how 
 [61] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 could an old thing like me be happy with an old 
 idol like ypu ?" 
 
 And he said: "You could put me up on a 
 shelf and run a temple over there and get rich." 
 
 And she looked around at the shabby old tem- 
 ple, and the wizened old priest who mumbled to 
 himself all day like an old woman, and then she 
 said: "No, it doesn't seem to pay. And be- 
 sides, you are too old for even that. You 
 wouldn't last another hundred years." 
 
 And he said: "You are laboring under a 
 false impression, Fan-Tan. I have had the job 
 only a couple of months. I took the last idol's 
 place when he died, and he had only been here 
 a couple of years, because he took another man's 
 place, and I don't know how many there were 
 before him. Behold!" And he pulled off his 
 whiskers and got down from the altar as spruce 
 as a kitten. 
 
 And she said: "I am simply astonished." 
 
 And he said: "I knew you'd be surprised. 
 Will you marry me or will you not ? And what's 
 more, will you take me to America with you, 
 or will you not? If you don't, I'll tell that fat 
 mandarin of a pig of a husband of yours that you 
 are going to quit his side." 
 
 And she said: "You had better not, or I'll 
 tell all the people that you are a fake." 
 
 And they looked at each other with a scared 
 look, and said: "We have got each other in a 
 [62] 
 
HISTORY OF CHOP-SUEY AND FAN-TAN 
 
 tight place/' So they decided to elope on the 
 next steamer to America, which they did. 
 
 This is about as far as the old poet goes with 
 the story, and he didn't have all the details that 
 I have given either, but I have given you the 
 benefit of later discoveries. For instance, he 
 didn't know about the young man's not being a 
 hundred years old, nor that the idol wasn't the 
 same Chinaman all the time, because they all 
 dressed just alike and you could not tell them 
 apart, unless you took them apart, which wasn't 
 permitted, and he did not know that the idol 
 eloped with Fan-Tan instead of just disappear- 
 ing all of which things are true and happened 
 just about as I have set them forth, and are 
 very important, as you will see in the next chap- 
 ter. He concludes his history with the follow- 
 ing pathetic stanzas pathetic because so true : 
 
 "When the morning came and the sinners 
 
 came 
 
 To the great god's shrine to pray, 
 And light their punks with a penitent flame 
 
 In the good, old-fashioned way, 
 The god was not in the usual spot 
 As punctually as they. 
 
 "So they waited all day until two o'clock, 
 
 And then they waited till three, 
 But he didn't grin on the faithful flock 
 [63] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 In response to their punkful plea 
 And since the day that he went away 
 Nobody has heard of he." 
 
 That is all the old historian has to say about 
 him because that is all he knew, but that is not 
 all there is, as you will find out if you read chap- 
 ter two. This is Chapter Two now. I got the 
 facts from Chop-Suey, Jr., who was one of the 
 results of Chop-Suey and Fan-Tan's elopement. 
 
 Well, after they decided to elope, they took 
 the next steamer to San Francisco. Now, you 
 must remember this was in the early days, when 
 a silly old-side-wheeler went thumping across the 
 Pacific every two or three months, and everybody 
 was going crazy over the gold mines in Cali- 
 fornia. And this is what happened while they 
 were traveling in the ship with a whole lot of 
 other Chinamen; but nobody recognized them. 
 
 Chop-Suey had brought his whiskers with him 
 and his old clothes that he used to wear in the 
 temple, and Fan-Tan said : "Why did you bring 
 those things?" 
 
 And Chop-Suey said: "You wait and see." 
 
 Fan-Tan had brought some funny looking 
 cards, about so wide and about so long with her, 
 and Chop-Suey said to her: "Why did you 
 bring those things?" 
 
 And Fan-Tan said: "You wait and see." 
 
 So the ship started off with a great thumping 
 [64] 
 
HISTORY OF CHOP-SUEY AND FAN-TAN 
 
 of her paddle wheels, and everybody jumped and 
 thought, "My goodness sakes alive !" and wished 
 they hadn't started. But after awhile they got 
 used to it, and all went to sleep. And when every- 
 body was asleep, Chop-Suey got up and put on 
 his old clothes and his whiskers. Then he 
 found a nice solid place in a good dark corner, 
 and sat down there with his legs crossed and his 
 hands folded, and lighted a piece of punk and 
 stuck it up in front of him, all just like he used 
 to look in the temple. Then he waited for day 
 to come. And when day did come, every one 
 saw him sitting there and said, "Maybe it is a 
 god." 
 
 But when Fan-Tan came along, he winked at 
 her, and she went and got some punk and began 
 to make prayers and kow-tow in front of him. 
 Then every one felt sure that he was a holy man 
 and began to do the same thing. Then Fan-Tan 
 began to make sacrifices to him of her valuables 
 and money for a good voyage and good luck. 
 Then every one was positive that he was a holy 
 man and began to do the same thing. 
 
 Then next day it got cloudy, and then it got 
 windy, and then it got so wavy that the ship 
 began to wiggle and everybody began to get 
 sick. So Fan-Tan sacrificed to Chop-Suey more 
 than ever, and prayed him to make the storm go 
 away, and everybody did the same thing. But 
 the storm got worse and worse, and every one 
 [65] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 got sicker and sicker, till finally Chop-Suey 
 couldn't stand it any longer himself and he got 
 so sick that his whiskers came off, and he rolled 
 over on the deck and grunted like every one else. 
 After awhile the storm got better, and people be- 
 gan to sit up and take notice again. And some 
 of them noticed that Chop-Suey was one place 
 and his whiskers were another, and that he was 
 just as sick as anybody. After that they were 
 not so sure that he was a god, so they didn't make 
 him any more sacrifices. 
 
 But the ship kept going, until finally she got 
 to San Francisco. Chop-Suey and Fan-Tan went 
 ashore and said : "Where is Chinatown ?" And 
 a miner who was looking around on the ground 
 to see if there "were any nuggets there, said, "Up 
 that way." So they went up that way until they 
 came to Chinatown. Of course it wasn't so big 
 as it was just before the earthquake, and there 
 wern't so many tourists in it, because this was 
 all in the early days yet; but even then it was a 
 good big place, and Fan-Tan and Chop-Suey 
 were glad they came. 
 
 And Fan-Tan said, "What are you going to 
 do?" 
 
 And Chop-Suey said, "I am going to start a 
 temple. What are you going to do?" 
 
 And she said, "You wait and see." 
 
 So Chop went one way to look around for a 
 good place for his temple, and Fan went the other 
 [66] 
 
HISTORY OF CHOP-SUEY AND FAN-TAN 
 
 way to look around for a good place for her 
 idea. Chop was delighted with the prospect, be- 
 cause he looked all around and found that there 
 would be a first-class opening for a temple, as 
 there wern't any really good ones running yet, 
 and the competition wouldn't be strong. 
 
 After he came to these conclusions he began 
 to look around for Fan to tell her the good news, 
 but he couldn't find her anywhere. He hunted 
 all the rest of that day and part of the next, but 
 to save his life he could not get any trace of her, 
 and he got worried almost to death about her, 
 because he didn't know what might have hap- 
 pened to her. She was only a defenseless woman 
 in a big city. But next afternoon, as he was 
 walking along the street wondering whether to 
 commit suicide or not, he came to a door where 
 there were a lot of people going in and out ; when 
 they went in they looked glad, but when they 
 came out they looked sad. This made Chop- 
 Suey curious that he went in to see what it was 
 all about. His eyes bulged right out of his head 
 when he got in, for there sat Fan-Tan in the 
 middle of the floor with the funny looking cards 
 about so wide and about so long, which she kept 
 dealing out and maneuvering around, and a lot 
 of Chinamen squatting around her grunting now 
 and then; they paid her to let them do this, and 
 she put the money away in her pocket. Chop 
 stood in a corner and watched and watched, but 
 [67] 
 
<& 
 
 CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 he couldn't make out at all what they were doing. 
 So he waited till every one had gone home to 
 supper, and then he said to Fan : "What are you 
 doing?" 
 
 And she said: "I am doing the people." 
 
 And he said: "Huh!" 
 
 And she said: "I am running a card game. 
 That big fat pig of a mandarin of a husband of 
 mine used to make me play with him all the 
 time, and then he would pull my hair when I beat 
 him." 
 
 And Chop said: You must have changed the 
 rules. Every one is giving you money instead of 
 pulling your hair." 
 
 And she said: "Yes, I am making a lot of 
 money." 
 
 And he said: "Lend me enough money to 
 start a temple." 
 
 And Fan said: "I will do that. Only you 
 must start the temple right next door, because 
 it is very wicked for people to gamble, and then 
 they will come to you and make a sacrifice to be 
 forgiven, and pray for better luck next time." 
 
 And Chop said: "I will do that." 
 
 So she gave him a pocket full of money and 
 he went out and bought some things and worked 
 and worked until he got a fine temple fixed up. 
 He made a god out of wood and things like that ; 
 he himself was only the high priest to take charge 
 of the sacrifices and tell fortunes. Then he 
 [68] 
 
HISTORY OF CHOP-SUEY AND FAN-TAN 
 
 started business, and pretty soon he had almost 
 as many people in his place as Fan had in hers. 
 They were both getting rich very fast. 
 
 But there was one thing that bothered him very 
 much indeed. The people brought, among other 
 things, so many roast pigs as an offering to the 
 idol that he and Fan couldn't eat them all them- 
 selves, and he didn't know what to do with them 
 to keep them from going to waste. So he went 
 to Fan-Tan and asked her about it. 
 
 And she said: "We will start a restaurant." 
 
 And Chop jumped up in the air and kicked 
 his heels together and said : "Oh, goody. That 
 is the best idea I ever had, my sweet Fan-Tan." 
 
 And she said: "How much money have you 
 got?" 
 
 And he said : "A barrel full. How much have 
 you got?" 
 
 And she said : "Two barrels full ; that makes 
 three barrels. I think we have enough." 
 
 And he said: "Enough for what?" 
 
 "Enough to build a three-story building." 
 
 So they did build a three-story building and 
 this is what they did with it : 
 
 Fan-Tan moved her cards up onto the top 
 floor and made two more sets and taught three 
 men how to run them. After that she didn't 
 do any more work herself, but just took care of 
 the money. 
 
 Also Chop-Suey moved his temple onto the 
 '[69] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 second floor and fixed it up more grandly than 
 ever, and made two more idols and taught a 
 man how to be a high priest. One idol was called 
 the pig-sacrifice idol, another was called the 
 money sacrifice idol, and the last was called the 
 miscellaneous sacrifice idol. The high-priest had 
 to see that the people obeyed the rules. After 
 that Chop-Suey didn't do any more work in the 
 temple himself, he stopped grinning like a fish, 
 but he took charge of the restaurant. 
 
 They built the restaurant on the first floor. 
 Now there were three chutes from the second 
 floor down to the first, and when people left their 
 pigs at the pig sacrifice idols feet all the high 
 priest had to do was to pull a string and they 
 went down the chute into the kitchen and kept 
 the restaurant supplied with meat. When people 
 asked Chop-Suey were he got so many fine pigs, 
 for no other restaurant in town had such a repu- 
 tation for fine pigs, he used to look dreamy and 
 say : "Oh, I shoot them." 
 
 When they left their money at the money sac- 
 rifice idol's feet, it fell through a slot and went 
 down the chute to the cash register, and kept it 
 supplied with small change. This was an auto- 
 matic chute, and the high priest didn't have to 
 pull a string, because everybody knows that too 
 many cashiers spoil the profits. 
 
 But some people were so poor that they could 
 not afford to bring pigs or money, so they 
 [70] 
 
HISTORY OF CHOP-SUEY AND FAN-TAN 
 
 brought anything they could spare, such as kit- 
 tens and things. They could lay these at the feet 
 of the miscellaneous sacrifice idol, and when the 
 high priest pulled that string they tumbled down 
 into a big pot in the kitchen, where they were 
 all cooked up together. This was served as a 
 special luxury, and people said it was delicious, 
 and it became famous as "Chop-Suey's Special," 
 and finally people just called it "chop-suey" for 
 short. 
 
 I think that is about all of the History of 
 Chop-Suey and Fan-Tan. 
 
 [71] 
 
Phil 
 
 XT WAS at the close of a summer af- 
 ternoon that I first saw Phil. She 
 was walking alone against the red of 
 the sunset, its glow gently tinging 
 her white blouse, catching in dull red gleams in 
 the dark masses of her hair. She passed swiftly 
 by, not glancing to right or left, yet long after 
 she was out of sight, I sat and watched the curve 
 of the road beyond which she had vanished, to 
 catch another glimpse of her slim figure. But 
 it was deep twilight when she returned, a dim 
 figure of misty white, and this time there was a 
 heavier step at her side. I had been idly dream- 
 ing of the girl, and now, as I heard her clear 
 laugh through the dusk, it had to me a hard, un- 
 happy sound, as though she were sad and mock- 
 ing herself for that sadness. But I laughed at 
 the thought the next moment. My old maid 
 fancies. 
 
 Yet one by one the gossips came back into my 
 [72] 
 
PHIL 
 
 mind and would not be put down ; the volumes I 
 had heard of the girl during the first week of my 
 return to the village which had grown up around 
 the big works, my native village where all the 
 men were so busy and all the women so idle. 
 "The preacher's mad gipsy" they called her, and 
 at the name, the memory of her father stole up 
 to me softly, the ruddy-cheeked boy minister 
 of long ago, as boisterous and gay as a schoolboy, 
 yet as gentle and as comforting as a nun. It 
 hurt still after these twenty years to remember 
 the day he left mysteriously and then came back 
 with a young wife and she was a gipsy. 
 
 They say she loved him even the tongues 
 which wagged as only village tongues can wag, 
 admitted that there was a look almost of adoration 
 on her coarsely beautiful face when she sat in a 
 dim corner of the church and listened to his 
 preaching. Yet when two years later he died, 
 she left her child with deaf Molly, the minister's 
 sister and went away, and what became of her 
 after that, no one ever knew. 
 
 And this then was Phil, this slender, dark 
 haired girl whom I had seen for a moment, yet 
 that moment had quickened my roused interest 
 into deep sympathy for the girl. For she was 
 beautiful and very young. Truly she needed 
 protection, I thought, as I heard the hushed 
 voices of the two as they passed, against the 
 thousand eyes which were ever watching her. 
 [73] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 For she was still "the mad preacher's gipsy," 
 and she walked all too often down to the river 
 where big handsome Dave was superintending 
 a new bridge, walking back with him in the twi- 
 light. Dave's father owned the iron works. 
 
 It was next morning that a shadow fell across 
 my kitchen floor and I looked up to see Phil in 
 the doorway. "I came to get acquainted," she 
 said shyly. "For we are almost neighbors you 
 see, and I knew you were alone." The voice was 
 uncertain, even timid, and hearing it I could see 
 the countless other doorways to which she had 
 come in the same shy way, and from which she 
 had turned away. So my greeting to her was 
 more than simply cordial, yet as I took her hands 
 in mine and smiled my welcome, I felt a little 
 cold shiver. Hers was a pretty face, delicate 
 featured, and with eyes downcast it had the peace- 
 ful, high bred look of her father, but the eyes, 
 in spite of their wide childish gaze, were the wild, 
 cunning eyes of a gipsy. 
 
 "Did they tell you about me?" she asked 
 abruptly and like a child. "Oh I know they did. 
 They watched me coming here this morning and 
 now they are watching to see me come out again 
 very soon then they will laugh." She rose sud- 
 denly and came close to me, resting her hands 
 on the kitchen table, her arms stiff. "Oh won't 
 you let me stay here an hour before you look at 
 me with hard eyes that tell me to go? I should 
 [74] 
 
PHIL 
 
 not have come, but Aunt Molly is deaf and I get 
 so lonely. So I try all the new ones that come 
 here, only they all know about me before I come 
 and they send me away. And the old ones " 
 But here I had crossed to the girl and laid my 
 hands on her shoulders, and at that her cheeks 
 flushed and her eyes grew big with wonder, and 
 she turned and went back to her chair silently. 
 For a time she said nothing, then began to chat 
 quietly about her life in the little cottage almost 
 at the village edge, of deaf Molly and Bob, her 
 wild saddle horse. All at once she paused, her 
 eyes growing bright with shy laughter. "Did 
 they tell you about Dave," she asked, "and did 
 they say the mad gipsy had bewitched him ? They 
 call me mad because I walk in the woods alone 
 when it rains, and because I talk to Bob when I 
 ride through the streets. Then they say I am 
 like my mother was, and they look as though that 
 were the worst they could say. Couldn't one 
 ever be anything worse than a gipsy?" And 
 as I said nothing she went on dreamily, in a 
 hushed, low voice. "But I am not always like 
 her. I am like my father sometimes. I have never 
 seen him, but I often am as I know he must have 
 been. Oh I feel so for a whole week sometimes, 
 till the children begin to smile at me on the 
 streets, then all at once I forget, and I get on 
 big Bob and fly through the streets and sing. 
 Then I hear them all murmur 'mad gipsy' again, 
 [75] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 and even the workmen's wives point at me to 
 hush their children. At first I am happy and I 
 laugh, but then I get lonely " She stopped 
 suddenly, as though ashamed for having spoken 
 so freely, then rose to go. "May I come again? 
 she asked, shy once more, and as I nodded smil- 
 ing, she threw her arms about me impulsively. 
 "There are so few things I love," she said, "only 
 Bob, my horse, and Dave. And some day " 
 But here she laughed, broke off and skipped light- 
 ly down the steps. For a moment her scarlet sun- 
 bonnet flashed above the rose-bushes and then she 
 was gone. 
 
 She came often after that, too often at times I 
 thought, for in spite of the little glad feeling 
 which was mine when I saw her at the door, her 
 talks puzzled, often vexed and frightened me. 
 "They don't want me to have Dave," she said 
 to me one day. "His mother wears silk dresses 
 and she frowns so when she meets me and pulls 
 her skirt to one side to let me pass. Then she 
 talks to Dave I think, because he is so cross some- 
 times, when we walk home from the river. But 
 I will not lose him oh no only if they take him 
 away. Then he will forget me, because he for- 
 gets everything. He wanted to marry the dress- 
 maker's daughter two years ago before she went 
 away. I asked him about her yesterday, because 
 I wanted to tease him, but he looked as though he 
 did not understand. Then I turned on him and 
 [76] 
 
PHIL 
 
 asked if he had forgotten Polly and he brought 
 his eyebrows together, and then smiled. 'Of 
 course I remember Polly/ he said, 'she was tall, 
 wasn't she ?' Then he talked about his new dog. 
 He remembers what he sees, then laughs and 
 whistles, and gets a new habit, and forgets every- 
 thing that was before." Then suddenly the 
 harshness died out of her voice, and she went on 
 musingly, a very wistful Phil "Well, I am a 
 habit now I guess. Dave is used to seeing me 
 every day and he calls me his wild-eyed beauty, 
 and says he cannot live without me. But he is 
 like a baby, and maybe they will send him away." 
 
 These, however, were Phil's more subdued mo- 
 ments. At other times she would dash up to my 
 door, mounted on big wild Bob, and talk fiercely 
 and incoherently as she did that day when the sky 
 was black with heavy clouds and the yellow trees 
 were shivering in the wind. "If I could only 
 die," she said, her face quivering, "only I want 
 to pay them back first. Oh I know now that I 
 am only a gipsy, and each day I am getting 
 wilder. Dave's mother smiled when she saw me 
 today, she smiled and looked like a snake. They 
 can't ta.ke him from me. Or do you think they 
 will?" She left me gazing sadly after her, and 
 my hope that some day the good tranquil part of 
 her nature might subdue the wild heritage left her 
 by her mother, grew ever less. 
 
 Yet the Sunday that she came to tell me they 
 [77] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 had sent Dave away, I almost believed that the 
 true good had conquered. She opened the door 
 softly, letting in the half distinct sound of early 
 church bells, and she remained standing in the 
 doorway, pale and very, very calm, a sad little 
 smile on her lips, holding me off when I tried 
 to take her in my arms. Then as quietly as she 
 had come she turned and went down the rose- 
 bordered walk, and it was not till long afterward 
 that I realized how hollow had been her voice. 
 She did not stop in for nearly two months after 
 that, yet seeing her walk past the gate at sunset, 
 alone, I could have wept for gladness, for she 
 ever seemed so quiet, and often the words she had 
 spoken on her first visit would come into mind 
 "I am like my father sometimes." 
 
 Then after a time, the village that had been 
 so strangely silent, began to whisper once more, 
 very softly at first, then ever louder, until all 
 knew that Dave had married in the city. "A 
 white girl," the older gossips added meaningly. 
 And still Phil walked tranquilly past the gate, not 
 looking to right or left. Had he, too, been but 
 a habit? 
 
 On the day of Dave's home-coming, I went 
 up to see the cottage which the parents had so 
 carefully planned for the two. It was just grow- 
 ing dusk when I left them happily waiting at the 
 new gate, almost dark when I reached home and 
 found the girl sitting on my porch, with eyes 
 [78] 
 
PHIL 
 
 closed, leaning against the post, her arms lying 
 nervelessly along her white dress. She rose to 
 go as I greeted her, and even in the twilight I saw 
 a gleam in her gipsy eyes which made me shiver. 
 "They just went by," she said, in a voice that was 
 too calm. "I smiled at Dave and he started and 
 flushed. He will find out that old habits come 
 back sometimes." She laughed a hard, cold 
 laugh as she turned to go. 
 
 "Phil !" I cried. "For heaven's sake Phil" 
 but she was already half way down the walk. She 
 did not stop to open the gate, but like a young 
 squirrel jumped lightly upon it and caught a 
 branch of the overshadowing maple tree, swaying 
 in jerky movements back and forth, laughing. 
 "Mad gipsy," flashed through my mind. Sud- 
 denly she steadied herself, let go of the branch 
 and stood an instant poised, with arms stretched 
 far out, like a great white bird, then half turned 
 her face to me and I fancied I saw the cruel gleam 
 of her white teeth. "Mrs. Dave is white as a 
 ghost, and thin, and has yellow hair," she called 
 out exultingly, then dropped noiselessly, and van- 
 ished in the twilight. 
 
 Even now the months that followed seem years 
 as I think back upon them. I was one of the 
 first to call on Dave's wife, a few days after she 
 came among us. Phil had been right Mrs. 
 Dave was not pretty, yet after a minute I amended 
 the thought she did not need to be. In the 
 [791 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 thin, pale face, in the clear eyes, there was a 
 something so calm and restful, such a world of 
 sheltering sympathy and yet a look of such wist- 
 ful appeal, that I felt suddenly queerly hushed, 
 as though I had stepped within a dim, cool 
 church. "You are tired," she said, as she pressed 
 my hand, with her own so small and soft. "And 
 oh how good, how very good you are to come. 
 I want to know you all, for you are David's 
 friends." And then she made me cozy in a big 
 chair and drew up her own low rocker. She 
 took my bonnet out of my hands and when I 
 turned to watch her walk across the room I saw 
 her softly pat the ruffled ribbons into place and 
 brush the flecks of dust off the brim as she laid 
 it down. Then she sat at my feet in her little 
 chair and asked about myself, smiling with her 
 eyes as she listened, laughing gaily when I smiled. 
 The sun had been gone a long time when I re- 
 membered to go, and she walked out on the porch 
 with me, dropping lightly on the broad steps. 
 "To wait for David," she said with a shy smile, 
 then took my hand once more. "You will come 
 again," and there was no question in her voice. 
 
 Thus Mrs. Dave came among us, and the many 
 tongued village, welcomed as I had been wel- 
 comed, first drew away astonished and perplexed 
 that it had nothing to attack, then slowly came 
 near and worshipped the little woman as easily 
 as I had done. Then, just as easily it turned with 
 [80] 
 
PHIL 
 
 redoubled malice upon poor Phil, and for once 
 I allowed the gossip to flow in my presence un- 
 checked. For as naturally as Dave had taken up 
 his work on the river once more, just so easily did 
 Phil drop back into her evening walks with the 
 man. Urged by his mother, Dave had been cross 
 with her at first, had tried to speak to her in a 
 straightforward way even, then had yielded to the 
 pleasure of these walks with easy-going thought- 
 lessness. They say that the mother had gone 
 to Dave's wife, but the latter had lifted her eye- 
 brows with a smile and changed the subject. 
 
 As the weeks passed by, the voices of the man 
 and girl used to startle me out of my twilight 
 dreams every evening, yet in spite of my harsh 
 thoughts I longed to have Phil drop into my 
 kitchen again, to be able to sigh and worry over 
 her once more. But she had come only once, drop- 
 ping down on the old sofa, just within the circle 
 of light from my dim light, wide-eyed and per- 
 plexed. She sat as though she did not see me, 
 her face full of wonder, the full lips tremulous. 
 "Oh, why couldn't I be like that?" she softly 
 breathed, then hurried on breathlessly. "I walked 
 home with Dave tonight and he scolded again, so 
 I laughed because it hurt so. Then I told him 
 I would walk clear up to his gate with him; 
 I didn't care; I wanted his wife to see us. I 
 talked in my loudest voice at the gate and I 
 laughed and waved my hand to him when I turned 
 [81] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 away. And then she came on the porch and 
 she called out and asked if I wouldn't stop with 
 her, then came down to the gate. Her hand 
 is tiny and soft, but it made me shake ; but she led 
 me in and sat down in a low chair and talked, 
 and all the time her eyes said, 'You poor thing,' 
 though she smiled. Then she called out to Dave 
 and told him she would have company to supper ; 
 but I was frightened when I heard him coming, 
 and jumped up. She put her arm around me so 
 quietly, and walked to the gate with me. And 
 then, oh, how I wanted to come so close to her 
 and tell her all, all ! But I pushed her away and 
 ran home ; but half-way there I looked back and 
 she was standing at the gate looking after me, 
 so little and white, like an angel. No one ever 
 talked to me like that; no one ever wanted me 
 to stay longer." . . Here Phil had left me, 
 and I dreamed on, picturing in my mind the half- 
 hour between these two. I smiled a little as I 
 rose to lock the door. Could it be that Mrs. 
 Dave had conquered the mad gipsy as she had 
 conquered us all? 
 
 I believed and still believe that Phil had meant 
 to try. But nothing came of it, for she and Dave 
 were together more and more. And one after- 
 noon Phil came to say good-bye. "I am going 
 away tonight," she said "well, you might as well 
 know, we are going away tonight." She waited 
 for my exclamations, but none came, and she 
 [821 
 
PHIL 
 
 glanced up, her white face full of uncer- 
 tainty, masked by stubbornness. The eyes 
 were burning, all the more mad because the fea- 
 tures were so calm. "And Mrs. -Dave? " I asked 
 quietly. Phil looked away with a start. "Don't," 
 she whispered. "I've tried to remember, and I 
 don't care. She has everything and I want only 
 him. If Dave wanted me badly, I would not go ; 
 but I want to show them that I can have him, 
 even though he be not willing. He is a baby 
 still, and today he minds me. Tomorrow, but 
 tomorrow it will all be over. Oh, I've tried to be 
 like them, and they turn away. I've tried to be 
 good and they laugh. And Dave, when I talk 
 to Dave, his eyes shine and he sees only me, and 
 then I know I am good and true and beautiful. 
 Oh, they will see what a mad gipsy can do, and 
 let Mrs. Dave." . . But at the name the harsh 
 voice broke off and went on tremulously : "If she 
 had talked to me again I would go away alone 
 or kill myself; but she" she laughed uncer- 
 tainly. "I've been careful not to talk to her 
 again. Yet when I think of her white face and 
 her little hands but what's the use ? " And 
 when I had found voice to call to her she was 
 on her big horse, galloping down the street, leav- 
 ing me at the door, trembling. 
 
 It was a half-hour later that the workmen, 
 coming home along the river bank, saw her rid- 
 ing madly very near the edge of the cliff where 
 [83] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 it overhangs the river. They watched her idly 
 enough, mad as ever they thought, till, without 
 warning, they saw the horse half pause in its race, 
 saw him wheel and rise high in the air, and then 
 plunge headlong over the edge. When they 
 reached her she was still breathing, and they 
 took her to the nearest cottage and sent for me. 
 
 They say big Bob had been almost uncontrol- 
 lable for days. The men that saw the fall swore 
 that the girl struggled hard to quiet the horse; 
 and in the face of these sane statements the 
 fancies of an old maid seem very, very foolish. 
 
 When I came into the room where she lay I 
 found Mrs. Dave already near her. Phil's eyes 
 were closed, yet she smiled faintly when the lit- 
 tle woman whispered that I had come. There 
 was nothing to do now, nothing except to stand 
 and watch the pale face, so sweet and childish and 
 helpless now, so calm and undisturbed, and very 
 much like the father's must have been in death. 
 
 Then I saw Mrs. Dave bend over the girl. 
 "David is in the next room," she said. "Do you 
 want him now? " And as I half turned, with my 
 hand on the knob I saw the slight shake of the 
 head on the pillow, and in the silence of the death- 
 stilled room caught the faint whisper, "Only 
 you." 
 
 K. 
 
 [84] 
 
The Record Quarter 
 
 ON HIS way to Suburbia, Denman 
 wondered at himself, and was of the 
 opinion that he would wait at the 
 station for the next train back to the 
 city. He had not been in the college town for 
 years, and this meet that Owen seemed to think 
 would make an epoch in civilization would be so 
 like the other meets that Denman had seen by 
 dozens, that it bored him even to think about it. 
 Ten years back, he had seen his last field day, 
 and had left before the Relay to telephone about 
 an important deal that had occurred to him as he 
 dozed through the Mile Walk. Owen said there 
 wasn't any Mile Walk now. That was sensible. 
 Denman had never seen the beauty of that dis- 
 locating pastime, even in the old days, when a 
 field day, a sore throat from shouting, and a bad 
 headache from excitement always came together. 
 Curiously enough, it had been Owen that made 
 him stop shouting, and yawn through the races. 
 [85] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 Big, athletic Denman, a well set-up man at forty, 
 wondered even yet over Owen. That puny lad, 
 with weak eyes and a cough that was always 
 hurrying him South and grudgingly letting him 
 back again for brief weeks, was Denman's son 
 in everything but likeness. The big man never 
 looked at the boy without anger, disappointment 
 and pity all surging up in him at once. Where 
 did the lad get his pale looks and his confounded 
 bookishness? Oh, well, of course, Denman was 
 glad the boy got his lessons and all that. He 
 was glad Heaven had not seen fit to make his son 
 a dunce. But it did take the heart out of a man 
 to see at his own table, day after day, a human 
 being that took more interest in Ovid than in 
 League games. Would he ever forget the night 
 when Owen, looking tensely through his near- 
 sighted reading glasses that he had forgotten to 
 exchange for his farsighted distance glasses, on 
 coming to the table, had given his learned com- 
 parative analysis of Cicero and Plato! 
 
 "And I am forced," concluded Owen, with a 
 shake of his pale locks, "I am forced to condemn 
 the Roman as a mere belle-lettristic trifler." 
 
 Harvey Denman laid down his napkin and 
 stared. The profanity that he felt welling within 
 him he checked in deference to Rose at the other 
 end of the table. But he could have been grate- 
 ful for some sort of a seizure that would have 
 made him foam at the mouth and throw dinner 
 [86] 
 
THE RECORD QUARTER 
 
 plates. Instead, he looked fixedly at Owen, who 
 engaged nearsightedly with his food. 
 
 "How old are you?" he heard himself demand 
 of his erudite progeny. 
 
 "I have entered upon my sixteenth year," re- 
 plied the boy. 
 
 That was the year in which Owen had entered 
 Suburbia, and had thereby fixed his father's dis- 
 taste for the place, that had been growing for the 
 past years. When Owen was little, and there 
 was still hope that he might straighten up, his 
 father had taken him to football and track games, 
 and had felt the waves of his own enthusiasm 
 beat with futile uproar against his son's inex- 
 plicable temperament. Owen could sit still 
 through the Relay, or ask to be taken home when 
 the ball was shivering on the goal mark. Den- 
 man gave up at last, and swallowed his cherished 
 hope that his son might some day be glad to hear 
 of his father's prowess in college days. He 
 hadn't cared inordinately for his athletic fame, 
 but the thought of an interested son had always 
 lain pleasantly dormant in his heart. Now he 
 shut the thought in with a snap, and went to no 
 more field days. 
 
 He saw as little as possible of Owen, and at the 
 time of the memorable speech on Cicero, this din- 
 ner had been an occasion when Denman was 
 making a signal effort to pull himself together 
 and understand his son. After this failure, he 
 F871 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 agreed with Rose that the boy had better board 
 in Suburbia, and not waste his time traveling 
 back and forth to the city. He saw Owen half 
 a dozen times that year, and let him go off to the 
 mountains for three months that summer. He 
 was enormously busy with things that counted on 
 his bank account, and let Owen slip from his 
 mind as much as possible, until one September 
 when Rose reminded him that the boy was a 
 junior. 
 
 "Is he?" asked Denman, absently. 
 
 "And I think the professors think highly of 
 him," his wife pursued. 
 
 "Pah!" Denman grunted, with Cicero still in 
 his mind. Still, of course, he was glad the child 
 did well. 
 
 "I've not seen him since his hunting trip. What 
 put it into his head to go hunting?" 
 
 It appeared that some boys had put it into his 
 head. And he had come back looking brown and 
 feeling unusually well. Even his eyes were get- 
 ting stronger, and the distance glasses were put 
 aside. Denman was gratified. After all, Owen 
 might become human. 
 
 He was not only gratified, but astonished, to 
 learn that Owen took his mother to the football 
 game. He had refused, himself, to be of the 
 party. He couldn't forget those dreary little-boy 
 days, when Owen recited Latin verbs, while the 
 ball, with twenty-two giants clutching after it, 
 [88] 
 
THE RECORD QUARTER 
 
 gamboled back and forth between the goals, and 
 the grandstand shouted. The last time he had 
 taken his son, Owen had told him a great many 
 things, on the way home, about Roman games. 
 There was the game of Pila he should never 
 again risk hearing about the game of Pila. But 
 this year, Owen took his mother, and she re- 
 counted her experience with some eagerness. 
 Owen had been interested, had explained things 
 to her. 
 
 "Did he talk about the game of Pila ?" queried 
 Denman, in grim tones. 
 
 "Pila?" his wife wondered. "What do you 
 mean ?" 
 
 In his office, one day in the spring, Denman 
 had been interrupted at his busiest moment by a 
 long-distance call. Suburbia wanted him. He 
 had time to wonder who the dickens in Suburbia 
 had any business with him, when he heard 
 Owen's voice at the other end of the wire. He 
 had forgotten his son. 
 
 "What's the matter ?" he asked, rather anxious- 
 ly. The cough had probably reappeared. After 
 these years of release, that would be 
 
 "Hello !" sounded Owen's voice again. 
 
 "Hello! Hello!" impatiently from Denman. 
 
 "Can't you get out here tomorrow?" 
 
 "Out where? Suburbia? Are you sick 
 again?" 
 
 "No. There's going to be a field day that " 
 
 [89] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 "A what? Oh, field no, I'm too busy." 
 
 "Oh, but father!" The voice over the wire 
 was agitated. "It's going to be a corker of a 
 field day, and you used to come!" 
 
 "Going to be what kind of a field day?" 
 
 "A cork I mean a most interesting field 
 
 day." 
 
 "Did you say 'corker'?" interrupted Denman. 
 
 "I suppose I did." 
 
 "I'll be there." Denman hung up the receiver, 
 rubbed his fingers through his hair, and got up 
 from his desk to walk about the room. Owen, 
 his boy, he of Cicero, the Roman games, glasses 
 nearsighted and farsighted, and a profound in- 
 terest in archaeology, had said "corker." Den- 
 man felt exuberant for the rest of the day. 
 
 His exuberance got him on the train the next 
 morning, and out to Suburbia, wondering at him- 
 self, yet not taking the next train back to the city. 
 Instead, he looked around for Owen at the sta- 
 tion, and, not seeing him there, walked up to the 
 Campus, past the Toggery, and the Dashery, and 
 the College Bakery, and the Students' Barber 
 Shop, and the other pertinent signs of the town 
 merchants. Under the oaks of the Campus, Den- 
 man began to have small pulsings of a feeling he 
 had forgotten. The old trees had not changed. 
 And the slope of the hill down from the gym 
 was still tracked by spiked feet. There they 
 came now, the little army of boys in their white 
 [90] 
 
THE RECORD QUARTER 
 
 running trunks and their sweaters. They were 
 going down to the track, beyond the laurel 
 hedge. Denman quickened his step. He used to 
 come out of that old gym in white trunks and a 
 sweater. By George! He'd like to get the 
 things on again, and have a go with the boys. 
 If only Owen his face clouded. Lock the 
 thought in as he might, forget it, stay away from 
 the place till he died, still the thought was there. 
 The boy had been a disappointment to him. 
 
 He got a program from the usher, and picked 
 his way around the oval to the seat he wanted. 
 There it was empty, as if waiting for him. Just 
 opposite the finish, with his back to the sun, he 
 settled himself, and began to open out his pro- 
 gram. He was a little curious about one thing. 
 Just then, a voice beside him spoke plaintively; 
 
 "Oh, I wish we had programs!" Denman 
 looked up. She had not spoken to him. She 
 was looking anxiously for an usher, and beating 
 her lip with nervous fingers. She was a pretty 
 little girl of sixteen, in just the sort of new frock 
 that the girls used to have on for the spring 
 field days. Denman looked at his paper with 
 regret. 
 
 " Won't you use mine ?" he said, gallantly. The 
 girl looked at him and blushed very becomingly, 
 as Denman thought. 
 
 "Oh " she hesitated. "You are very good." 
 
 [91] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 She glanced up the line of her girl companions 
 to where her chaperon sat. 
 
 "I think I might I do want one terribly!" 
 
 Denman found her struggle amusing. She 
 was so young and pretty, and anxious not to 
 accept attentions from strange men, and probably 
 quite incapable of using a program after she got 
 it! 
 
 "Do take it," he urged, in his oldest and most 
 fatherly voice. She looked at him again, and 
 he, remembering that the hair about his ears was 
 decidedly grayish, held out the program con- 
 fidently. She took it and smiled at him. 
 
 "I do want one so particularly, and the usher 
 passed us by. This is to be a most interesting 
 field day." Some way, the phrase reminded him 
 of Owen. 
 
 "What is to happen?" he asked. The girl's 
 embarrassment left her, and she gave him the 
 serious attention of a connoisseur. 
 
 "In the first place," she explained, "the weather 
 is just right warm and good for records. Then, 
 it's the Inter-collegiate, and there are some un- 
 usually strong men from down the Bay Har- 
 greave and Thorn in the hurdles, and that big 
 hammer thrower oh, yes, Murchison. Then, 
 my brother Billy thinks he'll break his own broad 
 jump record. He's been doing it right along 
 in practice, and we're all counting on him." 
 
 Denman felt a sharp pang. 
 [92] 
 
THE RECORD QUARTER 
 
 "Is he on the oval?" he asked. There was a 
 company of Greeks in bathrobes and blankets 
 squatted picturesquely in the middle of the grass 
 plot, while industrious newspaper men photo- 
 graphed the stars. 
 
 "No, there he is now, coming in at the gate. 
 Isn't he splendid?" 
 
 Denman saw a tall young fellow, with a good 
 head and a very noisily striped blanket, striding 
 down the track, his stride shifting his draperies 
 occasionally, to show a considerable length of 
 white leg. He was a fine-looking boy, and Den- 
 man felt another pang. 
 
 "He carries himself well," he said. "You 
 ought to be proud of him. So he's a broad 
 jumper?" 
 
 "He's the broad jumper," corrected the girl, 
 with a mingling of pride and mischief. "There 
 can't anyone around here touch him." Denman 
 understood her feeling. He could remember the 
 time when he was prouder of one track perform- 
 ance of his own than he would have been over a 
 diplomatic triumph. He looked rather sadly at 
 the field. It was gay with college colors, women's 
 gowns, the joy of sunshine and green dance of 
 foliage. The athletes were trailing their robes 
 about the grass. A few men were warming up 
 by a run about the oval. The rooters were giv- 
 ing the yell for this or that favorite. Everyone 
 laughed, talked and lived in this scene everyone 
 [93] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 but Denman. He thought of Owen, and how 
 proud he might be if Owen could care for all 
 this. He wondered what had moved Owen to 
 ask him over, and where the boy might be in 
 this crowd. The girl at his side chattered with 
 her friends, and Denman was moved to steal a 
 look at the program she held, to seek the other 
 name of her Billy. He found him among the 
 broad jumpers William Milvern, Jr. Well ! 
 So that was Billy Milvern's son. Denman set his 
 lips tightly. When he next met the gaze of Billy 
 Milvern's sister, he smiled. 
 
 "I think I know your father," he said. "He 
 was a senior when I entered here. I've never 
 quite lost my awe of him." The girl blushed 
 and dimpled. 
 
 "If you know my father," she said, "I think 
 I shall tell you a secret. I simply must talk about 
 it to some one, and I've promised not to tell the 
 girls. A man who knows my father, though, 
 ought to be a good confidant." She laughed as 
 she pointed to another place in her program. 
 
 "This," she said mysteriously, "is the sensation 
 of the day." Denman followed her finger. It 
 was at the quarter mile. It had been his race, 
 and when he sat down here, he had been about 
 to gratify an idle curiosity. Well, well! It 
 was still his. He felt a queer glow of pleasure. 
 He had supposed some youngster had lowered 
 that by now. For some ten years he had kept 
 [94] 
 
THE RECORD QUARTER 
 
 track, but of late he hadn't cared. He wouldn't 
 have cared now, had he lost the record yet he 
 was a little pleased. The girl was explaining 
 something. 
 
 "You see that record? Well, just notice that 
 it was made 'way back in the eighties." Her 
 eyes were round and serious. It had been two 
 or three years before she was born. 
 
 "Of course it has been broken at Mott Haven 
 and some of the big Eastern universities ; but it 
 has stood as the Suburbia record for all these 
 years." Denman's heart throbbed with a little 
 sense of gratified pride, then of anger. This 
 little girl could care, when his own son she in- 
 terrupted him. 
 
 "But it's to be broken today." 
 
 "You don't say so !" He was really interested. 
 
 "And by the darkest kind of a dark horse. 
 It's the most interesting story you ever heard." 
 
 "Tell me," begged Denman. If his colors 
 were to be lowered, he wanted all the interesting 
 part included. 
 
 "You see," she went on, "he's my brother's 
 chum, this young man. Denman is his name 
 Mr. Denman." 
 
 "Oh, indeed !" Again he was really interested ; 
 but she broke off. 
 
 "Oh !" she cried. "They're getting ready for 
 the first heat of the hundred." Denman looked. 
 There were four bent over the mark, and the 
 [95] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 starter's pistol was up. A sudden gulf of silence 
 swallowed up the crowd's murmur, and the pistol 
 cracked. The hundred is a brief agony, and 
 Billy Milvern's sister had time for only one. 
 little gasp before it was over. She shook her 
 head. 
 
 "No record there," she commented. Denman's 
 nerves were still tingling. He had yelled like 
 an idiot schoolboy at the finish. He had his 
 pencil in his hand, and offered to write down the 
 time when it should be announced. But she 
 begged : 
 
 "Please let me. I love to keep score." Un- 
 usual being! He looked at her in some amaze- 
 ment. Then he remembered her story. 
 
 Tell me about this sensation," he asked. 
 
 "Oh yes. Well, it's really pathetic. You see, 
 he isn't strong that is, he hasn't been. And he 
 has always cared so." Her wide-open eyes 
 sought his with a look of sympathy, that he could 
 answer only by astonishment. Had Owen cared ? 
 He leaned forward a little in his interest. The 
 girl went on. 
 
 "You see, his father is perfectly wonderful 
 at least, Owen says so. He admires him more 
 than anything, because he's big and strong, and 
 you always feel as if he could do anything, and 
 be a real king of men." 
 
 Denman stared. "Do you know his father?" 
 he asked. 
 
 [96] 
 
THE RECORD QUARTER 
 
 "I suppose I don't," she laughed. "But Owen 
 has talked so much that I feel as if I did. You 
 see, his father has been bitterly disappointed in 
 Owen, and it has been too bad all around." 
 
 So Owen had understood! 
 
 "When he was just a little boy, he couldn't 
 do anything the other boys did, and he was al- 
 ways sick, and kept being different from boys. 
 And he knew he was different, but he couldn't 
 help it. And he knew it hurt his father's feel- 
 ings just to look at him, or have him around." 
 
 Denman was digging fiercely with his cane in 
 the ground at his feet. The second heat of the 
 hundred came off, and the announcer said it was 
 done in ten flat. The crowd roared, and the girl 
 at his side screamed in ecstasy. But Denman 
 did not hear. He was thinking. 
 
 "I don't suppose your friend's father meant to 
 have him know," he suggested. 
 
 "Oh, no !" she exclaimed. "But he did know. 
 And he used to cry at night like a silly girl. He 
 had nerves and he used to wish he could die. 
 He had to go away from home to try to get well, 
 and he used to hope he wouldn't get well." Her 
 eyes were wide again with sympathy. Denman 
 wanted to groan. 
 
 "He used to wish he could be stupid, because 
 most of the boys he knew were stupid. But he 
 couldn't be anything he wanted to be." 
 
 "Poor chap!" said Denman. 
 [97] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 Then they had no more talk for some time. 
 The hurdles were set up and the two-twenty 
 run. Denman looked at them all absently. Sud- 
 denly the girl turned to him. 
 
 "There he is now. The yellow-haired one, 
 standing up." She was pointing out Owen to 
 him. Denman gazed. The boy had straightened 
 up. "What made him go in for the track?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "He came to college, and heard about this." 
 She pointed to the old record. "His father 
 hadn't ever told him. But all the men here 
 talked about it, and wondered if it would stand 
 this year, and who would break it. Some said 
 it would never be broken till we had a straight- 
 away. And Owen made up his mind that if 
 anyone did it, he would." 
 
 Denman felt a surprising glow of pleasure. 
 "Good boy!" he ejaculated. 
 
 "He was getting stronger, anyway, and the 
 doctors said he would outgrow his cough and 
 things. But you ought to have seen him try!" 
 
 "How do you know all this?" Denman 
 queried. 
 
 "He's Billy's chum, you know and, then, he 
 has told me things. Billy says there isn't a man 
 on the Campus in as fit condition as Owen. He 
 hasn't just run on the track like the rest. He's 
 regularly trained himself in the gym, and every- 
 where. And nobody guesses it. Everyone thinks 
 [98] 
 
THE RECORD QUARTER 
 
 Jacks will win the quarter. But Billy says 
 oh!" 
 
 Denman followed her glance, and caught his 
 breath. They were lining up for the quarter 
 his race. And there was Owen, fair haired, 
 slim, his white trunks fluttering in the wind, the 
 numbered tag on his shoulder waving. 
 
 "He's Five," whispered the girl. 
 
 Denman nodded. He was scanning his son 
 with a critical eye. Owen looked his training, 
 and every fibre of Denman's big body quivered 
 with pride in him. 
 
 "I hope he does it," he had time to say, before 
 the boys got on their marks. Owen had the in- 
 side. The starter's arm went up, and Denman 
 felt the old sickening heart-beat of expectation. 
 He could hear the familiar: "Ready, set" and 
 the pistol shot. How well Five got away from 
 his mark. He had the lead from the first stride. 
 "And what a gait he has on him!" Denman al- 
 most shrieked. The long, hard sprint would take 
 every ounce of grit the boy had. 
 
 "Keep it up, there! Good boy, Denman!" 
 The man was half beside himself. Billy Milvern's 
 sister was begging, "Run ! Run ! Run !" The 
 crowd was shouting, "Go it, Tony! Go it, 
 Jacks!" But as the widening gap appeared be- 
 tween the dark horse and the others, there was 
 a deafening roar of, "Denman, Denman!" 
 
 The older Denman leaned out over the railing, 
 [99] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 and swung his hat. He was running this race. 
 Every stride^ the boy took was his. 
 
 "Good boy, Denman! Good boy, Denman!" 
 he shouted. Owen ran against the tape a yard 
 ahead of the second man. 
 
 "Oh! Oh!" screamed Billy Milvern's sister. 
 "He won it. I told you so. He won it. He's 
 broken it. I know he has." She had twisted 
 her program into a string. Denman sat down 
 shakily. He could remember the day he did it 
 in fifty-two. That was in the eighties, and it had 
 stood ever since. If only Owen had done it. 
 The announcer's megaphone was turning their 
 way. 
 
 "Quarter mile won by Denman, '05, time fifty- 
 one and three-fifths. This breaks the Suburbia 
 record, held since" the crowd drowned the rest. 
 Billy Milvern's sister, wringing her hands for joy, 
 saw the elderly gentleman who knew her father 
 leap from his seat, clear the railing and race 
 across the oval. He made his way through the 
 press of boys that wanted to shake Owen's hand, 
 and of reporters who wanted to photograph him. 
 The two confronted each other, the man tall, 
 broad-shouldered, grizzled; the boy slight, yel- 
 low-haired, breathing hard from his race. The 
 older man gripped his hand. 
 
 "You young scoundrel!" he said, not alto- 
 gether easily there was something unusual in 
 his throat. "If you had to steal your father's 
 [100] 
 
THE RECORD QUARTER 
 
 laurels, you couldn't have done it in better form !" 
 He wrung the boy's hand, and the two let a good 
 many years slip from between them as they looked 
 at each other. 
 
 Then the word went around that this was Den- 
 man's father, and the rooters yelled out their 
 excitement in shouting for the two, with Billy 
 Milvern's sister shrieking an astonished treble in 
 their wake. 
 
 [101] 
 
"Values" 
 
 "All I could never be 
 All, men ignored in me 
 This I was worth " 
 
 Browning. 
 
 ON the sagging gray porch behind the 
 feathery green of the hop-vine, the 
 boy sat in the low old cane-bottomed 
 rocker. His feet pressed gently 
 against the rickety railing of the porch and the 
 rocker hitched spasmodically back and forth on 
 the warped, uneven floor-boards. Far across to 
 the sunlit crest of the opposite mountain ridge his 
 dark clear gaze lifted dreamily, strangely soft 
 and wonder-seeing, above the tight curve of his 
 mouth. Across and up to the gilded tree-tops 
 against the blue sky, he sat there looking for a 
 long time, then slowly his gaze dropped to the 
 darker wooded mountainside, then down to the 
 silver willowed creek land at its base and the 
 [102] 
 
"VALUES" 
 
 long stretch of cool green pasture with the wan- 
 dering cattle knee-deep in the grass-covered 
 marsh. 
 
 "Tuesday that'll be time enough, won't it ? " 
 The rasping, tuneless voice brought his brows 
 together quickly over eyes that fell now on the 
 narrow mountain road and the sagging gate be- 
 low its overgrown arch of rough old Castilian 
 rose-vines. Mrs. Gordon pushed back a little 
 her broad-brimmed straw hat from her gray 
 temples and set down the great round cloth bun- 
 dle on the path beside her. "Yu see," she went 
 on, in her peculiarly grating half-whisper, "it's 
 only three days before Robby goes away now 
 goes away down to college, yu know and o' 
 course there's a million things yet to do for him 
 all the little things yu know at the last minute 
 cause o' course I wouldn't want him to get down 
 there to school and have to feel ashamed like." 
 
 The boy, a little cynical gleam brightening the 
 dull tightness of his lips, watched through the 
 hop-vine frame the visitor in the old buggy draw 
 up the reins a little impatiently, one slender 
 gloved hand on the top support. His mother 
 laid her hand, large and coarse-fingered on the 
 visitor's. " Yu ain't goin' yet ? " she pleaded in 
 her rasping half-whisper. "An' I ain't shown yu 
 any o' my flowers yet." She broke a rose from 
 the overgrown bush beside the gate, stripping 
 gently from the short straight stem the red 
 [103] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 thorns. "These ain't so beautiful as what yu get 
 down there to the city," she said, as she laid it on 
 the visitor's duster-covered unresponsive lap," 
 "but they're the sweetest smellin' rose there is. 
 They " her harsh voice dropped gratingly 
 lower "they was my little gal's fav'rite flower 
 her name was Rose I always liked that name." 
 The visitor moved a little uneasily. Old M'is. 
 Gordon had been "strange-like," they told her in 
 the mountains, since she had lost the last little 
 girl. The visitor had never had any children 
 to lose. 
 
 Around the bend in the road, between the green 
 pasture and the old orchard came slowly a girl 
 on horseback, her brown hair curling softly on 
 the bare, bent head. Robby watched her from 
 the hop-covered porch, and the dull apathy that 
 had settled on his thin brown face lifted for a 
 moment. Then he saw her straighten in her sad- 
 dle as she caught sight of the woman at the gate 
 and draw the reins tight. He had risen quickly 
 and stood by the hop-wreathed post of the porch, 
 and the shut of his lips was very bitter as she 
 galloped past. But when she reached the pine-hill 
 road beyond she turned in her saddle. The slant- 
 ing sunlight rays fell on her brown curly hair 
 there, and Robby saw as in a dream her smile 
 such a dainty, pretty smile and the little wave of 
 a gauntleted hand and then he smiled in answer 
 and held one hand high above his head. 
 [104] 
 
"VALUES" 
 
 The boy sat slowly down again in the old 
 cane-bottomed rocker. He had been sitting there 
 on the hop-covered porch, as now, that long-ago 
 evening, twisting slowly a dirty rag into the hole 
 of his ramrod, watching the sunset gilding on 
 the mountain ridge opposite narrow higher and 
 higher up the pine depths and finally leave the 
 mountain dark and hazily green. He had been 
 telling himself contemptuously that they could 
 not know those mountain people, who hated his 
 father and pitied his mother and thought him 
 queer when they thought at all about him, and 
 who had kept so unflinchingly what he had always 
 taken for granted rather than really minded 
 the censure passed in spite of the acquittal, on old 
 Gordon years before for the killing. The dream 
 of the vaguely wonderful future had been in his 
 eyes as he had laid the gun against his knee, the 
 time after the far-off school that his mother 
 talked of always when he would do great things 
 in the city and would come back perhaps just 
 to show himself to them as he should be. Then 
 the girl had come. She had tied her horse to 
 the gatepost and the mare had flecked at the rose 
 bush tendrils with her upper lip, then reached 
 through the fence stakes for the straggling sweet 
 pea vines. He had watched his mother, her wet 
 hands folded in her apron, her sagging skirt 
 flapping against the old shoes with the holes in 
 the sides, go out to meet her as she had opened 
 [105] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 the gate. It was the girl from the cottage up the 
 valley, the "green house" they called it in the 
 mountains, with its porch where white ladies sat 
 and sewed and chatted all the long summer. 
 Robby Gordon had gone up alone once before 
 they came and had tried to look through the 
 boarded windows. He had passed again, and the 
 girl had been wandering along the sunny stretch 
 of road below the house. She had smiled at him 
 on his big horse, such a dainty, pretty smile 
 and he he had hit Captain sharply with the 
 ends of the bridle reins and galloped off in the 
 dust. Then he had watched her in her riding 
 skirt and white waist, with her curly, flying hair, 
 stand there and talk to his mother. It was then 
 that the hot, ashamed something had choked 
 within him for the first time. He had listened 
 to his mother tell her about all the things that 
 the mountaineers knew and despised about his 
 father and how he had killed a man once long 
 before "shot him in the back as he sat there on 
 the fence below the corral. It was over property, 
 my dear," she had said in that half-sane whisper- 
 ingly confidential way. Robby remembered how 
 the girl had shrunk back a little against the coarse 
 green of the rose-bushes. "And to this day 
 Charlie Gordon's afraid to go over there at night 
 by the woods behind the corral." He had half 
 started up, then sat down again, hoping that per- 
 haps the girl had not seen him through the hop- 
 [106] 
 
"VALUES" 
 
 vine. She had spoken then hesitatingly of the 
 washing. Robby had held his gun barrel coldly 
 against his face, behind the hop-vine, he did 
 not know why. But Mrs. Gordon had answered 
 briskly, her bright gray eyes on the girl's face: 
 "Why, surely I'll be glad to help your mother 
 out just to help her out, mind yu and then, 
 too, I'll tell yu yu know it won't be so very 
 long before Robby there will be goin' away to 
 school Robby's so bright, yu know and there'll 
 always be little extrys that he needs yu know 
 how it is yourself, don't you, goin' to school ? 
 His father there, he don't understand that 
 Charlie Gordon don't. It's strange, seem' how 
 educated and all his family was always but 
 Charlie, he don't think it's necessary. He says to 
 send Robby to ol' Perfessor Badger down here to 
 the mill once a week, now he's finished the grades. 
 But I won't have it. 'Robby,' I always says, 'has 
 got worth as yu might say, and he's goin' to go 
 to school.' '' The boy had scraped his heavy 
 boot uneasily along the porch, and the 30-30 had 
 fallen to the floor. The girl had looked up, her 
 curly hair about her flushed face, frightened a 
 little at the strange, almost incoherent, outburst. 
 "Only one thing," Mrs. Gordon had caught her 
 arm and Robby had noticed how she shrank as 
 the knotted dirty fingers closed around her dainty 
 white sleeve. "One thing I insist on I'm not a 
 washerwoman nor a laundress yu won't call 
 [107] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 me that? I'm just doin' it to help yu out an' 
 'cause Robby's soon goin' away to school. I 
 always say to Robby, 'Hold up yure head an' 
 yu'll be ez good ez anybody, especially' her 
 voice lowered even more-, and the girl shrank 
 away from the dark, coarse- featured face as it 
 bent confidentially near her, "now that he's goin' 
 away to school. They won't know nothing there 
 about things, except that he's a 'Gordon of Gor- 
 don Springs' we had springs here once, yu 
 know." She had raised her head proudly, with 
 its iron-gray hair under the broad-brimmed 
 calico-lined hat, and had picked a fragrant Cas- 
 tilian rose, coarsened a little in its full bloom, 
 for the girl. The girl had brushed it softly across 
 her lips, Robby remembered, and he had sat 
 there, his face still red under the brown, and his 
 eyes vaguely, wonderingly ashamed, watching the 
 girl ride bare-headed down the mountain road, 
 and his mother stand by the gate, one hand on her 
 faded gingham-covered hip. 
 
 The boy looked through the hop-vine lattice at 
 the white road, stretching dustily around the 
 bend, with the rugged old orchard trees drooping 
 low to the untilled ground and the mountains 
 dark and thickly wooded behind. Often, after the 
 shame heat had come that first time, he had 
 tramped through the pine forest there in the early 
 morning, when the deer tracks were fresh, and 
 had held his gun barrel close to his thin brown 
 [108] 
 
"VALUES" 
 
 cheek as he had tried hurtingly to reason it all 
 out. Afar to the end of the valley stretched the 
 sunlit top of the opposite ridge to the gray cha- 
 parral peak, feathered here and there with a 
 meagre wind-swept digger-pine. He could dis- 
 tinguish faintly in the evening sunlight the red 
 rock trail that slashed across it and over to Lake- 
 port. He remembered the long rides from school 
 there over the red trail at the week ends, across 
 the ridges of chaparral and scrub-oak and grease- 
 wood somehow fragrant in the coming night 
 with the hint of the blazing day that had been. 
 Sometimes at first he had ridden back proudly, 
 his thin brown chin high and his lithe body tense 
 with the conscious power that had made him for- 
 get for the week the hot shame and growing bit- 
 terness. He had held one brown hand on the 
 pocket with the report in it, and in his brown 
 eyes, behind the vision of the home-coming, with 
 the strange old woman mother, her keen gray 
 eyes shining deep and proud under the rose-vine 
 at the gate, and the surly half-smile from the 
 father's heavy sparsely bearded face, as he would 
 come sullenly from the chores. There had been 
 wonder dreams as of old. But they had all known 
 about everything in Lakeport, and the mountain 
 village remembers longer and far less generously 
 even than the mountaineers. After that the rides 
 over the red trail, like the long week before, had 
 [109] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 just been dully bitter, until the galling brooding 
 seemed so hopelessly all in life that could be. 
 
 Mrs. Gordon's harsh whisper came up from the 
 rose gate, flushing suddenly away the cynical 
 apathy in the brown set face. "Robby'll be gone, 
 yu know by next week. It'll be lonesome-like 
 without him and yet it's what I've been workin' 
 for all these years even let you city folks call me 
 wash-woman." She dropped her rasping voice 
 confidentially. "Robby'll be great one o' these 
 days gov'nor or judge or somebody, like the 
 old Gordons and my family, too, was. 'Aim 
 high/ I always says to Robby, 'an' you mayn't be 
 gov'nor but yu'll be more 'n if you just set still.' 
 Robby " but the visitor had jerked the reins im- 
 patiently, and the buggy rolled along the uneven 
 road, out of sight around the bend. 
 
 The last night they sat in the old parlor "in 
 honor of Robby's goin' away to sech fine other 
 parlors," Mrs. Gordon said with the stained 
 papered walls, covered with family crayons and 
 the three wild-cat skins the boy had gotten when 
 he had just learned to hunt. Charlie Gordon 
 sat for a while in the kitchen just beyond, in his 
 own chair by the bare, clean table; then he rose 
 and stood for a moment in the doorway, his 
 burly form in its black shirt and overalls dark 
 against the yellow lamplight of the kitchen. His 
 wife sat mending by the old marble-topped table, 
 with its white-shaded tarnished lamp, and Robby 
 [110] 
 
"VALUES" 
 
 lay on the old tidy-covered sofa. "Ain't yu 
 pretty near thru'." The man's gruff voice held 
 such an evident attempt to join in the meagre 
 little family life there in the shabby room that the 
 woman looked up surprised. There was seldom a 
 word spoken between the three the man in his 
 great, surly loneliness, with his small blue eyes 
 and thin yellowed beard, the woman with her gray 
 sharp eyes and strong, rather florid, features and 
 a color in her cheeks that even the mountain sun 
 had not faded into yellowness, and the boy, dark 
 and tall and thin, with his eyes that dreamed won- 
 der things at moments and at others rested apa- 
 thetic above the cynical line of his mouth. "Of 
 course not," she answered sharply. Then her 
 voice softened. "Yu might ez well set down. 
 This is the last time Robby'll be here before he's 
 the gov'nor or somethin'. He'll be somebody 
 worth lookin' up to down there in college, Robby 
 Gordon will ! " 
 
 All the woman's dreams and his of the old 
 times had come back with the eagerness that came 
 to the boy with the departure time. The cows 
 had come to the corral gate in the early morn- 
 ing and stood there by the fence as the stage 
 drove up. Unheeding, Mrs. Gordon had lifted 
 the queer little old trunk through the gate, push- 
 ing aside her husband's unaccustomed help. Then 
 she stood by the rose arch, rolling in her square, 
 short ringers the red buds that she tore from the 
 {111] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 old bush. The boy had glanced only half-seeing 
 at the little old gray shanty with the hop-covered 
 porch backed up against the pine mountain, down 
 at his father standing sullenly back a little, and 
 then at the square, ungainly woman's figure far 
 below the high seat on the stage's dusty top, and 
 then had not heard the last husky, "Good-bye, 
 Robby," for his eyes were far ahead on the wind- 
 ing, white, dusty road that led far down the 
 mountains. 
 
 The college campus was brown against the low 
 brown hills when the mountain boy first came. 
 He walked slowly for the first time up the broad 
 acacia-lined path and held his head very high 
 above his celluloid collar and scanty blue serge 
 suit. The great hurrying crowds were all new 
 and strange, merry in friendly greeting and vi- 
 brant fairly with the pulse of the coming year 
 of work and play. It seemed so full and big, a 
 new world, so complete in its self-sufficiency 
 that impressed him even then. He was not yet of 
 it he had stood aloof thus in the mountain 
 school-yard but now he held his head high as he 
 watched the throng. They did not know of him 
 and the unfaltering mountain stigma nor did 
 they care and he was glad for the moment of 
 loneliness that seemed to him to hold forth so 
 much. In his bare-walled, third floor room, the 
 light from the western gable window softening a 
 little the gray plastered corners, he laid on the 
 [112] 
 
"VALUES" 
 
 table the books he had bought. Through the 
 other square pane he looked far across the house- 
 tops to the red clock-tower in the college library, 
 dimly burnished in the sunset, to the eucalyptus 
 trees beyond and the bare brown hill with its 
 great gold C clearly outlined against the blue 
 sky. Then he smoothed his brown parted hair 
 before the little mirror, rubbed with his handker- 
 chief a speck from the celluloid collar and drew 
 a long, strangely happy breath. At the boarding- 
 house table that night they talked of many things 
 and many people the last student body election 
 and the new athletic president, of the college 
 papers and their editors and finances, of the 
 dances soon to come, and the prettiest girls in 
 the Freshman class. Robert Gordon sat at one 
 corner of the long table and listened with eyes 
 that shone bright in his thin brown face. Then 
 he sat on the bed in his low-eaved room and told 
 over to himself, reverently almost, as one might 
 a rosary, every face and smile and word of the 
 day." 
 
 It was a warm, clear August morning, the day 
 of the Freshman rally, and the Golden Gate was 
 blue and Tamalpais boldly outlined from the 
 Library steps. The cards tacked up about the 
 campus said, "Freshie, get wood ! " and with the 
 new thrill of fellowship the term gave, he had 
 started out in the morning. He was at the door 
 when the first letter came from the mountains, 
 [113] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 and with a little tightening of his lips and squar- 
 ing of his shoulders he thrust the envelope into 
 his pocket. Sometimes it was hard to forget 
 things so determinedly as he had done during 
 those two weeks. But in the vibrant clearness of 
 the night, there in the great stone amphitheatre, 
 with the long "oskis" and songs re-echoing from 
 the hills behind and the bonfire hotly bright in the 
 center, the applauded words of the coatless 
 speakers on the box below and the great dark 
 crowds above, the big, self-sufficient college world 
 belonged to him again, and he yelled very loud 
 with the rest. It was as they were all riling out 
 of the gates in the coiling serpentine past the 
 waiting crowds that he saw the girl's face, deli- 
 cately pretty under the great plumed hat, as it 
 had been beneath the sunbonnet in the mountains. 
 She did not see him, but he dreamed vaguely of 
 the face that night. 
 
 The next morning he read the letter from home 
 a meagre, misspelled letter that was like, some- 
 how, the monotonously rasping whisper of his 
 mother's voice. She was lonesome, she said, and 
 sick, and his father was as sullen as ever. One of 
 the cows had died the night before, because she 
 had not been able, and Charlie Gordon had been 
 afraid to go out to the corral to it in the night. 
 A little strange wave of pity for the old woman 
 back there in the mountains came to him as he 
 read. Then his mouth tightened with the old 
 [114] 
 
"VALUES" 
 
 bitterness, and he went slowly down stairs and 
 out into the elm-lined street. He failed in course 
 after course that day, and felt for the first time in 
 the passing throngs up the acacia-lined path be- 
 tween hours, the old hurting aloofness. How 
 foolish it had been for him to think he could 
 belong to it all, to ever dare think that some time 
 he might be able to help and to be worth while in 
 the so-big world, college or after. In the old- 
 time bitterness he recalled the loneliness of the 
 past weeks, the emptiness of the hand-clasps and 
 passing smiles that he had exaggerated into fel- 
 lowship, and his face flushed at his own presump- 
 tion in so construing them up there in the eve- 
 nings in the gray low-eaved room. 
 
 One day he overheard the boys at his table 
 speak slangily of "rough-necks," and he did not 
 know why, his own face flushed at the words. 
 Another time he heard a laughing remark from 
 the group of girls in the corner of the sitting- 
 room after dinner, and he turned angrily, dumbly, 
 to the door, trying to seem as if he had not heard. 
 The next morning he spent his last quarter for 
 two collars that were not celluloid. He did his 
 work dully, and felt vaguely that he was getting 
 far behind the others, and then one day the boss 
 in the bookstore where he worked told him that 
 he would not need him again. "Why don't you 
 smile sometimes?" the man said, as he dismissed 
 him. "You'll get a job quicker if you do." 
 [115] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 The boy glanced a little contemptuously down 
 at the jovial man before him, then went out into 
 the street. To him came, as it had of late, a wild 
 longing for the mountains and the pine forests 
 and the chaparral. Then, as he walked along 
 the busy main street, he saw the girl coming. 
 Her face was daintily, rosily pretty as ever above 
 her furs and she talked quickly to the tall man 
 the Student Body president it was beside her. 
 She had a rose that she held to her lips, as she 
 had that old Castilian one from the arch over 
 the gate. With his hand to his hat he looked 
 straight at her as they passed. "Who was that 
 fellow who stared so ? " he heard the president 
 ask. "I'm sure I don't know," the girl laughed, 
 the rose still pressed softly to her parted lips. 
 
 The telegram came the next morning. Charlie 
 Gordon must have ridden most of the night to 
 Lakeport to send it. Somehow the boy thought 
 of that most as he packed the old trunk in the 
 corner of the gray-walled room, and then, during 
 the long ride on the train, and then on far into 
 the night, silently beside the stage driver. And 
 the other memory that came to him was of his 
 mother, standing with her hands folded in her 
 apron, her old straw hat pushed back from her 
 broad forehead, and piercing gray eyes. "Aim 
 high, as I always says to Robby yu know 
 Robby'll be somebody worth while." 
 
 At the old gate with the rose bush over it, 
 [116] 
 
"VALUES" 
 
 Charlie Gordon came out to meet him. "I'll carry 
 that in fer yu," he said, and led the way into the 
 cluttered little old parlor. The strange, indefin- 
 able something that hovers over all the homeliest 
 places and people when death has come near 
 seemed very real there. 
 
 It was not until after the funeral that they 
 spoke of the dead. They were walking slowly 
 up the mountain road in the evening. "I s'pose 
 you'll go back," the man said; "the last thing 
 she said was about you and how fine you must be 
 doin' down there to college. 'He'll aim high/ she 
 said, 'Robby will, an' he'll be worth somethin' ! " 
 
 The boy looked out to the mountain tops at the 
 end of the valley, hazy blue in the distance. "I 
 guess I haven't been worth much to any but her," 
 he said, but there was no bitterness in his voice ; 
 "but maybe that counts more than it would to 
 other people. College is good down there if I 
 went back I'd make up considerable for lost 
 time." He paused a little wistfully. Then he 
 raised his head high and looked straight at his 
 father. "But there's the range here, and the 
 cattle, and the name. I think I'll make myself 
 worth while here," he said. 
 
 [117] 
 
All In the Play 
 
 SPRIGGS MAKES HIS BOW TO THE BEST SOCIETY 
 
 thought of having amateur theatri- 
 cals because of Dolly Appleton's Mrs. 
 Maguire. She needed clothes and 
 things for the winter. Dolly? The 
 idea of Dolly needing anything with her allow^ 
 ance ! No it was Mrs. Maguire coal and every- 
 thing like that; and we thought it would be 
 splendid to give an entertainment and get them 
 for her with the profits. 
 
 So Dolly had some of the dearest tickets made, 
 all frosted with artificial snow because we de- 
 cided to have it New Year's Eve. Oh, Dolly's 
 executive she gets that from her blood. You 
 know she's the youngest vice-president the 
 Daughters of the Ancient Dames ever had. So 
 she went ahead with the arrangements. George 
 Rockwell helped her, and they asked the rest of 
 us to take part. 
 
 But the trouble was we didn't have anything to 
 [118] 
 
ALL IN THE PLAY 
 
 play, and we met several times and couldn't de- 
 cide. Abigail Havens (she's from Pittsfield) 
 suggested Mrs. Jarley's Wax Works, and Billy 
 Fillston wanted something with a musical sex- 
 tette and coon songs in it. But Dolly wanted a 
 play with a love story (because, of course, she 
 and George were to play leading parts). So 
 everybody argued and argued, and all the time 
 the date was getting nearer and nearer, and all 
 the tickets sold, too ! 
 
 Finally George hit on a splendid plan. He 
 knew of a person, he said, that could give us just 
 what we wanted. His name was Spriggs, and 
 George had known him at college. It seems that 
 he was in New York trying to sell a play he had 
 written and George had met him accidentally on 
 the street. So we decided to have him let us 
 use it. 
 
 It was our fourth meeting when Spriggs came, 
 and he was such a curious-looking fellow. He 
 was tall and thin, and wore spectacles. His hair 
 was brown and came down over his coat collar. 
 His eyes were brown, too, and rather attractive, 
 I thought. But his coat you should have seen 
 it ! It was one of those short cutaways that had 
 faded to a sickly green. And when he was shown 
 in he stopped, awfully confused. I don't know 
 whether it was because we were in evening dress 
 or because Billy Fillston was being an Indian 
 [119] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 idol on top of the piano. But, anyway, we soon 
 saw that he wasn't going to let us have the play. 
 
 He had it in his hand and held it close (just as 
 if the old thing was precious), and began by say- 
 ing he knew it was an honor we had bestowed, 
 but that he didn't think his play would suit us. 
 
 "Can I wear white in my part? " asked Dolly. 
 
 He looked rather puzzled. "I suppose you 
 can." 
 
 "Then it'll be all right," she said. 
 
 That seemed to bewilder him a little more, and 
 he blurted out that really he wasn't sure that he 
 wanted his play what did he call it oh, yes, 
 "produced" by amateurs. 
 
 Of course that disappointed us dreadfully, but 
 you don't discourage Dolly easily. She got up 
 and walked over to the Spriggs person. He 
 looked as if he wanted to run, but he didn't, and 
 when she got real close she looked at him with 
 those eyes of hers and she trembled her mouth 
 ( I mean it that way : Dolly can tremble or dimple 
 just when she wants to) she trembled her mouth 
 and looked at him, oh, so pitifully. 
 
 "You won't let us have it ? " she said. 
 "Really ? " And there was the biggest kind of a 
 tear in her voice. 
 
 Well, that rather floored him, and he looked 
 perfectly helpless. Then he stammered, "I I I 
 didn't know it mattered much." 
 
 "Matter ? S3i {^ Dolly, coming all the closer to 
 [120] 
 
ALL IN THE PLAY 
 
 him (George had gone outside just then to give 
 the butler an order) : "Mrs. Maguire's life de- 
 pends upon it." And she told it so beautifully we 
 all came very near crying, and I saw Spriggs 
 swallow twice. 
 
 "Oh," said Mr. Spriggs, "in that case you can 
 have it." And just then Billy Fillston almost 
 spoiled everything by pretending he was over- 
 come and falling off the piano. 
 
 But Dolly clapped her hands and fairly danced, 
 she was so happy. Then George came in, and 
 they dragged Spriggs into a chair and made him 
 read the play. 
 
 Really, I don't know yet what the whole thing 
 was about oh, yes, it was something about a 
 poor inventor who was swindled out of his thing- 
 um-a-jig by somebody he called "a bloated preda- 
 tory plutocrat," whatever that means I'm sure 
 I hadn't the least idea. Anyway, Spriggs chose 
 Ezra Tubble for that part, because he is fat ; and 
 Harry (who knew something of what Spriggs 
 meant) said all Ezra had to do was to look mean 
 and prosperous. And the rest of the play ? Well, 
 Dolly loved George, and Tubble was against her 
 marrying him because George was poor. 
 
 But George isn't,' you know, arid Ezra doesn't 
 object, really. It was only all in the play while 
 Ezra was the plutocrat thing. Well, anyway, 
 some of it was extremely serious because 
 Spriggs said so when Harry kept laughing at 
 [121] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 what he thought was a joke. It was something 
 about, "I only ask a fair valuation of my property 
 from you" you was the plutocrat. And Harry 
 said he knew it was a joke, because his father 
 (who is "Old Worthing," you know) "made a 
 combination and bought out all the other soap 
 fellows when they couldn't stand the competi- 
 tion." Perhaps you understand that. I don't. 
 It's something about business. But Spriggs said 
 "fair valuation" was serious, and so Harry kept a 
 straight face. Dolly ordered him to. 
 
 When he was finished, Grace Emmonds 
 wanted to drop out because she had to wear a 
 rag dress in the second act, and tried to get 
 Spriggs to make it at least tusser. He said that 
 would spoil everything. "Whoever saw tusser in 
 a poor workingman's home ? " 
 
 "Sure thing," chimed in Billy. "Remember, 
 girls, the last time we went down to Mrs. 
 Maguire's her taffeta silk, and little Mag eating 
 fried oysters for breakfast?" 
 
 This seemed to excite the Spriggs person. "I 
 know," he said, "there is frequent improvidence 
 among the poor, but that is the result of their 
 having been ground down and denied the educa- 
 tion that is their right." And do you know, he 
 really looked not frightened any longer more 
 like he wanted to hit Billy. 
 
 But Dolly broke in: "Is that in the play?" she 
 asked sweetly. Spriggs stopped abruptly and 
 [122] 
 
ALL IN THE PLAY 
 
 looked at her. Dolly drooped her eyelids a couple 
 of times. 
 
 "No," he said. 
 
 "Well, then go right on," she commanded, and 
 he did just as meek as could be. 
 
 And, then, it was such fun. Of course, Gladys 
 Weller made trouble when she saw that she had 
 only two pages to say. But when she found Gid 
 Van Styne's part was about the same and they 
 would have lots of idle time together she hadn't 
 another word of objection. But it was such fun. 
 The Spriggs chap was so worried about it all. 
 
 Of course, it was Dolly who saved the whole 
 matter, for she straightened out everything. 
 Once I had told Spriggs that I didn't under- 
 stand it was something about "idle rich" and 
 "their duties." 
 
 "Of course you don't," he said, turning on me 
 fiercely. 
 
 "Why 'of course'?" I asked. I wasn't going 
 to let any person in a green cutaway talk to me 
 that way. 
 
 "Because you are the idle rich yourselves," he 
 answered. 
 
 Actually! now what do you think of that ! If 
 he could see us and the things we have to do 
 the Kennel Club, the Horse Show, dinners and 
 dances and oh, dear me! the no end of things 
 that simply wear us out. 
 
 But before I could give him a piece of my mind 
 [123] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 it came out all right, because Billy Fillston pre- 
 tended it was a song, and sang it while he danced 
 a cake-walk with Mrs. Appleton's monkey : 
 
 "We are the idle rich, 
 We are the idle rich, 
 Old Monkey-doo and I ! " 
 
 And Dolly smoothed it over. 
 
 When he went that night we got the old play 
 away from him and had the parts copied and they 
 were ready the next time he came. That was for 
 the first rehearsal, and, do you know, there was 
 such a change in him his shoes were polished, 
 he had a clean collar, his long hair was brushed 
 almost smooth except where part of his hair 
 stuck up behind. (Billy Fillston pretended he 
 was a quail, when he wasn't looking.) 
 
 I soon found out why he was different. Don't 
 you see ? Dolly had had him up one evening and 
 "Dolly-ized" him. I don't know what that is, but 
 George says it's calculated to make any man 
 jump through hoops the rest of his life whenever 
 she cracks the whip; and he ought to know. 
 He's been doing it the last two years. 
 
 Anyway there was a different look in Spriggs' 
 eyes whenever he looked at Dolly that night. I 
 guess he had never met one of those bubbly-fluffy 
 girls like Dolly in all his life, and I suppose, too, 
 that she didn't tell him why she wanted to play 
 opposite to George. 
 
 [124] 
 
ALL IN THE PLAY 
 
 Well, the rehearsals went fine, except that 
 Spriggs nearly fainted when we just mentioned 
 that perhaps we could put a topical song in the 
 "big strike scene," as he called it. Spriggs was 
 all red in an instant. 
 
 "If that's the way you take it," he said, "we'd 
 better stop right now." 
 
 "What? " said Dolly; "with all my tickets sold 
 and Mrs. Maguire and everything ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Spriggs, getting quite white around 
 the mouth. 
 
 "I'm sorry," said Dolly, "because because I 
 I asked mamma yesterday to have Mr. Con- 
 stein come to see the play, and he is the big opera- 
 house manager, you know." 
 
 Spriggs got red again. He walked over close 
 to her and looked at her in amazement. 
 
 "You did that," he almost gasped, "for me? " 
 
 "Why, yes," said Dolly ; "mamma's one of the 
 biggest subscribers, you know, and perhaps we 
 can get our scenery from him, too." 
 
 "Scenery from the opera house ! " gasped 
 Spriggs. 
 
 "Yes, if they can cut it down to fit the drawing- 
 room," said Dolly. 
 
 Sprigg's face fell. "Oh, impossible," he said. 
 And it didn't cheer him up any when Billy Fillis- 
 ton suggested that perhaps Rose Douglas, the 
 miniature painter, could get something up. He 
 didn't like Billy, anyway. 
 [125] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 At any rate, the effect seemed good, because 
 he didn't get mad any more if we were missing 
 just when we ought to have come in on the stage. 
 No, not even when he found Gid and Gladys 
 snuggled up in a seat under the steps in the hall. 
 (Once before he had fussed so that Mrs. Corn- 
 stock, the chaperon, just had to take notice, 
 though goodness knows where she was most of 
 the time.) Yes, after that stroke of Dolly's about 
 the opera-house manager things moved right 
 along, though it did disappoint him dreadfully 
 that we preferred bridge to rehearsing two dif- 
 ferent nights. Wasn't he funny? 
 
 And once I caught Dolly reading a piece of 
 paper that had some poetry on it. I know he 
 wrote it, but, of course, she said it was the pre- 
 scription for a new skin food. 
 
 "Look here, Dolls, old girl," I said, "this long- 
 haired specimen won't match with the others in 
 your collection. Look out ! " 
 
 "The idea ! " said Dolly. "I have to be nice to 
 him because of poor Mrs. Maguire. If you want 
 things to fall through now just say so, Jenny 
 Milbank. Let her starve I'm willing. Poor 
 thing ! " And she began trembling her lips. 
 
 Well, who could answer anything like that 
 especially Dolly like that. I simply hummed 
 "What's the Matter With the Moon Tonight?" 
 and dropped it. 
 
 That was not all our troubles. Gid Van Styne 
 [126] 
 
ALL IN THE PLAY 
 
 kept forgetting his part and would make up long 
 speeches that he thought ought to fit, and that 
 just paralyzed Spriggs. 
 
 "No, no," he said, "don't you see? You say 
 it like this" and, oh, he looked terrible "/ am 
 fighting for my home, my little ones and the 
 bread for their mouths" and Gid had only said 
 biscuits. 
 
 Billy Fillston suggested why not champagne, 
 too, but Spriggs ignored him, so Billy wandered 
 out to drown his disappointment, he said. 
 
 Gid asked how he could remember every little 
 word, and Spriggs said he hoped Gid would 
 learn the meaning of that speech some day by 
 what was it? Oh, yes "By the sweat of his 
 brow and the toil of his hands." (Gid Van Styne 
 has such nice white hands.) 
 
 "Right, O," said Gid. "I'll join the Golf Club 
 next week." But that didn't seem to please 
 Spriggs any better, and he acted most ungentle- 
 manly, telling Gid to say it like he meant it, any- 
 way, not as though he was asking the price of a 
 monocle. 
 
 But when it got to George and Dolly's scene 
 it was a picture to see Spriggs watch her. He 
 just forgot to follow them by reading from the 
 play and moved his lips silently, mocking every 
 word they said and making such queer faces. 
 When George kissed her at the end, that seemed 
 [127] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 to disturb him some. He said it wasn't really 
 necessary to do it before the last performance. 
 
 Well, that seemed to please who? Dolly? 
 No. Abigail Havens, you know, from Pittsfield. 
 She's a stiff little thing. Puritan blood, and all 
 that. She had threatened all along to quit if 
 Billy Fillston really did, you know. So she was 
 glad she didn't have to. But Dolly got dread- 
 fully serious and said he certainly was right, but 
 this was the best part of his play and she didn't 
 want to spoil it, so she thought George might kiss 
 her if it helped. And that satisfied Spriggs. 
 
 It was plain to see that he had not seen her and 
 George when they were not acting and in the 
 library but that was none of my business. 
 
 I was all the time trying to remember my part. 
 It was the funniest thing : before I got up I knew 
 every word, but just the minute I opened my 
 mouth everything seemed to leave me. And 
 when Billy Fillston commenced looking into the 
 piano and everywhere for my brains that didn't 
 help any. But Spriggs was just as nice as he 
 could be. He said at the crucial moment I would 
 remember and strangely enough, I did. But 
 that is getting ahead, isn't it? 
 
 It was just one week before New Year's the 
 day after Christmas. That's so only five days. 
 Well, we had gotten everything up fine. None of 
 us knew our parts, but the dressmakers had 
 turned out perfect dreams, and the scene-man 
 [128] 
 
ALL IN THE PLAY 
 
 and the carpenters had built the nicest little stage 
 in the drawing-room. It was simply dear, and 
 Dolly had artificial flowers put all over the front 
 to make it harmonize, she said. They cost an 
 awful lot, and so did the furniture. Spriggs 
 wanted us to use just plain boards in that sec- 
 ond act, but Dolly simply gave him one look, 
 and he thought that, after all, we could use Mis- 
 sion furniture. Because a poor workman might 
 have some, you know. 
 
 By this time I began to wonder whether it was 
 the play or the coming to rehearsals Spriggs 
 cared most for. Come to think of it, that play 
 was the same idea, rather a poor inventor falling 
 in love with Tubble's I mean the plutocrat's 
 daughter. (Though, of course, Dolly's father, 
 with his few millions, couldn't be called that.) 
 
 Well, the time drifted along, and at the re- 
 hearsal that occurred the night before the per- 
 formance, George hurried away early. I didn't 
 know why then, but it turned out it was a bach- 
 elor dinner that he gave that night because his 
 engagement to Dolly was going to be announced 
 at the supper the following night. 
 
 Oh, I forgot to tell you about that. Dolly 
 thought it would be unique. Yes, he left and we 
 all stayed until nearly one o'clock working. 
 Harry and I didn't hurry, and I do believe Dolly 
 thought we had gone, because I heard her saying 
 [129] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 good-night to Mr. Spriggs. He was holding her 
 hand. 
 
 You don't know how I thank you," he said, 
 "for promising to have that manager come, and 
 for for being so good to me," and he looked 
 tremendously hard at her. 
 
 "Oh, nonsense, you have been good to me, and 
 I appreciate your letting us have the play." 
 
 "Do you ? " he said. But we came around the 
 corner just then and he went out. 
 
 "Dolly ! " said I, shaking my finger. 
 
 She put up her nose defiantly. 
 
 "Well, he has done lots," she said. "Think of 
 what a triumph if it all goes well. Patricia 
 Boardman's charades will look like one of her 
 last year's frocks." 
 
 Wasn't that Dolly, thinking about outdoing 
 somebody else! 
 
 Well, the next night the drawing-room was 
 jammed. Most of those who had bought tickets 
 came. Of course not all The ones. There are 
 a lot who always rush to pay to see the inside 
 of the Appletons' house. You see, afterward 
 they can commence a conversation with their 
 friends this way: "When I dropped in on dear 
 Mrs. Appleton, the other day . . ." And if 
 that doesn't impress them they add, "Mrs. Oliver 
 Appleton, you know. 
 
 They were all there. But Dolly said she didn't 
 have to ask them to supper or recognize them 
 [130] 
 
ALL IN THE PLAY 
 
 afterward or call on them ; and she could always 
 be out. Besides, they were handy to sell things 
 to, and you couldn't possibly offend them they 
 were always ready to pay next time. 
 
 Yes, the drawing-room was full, and then the 
 funniest thing happened. 
 
 George didn't come ! 
 
 "Where is he?" we all asked. And Spriggs 
 went running around with his face as white as 
 my feather boa. 
 
 Billy Fillston said that the last he had seen of 
 him, George was trying to make a cabman drive 
 his horse up the side of the Flat Iron Building. 
 George insisted that the horse was "The Human 
 Fly." Though a horse isn't human, is he. 
 
 "That bachelor dinner ! " said Dolly. "I knew 
 it ! Of all nights, to choose the one before the 
 play!" 
 
 "But I," said Billy, "did I lose my chance to 
 imprint upon the chaste lips of Miss Abigail, the 
 Puritan, one rapturous kiss ? Nay, nay, far be it 
 from me, Pauline ! " 
 
 Of course, he was only joking, because Billy 
 could drink a cellar dry and then walk a tele- 
 graph wire. They call him "The Bonded Ware- 
 house," whatever that means. It was only that 
 he had gotten over it, but George well, he 
 simply didn't come, that's all, and there we were, 
 and the orchestra playing! 
 
 Oh, I forgot to tell you that Dolly got the 
 [131] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 orchestra. It cost, but Dolly was going to have 
 the best. It was the best, and playing its best, 
 and the little professional man we got from the 
 Comedy Theatre was swearing dreadfully, and 
 what do you think! 
 
 Spriggs stepped up. "I'll play it," he said. 
 
 "You know it? " asked Dolly, anxiously. 
 
 Spriggs answered in the strangest way : "Too 
 well ! " 
 
 Now what do you suppose he meant? "Too 
 well ! " And the queerest look came into his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Just the thing," said Dolly. 
 
 You see, she was remembering Patricia Board- 
 man's charades. 
 
 And then she stopped and looked at Spriggs, 
 and I suppose it must have crossed her mind how 
 badly he would appear as the handsome young 
 hero. But her face lighted up again. 
 
 "You could wear George's costumes," she said. 
 "They are all here." 
 
 Spriggs looked down over his own clothes, and 
 his face got very red. But before they could say 
 another word Dolly hurried him up to the room 
 where the men were to dress and pushed him 
 inside. 
 
 Then there was a tremendous bustling. 
 
 Abigail just wouldn't have paint on her cheeks, 
 and the Comedy Theatre man said it was neces- 
 sary. Then, when they were arguing about it, 
 [132] 
 
ALL IN THE PLAY 
 
 he called her "My dear," which made her de- 
 clare she wasn't going to play at all. It took 
 about ten minutes to straighten that out. The 
 theatre man called in Billy Fillston to prove that 
 "My dear" was a regular professional term, 
 meaning "Young lady." But Abigail wouldn't 
 take his word for it, because Billy only knew 
 show-girls, and, of course, they . . . ! 
 
 But the audience was applauding and applaud- 
 ing, and it was dreadful, and the Comedy Theatre 
 man was frantic, but Dolly settled it by putting 
 on the demurest expression and telling Abigail 
 she quite agreed with her. And, when she had 
 finished with the theatre man, he was calling her 
 "My dear," and had agreed to apologize to Abi- 
 gail and let her not wear paint if she didn't 
 want to. 
 
 Then Harry Worthing had a fit because he 
 thought he was poisoned or burnt or something. 
 It was the stuff they used to stick his whiskers on 
 with, and it smelled terribly. How did I know? 
 I think you're real mean. 
 
 Well, at last we were ready, all except Spriggs, 
 and then he came out. Really, you wouldn't 
 have known the man ! He had his hair cut, any- 
 way that day, and with all of George's things on, 
 and without his spectacles, I had to be told who 
 he was. 
 
 And Dolly Dolly simply clasped her hands 
 and said, "Oh, Mr. Spriggs, how nice you look ! " 
 [133] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 Do you know, really, if his face had shown the 
 effects of breeding, he would have been hand- 
 somer than George. Effects of breeding ? Why, 
 you know round, full and flushed face, and an 
 air as though one doesn't care a pin what any- 
 body thinks about anything. 
 
 No, Spriggs was too much eyes, his face was 
 too thin, and his chin was too square and 
 prominent. 
 
 And what do you suppose he answered Dolly? 
 He said: "I am glad you like the clothes." 
 
 There was some hidden meanfng in that, I'm 
 sure, but I didn't stop to think it out, because 
 just then the orchestra started again, and the 
 theatre man ordered us off the stage and the cur- 
 tain went up. 
 
 Well, that first act went splendidly. Every- 
 body knew their parts, said them just right, and 
 there was only one little wait of about five min- 
 utes while we found Gid Van Styne in the bil- 
 liard-room and told him it was time for him to 
 go on. But the audience didn't seem to mind a 
 bit, because they had a lot of fun laughing at 
 Abigail, who had reached the end of what she 
 had to say and couldn't make up anything more. 
 And, oh, yes, I forgot Ezra Tubble dropped his 
 wig on the floor when he tipped his head. But 
 that didn't matter, because they all knew that it 
 was not his own hair, anyway. And when the 
 climax came, and Spriggs said his words about 
 [134] 
 
ALL IN THE PLAY 
 
 "This night the men will strike, and we will fight 
 you to the last ditch," they applauded more than 
 ever. 
 
 And between acts Mr. Bridger, "Amalgamated 
 Bridger" they call him (he is Gladys' uncle), said 
 that it was so realistic that he had to go out in 
 the hall to wait for the walking-delegate to come 
 for his check. 
 
 Anyway, things were going splendidly, and 
 that Spriggs person's face was the funniest study. 
 He looked as though he wanted to laugh or cry 
 and didn't know which, and when Dolly told him 
 that she saw Manager Constein applauding, too, 
 he almost fainted. 
 
 They had stepped just a minute into the hall. 
 And I heard him say something about never for- 
 getting this she had done for him. She said that 
 was all right. Oh, Dolly is generous. She shook 
 his hand, too. 
 
 Then the second act came. Billy Fillston stum- 
 bled as he came in once and ran his hand through 
 the wall of the room the scenery wall, of course. 
 That was rather bad, but it put them in a good 
 humor just the same, and they laughed at every 
 little thing after that. 
 
 This seemed to worry Spriggs, rather. He 
 clenched his fists and muttered something about 
 they shouldn't have laughed there. 
 
 But I didn't see why he should object. They 
 were all having a lovely time, and, after all, that 
 [135] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 was what they paid for. But Spriggs seemed 
 mighty serious about it, and so savage when he 
 told the rich man at the end of the act that he 
 would take his daughter away from him, "by 
 showing her the emptiness of the giddy life she 
 was leading, the uselessness, and by teaching her 
 to sympathize with the poverty of those who had 
 not been born so fortunately." 
 
 He said that so earnestly that they didn't laugh, 
 and that seemed to please him; but they didn't 
 applaud, and that didn't please him much, either. 
 
 And then came the third act the last. I'll 
 never forget it. 
 
 It was Billy Fillston who made it such a suc- 
 cess. You see, he had decided long before that 
 the play was too slow in this act, and so he fixed 
 it up with Gid to liven things up. So when it 
 came time for Gid's speech about "bread for my 
 children's mouths," he said "afternoon tea-bis- 
 cuits," and the audience laughed themselves sick. 
 
 Then he filled in a lot about having no cham- 
 pagne, and not even an automobile, and then, 
 when all of us were on the stage, and Spriggs 
 was talking something about what "his fellow- 
 workers deserved" and Tubble answered him by 
 asking him "What do you want? " Billy Fillston, 
 instead of saying his speech, which was: "We 
 want justice for ourselves and our little ones" 
 instead of that, Billy turned to the orchestra 
 leader and said, "I want the key of G," and do 
 [136] 
 
ALL IN THE PLAY 
 
 you know ? the orchestra started right up ( Billy 
 had given the leader an extra twenty before- 
 hand), and he sang three verses and seven en- 
 cores of Give My Regards to the Great White 
 Way. 
 
 Well, that was the hit. 
 
 In the middle of it stood Spriggs, slowly but- 
 toning and unbuttoning his coat. I do believe he 
 had tears in his eyes, but maybe it was the paint. 
 I suppose that was it, because, when we left him 
 and Dolly on the stage together, all alone, he 
 seemed to forget everything but the piece he had 
 to say. 
 
 Let me see if I can remember it. It was some- 
 thing about "I come here to tell you of another 
 world. Not this one of luxury, folly and untruth, 
 fashion, foibles and sin. I want to tell you not of 
 need, of misery, but of people who pay you back 
 with truth, gratitude and sincerity if you go to 
 them in the right spirit." 
 
 "Why do you say this to me?" said Dolly. 
 (That was her part.) 
 
 "Because you are sincere of heart," he said; "I 
 know you are. Though your father is rich and 
 you belong to another world, I dare say this to 
 you because I love you. You understand? I 
 love you!" 
 
 And Dolly turned, just as she ought to "You 
 love me?" 
 
 He came closer to her, as George had always 
 [137] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 rehearsed it. "Yes, I love you," he said. "Come 
 with me. Leave this fetid atmosphere and come 
 with me into the clear sunlight of tomorrow. 
 Will you? Will your 
 
 And Dolly turned to him and said: "Yes t I 
 hate it all, I hate them all, and I'll go wtih you 
 because because I love you, too." And she 
 reached out her arms to him. 
 
 Well, you should have seen the expression that 
 came over that man's face ! He actually seemed 
 to forget it was only all in the play, or, at least, 
 he was acting very well. 
 
 Then he seemed to get rather dazed, and when 
 she kissed him, that simply seemed to overcome 
 him. He stood looking and looking after her 
 and forgot every word he ought to say ! 
 
 The prompter was calling to him out of the 
 side-place, but all he said was, "I can't go on. 
 
 I can't " and stammered so that we had to 
 
 pull down the curtain on a cake-walk gotten up 
 on the spur of the moment by Billy and Gid and 
 the rest. But it ended everything splendidly. 
 
 Then the people came up and congratulated us, 
 and Spriggs, too. One of the last was the opera- 
 house manager. Dolly brought him up to 
 Spriggs herself. 
 
 "How did you like it ? " she asked, smiling at 
 him. 
 
 The manager gave one look at Spriggs, then 
 he said: "Very good, very good. But, Mr. 
 [138] 
 
ALL IN THE PLAY 
 
 Spriggs, you will have to play it for a comedy." 
 And then he went out with the others. 
 
 Dolly stood looking at Spriggs, and what do 
 you suppose? Just then in came George. Of 
 course, he ran up to her and kissed her. 
 
 "Well, Dolls, old girl," he said, "how did it 
 go ? Have you announced it yet ? " 
 
 "Went fine," answered Dolly, "thanks to Mr. 
 Spriggs. We owe him a great deal, George." 
 
 But Spriggs didn't say anything except, "An- 
 nounce? Announce what?" And he seemed 
 absolutely stupefied. 
 
 "Why, our engagement," said George. 
 
 Then he went on to tell Dolly why he had 
 missed the performance. It seems that his doctor 
 advised Turkish baths after his bachelor dinner, 
 and he had just got out. 
 
 Then the Comedy Theatre man stepped up and 
 handed Spriggs back his torn and battered play. 
 
 "There you are, Spriggsey, old chap," he said. 
 "Constein says it is great. But play it as a com- 
 edy, old chap, play it as a comedy." 
 
 Spriggs walked rather unsteadily to the door, 
 I thought, and opened it. It was snowing, and 
 he stood there with it floating around that green 
 cutaway. He didn't have any overcoat. I guess 
 he forgot it or something. Just then Dolly missed 
 him and turned. 
 
 "Why," she called, dimpling, "aren't you com- 
 ing in to supper ?" 
 
 [139] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 He looked back at her. "No," he answered, 
 "I am going to play it for a comedy." And he 
 went out. 
 
 Yes, that was all. 
 
 Mrs. Maguire? 
 
 Do you know, Dolly had been so busy with 
 the play that she hadn't called around for two or 
 three weeks! During that time Mrs. Maguire 
 had died a cold or something; I forget now. 
 And, after all, there weren't any profits for her, 
 because everything had cost so much that we'd 
 gone behind, and Dolly's father had to give a 
 check to pay some of the debts. But Dolly is 
 going to get up some gymkhana races this spring 
 to help out her children. 
 
 140] 
 
Steve 
 
 'TWEVE, I've bwoke my fwishin' 
 wod ; wun't chou pwease f wix it ? " 
 A small, tearful figure, in faded 
 
 overalls and bare feet, held up the 
 
 two broken pieces of a short cane pole. The little 
 mouth was still quivering, but the brown eyes 
 looked trustingly up at Steve. The bigger of 
 the two net-menders laid his wooden needle, with 
 its hump of soft cotton twine, upon the rack of 
 stretched nets. 
 "Yes, I reckon I kin fix it." 
 The voice was strangely soft and low for the 
 rough bigness of the man. 
 
 Steve put out a tanned water-washed hand, 
 and took the broken pole, while the youngster 
 hopped joyously up and down upon the net raft. 
 "I'm thwo gwad it's goin' tuh get fwixed," he 
 said, as Steve seated himself on the prow of the 
 flat-bottomed boat and drew out a big pocket- 
 knife. 
 
 [141] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 Three splints, a little twine, and the rod came 
 from under his deft fingers whole once more. 
 
 "How'd yuh break it, Bob?" he asked, as he 
 turned back to his mending. 
 
 "I didn't bwake it," the child answered. "Th' 
 fwish bwoke it, an' O Stweve! it was a gweat 
 bwig, bwig fwish." 
 
 Bubbling over with glee at his newly restored 
 pole, Little Overalls scrambled off the net-raft 
 and disappeared up the deep-cut path through 
 the alders. 
 
 "Bob Gillam's gettin' to be a right nice little 
 kid, Hugh," the big fisherman remarked, as the 
 fingers of his brown hands drove the needle 
 swiftly in and out through the stiffened meshes 
 of the net. 
 
 "Yes, tolerble nice," his brother replied, ab- 
 sently ; "not much like th' old man, though. Say, 
 Steve, if Gillam should win that lawsuit, what 
 'ud we do then ? " At the mention of Gillam's 
 name Steve's face hardened and the mild brown 
 eyes glinted steelily for a moment, while his jaw 
 set in grim, cold lines. Then the kindness came 
 back into his eyes, and he answered. 
 
 "No, Hugh, th' court kaint decide that-a-way ; 
 not when they've got our deed tuh th' fishin' 
 grounds." 
 
 Neither spoke for several minutes, and in the 
 silence, above the sish, sish of the flying needles, 
 the voice of the river rose up. At first there was 
 [142] 
 
STEVE 
 
 but the sibilant gurgle, and liquid mouthings of 
 the current on the riffles, then, with a shift of 
 the breeze, there drifted up from the dusky purple 
 gorge down stream, the throaty roar of the 
 rapids, low-keyed and hoarse. It was as if in 
 the fading light some giant muttered to himself 
 and at each surly growl of the monster the little 
 foam-tipped wavelets on the riffles by the raft 
 seemed to stop, to shiver, and then to fall whitely 
 back upon their fellows. The sharp clatter of 
 sliding stones on the bank broke the stillness. 
 
 "Yer name Pearson ? " The voice was sharp 
 with command. 
 
 "Yes, my name's Pearson," Steve answered 
 slowly. 
 
 "I'm th' deputy sheriff, 'n' I come tuh say thet 
 th' court's got out 'n injunction agin you tuh 
 keep off'n Gillam's fishin' grounds." 
 
 "But it's ourn. We have th' deed to it, an' 
 an' we've sent it up tuh th' court." 
 
 "Dunno 'bout thet; but it's Gillam's now. 
 Guess maybe th' deed got lost if yuh ever had 
 one. You'll have tuh keep off'n his jetties now, 
 anyway." And the sheriff turned sharply, and 
 climbed back up the worn path through the 
 alders. Behind him on the raft Steve looked 
 dumbly down at his nets, while his sinewy fingers 
 tightened until the wooden needle snapped and 
 crumpled in his hand. 
 
 [143] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 The big form swayed unsteadily a moment, and 
 his voice caught as he spoke : 
 
 "It's all we've got Hugh an' th' mother's 
 too old tuh take keer of herself now." 
 
 Silently the two left the raft, and swung 
 slowly up the path to the little old white house, 
 set far back in the apple orchard. As he passed, 
 the alder branches whipped him sharply across 
 the face, leaving little trickles of blood behind 
 them ; but Steve went on unheeding, past the row 
 of trimly, white-washed bee-hives, and in through 
 the wire-latched gate. 
 
 At the door a white-haired woman met them, 
 her face shining with the sweetness of a great 
 love. As the two entered the firelight the mother 
 put both her hands on her son's shoulders. 
 
 "What is it, Steve? " she said. The big fellow 
 looked away for a moment, his soft eyes drawn 
 with pain, then turning back he answered : 
 
 "They've taken away our jetties; we can't 
 fish now." 
 
 For a minute there was silence, broken only 
 by the crackle of the fir-logs, and the steady tick 
 of the clock. Then Steve freed himself and 
 stepped quickly to the corner. Very gently he 
 picked up the oily Winchester. Very gently he 
 slid down the shiny lever and watched the big 
 bottle-necked brass shell glide smoothly into the 
 chamber, but in the face above the gliding shell 
 there was now no gentleness. 
 [144] 
 
STEVE 
 
 In the strained quiet, the mother spoke sharply : 
 
 "No, Steve ! No ! It can't be that." 
 
 Steve went on unheeding. 
 
 "Tonight we'll drift th' nets below th' dam, and 
 down through Gillams's jetties, and if he conies" 
 the voice was low and strangely sweet, but 
 glinting through the sweetness, was the gleam 
 of steel and still in the firelight shimmered the 
 gliding shell. 
 
 In the unreal whiteness of the moonlight, the 
 big river slipped smoothly away from the dam 
 and glided down through the fishing jetties, with 
 only the crooning swish, swish of the foam- 
 capped wavelets, and now and then the cavernous 
 liquid gurgle of the current, to hint of the great 
 lithe power of it. 
 
 Close up to where the white water boomed 
 over the dam hung a flat-bottomed boat. Steve 
 at the oars held her alertly, right across the froth 
 of the up-swirl from the dam. Gently he dipped 
 his blades, and with the skill of the master, kept 
 her always just where the in-suction balanced the 
 down-stream tug of the river. As he rowed he 
 could see the ghostly black timbers through the 
 smooth lip of the dam, and every now and then 
 the spray swept over him. 
 
 "All right, Steve, let 'er go ! " At the low com- 
 mand Steve whirled his boat broadside, and shot 
 [145] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 her swiftly out across the face of the dam, while 
 Hugh in the stern payed out the net. 
 
 It was done in a second, and then as they 
 drifted swiftly down upon the fishing piers, Steve 
 hung motionless on his oars, his eyes roaming 
 watchfully over the surface of the river, and his 
 right hand fingering the cold barrel of the Win- 
 chester at his knee, while all about, only the voice 
 of the river swelled up into the night. 
 
 They had scarcely reached the first pier when 
 a red flash leaped out from one of the black 
 bulks down-stream, and a rifle-crack cut the 
 stillness. 
 
 Swiftly Steve threw a return shot toward 
 where the rifle-flash had been, and they could 
 hear the "putt" of the bullet, as it thudded into 
 the oaken pier. 
 
 "Cut the net loose, Hugh ; he's behind the long 
 jetty." The slow, almost drawling tone, con- 
 trasted weirdly with the whip-lash swiftness of 
 the man. 
 
 A second shot rang out down stream, and 
 this time Steve's answer came so that the two 
 reports slurred into one. 
 
 A spasmodic jump of the dim figure by the 
 pier told Steve that the shot had landed. 
 
 "Got 'im, Hugh," he said softly, his eyes on the 
 black outline of the long jetty. There was no 
 answer. 
 
 "Hugh, I hit 'im." Still no answer. Sur- 
 [146] 
 
STEVE 
 
 prised, Steve glanced down quickly, then at sight 
 of his brother crumpled down on the stern seat, 
 he caught his breath sharply, his face suddenly 
 twisted with deep lines of pain. 
 
 As he started forward Hugh moved and spoke : 
 
 "It's only the shoulder. Take me ashore." 
 Steve straightened, his big form quivering. A 
 half-dozen powerful strokes sent the boat's nose 
 out upon the net-raft. Tenderly Steve lifted his 
 brother to the planks, then with a jerk stood up- 
 right, a question in his eyes. 
 
 "Yes, I'm all right now," Hugh answered. 
 Without a word, Steve sprang back to his oars. 
 The boat leaped out over the water, the heavy 
 blades bending at each heave of the great, tense 
 body, and as he rowed his mouth straightened to 
 a tense line. At the jetties, as he swung the bow 
 up-stream, his eyes lighted upon the outline of a 
 drifting boat, and in the boat, the figure of a 
 man. The rifle jumped to his shoulder, he drew 
 the sights down carefully until he knew the man 
 was his, he picked the spot, he could even fancy 
 the bullet ripping through the left-hand pocket 
 of the greasy jumper that he knew Gillam always 
 wore. The man moved, and then Steve saw that 
 his right arm hung helpless at his side. Slowly 
 the gun dropped and the big fisherman sat 
 motionless. 
 
 "I kaint shoot e'en a dog that-a-way," he mut- 
 tered. And again in the stillness, while the boats 
 [147] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 drifted, the voice of the river rose into the night. 
 Then, as they rounded the b'end, the hoarse roar 
 of the rapids swelled up and drowned all other 
 sounds. 
 
 Steve shifted uneasily. 
 
 "Th' river'll get 'im anyway. But but it ain't 
 th' same that-a-way." His glance rested for a 
 moment on the boat ahead, and, sticking over 
 the stern, he noticed little Bob Gillam's mended 
 fishing pole. 
 
 "Pore little kid," he muttered. 
 
 Back to him came the words of old man Davis : 
 "They ain't but one man kin run thet gorge, V 
 thet man's Steve Pearson." He hesitated. 
 
 " 'N' Gillam, he kaint even swim an' at 
 night ! " As he looked again, the drifting boat 
 was just tipping over the first riffle, and Bob's 
 pole, tilting up into the air, seemed to beckon 
 to him. 
 
 With a snap the big form straightened. In a 
 moment the boat had turned. Down stream it 
 raced. In the little stillwater at the mouth of 
 the gorge, Steve caught the drifting boat. 
 
 "Get in," he commanded. For a moment Gil- 
 lam stared blankly back at him, then silently 
 obeyed. Steve swung the bow up-stream and 
 braced himself for the shock, his hands tighten- 
 ing vice-like, upon the oars. There was a sick- 
 ening downward rush. The big stationary waves 
 rolled up beside him, level with his eyes, and as 
 [148] 
 
STEVE 
 
 he watched, he wondered that they looked so 
 soft, and the foam was like lace along their 
 crests. But their surging strength, as they 
 wrenched on the oars, was the hard, cruel power 
 of demons, and their hiss and slither were the 
 voice of fiends. The spray swept over him in 
 dripping sheets, and once a big comber crashed 
 into the boat. Then suddenly the clamor ceased 
 and they were through. 
 
 Steve looked down at the huddled form before 
 him. As he looked the man sat up : 
 
 "God, 'n' 'twere me thet stole yur deed tuh th' 
 jetties ! " 
 
 [149] 
 
Buck du Spain 
 
 XWAS only eight, that first summer 
 father let the hauling to the Du 
 Spains, but I remember very well the 
 dusty day they drove around the turn 
 into sight, and covered the big flat between the 
 men's cabins and the barns with their long bark 
 wagons, and half-a-hundred horses. 
 
 Buck Du Spain didn't come with the rest of 
 the outfit, but rode in, on his little black horse, 
 in the yellow evening. He was very beautiful, 
 I thought, when he dropped off his horse and 
 came over to speak to Father, tall, and lazily 
 slow, with a full throat, and a pleasant drawling 
 voice, and delight of my childish heart a 
 straight nose. He put me up on his horse when 
 he led him round to the stable, and then told me 
 to see how fast I could run home. 
 
 They the Du Spains took the big white 
 house, just across the road from ours, that had 
 been empty for so long. Buck couldn't have been 
 [150] 
 
BUCK DU SPAIN 
 
 more than eighteen, for he wasn't driving him- 
 self, but just helped his father manage the big 
 outfit, and took a team out for a day or so, if 
 a driver were laid off. He and my gay young 
 uncle grew fast friends, and I, lonely for play- 
 mates, tagged them mercilessly. But, when I 
 had stayed at his mother's for supper, he would 
 perch me on the arm of his chair, and show me 
 pictures from a book so big that it didn't lie on 
 the table but stood on the floor beside it, and 
 then, when I grew sleepy, would carry me across 
 the road, home. 
 
 At the end of the season they went away 
 again, and I watched the caravan of teams pull 
 out of sight, with ringing of leaders' bells, and 
 the odd rumbling of unloaded big wagons; and 
 felt forlorn. 
 
 It was four years later that they came again. 
 Old Du Spain was dead, and Buck had the out- 
 fit, which was smaller now. My admiration was 
 as keen as ever, if more quiet. I was quite con- 
 tent to curl up in the cane rocker in his mother's 
 sitting-room, while he, sprawled across the 
 lounge, read the most varied assortment of 
 novels. It was a hot Sunday, and I very crisp 
 in a new dress, that he gave me the fat, brown, 
 "Les Miserables," thumb-marked, and redolent 
 of the tobacco of many bark camps, that to this 
 day jostles the daintier volumes on my shelves. 
 
 The rains came early that year. So they 
 [151] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 shedded the bark that was left in the woods, and 
 took the horses forty miles to pasture. I remem- 
 ber the long string going down the hill, one tied 
 to the other's tail. The teamsters left, but Buck 
 and his mother decided to stay, they might as 
 well wait for next season there as anywhere, 
 they said. So we settled down for the winter, 
 which was only quieter than the summer. 
 
 When it was clear, and it seemed not to be 
 clear much I sat on the high porch, and watched 
 my uncle and Buck break the two new colts, wild 
 from the range. For rainy days I had two play- 
 ing-places ; the long, low room over the kitchen, 
 sacred to trunks, old magazines, and my dolls; 
 and, better far, the store, where my uncle kept 
 the high, round stove roaring. He and Buck sat 
 beside it, making for the six-horse lashes the 
 poppers I could never "pop" ; and braiding elabo- 
 rate covers for whip-stocks, with silver ferrules 
 slipped on at intervals. If I were good, and 
 handed him the shining ferrules in proper order, 
 Buck would show me his collection of cigarette 
 cards, or would play casino with me. "You're 
 a nicer partner than Toney, Kitten," he laughed, 
 one day, when he'd taken cards and spades, big 
 and little casino and all the aces. 
 
 "Who is Toney ? " I promptly asked. 
 
 "Oh, a man at the Forks," he said. 
 
 "I don't see why you play with him, Buck, you 
 know he's crooked," put in my uncle. 
 [152] 
 
BUCK DU SPAIN 
 
 "For money, of course," said Buck, dealing out 
 the cards with that careless ease that was my 
 envy and despair. "Are you going to win this 
 game, young lady? " 
 
 Near the end of winter there came a sunny 
 Sunday, and with it the circuit preacher. So 
 we all drove over to the schoolhouse, where the 
 blacking fairly bubbled on the hot stove, and 
 smelled most awfully. First there were hymns, 
 which I liked, and, too, liked hearing Buck's 
 clear tenor above the rest. Then came the ser- 
 mon. Now our minister was a good man, and 
 kindly, too, with a joke every now and then, on 
 week days. But to him no sermon was a ser- 
 mon which didn't force his hearers to reflect upon 
 their latter end. I don't know if the force were 
 stronger that day, at any rate, I felt it more, and 
 came out of church in a most exalted state. Not 
 even riding home with Buck, in the big breaking 
 cart, behind the colts, checked the current of 
 my thoughts. 
 
 Yes, I'd join the church, for clearly some- 
 thing must be done, even little girls of twelve 
 died sometimes. I'd be a Christian. "Pretty 
 fine colts, don't you think, Kitten?" said Buck, 
 as we took the turn to the bridge on one wheel. 
 I nodded impatiently. Where was I ? Oh, yes 
 yes, I'd be a Christian, and I'd be good, I'd 
 never tell another story, never even act one 
 (which mother said was just as bad), such as not 
 [153] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 knowing where that new cake of chocolate had 
 disappeared to. 
 
 "You'd better hold onto my arm, Kitten ; we're 
 coming to a rough place, and this cart hasn't any 
 back." I took hold obediently. What else did 
 Christians do? From the sermon two words 
 rang back at me, "Save souls." I was a little 
 dismayed. Whose soul could I save? Mother's 
 and Grandmother's were saved already, of course. 
 There were Father and Uncle Jack but some- 
 how, it wouldn't be very easy with them. But 
 there was Buck of course, Buck I'd save him, 
 he wouldn't be so apt to laugh at me as the 
 others. Then, too, while he was good, still I 
 felt, vaguely, that he might stand a bit of look- 
 ing after. So when he stopped at the high block 
 to let me out, I said, "Thank you, Buck, I've had 
 a lovely ride," with a smile that was positively 
 saccharine. 
 
 The method of attack bothered me for several 
 days, till I came across a tiny pamphlet, left by 
 the minister the last time he'd taken dinner with 
 us, on the "Saving Power of Song." I knew 
 any number of Gospel hymns, and could carry a 
 tune, so I went about singing lustily. I'd even 
 slip out on the dark porch and sing something 
 that struck me as being especially affecting, like 
 "Rescue the Perishing" just as Buck crossed the 
 road from the store to his late supper. But one 
 night he called, "For the Lord's sake, shut up, 
 [154] 
 
BUCK DU SPAIN 
 
 Kitten." After that I sang no more, and my 
 missionary zeal diminished. 
 
 We ran our own teams the next summer, so in 
 the spring they went away, and I stood, again, 
 and watched them out of sight, and felt lonelier 
 than before. 
 
 The next six years I saw Buck perhaps not 
 six times, three or four times when I'd driven 
 to town with Father, once or twice more when 
 he, riding by, stopped at the gate, and came up 
 the path, walking stiffly in his hairy "chaps." 
 One day, when Grace and I had been discussing 
 handsome men, and I had said, "Oh, but you 
 should see Buck Du Spain! He's positively the 
 handsomest man I ever laid eyes on." Father 
 looked up over his paper, and said, "Handsome 
 is as handsome do^s," gravely. 
 
 It was in the summer, three years ago, and not 
 more than a week after I had come home, that 
 we girls went to the canyon, one morning, for 
 ferns, to decorate for our house dance that eve- 
 ning. We came out with green armfuls. I had 
 lingered, for one more, and still one more perfect 
 five-finger, till, when I came out on the road, the 
 others were well away from me, half way up the 
 hot hill. 
 
 Some men, a-horseback, were coming swiftly 
 
 down the grade. As they came abreast of me, 
 
 Sheriff Murphy, riding in the lead, swung off his 
 
 hat. The others I did not know. A little way 
 
 [155] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 behind them, a man on an eager little buckskin 
 rode more slowly. I noticed when he met the 
 girls that he made as if to rein in, but didn't. 
 But when he came to me he stopped. "Is this 
 your name ? " said he, holding out a letter. 
 
 "Yes," said I, "who", but he only rode on 
 more quickly, and I thought he laughed. When 
 we got home, the little hamlet was seething with 
 the news. Buck Du Spain had robbed and killed 
 Tony, the Italian saloon-keeper at the Forks, and 
 half the country was out hunting him. 
 
 Somehow or other the day went in, what with 
 draping long sprays of greens, and pressing out 
 crushed ruffles, and shooing the children away 
 from the big freezer, that stood, burlap-swathed, 
 in the cellar. Then came dinner, one of those 
 excited, half-eaten meals. A little later Grace 
 came into my room, to hook me into my dress. 
 
 "Whatever is the matter with you," said she; 
 "you've been so funny and still all day, and yet 
 sort of excited ? Do try and get up some color ; 
 you're awfully white." 
 
 Eleven o'clock came, finally, in the lull between 
 two dances. I waited till the music began again ; 
 then, "Oh, Harry ! " I said to my partner, "I've 
 forgotten something I must do. No, you can't 
 help me ". I slipped into Mother's room, and 
 out the French window onto the porch. It was 
 dark out here, and strangely quiet, after the light 
 and noise the other side of the house. I went 
 [156] 
 
BUCK DU SPAIN 
 
 clear to the end, where the ground dropped away, 
 so the head of the man on horseback was on a 
 level with the rail. Man and horse were just a 
 dark blurr, for though the stars were bright, 
 there was no moon. I remember noticing my 
 dress showed dimly white. 
 
 "Buck," I whispered. 
 
 "Kitten," the sharp whisper came back, "this 
 is good of you." 
 
 "Sh-h," I whispered, and began to pick up the 
 packages hidden by the railing. 
 
 "Here's something for you- to eat after awhile, 
 tie it on to the back of your saddle. Here's 
 something to eat now, can't you put a package 
 in each pocket?" The man chuckled, "Gee! 
 you've got a head." I raised the last, heaviest 
 package. "Have you got the same revolver? " 
 
 "That little 44 ? Yes what's this cartridges ? 
 Oh, you're a dream ! I'm all right now. I'll get 
 out all right. I'll do something for you some 
 day." He half-turned his horse, as if to start. 
 
 "Buck," I begged, leaning over the rail, "wait 
 here" 
 
 "What's this?" 
 
 "Oh, it's money, Buck. Not very much, but 
 it's mine, and it's enough to help you get away. 
 Then you'll send the other back, won't you, 
 Buck, and when you earn some you can send me 
 back mine." I was whispering eagerly, out into 
 the dark. 
 
 [157] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 "Here, give it to me." I knew he was laugh- 
 ing. "Still trying to save my soul, Kitten?" 
 
 "Oh, how did you ever know did Mother " 
 Just then someone came into the dining-room 
 with a lamp. The light cut full across from the 
 open window for a moment, then went out again. 
 
 "Gee, you're a regular young lady, aren't 
 you ? " He crowded his horse close to the house, 
 and, reaching up, thrust the purse, heavier than 
 when he had taken it, into my helpless hands. 
 "You can buy pretties with it. Adios," and he 
 rode away into the dark. 
 
 Last summer I, going home, was riding 
 on the high front seat of the red stage, between 
 the driver and a Wells Fargo inspector. We 
 had been driving on the level land along the 
 coast all the afternoon, skirting the bases of the 
 hills in long curves. The dark and we dropped 
 together down the grade that led to the river. 
 When we got to the bottom it was quite black, 
 and our big reflector lantern, that glared out like 
 a searchlight above our heads, had been lit some 
 time. The long bridge, that spanned the river 
 and the swamp that came before it, had fallen, a 
 week or so before, and a sort of road had been 
 cut through the swamp to the ford. It was a 
 bad place, full of water and sunken logs and 
 tree roots. The stage lurched, one wheel sunk 
 in mud to the hub, the other clear out. The lan- 
 tern light flickered over the four horses, cau- 
 [158] 
 
BUCK DU SPAIN 
 
 tiously picking their steps, and the white-barked 
 alders seemed to lean into the circle of its light 
 with a sort of ghastly eagerness. 
 
 The driver had just said, "We're over the 
 worst of it," when a man on horseback, with a 
 black mask over his face, and a revolver held high 
 came into the light. 
 
 "Hands up," he cried, and sent a shot over 
 our heads. The Jew drummer inside the stage 
 gave a thick, cracked scream. The Wells Fargo 
 man, all in one moment, got me crushed down in 
 the boot among the mail bags, and fired two shots. 
 There was an answering shot, and the rattle of 
 broken glass from the lantern. Then it was dark, 
 and I could hear the driver and the Wells Fargo 
 man get out." 
 
 "I guess you've done for him," said the driver. 
 They splashed in water, and stumbled on logs. 
 I sat up. They had stopped, and were lighting 
 matches. Then I heard them coming back again, 
 but slowly. They stopped when they got to the 
 lead horses, and asked for a light. Up to now 
 the men inside the stage had been as quiet as I. 
 
 "Is it safe ? " asked the Jew drummer. 
 
 "He's dead, I guess," said the Wells Fargo 
 man. So the drummer got out and stumbled up 
 to them, with a little electric pocket lamp. 
 
 "He's alive," said the driver, "but he won't be 
 long, I guess," and then, his voice going up an 
 octave, "If it ain't Buck Du Spain." 
 [159] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 They laid him flat on a broad log, that sloped 
 well out of the swamp. I sat above him, and 
 held his black head in my lap. Then the driver 
 took the stage on, to get help. The drummer, 
 the Wells Fargo man and I stayed with Buck. 
 
 It was very quiet in the bottom of the canyon, 
 for none of us spoke, only now and then we'd 
 catch the faint wash of the river. It was very 
 dark, too, for the pocket lamp had given out, and 
 all the matches were burnt. The silence and 
 dark seemed to combine into a palpable, dense 
 thing, that held us each fast in his place, beyond 
 the possibility of movement. 
 
 There came a time I don't know if for long 
 that I could no longer feel the head that had been 
 heavy on my knees, when it seemed to me, along 
 that narrow swamp, there went a procession of 
 all that was sad and lost, going with all mournful 
 and dreadful noises. 
 
 "Gott, it's cold ! " said the Jew drummer. I, 
 remembering the quiet head, laid my hand, ever 
 so lightly, across its lips. But no breath went 
 over them. 
 
 [160] 
 
Bernice, Patrice and Clarice 
 
 ought to apologize to her, and to 
 me, too. You ought to make it up to 
 her, you Dig ! Dig ! Old Saw-bones ! 
 Why can't you be obliging? Why do 
 you want to be an idiot?" So said Smudge, and 
 bounced out of the room. 
 
 McFadden settled himself upon the lounge to 
 snooze. It wasn't his fault if there were more 
 girls than men. Why didn't they leave some 
 out ? ' It wasn't his fault if he had to study the 
 human bones. That's what he came to college 
 for. The girl was nice of course, but what made 
 her giggle? Why should any sane person want 
 to go to such a silly affair anyway? Life was 
 said to be short, time fleeting; he at least would 
 waste none of either. 
 
 There was a haze in the hills, and a warm 
 
 wind blowing over them. Three bright green 
 
 parasols fluttered along, with three big fresh- 
 
 man histories and three sweet coeds bobbing 
 
 [161] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 along under them. The girls' thin dresses swirled 
 and floated in the breeze, their flying hair made 
 halos round their heads, till parasols, girls, hills 
 and haze all seemed mystically blended parts of 
 the same warm summer day. They sank down 
 beneath an oak, where the thistles were rattling 
 in the dry grass, and for a time a rustling of 
 pages was joined with the rustling of the oak 
 leaves overhead. 
 
 Then, "Oh Bernice! Hello Patrice," cajoled 
 a maid with a camera slung over her shoulder. 
 "Haven't we worked enough? This is so slow 
 (plaintively)" She heaved a soft sigh which the 
 others echoed sympathetically as they shoved 
 away their books. 
 
 "We shall have to stir up some excitement," 
 said Bernice. "Poor Clarice is pining away." 
 
 "I have it!" cried Patrice with glee., "We'll 
 sit on the fence, put the camera in that crotch, 
 and ask the first person who comes along to take 
 our pictures!" 
 
 "And we'll take an oath by fire, air and water," 
 added Clarice, "to ask the very first person." 
 
 "We'll draw straws to decide who is to do the 
 asking," said Bernice. 
 
 The arrangements were soon completed. 
 Patrice selected three dry clover stems, "for 
 luck," she said. The lot fell to Bernice. With 
 much mirth they seated themselves upon the top 
 rail of the fence to wait. The breeze grew 
 [162] 
 
BERNICE, PATRICE AND CLARICE 
 
 stronger, till the leaves of the books lying open 
 beneath the oak began to turn ; turned faster and 
 faster as though in a panic at their owner's de- 
 sertion; then, as the laughter grew still lighter 
 and more frivolous, the books themselves flopped 
 completely over in disgust. And now a strange 
 figure appeared, coming out of the haze over 
 the brow of the hill. 
 
 It was that of a tall man leaning forward. 
 Though he came with the long stride of a runner, 
 his pace seemed slower than a walk. His build 
 and dress betokened the athlete. As he drew 
 nearer he was seen to stagger occasionally, sweat, 
 trickling through the hair matted on his fore- 
 head, dripped from his nose and chin ; his breath 
 came in gasps, yet, in the firm set of his jaw 
 and the fire of his eye, there was no suggestion of 
 yielding to fatigue. The girls gazed in won- 
 der. Then Bernice, shoved forward by Patrice 
 and Clarice, accosted him. "I beg your pardon," 
 she said, coyly, "but would you be so kind as 
 to pinch the bulb?" He turned one look upon 
 them of infinite pity and contempt, then set his 
 face forward and passed on. "Isn't he horrid !" 
 said Bernice. 
 
 Once more the dainty butterflies settled upon 
 the fence. "You're next Patrice," chimed the 
 other two. Their parasols bobbed and dipped in 
 the breeze like a cluster of toy balloons. They 
 had hardly spoken when a second figure appeared 
 [163] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 at the brow of the hill. "There's another of 
 them!" cried the girls. 
 
 He, too, came at a weary run; he, too, stag- 
 gered and sweated and gasped. He seemed not 
 quite so tall as the other, nor so firm of face, 
 but he was equally intent upon his onward course. 
 Patrice jumped down and stood directly in his 
 path. "If you please we would like you " 
 
 Admiration and regret appeared in his face. 
 "Love to, if I had the time," he panted, then 
 dodged her and passed upon his slow and toil- 
 some way, with apologetic glances backward 
 which considerably retarded even that pace. 
 
 "Did you ever !" said Patrice. 
 
 The girls now held an animated discussion as 
 to who these creatures were, and what such con- 
 duct might mean. With mocking laughter and 
 grimaces they repaid the slights which they felt 
 had been put upon their charms. The merriment 
 was at its height when a third athlete appeared. 
 Clarice, seizing the camera from its crotch, ran 
 towards him, followed by the other two, crying 
 as coquettishly as she might, "Please take our 
 pictures, Mister, do." 
 
 Without pausing he reached for the camera. 
 "I'm rather (gasp) in a hurry," he managed to 
 say, "but if (gasp) you will run ahead and pose, 
 I think (gasp) I can accommodate you." The 
 girls in delight flitted around and ahead of him, 
 while he, still running, adjusted the camera, their 
 [164] 
 
BERNICE, PATRICE AND CLARICE 
 
 parasols dancing, their bright hair tossing, their 
 dresses fluttering in the breeze. "Can't stop,'* 
 he explained when the camera had snapped (the 
 necessities of photography had somewhat slack- 
 ened his speed), "runnin' a Marathon." 
 
 "How splendid!" cried they all running along 
 beside him. 
 
 "We hope you'll win," said Bernice. 
 
 "We hope we haven't hindered you," said 
 Patrice. 
 
 "Can't we help you," asked Clarice. "You 
 seem very warm," she added reflectively. He 
 felt the grateful protection of her green parasol 
 held over his head. 
 
 So they ran, but soon he found himself run- 
 ning very slowly indeed, and holding the para- 
 sol. Bernice and Patrice had turned aside to 
 pick wild flowers, but returned just as they came 
 to a wonderfully clear brook, with fern and moss 
 covering its enticing banks. "It seems to me," 
 he murmured languidly," that since I'm so far 
 behind now, it's quite useless to go on. Can't 
 we stop in this fine shade?" 
 
 "Oh no!" came the dismayed chorus. 
 
 "It's an honor to be even third in a Marathon." 
 
 "If you stop now you'll be nothing." 
 
 "Remember the race of the hare and the tor- 
 toise." In her anxiety lest he should stop, Clarice 
 even seized his elbow and hurried him forward. 
 
 Somewhat revived by their encouragement, he 
 [165] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 moved along at a slightly faster pace, the girls 
 beguiling the way by pulling the petals from 
 buttercups. "He loves me, he loves me not," 
 they chanted merrily. It amused them all to 
 notice that whereas he seemed by the fair flower 
 oracles sometimes to love Bernice and Patrice, 
 and sometimes not, to Clarice he was entirely 
 true. 
 
 The way now led between tall trees, whose in- 
 terlocking branches creaked and moaned as the 
 wind wrestled with them. The path here joined 
 the main road where the feet of the runners 
 splashed silently through a flaky white dust. The 
 spike-marked tracks of the first and second run- 
 ners led away before them. "Why did this one 
 zigzag so," asked Clarice presently, noticing that 
 her companion's eyes were grimly observing the 
 tracks. 
 
 "Because it is ordained," he said, "that I shall 
 be second." There, where the road turned sharp- 
 ly at the foot of a slope, face downward in the 
 dust, lay the first athlete. With startled cries the 
 girls rushed to him. They bathed his face, they 
 chafed his hands, they tried every art known to 
 them to restore him all without success. By 
 kindly words and offices they made amends for 
 their past derision. "Poor fellow," said Clarice, 
 her eyes full of tears. "He was so fine ; he might 
 have done so much." 
 
 As they could do no more, they left their flow- 
 [1661 
 
BERNICE, PATRICE AND CLARICE 
 
 ers by him and passed on, Clarice sobbing 
 piteously. The third athlete put his arm about 
 her shoulders, where her hair was now falling in 
 soft ripples, and tried to comfort her. "I be- 
 lieve," he said, making a desperate effort to recall 
 some of his Greek history, "that in Greece run- 
 ners often died in the Marathon. Why usually 
 (with animation) when a runner falls in a race 
 the others pay not the slightest attention to him." 
 
 "You're not sorry we stopped?" said Clarice 
 reproachfully. 
 
 "No indeed," he protested. 
 
 "You ought always to stop," she asserted. 
 
 "On reflection, it might be better if there were 
 a general rule to that effect," he acquiesced, 
 solemnly, looking into her shining eyes. 
 
 Then, as they hurried forward, they heard a 
 voice from the shade at the roadside, calling a 
 feeble, "Good bye! Good luck!" 
 
 "Why, there's that second one," exclaimed 
 Patrice. They crowded around, offering him 
 water from their hands and fanning him with 
 trilium leaves. When his condition seemed im- 
 proved Clarice turned to the third athlete. 
 
 "You must go on," she said. "You might 
 even break the record (looking at a dainty watch 
 that seemed all crystal). Now that you're rested 
 we would only hinder you." 
 
 "Alone? Leave you? What for? I can't," he 
 said, suddenly realizing his dependence upon her. 
 [167] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 "Then let the others stay to start this poor 
 fellow along. I will cut across the hills." 
 
 He darted forward with a magnificent spurt. 
 The wind which had increased to a gale, carried 
 him half a mile at a stride. McFadden, in aston- 
 ishment at such progress, sat straight up, to find 
 the window curtains streaming over him in the 
 wind. There was Smudge dressing as usual to 
 go out. 
 
 "Had the deuce of a dream," volunteered Mc- 
 Fadden. 
 
 Silence from Smudge. 
 
 "Dreamed I ran a Marathon with two other 
 fellows." 
 
 Sniff. 
 
 "Dreamed I was first for nine miles." 
 
 Snort. 
 
 "And that I died in the tenth." 
 
 "Hoo-ray!" 
 
 Then, after a pause, in a manner distinctly 
 conciliatory, "What did you say that Freshie's 
 name was? Clarice?" 
 
 "Eloise, Gump!" 
 
 "Well if you will lend me a clean paste-board, 
 and smooth the way for me, I believe I'll ask her 
 to go to the Freshie Glee." 
 
 [168] 
 
Billy -Too 
 
 had got to Billy Burk that the 
 Best- Yet Mining Company was look- 
 
 in * or t* 16 man w ^ ha d salte d its 
 new group of claims, and Billy was 
 at the little stick-an'-mud ranch house getting 
 ready for Mexico. His wife, Sophrony, hushed 
 the baby in the doorway, where she could watch 
 the road and Billy. His bag and gun were ready 
 by the back door, and Billy was on his knees 
 running his thin deft fingers along the edges of 
 the "two-ply." Sophrony glanced at him in- 
 differently. 
 
 "I ain't coming back," said Billy. He stood up 
 and looked about the room, his lax mouth pursed 
 in speculation. "There are too many fellows 
 around here besides the Best- Yets that can't take 
 a joke, and this may start them moving in my 
 direction." 
 
 "Where shall we come to if I can rent the 
 ranch?" Sophrony set her mind against any 
 [169] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 suggestion to sell. She had worked every inch of 
 that ranch she had got to keep it for a home 
 for Billy-too. There was sure to be a "some- 
 time" when they could come back. 
 
 But Billy did not suggest selling. "You can't 
 rent the place," said Billy; "an' I ain't coming 
 back." He turned over the mattress and felt 
 along the slat-rests. "I'm a-going to keep 
 a-going till I find a country where the inhabitants 
 have a sense of humor. It's a great virtue, 
 Throny." 
 
 But Sophrony was quite sure she could rent 
 the ranch. 
 
 "When shall we follow you?" she said. She 
 knew she would follow Billy. He had found 
 humor in salting mines before. 
 
 "Mexico's a hard place for women so's the 
 country I'm looking for," he said with a leer 
 across at her. He pulled aside a curtain tacked 
 against the wall and began to feel about among 
 the clothes beneath it. 
 
 "Am I hot or cold, Throny?" 
 
 Sophrony drew the child close against her 
 breast and looked out into the sunshine with fierce 
 unseeing eyes. The child complained a little 
 peevishly. 
 
 "Hush-ye, hush-ye, my little pet-ye," she 
 crooned, and Billy whined suddenly: 
 
 "Can't you put him down and get me some 
 grub you're always lugging 'im." 
 [170] 
 
BILLY-TOO 
 
 "He's teething and he can't bear it out of 
 my arms," said Sophrony; but she put Billy-too 
 on the bed under the mosquito-netting and turned 
 to the stove. She shot a glance at Billy and 
 her shoulders stiffened for he was on his knees 
 again, fumbling among the old shoes. 
 
 "My mother said I cried an awful lot when 
 I was a kid thought I was going to be melan- 
 choly. He'll be just like me, Billy-too will," said 
 Billy. 
 
 "He won't!" cried Sophrony. "I'll pray and 
 pray and I'll work at him till he can't be like 
 you. 
 
 Billy squatted back and laughed. 
 
 "Well I won't work, Sophrony, but I'll pray 
 I'll pray Billy-too '11 be just like me. Awh, 
 Sophrony, it makes me melancholy now you'll 
 have the dear child, but I'm giving up all." 
 
 "You'll be giving up a long spell of three 
 easy meals a day if they don't catch you this 
 time," said Sophrony. She eyed him sharply 
 across the frying-pan. 
 
 "Well they ain't a-going to catch me," 
 said Billy. He was feeling in the toe of an old 
 felt slipper of 'Phrony's. Her tense shoulders 
 relaxed and she turned her back on him. 
 
 "It's an awful thing to be separated from a 
 loving wife and child," sniffled Billy with satis- 
 faction. He dropped the gold pieces into his 
 [171] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 pocket one by one so she counted off each click. 
 "It's awful, Sophrony!" 
 
 "Awh yes," said Sophrony between her teeth, 
 "come an' eat." 
 
 Sophrony went back to Billy-too and the open 
 door and the road. She would have given him 
 the money if he had had nothing, but there was 
 his share from the salted claims she knew he 
 had that. He only took this to make her squirm ! 
 She knew just how he looked behind her, 
 slouched over the table with his slanting eyes, 
 so close to his nose, shifting over everything as 
 he ate. She knew there was malicious glee in 
 them now. She knew they leered at her where 
 she stood. Sophrony held Billy-too from her and 
 looked hard at his blinking eyes. They certainly 
 slanted awfully ; but maybe he would get over it 
 maybe he was only a little cross-eyed after all 
 most babies were a little. If she only had a 
 chance with him without she thrilled suddenly 
 and caught the child to her. 
 
 "Hush-ye hush-ye, my little pet-ye." 
 
 "There's two men turned in at the lower forty, 
 Bill," she said. 
 
 "Guess that's my cue," said Billy. He caught 
 up his bag and gun and went out to the back 
 door. Sophrony cleared the dishes from the 
 table with a swoop and followed him, Billy-too on 
 her arm. 
 
 "I've got the horse in the willows," he said. 
 [172] 
 
BILLY- TOO 
 
 "I'll be across the line in two hours don't you 
 show uneasy, Sophrony, just keep 'em awhile till 
 I get a start." 
 
 "You ain't coming back?" said Sophrony, 
 breathless. 
 
 "No, I'm giving up everything," sighed Billy, 
 a-straddle the fence. "Kiss me good-bye, 
 Sophrony." 
 
 Sophrony submitted her face to him. 
 
 "And I ain't to come with Billy-too?" 
 
 "No I can't ask it you bring up the kid 
 grand, Sophrony to be proud of me." Billy's 
 sense of humor was delaying him. 
 
 He loped across the short stretch of field to the 
 willows, and she saw his hat bob about where the 
 horse was tied. When he had mounted his face 
 was visible in an open space among the leaves 
 framed there like a mocking gargoyle. But he 
 was not leering at her; the slant eyes were on 
 the two men jogging up the road by the lower 
 forty. He disappeared and Sophrony hugged the 
 child to her breast in a rapture of pain and 
 hope. She dropped to the ground by the fence 
 and rocked and cried over him : 
 
 "I will make you a good man I will I say!" 
 and she broke into dry sobs. Billy-too struggled 
 in her arms and cried peevishly. 
 
 "Hush-ye hush-ye, my little pet-ye!" She 
 tossed him up and burrowed her head in his 
 little squirming body, and he laughed and caught 
 [173] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 at her hair and gurgled happily. Sophrony 
 was happy, too. "I ain't played with him 
 enough the love and he just needs it. How 
 could I? But now now " Suddenly she re- 
 membered the two men. She ran about to the 
 front of the house and shaded her eyes down 
 the road. They were at the bars already and one 
 had got off his horse and was letting them down. 
 She had never seen him; he had big black 
 mustaches and walked as though he had on new 
 boots. Sophrony guessed the other man was 
 the young constable. He looked toward the 
 house all the time and the other man looked about 
 the fields. Sophrony wondered if they each had 
 to watch out and choose where they would keep 
 an eye. She wondered, too, if it seemed funny to 
 them. 
 
 When the constable had ridden through the 
 man who had let down the bars started on, lead- 
 ing his horse. 
 
 "Put up those bars!' called Sophrony. Both 
 men stopped; they spoke together and then 
 started on, unheading. 
 
 "Put up those bars !" she called again and this 
 time she stepped lightly to the stoop. She felt 
 so free and reckless she almost hoped they would 
 not put them up. She would just like to make 
 'em! But the man afoot said something and 
 went back and the constable came up on the road. 
 When he was quite close Sophrony smiled at him. 
 [174] 
 
BILLY-TOO 
 
 "You'd had my yearling heifer in that alfalfa 
 in no time." Her voice was so friendly that the 
 man smiled, too. 
 
 "Billy Burk live here, ma'am?" he said; he 
 slipped his hat to the back of his head in salute. 
 
 "Yes, but Billy isn't at home," said Sophrony, 
 pleasantly, "won't you get down and sit awhile? 
 It's awful hot in the sun." She smiled very hos- 
 pitably and the man got down. 
 
 "Billy ain't here," he said to his companion 
 who had come up and looked very surly. He did 
 have on new boots. Sophrony turned to him 
 confidingly. 
 
 "My yearling heifer gets in the alfalfa if the 
 bars are down no time." 
 
 "Ought to have been a gate there," said the 
 man. "My name's Smithson." But her smile 
 had driven away his surliness, and he slipped his 
 hat to the back of his head, too. 
 
 "I'm Mrs. Burk," said Sophrony. 
 
 "When do you look for Billy home?" asked 
 the constable. 
 
 Sophrony nestled her cheek against the baby's 
 moist head. 
 
 "There's never any telling about Billy," she 
 said happily, "I put beans and ham and coffee on 
 the stove for him half an hour ago. You just 
 put your horses under that shack and give 'em 
 something to eat from the crib, and then you 
 come around in the shade by the back door and 
 [175] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 I'll give you something right out there in the 
 cool/' 
 
 The young constable looked uneasy, but the 
 man named Smithson said : "Guess I will," and 
 led his horse away. He looked out over the al- 
 falfa fields approvingly, and at the neat fences 
 and trim stretch of well-weeded garden patch. 
 Sophrony saw him send a stone after a squirrel 
 that scurried from the crib as he came up and she 
 laughed. The young constable came up on the 
 stoop and looked at Sophrony very kindly. 
 
 "Him and me ain't here on the same business 
 I didn't tell him mine. Do you know any- 
 thing about Billy?" he said. 
 
 "Why, I know all about him !" cried Sophrony 
 with a surprised lift of the brows. She felt the 
 color sweep up in her face for the man looked 
 at her very keenly. "What do you want him 
 for?" 
 
 The man looked away from her thrilling eyes, 
 uneasily. 
 
 "Well we ain't on the same business, him and 
 me. He's the man that bought the ranch off'en 
 Billy yesterday, you know, but I ". He spat 
 twice and drew his sleeve across his mouth be- 
 fore he looked at Sophrony again, and then he 
 put out his hand toward her, aghast. Her lips 
 hung apart, pinched gray, her whole face was 
 gray, only her eyes had color and they were 
 [176] 
 
BILLY-TOO 
 
 flame. Her right hand mechanically stroked the 
 baby's head. 
 
 "Why why didn't you know?" he said, and 
 Sophrony sucked in her lips with a great gasp 
 of life. " 
 
 "That's the man, is it," she said slowly. "I've 
 never seen him before. Smithson? Yes, his 
 name was Smithson." 
 
 "I didn't tell him my business," said the con- 
 stable again. 
 
 "What is your business?" said Sophrony. She 
 was not looking at him, but at the man unsaddling 
 his horse under the shack. 
 
 "The Best- Yet mining people sent me," he said 
 miserably, "and and some other fellows." 
 
 "You want to look inside, don't you ?" she said 
 gently ; she spoke as though to herself. "There's 
 a loft above and the ladder's just outside the back 
 door." 
 
 "I'll just look around a little," he muttered. 
 She stared straight by him to the man whose 
 name was Smithson. He had fed his horse from 
 the crib and stood with his hands in his pockets 
 and his legs well apart and looked about the little 
 ranch with the keen satisfaction of possession. 
 He began to whistle. 
 
 Sophrony did not hear the constable when he 
 
 came past her through the door. But life was in 
 
 her face again and her head was flung up and 
 
 ready. Smithson was coming down now, still 
 
 [177] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 whistling. The constable got hurriedly to his 
 saddle. 
 
 "I guess I'll be going," he said, and he took 
 off his hat without looking at Sophrony. He 
 heard the man snapping his fingers at Billy-too. 
 
 "Looks like Billy, don't he?" he said, "only 
 Billy is awful full of fun." 
 
 "His mother said Billy cried an awful lot when 
 he was a baby," said Sophrony. "I suppose 
 you've brought me the deed to sign?" 
 
 II. 
 
 Sophrony sat on the front stoop and watched 
 the long road between the corn fields and the 
 alfalfa. That other road had looked the same 
 in the hot sunshine twenty years ago, and to 
 Sophrony the day was significant of that other 
 time. She had been thinking about Billy and 
 watching for two men riding up the road to the 
 bars. The man named Smithson had said she 
 ought to have a gate at the old place she hated 
 gates ! Sophrony eyed the stack and crib with a 
 dull expectancy. 
 
 She tried not to think about Billy, but she 
 could not help it. She used to have long fierce 
 times of thinking about him. The first time 
 Billy-too had found the money she had saved 
 and laughed at her afterwards, she thought of 
 little else but Billy. She was sure then that, 
 [178] 
 
BILLY- TOO 
 
 out there somewhere, Billy was doing wickedly; 
 praying against Billy-too. She thought, fear- 
 fully, how he would go on with all his cunning 
 tricks against men and then laugh to think he 
 was tormenting Sophrony through Billy-too 
 Billy-too, grown up to be just like him. Soph- 
 rony rocked and prayed that Billy would stop 
 before it was too late, for Billy-too had gone 
 into mining lately and Sophrony was numb with 
 the ache of it, and her eyes were parched for un- 
 shed tears. He had not been home to her for 
 a few days and Sophrony took to watching for 
 two men riding up the road. 
 
 Someone was moving along the mesa trail, 
 Sophrony could see them through the bare 
 branches of the mesquite. If they were a-horse- 
 back the hats would show above. It was one 
 man, and he turned in from the trail and slouched 
 up the road toward the bars. His arms flopped 
 loosely as he walked, and the sway of his huddled 
 figure gave him the grotesque look of the corn- 
 stalks to Sophrony the old ragged, windblown 
 things that stood here and there in the fields 
 after the crop was gathered. It was not Billy- 
 too, for a moment Sophrony had thought it was. 
 She had seen Billy-too when he looked just like 
 a cornstalk. 
 
 When he got to the bars the man climbed up 
 and sat a-straddle a moment, looking about the 
 place and at her, and Sophrony's hard hands 
 [179] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 clinched in her lap. When he got down and 
 started on toward her she watched him so in- 
 tently that she did not see two men ride up from 
 the trail and turn in toward the house. 
 
 The man came on up to the stoop and dropped 
 down near Sophrony. He braced his back against 
 the door-jamb and drew up his knees and clasped 
 his arms about them. Then his slant eyes 
 shifted furtively to Sophrony. 
 
 "Looks some like the old place," he said. 
 
 "I took it up 'cause the land lay the same," 
 said Sophrony. She knew he'd spent the whole 
 twenty years wickedly against Billy-too. She 
 looked away from him and saw the two men 
 already at the bars. Billy saw her startled 
 glance and turned, too. 
 
 "They ain't after me," he said easily, but he 
 pulled his old hat a little further over his eyes. 
 
 "No," said Sophrony, "they ain't after you." 
 
 One of the men had got off his horse and 
 was letting down the bars. Sophrony wondered 
 if he would put them up again. She leaned for- 
 ward breathless, to watch. When the second 
 man had ridden in the other led his horse through 
 and then turned and put up the bars. Sophrony 
 dumbly argued well from it. She stood up to 
 greet the two men and Billy shrunk up be- 
 hind her. He looked asleep, his knees hud- 
 dled up to his chin and the old hat quite over 
 his face. 
 
 [180] 
 
BILLY-TOO 
 
 "Billy Burk live here, ma'am?" said the man 
 on the horse. 
 
 "Yes," said Sophrony, "but Billy" she 
 stopped. "What do you want him for?" she 
 said, with her two hands crushed against her 
 breast. She could hear Billy breathing behind 
 her. 
 
 The man on the horse got down and came up 
 to the stoop. He was looking at the huddled 
 heap against the door- jamb, but he said to Soph- 
 rony: 
 
 "It's a bad business ma'am, and you'd better 
 not have any row about it " 
 
 "What has he done?" said Sophrony, softly. 
 
 "There are a plenty of things he's done, ma'am, 
 but this new mining company sent us. It's for 
 salting claims he's got a big sum out of them 
 and all they've got is an empty hole in the 
 ground. Who who is that man there, ma'am ?" 
 
 Sophrony's hands hung limp at her sides. She 
 stood back from Billy. 
 
 "He did it," she said. 
 
 "He was ahead of us on the trail we thought 
 it was him," said the man. "You'd better come 
 quietly " 
 
 Billy grovelled at Sophrony's feet and clutched 
 out at her. 
 
 "Sophrony," he wailed, "I never prayed against 
 Billy-too I never I said it for a joke I never 
 prayed against him." He caught at her skirt 
 [181] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 and pulled nearer to her, but his eyes fell away 
 from her thrilling ones. 
 
 "I never prayed against him never, Soph- 
 rony," he begged. 
 
 "He did it," said Sophrony. 
 
 The men looked curiously at her where she 
 stood so still. She never moved when they 
 pulled away Billy's hands and put the hand- 
 cuffs on. They took off their hats to her 
 silently, and rode away with Billy between them. 
 
 [182] 
 
The Spotted Dawg 
 
 X AIN'T a'-sayin' I'm a' almanac; but 
 jus' the same, the very first time I 
 clapped my lookers on the new par- 
 son, I knowed they was shore goin' 
 to be a storm in that particular section of the ter- 
 ritory. 
 
 Bud Hickok was responsible for the parson 
 comin'. Bud tied down his holster jus' onct too 
 many. A sassy greaser from the T-Bar ranch 
 called his bluff, an' pumped lead into his system 
 some. That called for a funeral. Now, Mrs. 
 Bud, she's Kansas City when it conies to bein' 
 high-toned. An' nuthin' would do but she must 
 have a preacher. So the railroad agent got 
 Williams, Arizony, on his click-machine, an' we 
 got the parson. 
 
 He was a new breed, that parson, a genuwine, 
 
 no-two-alike, come-one-in-a-box kind. He was 
 
 big an' young, with no hair on his face, an' 
 
 brownish eyes that 'peared to look plumb through 
 
 [183] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 yu, an' out on the other side. Good-natured, yu 
 know, but actin' as if he meant ev'ry word he 
 said; foolin' a little with yu, too, an' frien'ly as 
 the devil. An' he didn't wear parson duds 
 jus' a gray suit; not like us, yu savvy, more like 
 what the hotel clerk down to Albuquerque wears, 
 or one of them city fellers that comes here to run 
 a game. 
 
 Wai, the way he talked over pore Bud was a 
 caution. Say ! The' was no "Yes, my brother," 
 or "No, my brother," an' no "Heaven's will be 
 done" nuthin' like it! An' you'd 'a' never 
 smelt gun-play. Mrs. Bud nor the greaser that 
 done the shootin'-up (he was at the buryin') 
 didn't hear no word they could kick at, no ma'am. 
 The parson quoted somethin' 'bout the day you 
 die bein' a darned sight better 'n the day you 
 was born. An' his hull razoo was so plumb 
 sensible that 'fore he got done the passel of us 
 was all a-feelin', somehow or other, that Bud 
 Hickok had the drinks on us. 
 
 We planted Bud in city style. But the parson 
 didn't shassay back to Williams afterwards. We'd 
 no more'n got our chaps on again, when "Hair- 
 Oil" Johnson blowed in from the postQffice acrost 
 the street, an' let it out at the "Life Savin' Sta- 
 tion," as Dutchy calls his thirst-parlor, that the 
 parson was goin' to squat in Briggs City for a 
 spell. 
 
 "Wai, of all the dog-goned propositions !" says 
 [184] 
 
THE SPOTTED DAWG 
 
 Bill Rawson, mule-skinner over to the Little 
 Rattlesnake Mine. "Wat's he goin' to do that 
 for, Hair-Oil?" 
 
 "Heerd we had a polo team," Johnson answers. 
 "Reckon he's kinda loco on polo. Anyway, he's 
 took my shack." 
 
 "Boys," I tole the crowd that was wettin' their 
 whistles, "this preachin' gent ain't none of you' 
 ev'ryday, tenderfoot hell-tooters. Polo, hey? 
 He's got savvy. Look a leedle oud, as Dutchy, 
 here, 'd put it. Strikes me this feller '11 hang 
 on longer 'n any other parson that was ever in 
 these parts ropin' souls." 
 
 Old Dutch lay back his ears. "Better he don' 
 make no trubbles mit me," he says. 
 
 Say; that was like tellin' your fortune. The 
 nex' day but one, right in front of the "Station," 
 trouble popped. It was this a- way: 
 
 The parson 'd had all his truck sent over from 
 Williams. In the pile they was one of them big, 
 spotted dawgs keerige dawgs, I think they call 
 'em. This particular dawg was so spotted you 
 could 'a' come blamed nigh playin' checkers on 
 him. Wai, Dutchy had a dawg, too. It wasn't 
 much of anythin' for fambly, I reckon just plain 
 purp; but it shore had a fine set of nippers, an' 
 could jerk off the steerin'-gear of a cow quicker'n 
 grease lightnin'. Wai, the parson come down to 
 the postoffice, drivin' a two- wheel thing-um-a-jig, 
 all yalla and black. Betwixt the wheels was 
 [185] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 trottin' his spotted dawg. Of course, the parson 
 'd no more 'n stopped, when out comes that 
 ornery purp of Dutchy's. An' such a set-to you 
 never seen! 
 
 But it was all on one side, like a jug han'le, 
 an' the keerige dawg got the heavy en'. He 
 yelped bloody murder an' tried to skedaddle. The 
 other jus' hung on, an' bit sev'ral of them stylish 
 spots clean offen him. 
 
 "Sir," says the parson to Dutchy, when he seen 
 the damage, "call off your beast." 
 
 Dutchy, he jus' grinned. "Ach" says he, "it 
 makes nicks aus if dey do sometinks. Here de 
 street iss not brivate broberty." 
 
 At that, the parson dumb down an' drug his 
 dawg loose. Then he looked up at the thirst- 
 parlor. "What a name for a saloon," he says, 
 "in a civilized country!" 
 
 Course, we fellers enjoyed the fun, all right. 
 An' we fixed it up together to kinda sic' the 
 Dutchman on. We seen that "Life Savin' Sta- 
 tion" stuck in the parson's craw, an' we made out 
 to Dutch that like as not he'd have to change his 
 sign. 
 
 Dutch done a jig, he was so mad. "For dot?" 
 he ast, meanin' the parson. "Nein! He iss not 
 cross mit my sign. He vut like it, maybe, if 
 I gif him some viskey on tick. I bet you he 
 trinks, I bet. Maype he trinks ret-ink gocktails, 
 like de Injuns; maype he trinks Florita vater, 
 [186] 
 
THE SPOTTED DAWG 
 
 oder Golone. Ya ! Ya ! Vunce I seen a feller 
 I hat some snakes here in algohol unt dat 
 feller he trunk de algohol. Ya! Unt de min- 
 ister iss jus' so bat as dot." 
 
 Then, to show how he liked us, Dutchy set up 
 the red-eye. An' the nex' time the parson come 
 'long in his cart, there was a dawg-fight in front 
 of that saloon that was worth two bits for ad- 
 mission. 
 
 Don't think the res' of us was agin the parson. 
 We wasn't. Fact is, we kinda liked him from 
 the jump. We liked his riggin'; we liked the 
 way he grabbed your paw, an' he was no quitter 
 when it came to a horse. Say ! but he could ride. 
 One day when he racked into the postoffice, his 
 spur-chains a-rattlin' like a puncher's, an' a quirt 
 in his fist, one of the Lazy-S boys rounded him up 
 against the meanest, low-down buckin' propo- 
 sition that ever wore the hide of a bronc'. But 
 the parson was game from his hay to his hoofs. 
 He dumb into the saddle an' stayed there, an' 
 went a-hikin' off acrost the mesa, independent 
 as a pig on ice, jus' like he was a-straddlin' some 
 ole crow-bait! 
 
 So, when Sunday night come, an' he preached 
 in the schoolhouse, he had quite a bunch of us 
 corralled there to hear him. Blamed if he wasn't 
 wearin' the same outfit as he did week days. We 
 liked that. An' he didn't open up by tellin' us 
 that we was all branded an' earmarked already 
 [187] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 by the Ole Longhorn Gent. No, ma'am. He 
 didn't mention everlastin' fire. An' he didn't 
 ramp an' pitch an' claw his hair. Fac' is, he 
 didn't hell-toot ! 
 
 Course that spoiled the fun for us. But he 
 talked so straight, an' kinda easy an' hones', that 
 he got us a listenin' to what he said. 
 
 Can't say we was stuck on his tex', though. 
 It run like this, that a smart man sees when a 
 row's a-comin' an' makes for the tall cat-tails 
 till the win' dies down. An' he went on to say 
 that a man oughta be humble, an' that if a feller 
 gives you a lick on the jaw, w'y you oughta let 
 him give you another to grow on. Think o' 
 that ! It may be O. K. for preachers, an' women 
 that ain't strong 'nough to lam back. But fer 
 me, nixey! 
 
 But that hand-out didn't give the parson no 
 black eye with us. We knowed it was his dooty 
 t' talk that-a-way. An' two or three of the boys 
 got t' proposin' him for the polo team real serious 
 pr'vided, o' course, that he'd stan' for a little 
 cussin' when the 'casion required. It was a cinch 
 that he'd draw like a wet rawhide. 
 
 Wai, the long an' short of it is, he did. An' 
 Sunday nights the Dutchman los' money. He 
 begun t' josh the boys 'bout gittin' churchy. It 
 didn't do no good the boys didn't give a whoop 
 for his gas, an' they liked the parson. All Dutchy 
 [188] 
 
THE SPOTTED DAWG 
 
 could do was to sic' his purp on to chawin' spots 
 off that keerige dawg. 
 
 But pritty soon he got plumb tired of jus' dawg 
 fightin'. He prepared to turn hisself loose. An' 
 he advertised a free supper for the very nex' 
 Sunday night. When Sunday night come, they 
 say he had a reg'lar Harvey lay-out. You buy a 
 drink, an' you git a stuffed pickle, or a patty- 
 de-foy grass, or a wedge of pie druv in you' 
 face. 
 
 No go. The boys was on to Dutchy. They 
 knowed he was the stingiest gezabo in them parts, 
 an' wouldn't give away a nickel if he didn't 
 reckon on gittin' six bits back. So, more for 
 devilment 'n anythin' else, the mos' of 'em fooled 
 him some jus' loped to the schoolhouse. 
 
 The parson was plumb tickled. 
 
 But it didn't las'. The nex' Sunday, the "Life 
 Savin' Station" had Pete Cans down from 
 Apache to deal a little faro. The parson preached 
 to ole man Baker (he's deef), the globe an' the 
 chart an' the map of South Americky. An' 
 almos' ev'ry day of the nex' week, seems like, 
 that purp of Dutchy's everlastin'ly chawed the 
 parson's. The spotted dawg couldn't go nigh the 
 thirst-parlor or anywheres else. The parson took 
 to fastenin' him up. Then Dutchy 'd mosey 
 over towards Johnson's shack. Out 'd come Mr. 
 Spots. An' one, two, three, the saloon dawg 'd 
 sail into him. 
 
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CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 Then a piece of news got 'round that must 
 'a' made the parson madder 'n a wet hen. Dutchy 
 cleaned the barrels outa his hind room an' put 
 up a notice that the nex' Sunday night he'd give 
 a dance. To finish things, the dawgs had a worse 
 fight 'n ever Friday mornin' an' the parson's los' 
 two spots an' a' ear. 
 
 I seen a change in the parson that evenin' 
 When he come down to the postoffice, them 
 brown eyes of his'n was plumb black, an' his 
 face was redder 'n Sam Barnes's. "Things is 
 goin' to happen," I says to myself, "or I ain't no 
 judge of beef." 
 
 Sunday night, o' course, you know where the 
 boys went. But I drawed lots with myself an' 
 goes up t' keep a bench warm at the schoolhouse. 
 Wai, from the minut the exercises opened with 
 "Yield Not to Temptation," I could see the air 
 was kinda blue an' liftin' like it is 'fore a thunder- 
 shower. An' the parson's tex'? It was "Lo, I 
 am full of fury; I am weary with holdin' it in." 
 
 Wai, that's the kin' of preachin' a puncher 
 likes! 
 
 Monday was quiet. But Dutchy was busy 
 fixin' up a fine shootin'-gallery at the back of the 
 "Station." Tuesday, somethin' happened at the 
 parson's. Right off after the mornin' train come 
 in, Johnson druv down to the depot an' got 
 somethin' an' hurried it home. When he come 
 [190] 
 
THE SPOTTED DAWG 
 
 into the thirst-parlor about noon, we ast him what 
 the parson was gittin'. He jus' wunk. 
 
 "I bet I knows," says Dutchy; "de preacher 
 mans buys some viskey, alretty." 
 
 Johnson snickered. "Wai," he says, "w'at I 
 took up was in a crate, all right." 
 
 A crate ! Say ! we didn't like the soun' o' that, 
 we fellers that was standin' up for the parson. 
 
 "You blame idjits !" chips in Buckshot Millikin, 
 him that owns such a turrible big bunch of white 
 faces an' was run out of Arizony for rustlin' 
 sheep, "w'at can y' expec' of a preacher that come 
 from Williams?" 
 
 Reckon more'n one of us wondered if they 
 wasn't a darned good reason for the parson not 
 wearin' duds like other religious gents an' for his 
 knowin' how to ride so good. An' we was sore. 
 A cow-punch '11 swalla almos' any ole thing, 
 long's it's right out on the table. But he shore 
 can't go a hippycrit. 
 
 Dutchy seen how we felt, an' he nearly bust his 
 sides a-laughin'. "Vot I tolt y'?" he ast. But 
 pritty soon he begun to laugh on the other side 
 of his face. 
 
 "If dot preacher goes to run a bar against me," 
 he says, "py golly, I makes no more moneys ! " 
 
 For a minnit, he looked plumb scairt. 
 
 But we was plumb disgusted. The parson was 
 playin' us for suckers, we says to each other. 
 He's been a soft-soapin' us, a flimflammin' us. 
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CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 He thinks we's as blind as day-ole kittens. An' 
 the way that Tom-fool Johnson hung 'round, 
 lookin' wise, got under our collar. After we'd 
 booted him outa the shebang, we all set down 
 on the edge of the stoop, jus' sayin' nuthin', but 
 sawin' wood. 
 
 We wasn't there more'n ten minutes when one 
 of the fellers jumped up. "There comes the par- 
 son now," he says. 
 
 Shore 'nough, there come the parson in his 
 fancy two-wheel turnout lookin' as pert as thun- 
 der. Gall ? Wai, I should smile ! An' under his 
 cart, runnin' between them yalla wheels, was his 
 spotted dawg. 
 
 Buckshot yells in to Dutchy. "Where's your 
 purp, Dutch ? " he ast. "The parson's headed this 
 way." 
 
 Dutchy was as tickled as a kid with a lookin'- 
 glass an' a hammer. He drops his bar towel an' 
 hauls out his purp. 
 
 "Vatch me ! " he says. 
 
 The parson was a good bit closter, sittin' up 
 straight's a telegraft pole, an' hummin' to his- 
 self. He was wearin' one of them caps with a 
 cowcatcher behin' an' before, knee breeches, 
 boots, an' a sweater a sweater, mind yu! 
 
 "Be a Mother Hubbard nex'," says Bill 
 Rawson. 
 
 Somehow, though, as the parson come nearer, 
 I didn't jus' like the way things looked. I sorta 
 [192] 
 
, THE SPOTTED DAWG 
 
 smelt somethin' explodey. He was too all-fired 
 songful to be natural. An' his dawg! That 
 speckled critter was as different from usual as 
 the parson. His good ear was curled up way in, 
 an' he was kinda layin' clost to the groun' as he 
 trotted along layin' so clost he was plumb bow- 
 legged. 
 
 Wai, the parson pulled up at the postoffice. 
 An' he'd no more'n got offen his seat when, first 
 rattle outen the box, them dogs mixed. 
 
 Gee whillikens! Such a mix! The' wasn't 
 much of the reg'lar ki-yiin'. Dutchy's purp 
 yelped some; but the parson's? Not for him! 
 He jus' got a good holt, a sure-'nough diamond 
 hitch on that thirst-parlor dawg, an' chawed. 
 Say ! An' whilst he chawed, the dust riz up like 
 they was one of them big sand-twisters goin' 
 through Briggs City. All of a suddent, how that 
 spotted dawg could fight! 
 
 Dutchy didn't know what'd struck him. He 
 runs out. "Come hellup" he yells to the parson. 
 
 The parson shook his head. "This street is 
 not my private property," he says. 
 
 Then Dutchy jumped in an' begun t' kick the 
 parson's dawg in the snoot. The parson walks up 
 an' stops Dutchy. 
 
 That makes the Dutchman turrible mad. He 
 didn't have no gun on him, so out he jerks his 
 pig-sticker. 
 
 What happened nex' made our eyes plumb 
 [193] 
 
CALIFORNIA STORY BOOK 
 
 stick out. That parson side-stepped, put out a 
 han' an' a foot, an' with that high-falutin' Jewie- 
 Jitsie you read 'bout, tumbled corn-beef-an'-cab- 
 bage onto his back. Then he straddled him an' 
 slapped his face. 
 
 "Lieber!" screeched Dutchy. 
 
 "Goin' t' have any more Sunday night 
 dances? " ast the parson. (Bing, bang.) 
 
 "Nein! Nein!" 
 
 "Any more (bing, bang) free Sunday sup- 
 pers?" 
 
 "Nein! No more! Hellup! ' 
 
 "Goin' to change this (biff, biff) saloon's 
 name?" 
 
 "Ya! Ya! Gott!" 
 
 The parson got up. "Amen ! " he says. Then 
 he runs into the post-office, grabs a pail of water, 
 comes out again an' throws it on the dawgs. 
 
 The Dutchman's purp was done for already. 
 An' the other one was tired 'nough to quit. So 
 when the water splashed, Dutchy got his dawg 
 by the tail, an' drug him into the thirst-parlor. 
 But that critter of the parson's! Soon as the 
 water teched him, them spots of his'n begun to 
 run. He wasn't the stylish keerige dawg at all. 
 He was a jimber- jawed bull! 
 
 The nex' Sunday night the schoolhouse was 
 
 chuck full. All of us cow-punchers was there, 
 
 an' Johnson an' Buckshot an 'Rawson an' Dutchy 
 
 yes, ma'am, Dutchy, we rounded him up. D' y' 
 
 [194] 
 
THE SPOTTED DAWG 
 
 think after such a come-off we was goin' to let 
 that limburger run any compytition place against 
 our parson? 
 
 An' that night the parson stan's up on the plat- 
 form smilin', an' looks over that cattletown bunch 
 an' says, "I take for my tex' this ev'nin', 'An' 
 the calf an' the young lion an' the fatlin' shall lie 
 down in peace together.' '' 
 
 [195] 
 
14 DAY Liar, 
 
 TO DESK PROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 LD 2lA-60m-3,'65 
 (F2336slO)476B 
 
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