' ' v >r
:
Miss Primrose
Roy Rolfe Gil son
Author of" The Flower of Youth"
" In the Morning Glow " etc.
York and London
Harper & Brothers
Publishers :: MCMV1
Copyright, 1906, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
All rights rtstmd.
Published March, 1906.
Contents
PART I
A Devonshire Lad
CHAPTER PAGE
I. LETITIA 3
II. LITTLE RUGBY 13
III. A POET OP GRASSY FORD 27
IV. THE SEVENTH SLICE 43
V. THE HANDMAIDEN 61
VI. COUSIN DOVE 71
VII. OP HAMADRYADS AND THEIR SPELLS ... 88
PART II
The School-Mistress
I. THE OLDER LETITIA 101
II. ON A CORNER SHELF 113
III. A YOUNGER ROBIN 123
IV. HIRAM PTOLEMY 136
V. A. P. A 150
VI. TRUANTS IN ARCADY 164
VII. PEGGY NEAL 177
VIII. NEW EDEN 188
IX. A SERIOUS MATTER 202
iii
2135679
Contents
PART III
Rosemary
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE HOME-KEEPER 211
II. JOHNNY KEATS 219
III. THE FORTUNE-TELLER 234
IV. AN UNEXPECTED LETTER 244
V. SURPRISES 252
VI. AN OLD FRIEND OF OURS 264
VII. SUZANNE 275
VIII. IN A DEVON LANE . 287
PART I
A Devonshire Lad
Miss Primrose
i
LETITIA
|LL little, white-haired, smiling ladies
remind me of Letitia Letitia Prim-
rose, whom you saw just now in
a corner of our garden among the
petunias. You thought her odd,
no doubt, not knowing her as I or as the children
do who find her dough-nuts sweet after school
is done, or their English cousins, those little
brown - feathered beggars waiting on winter
mornings in the snow-drifts at her sill. As for
myself, I must own to a certain kinship, as it
were, not of blood but of propinquity, a long
next-doorhood in our youth, a tenderer, name-
less tie in after years, and always a fond par-
tiality which began one day by our old green
3
Miss Primrose
fence. There, on its Primrose side, it seems, she
had parted the grape-vines, looking for fruit,
and found instead
"Why! whose little boy is this?"
Now, it happened to be Bertram, Jonathan
Weatherby's little boy it being a holiday, and
two pickets off, and the Concords purple in a
witchery of September sheen though at first
he could make no sign to her of his parentage,
so surprised he was, and his mouth so crammed.
"Will I die?" he asked, when he had gulped
down all but his tongue.
"Die!" she replied, laughing at his grave,
round eyes and pinching his nearer cheek. " Do
I look like an ogress?"
"No," he said; "but I've gone and swallowed
'em."
"The grapes?"
"No yes but I mean the pits," whereat she
laughed so that his brow darkened.
"Well, a man did once."
"Did what?"
"Died from swallowin' 'em."
"Who told you that?"
"Maggie did."
"And who is Maggie?"
4
Letitia
" Why, you know Maggie. She's our hired girl."
"How many did you swallow?"
"Five."
"Five!"
"Or six, I guess. I'm not quite sure."
"What made you do it?"
"I didn't. You did."
"I made you swallow them?"
"Why, yes, 'cause, now, I had 'em in my
mouth "
"Six all at once!"
"Yes, and you went and scared me. I forgot
to think."
"Mercy! I'm sorry, darling."
"My name isn't darling. It's Bertram."
"I'm sorry, Bertram."
"Oh, that's all right," he forgave her, cheer-
fully, "as long as I don't die like the man did;
you'll know pretty soon, I guess."
"How shall I know?"
" Well, the man, he hollered. You could hear
him 'cross lots, Maggie says. So, if you listen,
why, pretty soon you'll know."
And it is due partly to the fact that Letitia
Primrose, listening, heard no hollering across
lots, that I am able here to record the very
5
Miss Primrose
day and hour when I first met her ; partly that,
and partly because Letitia has a better mem-
ory than Jonathan Weatherby's little boy, for I
do not remember the thing at all and must take
her word for it.
She was not gray then, of course. It must
have been a pink, sweet, merry face that peered
at me through the grape-vines, and a ringing
laugh in those days, and two plump fingers that
pinched my cheek. Her hair was brown and
hung in braids, she tells me. She may have been
fourteen.
I do not remember her so young. I do re-
member hugging some one and being hugged,
next door once in the bay-window by the red
geraniums, whose scent still bears to me some
faint, sweet airs of summers gone. It was not a
relative who hugged me ; I know by the feeling
the remembered feeling for I was dutiful but
not o'er keen in the matter of kissing our kith
and kin. No, it was some one who took me by
surprise and rumpled me, some one who seemed,
somehow, to have the right to 'me, though not
by blood some one too who was nearer my age
than most of our relatives, who were not so
young and round and luring as I recall them.
6
Let it i a
It was some one kneeling, so that our heads were
even. The carpet was red, I remember. I had
run in from play, I suppose, and she was there,
and I I may have been irresistible in those
days. At least I know it was not I, but Eve
who
That must have been Letitia. I have never
asked, but it was not Cousin Julia, or the Potter
girl, or Sammy's sister. Excluding the rest of
the world, I infer Letitia. And why not kiss
me? She kissed Sammy, that fat, little, pud-
ding-head Sammy McSomething, who played the
mouth-organ. Since of all the tunes in the world
he knew but one (you know which one) , it may
seem foolish that I cared; but, remember, I
played none ! And she kissed him for playing
kissed him, pudgy and vulgar as he was with the
fetty-bag tied to his neck by a dirty string to
ward off contagions! Ugh! I swore a green,
green oath to learn the accordion.
That night in bed night of the day she kissed
him with only the moon-lamp burning outside
my window, I felt that my cheeks were wet. I
had been thinking. It had come to me awfully
as I tossed, that I had been born too late for
Letitia. Always, I should be too young for her.
7
Miss Primrose
Dear Letitia, white and kneeling even then,
perhaps, at your whiter prayers, or reading
after them, before you slept, in the Jane Eyre
which lay for years beneath your pillow, you
did not dream that you also were a heroine
of romance. You did not dream of the plot
then hatching in the night : plot with a vil-
lain in it oh, beware, Letitia, of a pudgy,
vulgar, superstitious villain wearing a charmed
necklace of assafcetida to ward off evils, but pow-
erless, even quite odorless against that green-
eyed one! For, lo! Letitia: thy Hero standing
beneath thy chamber - window in the moon-
beams, is singing soprano to the gentle bellows-
ings of early love!
No, I do not play the accordion, nor did I
ever. I never even owned one, so I never prac-
tised secretly in the barn-loft, nor did I ever,
after all my plotting, lure young Sammy to play
"Sweet Home" to our dear lady in the moon-
shine, only to be eclipsed, to his dire confusion
and everlasting shame, by me. It may have
been that I had no pocket-money, or that Santa
Claus was short that year in his stock of wind-
instruments, or that Jonathan Weatherby had
no ear for melody about the house, but it is far
8
Letitia
more likely that Letitia Primrose never again
offended, to my knowledge, in the matter of
pudgy little vulgar boys.
Now, as I muse the longer of that fair young
lady who lived next door to us, as I see myself
crawling through the place with the pickets off,
and recall beyond it the smell and taste of the
warm Concords in my petty larcenies of a dozen
autumns, then other things come back to me, of
Letitia 's youth, of its cares and sacrifice and
its motherlessness. The Rev. David Primrose,
superannuate divine, bard and scholar, lived
mostly in a chair, as I recall him, and it was
Letitia who wheeled him on sunny days when
other girls were larking, who sat beside it in the
bay-window, half - screened by her geraniums,
reading to him when his eyes were weary, writing
for him, when his hand trembled, those fine fancies
that helped him to forget his sad and premature
decay. She was his only child, his only house-
maid, gardener, errand-boy, and "angel," as
mother said, and the mater went sometimes to
sit evenings with him lest Letitia should never
know joys of straw-rides and taffy-pulls and
church-sociable ice-cream and cake.
He had a fine, white, haggard face, too stern
9
Miss Primrose
for a little child to care for, but less forbidding
to a growing school - boy who had found by
chance that it softened wonderfully with mem-
ories of that Rugby where Tom Brown went
to school ; for Dr. Primrose had conned his
Xenophon within those very ivied -walls, and,
what was more to Bertram Weatherby, under
those very skies had fled like Tom, a hunted hare,
working fleet wonders in the fields of Warwick-
shire.
"A mad March hare I was, Bertram," he
would tell me, the light of his eyes blazing in that
little wind of a happy memory, only to sink and
go out again. Smoothing then with his fine,
white hands the plaid shawl which had been his
wife's and was now a coverlet for his wasted
knees, he would say, sadly:
"Broomsticks, Bertram but in their day
there were no fleeter limbs in Rugby."
There on my upper shelf is an old, worn, dusty
copy of the Odes of Horace, which I cannot read,
but it bears on its title-page, in a school-boy's
scrawl, the name and date for which I prize it:
"David Buckleton Primrose, Rugby, A.D.
18 ."
He laughed as he gave it to me.
10
Let it i a
"Mark, Bertram," said he, "the 'A.D.'"
"Thank you, sir," I replied, tremulously.
"You bet I'll always keep it, Mr. Primrose."
"Dr. Primrose," he reproved me, gently.
"Doctor, I mean. Maybe Tom had one like
it."
"Likely," he replied. "You must learn to
read it."
"Oh, I will, sir and Greek."
"That's right, my boy. Remember always
what Dr. Primrose said when he gave you Hor-
ace: that no gentleman could have pretensions
to sound culture who was not well-grounded in
the classics. Can you remember that?"
Twice he made me repeat it.
"Oh yes, sir, I can remember it," I told him.
"Do you suppose Tom put in his name like
that?"
"Doubtless," said Dr. Primrose, "minus the
A.D."
" I didn't know you had a middle name," I said.
" Buckleton was my mother's maiden name,"
he explained. " She was of the Wiltshire Buckle-
tons, and a very good family, too."
"David Buckleton Primrose," I read aloud.
"Lineal descendant of Dr. Charles Primrose,
ii
Miss Primrose
Vicar of Wakefield," added the minister, so
solemnly that I fairly caught my breath. I had
no notion then of whom he spoke, but there
was that in the chant of his deep voice and
the pleasant, pompous sound he gave the title,
which awed me so I could only stare at him, and
then at Horace, and then at him again, as he
lay back solemnly in his chair, regarding me with
half -shut eyes. Slowly a smile overspread his
features.
" I was only jesting. Did you never hear of
the Vicar of Wakefieldf"
"No," I said.
"There: that little yellow book on the third
shelf, between the green ones. He was its hero, a
famous character of Oliver Goldsmith's. He also
was a clergyman, and his name was Primrose."
"Oh," I said, "and did he go to Rugby, sir?"
Now, though the doctor laughed and shook his
head, somehow I got that notion in my noddle,
and to this very day must stop to remember
that the vicar was not a Rugby boy. I have
even caught myself imagining that I had read
somewhere, or perhaps been told, that his middle
name was Buckleton. One thing, of course, was
true of both Primroses: they lived A.D.
12
II
LITTLE RUGBY
[UNTING fox-grapes on a Saturday
in fall, or rambling truantly on a
fair spring morning, and chuckling
to hear the school-bells calling in
vain to us across the meadows, it
was fine to say:
"Gee! If there was only a game-keeper to
get into a row with!"
And then hear Peter's answer:
" Gee, yes ! Remember how Velveteens caught
Tom up a tree?"
It was fine, I say, because it proved that
Peter, too, knew Tom Brown's School Days, and
all about Slogger Williams and Tom's fight with
him, all about East and Arthur and Dr. Arnold,
and Tom in the last chapter standing alone in
the Rugby chapel by the doctor's grave.
One night in winter I remember keeping watch
13
Miss Primrose
hard-pressed was Caesar by the hordes of Gaul
a merest stripling from among the legions,
stealthily deserted post, braving the morrow's
reckoning to linger in delicious idleness by his
father's shelves. There, in a tattered copy of an
old Harper's, whose cover fluttered to the hearth-
rug, his eyes fell upon a set of drawings of a gate,
a quadrangle, a tower door with ivy over it, a
cricket-field with boys playing and scattering a
flock of sheep, a shop (at this his eyes grew
wider) a mere little Englishy village-shop, to be
sure, blit not like others, for this, indeed, was
Sallie Harrowell's, where Tom bought baked
potatoes and a pennyworth of tea! And out
of one full, dark page looked Dr. Arnold a
face as fine and wise and tender as Bertram
Weatherby had fancied it, so that he turned
from it but to turn back again, thinking how
Tom had looked upon its living presence in
more wondrous days. Caesar's deserter read and
looked, and looked and read again, beside the
hearth, forgetting the legions in the Gallic wilds,
forgetting the Roman sentry calls for the cries
of cricketers, and seeing naught but the guarded
wickets on an English green and how the sheep
browsed peacefully under the windows in the vines.
Little Rugby
Schoolward next morning Rugby and Caesar
nestled together beneath his arm. He found his
Little Rugby on a hill a red brick school-house
standing awkwardly and solemn - eyed in its
threadbare playground, for all the world like a
poor school-master, impoverished without, well
stocked within. It was an ugly, mathematical-
looking Rugby, austere and angular, and with-
out a shred of vine or arching bough for birds
or dreams to nest in, yet Bertram Weatherby
hailed it joyfully, ran lightly up its painted
steps, and flung wide open its great hall-door.
A flood of sound gushed forth laughter, bois-
terous voices, chatter of girls, and the movement
of restless feet. Across the threshold familiar
faces turned, smiling, familiar voices rose from
the tumult, his shoulders tingled with the buffets
of familiar hands.
"Hello, Bildad!"
"Hello, old saw-horse!"
" Hello, yourself ! Take that ! ' '
But suddenly, in the midst of these savage
greetings, that gentle pressure of an arm about
him, and Peter's voice :
"Hello, old man!"
Bertram would whirl at that, his face beam-
15
Miss Primrose
ing; they had met but yesterday it was as
years ago "Hello, old man! Look, Peter!"
But a gong clanged. Then all about them was
the hurry and tramp of feet upon the stairs. Lost
in the precious pages, they climbed together, arm
in arm, drifting upward with the noisy current
and through the doors of the assembly-hall.
"See, Bertram the cricket-bats on the wall!"
"Yes; and the High Street and Sallie Har-
rowell's!"
"And the doctor's door!"
Through another door just then their own
masters were slowly filing, their own doctor last
and weightiest of all, his smooth, strong face
busy with some chapel reverie.
"The Professor's like Arnold," Bertram told
Peter as they slipped together into their double
seat.
The last gong clanged. There was a last bang
of seats turned down, a last clatter of books upon
the desks, the last belated, breathless ones flut-
tered down aisles with reddened cheeks, while
the Professor waited with the Bible open in his
hand.
"Let us read this morning the one-hundred -
and-seventh Psalm Psalm one hundred seven."
16
Little Rugby
Peter was in Rugby, hidden by the girl in
front. The boy named Bertram fixed his gaze
upon the desk before him. Fair and smooth it
was too smooth with newness to please a Rug-
beian eye. During the Psalm, with his pocket-
knife he cut his initials in the yellow wood, and
smiled at them. In days to come other boys
would sit where he was sitting, and gaze and
puzzle over that rude legacy, and, if dreams
came true, might be proud enough to sprawl
their elbows where a famous man had lolled.
They might even hang the old seat-top upon the
wall, that all who ran might read the glory of
an alma mater in the disobedience of a mighty
son. Bertram Weatherby gazed fondly upon his
handiwork and closed his knife. Time and Des-
tiny must do the rest.
" Let us pray."
For a moment the Professor stood there silent-
ly with lowered eyes. Bertram and Peter, their
shoulders touching, bowed their heads.
"Our Father in heaven ..."
There was no altar only a flat-topped desk;
no stained -glass windows only the sunshine on
the panes; and there a man's voice, deep and
trembling, and here a school-boy's beating heart,
17
Miss Primrose
"... Help us, O Father, to be kinder ..."
How you loved Peter, the Professor, and your
ugly Rugby on its hill!
"... Lead us, Father, to a nobler youth ..."
Ay, they should know you for the man you
were, deep down in your hidden soul.
"... Give us, Father, courage for the battle ..."
Wait till the next time Murphy bumped you
on the stairs!
" . . . to put behind us all indolence of flesh and
soul . . ."
You would study hard that term.
" . . . all heedlessness and disobedience ..."
You would keep the rules.
"... for Jesus' sake Amen."
"Peter, did you see the sheep . . ."
"If the two young gentlemen whispering on
the back seat "
You flushed angrily. Other fellows whispered
on back seats. Why, always, did the whole school
turn so knowingly to you ?
Sitting, one study-hour, in the assembly-hall,
Bertram's eyes wandered to the top of the Com-
mentaries, strayed over the book to the braids of
the Potter girl beyond, and on to the long,
18
Little Rugby
brown benches. The hum of recitations there,
whispering behind him, giggling half suppressed,
and the sharp rat-tat of the teacher's warning
pencil came to him vaguely as in a dream.
Through the tall windows he saw the spotless
blue of the sky, the bright-green, swaying tips
of the maples, and the flight of wings. Out there
it was spring. Two more months of Cassar
eight more dreary weeks of legions marching and
barbarians bending beneath the yoke then
summer and the long vacation, knights jousting
in the orchard, Indians scalping on the hill.
Eight weeks forty days of school.
Behind a sheltering grammar Peter was read-
ing Hughes. Over his shoulder Bertram could
make out Tom, just come to Rugby, watching the
football, and that cool Crab Jones, fresh from a
scrimmage, with the famous straw still hanging
from his teeth. He read to the line of Peter's
shoulder, then his eyes wandered again to the
school-room window. It was spring in Grassy
Ford it was spring in Warwickshire. . . .
" If the young gentleman gazing out of the
window "
" Tertia vigilia eruptionem fecerunt " third
watch eruption they made. Eruptionem
Miss Primrose
eruption pimples break out sally. They
made a sally at the third watch. Tertia vigilia,
ablative case. Ablative of what? Ablative of
time. Why ablative of time? Because a noun
denoting oh, hang their eruptionem ! They
were dead and buried long ago. Why does a
fellow learn such stuff ? Help his English huh !
English helps his Latin that's what. How
does a fellow know eruptionem? Because he's
seen pimples that's how. No sense learn-
ing Latin. Dead language dead as a door-
nail. . . .
Bertram Weatherby drew a picture on the
margin of his book a head, shoulders, two arms,
a trunk and trousered legs. Carefully, then, he
dotted in the eyes the nose the mouth the
ears beneath the tousled hair. He rolled the
shirt-sleeves to the elbows drew the trousers-
belt the shoes. Then delicately, smiling to
himself the while, his head tilted, his eyes squint-
ed like a connoisseur, he drew a straw pendent
from the figure's lips.
"Peter, who's that?"
"Sh! not so loud. She'll hear you."
"Who's that, Peter?"
,"Hm Crab Jones."
20
Little Rugby
"Now, if the idle young gentleman drawing
pictures "
" Tertia vigilia eruptionem fecerunt" oh, they
did, did they ? What of that ? . . .
"Rugby," said the Professor, who had a way
of enlivening his classes with matters of the outer
world " Rugby, as I have heard my friend Dr.
Primrose say, who was a Rugby boy himself, is
very different from our public schools. Only
the other day he was telling me of a school-mate,
a professor now, who had returned to England,
and who had spent a day there rambling about
the ivied buildings, and searching, I suppose,
for the ancient form where he had carved his
name. Dr. Primrose told me how, as this old
friend lingered on the greensward where the
boys played cricket, as he himself had done on
that very spot fine, manly fellows in their
white flannels he heard not a single oath or
vulgar word in all that hour he loitered there.
One young player called to another who ran too
languidly after the ball. 'Aren't you playing,
Brown?' he cried, with a touch of irony in his
voice."
The Professor paused.
91
Miss Primrose
" I have heard stronger language on our play-
ground here."
He paused again, adding, impressively:
"We might do well to imitate our English
cousins."
"Just what / say," whispered young Bertram
Weatherby.
"The Prof.'s all right," Peter whispered back.
And so, down -town, after school that day,
behold ! sitting on stools at Billy's Palace Lunch
Counter, in the Odd Fellow's Block two fine,
manly chaps, not in white cricket flannels, to
be sure, but
"It's some like Sallie Harrowell's," one mum-
bled, joyously, crunching his buttered toast, and
the other nodded, taking his swig of tea.
So it came to pass that they looked reverently
upon the Professor with Rugbeian eyes, and more
admiringly as they noted new likenesses between
him and the great head-master. There was a
certain resemblance of glowing countenance, they
told themselves, a certain ardor of voice, as they
imagined, and over all a sympathy for boys.
"Well," he would say, "stopping them as
they walked together arm in arm, "if you seek
22
Little Rugby
Peter, look for Bertram eh?" giving their
shoulders a bantering shake which pleased them
greatly as they sauntered on.
Listening to his prayers in chapel, hearing at
least the murmur of them as they bowed their
heads, their minds swayed by the earnestness
of the great man's voice rather than by the
words he uttered, they felt that glow which comes
sometimes to boys who read and dream. Then
Bertram loved the touch of Peter's shoulder,
and, with the memory of another doctor and
another school-boy, he loved his Rugby, little
and meagre and vineless though it was upon its
threadbare hill. When he had left it he would
return some day, he thought; he would stand
like Tom in the last chapter; he would sit again
at his old brown desk, alone, musing missing
his mate, and finding silence where happy whis-
perings and secret play had been but still in the
pine before him he would trace the letters he
had cut, and, seeing them, he would be again the
boy who cut them there.
One morning, such was the fervor of the Pro-
fessor's voice, there was some such dream, and
when it ended, prayer and dream together
"After these exercises
23
Miss Primrose
It was the Professor's voice.
" I wish to see in my office Bertram Weath-
erby and Peter Wynne."
They heard aghast. The whole school turned
to them. The Past rose dreadfully before their
startled vision, yet for once, it seems, they could
find no blemish there.
Down -stairs, quaking, they slipped together
through the office door. The Professor had not
arrived. They took their stations farthest from
his chair, and leaned, wondering, for support
against the wall. There was a murmur of as-
sembling classes overhead, a hurry of belated
feet, and then that well-known, awful tread.
Peter gulped ; Bertram shifted his feet, his heart
thumping against his ribs, but they squared
their shoulders as the door flew open and the
Professor, his face grave, his eyes flashing,
swooped down upon them in the little room.
"Bertram!"
"Yes, sir."
"Peter!"
"Yes, sir."
" I have sent for you to answer a most serious
charge most serious, indeed. I am surprised.
I am astonished. Two of my best pupils, two
24
Little Rugby
whom I have praised, not once but many times,
here in this very room two, I may say, of my
favorite boys found violating, wilfully violating,
the rules of this school. I could not believe the
charge till I saw the evidence with my own eyes.
I could not believe that boys like you boys of
good families, boys with minds far above the av-
erage of their age, would despoil, openly despoil
yes, I may say, ruthlessly despoil the prop-
erty of this school, descending "
"Why, sir, what prop "
"Descending," cried the Professor, "to van-
dalism to a vandalism which I have again and
again proscribed. Over and over I have said,
and within your hearing, that I would not coun-
tenance the defacing of desks!"
Bertram Weatherby glanced furtively at Peter
Wynne. Peter had sighed.
"Over and over," said the Professor, "I have
told you that they were not your property or
mine, but the property of the people whose rep-
resentative I am. Yet here I find you marring
their tops with jackrknives, carving great, sprawl-
ing letters "
" But, sir, at Rug"
"Great, ugly letters, I say, sprawling and
25
Miss Primrose
slashed so deeply that the polished surface can
never be restored."
"At Rug "
"What will visitors say? What will your
parents say if they come, as parents should, to
see the property for which they pay a tribute to
the state?"
"But, sir, at Rug"
" Bertram, I am grieved. I am grieved, Peter,
that boys reared to care for the neatness of their
persons should prove so slovenly in the matter of
the property a great republic intrusts to their use
and care."
"But, sir, at Rug"
"I am astonished."
"At Rug"
"I am astounded."
"At Rug"
"Astounded, I repeat."
"At Rugby, sir"
"Rugby!" thundered the Professor. "Rug-
by! And what of Rugby?"
"Why, at Rugby, sir"
" And what, pray, has Rugby, or a thousand
Rugby s, to do with your wilful disobedience?"
"They cut, sir"
26
Little Rugby
" Cut, sir!" repeated the Professor. " Cut, sir!"
"Yes, sir their desks, sir."
"And if they do what then?"
"Well, sir, you said, you know " .
"Said? What did I say? I asked you to
imitate the manliness of Rugby cricketers. I
did not ask you to carve your desks like the
totem-poles of savage tribes!"
His face was pale, his eyes dark, his words
ground fine.
"Young gentlemen, I will have you know that
rules must be obeyed. I will have you know
that I am here not only as a teacher, but as a
guardian of the public property intrusted to my
care. Under the rules which I am placed here
to enforce, I can suspend you both dismiss you
from the privileges of the school. This once I
will act with lenience. This once, young gen-
tlemen, you may think yourselves lucky to
escape with demerit marks, but if I hear again
of conduct so unbecoming, so disgraceful, of
vandalism so ruthless and absurd, I shall punish
you as you deserve. Now go."
Softly they shut the office door behind them.
Arm in arm they went together, tiptoe, down
the empty hall.
27
Miss Primrose
"Well?"
The gloom of a great disappointment was in
their voices.
"He's not an Arnold, after all," they said.
Ill
A POET OF GRASSY FORD
[HE lesser Primrose was a poet.
It was believed in Grassy Ford,
though the grounds seem vague
enough now that I come to think
of them, that he published widely
in the literary journals of the day. Letitia was
seen to post large envelopes, and anon to draw
large envelopes from the post-office and hasten
home with them. The former were supposed
to contain poems; the latter, checks. Be that
as it may, I never saw the Primrose name in
print save in our Grassy Ford Weekly Gazette.
There, when gossip lagged, you would find it
frequently in a quiet upper corner, set "solid,"
under the caption "Gems" a terse distinction
from the other bright matters with which our
journal shone, and further emphasized by the
Gothic capitals set in a scroll of stars. Thus
3 29
Miss Primrose
modestly, I believe, were published for the first
time and I fear the last Dsf^id Buckleton
Primrose's "Agamemnon," "Ode to Jupiter,"
"Ulysses's Farewell," "Lines on Rereading
Dante," "November: an Elegy Written in the
Autumn of Life," as well as those stirring bugle-
calls, "To Arms!" "John Brown," and "The
Guns of Sumter," and those souvenirs of more
playful tender moods, "To a Lady," "When I
was a Rugby Lad," "Thanksgiving Pies," and
"Lines Written in a Young Lady's Album on
her Fifteenth Birthday." Now that young lady
was Letitia, I chance to know, for I have seen
the verses in her school - girl album, a little
leathern Christmas thing stamped with forget-
me-nots now faded, and there they stand just
opposite some school-mate's doggerel of "roses
red and violets blue " signed Johnny Gray. The
lines begin, I remember:
"Virtue is in thy modest glance, sweet child,"
and they are written in a flourished, old-fash-
ioned hand. These and every other line her
father dreamed there in his chair Letitia treasures
in a yellow scrap-book made of an odd volume
30
A Poet of Grassy Ford
of Rhode Island statutes for 18 . There, one
by one, as he wrote them, or cut them with
trembling fingers from the fresh, ink - scented
Gazette "Gems," scroll and all, and with date
attached she set them neatly in with home-
made paste, pressing flat each precious flower of
his muse with her loving fingers.
Editor Butters used to tell me of the soft-eyed
girl, "with virtue in her modest glance," slipping
suddenly into his print - shop, preferably after
dusk had fallen, and of the well-known envelope
rising from some sacred folds, he never quite
knew where, to be laid tremblingly upon his
desk.
"Something from father, sir."
It was a faint voice, often a little husky, and
then a smile, a bow, and she had fled.
Editor Nathaniel Butters had a weakness of
the heart for all tender things a weakness
"under oath," however, as he once replied when
I charged him with it, and as I knew, for I myself
heard him one summer afternoon, as he sat, shirt-
sleeved and pipe in mouth, perched on a stool,
and setting type hard by a window where I
stood beneath fishing with a dogwood wand.
"The-oc-ri-tus! Humpf! Now, who in thun-
Miss Primrose
der cares a tinker's damn for Theocritus, in
Grassy Ford? Some old Greek god, I suppose,
who died and went to the devil; and here's a
parson a Christian parson who ought to know
better writing an ode to him, for Hank Myers
to read, and Jim Gowdy, and Old Man Flynn.
And I don't get a cent for it, not a blank cent,
Sam well, he doesn't either, for that matter
but it's all tommy-rot, and here I've got to sweat,
putting in capitals where they don't belong and
hopping down to the darned old dictionary every
five minutes to see if he's right Sam [turn-
ing to his printer] there's some folks think it's
just heaven to be a country editor, but I'll
be"
He was a rough, white-bearded, little, round,
fat man, who showed me type-lice, I remember
(the first and only time I ever saw the vermin),
and roared when I wiped my eyes, though I've
forgiven him. He was good to Letitia in an
hour of need.
Dr. Primrose, it seems, had written his master-
piece, a solemn, Dr. Johnsonian thing which he
named "Jerusalem," and reaching, so old man
Butters told me once, chuckling, "from Friday
evening to Saturday night." The muse had
32
A Poet of Grassy Ford
granted him a longer candle than it was her wont
to lend, and Letitia trembled for that sacred fire.
"Print it, child? Of course he'll print it.
It's the finest thing I ever did!"
"True, father, but its length"
"Not longer than Milton's 'Lycidas,' my
dear."
"I know, but he's so he looks so fierce,
father." She laughed nervously.
"Who? Butters?"
"Yes."
"Tut! Butters has brains enough "
" It isn't his brains," replied Letitia. " It's his
whiskers, father."
"Whiskers?"
"Yes; they bristle so."
" Don't be foolish, child. Butters has brains
enough to know it is worth the printing. Worth
the printing!" he cried, with irony. "Yes, even
though it isn't dialect."
Dialect was then in vogue; no Grassy Ford,
however small, in those days, but had its Rhym-
ing Robin who fondly imagined that he might be
another Burns.
"Dialect!" the doctor repeated, scornfully,
his eyes roving to the shabby ancients on his
33
Miss Primrose
shelves. " Bring me Horace that's a good girl.
No yes." His hand lingered over hers that
offered him the book. "Child," he said, looking
her keenly in the eyes, " do you find it so hard to
brave that lion?"
" Oh no, father. I didn't mean I was afraid,
only he's so woolly. You can hardly make
out his eyes, and fire sputters through his old
spectacles. I think he never combs 'his hair."
"Does he ever grumble at you?"
"Oh no" and here she laughed "that is, I
never give him time; I run away."
The old poet made no reply to her, but went
on holding that soft little hand with the Horace
in it, and gazing thoughtfully at his daughter's
face.
"We can send it by mail," he said at last.
That roused Letitia.
" Oh, not at all !" she cried. " Why, I'm proud
to take it, father. Mr. Butters isn't so dreadful
if he is fuzzy. I'm sure he'll print it. There
was that letter from Mr. Banks last week, a
column long, on carrots."
He smiled dryly at her over his opened book.
"If only my 'Jerusalem' were artichokes in-
stead of Saracens!" he said.
34
A Poet of Grassy Ford
The fuzzy one was in his lair, proof-reading
at his unkempt desk. The floor was littered at
his feet. He was smoking a black tobacco in a
blacker pipe. He wore no coat, no cuffs, and
his sleeves were um; it does not matter. He
glared (" carnivorously," Letitia tells me) at the
opening door.
"Evening," he said, and waited; but the
envelope did not arise. So he rose himself,
offering a seat in the midst of his clutter, a
plain, pine, rope-mended chair, from which he
pawed spiled sheets of copy and tattered ex-
changes that she might sit.
"Looks some like snow," he said.
"Yes," she assented. "I called, Mr. But-
ters"
She paused uncertainly. It was her own
voice that had disconcerted her, it was so trem-
ulous.
"Another poem, I suppose," he said, fondly
imagining that he had softened his voice to a
tone of gallantry, but succeeding no better than
might be expected of speech so hedged, so beset
and baffled, so veritably bearded in its earward
flight.
"You you mentioned snow, I think," stam-
35
Miss Primrose
mered Letitia. He had frightened her away, or
she may have drawn back, half -divining, even in
embarrassment, that the other, the more round-
about, the snowy path, was the better way to
approach her theme.
"Snow and east winds are the predictions, I
believe, Miss Primrose."
"I dread the winter don't you?" she vent-
ured.
"No," he replied. "I like it."
"That's because you are
" Because I'm so fat, you mean."
"Oh no, Mr. Butters, I didn't even think of
that; I meant so
And then heavens! it flashed across her
that she had meant " woolly " ! To save her soul
she could think of no synonyme. Her cheeks
turned red.
"I meant why, of course, I meant you're
so well prepared."
"Well prepared," he grumbled.
"Why, yes, you men can wear beards, you
know."
"Egad! you're right," he roared. "You're
right, Miss Primrose. I am well mufflered, that's
a fact."
36
A Poet of Grassy Ford
"But, really, it must be a great assistance,
Mr. Butters."
"Oh yes; it is and it saves neckties."
And this, mark you, was the way to Poetry!
Poor Letitia, with the manuscript hidden be-
neath her cloak, was all astray. The image of
the poet with Horace in his lap rose before her
and rebuked her. She was tempted to disclose
her mission, dutifully, there and then.
"How is Mrs. Butters?" she inquired instead.
"About as well as common, which is to say,
poorly very poorly, thank you."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
Editor Butters seemed downcast.
" She's tried everything," he said. " Even had
a pocket made in her gown to hold a potato and
a horse - chestnut but this rheumatism does
beat all, I tell you. How's the old gentleman?"
"The doctor says he will never walk."
"Yes, so I heard," muttered the editor. " It's
a damned shame."
He was fumbling with his proofs and did not
see her face yet, after all, she could feel the
sympathy even in his rudeness.
"Still hatching poems, I suppose?"
Her heart, which had warmed even as her
37
Miss Primrose
cheeks had colored at his other words, grew cold
at these. What manner of toil it was that
brought forth things so pure and beautiful in
her sight, what labor of love and travail of spirit
it was to him, she alone would ever know who
watched beside him, seeing his life thus ebbing,
dream by dream. She sat silent, crumpling
those precious pages in her hands.
"Well," Butters went on, gruffly, clearing his
throat, "he's a good hand at it." He was not
looking at Letitia, but kept his eyes upon a ring
of keys with which he played nervously; and
now when he spoke it was more spasmodically,
as if reluctant to broach some matter for which,
however, he felt the time had come. "Yes, he's
a good hand at it. Used to be even better than
he is now but that's natural. I wish, though
you'd just suggest when it comes handy just in
a quiet sort of way, you know some day when
you get the chance that he's getting just a
leetle bit you can say it better than I can
but I mean long-winded for the Gazette. It's
natural, of course, but you see you see, Miss
Primrose, if we print one long-winded piece, you
know you can see for yourself why, every
other poet in Grassy Ford starts firing epics at
38
A Poet of Grassy Ford
us, which is natural, of course, but hard on
me. And if I refuse 'em, why, then, they just
naturally up and say, 'Well, you printed Prim-
rose's; why not mine?' and there they have you
there they have you right by the yes, sir,
there they have you; and there's the devil to
pay. Like as not they get mad then and stop
their papers, which they don't pay for and
that's natural, too, only it causes feeling and
doesn't do me any good, or your father either."
"But, Mr. Butters, you printed Mr. Banks's
letter on carrots, and that was "
The editor fairly leaped in his chair.
"There, you have it!" he cried. "Just what
I said! There's that confounded letter of Jim
Banks's, column-long on carrots, a-staring me
in the face from now till kingdom come when
any other idiot wants to print something a col-
umn long. Just what I say, Miss Primrose ; but
you must remember that the readers of the
Gazette do raise carrots, and they don't raise
well, now, for instance, and not to be mean or
personal at all, Miss Primrose not at all they
don't raise Agamemnons or Theocrituses. I
suppose I should say Theocriti singular, The-
ocritus; plural, Theocriti. No, sir, they don't
39
Miss Primrose
raise Theocriti which is natural, of course, and
reminds me while we are on the subject re-
minds me, Miss Primrose, that I've been think-
ing or wondering in fact, I've been going to
ask you for some time back, only I never just
got the chance ask you if you wouldn't just
kind of speak to your father, to kind of induce
him, you know, to to write on about well,
about livelier things. You see, Miss Primrose,
it's natural, of course, for scholars to write about
things that are dead and gone. They wouldn't
be scholars if they wrote what other people knew
about. That's only natural. Still still, Miss
Primrose, if the old gentleman could just give
us a poem or two on the well, the issues of the
day, you know oh, he's a good writer, Miss
Primrose! Mind, I'm not saying a word not a
word against that. I'd be the last Good
God, what's the matter, girl! What have I
done? Oh, I say now, that's too bad that's
too bad, girlie. Come, don't do that don't
Why, if I'd a-known "
Letitia, "Jerusalem" crushed in her right
hand, had buried her face among the proof-
sheets on his desk. Woolier than ever in his
bewilderment, the editor rose sat rose again
40
A Poet of Grassy Ford
patted gingerly (he had never had a daughter),
patted Letitia's shaking shoulders and strove
to soothe her with the only words at his com-
mand: "Oh, now, I say I why, say, if I'd
a-known" till Letitia raised her dripping face.
"You m-mustn't mind, Mr. B-Butters," she
said, smiling through her tears.
" Why, say, Miss Primrose, if I'd a-dreamed "
"It's all my f-fault, Mr. B-Butters."
"Damn it, no! It's mine. It's mine, I tell
you. I might a-known you'd think I was criti-
cising your father."
"Oh, it's not that exactly, Mr. Butters, but
you see "
She put her hair out of her eyes and smoothed
the manuscript.
" Egad ! I see ; you had one of the old gentle-
man's "
Letitia nodded.
"Egad!" he cried again. "Let's see, Miss
Primrose."
"Oh, there isn't the slightest use," she said.
"It's too long, Mr. Butters."
"No, no. Let's have a look at it."
"No," she answered. "No, it's altogether too
long, Mr. Butters."
41
Miss Primrose
"But let's have a look at it."
She hesitated. His hand was waiting ; but she
shook her head.
"No. It's the longest poem he ever wrote,
Mr. Butters. It's his masterpiece."
"By George! let's see it, then. Let's see it."
"Why, it's as long, Mr. Butters it's as long
as ' Lycidas. ' '
" Long as hm !" he replied. " Still still, Miss
Primrose," he added, cheerfully, "that isn't so
long when you come to think of it."
"But that's not all," Letitia said. "It's
about it's called oh, you'll never print it, Mr.
Butters!"
She rose with the poem in her hand.
"Print it!" cried Butters. "Why, of course
I'll print it. I'll print it if every cussed poet in
Grassy"
"Oh, will you, Mr. Butters?"
"Will I? Of course I will."
He took it from her unresisting fingers.
" Je-ru-sa-lem!" he cried, fluttering the twenty
pages.
"Yes," she said, "that's that's the name of
it, Mr. Butters," and straightway set herself to
rights again.
42
IV
THE SEVENTH SLICE
T was the editor himself who told
me the story years afterwards
Butters of "The Pide Bull," as he
ever afterwards called his shop, for
in her gratitude Letitia had pointed
out to him how natural it was that he of all men
should be the patron of poets, since beyond a
doubt, she averred, he was descended from that
very Nathaniel Butter for whom was printed
the first quarto edition of King Lear. Indeed,
with the proofs of "Jerusalem" she brought him
the doctor's Shakespeare, and showed him in
the preface to the tragedy the record of an an-
tique title-page bearing these very words:
" Printed for Nathaniel Butter, and are
to be fold at his {hop in Paul's Church-
yard at the figne of the Pide Bull neere
St. Auftin's Gate, 1608."
43
Miss Primrose
"Egad!" said Butters, "I never heard that
before. Well, well, well, well."
" I think there is no doubt, Mr. Butters," said
Letitia, "that he was your ancestor."
"You don't say so," mumbled the delighted
editor. " Shouldn't wonder. Shouldn't wonder
now at all. I believe there was an 's' tacked
on our name, some time or other, now that I
come to think of it, and printer's ink always did
run in the Butters blood, by George!"
He even meditated hanging up a sign with a
pied bull upon it or so he said but rejected
the plan as too Old English for Grassy Ford.
He never ceased, however, to refer to "my old
cousin Shakespeare's publisher, you know,"
and in the occasional dramatic criticisms that
embellished the columns of the Gazette, all plays
presented at our Grand Opera- House in the Odd
Fellow's Block were compared, somehow, willy-
nilly, to King Lear.
Butters of " The Pide Bull," I say, first told me
how that young Crusader with the tear-wet face
had delivered "Jerusalem," saving it from the
stern fate which had awaited it and setting it
proudly among the immortal "Gems." Then I
sought Letitia, whose briefer, more reluctant
44
The Seventh Slice
version filled in wide chinks in the Butters narra-
tive, while my knowledge of them both, of their
modesty and their tender-heartedness, filled in
the others, making the tale complete.
I was too young when the poet wrote his
masterpiece to know or care about it, or how it
found its way to the wondering world of Grassy
Ford nay, to the whole round world as well,
"two hemispheres," as old man Butters used to
remind me with offended pride in his voice,
which had grown gruffer with his years. Did
he not send Gazettes weekly, he would ask, to
Mrs. Ann Bowers's eldest son, a Methodist mis-
sionary in the Congo wilds, and to " that woman
in Asia"? He referred to a Grassy Ford belle
of other days who had married a tea-merchant
and lived in Chong-Chong.
Who knows what befell the edition of that
memorable Gazette which contained " Jerusalem,"
set solid, a mighty column of Alexandrine lines?
One summer's afternoon, tramping in an Adiron-
dack wilderness, I came by chance upon the
blackened ashes of a fire, and sitting meditative-
ly upon a near-by log, poking the leaf-strewn
earth with my stick, I unearthed a yellow, half-
burned corner of an old newspaper, and, idly
4 45
Miss Primrose
lifting it to read, found it a fragment of some
Australian Times. Still more recently, when my
aunt Matilda, waxing wroth at the settling floors
of her witch-colonial house in Bedfordtown, had
them torn up to lay down new ones, the carpen-
ters unearthed an old rat's nest built partially
of a New York Tribune with despatches from
the field of Gettysburg.
"Sneer not at the power of the press," old
man Butters used to say, stuffing the bowl of his
black pipe from my tobacco-jar and casting the
match into my wife's card-tray. " Who knows,
my boy? Davy Primrose's 'Jerusalem' may
turn up yet."
It is something to ponder now how all those
years that I played away, Letitia, of whom I
thought then only as the young lady who lived
next door and occasional confidante of my idle
hours, was slaving with pretty hands and puz-
zling her fair young mind to bring both ends
together in decent comfort for that poor de-
pendent one. Yet she does not sigh, this gray
Letitia among the petunias, when she talks of
those by-gone days, but is always smiling back
with me some happy memory.
"You were the funniest boy, Bertram," she
4 6
The Seventh Slice
tells me, " always making believe that it was old
England in Grassy Ford, and that you were
Robin Hood or Lord Somebody or Earl Some-
body Else. How father used to laugh at you ! He
said it was a pity you would never be knighted,
and once he drew for you your escutcheon -
you don't remember ? Well, it had three books
upon it Tom Brown's School-days, Tales of a
Grandfather, and the Morte d' Arthur "
Then I remind her that Robin Saxeholm was
half to blame for my early failure as an Amer-
ican. He was a Devonshire lad; he had been a
Harrow boy, and was a Cambridge man when
he came, one summer of my boyhood, to Grassy
Ford to visit the Primroses. His father had
been the doctor's dearest friend when they were
boys together in Devonshire, and when young
Robin's five-feet-eleven filled up the poet's door-
way, Letitia tells me, the tears ran down the
doctor's cheeks and he held out both his arms
to him:
"Robin Saxeholm! you young Devon oak,
you tell me, does the Dart still run?"
"He does, sir!" cried the young Englishman,
speaking, Letitia says, quite in the Devon man-
ner, for those who dwell upon the banks of that
47
Miss Primrose
famous river find, it seems, something too hu-
man in its temper and changeful moods to speak
of it in the neuter way.
They sat an hour together, the poet and his
old friend's son, before Letitia could show
the guest to the room she had prepared for
him.
That was a summer!
Robin taught me a kind of back-yard, two-
old-cat cricket with a bat fashioned by his own
big hands. Sometimes Letitia joined us, and
the doctor watched us from his chair rolled out
upon the garden walk, applauding each mighty
play decorously, in the English fashion, with
clapping hands. Robin Goodfellow, the doctor
called our captain, " though a precious large one,
I'll be bound," he said. Letitia called him Mr.
Saxeholm, first then Mr. Robin, and some-
times, laughingly, Mr. Bobbin then Robin. I
called him Mr. Bob.
I made up my mind to one thing then and
there: I should be happier when I grew old
enough to wear white cricket flannels and a
white hat like Mr. Bob's, and I hoped, and
prayed too on my knees, that my skin would be
as clear and pinkish yes, and my hair as red.
48
The Seventh Slice
Alas! I had begun all wrong: I was a little beast
of a brunette.
I taught Mr. Bob baseball, showed him each
hill and dale, each whimpering brook of Grassy
Ford, and fished with him among the lilies in
shady pools while he smoked his pipe and told
me of Cambridge and Harrow-on-the-Hill and
the vales of Devon. He had lived once, so he
told me, next door to a castle, though it did not
resemble Warwick or Kenilworth in the least.
"It was just a cah-sle" said Mr. Bob, in his
funny way.
"With a moat, Mr. Bob?"
"Oh yes, a moat, I dare say but dry, you
know."
"And a drawbridge, Mr. Bob?"
"Well, no not precisely; at any rate, you
couldn't draw it up."
"But a portcullis, I'll bet, Mr. Bob?"
"Well I cahn't say as to that, I'm sure,
Bertram."
He had lived next door to a castle, mind you,
and did not know if it had a portcullis ! He had
never even looked to see! He had never even
asked! Still, Mr. Bob was a languid fellow,
Bertram Weatherby was bound to admit, even
49
Miss Primrose
in speech, and drawled out the oddest words
sometimes, talking of "trams" and "guards"
and "luggage-vans," which did seem queer in a
college man, though Bertram remembered he
was not a Senior and doubtless would improve
his English in due time. Indeed, he helped him,
according to his light, and the credit is the boy's
that the young Britisher, after a single summer
in Grassy Ford, could write from Cambridge to
Letitia : " I guess I will never forget the folks in
Grassy Ford! Remember me to the little kid,
my quondam guide, philosopher, and friend."
Robin was always pleasant with Letitia, help-
ing her with her housework, I remember, wiping
her dishes for her, tending her fires, and weeding
her kitchen-garden. There never had been s"o
many holidays, she declared, gratefully, and she
used to marvel that he had come so far, all that
watery way from Devon, yet could be content
with such poor fare and such humble work and
quiet pleasures in an alien land so full of won-
ders. Yet it must have been cheerful loitering,
for he stayed on, week after week. He had
come intending, he confessed, to "stop" but
one, but somehow had small hankering there-
after to see, he said, "what is left of America,
5
The Seventh Slice
liking your Grassy Fordshire, Bertram, so very
well." Perhaps secretly he was touched by the
obvious penury and helplessness of his father's
friend, as well as by the daughter's loving and
heavy service, so that he stayed on but to aid
them in the only unobtrusive way, overpaying
them, Letitia says, for what he whimsically
called "tuition in the quiet life," as he gently
closed her fingers over the money which she
blushed to take. Then he would quote for her
those lines from Pope :
"... Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixt, sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most doth please
With meditation."
He read Greek and Latin with Dr. Primrose,
and many an argument of ancient loves and
wars I listened to, knowing by the keen-edged
feeling of my teeth when the fray was over that
my mouth had been wide open all the while.
Letitia, too, could hear from the kitchen where
she made her pies, for it was a conversational
little house, just big enough for a tete-a-tete, as
Dr. Primrose used to say, and when debate waxed
high, she would stand sometimes in the kitchen
Miss Primrose
doorway, in her gingham apron, wiping the same
cup twenty times.
"Young Devon oak," the doctor called him,
sometimes half vexed to find how ribbed and
knotty the young tree was.
"We'll look it up, then," he would cry, "but
I know I'm right."
"You'll find you are mistaken, I think, doc-
tor."
"Well, now, we'll see. We-'ll see. You're
fresh from the schools and I'm a bit rusty, I'll
confess, but I'm sure I'm here, now hm, let's
see why, can that be possible? I didn't think
so, but by George! you're right. You're right,
sir. You're right, my boy."
He said it so sadly sometimes and shut the
book with an air so beaten, lying back feebly in
his chair, that Robin, Letitia says, would lead
the talk into other channels, merely to contend
for ground he knew he could never hold, to let
the doctor win. It was fine to see him then,
the roused old gentleman, his eyes shining, sitting
bolt upright in his chair waving away the young
man's arguments with his feeble hand.
"I think you are right, doctor, after all. I
see it now. You make it clear to me. Yes,
52
The Seventh Slice
sir, I'm groggy. I'm down, sir. Count me
out."
And you should have seen the poet then in his
triumph, if victory so gracious may be called
by such a name. There was no passing under
the yoke no, no! He would gaze far out of
the open window, literally overlooking his van-
quished foe, and delicately conveying thus a
hint that it was of no utter consequence which
had conquered; and so smoothing the young
man's rout, he would fall to expatiating, sooth-
ingly, remarking how natural it was to go astray
on a point so difficult, so many-sided, so subtle
and profound in short, speaking so eloquently
for his prone antagonist, expounding so many
likely arguments in defence of that lost cause,
one listening would wonder sometimes who had
won.
Evenings, when Letitia's work was done, she
would come and sit with us, Robin and me, upon
the steps. There in the summer moonlight we
would listen to his tales, lore of the Dartmoor
and Exmoor wilds, until my heart beat strangely
at the shadows darkening my homeward way
when the clock struck ten. Grape-vines, I noted
then, were the very place for an ambush by the
53
Miss Primrose
Doones, of whom they talked so much, Robin
and Letitia! Later, when the grapes were ripe,
a Doone could regale himself, leisurely waiting to
step out, giant-wise, upon his prey ! There were
innumerable suspicious rustlings as I passed, and
in particular a certain strange a dreadful brush-
ing sound as of ghostly wings when I squeezed,
helpless, through the worn pickets! and then I
would strike out manfully across the lawn.
One day in August it was August, I know,
for it was my birthday and Robin had given me
a rod and line we took Letitia with us to the
top of Sun Dial, a bald-crowned hill from which
you see all Grassy Fordshire green and golden at
your feet. Leaving the village, we crossed a
brook by a ford of stones and plunged at once
into the wild wood, forest and ancient orchard
that clothed the slope. I was leading to show
the way. Robin followed with Letitia to help
her over the rocks and brambles and steeper
places of the long ascent, which was far more
arduous than one might think, looking up at it
from the town below.
I strode on proudly, threading the narrow
hunter's trail I knew by heart, a remnant of an
old wagon -lane long overgrown. I strode on
54
The Seventh Slice
swiftly, I remember, breaking the cobwebs, part-
ing the fragrant tangle that beset the way
vines below, branches above me keeping in
touch the while, vocally, when the thickets inter-
vened, with the pair that followed. I could hear
them laughing together over the green barriers
which closed behind me, and I was pleased at
their troubles among the briers. I had led them
purposely by the roughest way. Robin, stalking
across the ford, had made himself merry with my
short legs, and I had vowed secretly that before
the day was out he should feel how long those
legs could be.
"I'll show you, Mr. Bob," I muttered, plung-
ing through the brushwood, and setting so fast
a pace it was no great while before I realized
how faintly their voices came to me.
"Hello-o!" I cried.
"H'lo-o!" came back to me, but from so far
behind me I deemed it wiser to stop awhile,
awaiting their approach.
The day was glorious, but quiet for a boy.
The world was nodding in its long, midsummer
nap, and no birds sang, no squirrels chattered.
I looked in vain for one; but there were ber-
ries and the mottled fruit of an antique ap-
55
Miss Primrose
pie -tree to while the time away and so I
waited.
I remember chuckling as I nibbled there, won-
dering what Mr. Bob would say of those short
legs which had outstripped him. I fancied him
coming up red and breathless to find me calmly
eating and whistling between bites and I did
whistle when I thought them near enough. I
whistled "Dixie" till I lost the pucker, thinking
what fun it was, and tried again, but could not
keep the tune for chuckling. And so I waited
and then I listened but all the wood was still.
"Hello-o!" I cried.
There was no answer.
"Hello-o!" I called again, but still heard
nothing in reply save my own echo.
"Hello-o!" I shouted. "Hello-o!" till the
wood rang, and then they answered:
"H'lo-o!" but as faint and distant as before.
They had lost their way !
" Wait / " I shouted, plunging pell-mell through
the bushes. "Wait where you are! I'm com-
ing!"
And so, hallooing all the way, while Robin
answered, I made my way to them and found
them resting on a wall.
The Seventh Slice
"Hello," I said.
"Hello," said Robin. "We aren't mountain-
goats, you know, Bertram."
I grinned gleefully.
" I thought my legs were so short?" I said.
"And so they are," he replied, calmly, "but
you go a bit too fast, my lad for Letty."
I had forgotten Letitia! Revenging myself
on Robin, it was she alone who had suffered,
and my heart smote me as I saw how pale she
was, and weary, sitting beside him on the wall.
Yet she did not chide me ; she said nothing, but
sat there resting, with her eyes upon the wild-
flower which she plucked to pieces in her hand.
We climbed more slowly and together after
that. I was chagrined and angry with myself,
and a little jealous that Robin Saxeholm, friend
of but a summer-time, should teach me thought-
fulness of dear Letitia. All that steep ascent I
felt a strange resentment in my soul, not that
Robin was so kind and mindful of her welfare,
guiding her gently to where the slope was mild-
est, but that it was not I who helped her steps.
I feigned indifference, but I knew each time he
spoke to her and I saw how trustingly she gave
her hand.
57
Miss Primrose
And I was envious yes, I confess it envious
of Robin for himself, he was so stalwart; and
besides, his coat and trousers set so rarely!
They were of some rough, brownish, Scotchy
stuff, and interwoven with a fine red stripe just
faintly showing through oh, wondrous fetching!
Such ever since has been my ideal pattern,
vaguely in mind when I enter tailor-shops, but
I never find it. It was woven, I suppose, on
some by-gone loom ; perhaps at Thrums.
Reaching the summit and drinking in the
sweet, clear, skyey airs, with Grassy Fordshire
smiling from all its hills and vales for miles about
us, I forgot my pique.
"What about water?" Letitia asked.
I knew a spring.
"I'll go," said Robin. "Where is it, Ber-
tram?"
"Oh no, you won't!" I cried, fiercely. "That's
my work, Mr. Bob. You're not the only one
who can help Letitia."
He looked astonished for a moment, but
laughed good-naturedly and handed me his
flask. Letitia smiled at me, and I whistled
"Dixie" as I disappeared. I hurried desper-
ately till I lost my breath; I skinned both
58
The Seventh Slice
knees; I wellnigh slipped from a rocky ledge,
yet with all my haste I was a full half - hour
gone, and got back red and panting.
They had waited patiently. Famished as they
were, neither had touched a single mouthful.
Letitia said, "Thank you, Bertram," and hand-
ed me a slice of the bread and jam. She seemed
wondrous busy in our service. Robin was silent
and I guessed why.
" I didn't mean to be rough," I said.
" Rough ?" he asked. " When were you rough,
Bertie?"
"About the water."
"Oh," he said, putting his hand upon my
shoulder. "I never thought of it, old fellow,"
and my heart smote me for the second time
that day, seeing how much he loved me.
Letitia, weary with our hard climbing, ate so
little that Robin chided her, very gently, and I
tried banter.
"Wake up! This is a picnic." But they did
not rally, so I sprang up restlessly, crying, " It's
not like our other good times at all."
"What!" said Robin, striving to be playful.
" Only six slices, Bertram ? This is our last holi-
day. Eat another, lad."
59
Miss Primrose
Then I understood that gloom on Sun Dial : he
was going to leave us. Boy like, I had taken it
for granted, I suppose, that we would go on
climbing and fishing and playing cricket in
Grassy Ford indefinitely. He was to go, he
said, on Monday.
" News from home, Mr. Bob ?"
He was silent a moment.
"Well, no, Bertie."
"Then why not stay?" I urged. "Stay till
September."
He shook his head.
"Eat one more slice for me," I can hear him
drawling. "I'll cut it and a jolly fat one it
shall be, Bertram and Letty here, she'll spread
it for you." Here Mr. Bob began to cut well-
nigh a quarter of the loaf he made it. " Lots of
the jam, Letty," he said to her. "And you'll
eat it, Bertram and we'll call it we'll call it
the Covenant of the Seventh Slice never to
forget each other. Eh? How's that?"
Now, I did not want the covenant at all, but
he was so earnest; and besides, I was afraid
Letitia might think that I refused the slice be-
cause of the tears she had dropped upon it,
spreading the jam.
60
V
THE HANDMAIDEN
OBIN gone, I saw but little of
Letitia, I was so busy, I suppose,
with youth, and she with age.
The poet's lamp had burned up
bravely all that summer-time, its
flame renewed by Robin's coming or, rather,
it was the brief return of his own young English
manhood which he lived again in that fine, clean
Devon lad. Robin gone, he felt more keenly
how far he was from youth and Devonshire,
what a long journey he had come to age and
helplessness, and his feeble life burned dimmer
than before.
Two or three years slipped by. The charm
was gone which had drawn me daily through the
hole in our picket - fence. Even the doctor's
Rugby tales no longer held me, I knew them so
by heart. When he began some old beginning,
s 61
Miss Primrose
my mind recited so much more glibly than his
faltering tongue, I ha.d leaped to the end before
he reached the middle of his story. He was
given now to wandering in his narratives, and
while he droned there in his chair, my own
mind wandered where it listed, or I played rest-
lessly with my cap and tried hard not to yawn,
longing to be out-of-doors again. Many a time
has my conscience winced, remembering that
eagerness to desert one who had been so kind to
me, who had led my fancies into pure-aired ways
and primrose paths a little too English and
hawthorn-scented, some may think, for a good
American, but we meant no treason. He, before
Robin, had given my mind an Old-World bent
never to be altered. Only last evening, with
Master Shallow and a certain well-known portly
one of Windsor fame, I drank right merrily and
ate a last year's pippin with a dish of caraways
in an orchard of ancient Gloucestershire. Be-
fore me as I write there hangs a drawing of
pretty Sally of the alley and the song. Be-
tween the poet and that other younger Dev-
onshire lad, they wellnigh made me an English
boy.
We heard from Robin rather, Letitia did.
62
The Handmaiden
He never wrote to me, but sent me his love in
Letitia's letters and a book from London, Lorna
Doone, for the Christmas following his return.
Letitia told me of him now and then. She knew
when he left Cambridge and we sent him a
present or, rather, Letitia did Essays of Em-
erson, which she bought with money that could
be ill-spared, and she wrote an inscription in
it, "From Grassy Fordshire, in memory of the
Seventh Slice." She knew when he went back
home to Devon, and then, soon afterwards, I
believe, when he left England and went out to
India. Now, she did not tell me that wonderful
piece of news till it was old to her, which was
strange, I thought. I remember my surprise.
I had been wondering where Robin was and
saying to her that he must be in London per-
haps in Parliament! making his way upward
in the world, for I never doubted that he would
be an earl some day.
"Oh no," Letitia said, when I mentioned
London. "He is in India."
"India! Mr. Bob in India?"
"Yes. He went why, he went last autumn!
Didn't you know?"
No, I did not know. Why, I asked, and as
63
Miss Primrose
reproachfully as I could make the question why
had she never told me ?
She must have forgotten, she replied, penitent
there were so many things to remember.
True, I argued, but she ought at least to have
charged her mind with what was to me such
important news. Mr. Bob and I were dear, dear
friends, I reminded her. He had gone to India,
and I had not known !
She knew it, she said, humbly. She would
never forgive herself. I did not go near her for
days, I remember, and long afterwards her of-
fence still rankled in my mind. Had she not
spread that slice on Sun Dial, never to forget?
When next I saw her I made a rebuking point of
it, asking her if she had heard from Robin. She
shook her head. Months passed and no letter
came.
" We don't see you often any more, Bertram,"
her father said to me one day.
"No," I stammered. "I'm"
"Busy studying, I suppose," he said.
"Yes, sir; and ball-games," I replied.
"How do you get on with your Latin?" he
inquired, feebly.
"We're still in Virgil, sir."
64
The Handmaiden
"Ah," he said, but without a trace of the old
vigor the classics had been wont to rouse in him.
"That's good won'erful writer up "
He was pointing with his bony forefinger.
"Yes?" I answered, wondering what he meant
to say. He roused himself, and pointed again
over my shoulder.
"Up there on the s 'elf."
He was so ghastly white I thought him dying
and called Letitia.
" 'S all right, Bertram," he reassured me,
patting my hand. I suppose he had seen the
terror in my face. He smiled faintly. " 'M all
right, Bertram."
Outside the apple-trees were blooming, I
remember, and he lived, somehow, to see them
bloom again.
My conscience winces, as I say, to think how
I twirled my cap by my old friend's bedside,
longing to be gone; yet I comfort myself with
the hope that he did not note my eagerness, or
that if he did he remembered his own boyhood
and the witchery of bat and ball. Not only
was the poet's life-lamp waning, not only was
Letitia burdened with increasing cares, fast
aging her, the mater said, but I was a child no
65
Miss Primrose
longer; a youth, now, mindful of all about me,
and seeing that neighbor household with new
and comprehending eyes.
The very house grew dismal to me. The
boughs outside were creeping closer not to
shelter it, not to cool it and make a breathing
nook for a lad flushed with his games in the sum-
mer sun. It was damp there; the air seemed
mouldy under the lindens; there was no invita-
tion in the unkempt grass; toads hopped from
beneath your feet, bird-songs came to you, but
always, or so it seemed to me, they came from
distance, from the yards beyond.
There within, across that foot- worn threshold
which had been a goal for me in former years,
there was now a not a poet any longer, or
Rugby boy, but only a sick old man. Upon a
table at his side his goblets stood, covered with
saucers, and a spoon in each. His drugs were
watery; there was no warmth in them, no spar-
kle even when the sun came straggling in, no
wine of life to be quaffed thirstily only a tepid,
hourly spoonful to be feebly sipped, a sop to
death.
Even with windows open to the breeze the air
seemed stifling to the lad I was. The sunlight
66
The Handmaiden
falling on the faded carpet seemed always ebbing
to a kind of shadow of a glow. The clock, that
ugly box upon the shelf, ticked dreadfully as if
it never would strike a smiling hour again. The
china ornaments at its side stood ghastly mute,
and hideous flowers ///// those waxen faces
under glass! If not quite dead, why were they
kept so long a-dying there? Would no kind,
sunny soul in mercy free them from their pallid
misery ? I was a Prince of Youth ! What had
I to do with tombs ? I fled.
Even Letitia, kind as ever to me, seemed al-
ways busy and preoccupied sweeping, dusting,
baking, cleansing those everlasting pots and
pans, or reading to her father, who listened
dreamily, dozing often, but always waking if
she stopped. Content to have her at his side
because discontent to have her absent, even for
the little while her duties or the doctor's orders
led her, though quite unwillingly, away. Im-
patience for her return would make him queru-
lous, which caused her tears, not for its failing
consciousness of her devotion, but for its warning
to her of his gentle spirit's slow decline despite
her care.
"Where have you been so long, Letitia?"
67
Miss Primrose
"So long, father? Only an hour gone."
"Only an hour? I thought you would never
come."
" See, father, I've brought you a softer pillow,""
she would say, smiling his plaints into oblivion.
It was the smile with which she had caught the
grape-thief by the fence, the one with which
she had charmed a Devonshire lad, now gone
three years and more the tenderest smile I ever
saw, save one, and the saddest, though not
mournful, it was so genuine, so gentle, and so
unselfish, and her eyes shone lovingly the while.
Its sadness, as I think now of it, lay not so much
in the smile itself as in the wonder of it that she
smiled at all.
The mater was she not always mother to the
motherless ? was Letitia's angel in those weary
days, carried fresh loaves of good brown bread
to her, a pot of beans, or a pie, perhaps, pass-
ing with them through the hole in the picket-
fence. I can see her now standing on Letitia's
kitchen doorstep with the swathed dish in her
hands.
"The good fairy," Letitia called her; and
when she was for crying for cry she must some-
times, though not for the world before her fa-
68
The Handmaiden
ther's eyes she shed her tears in the kitchen in
the mater's arms. So it was that while I was
yet a school-boy an elder sister was born unto
our house and became forever one of the Weath-
erbys by a tie not of blood, I have said before,
yet it was of blood, now that I come to think of
it it was of gentle, gentle human blood.
There was an old nurse now to share Letitia's
vigils, but only the daughter's tender hands
knew how to please. She scarcely left him.
Doctor or friends met the same answer, smiling
but unalterable: she would rather stay. Not a
night passed that she did not waken of her own
anxiety to slip softly to his bedside. He smiled
her welcome, and she sat beside him with his
poor, thin hand in hers, sometimes till the dawn
of day.
Day by day like that, all through the silent
watches of the darkened world, that gentle hand-
maiden laid her sacrifice upon the altar of her
duty, without a murmur, without one bitter
word. It was her youth she laid there; it was
her girlhood and her bloom of womanhood, her
first, her very last young years sparkle of eyes,
rose and fulness of maiden cheeks, the golden
moments of that flower-time when Love goes
69
Miss Primrose
choosing, playtime's silvery laughter and blithe,
untrammelled song.
" Titia," he said to her, "there's no poem
'alf so beaut'ful 's your love, m' dear."
The words were a^ crown to her. He set it on
her bowed head with his trembling fingers.
" Soft brown 'air," he murmured. He could
not see how the gray was coming there.
Spring came, scenting his room with apple
blooms ; summer, filling it with orient airs but
he was gone.
VI
COUSIN DOVE
|P in the attic of the Primrose house
one day, I was helping Letitia with
those family treasures which were
too antiquated for future usage,
but far too precious with memories
to cast out utterly discarded laces, broken fans,
pencilled school-books, dolls and toys that had
been Letitia's, the very cradle in which she had
been rocked by the mother she could not re-
member, even the little home-made pieced and
quilted coverlet they had tucked about her
while she slept. She folded it, and I laid it care-
fully in a wooden box.
" How shall we fill it?" I asked her, gazing at
the odds and ends about my feet.
"With these," she said, bringing me packages
of old newspapers, each bundle tied neatly with
a red ribbon, too new and bright ever to have
Miss Primrose
been worn. I glanced carelessly at the foolish
packages, as I thought them then suddenly
with a new interest.
"Why," I said, "they're papers from Bom-
bay!"
"Yes," she answered.
"Where Robin is?" I asked.
There was no reply from the garret gloom.
"Did Mr. Bob send them?"
She was busy in a chest.
"What did you ask, Bertram?" she inquired,
absently.
"Did Mr. Bob send these Bombay papers?"
"Oh," she answered, "those?"
She paused a moment.
"No," she told me.
"Oh," said I, much disappointed, "I thought
he might. They're last year's papers, too, some
of them."
"Do they fill the box?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "Shall I nail the cover on?"
"Oh, don't nail it," she protested, shuddering.
" We won't put any cover on, I think ; at least
not yet."
Long before Dr. Primrose died he had planned
with Letitia what she should do without him.
72
Cousin Dove
His home then would be hers, and she was to
sell it and become a school - mistress, the one
vocation for which his classical companionship
had seemed to fit her and to which her own book-
loving mind inclined. Left alone then she tried
vainly to dispose of her little property, living
meanwhile with us next door to it, and gradually,
chiefly with my own assistance and the mater's,
packing and storing the few possessions from
which she could not bring herself to part. To
Editor Butters she presented an old edition of
King Lear; to me, not one, but many of her
father's best - loved books, which she fancied
might be of charm and use to me.
Of relatives across the sea Letitia knew little
beyond a few strange names she had heard her
father speak, and in her native and his adopted
land she had no kinsfolk she had ever seen save
a distant cousin as far removed from her in miles
as blood, and remembered chiefly as a mar-
vellously brocaded waistcoat with pearl buttons,
to which she had raised her timorous eyes on his
only visit to her father years ago. Apparently,
this little girl had gone no farther up. She could
never remember a face above that saffron vest,
and, what was still more remarkable, considering
73
Miss Primrose
her shyness, was never certain even of the knees
and boots that must have been somewhere below.
Now the yellow waistcoat, whose name was
George Cousin George McLean had a daughter
Dove, or Cousin Dove, as Letitia called her, con-
cerning whom we always used to smile and won-
der, so that in course of time myths had grown
up about the girl whom none of us had ever seen
and of whom we had no notions save the idle
fancies suggested by her odd, sweet, unforgettable
little name.
The mater had always said that she must be
a quaint and demure little thing in short, dove-
like.
That, my father argued, was quite unlikely,
since he had never known a child to mature in
keeping with a foolish, flowery, or pious Chris-
tian name. He had never known a human Lily
to grow up tall and pale and slender, or a Violet
to be shy and modest and petite, or a Faith or
Hope or Patience to be singularly spiritual and
mild. For example, there was Charity B ,
of Grassy Ford, who hinted that heaven was
Presbyterian, and that she knew folks, not a
thousand miles off, either, who would never be
Presbyterians, my father said ; and so, he added,
74
Cousin Dove
it was dollars to dough-nuts that Cousin Dove
was not at all dovelike, but a freckled and red-
haired, roistering, tomboy little thing.
Letitia had a notion, she scarce knew how or
why, that Cousin Dove was not birdlike, but
like a flower, she said a white -and -pink-
cheeked British type with fluffy yellow hair
and a fondness for candy, trinkets, and even
boys.
As for myself, I had two notions as a boy one
for the forum, the other for my cell. The first
was simply that Cousin Dove was pale and tall
and frigid beyond endurance. I could see her,
I declared, going to church somewhere with two
little black-and-gilt books held limply in her hand
and she had green eyes, I said. On the other
hand, privately, I kept a far different portrait
in mind a gilded one, rather a golden vision by
way of analogy, I suppose, for was not Dove the
veritable daughter of a gorgeous, saffron-hued
brocade? From yellow waistcoat to cloth of
gold is but a step for a bookish boy. She was
tall and stately, I told myself; and as I saw her
then, her 'mediaeval robe clung lovingly about
her, plain but edged with pearls (seed-pearls I
think they called them in the old romances),
75
Miss Primrose
and she had a necklace of larger pearls, loops of
them hanging a golden cross upon her bosom.
Her face was radiant, her eyes blue, her hair
golden, and she wore a coronal of meadow flow-
ers. I do not mean that I really fancied Cousin
Dove was so in flesh and blood, but such to me
was the spirit of her gentle name, the spell of
which had conjured up for me in some rare mo-
ment of youthful fancy this Lady of the Mari-
golds, this Christmas-card St. Dove.
In the midst of Letitia's sad uprooting of her
old garden, as she called the only home she had
ever known, a letter came from the yellow waist-
coat conveying surprising news. Dove herself
was leaving for Grassy Ford to persuade her
cousin to return with her and dwell henceforth
with the McLeans. A thrill ran through our
little household at the thought of that approach-
ing maid of dreams. Now we should know,
the mater said, that the girl was dovelike.
"Humpf!" was my father's comment. Letitia
trembled, she said, with a return of her childish
awe of the yellow waistcoat. I myself was
stirred I was still in teens, and dreaded girls I
had never met.
On the July morning that was to bring her, I
76
Cousin Dove
rose early, I remember, and took down my fish-
ing-rod.
- " Not a bad idea, either," remarked my father,
as' he stood watching me. "Still," he added,
"there's no hurry, Bertram. She'll want to
change her dress first, you know."
I made no answer.
"It's a bit selfish though," he continued, "to
be carrying her off this way the'very first morn-
ing."
"Mother," I said, coolly, "will you put up
some sandwiches? I may not be back till
dark."
" Why, Bertram ! Going fishing on the day
" I don't really see what that's got to do with
it," I interrupted. "Must I give up all my fun
because a mere girl's coming?"
"No, Bertram," said my father, in his kindest
tones. "Go, by all means, and here [he was
rummaging in the bookcase drawer] here, my
son, take these along, these old field-glasses.
They may come handy. You can see our yard,
you know, from the top of Sun Dial and the
front porch. Splendid fishing up on Sun Dial "
But I was off.
" Bertram! Bertram!" called my mother, but
6 77
Miss Primrose
I did not heed her. I stopped at a grocery for
cheese and crackers, and strode off to the farthest
brook farthest, I mean, from Sun Dial. Trouble-
some Brook, it was called, not so much for the
spring freshets that spread it over the lower
meadows as for the law - suits it had flowed
through in its fickle course between two town-
ships and good farm-lands. Under its willows
I cooled my wrath and disentangled my knotted
tackle. The stream flowed silently. There was
no wind, no sound, indeed, but the drone of in-
sects ; all about me was a world in reverie, mid-
summer-green save for the white and blue above
and the yellow wings of vagrant butterflies and
the sun golden on the meadows. Many a time I
have fished in that very spot. It is a likely one
for idleness and for larger fish than any I ever
caught there, and waiting for them as a boy I
used to read in the little pocket-fitting books I
dote on to this day they fit the hand so warmly,
unlike their bigger brethren, who at the most give
you three-fingers' courtesy. There on that same
moist bank I have sounded deeper pools than
Troublesome's, and have come home laden with
unlooked-for spoil that glistens still in a certain
time-worn upper creel of mine.
78
Cousin Dove
But I had no book that day, having forgotten
one in my hurried parting, and I had not yet
mastered that other tranquil art of packing little
bowls with minced brown meditation so I was
restless. The world seemed but half awake. I
chafed at the stillness. Before, I had found it
pleasant; now it nettled me. I frowned im-
patiently at my cork dozing on the waters. I
roused it savagely, and gazed up at the sun.
"Queer," I said to myself. "Queer it should
be so late this morning" but I did not mean the
sun.
Trains from the West glide into Grassy Ford
on a long curve following the trend of Trouble-
some and the pastoral valley through which it
runs. It is a descending grade down which the
cars plunge roaring as though they had gathered
speed rather than slackened it, and as though
they would run the gantlet of the ugly build-
ings and red freight-cars that, from the windows
of the train, are all one sees of our lovely town.
Now the Black Arrow was the pride of the X.,
Y. & Z., and all that summer had arrived in the
nick of its schedule time.
" Funny," said I to myself, looking at the sun.
" Funny it should be late this morning."
79
Miss Primrose
I pulled up my hook and cast it in again. My
cork shook itself yawned, I was about to say,
and settled down again as complacently as be-
fore. Leisurely the ripples widened and were
effaced among the shadows.
What right had any one to assume that I had
not long planned to go a-fishing that very
morning ?
I pulled up my line again.
Even a father should not presume on the
kinship of his son.
I dropped my bait into a likelier hole.
Besides, I was not a child any longer, to be
bullyragged by older people. Had I not gone
fishing a hundred times? yet no one had ever
deemed it odd before.
My float drifted against a snag. I jerked it
back.
It was the only unpleasant trait my father
had.
Again I squinted at the sun. "Queer," said
I, "it should be so late this morning." I pulled
up my
Hark! That was a whistle! There would be
just time to reach the open if I ran!
I ran.
80
Cousin Dove
Breathless, I made the meadow fence and
clambered up and saw her train go by. Yes,
I I waved to it. Suppose she had seen me ! I
was only some truant farm-boy on a rail.
Her train ran by me in a cloud of dust and
clattered on among the freight-cars. I heard
the rumble die away, but the bell kept ringing.
The brakeman, doubtless, would help her off
Letitia would be waiting with out-stretched arms
girls are such fools for kissing and then
father would take her bag, and the surrey would
whisk her off to the mater, bareheaded at the
gate. Rails are sharp sitting; let us look at the
cork again.
It was calm as ever and nestling against a
snag. I pulled up my line till the bait emerged,
limp, unnibbled. Savagely I swished it back
it caught in the willows. I pulled. It would not
budge. In a sudden rage I whipped out my
pocket-knife, severed the cord as high above me
as I could reach, and wrapping the remnant
about my rod, turned townward.
A dozen yards from the faithless stream, I
remembered my cheese and crackers, and went
back for them, and started off again, purpose-
less. Never before had vagabondage on a golden
81
Miss Primrose
morning seemed irksome to me. It was not
that I wished to see Cousin Dove, but merely
that I had no desire to do anything else a
different matter. Only one way was really
barred to me, since in point of pride I could not
go homeward till the sun sank, yet all other
ways seemed shorn somehow of their old de-
lights, I knew so well every stick and stone of
them.
While I was dallying thus, irresolute, I thought
of "The Pide Bull" and my old friend Butters.
It was inspiration. In twenty minutes (mindful
of my father's eyes meanwhile) I had reached
the shop.
"Hello," he growled, as I appeared. "You
here again?"
"Yep."
"What do you want?"
"Nothing."
"Humpf! Help yourself, then."
"Mr. Butters, what kind of type is this?"
"What type?"
"This type."
" What good '11 it do to tell you ? You won't
remember it, if I do."
"Yes, I will."
82
Cousin Dove
"You won't know ten minutes aft'er I tell
you."
"Go on, Mr. Butters. Tell me."
"Well, if you must know, it's b'geois."
"B-what?"
" B'geois, I tell you, and I won't tell you again,
either."
"How do you spell it, Mr. Butters?"
" Say, what do you think I am ? I haven't got
time to sit here all day and answer questions."
"But how do you spell it, Mr. Butters?"
"Dictionary 's handy, isn't it?"
"You ought to know how to spell it," I re-
marked, fluttering the dictionary.
"Who said I didn't know how to spell it?"
" You told me to look it up."
" Did, hey ? And what d' I do it for ? D' you
think I've got time to be talking to every young
sprig like you?"
" Here it is, Mr. Butters. It's spelled b-o-u-r-
g-e-o-i-s."
"Precisely," said the editor " b-o-u-r-g-o-i-s,
bur- Joyce."
"No g-e-o-i-s, Mr. Butters."
"Just what I said."
"You left out the 'e.'"
83
Miss Primrose
"Why, confound you, what do you mean by
telling me I don't know my own business?"
"I was only fooling, Mr. Butters. You did
say the 'e,' of course."
"You're a liar!" he promptly answered. "I
didn't say the 'e,' and you know it!"
He broke off into a roar of triumphant laugh-
ter, but well I knew who had won the day. He
was mine he and "The Pide Bull," and the
story of his wife's uncle's old yellow rooster, and
the twenty legends of Tommy Rice, the sexton,
who "stuttered in his walk, by George!" yes,
and the famous narrative of how Mr. Butters
thrashed the barkeep all, all his darling mem-
ories were mine till sunset if I chose to listen.
He took me to luncheon at the Palace Hotel
near by his shop, and afterwards mellowed per-
ceptibly over his pipe, as we sat together in the
clutter of paper about his desk waiting for the
one-o'clock whistle to blow him to work again.
"How old are you?" he asked.
"Eighteen," said I, half ashamed I was no
more.
"Beautiful age," he mused, nodding his head
and stroking his warm black bowl. " Beautiful
age, my boy." He spoke so mildly that I waited,
84
Cousin Dove
silent and a little awed to have come so near
him unawares, and feeling the presence of some
story he had never told before.
But the whistle blew one o'clock and he rose
and put on his apron, and went back to his case
again, talking some nonsense about the weather;
and though I lingered all afternoon, he was
nothing but the old, gruff printer, and never
afterwards did I catch him nooning and thinking
of the age he said was beautiful.
It was six when I took up my fishing-tackle and
went home to supper, whistling. I found the
mater in the kitchen.
"Ah," she said. "What luck, Bertram?"
" None," I replied. " The fish weren't biting."
"Oh, that's too bad. You must be tired."
"I am, and hungry. Is father home?"
" Not yet. Come, you must meet
But I ran up the kitchen staircase to the hall
above. Safe in my room, I could hear a mur-
muring from Letitia's. Hers was a front room,
mine a rear one, and a long hall intervened, so
I made nothing of the voices.
I scrubbed and lathered till my nose was red
and shining beautifully. Then I drew on my
Sunday suit, in which I always stood the straight-
85
Miss Primrose
er, and my best black shoes, in whieh I always
stamped the louder, and my highest, whitest
collar, and my best light silk cravat a Christ-
mas present from Letitia, a wondrous thing of
pale, sweet lavender, in which not Solomon
though it would hike up behind. It was not
like other ties, and while I was struggling there
I heard the supper knell. I pulled fiercely. The
soft silk crumpled taut and the bow stuck up
seven ways for Sunday. So I unravelled it
again looped it once more with trembling fin-
gers, for I heard the voices on the stairs, and
jerked it into place but what a jumble!
" Bertram ! Bertram !" It was father's voice.
"Supper, Bertram."
"In a minute."
The face in the glass was red as a sunset in
harvest-time. The eyes I saw there popped
wildly.
"Bertram!"
" Yes ; I hear you ! [Confound it.] "
"Supper, Bertram. We are all waiting."
I deigned no answer.
Then father rang. Oh, I knew it was father.
I looped desperately and hauled again like a
sailor at his cordage, and so, muttering, wrung
86
Cousin Dove
out a bow-knot. Then in the mirror I took a
last despairing look, leaped for the doorway,
slipped, stumbled, and almost fell upon the
stairs, hearing below me a lusty warning
"Here he comes!" and so emerged, rosy, a
youth-illumined, with something lavender, they
tell me, fluttering in my teeth (and something
blood-red, I could tell them, trembling in my
heart).
And there she was!
There she stood in the smiling midst of them,
smiling herself and giving me her hand Cousin
Dove Cousin Dove McLean, at the first sight
of whom my shyness vanished.
"Your tie, my son, seems a trifle "
So this was Cousin Dove? this was the
daughter of the golden waistcoat this brown-
eyed school-girl with brown no, as I lived!
red hair.
VII
OF HAMADRYADS AND THEIR SPELLS
IT was a golden summer that last of
my youth at home, with Cousin
Dove to keep us forever smiling.
She was just eighteen and of that
'blessed temperament which loves
each day for its gray or its sunny self. She
coaxed Letitia out-of-doors where they walked
much in the mater's garden with their arms about
each other's waist. Letitia's pace was always
deliberate, while Dove had the manner of a
child restrained, as if some blithe and skipping
step would have been more pleasant, would have
matched better her restless buoyancy, her ever
upturned beaming face as she confided in the
elder woman what? What do girjs talk so
long about? I used to marvel at them, won-
dering what Dove could find so merry among
our currant-vines. She was a child beside Le-
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Of Hamadryads and their Spells
titia. She had no memories to modulate that
laughing voice of hers, no tears to quench the
twin flames dancing in her eyes, and never an
anxious thought in those days to cast its shadow
there where her hair red, I first called it ; it was
pure chestnut brown, I mean, with the red just
showing through, and wondrous soft and pretty
on the margin of her fair white forehead, where
it clung like tendrils of young scampering vine
reddening in the April sun. Even Letitia, whose
Present seemed always twilit, was tempted by-
and-by into claiming something of that heritage
of youth of which she had been so long deprived.
From mere smiling upon her gay young cousin
she fell to making little joyous venturings herself
into our frolics, repartees, and harmless badinage
"midsummer madness," father called it a
sort of scarlet rash, he said, which affected per-
sons loitering on starlit evenings on the porch
or wandering under trees. He was the soul of
our table banter, and after supper sat with us
on the steps smoking his cigar and "devilling,"
as he said, "you younger caps and bells."
Whom he loved he teased, after the fashion of
older men, and Dove was the chief butt of
that rude fondness. It was not his habit
89
Miss Primrose
to caress, but his eyes twinkled at his fair
victim.
"And to think, Dove," he was wont to say
when she had charmed him, " that Bertram here
swore that you carried prayer-books and had
green eyes!"
"And what did you prophesy, Uncle Weath-
erby?"
"I? The truth."
"And what was that?"
" Why, / said you were an angel, though a lit-
tle frolicsome perhaps, and with beautiful au-
burn hair. Did I not, my son?"
" No, sir. You thought she would be a tom-
boy with red "
"Precisely," he would interrupt. "You see,
my dear, how in every particular I am corrob-
orated by my son."
Into these quiet family tournaments, Letitia,
as I have said, was slowly drawn, but it was a
new world to her and she was timid in it. Doc-
tor Primrose had been endowed with wit, even
with a quiet, subtle humor in which his daughter
shared, but beneath their lighter moments there
had flowed always an undercurrent of that sad
gravity which tinged their lives together. If
90
Of Hamadryads and their Spelts
they were playful in each other's company, it
was out of pity for each other's lot, his in his
chair, hers by its side, rather than because they
could not help the jest. It was meant to cheer
each other that kind of tender gayety which,
however fanciful, however smiling, ends where it
begins in tears unshed. Waters in silent wood-
land fountains, all untouched by a single gleam
from the sky above the boughs, lose sometimes
their darker hues and turn to amber beneath the
fallen leaves but they are never golden like the
meadow pools; they never flash and sparkle in
the sun.
Letitia was not yet thirty; life stretched years
before her yet; so, coaxed by Cousin Dove and
me, she gave her hands to us, half-delighted, half-
afraid. Here now, at last, were holidays, games,
tricks, revels, the mummery and masque, the
pipe and tabor all the rosy carnival of youth.
Her eyes kindled, her heart beat faster as we
led her on" but at the first romp failed her.
It was beautiful, she pleaded only let her smile
upon it as from a balcony she could not dance
she had never learned our songs.
We did not urge her. She sat with the mater
and smiled gladly upon our mirth. In all the
Miss Primrose
frolics of that happy summer her eyes were
always on Cousin Dove, as if, watching, she were
thinking to herself enviously, often sadly, I
have no doubt, but through it all lovingly and
with a kind of pride in that grace and flower-
ness
"There is the girl I might have been."
Dove, even when she seemed the very spirit
of our effervescence, kept always a certain let-
ter of that lovely quaintness which her name
implied. She was a dove, the mater said, re-
minding us for the hundredth time of her old
prediction a dove always, even among the
magpies ; meaning, I suppose, father and myself.
It was not all play that summer. I was to
enter college in the fall, and I labored at exer-
cises, helped not a little by a voice still saying:
" That's right, my boy. Remember what Dr.
Primrose said when he gave you Horace."
Now was I under the spell of that ancient life
which had held him thralled to his very end.
Mine were but meagre vistas, it is true, but I
caught such glimpses of marble beauty through
the pergola of Time, as made me a little proud
of my far-sightedness. Seated with Dove and
Letitia beneath a favorite oak, half-way up Sun
92
Of Hamadryads and their Spells
Dial, I discoursed learnedly, as I supposed, only
to find that in classic lore the poet's daughter
was better versed than I. She brightened visi-
bly at the sound of ancient names; they had
been the music of her father's world, and from
earliest childhood she had listened to it. Seat-
ed upon the grass, I, the school-boy, expounded
text -book notes. She, the daughter of "Old
David Homer," as Butters called him, told us
bright tales of gods and heroes, nymphs and
flowers and the sailing clouds shell-pink in the
setting sun. They had been to her what Mother
Goose and Robinson Crusoe had been to me ; they
had been her fairy stories, told her at eve ere
she went to bed ; and now as she told them, an
eager winsomeness crept upon her, her voice was
sweeter, her face was glorified with something of
that roseate light in which her scenes were laid ;
she was a child again, and Dove and I, listening,
were children with her, asking more.
She sat bolt-upright while she romanced for
us. I lay prone before her with my chin upon
my hands, nibbling grass - stalks. Dove, like
Letitia, sat upon the turf, now gazing raptly
with her round brown eyes at the story-teller's
face, now gazing off at the purple woodland
93
Miss Primrose
distance or at Grassy Ford's white spires among
the elms below.
"Why, Letty, you're a poetess," Dove once
said, so breathlessly that Letitia laughed. " And
I," Dove added, "why, I don't know a single
story."
"Why should you know one?" replied Letitia,
pinching Dove's rueful face. " Why tell an idyl,
when you can live one, little Chloe, little wild
olive? You yourself shall be a heroine, my
dear."
Idling there under distant trees for refuge
from the August sun, which burns and browns
our Grassy Fordshire, crumbling our roads to a
gray powder and veiling with it the green of
way-side hedge and vine idling there, Dove was
a creature I had never seen before and but half-
divined in visions new to me. Fair as she seemed
under our roof-tree, there in the woodland she
was far the lovelier. Young things flowered
about us, their fragrance scenting the summer
air. Like them her presence wore a no less
subtle spell. It was an ancient glamour, though
I did not know it then, it seemed so new to me
one which young shepherds felt, wondering at it,
in the world's morning; and since earth's daugh-
94
Of Hamadryads and their Spells
ters, then as now, with all their fairness, could
scarce be credited with such wondrous witchery,
those young swains came home breathless from
the woodland with tales of dryads and their
spells. Maiden mine, in the market-place, you
are only one among many women, though you
be beautiful as a dream, but under boughs the
birds still sing those songs the first birds sang
there it is always Eden, and thou art the only
woman there.
On my nineteenth birthday three climbed Sun
Dial as three had climbed it once before. Leav-
ing the village we crossed the brook by that
self-same ford of stones, and plunged at once
into the forest and ancient orchard that clothed
the slope. I was not leading now, but helping
them, Dove and Letitia, over the rocks and
brambles and steeper places of the ascent.
Threading as before that narrow trail I knew
by heart, I broke the cob-webs and parted the
fragrant tangle that beset our way, vines below,
branches above us. It was just such another
August noon, and the world was nodding; no
birds sang, no squirrels chattered. We stopped
for breath, resting upon a wall shaded by an
ancient oak.
95
Miss Primrose
"The very spot!" I cried. "Do you remem-
ber, Letitia, how you and Robin rested here?"
"Yes," she answered.
" Do you remember how I called to you, and
came running back ?"
"Yes."
"I'd been waiting for you under an apple-
tree. How I should like to see old Robin
now!"
"Who was Robin?" asked Cousin Dove, and
so I told her of the Devonshire lad. During
my story Letitia wandered, as she liked to do,
searching for odd, half-hidden flowers among
the grasses. Soon she was nowhere to be seen,
nor could we hear her near us.
"Letitia was fond of Robin, was she not?"
asked Cousin Dove.
" Oh yes," I said. " So were we all."
" But I mean don't you think she may have
loved him?"
"Oh," I said, "I never thought of that; be-
sides, Letitia never had time for "
Dove opened wide her eyes.
"Must you have time for "
"I mean," I stammered, "she was never free
like you or me; we "
96
Of Hamadryads and their Spells
" I see," she replied, coloring. " He must have
been a splendid fellow."
"He was," I said.
"Dear Letitia!" murmured Cousin Dove, gaz-
ing thoughtfully at the wilted flower she held.
The wood which had been musical with voices
was strangely silent now. It was something
more than a mere stillness. It was like a spell,
for I could not break it, though I tried. Dove,
too, was helpless. There was no wind I should
have known had one been blowing yet the
boughs parted above her head, and a crown fell
shining on her hair! her hair, those straying
tendrils of it, warm and ruddy and now fired
golden at that magic touch her brow, pure as
a nun's, beneath that veiling the long, curved
lashes of her hidden eyes her cheeks still
flushed her lips red-ripe and waiting motion-
less.
She raised her eyes to me! a moment only,
but my heart leaped, for in that instant it
dawned upon me how all that vision there
flesh, blood, and soul was just arm's -length
from me!
It was I know.
PART II
The School-Mistress
THE OLDER LETITIA
|RECISELYat half-past seven there
was a faint rustling on our staircase
and a moment later Letitia Prim-
rose appeared at our breakfast-ta-
ble smiling "Good-morning." She
was dressed invariably in the plainest of black
gowns with the whitest of niching about her
wrists and throat, and at the collar a pin which
had been her mother's, a cameo Minerva in an
antique setting of vine leaves wrought in gold.
The gown itself I scarcely know how to style
it, for no frill or foible of the day was ever visi-
ble in its homely contour, or if existing there,
had been so curbed by the wearer's mod-
esty as to be quite null and void to the naked
eye. Every tress of her early whitening hair lay
smoothly back about her forehead, and behind
was caught so neatly beneath her comb, it might
101
Miss Primrose
be doubted how or if she ever slept upon it.
Just so immaculate, virginal, irreproachable
did the older Letitia come softly down to us
every week-day morning of her life, and taking
her chair between Dove's seat and mine, she
would adjust her gold-rimmed glasses to better
see how the night had dealt with us, and beam-
ing upon us with one of the pleasantest of in-
quiring smiles, would murmur
"Well?"
She ate little, and that so unobtrusively, I
used to wonder if she ate at all. I can remember
her lifting her cup, but do not recall that it ever
reached her lips. She had, I think, some trick
of magnetism, some power of the eye that held
yours at the crucial moment, so that you never
really saw her sip or bite, and she never chewed,
I swear, yet I never heard of her bad digestion.
Eating in her was a chaste indulgence common
only, I believe, to spinsterhood a rite, commun-
ionlike, rather than a feast.
When the clock struck eight, we would rise
together I for my office, Dove for farewells,
Letitia for the school-room; I with a clattering
chair, Dove demurely, Letitia noiselessly, to
put on a hat as vague and unassuming as that
J02
The Older Letitia
decorous garment in which she cloaked herself
from the outer world a kind of cape and jacket,
I think it was, in winter, but am not quite sure.
In summer it was a cashmere shawl. Then
slipping on a pair of gloves, black always and
always whole, however faded, she would take up
her small pearl-handled parasol, storm or shine,
and that linen bag of hers, a marvellous reticule
for books and manuscripts with a separate
pocket in the cover-flap for a comb and mirror
and extra handkerchief though not to my
knowledge; I am merely telling what was told.
Nor am I telling all that was said of Letitia's
panoply and raiment, the manner of which at
every season, at every hour of the night and day,
was characterized if I have understood the
matter not so much by a charm of style as of
precaution, a modest providence, a truly ex-
quisite foresight and readiness for all emergen-
cies, however perilous, so that fire nor flood nor
war's alarms nor death itself, however sudden,
should find her unprepared. Fire at night would
merely have illumined a slender, unobtrusive
figure descending a stair or ladder unabashed,
decently, even gracefully arrayed in a silk kimono
which hung nightly on the foot-board of her
103
Miss Primrose
bed; and since for other purposes it was
never worn, it remains unscorched, and, indeed,
unblemished, to this very day. But for that
grim hand the moment of whose clutch can
never be foretold with certainty, nothing could
exceed Letitia's watchfulness and care. She
dressed invariably, I have said, in the plainest
black, but I have heard, and on authority I
could not question, that however simple and
inexpensive those outer garments were, the in-
ner vestments were of finest linen superimposing
the softest silk. Thus for a tendency to some
heart-affection was hereditary in the Primrose
family thus could no sudden dissolution or
surrender, such as might occur in an absence
from home and the ministration of loving friends,
be attended ever by any post-mortem embarrass-
ment or chagrin, but rather would disclose a
pride and delicacy of taste and consideration,
the more remarkable and worthy of approval
and regret, because it could never otherwise have
been revealed. Nothing I know of in the way
of gifts was more acceptable to Letitia Primrose
than those black silk ones which she took such
pains to purchase and secrete.
It was a wondrous reticule, that linen pouch
104
The Older Letitia
of which I spoke, bearing "L. P." embroidered
on its outer side. I say its outer, for so she
carried it always; and in years, so many I will
not count them, I never knew that monogram
turned in, or down. She met me with it in the
doorway from which Dove watched us till we
had left the gate. Mornings, for years, we went
to our work together, save when an urgent
matter summoned me earlier or compelled me,
against my will and exercise, to drive. Morn
after morn we walked together to the red brick
school-house, talking of village news and the
varying moods of our fickle northern weather,
or perhaps of books, old ones and new ones, or
of those golden memories that we shared. They
were not perfunctory as I recall them, those
morning dialogues. There was no abstraction
about Letitia, no cursory, unweighed chattering
of things so obvious as to need no comment.
Every topic might be a theme for her mild elo-
quence. It might be of Keats that she dis-
coursed to me, or Browning or Alfred Tennyson
or perhaps the Corsican, whom she hated, partly
for tyranny, partly because he made her "look
at him," she said; it might be the Early Church,
whose records she had read and read again,
105
Miss Primrose
though not one - half so much for Cuthbert's
holiness, I told her, as for Fuller's quaintness,
which she loved ; or it might be a March morning
that we walked together, while she spoke like a
poet's daughter of the first pink arbutus some
grinning farm-boy had laid but yesterday upon
her desk.
Why no one ever wooed and won such fervor
seemed passing strange to Dove and me. With
all the grace of goodness and gentle courage in
which she faced the world alone, in all those
years which had followed her father's death, she
had never, to Dove's ken or mine, won a single
suitor. Those burdens of care and sacrifice laid
too soon upon her frail, young shoulders had
borne early fruit patience, wisdom, and a
sweet endurance beyond her years but on such
harvest young men set small store. A taste
for it comes late. It made her pleasing to her
elders, but those of her own years shrank in-
stinctively from its very perfectness. She had
matured too soon. How then should any one
so coolly virtuous know trial or passion ? Surely
so young a saint could have no warm impetuous
hours to remember, no sweet abandonment, no
pretty idyls had she even a spring-time to recall ?
1 06
The Older Letitia.
Men admired her for her mind and heart, but
in her presence secretly were ill at ease. Her
self-dependence rendered useless their stronger
arms accustomed to being leaned upon. She
smiled upon them, it is true, but not as men like
to be smiled upon neither as a child, trustingly,
nor as a queen, confident of their homage and
gallant service. She appealed neither to their
protection nor to their pride. She awoke the
friend, but not the lover, in them; and so the
years slipped by and she won no chivalry, be-
cause she claimed none. She had but asked
and but received respect.
Our raillery, harmlessly meant, was not al-
ways kind, as I look back at it. It is scarcely
pleasant to be reminded that among one's kind
one is not preferred, yet Letitia bore all our jest-
ing with steadfast pleasantry.
"Do I look forlorn? Do I look so help-
less ?" she would ask. Her very smile, her
voice, her step, seemed in themselves an an-
swer. " What do I want with a husband
then?"
"Why," Dove would say, "to make you hap-
py, Letitia."
"You child: I am perfectly happy."
107
Miss Primrose
"Well," Dove would answer, stubbornly, "to
make you happier, then."
I have forgotten Letitia's answers all but
one of them:
"I lived so long with my scholar-love," she
once said, sweetly, of her father, " I fear I never
should be content with an ordinary man."
Dove declared that no one in Grassy Ford-
shire was half worthy of her cousin ; at least, she
said, she knew but one, and he was already
wedded and to a woman, she added, humbly,
not half so good or wise or wonderful as Letitia.
Dove stoufly held that Letitia could have mar-
ried, had she wished it, and whom she would.
Father would shake his head at that.
"No," he would say, "Letty is one of those
women men never think of as a bride."
"But why?" Dove would demand then, loy-
ally. " She is the very woman to find real hap-
piness in loving and self - sacrifice. Adversity
would never daunt her, and yet," my wife would
say with scorn rising in her voice, " the very men
who need such help and comprehension and
comradeship in their careers, would pass her by,
and for a chit of girl who would never be happy
sharing their struggles but only their success!"
1 08
The Older Letitia
"My dear," father would reply, sagely, "a
man glories in his power to hand a woman some-
thing she cannot reach herself. Letty Primrose
has too long an arm."
"But if a man once married Letitia " Dove
would protest, and father would chuckle then.
"Ah, yes, my dear, if one only would! But
there's the rub. Doubtless he would find Letitia
much like other women, quite willing he should
reach things down to her from the highest shelf.
But he must be a wise man to suspect just that
to guess what lies beneath our Letty's ap-
parent self -sufficiency."
"An older man might," Dove once suggested.
"A general, or a great professor, or a minister
plenipotentiary. ' '
"Doubtless," he answered, "but our Grassy
Ford is a narrow world, -my dear. The young
sprigs in it are only silly lads, and the elder
bachelors are very musty ones, I fear and
not an ambassador among them. I doubt very
much if Letitia will -ever meet him that man
you mean, who might choose Letty's love
through wisdom, and whose wisdom she might
choose through love."
Dove's answer was a sigh,
s 109
Miss Primrose
"Bertram," she said, "you must make some
real nice, elderly bachelor doctor friends, and
we'll ask them to visit us."
It seemed a likely plan, but nothing came of
it, and the silly lads and the musty ones alike
left our Letitia more and more to friendships
beyond her years. From being so much in the
company of her elders, she grew in time to be
more like them. Her modesty became reserve ;
reserve, in turn, a certain awkwardness or shy
aloofness in the presence of the other sex
primness, it was called. She had not forgotten
how to smile; her talk was blithe enough with
those she knew, and was still colored by her love
for poetry, but it fast grew quainter and less
colloquial ; there was a certain old-fashioned care
and subtlety about it, a rare completeness in its
phrases not at all like the crude, half-finished
ones with which our Grassy Ford belles were
content. It added to her charm, I think, but to
the evidence as well of that maturity and self-
complacency which all men seemed to fear and
shun, not one suspecting that the glow beneath
meant youth youth preserved through time
and trial to be a light to her, or to Love be-
lated.
no
The Older LetitU
Her brown hair turned to gray, her gray to
white, and she still came down to us smiling
good - morning ; still worshipped Keats, still
scorned the upstart who made her look ; taught
on, year after year, in the red brick school-house,
wearing the wild flowers farm-boys gathered in
the hills. Her life flowed on like a stream in
summer, softly in shadow and in sun. She seem-
ed content no bitter note in her low voice, no
glance of envy, malice, or chagrin in those kind
gray eyes of hers, which beamed so gently upon
others' loves ; we used to wonder how they might
have shone upon her own.
One day in August it was again that anni-
versary birthday around which half my memo-
ries of her seem to cling she gave me a copy of
In Memoriam, and bought for herself the linen
for another reticule. Neatly, and in the fashion
of our grandmothers' day, she worked upon it
her initials, L. and P., in Old-English letters, old-
rose and gold.
"What," I asked, "is the figure meant for?"
"The figure? Where?"
"In the background there the figure seven,
in the lighter gold."
She bent to study it.
in
Miss Primrose
"There is a seven there," she said. "I must
have used a lighter silk."
"Then shall you alter it?" I asked.
"No," she answered. "It is now too late."
"She means the figure," I explained to Dove.
"The letters also," Dove murmured, softly,
as we turned away.
II
ON A CORNER SHELF
IT five minutes to four o'clock the
red school -house gave no sign of
the redder Hfe beating within its
walls. The grounds about it, worn
brown by hundreds of restless feet
and marked in strange diagrams, the mystic
symbols of hop-scotch, marbles, and three-old-
cat, were quite deserted save for sparrows busy
with crumbs from the mid-day luncheon-pails.
Five minutes' later, one listening by the picket-
fence might have heard faintly the tinkling of
little bells, and a rising murmur that with the
opening of doors burst suddenly into a tramping
of myriad feet, while from the lower hallway two
marching lines came down the outer stair, primly
in step, till at the foot they sprang into wild dis-
order, a riot of legs and skirts, with the shouts
and shrieks and shrill whistlings of children
"3
Miss Primrose
loosed from bondage. When the noisy tide had
swept down the broad walk into the street,
Letitia might be seen following smilingly, her
skirts surrounded by little girls struggling for the
honor of being nearest and bearing her reticule.
At the end of happy days Letitia 's face bore
the imprint of a sweet contentment, as if the
love she had given had been returned twofold,
not only in the awkward caresses of her little
ones, but in the sight of such tender buds opening
day by day through her patient care into fuller
knowledge of a great bright world about them.
She strove earnestly to show them more of it
than the school-books told; she aimed higher
than mere correctness in the exercises, those
anxious, careful, or heedless scribblings with
which her reticule was crammed. In the geog-
raphy she taught there were deeper colorings
than the pale tints of those twenty maps the
text-book held ; greater currents flowed through
those green and pink and yellow lands than the
principal rivers there, and in the plains between
them greater harvests had been garnered, accord-
ing to her stories, than the principal products,
principal exports principal paragraphs learned
by rote and recited senselessly.
114
On a Corner Shelf
Drawing, in Letitia's room, it was charged
against her by one named Shears, who had the
interests of the school at heart and jaw, had
become a subterfuge for teaching botany as
well.
"For draggin' in a study," as he told a group
on the corner of Main and Clingstone streets,
"not deluded in the grammar-grade curricu-
lum!"
He paused to let the word have full effect.
"For wastin' the scholais' time and gettin'
their feet wet pokin' around in bogs and marshy
places, a-pullin' weeds! And for what? why,
by gum, to draw 'em!"
His auditors chuckled.
"What," he asked, "are drawin'-books for?"
His fellow-citizens nodded intelligently.
"And even when she does use the books,"
cried Mr. Samuel Shears, "she won't let 'em
draw a consarned circle or cross or square,
without they tell her some fool story of Michael
the Angelo!"
The crowd laughed hoarsely.
"And who was Michael the Angelo?" asked
Mr. Shears, screwing his face up in fine derision
and stamping one foot, rabbit-like, by way of
"5
Miss Primrose
emphasis to his scorn. "Who was this here
Michael the Angelo?"
Four men spat and the others shuffled.
"A Dago!" roared Shears, and the crowd was
too much relieved to do more than gurgle.
"What does my son care about Michael the
Angelo?"
Letitia admitted, I believe, that his son
didn't.
"And furthermore," said Mr. Shears, insinu-
atingly, "what I want to know is: why has she
got them pitchers a- hanging around the school-
room walls? Pitchers of Dago churches and
Dago statures and I guess you know what
Dago statures are I guess you know whether
they're dressed like you and me! I guess you
fellows know all right and if you don't, there's
them that do. And, in conclusion, I want to
ask right here: who's a-payin' for them there
decorations?"
Mr. Shears spat, the crowd spat, and they
adjourned.
Now, there may have been a dozen prints re-
lieving the ugliness and concealing the cracks
in the school-room walls, but all quite innocent,
as I recall them: "Socrates in the Market-
116
On a Corner Shelf
Place," "The Parthenon," "The Battle of
Salamis," "Christian Martyrs," a tragic moment
in the arena of ancient Rome, "St. Peter's," I
suppose, " St. Mark's by Moonlight," and of stat-
ues only one and irreproachable, the "Moses"
of Michael Angelo. His "David" was Letitia's
joy, but she never dreamed, I am sure, of its
exhibition in a grammar-school, though I have
heard her declare (shamelessly, Mr. Shears
would say) that were it not for a Puritan weak-
ness of eyesight hereditary in Grassy Ford, that
lithe Jew's ideal figure would be a far better
lesson to her boys than all the text-books in
physiology.
"Might it not incite them to sling-shots?"
queried Dove, softly.
" I don't agree with you," said Letitia, lost in
her theme, and noting only the fact, and not the
nature, of the opposition. " I don't agree with
you at all. It would teach them the beauty of
manly Why do you laugh?"
If Shears could have heard her! His informa-
tion, such as it was, had been derived from his
only son, a youth named David, "not by An-
gelo," Letitia said, and hopelessly indolent,
whose only fondness was for sticking pins into
117
Miss Primrose
smaller boys. He was useful, however, as a
barometer in which the rise or fall of his surly
impudence registered the parental feeling against
her rule.
Shears and his kind held that the proper study
of mankind was arithmetic. What would he
not have said at the corner of Main and Cling-
stone streets, had he known that Letitia was
trifling with Robinson's Complete? that be-
tween its lines, she was teaching (surreptitiously
would have been his word), an original, elemen-
tary course in ethics, a moral law of honesty,
fair-dealing, and full-measure, so that all exam-
ples, however intricate, were worked out rigidly
to the seventh decimal, by the Golden Rule !
Red geraniums bloomed in her school-room
window, and on a corner-shelf, set so low that
the children easily might have leaned upon it,
lay Webster and another book always one
other; though sometimes large and sometimes
small, now green, now red, now blue, now yellow,
but always seeming to have been left there care-
lessly. Every volume bore on its fly-leaf two
names "David Buckleton Primrose," written
in a bold, old-fashioned script in fading ink, and
below it "Letitia Primrose," in a smaller, finer
118
On a Corner Shelf
but no less quaint a hand. That book, what-
ever its name and matter, had been left there
purposely, you may be sure. Letitia remem-
bered how young Keats drank his first sweet
draught of Homer and became a Greek; how
little lame Walter poured over border legends
to become the last of the Scottish minstrels;
and how that other, that English boy, swam the
Hellespont in a London street, to climb on its
farther side, that flowery bank called poesy.
It was her dream that among her foster-children,
as she fondly called them, there might be one,
perhaps, some day some rare soul waiting rose-
like for the sun, who would find it shining on her
school-room shelf. So she dropped there weekly
in the children's way, as if by accident, and
without a word to them unless they asked,
books which had been her father's pride or her
own young world of dreams books of all times
and mental seasons, but each one chosen with
her end in mind. They were beyond young
years, she admitted frankly, as school years go,
but when her Keats came, she would say, smiling,
they would be bread-and-wine to him ; milk and
wild-honey they had been to her.
"Suppose," said Dove, "it should be a girl
119
Miss Primrose
who bears away sacred fire from your shelf,
Letitia?"
"Yes, it might be a girl," replied the school-
mistress. " Perhaps who knows ? another
' Shakespeare's daughter ' !" And yet, she added,
and with the faintest color in her cheeks, know-
ing well that we knew her preference, she rather
hoped it would be a boy.
Few could resist that book waiting by the
dictionary ; at least they would open it, spell out
its title-page, flutter its yellowing leaves, looking
for pictures, and, disappointed, close it and turn
away. But sometimes one more curious would
stop to read a little, and now and then, to Le-
titia 's joy, a lad more serious than the rest
would turn inquiringly to ask the meaning of
what he found there; then she would tell its
story and loan the volume, hoping that Johnny
Keats had come at last.
No one will ever know how many subtle lures
she set to tempt her pupils into pleasant paths,
but men and women in Grassy Ford to-day re-
member that it was Miss Primrose who first said
this, or told them that, and while her discipline
is sometimes smiled at she was far too trusting
at times, they tell me doubtless, no one is the
120
On a Corner Shelf
worse for it, since whatever evil she may have
failed to nip, may be balanced now by the good
of some lovely memory. Bad boys grown tall
remembering their hookey-days do not forget the
woman they cajoled with their forged excuses;
and it is a fair question, I maintain, boldly, as
one of that guilty clan, whether the one who put
them on an honor they did not have, or, let us
say, had mislaid temporarily whether the rec-
ollection of Letitia Primrose and her innocence
is not more potent now for good than the crimes
she overlooked, for evil.
Sometimes I wonder if she was half so blind as
she appeared to be, for as we walked one Sab-
bath by the water-side, with the sun golden on
the marshes, and birds and flowers and caress-
ing breezes beguiling our steps farther and
farther from the drowsy town, I remember her
saying :
"It is for this my boys play truant m the
spring-time. Do you wonder, Bertram?"
For the best of reasons I did not. I was
thinking of how the springs came northward to
Grassy Fordshire when I was a runaway; and
then suddenly as we turned a bend in Trouble-
some, there was a splash, and two bare feet sank
121
Miss Primrose
modestly into the troubled waters. There was
a bubbling, and then a head emerged dripping
from all its hairs. Young David Shears had
dived in the nick of time.
Ill
A YOUNGER ROBIN
JHEN our boy was born we named
him Robin Weatherby, after that
elder Robin who had charmed my
'youth. If his babyhood lacked
I aught of love or discipline, it was
neither Dove's fault nor Letitia's, for Robin's
mother had ideas and a book on childhood, and
dear Letitia did not need a book. In fact, she
clashed with Dove's. I, as physician-in-ordinary
to my child for in dire emergencies in my own
family I always employ an old-fogy rival was
naturally of some little service in consultation
with the two ladies and the Book. Of the char-
acters of these associates of mine, I need only
say that Dove was ever an anxious soul, the
Book a truthful but at times a vague one, while
Letitia was all that could be desired as guide,
philosopher, and friend. Alarming symptoms
123
Miss Primrose
might puzzle others, but never her ; they might,
even to myself, even to the Book, bode any one
of twenty kinds of evil; to her they pointed
solely, solemnly to one that one, alas! which
had carried off some dear child of her school.
Dove, I am sure, had never been impatient
with Letitia, but now, such was the tension of
these family conferences and such the gravity
of the case involved, there were times, I noted,
when the cousins addressed each other with the
most exquisite and elaborate courtesy, lest either
should think the other in the least disturbed.
For example, there was that little affair of con-
solation a sort of rubber make-believe with
which young Robin curbed and soothed his appe-
tite and invited pensiveness. Microbes, Letitia
said, were
Dove interposed to remind her that the things
were boiled just seven
Germs, Letitia argued, were not to be trifled
with.
"Just seven times a week, my dear," said
Dove, triumphantly.
"And besides," Letitia continued, undis-
mayed, " they will ruin the shape of the child's
mouth."
124
A Younger Robin
" But how ?" cried Dove. " Pray tell me how,
my love, when they are made in the very iden-
tical im "
"And modern doctors," Letitia stated with
some severity, "are doing away with so many
foolish notions of our grandmothers."
"Yet our fathers and mothers," Dove replied,
"were very fair specimens of the race, my dear.
Shakespeare, doubtless, was rocked in a cradle,
and his brains survived. They were quite in-
tact, I think you will admit. He wasn't joggled
into"
" Yet who knows what he might have written,
dear love," answered Letitia, "if he had been
permitted to lie quite
" You try to make a child go to sleep, my dar-
ling, without something!" my wife suggested.
"Just try it once, my dear."
"Cradles," said Letitia but at this juncture
I stepped in, authoritatively, as the father of my
child. It is due to Dove, I confess gladly, and
partly to Letitia also, that this fatherhood has
been so pleasant to look back upon. Robin's
mouth is very normal, as even Letitia will admit,
I know, as she would be the last person in the
world to say that his brains had suffered any in
9 125
Miss Primrose
the joggling. Somehow, by dint of boiling the
consolation I suppose, and by what-not formu-
lae, we got him up at last on two of the sturdiest,
little, round, brown legs that ever splashed in
mud-puddle Dove's Darling, my Old Fellow,
and Letitia's Love.
Love she called him in their private moments,
and other names as fond, I have no doubt ; pub-
licly he was her Archer, her Bowman, her Robin
Hood. She, it was, who purchased him bow-
and-arrows, and replaced for him without a mur-
mur, three panes in the library windows and a
precious little wedding vase. The latter cost her
a pretty penny, but she reminded us that a boy,
after all, will be a boy ! She took great pride in
his better marksmanship and sought a suit for
him, a costume that should be traditional of
archers bold.
"Have you cloth," she asked, "of the shade
called Lincoln green?"
The clerk was doubtful.
"I'll see," she said. "Oh, Mr. Peabody!
Mr. Peabody!"
"Well?" asked a man's voice hidden be-
hind a wall of calicoes. " Well ? What is
it?"
126
A Younger Robin
"Mr. Peabody, have we any cloth called
Abraham "
"Not Abraham Lincoln," Letitia interposed,
mildly. "You misunderstood me. I said Lin-
coln green."
"Same thing," said the clerk, tartly.
Mr. Peabody then emerged smilingly from be-
hind his wall.
"How do you do, Miss Primrose," said he.
"What can we do for you this morning?" Le-
titia carefully repeated her request. He shook
his head, while the young clerk smiled trium-
phantly.
"No," he said. "You must be mistaken. I
have never even heard of such a color and if
there was one of that name," he added, with
evident pride in his even tones, "I should cer-
tainly know of it. We have other greens "
Letitia flushed.
."Why," she explained, "the English archers
were accustomed to wearing a cloth called Lin-
coln green."
Mr. Peabody smiled deprecatingly.
" I never heard of it," he replied, stiffly ; " and,
as I say, I have been in the business for thirty
years."
127
Miss Primrose
"But don't you remember Robin Hood and
his merry men?"
"Oh!" exclaimed the merchant, a great light
breaking in upon him. "You mean the fairy
stories! Ha, Jia! Very good. Very good, in-
deed. Well, no, Miss Primrose, I'm afraid we can
hardly provide you with the cloth that fairies
"Show me your green cloths all of them,"
said Letitia, her cheeks burning.
" Certainly, Miss Primrose. Miss Baggs, show
Miss Primrose all of our green cloths all of
them."
"Light green or dark green?" queried Miss
Baggs, who had been delighted with the whole
affair.
Letitia pondered. There had been some rea-
son, she reflected, for Robin Hood's choice of
gear.
"Something," she said, at last "something
as near to the shade of foliage as you can give
me."
"I beg pardon?" inquired Miss Baggs.
"The color of leaves," explained Letitia.
"Well," Miss Baggs retorted, smartly, "some
leaves are light, and some are dark, and some
leaves are in-between."
128
A Younger Robin
There was a dangerous gleam in Letitia's eyes.
"Show me all your green cloths," she requested,
curtly "all of them." Miss Baggs obeyed.
"I suppose it really isn't Lincoln green, you
know," Letitia said, when she had brought the
parcel home with her and had spread its con-
tents upon the sofa, " but I hope you'll like it,
Dove. It is the nearest to tree-green I could
find."
It was, indeed.
Now, Dove had never heard of a boy in green,
and had grave doubts, which it would not do,
however, to even hint to dear Letitia ; so made it
was, that archer-suit, though by some strange
freak of fancy that caused Letitia keen regret,
Robin, dressed in it, could seldom be induced
to play at archery, always insisting, to her dis-
comfiture, that he was Grass!
"When you grow up, my bowman," she once
told him, "I'll buy you a white suit, all of flan-
nel, and father shall teach you to play at cricket
in the orchard."
"But crickets are black," cried Robin, whose
eye for color, or the absence of it, I told Letitia,
was bound to ruin her best-laid English plans.
It was good to see them, the Archer Bold and
129
Miss Primrose
the Gray Lady walking together, hand-in-hand
the one beaming up, the other down ; the one
so subject to sudden leaps and bounds and one-
legged hoppings to avoid the cracks, the other
flurried lest those wild friskings should disturb
the balance she had kept so perfectly all those
years till then.
In their walks and talks lay many stories, I
am sure things which never will be written
unless Letitia turns to authorship, for which it
is a little late, I fear; but even then she would
never dream of putting such simple matters
down. She does not know at all the delicious
Lady of the Linen Reticule, who, to herself, is
commonplace enough. She might, perhaps, make
a tale or two of the Archer in Lincoln Green, but
what is the romance of an archer without the
lady in it ?
One drowsy afternoon on a Sunday in summer-
time I stretched myself in my easy-chair with
another for my slippered feet. My dinner had
ended pleasantly with a love-in-a-cottage pud-
ding which had dripped blissfully with a heaven-
ly cataract of golden sauce. Dove had gone out
on a Sabbath mission, rustling away in a gown
sprinkled with rose-buds one of those summer
130
A Younger Robin
things in which it is not quite safe for any woman
to risk herself in this wicked world.
Such shallow thoughts were passing through
my mind as Dove departed, and when the front
gate clicked behind her, I opened a charming
novel and went to sleep. I know I slept, for I
walked in a path I have never seen. I should
like to see it, for it must be beautiful in the
spring-time. It was a kind of autumn when I
was there. I was dragging my feet about in
the yellow leaves, when a senile hollyhock leaned
over quietly and tickled me on the ear. As I
brushed it away I heard it giggling. Then a
twig of pear-tree bent and trifled with my nose,
which is a thing no gentleman permits, even in
dreams, and I brushed it smartly. Then I heard
a voice I suppose the gardener's telling some-
thing to behave itself. Then I swished again
among the leaves. How long I swished there I
have no notion, but I heard more voices by-and-
by, and I remember saying to myself, "They
are behind the gooseberries." They did not
know, of course, that I was there, else they had
talked more softly.
"No," said he, " you be the horsey."
"Oh no," said the other, "I'd rather drive."
131
Miss Primrose
"No, you be the horsey."
"Sh! Let me drive."
"I said you be the horsey."
"I be the horsey?"
"Yes. Whoa, horsey! D'up! Whoa! D'up!"
Then all was confusion behind the gooseberries
and the horsey d'upped and whoaed, and whoaed
and d'upped, till I all but d'upped. I did move,
and the noise stopped.
How long I slept there I do not know, but
I heard again those voices behind the vines,
though more subdued now, mere tender under-
tones like lovers in a garden seat. Lovers I sup-
posed them, and, keeping still, I listened:
"But I'm not your little boy," said one,
"because you haven't any."
"Oh yes, you are," replied the other, confi-
dently. "You're my little boy because I love
you."
"But why don't you ask God to send you a
little boy all your own, just four years old like
me, so we could play together ? Why don't you ?"
" Because," the reply was, " you're all the little
boy I need."
" But if you did ask God and the angel brought
you a little boy, then his name would be Billie."
132
A Younger Robin
"Oh, would it?"
" Yes, his name would be Billie, because now
Billie is the next name to Robin."
"What do you mean by the next name to
Robin?"
"Why, 'cause now, first comes Robin, and
then comes Billie, and then comes Tommy, or
else Muffins, if you turn the corner unless he's
a girl and then he's Annie."
"What?" gasped the second voice. "I don't
understand."
" Well, then," the first voice answered, wearily,
"call him Johnny."
I know at the time the explanation seemed
quite clear to me, as it must have been to the
second speaker, for the colloquy ended then and
there. I might have peeked through the goose-
berries and not been discovered, I suppose, but
just then I went out shooting flamingoes with a
friend of mine, and when I got back, some time
that day, the gooseberry-vines were thick with
rose-buds. And while I was gone a brook had
come you could hear it plainly on the other
side and I was surprised, I remember, and
angry with my aunt Jemima (I never had an
Aunt Jemima) for not telling me. I listened
Miss Primrose
awhile to the tinkle-tinkling till presently the
burden changed to a
" Tra, la, la,
Tra, la, la,"
over and over, till I said to myself, "These are
the Singing Waters the poets hear!" So I tip-
toed nearer through the crackling leaves, and
touching the rose- vines very deftly for fear of
thorns, again I listened. My heart beat faster.
" It is an English linn!" I said, astonished, for
there were words to it, English words to that
singing rivulet! I could make out "gold" and
"rue" and "youth."
"Some woodland secret!" I told myself; so I
listened eagerly, scarcely breathing, and little by
little, as my ears grew more accustomed to the
sounds, I heard the song, not once, but often,
each time more clearly than before :
" Many seek a coronet,
Many sigh for gold,
Some there are a-seeking yet
(Never thought of you, my pet!)
Now they're passing old.
" Many yearn for lovers true,
Some for sleep from pain,
134
A Younger Robin
Seeking laurel, some find rue
(Oh, they never dreamed of you!)
Now want youth again.
"Crown and treasure, love like
Peace and laurel -tree,
Have I all, oh! world of mine
(Soft little world my arms entwine)
Youth thou art to me."
_, It seemed familiar, yet I could not place the
song, till at last it came to me that Dr. Primrose
wrote it for his only child, a kind of lullaby
which he used to chant to her.
'* Then I remembered how all that while I had
been listening with my eyes shut, and so I
opened them to find the singer and saw Letitia
with Robin sleeping in her arms.
IV
HIRAM PTOLEMY
IE afternoon in a spring I am
I thinking of, passing from my office
to the waiting - room beyond it,
I found alone there a little old
1 gentleman seated patiently on the
very edge of an old-fashioned sofa which occu-
pied one corner of the room. He rose politely
at my entrance, and, standing before me, hat
in hand, cleared his throat and managed to
articulate :
"Dr. Weatherby, I believe."
I bowed and asked him to be seated, but he
continued erect, peering up at me with eyes that
watered behind his steel-bowed spectacles. He
was an odd, unkempt figure of a man ; his scraggly
beard barely managed to screen his collar-button,
for he wore no tie; his sparse, gray locks fell
quite to the greasy collar of his coat, an antique
136
Hiram Ptolemy
frock, once black but now of a greenish hue ; and
his inner collar was of celluloid like his dickey
and like the cuffs which rattled about his lean
wrists as he shook my hand.
"My name is Percival Hirarn De Lancey
Percival," he said. "De Lancey was my moth-
er's name."
"Will you come into my office, Mr. Percival?"
I asked.
"No no, thank you that is, I am not a
patient," he explained. " I just called on my
way to "
He wet his lips, and as he said "New York" I
fancied I could detect beneath the casual man-
ner he assumed, no inconsiderable self-satisfac-
tion, accompanied by a straightening of the
bent shoulders, while at the same moment he
touched with one finger the tip of his collar and
thrust up his chin as if the former were too tight
for him. With that he laid his old felt hat
among the magazines on my table and took a
chair.
"The fact is," he continued, "I am a former
protege of the late Rev. David Primrose, of
whom you may "
He paused significantly.
Miss Primrose
"Indeed!" I said. "I knew Dr. Primrose
very well. He was a neighbor of ours. His
daughter "
My visitor's face brightened visibly and he
hitched his chair nearer to my own.
" I was about to ask you concerning the the
daughter," he said. "Is she?"
"She lives with my family," I replied. "Le-
titia "
"Ah, yes," he said; "Letitia! That is the
name Letitia Primrose well, well, well, well.
Now, that's nice, isn't it? She lives with you,
you say."
"Yes," I explained, "she has lived with my
family since her father's death."
" He was a remarkable man, sir," Mr. Percival
declared. " Yes, sir, he was a remarkable man.
Dr. Primrose was a pulpit orator of unusual
power, sir of unusual power. And something
of a poet, sir, I believe."
"Yes," I assented.
"I never read his verse," said the little old
gentleman, "but I have heard it said that he
was a fine hand at it a fine hand at it. In
fact, I"
He paused modestly.
138
Hiram Ptolemy
"I am something of a writer myself."
"Indeed!" I said.
"Oh yes; oh yes, I but in a different line,
sir, I"
Again he hesitated, apparently through hu-
mility, so that I encouraged him to proceed.
"Yes?" I said.
" I er in fact, I " he continued, shyly.
"Something philosophical," I ventured.
"Yes; oh yes," he ejaculated. "Well, no;
not that exactly."
"Scientific then, Mr. Percival."
He beamed upon me.
" Well, now, how did you guess it ? How did
you guess it?" he exclaimed.
"Oh, I merely took a chance at it," I replied,
modestly.
"Well, now, that's remarkable. Say you
seem to be a clever young fellow. Are you
are you interested in science?" he inquired,
sitting forward on the very edge of his chair.
"Well, as a doctor, of course," I began.
"Of course, of course," he interposed, "but
did you ever take up ancient matters to any
extent?"
"Well, no, I cannot say that I have."
Miss Primrose
"Latin and Greek, of course?" suggested Mr.
Percival.
"Oh yes, at college Latin and Greek."
"Dr. Weatherby," said my visitor, his eyes
shining, "I don't mind telling you: I am a "
He wetted his lips and glanced nervously
about him.
"We are quite alone," I said.
"Dr. Weatherby, I am an Egyptologist!"
"You are?" I answered.
"Yes," he replied. "Yes, sir, I am an Egyp-
tologist."
"That," I remarked, "is a very abstruse de-
partment of knowledge."
"It is, sir," replied the little old gentleman,
hitching his chair still nearer, so that leaning
forward he could pluck my sleeve. " I am the
only man who has ever successfully deciphered
the inscriptions on the great stone of Iris- Iris!"
"You don't say so!" I exclaimed.
"I do, Dr. Weatherby. I am stating facts,
sir. Others have attempted it, men eminent in
the learned world, sir, but I alone here in my
bosom '
He tapped the region of his heart, where a
lump suggested a roll of manuscript. " I alone,
140
Hiram Ptolemy
Dr. Weatherby, have succeeded in translating
those time-worn symbols. Dr. Weatherby"
he lowered his voice almost to a whisper "it
has been the patient toil of seven years!"
He sprang back suddenly in his chair, and
drawing a red bandanna from his coat-tails pro-
ceeded to mop his brow.
"Mr. Percival," I said, cordially, looking at
my watch, "won't you come to dinner?" His
eyes sparkled.
"Well, now, that's good of you," he said.
"That's very good of you. I was intending to
go on to New York to-night by the evening-train,
but since you insist, I might wait over till to-
morrow."
"Do so," I urged. "You shall spend the
night with us. Letitia will be delighted to see
an old friend of her father, and my wife will be
equally pleased, I know. Have you your grip
with you?"
"It is just here behind the lounge," said
Mr. Percival, springing forward with the agility
of a boy and drawing from beneath the flounce
of the sofa-cover a small valise of a kind now
seldom seen except in garrets or in the hands of
such little, old-fashioned gentlemen as my guest.
Miss Primrose
It had been glossy black in its day, but now was
sadly bruised and a little mildewed with over-
much lying in attic dust. In the very centre of
the outer flap, which buckled down over a
shallow pocket, intended, I suppose, for comb
and brush, was a small round mirror, dollar-
sized, which by some miracle had escaped the
hand of time.
"By- the- way," I said, as we entered my
buggy, "you haven't told me "
He interrupted me, smiling delightedly.
"Why I am going to New York?"
"Yes," I said.
"Well, sir, I'll tell you. I'll tell you, doctor,
and it's quite a story."
"Where is your home, Mr. Percival?"
"Sand Ridge," he said, "has been my home,
but I expect to reside hereafter in "
He wetted his lips and pulled at his collar
again
"In New York, sir."
On our drive homeward he told his story.
Early in manhood he had been a carpenter by
day, by night a student of the ancient languages,
which he acquired by dint of such zeal and sacri-
fice that Dr. Primrose, then in the zenith of his
143
Hiram Ptolemy
own career, discovering the talents of the poor
young artisan, urged and aided him to obtain
a pulpit in a country town. He proved, I im-
agine, an indifferent preacher, drifting from
place to place, and from denomination to de-
nomination, to become at last a teacher of Greek
and Latin in the Sand Ridge Normal and Col-
legiate Institute. Whatever moments he could
spare from his academic duties, he had devoted
eagerly to Egyptian monuments, and more par-
ticularly to that one of Iris - Iris which had
baffled full half a century of learned men.
"But how did you do it?" I inquired. He
wriggled delightedly in the carriage-seat.
"Doctor," he said, "how does a man perform
some marvellous surgical feat, which no one had
ever done, or dreamed of doing, before? Eh?"
"I see," I replied, nodding sagely. "Such
things are beyond our ken."
"I did it," he chuckled. "I did it, doctor.
And now, sir " .
He paused significantly.
"You are going to New York," I said.
"Exactly. To"
"Publish," I suggested.
"The very word!" he cried. "Doctor, I am
M3
Miss Primrose
going to give my discovery to the world to the
world, sir! not merely for the edification of
savants, but for the enlightenment of my fellow-
men."
"By George!" I said, "that's what I call phil-
anthropy, Mr. Percival."
"Well, sir," he replied, modestly, "all I ask
all I ask in return, sir, is that I may be per-
mitted to spend the remainder of my days, rent
free and bread free, in some hall of learning, that
I may edit my books and devote myself to
further research undismayed by the the
"Wolf at the door," I suggested.
"Exactly," he replied. "That's all I ask."
" It is little enough," I remarked.
" Doctor," he said, solemnly, " it is enough, sir,
for any learned man."
When I reached home with my unexpected
guest, Dove and Letitia smilingly welcomed him ;
I say smilingly, for there was that about the
little old gentleman which defied ill -humor.
He seemed shy at first, as might be expected of
a bachelor-Egyptologist, but the simple manners
he encountered soon reassured him. I led him
to our best front bedroom, where he stood,
dazzled apparently by the whiteness and ruffles
144
Hiram Ptolemy
all about him, and could not be induced to set
down his valise till he had spread a paper care-
fully upon the rug beneath it.
"Now, I guess I'll just wash up," he said, "if
you'll permit me," looking doubtfully at the
spotless towels and the china bowl decorated
with roses, which he called a basin. I assured
him that they were there to use.
It was not long before we heard him wander-
ing in the upper halls, and hastening to his rescue
I found him muttering apologies before a door
through which apparently he had blundered,
looking for the staircase. Safe on the lower
floor again, Letitia put him at his ease with her
kind questions about Egyptology, and the de-
lighted scientist was in the midst of a glowing
narrative of the great stone of Iris - Iris when
dinner was announced. It was evident that
Dove's table quite disconcerted him with its
superfluity of glass and silver, and dropping his
meat-fork on the floor, he strenuously resisted
all Dove's orders to replace it from the pantry.
" No, no, dear madam," he exclaimed, pointing
to the shining row beside his plate, " do not dis-
turb yourself, I pray. One of these extras here
will do quite as well."
Miss Primrose
During the dinner Letitia plied him with
further questions till he wellnigh forgot his
plate in his elation at finding such sympathetic
auditors. Dove considerately delayed the courses
while he talked on, bobbing forward and back-
ward in his chair, his slight frame swayed by his
agitation, his face glowing, and his beard bris-
tling with its contortions.
" Never," he told me afterwards, as we passed
from the dining-room arm-in-arm "never have
I enjoyed more charming and intelligent con-
versation never, sir ! "
I offered him cigars, but he declined them,
observing that while he never used "the weed,"
he had up-stairs in his valise, if we would permit
him
We did so, though none the wiser as to what
he meant, for he did not complete his sentence,
but, bowing acknowledgment, he briskly disap-
peared, to return at once without further mishap
in our deceitful upper hallway reappearing
with a paper bag which he untwisted and offered
gallantly to the ladies.
"Lemon-drops," he said. "Permit me, Mrs.
Weatherby. Oh, take more, Miss Letitia do,
I beg ; they are quite inexpensive, I assure you
146
Hiram Ptolemy
quite harmless and inexpensive. Help yourself
liberally, Mrs. Weatherby. Lemon - drops, as
you are doubtless aware, doctor, are the most
healthful of sweets, and as a have another, Miss
Primrose, do ! as a relaxation after the day's toil
are much to be preferred, if you will pardon my
saying so, Dr. Weatherby much to be preferred
to that poisonous cigar you are smoking there."
"Quite right, Mr. Percival," I assented.
"They are very nice," Dove said.
"Oh, they are delicious!" cried Letitia.
"Are they not?" said the little man, delighted
with his hospitality, and so I left them two
ladies and an Egyptologist sucking lemon-drops
and talking amiably of the great stone of Iris-
Iris while I attended on more modern matters,
but with regret. I returned, however, in time
to escort the scientist to his bedroom, where he
opened his valise' and took from it a faded cotton
night-gown, which with a few papers and a
Testament seemed its sole contents. His books,
he explained, had gone on by freight. As I
turned to leave him he said, earnestly:
"Doctor, my old friend's daughter is a most
remarkable woman, sir a most remarkable
woman."
M7
Miss Primrose
"She is, indeed," I assented.
"Why," said he, "she evinced an interest in
the smallest detail of my work! Nothing was
too trivial, or too profound for her. I was
astonished, sir."
"She is a scholar's daughter, you must re-
member, Mr. Percival."
"Ah!" said he. "That's it. That's it, doc-
tor. And what an ideal companion she would
make for another scholar, sir! or any man."
Next morning I was called into the country
before our guest had risen, and when I returned
at noon he had gone, leaving me regretful mes-
sages. I heard then what had happened in my
absence. Hiram Ptolemy it is the name we
gave to our Egyptologist had awakened soon
after my departure and was found by Dove
walking meditatively in the garden. After
breakfast, while my wife was busy with little
Robin, Letitia listened attentively to a further
discourse can the Iris-Iris, which, she was told,
bore on its surface a glorious message from the
ancient to the modern world.
"It will cause, dear madam," said the scien-
tist, his eyes dilating and his voice trembling
with emotion, " a revolution in our retrospective
148
Hiram Ptolemy I
vision; it will bring us, as it were, face to face
with a civilization that will shame our own!"
Letitia told Dove there was a wondrous dig-
nity in the little man as he spoke those words.
Then he paused in his eloquence.
"Miss Primrose," he said, "permit me to pay
you a great compliment : I have never in my life
had the privilege of meeting a woman of
such understanding as your own. You are re-
markably remarkably like your learned and
lamented father."
"Oh, Mr. Percival," Letitia said, flushing,
"you could not say a kinder thing."
"And yet," said the scientist, "you you are
quite unattached, are you not?"
"Quite what, Mr. Percival?"
"Unattached," he repeated, "by ties of the
affections?"
" Oh, quite," she answered, " quite unattached,
Mr. Percival."
"But surely," he said, "you still have '
He paused awkwardly.
"Oh," said Letitia, "I shall never marry,
Mr. Percival if you mean that."
He bowed gravely.
" Doubtless, dear madam you know best."
149
A. P. A.
|NE spring a strange infection spread
through the land and appeared
suddenly in our corner of it. First
'a rash became a matter of discus-
! sion in our public places, but was
not thought serious until the journals of the
larger cities brought us news that set our town
aflame with apprehension. Half our citizens
broke out at once in a kind of measles, not, how-
ever, of the common or school-boy sort that
speckled cloud with a silver lining of no-more-
school-till-it's-over nor yet that more malignant
type called German measles. It was, in fact,
quite Irish in its nature, generally speaking, and
in particular it was what might be termed anti-
papistical for, hark you ! it had been discovered
that the Catholics were arming secretly to take
the world by storm !
150
A. P. A.
There are many Romanists in Grassy Ford.
St. Peter's steeple, tipped with its gilded cross,
towers higher than our Protestant spires, and on
the Sabbath a hundred farmers tie their horses
beneath its sheds and follow their womenfolk
and flocks of children in to mass. In those days
Father Flynn was the priest, a youngish, round-
faced man, who chanted his Latin with a rich
accent derived from Donegal, and who was not
what is called militant in his manner, but was,
in fact, the mildest-spoken of our Grassy Ford
divines. He held aloof from those theological
disputes which sometimes set his Protestant
brethren by the ears, declining politely all in-
vitations to attend the famous set debates be-
tween our Presbyterian and Universalist min-
isters, which ended, I remember, in a splendid
God-given victory for the one whose flock you
happened to be in. Father Flynn only smiled
at such encounters; he was not belligerent, and
while his parish might with some good reason
be described as coming from fine old fighting
stock, it had never given evidence, so far as I
am aware, of any desire to use cold steel, its
warm, red, hairy fists having proven equal to
those little emergencies which sometimes arise
Miss Primrose
more particularly on a Saturday night, at
Riley's. But when it was whispered, then
spoken aloud, and finally charged openly on the
street corners and even in letters to the Gazette,
then edited by Butters 's son, that Father Flynn
was training a military company in the base-
ment of St. Peter's church, that the young Ro-
manists had been armed with rifles, and that
ammunition was being stored stealthily and by
night under the very altar! and this by order
from the Vatican, where a gigantic plot was
brewing to seize the New World for the Pope !
then it was shrewdly observed by those who held
the rumors to be truth that Father Flynn did
have the look of a conspirator and that he walked
with a military ease and swing.
The priest and his flock denied the charges
with indignant eloquence, but without con-
vincing men like Shears, who argued that the
guilty were ever eager to deny. Shears himself
was of no persuasion, religious or otherwise, but
belonged by nature to the great party of the
Opposition, whose village champion he was,
whether the issue was the paving of a street or a
weightier matter like the one in hand, of pro-
tecting the nation, as he said, from the treason
152
A. P. A.
of its citizens and the machinations of a decaying
power eager to regain its ancient sway! He
was a lawyer by profession, but one whose time
hung heavily on his hands, and, frequenting
village shops where others like him gathered
daily to argue and expound, he would hold forth
glibly on any theme, the chief and awe-inspiring
quality of his eloquence being an array of for-
midable statistics, culled Heaven knows where,
but which few who listened had the knowledge
or temerity to oppose. He was now brimming
with figures concerning Rome ancient, medi-
aeval, or modern Rome: "Gentlemen, you may
take your choice; I'm your man." He was
armed also, by way of climax and reserve, should
statistics fail to convince his auditors, with some
strange stories having a spicy flavor of Boccaccio,
which he told in a lowered voice as illustrations
of what had been and what might be again
should priests prevail.
To hear him pronounce the Eternal City's
name was itself ominous. His mouth, always
a large one, expanded visibly as he boomed out
"R-rome!" discharging it as from a cannon's
muzzle, and with such significance and effect
that many otherwise sanguine men began to
Miss Primrose
suspect that there might be truth in his solemn
warnings. Lights had been seen in St. Peter's
church at night ! Catholic youths did hold some
kind of drill there on certain week-day evenings !
And, lastly, it was pointed out, Father Flynn
himself had ceased denials!
"And why?" Shears asked. "Why, gentle-
men? I'll tell ye! /'// tell ye! orders from
R-rome! You mark my words orders from
Rome!"
Apprehension grew. A society was formed,
with Shears at it's head, to protect the village,
and assist, if need be, the State itself. Meetings
were held secret and extraordinary sessions
in the Odd Fellow's Block. Watches were set
on the priest's house and on St. Peter's. Reso-
lute men stood nightly in the shrubbery near the
church lest guns and cartridges should be added
to the stores already there. Zealous Protestant
matrons of the neighborhood supplied hot coffee
to the midnight sentinels. All emergencies had
been provided for. At a given signal three
pistol-shots in quick succession, and the same
repeated at certain intervals the Guards of Lib-
erty would assemble, armed, and march at once in
two divisions, a line of skirmishers under Tommy
'54
A. P. A. I
Morgan, the light-weight champion of Grassy
Fordshire, followed by the main body in com-
mand of Shears. No one, however, was to fire a
shot, Shears said "not a shot, gentlemen, till
you can see the whites of their eyes. Remember
your forefathers!"
Every night now half the town pulled down
its curtains and opened doors with the gravest
caution.
"Who's there?"
"Peters, you fool."
"Oh, come in, Peters. I thought it might
be"
" I know: you thought it might be the Pope."
It was considered wise to take no chances.
Assassination, it was widely known, had ever
been a favorite method with conspirators, espe-
cially at Rome, and Shears made it plain, in the
light of history, that "the vast fabric," as he
loved to call the Romish world, was composed of
men who, certain of absolution, would murder
their dearest friends if so commanded by cipher
orders from the Holy See!
Meanwhile, in Grassy Ford, friendships of years
were crumbling. Neighbors passed each other
without a word ; some sneered, some jeered, some
Miss Primrose
quarrelled openly in the street, and there were
fisticuffs at Riley's, and in the midst of this civil
strife some one remembered Shears himself, no
doubt that Dago pictures hung shamelessly on
the walls of a public school-room!
"Michael the Angelo" had been a Catholic!
What if Letitia Primrose were the secret ally
of the Pope ! . . .
"But she's not a Catholic," said one.
"She's Episcopalian," said another.
"What's the difference?" inquired a third.
"Mighty little, 7 can tell ye," said Colonel
Shears. "The thing's worth seein' to."
A knock on Letitia 's door that afternoon was
so peremptory that she answered it in haste and
some trepidation, yet was not more surprised by
the sudden summons than by the man who
stepped impressively into the school-room. The
pupils turned smilingly to David Shears.
"Your father!" they whispered.
It was, indeed, Colonel Samuel Shears, of the
Guards of Liberty. He declined the chair Le-
titia offered him.
"No," he said, majestically, " I thank you. I
prefer" and here he thrust up his chin by way
of emphasis "to stand."
156
A. P. A.
The school giggled.
"Silence!" said Letitia. "I am ashamed."
Colonel Shears coolly surveyed the array of
impudent youths before him, or perhaps not so
much surveyed it as turned upon it, slowly and
from side to side, the calm defiance of his massive
jowls. He was well content with that splendid
mug of his, which he carried habitually at an
angle and elevation well calculated to spread
dismay. Upon occasion he could render it the
more remarkable by a firm compression of the
under- lip, pulled gravely down at the corners into
what old Butters used to say was a plain attempt
"to out -Daniel Webster." The resemblance
ended, however, in the regions before described.
His brow, it should be stated, did not attest the
majesty below them, nor did his small eyes
glower with any brooding, owl-like light of wis-
dom, as he supposed, but bulged rather with a
kind of fierce bravado, as if perpetually he were
saying to the world:
"Did I hear a snicker?"
Colonel Shears surveyed the school, and then,
more slowly, the pictures on the walls about
him, turning sharply and fixing his gaze upon
Letitia.
Miss Primrose
[Point One: She was clearly ill at ease.]
[Point Two: A guilty flush had overspread
her features.]
"These pictures " said Colonel Shears, with
a wave of his hand in their direction. " Who
if I may be so bold" and here he raised his
voice to the insinuating higher register "who,
may I inquire, paid for them?"
"I did, Mr. Shears," Letitia answered.
" A-ah ! You paid for them ?"
"I did."
"Very good," he replied. "And now, if I
may take the liberty to '
"Pray don't apologize, Mr. Shears."
The Colonel's crest rose superior to the in-
terruption.
"If I may be permitted," he said, "to repeat
my humble question may I ask, was it your
money that bought the pictures?"
"It was."
"Your own?"
"My own."
"You are remarkably generous, Miss Prim-
rose."
"I think not," said Letitia, with increasing
dignity. " You will pardon me, Mr. Shears, if I
158
A. P. A.
continue with my classes. After school I shall
be at liberty to discuss the matter. Meanwhile,
won't you be seated?"
Colonel Shears for the second time declined,
but asked permission, humbly he said, to ex-
amine the works of art upon the walls. His
request was granted, and Letitia proceeded with
her class. When the inspector had made a
critical circuit of the room, and not without
certain significant clearings of his throat and
some sharp glances intended to catch Letitia
unawares, he sniffed the geraniums in the win-
dow and picked up a book lying on the corner
shelf. He glanced idly at its title and started !
gasped ! and then, horrified, and as if he could
not believe his bulging eyes, which fairly pierced
the covers of the little volume, he read aloud,
in a voice that echoed through the school-room:
" The Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas
Babington Macaulay !"
Letitia, whose back was turned, jumped at the
unexpected roar behind her, and the Colonel,
perceiving that evidence of what he had sus-
pected, now strode forward with an air of tri-
umph, tapping the Lays with his heavy fore-
finger.
Miss Primrose
"Pardon me," he said, his countenance illu-
mined by a truly terrible smile of accusation,
"but when, may I ask, did these here heathen
tales become a part of the school curriculum?"
"They are not a part of it," replied Letitia.
"Ah! They are not part of it ! You admit it,
then? Then may I ask when you made them
a part of it, Miss Primrose?"
"The stories of Roman heroes ' Letitia be-
gan.
"That is not my question. That is not my
humble question. When did these here Rom-
ish"
"Mr. Shears," Letitia interposed, flushed, but
speaking in a quiet tone she sometimes used, and
which the Colonel might well have heeded had
he known her, " I observe that you are not
familiar with Macaulay. I shall be pleased to
loan you the volume, to take home with you and
read at leisure. You will find it charming."
She turned abruptly to the class behind her.
"We will take for to-morrow's lesson the ex-
amples on page one hundred and thirty-three."
The Colonel glared a moment at the stiff little
back before him, and then at the book, which
he slipped resolutely into his pocket. A dozen
1 60
At P* At /
strides brought him to the door, where he turned
grandly with his hand upon the knob.
"I bid you," he said, with a fine, ironical
lowering of the under-lip, and bowing slightly,
"good-day, ma'am," and the door closed noisily
behind him. There was a tittering among the
desks. Young David Shears, red - faced and
scowling, dropped his eyes before his school-
mates' gaze. Letitia tapped sharply on her bell.
That evening the president of the school-
board called and talked long and earnestly with
Letitia in our parlor. Mr. Roach was a furniture
dealer by trade, a leading citizen by profession
a tight, little, sparrow-like man, who had risen
by dint of much careful eying of the social and
political weather to a place of honor in the vil-
lage councils. He was considered safe and con-
servative, which was merely another way of
saying that he never committed himself on any
question, public or private, till he had learned
which way the wind was blowing. He smiled
a good deal, said nothing that anybody could
remember, and voted with the majority. Out
of gratitude the majority had rewarded him, and
he -was now the custodian of our youth the
161
Miss Primrose
sentinel, alert and fearful of the slightest shadow,
starting even at the sound of his own footfall
on the Ramparts of the Republic, as Colonel
Shears once called our public schools. He had
come, therefore, under the shadow of the night,
but out of kindness, as he himself explained, to
advise the daughter of an old friend and in a
voice so low and cautious that Dove, seated in
the room beyond, heard nothing but a soothing
murmur in response to Letitia's spirited but re-
spectful tones. In departing, however, he was
heard to say :
" Oh, by-the-way er I think you had better
not mention my calling, Miss Primrose. Better
not mention it, I guess. It er hum might
do harm, you know. You understand."
"Perfectly," replied Letitia. "Good-night."
When the door was closed she turned to Dove.
"What do you think that little that man
wants?" she asked.
"Don't know, I'm sure."
" Wants me to take down all my pictures "
"Your pictures!"
"Yes and remove all books but text-books
from the school-room. And listen: he says my
geraniums fancy! my poor little red gera-
162
Ai # 1 <A t
niums ! are ' not provided for in the cur-
riculum."
"The curriculum!" cried Dove, hysterically.
"The curriculum," replied Letitia, without
a smile. "Do you know what I asked him?"
She leaned her chin upon her hands and gazed at
Dove's laughing face across the table. " Do you
know what I asked that man?"
"No."
"I asked him if Samuel Luther Shears was
provided for in the curriculum."
"You didn't say Luther, Letitia!"
"I did I said Luther."
"Darling! And what did he say to that?"
Letitia smiled.
"What could he say, my love?"
VI
TRUANTS IN ARCADY
HE excitement vanished as it had
come, in our tranquil air. A few
keen April nights had been suffi-
cient for the sentinels in the lilac-
bushes, who wearied of yawning
at St. Peter's silent and gloomy walls. Their
ardor and the matrons' midnight coffee cooling
together, they were withdrawn, and the Guards
themselves, though they had no formal mus-
tering -out, forgot their fears and countersigns
and met no more. Friendships were renewed.
Neighbors nodded again across their fences.
Protestant housewives dropped Catholic- vended
sugar into their tea, and while there were men
like Shears, who still in dreams saw candles burn-
ing, St. Peter's arsenal became a quiet parish
church again.
Untouched by the whirlwind's passing, Le-
164
Truants in Arcady /
titia's window-garden went on blooming red, her
pictures still hung defiantly on the walls, and
classic fiction tempted our youth to her corner
shelf. Colonel Shears, however, in that single
visit to the school-room, had found new texts for
his loquacity, and, our courts failing as usual to
furnish him with sufficient cases to engross his
mind, he devoted himself with new ardor to our
public welfare, and recalled eloquently, to those
who had time to listen, the little, old, red school-
house of their youth, the simpler methods of the
old school-masters, who had no fads or foibles
beyond the birch, and who achieved, he said
witness his hearers, to say nothing of his hum-
ble self results to which the world might point
with' satisfaction if not with pride. Had the
modern schools produced an Abraham Lincoln,
he wished to know ?
" Not by a jugful," was his own reply. " You
may talk about your kindergartens, and your
special courses, and your Froebel, and your
Delsarte, and you may hang up your Eyetalian
pictures on the wall, and stick up geraniums in
your windows but where is your Abraham ?
That's what I ask, gentlemen. I tell you, the
schools they had when you and I were boys
165
Miss Primrose
gentlemen, they were ragged they were ragged,
as we were but they turned out men ! And you
mark my words: there ain't any old maid in
Grassy Ford, with all her ancient classics, and her
new methods, and her gimcracks and flower-
pots, that '11 ever produce an Honest Abe!"
I am told that the crowd agreed with him
so heartily and with such congratulatory delight
that he was emboldened to announce himself
then and there as a candidate for the school-
board. Though he failed of election, there was
always a party in Grassy Ford opposed to new-
fangled methods in the schools. Letitia herself
was quite aware that even among her fellow-
teachers there were those who smiled at her
geraniums, and there had been some criticism of
her manner of conducting classes. Shears was
fond of relating how a visitor to her room had
found a class in fractions discussing robins' eggs!
Letitia explained the matter simply enough, but
the fact remained for the Colonel to enlarge upon.
"A lesson," he said, "in Robinson's Complete
Arithmetic, page twenty-seven, may end in some-
body's apple-tree, or the top of Sun Dial, or
Popocatapetl, or Peru! Gentlemen, I maintain
that such dilly-dallying is a subversion of the
166
Truants in Arcady
"Subversion!" growled old man Butters, who
still came out on sunny days with the aid of his
cane. " I calculate you mean it's not right."
"That," said the orator, suavely, "is the
meaning I intended to convey, Mr. Butters."
"Well, then, you're wrong," grumbled the
old man. "Why, that there girl" -he called
her so till the day he died, this side of ninety
"that there girl's a trump, Sam Shears, / tell
ye. She teaches Robinson and God A'mighty,
too!"
Letitia was often now in the public eye; her
teaching was made a campaign issue, though all
her nature shrank from such contests. It was
easy to attack her manner of instruction, and
sometimes difficult to defend it it had been so
subtle in its plan, and so unusual in its execu-
tion, and, moreover, time alone could disclose
what fruits would ripen from its flowery care.
Old Mr. Butters had put roughly what Dr. Prim-
rose himself had taught:
" Dearly beloved, in the fountains of learning,
no less than in the water-brooks, His lilies blow."
" Wouldst thou love God?" he asked, in the
last sermon that he ever wrote, " First, love
His handiwork."
167
Miss Primrose
It was his daughter's motto. It hung on the
walls of her simple chamber, with others from
her "other poets," as she used to call them
little rubrics printed for her in red and gold at
the " Pide Bull." That handiwork of God which
she still called Grassy Fordshire was so full of
marvels to this poet's daughter, there were so
many flowers in it, the birds there sang so blithe-
ly, its waters ran with such tremulous messages
echoed by woods and whispered by meadow-
grasses, its skies, melting into glowing promises
in the west, shone thereafter with such jewelled
truths, she could hold no text-books higher than
her Lord's.
It was not mere duty that drew her morn
after morn, year after year, to the red - brick
school-house. All the tenderness, all those eager
hopes and fears which she lavished so upon her
labor, meant life and love to her, for she truly
loved them those troops of laughing, heedless
children, passing like flocks of birds, stopping
with her for a little twittering season to seize
her bounty and, as it seemed to her, fly on gay-
ly and forget.
. It may be that I write prejudiced in her favor,
but I write as one knowing the dream of a wom-
168
Truants in Arcady
an's lifetime to set those young feet straight in
pleasant paths, to open those wondering eyes
to the beauty of an ancient world about them,
in every leaf of it, and wing in the earth below
and the sky above it, and there not only in the
flawless azure, but in the rain-clouds' gloom.
"Dark days are also beautiful," she used to
tell them. " Had you thought of that ?"
They had not thought of it. It was one of
those subtler things which text-books do not
say; but Letitia taught them, and a woman of
Grassy Ford, when sore bereft, once said to me:
"Dark days, doctor, are also beautiful. Miss
Primrose told us that, when we went to school
to her. It was of clouds she spoke, but I re-
membered it and now I know."
"Oh, Miss Primrose," Johnny Murray used to
say. " Do you remember when I went to school
to you? Do you remember where I sat there
by the window? Well, it's awfully funny, but
do you know, I never add or multiply or sub-
tract but I smell geraniums."
Perhaps, the Colonel would reply, that was
why Johnny Murray deserted the ledgers he
was set to keep the scent of the flowers in them
proved too strong for him. It may be so, for
169
Miss Primrose
little things count so surely ; it may be the rea-
son he is to-day a sun-browned farmer instead
of a lily-white clerk in his father's store. From
the geraniums in a school-room window to a
thousand peach-trees blooming in a valley is a
long journey, but it was for just such journeys
that Letitia taught, and not merely for that
shorter one which led through her petty school-
room to the grade above.
Letitia tells me that sitting there at her higher
desk above those rows of heads, she used to
think of them as flowers, and of her school-room
as a garden. Often then it would come to her
how pleasant a task it was to tend the roses
there golden - haired Laura Vane, and Alice
Bishop, and Isabel Walton, and handsome, black-
eyed Tommy Willis, whose pranks are famous
in Grassy Fordshire still; then, at the doting
thought of them, her heart would smite her, and
she would turn to those other homelier flowers.
It must have been in some such moment of re-
pentance that Susan Leary, chancing to raise
her eyes to her adored school-mistress, found
Letitia smiling so amiably upon her that the girl
blushed, and from that hour grew more mind-
ful of her scolding looks ; her freckled face was
170
Truants in Arcady
scrubbed quite glossy after that, her dress was
neater, her ribbons tied, till by-and-by, to Le-
titia's wonder and reward, she found in that
beaming Irish face upturned to her, color and
fragrance for her very soul.
Young Peter Bauer was a German sprout
transplanted steeragewise to a corner of the
garden, and slow in budding, his face as blank
as the blackboard-wall he grew beside ; but one
fine morning, at a single question in the B geog-
raphy, it burst into roseate bloom.
"Teacher, teacher, I know dot! Suabia ist
in Deutschland. Mein vater ist in Deutschland!
Ich bin"
And after that Peter was a poppy on Friday
afternoons, reading essays on his fatherland.
Thus, honest gardener that Letitia was, she
trained and pruned, disdaining nothing because
of weediness, believing that what would bear a
leaf would bear a flower as well. To leave at
four o'clock, to return at nine and find one open
which had been shut before! is it not the gar-
dener's morning joy ?
It was not alone the plants which refused to
grow for her that caused her pain. These at
least she had never loved, however patiently
171
Miss Primrose
she had cared for them. There were wayward
beauties in her garden who on tenderer stalks
bore longer thorns. She learned, in her way, the
lesson mothers learn in theirs, who sometimes
love and toil and sacrifice unceasingly, and wait,
years or forever, for reward.
"Remember, Miss Primrose, you are not a
mother," snapped a certain sharp- tongued ma-
tron of our town who had disagreed with her.
"Oh," said Letitia, "but I have loved so
many children. I am a kind of mother."
"Mother!" cried the matron.
"Yes," Letitia answered. "I am a mother
without a child."
Had they been her children, it had been easier
to forgive their thoughtlessness. Offended some-
times by her discipline, they said plain things
of her lack of pretty youth; they whispered lies
of her; she shed some tears, I know, over those
scribblings which she intercepted or found for-
gotten on the school - room floor. Then her
garden was the abode of shadows, her efforts
vain there. Sometimes, for solace, she sought
out Dove, but the habit of lonely thinking had
grown upon her; it had been enforced by her
maidenhood .
172
Truants in Arcady
While I am not a herb -doc tor by diploma,
I am one by faith, simples have wrought such
speedy cures in my own gray hours, and Grassy-
Fordshire is so green with them that a walk
by Troublesome or a climb on Sun Dial is in
itself a marvellous remedy, aromatic and ano-
dyne. In my drives to patients beyond the
town, I have been seized suddenly by a kind of
fever. There are no pills for it, or powders, or
any drugs in all the bottles on my shelves but
a jointed fishing-rod and line kept in the bottom
of a doctor's buggy is efficacious if applied in
time. Often when that spell was on me I have
turned Pegasus towards the nearest stream, and
while he nibbled, one hour on a scented bank,
fish or not sixty drops from the grass-green
phial of a summer's day has restored my soul.
Clattering home again at double - quick, Peg-
asus 's ears on end, his nostrils quivering, my
buggy thumping over thank - you - ma'ams, I
would not be a city leech for a brown-stone front
and a brass name-plate upon my door.
In some such pleasant hooky-hour in spring
I had cast, sullenly enough, but was now hum-
ming to myself, in tune with Troublesome, when
a twig snapped behind the willows. Some cow,
Miss Primrose
thought I, and kept my eyes upon the stream.
Another twig: I turned inquiringly. There, by
the water-side, and all unmindful of my presence,
was Letitia Primrose.
I bit my pipe clean through. I would have
called at once, but something stopped me. She
stood quietly by the brook, gazing at the stones
on which it played and sang. Her shoulders
drooped a little, her face seemed tired and pale.
She turned and saw me.
"Bertram!" Her face was guilty.
" Hello!" I said, lighting my pipe.
"You here, Bertram?"
"Yes," I replied, casting again. "How is it
you're here? No school, Letitia?"
She hesitated.
"No patients, doctor?" she asked, softly.
"No patients dying," I retorted. We eyed
each other.
"I had a headache," she said, meekly, seat-
ing herself upon a log. "And I have a substi-
tute."
"There are other doctors," I remarked.
Suddenly she rose.
"I think," she said, "I'll just stroll that way,
if you don't mind, Bertram."
Truants in Arcady
"Not at all," I replied. "I know how you
feel, Letitia. That's why I come here."
"Do you?" she asked. "Then this isn't your
first"
"Nor my twentieth offence," I replied, laugh-
ing. She sighed.
"I'm glad of that. It's my first really. I
feel like a criminal."
I pointed with my broken pipe-stem.
"You'll find the best path there," I said.
"I think I'll stay, if you don't mind, Ber-
tram."
"Stay, by all means," I replied, and went on
fishing. Letitia was the first to speak.
"It's hard always trying to be dominant,"
she remarked, "isn't it?"
"Why, I rather like it," I replied.
"You are a man," she said. "Men do, I
believe. But I, I get so tired sometimes" she
bit her lip "of being master." She laughed
nervously. "That's why I ran away."
Presently she went on speaking.
"If we could only be surrounded by such
things as these, always, how serene our lives
might be. Don't smile. It's my old sermon of
environment, I know ; but why are you here ?
i7S
Miss Primrose
and why am I? I try my best to keep the
beautiful before my children's eyes, to tempt
them into lovely thinking. Bertram, I believe,
heart and soul, in the power of beauty. I am
so sure of it, I know I should be a stronger
teacher if I were young and beautiful myself
or even pretty, like Helen White."
"She is a mere wax doll," I said.
"But children like pretty faces," she replied.
" Look! You have a fish!"
It was a snag, but while I was busy with it
she rose.
"Wait," I said, "I'll drive you home."
"No, thank you, Bertram. I'd rather walk.
My head is better now. Good-bye."
I did not urge her. When she had gone I
picked up a slip of paper from the path where
she had passed. It was a crumpled half of a blue-
ruled leaf torn from some pupil's tablet, and,
scrawled upon it in a school-girl's hand, I read :
" DEAR EDNA, Don't mind the homely old thing.
Everybody says she's fifty if she's a day. No one would
marry her, so she had to teach school."
It was written, Dove told me afterwards, by
one of the rose-girls in Letitia's garden.
176
VII
PEGGY NEAL
Y aunt Miranda, who was wise in
many things, used to maintain that
a woman ceased to be charming
only when she thought she had
I ceased to be so ; that age had noth-
ing whatever to do with the matter and so
saying, she would smile so bewitchingly upon
me that I was forced inevitably to the conclu-
sion that she bore her fifty years much better
than many women their paltry score. Letitia
was not so sanguine; she laid more stress upon
the spring-time. I have heard her say that
there was nothing lovelier in the world than a
fair young girl full of pure spirits as a rose-cup
full of dew. She would turn in the street to
look at one ; she liked them to be about her ; her
own face grew more winning in such comrade-
ship, and when she was given a higher school-
177
Miss Primrose
room, where the girls wore skirts to their shoe-
tops and put up their hair, it was an almost
childish pleasure which she displayed. It was
this very preference for exquisite maidenhood
that explained her fondness for Peggy Neal. It
was not scholarship which had won the teacher's
heart, for Peggy was an indifferent student, as
Letitia herself confessed, but she was a plump
and brown-eyed, pink-cheeked country girl who
always smiled and who had that grace of inno-
cence and bloom of health which are the witchery
of youth. She was a favorite with school-boys,
a belle of theirs at straw-rides, dances, and taffy-
pulls, and other diversions of our Grassy Ford-
shire teens, where, however, her gentle ways, her
readiness to follow rather than to lead, her utter
incapability of envy or spiteful speech made her
beloved of girls as well. She was the amiable
maiden whom men look twice at, yet whose sis-
ters are never quite jealous, holding her charm
to be mere pinkish prettiness and beneath the
envy of superior minds like theirs. Peggy was
the sort of girl Letitia had never been, roseate
with the kind of youth Letitia had never known,
and it enchanted her as a joy and beauty which
had been denied.
178
Peggy Neat
Neal, the father, was a drunken farmer, whose
wife was chiefly responsible for the crops they
planted, and who, being strong and abler than
her shiftless spouse, was usually to be seen in the
field and garden directing and aiding the hired
man. Peggy was the only child. She helped
her mother in the kitchen, fed the chickens,
skimmed the milk, sold the butter, and let her
father in o' nights. He was a by- word in the
village. Occasional revivalists prayed for him
publicly upon their knees, but without effect.
His wife could have told them how futile that
method was; she had tried it herself in more
hopeful years. She had tried rage also, but it
left her bitter and sick of life, and Pat the drunk-
er; so wisely she had fallen back upon resigna-
tion, though not of the apathetic sort, and had
made herself mistress of the farm, where her
husband was suffered to spend his nights if he
chose, or was able to walk so far from the tavern
where he apent his days.
For Peggy the mother had better dreams.
She knew that the girl was beautifu', and she
knew also what beauty, however born, might
win for itself in a wider world than her own had
been. Peggy, therefore, was to finish school,
Miss Primrose
however the farm might suffer by her absence
and the expense of such simple dress as her
village friendships would require. Nature might
marry Thrift or Money, thought the hard-faced
woman in the faded sunbonnet; silk and lace
and a new environment might make a queen of
this beggar-maid, her last hope in a life of hope-
lessness. Proudly she watched her daughter
flower into village fame, guarding that fairness
with jealous eyes.
"Daughter," she would say, "where is your
hat?"
"Mamma, I like the sun."
" Nonsense. . Go straight and fetch it and put
it on. Do you want to be speckled like your
ugly old mother- hen?"
It was a care and pride that would have turned
another and far less lovely head than Peggy's,
yet in spite of it this country school-girl ripened
sweetly. Driving on country visits I usecl to
meet her by the way, walking easily and hum-
ming to herself the while, her books and luncheon
swinging at her side a perfect model for ro-
mantic painters who run to milk-maids, or, as
Letitia used to say, the veritable Phyllis of old
English song.
180
Peggy Neal
The mother rose at dawn; she toiled by sun-
light and by lamplight; her face grew haggard,
her figure gaunter, her voice sharper with bitter
irony, her heart harder save in that one lone
corner which was kept soft solely for her child.
Peggy, I believe, was the only living thing she
smiled upon. Neighbors dreaded her cutting
tongue ; her husband was too dazed to care.
Time went by. In spite of that stern resolve
in the woman's nature, and all her labor and
frugal scheming, what with the failure of crops
and her lack of knowledge of their better care,
and an old encumbrance whose interest could be
barely met on the quarter-days that cast their
shadows on the whole round year, the farm
declined. Letitia's gifts from her own wardrobe
were all that kept Peggy Neal in school. It was
a word from Letitia also that raised the cloud on
the mother's face when despair was darkest there.
Might not summer-boarders, Letitia asked, bear
a surer, more golden harvest than those worn-
out fields?
"Summer-boarders!" cried Mrs. Neal, with a
grim irony in her voice. But she repeated it
"Summer-boarders," in a milder tone, and the
plan was tried.
181
Miss Primrose
The first ones came in June. They descended
noisily from the fast express, lugging bags and
fishing-rods and guns. Some of them stared;
some young ones whistled softly at the fair
driver of that old two-seated buckboard wait-
ing to bear them to the farm. They greeted
effusively for the daughter's sake the hard-
mouthed woman who met them at the door,
striving her best to smile a welcome. She it
was who showed them their plain but well-
scrubbed chambers, while their minds were at the
barn.
Pastures and orchards bore strange fruit that
summer: white-faced city clerks in soft, pink
shirts smoked cigarettes and browned in the sun ;
freckled ladies set up their easels in the cow-lot ;
high-school professors asked one another puzzling
questions, balanced cannily on the topmost rail
of the Virginia fence, and all all, that is, to a
man helped Peggy carry in the milk, helped
Peggy churn, helped Peggy bake, helped Peggy
set the table, and clear it, and wipe the dishes,
and set them safely away again in the dim
pantry helped Peggy to market, and Peggy
to church : so rose her star.
The mother watched, remembering her own
182
Peggy Neat
girlhood. Its romance, seen through a mist of
gloomy years, seemed foolish now. There might
be happiness in human life she had never
known any. There was a deal of nonsense in
the world called love, she knew, and there was
a surer thing called money. Peggy should wait
for it.
The mother watched, smiling to herself sar-
donically, secretly well-pleased smiling because
she knew quite well that these callow sprigs had
far less money than negligees; well-pleased be-
cause she guessed that soon enough a man with
both would be hovering about sweet Peggy's
dairy. It was a humorous thing to her that all
these city men should think it beautiful that
dampish, sunless spot where the milk-cans stood
waist-deep in cresses.
She kept sharp eyes upon her daughter, and
farm-house duties filled Peggy's days to their
very brim. There must be no loitering by star-
light, either. Mother and daughter now slept
together in the attic store-room, for the new
farming had proved a prosperous thing.
The summer was not like other summers.
There was life and gayety up at Neal's: strum-
ming of banjos and the sound of laughter and
183
Miss Primrose
singing on the porch, much lingering in ham-
mocks under the pine-trees, moonlit jaunts in
the old hay-rick, lanterns moving about the
barn and dairy, empty bowls on the buttery
table when Mrs. Neal came down at dawn, and
half-cut loaves in the covered crocks.
September came and the harvest had been
gathered in. The last boarder had returned
cityward. Peggy was in school again. One
day, however, she was missing from her classes,
and Letitia, fearing that she might be ill, walked
to the farm after school was over. It was a
pleasant road with a narrow path beside it
among the grasses, and the day was cool with
premonitions of the year's decline.
The farm seemed silent and deserted. She
knocked at doors, she tapped lightly on the
kitchen - windows, but no one was at home.
At the barn, however, the horses were in their
stalls, turning their heads to her and whinneying
of their empty mangers. Surely, she thought,
the Neals could not be gone. She stood awhile
by the well-curb from which she could better
survey the farm: it lay before her, field and
orchard, bright with sunshine and golden-rod,
yet she saw no moving thing but the crows in
184
Peggy Neat
the corn-stubble and the cows waiting by the
meadow-bars. Then she tried the dairy, and
there heard nothing but the brook whimpering
among the cans and cresses, and she turned away.
. Now a lane runs, grassy and strewn with the
wild blackberry- vines, through the Neal farm
to a back road into town, and Letitia chose it
to vary her homeward way. It passes first the
brook, over a little hoof-worn, trembling bridge,
and then the vineyard, where the grapes were
purple that autumn evening. There, pausing to
regale herself, Letitia heard a strange sound
among the trellises. It was a child crying,
moaning and sobbing as if its heart would break.
For a moment only Letitia listened there; then
she ran, fearfully, stumbling in the heavy loam
between the rows of vines, to the spot from
which the moaning came. She found a girl
crouching on the earth.
"Peggy!" she cried, kneeling beside her.
" Peggy ! Are you hurt ? Peggy ! Answer me !"
The girl shook her head and shrank away
among the lower leaves.
"Oh, what is the matter?" Letitia begged,
terrified, and gathered Peggy into her arms.
"Tell me! Tell me, sweet!"
185
Miss Primrose
" Nothing," was the wretched answer. " Please
please go away!"
But Letitia stayed, brushing the dirt from
the girl's dark hair, kissing her, petting her,
murmuring the tenderest names, and gently
urging her to tell. Peggy raised herself upon
her knees, putting both hands to her temples
and staring wildly with swollen eyes.
"Mamma's gone in, Miss Primrose," she said,
brokenly. " She '11 she'll tell you. Please -
please go away!"
She begged so piteously, Letitia rose.
" I'd rather stay, Peggy ; but if you wish it "
"Yes. Please go!"
"I'd rather stay."
"No. Please"
Slowly, and with many misgivings, Letitia
went. She knocked again at the farm-house,
but got no answer, as before. She tried the
doors they were locked, all of them. Then
her heart reproached her and she hurried back
again to the lane. It was growing dusk, and in
the vineyard the rows confused her.
"Peggy!" she called, softly.
Her foot touched a basket half-filled with
grapes.
186
Peggy Neal
" Peggy ! Where are you ?"
She could hear nothing but the rustling leaves.
"Peggy!" she called. "Peggy!"
There was no answer, but as she listened with
a throbbing heart, she heard cows lowing at
the pasture -bars and the click of the farm-
yard gate.
VIII
NEW EDEN
ETITIA'S church, the last her
father ever preached in, is a little
stone St. Paul's, pine -shaded and
ivy-grown, upon a hill-side. There
are graves about it in the lawn,
scattered, not huddled there, and no paths be-
tween them, only the soft grass touching the
very stones. Above them in the un trimmed
boughs swaying with every wind, the wild birds
nest and sing, so that death. where Dr. Primrose
lies seems a pleasant dreaming.
"Our service," he used to say, "is the ancient
poetry of reverence;" and every verse of it
brings to Letitia memories of her father standing
at the lecturn, while she was a child listening in
the pews.
" I was very proud of him," she used to tell us.
" His sermons were wonderful, I think. You
188
New Eden
will say that I could not judge them as a girl and
daughter, but I have read them since. I have
them all in a box up-stairs, and now and then
I take one out and read it to myself, and all that
while I can hear his voice. They are better than
any I listen to nowadays; they are far more
thoughtful, fuller of life and fire and the flower
of eloquence. Our ministers are not so brim-
ming any more."
She told us a story I had never heard, of his
earnestness and how hard it was for him to find
words fervent enough to express his meaning;
how when a rich old merchant of Grassy Ford
confessed to him a doubt that there was a God,
dear Dr. Primrose turned upon him in the vil-
lage street where they walked together and said,
with the tears springing to his eyes :
"Gabriel Bond, not as a clergyman but as a
man, I say to you, consider for a moment that
apple -bloom you are treading on!" It was
spring and a bough from the merchant's garden
overhung the walk where they had paused.
"Hold it in your hand, and look at it, and
think, man, think! Use the same reason which
tells you two and two make four the same
reason that made you rich, Gabriel and tell me,
13 189
Miss Primrose
if you can, there is no God! Why, sir " and
here Dr. Primrose's heart quite overcame him,
and his voice broke. "Gabriel, you are not
such a damned "
And the merchant, Letitia said, for it was
Bond himself who told her the story long after
Dr. Primrose's voice was stilled the merchant,
astounded to find a clergyman so like another
man struggling for stressful words for his emo-
tion, picked up the bruised twig from beneath
his feet and stuck it in her father's coat.
"Doctor," he said, quietly, "there's force, sir,
in what you say," and left Dr. Primrose won-
dering on the walk. But the next Sunday he
appeared at church, and every Sunday for many
years thereafter, merely explaining to those
who marvelled, that he had found a man.
It was not likely that the daughter of such a
man would be much troubled with doubts of
what he had taught so positively or what she
had come to believe herself ; if led astray it would
be like her sex in general, through too much
faith. While not obtrusive in her views of life
in her younger years, Letitia, as she reached
her prime, and through the habit of self-depend-
ence and her daily duty of instructing undevel-
190
Ne<w Eden
oped minds, grew more decisive in her manner,
more impatient of opposition to what she held
was truth, especially when it seemed to her the
fruit of ignorance or that spirit of bantering ar-
gument so common to the humorously inclined.
She liked humor to know its place, she said ; it
was the favorite subterfuge of persons champion-
ing a losing cause. In such discussions, finding
her earnestness useless to convince, and scorning
to belittle a theme dear to her with resort to jest
or personalities, she would sit silenced, but with
a flush upon her cheeks, and if the enemy had
pressed too sharply on her orderly retreat, one
would always know it by the tapping of her foot
upon the floor.
She was no mean antagonist. For she read
not only those volumes her father loved, but the
books and journals of the day as well. Reading
and theorizing of the greater world outside her
little one, she was ziot troubled by those para-
doxes which men meet there, which cause them
to falter, doubt, and see two sides of questions
where they had seen but one, till they fall back
lazily, taking their ease on that neutral ground
where Humor is the host, welcoming all and
favoring none. We used to smile sometimes at
191
Miss Primrose
Letitia's fervency; we had our little jests at
its expense, but we knew it was her father in her,
poet and preacher not dead but living still. In
his youth and prime Dr. Primrose was ever the
champion of needy causes, whose name is legion,
so that his zeal found vent, and left him in his
decline the mild old poet I remember. Would
Letitia'be as mild, I wondered?
"A few more needy causes," I used to say,
" would soften that tireless spirit say, stockings
to darn and children to dress for school, and a
husband to keep in order."
"Yet in lieu of these," Dove once replied,
"she has her day's work and her church and
books"
"But are they enough for a woman, do you
think?" I asked my wife. We were standing
together by Robin's bedside, watching him as
he slept. Dove said nothing, but laid her hand
against his rose-red cheek.
Little by little we became aware of some
subtle change in our Letitia. She took less
interest in the mild adventures of our household
world. She smiled more faintly at my jests, a
serious matter, for I have at home, like other
men, some reputation for a pretty wit upon
192
New Eden
occasion. It was a mild estrangement and
recluseness. She sat more often in. her room
up-stairs. She was absent frequently on lonely
walks, sometimes at evening, and brought home
a face so rapt, and eyes with a look in them so
far away from our humble circle about the
reading-lamp, we deemed it wiser to ask no
questions. For years it had been an old country
custom of ours, when we sat late, to seek the
pantry before retiring, but now when invited
to join us in these childish spreads, " No, thank
you," Letitia would reply, and in a tone so
scrupulously courteous I used to feel like the
man old Butters told about- a poor, inadvertent
wight, he was, who had offered a sandwich to
an angel. I forget now how the story runs,
but the man grumbled at his rebuff, and so
did I.
" I know, my dear," Dove reproved me, "but
you ought not to do such things when you see
she's thinking."
"Thinking!" I cried, cooling my temper in
bread-and-milk. "Is it thinking, then?"
"I don't know what it is," Dove sighed.
"She isn't Letitia any more, yet for the life of
me I can't tell why. I never dream now of
Miss Primrose
disturbing her when she looks that way, and I
cannot even talk to her as I used to do."
"She isn't well," I said.
"She says she was never better."
"She may be troubled."
"She says she was never happier."
"Well, then," I decided, sagely, "it must be
thinking, as you say."
We agreed to take no notice of what might be
only moody crotchets after all ; they would soon
pass. We no longer pressed her to join our
diversions about the lamp, but welcomed her in
the old spirit when she came willingly or of her
own accord. Yet even then it was not the same :
there was some mute, mysterious barrier to the
old, free, happy intercourse. Some word of
Dove's or mine, mere foolery, perhaps, but
meant in cheerfulness, would dance out gayly
across the table where we sat at cards, but slink
back home again, disgraced. What could this
discord be? we asked ourselves this strange
impassiveness, this disapproval, as it seemed to
us negative, but no less obvious for that?"
There was a heaviness in the air. We breathed
more freely in Letitia's absence. We grew self-
conscious in that mute, accusing presence, which
194
Ne<w Eden
I resented and my wife deplored. Dove even
confessed to a feeling of guiltiness, yet could
remember no offence.
"What have I done?" I asked my wife.
"What have I done?" asked she.
At meals, especially, we were ill at ease. The
very viands, even those famous dishes of Dove's
own loving handiwork, met with disfavor instead
of praise. Letitia had abandoned meats; now
she declined Dove's pies! Pastry was innutri-
tious, she declared, meats not intended for man
at all, and even of green things she ate so minc-
ingly that my little housewife was in despair.
"What can I get for you, dear?" she would
ask, anxiously. "What would you like?"
" My love," Letitia would reply, flushing with
annoyance, "I am perfectly satisfied."
" But I'll get you anything, Letitia."
" I eat quite enough, my dear," was the usual
answer "quite enough," she would add, firmly,
"for any one."
Then Dove would sink back ruefully, and I,
pitying my wife I, rebuked but unabashed and
shameless in my gluttony, would pass my plate
again.
"Give me," I would say, cheerfully, "a third
Miss Primrose
piece of that excellent, that altogether heavenly
cherry-pie, my dear."
It may sound like triumph, but was not
for Letitia Primrose would ignore me utterly.
" Have you read," she would ask, sipping a little
water from her glass, " New Eden, by Mrs. Lord ?"
We still walked mornings to the school-house,
still talked together as we walked, but not as
formerly not of the old subjects, which was
less to be wondered at, nor yet of new ones with
the old eloquence. I felt constrained. There
was a new note in Letitia 's comments on the
way the world was going, though I could not
define its pitch. She spoke, I thought, less
frankly than of old, but much more carelessly.
She seemed more listless in her attitude towards
matters that had roused her, heart and soul, in
other days. Me she ignored at pleasure; could
it be possible, I wondered, that she was de-
termined to renounce the whole round world as
well?
It was I who had first resented this alienation,
but it was Dove who could not be reconciled
to a change so inscrutable and unkind. Time,
I argued, was sufficient reason; age, I reminded
her, cast strange shadows before its coming;
196
Ne<w Eden
our friend was growing old perhaps like her
father before her time. But Dove was
alarmed : Letitia was pale, she said ; her face was
wan there was a drawn look in the lines of the
mouth and eyes; even her walk had lost its
buoyancy.
"True," I replied, "but even that is not un-
natural, my dear. Besides, she eats nothing;
she starves herself."
My wife rose suddenly.
"Bertram," she said, earnestly, "you must
stop this folly. I have tried my best to tempt
her out of it, but I have failed. It is you she is
fondest of. It is you who must speak."
" I fear it will do no good," I answered, " but I
will try." I have had use for courage in my
lifetime, both as doctor and man, but I here
confess to a trembling of the heart-strings, a
childish faintness, a lily cowardice in these en-
counters, these trifling domestic sallies and am-
buscades. Nor have I strategy; I know but one
method of attack, and its sole merit is the little
time it wastes.
" Letitia," I said, next morning, as we walked
town ward, "you are ill."
"Nonsense, Bertram," she replied.
197
Miss Primrose
"You are ill," I replied, firmly. "You are
pale as a ghost. Your hands tremble. Your
walk"
"I was never stronger in my life," she inter-
posed, and as if she had long expected this little
crisis and was prepared for it. " Never, I think,
have I felt so tranquil, so serene. My mind "
" I am not speaking of your mind, ' ' I said. " I
am talking of your body."
"Bertram," she said, excitedly, "that is just
your error not yours alone, but the whole
world's error. This thinking always of
earthly"
"Now, Letitia," I protested, "I have been a
doctor "
"Illness," she continued, "is a state of mind.
To think one is ill, is to be ill, of course, but to
think one is well, is to be well, as I am well,
I mean, in a way I never dreamed of! a way
so sure, so beautiful, that I think sometimes I
never knew health before."
"Letitia," I said, sharply, "what nonsense is
this?"
"It is not nonsense," she retorted. "It is
living truth. Oh, how can we be so blind!
The body, Bertram why, the body is nothing!"
198
New Eden
"Nothing!" I cried.
"Nothing!" she answered, her face glowing.
"The body is nothing; the mind is everything!
It is God's great precious gift! With my mind
I can control my body my life yes, my very
destiny! if I use God's gift of Will. It is divine."
"Letitia," I said, sternly, "those are fine
words, and well enough in their time and place.
I am not a physician of souls. I mend worn
bodies, when I can. It is yours I am thinking
of the frail, white, half -starved flesh and blood
where your soul is kept."
"Stop!" she cried. "You have no right to
speak that way. You mean well, Bertram, but
you are wrong. You are mistaken terribly
mistaken," she repeated, earnestly "terribly
mistaken. I am quite, quite able to care for
myself. I only ask to be let alone."
She had grown hysterical. Tears were in
her eyes.
" See," she said, in a calmer tone, wiping them
away, " I have had perfect control till now.
This is not weakness merely; it is worse: it is
sin. But I shall show you. I shall show you
a great truth, Bertram, if you will let me. Only
have patience, that is all."
199
Miss Primrose
She smiled and paused in a little common
near the school-house where none might hear us.
"I learned it only recently," she told me.
" I cannot see how I never thought of it before :
this great power mind has over matter how
just by the will which God has given us in His
goodness, we may rise above these petty, earthly
things which chain us down. We can rise here,
Bertram here on earth, I mean and when we
do, even though our feet be on Grassy Fordshire
ground, we walk in a higher sphere. Ah, can't
you see then that nothing can ever touch us?
nothing earthly, however bitter, can ever
sadden us or spoil our lives! There will be no
such thing as disappointment; no regret, no
death and earth will be Eden come again."
Her eyes were shining.
" Letitia," I said, "it is of another world that
you are dreaming."
"No, it is all quite possible here," she said.
" It is possible to you, if you only think so. It
is possible for me, because I do."
"It seems," I said, "a monstrous selfishness."
"Selfishness!" she said, aghast.
"As long as you have human eyes," I said,
"you will see things to make you weep, Letitia."
200
New Eden
"But if I shut them if I rise above these
petty"
"The sound of crying will reach your ears," I
said. " How then shall you escape sadness and
regret? What right have you to avoid the
burdens your fellows bear ? to be in bliss, while
they are suffering? It would be monstrous,
Letitia Primrose. You would not be woman:
You would be a fiend."
She shook her head.
"You don't understand," she said.
"At least," I answered, "I will send you
something from the office."
She shut her lips.
"I shall not take it."
"It will make you stronger," I insisted.
"You can do nothing," she answered, coldly,
"to make me stronger than I am."
IX
A SERIOUS MATTER
|F ever woman had a tender heart,
that heart was Dove's. I used to
say, to her confusion, that a South
Sea cannibal might find confession-
al in her gentle ear, were his voice
but low enough ; that she might draw back, shud-
dering at his tales of the bones he had picked,
but if only his tears were real ones, I could
imagine her, when he had done, putting her hand
upon his swarthy shoulder and saying, earnestly:
"I know just how you feel!"
Such was the woman Letitia confided in, now
that her tongue was loosened and the mystery
solved, for her soul was brimming with those
new visions dreams so roseate as she painted
them that my wife listened with their wonder
mirrored in her round brown eyes, and dumb
before that eloquence. Dove loved Letitia as
202
A Serious Matter
a greater woman than herself, she said, wor-
shipped her for her wider knowledge and more
fluent speech, just as she wondered at it rue-
fully as a girl on Sun Dial listening to Letitia's
tales of dryads and their spells. In return for
all this rapt attention and modest reverence,
Letitia formerly had been grace itself. It was a
tender tyranny she had exercised; but now?
how should my simple, earthly Dove, mother
and housewife, confide any longer her favorite
cares, her gentle fears, her innocent regrets?
With what balm of sympathy and cheer would
the new Letitia heal those wounds ? Would not
their very existence be denied ; or worse, be held
as evidence of sin? iniquity in my poor girl's
soul, hidden there like a worm i' the bud, and
to be chastened in no wise save by taking in-
visible white wings of thought, and soaring
God knows where ?
The new Letitia was not unamiable, nor yet
unkind, knowingly, for she smiled consistently
upon all about her a strange, aloof, unloving
smile though, at which we sighed. We should
have liked her to be heart and soul again in our
old-time common pleasures, even to have joined
us now and then in a fault or two to have
203
Miss Primrose
looked less icily, for example, upon our occa-
sional petty gossip of our neighbors, or to have
added one wrathful word to our little rages at
the way the world was straying from the golden
mist we had seen it turn in, in our youth. As
we watched her, wondering, laughing sometimes,
sometimes half-angry at this new and awful
guise she had assumed, it would come to us, not
so much how sadly earthen we must seem to
her, nor yet how strange and daft and airy her
new views seemed to us in our duller sight but
how the old Letitia whom we had loved was gone
forever.
"Bertram," said my wife one evening as we
sat together by the lamp, "what do you think
Letitia says?"
"I am prepared for anything, my dear."
Dove, who was sewing, laid down her work and
said, gravely:
" She does not believe in marriage any more."
I raised my eyebrows. There was really noth-
ing to be said.
"At least," my wife went on, resuming her
sewing, " she says that the time will come when
the race will have" Dove paused thoughtfully
" risen above such things, I think she said. I
204
A Serious Matter .
really don't remember the words she used, but
I believe yes, there will be marriage in a way
that is" Dove knitted her brows "a union
of kindred souls, if I understand her."
"Ah!" I replied. "I see. But what about
the perpetuation "
My wife shook her head.
"Oh, all that will be done away with, I be-
lieve," she said, gravely.
" Done away with!" I cried.
"At least," Dove explained, "it will not be
necessary."
My face, I suppose, may have looked incredu-
lous.
" I don't quite comprehend what Letitia says
sometimes," my wife explained, "but to-day
she was telling me "
Dove laughed quaintly.
"Oh, I forget what comes next," she said,
"but Letitia told me all about it this morning."
I returned to my quarterly. Presently my
wife resumed:
" She has four books about it."
"Only four!" I said. "I should think one
would need a dozen at least to explain such
mysteries."
14 205
Miss Primrose
" She says herself she is only at the beginning,"
Dove replied. " She's now in the first circle or
cycle, I've forgotten which but the more she
reads and the more she thinks about it, the more
wonderful it grows. Oh, there was something
else what was it now she called it ? something
about the cosmos, I think she said, but I
didn't quite grasp the thing at all."
"I'm surprised," I replied. "It's very sim-
ple."
"I suppose it is," Dove answered, quickly,
and so humbly that I laughed, but she looked up
at me with such a quivering smile, I checked
myself. "I suppose it is simple," she replied.
" I guess my mind is not very strong, Bertram.
I I find it so hard to understand some "
I saw the tears were coming.
"Don't trouble yourself about such things,
my dear," I said, cheerfully. "It's a bonny
mind you have, you take my word for it."
Dove wiped her eyes.
"No," she said; "when I listen to Letitia, I
feel like a"
"There, there, my dear," I said, "you have
things a thousand times more vital and useful
and beautiful than this cosmos Letitia talks
206
A Serious Matter
about. It's only another word for the universe,
my love, if I remember rightly I'm not quite
sure myself, but it doesn't matter. It's easy to
pronounce, and it may mean something, or it
may mean nothing, but we needn't trouble our-
selves about it, little one. You have work to
do. You must remember Letitia has no such
ties to bind her to the simple things, which are
enough for most of us to battle with. I am tired
of theories myself, dear heart. Work every-
day, humble, loving service is all that keeps life
normal and people pleasant to have about. I
see so much of this other side, it is always good
to come home to you."
I went back to my medical journal I forgot
to say I had come around to my wife's side of our
reading-table in settling this perplexing matter;
I went back to my work, and she to hers, and
we finished the evening very quietly, and in as
good health and unruffled spirits as the cosmos
itself must enjoy, I think, judging from the easy
way it has run on, year after year, age after age,
since the dark beginning.
PART III
Ro s e m a ry
THE HOME-KEEPER
IHE years slip by so quietly in
Grassy Ford that men and women
born here find themselves old, they
scarce know how, for are they not
still within sound of the brooks
they fished in, and in the shadow of the very
hill- sides they climbed for butternuts, when they
were young? The brooks run on so gayly as
before, and why not they as well ?
"Butters," Shears used to grumble, "never
could learn that he was old enough to stop his
jawing and meddling around the town, till they
dug his grave for him; then he shut up fast
enough."
"Well, then," said Caleb Kane, another char-
acter, " we'll sure enough have to send for the
sexton."
Colonel Shears eyed Caleb with suspicion,
211
Miss Primrose
"What for?" he asked.
"Why, to get a word in edgewise, Sam'l,"
Caleb replied, and the Colonel rose, shifted his
cigar, and sauntered homeward.
"Mostly comedies," said the one we call
Johnny Keats, when I urged him to write the
stories of his native town; yet, as I told him,
there are tragedies a-plenty too in Grassy Ford-
shire, though the dagger in them is a slower tort-
ure than the short swift stab men die of in a
literary way. Our heroic deaths are done by
inches, as a rule, so imperceptibly, so often with
jests and smiles in lieu of fine soliloquies, that
our own neighbors do not always know how rare
a play the curtain falls on sometimes among our
hills.
If I do not die in harness, if, as I often dream of
doing, I turn my practice over to some younger
man perhaps to Robin, who shows some signs
of following in his father's steps I shall write
the story of my native town ; not in the old way,
embellished, as Butters would have termed it,
with family photographs of the leading citizens
and their houses and cow-sheds, and their wood-
en churches, and their corner stores with the
clerks and pumpkins in array before them not
212
The Home-keeper
in that old, time-honored, country manner, but
in the way it comes to me as I look backward and
think of the heroes and heroines and the clowns
and villains I have known. I shall need some-
thing to keep me from "jawing and meddling
around the town"; why not white paper and a
good stub pen, while I smoke and muse of my
former usefulness. I suppose I shall never write
the chronicle ; Johnny Keats could, if he would ;
and I would, if I could thus the matter rests,
while the town and its tales and I myself grow
old together. Even Johnny Keats, who was a
boy when Letitia taught in the red brick school-
house, has a thin spot in his hair.
Had Dove but lived it is idle, I know, to say
what might have been, had our Grassy Ford-
shire been the same sweet place it was, before
she went like other white birds "southward,"
she said, "but only for a winter, Bertram
surely spring comes again."
This I do know: that I should have had far
less to tell of Letitia Primrose, who might have
gone on mooning of a better world had Dove not
gone to one, leaving no theories but a son and
husband to Letitia 's care. It was not to the
oracle that she intrusted us, but to the woman
213
Miss Primrose
not to the new Letitia but to the old, who had
come back to us in those vigils at my wife's
bedside.
"This is not sin, Letitia," Dove said to her.
"Oh, my dear!" replied Letitia. "You must
not dream that I could call it so."
"Still," Dove answered, "if I had your mind,
perhaps '
"Hush, dear love," Letitia whispered. "My
sweet, my sweet oh, if I had your soul!"
From such chastening moments Letitia Prim-
rose was the mother she might have been. A
tenderer, humbler heart, save only Dove's, I
never knew, nor a gentler voice, nor a stronger
hand, than those she gave us, man and boy
bereft not only in those first blank days, but
through the years that followed. So easily
that I marvelled did the school-mistress become
the home-keeper, nor can I look upon a spinster
now, however whimsical, that I do not think of
her as the elder sister of that wife and mother
in her soul.
A new dream possessed Letitia; it was to be
like Dove. She could never be youthful save
in spirit; she could never be lovely with that
subtle poise and grace which cannot be feigned
214
The Home-keeper
or purchased at any price, neither with gold nor
patience nor purest prayer nor any precious
thing whatever, but comes only as a gift to the
true young mother at her cradle-side. She
could not be one-half so perfect, she confessed
humbly to herself, but she could keep the fire
blazing on a lonely hearth, where a man sat si-
lent with his child.
My girl's housewifeliness had seemed a simple
matter when Letitia's mind was on her school
and sky; it was now a marvel as she learned
what Dove had done those thousand little
things, and all so easily, so placidly, that at the
day's fag-end Letitia, weary with unaccustomed
cares, wondered what secret system of philoso-
phy Dove's had been. What were the rules
and their exceptions ? What were the formulas ?
Here were sums to do, old as the hills, but
strange, new answers! There must be a gram-
mar for all that fluency, that daily smoothness
in every clause and phrase a kind of eloquence,
as Letitia saw it now, marvelling at it as Dove
had marvelled at her own. When she had solved
it, as she thought, the steak went wrong, or the
pudding failed her, or the laundry came home
torn or incomplete, moths perhaps got into
215
Miss Primrose
closets, ants stormed the pantry, or a pipe got
stopped ; and then, discomfited, she would have
Dove's magic and good - humored mastery to
seek again.
She had kept house once herself, it is true,
but years ago, for her simple father, and not in
Dove's larger way. The Primrose household as
she saw it now had been a meagre one, for here
in the years of Dove's gentle rule, a wondrous
domestic ritual had been established, which it
was now her duty to perform. That she did it
faithfully, so that the windows shone and the
curtains hung like snowy veils behind them, so
that the searching light of day disclosed no
film upon the walnut, who could doubt, knowing
that conscience and its history? She kept our
linen neatly stitched; she set the table as Dove
had set it ; she poured out tea for us more prim-
ly, to be sure, but cheerfully as Dove had poured
it, smiling upon us from Dove's chair.
Robin grew straight of limb and wholesome of
soul as Dove had dreamed. Letitia helped him
with his lessons, told him the legends of King
Arthur's court, and read with him those Tales
of a Grandfather, which I had loved as just such
another romping boy though not so handsome
216
The Home-keeper
and debonair as Dove's son was, for he had her
eyes and her milder, her more poetic face, and
was more patrician in his bearing; he is like his
mother to this day. His temper, which is not
maternal, I confess those sudden gusts when,
as I before him, he chafed in bonds and cried
out bitter things, rose hotly sometimes at Leti-
tia's discipline, though he loved her doubly
now.
"You are not my mother!" he would shout,
clinching his fists. "You are not my mother!"
Then her heart would fail her, for she loved
him fondly, even in his rage, and her penalty
would be mild indeed. Often she blamed her-
self for his petty waywardness, and feeling her
slackening hand he would take the bit between
his teeth, coltlike; but he was a good lad,
Robin was, and, like his mother, tender-hearted,
for all his spirit, and as quick to be sorry as to
be wrong. When they had made it up, crying
in each other's arms, Letitia would say to him:
"I'm not your mother, but I love you, and
I've got no other little boy."
It was thus Letitia kept our home for us,
tranquil and spotless as of old; and if at first I
chose more often than was kind to sit rather
217
Miss Primrose
among my bottles and my books and instru-
ments, leaving her Robin and the evening-
lamp, it was through no fault or negligence of
hers I did it, for, however bright my hearth might
glow, however tended by her gentle hands, its
flame was but the ruddy symbol to me of a past
whose spirit never could return.
"Who is Miss Primrose?" strangers in Grassy
Ford would ask.
"She's a sort of relative," the reply would be,
"and the doctor's house-keeper."
For the woman who keeps still sacred and
beautiful another woman's home, in all the
language, in all our wordiness, there is no other
name.
II
JOHNNY KEATS
HE one we call Johnny Keats is
well enough known as Karl St.
John. He was a Grassy Ford-
shire boy and Letitia's pupil, as
I have said, till he left us, only to
like us better, as he once told me, by seeing
the world beyond our hills. He went gladly, I
should say, judged by the shining in his eyes.
He was a homely, slender, quiet lad, except
when roused, when he was vehement and ob-
stinate enough, and somewhat given, I am told,
to rhapsody and moonshine. He read much
rather than studied as a school-boy, and was
seen a good deal on Sun Dial and along Trouble-
some where he never was known to fish, but
wandered aimlessly, wasting, it was said, a deal
of precious time which might have been bettered
in his father's shop. Letitia liked him for a cer-
219
Miss Primrose
tain brightness in his face when she talked of
books, or of other things outside the lessons;
otherwise he was not what is termed in Grassy
Ford a remarkable boy. We have lads who
"speak pieces" and "accept," as we say it,
" lucrative " positions in our stores.
Karl drifted off when barely twenty, and as
time went by was half forgotten by the town,
when suddenly the news came home to us that
he had written, and what is sometimes considered
more, had published, and with his own name
on the title-page, a novel! Sleepington Fair,
the thing was called. There are those who say
Sleepington Fair means Grassy Ford, and that
the river which the hero loved, and where he
rescued a maid named Hilda from an April
flood, is really our own little winding Trouble-
some, widened and deepened to permit the well-
nigh tragic ending of the tale. You can wade
Troublesome; Hilda went in neck-deep. They
say also that the man McBride, who talks so much,
is our old friend Colonel Shears; the fanciful
McBride is tall in fact, and the actual Shears is
tall in fancy. Be that as it may, the book was
excellent, considering that it was written by a
Grassy Fordshire boy, and it set at least two
220
Johnny Keats
others of our lads, and a lady, I believe, to scrib-
bling further deponent sayeth not.
Sleepington Fair was read by the ladies of
the Longfellow Circle, our leading literary club.
Our Mrs. Buhl, acknowledged by all but envious
persons to be the most cultured woman in
Grassy Ford, pronounced it safely "one of the
most pleasing and promising novels of the past
decade," and, in concluding her critical review
before the club, she said, smilingly : " From Mr.
St. John our Mr. St. John, for let me call him
so, since surely he is ours to claim from our
Mr. St. John we may expect much, and I feel
that I am only voicing the sentiments of the
Longfellow Circle when I wish for him every
blessing of happiness and health, that his facile
pen may through the years to come trace only
what is pure and noble, and that when, as they
will, the shadows lengthen, and his sun descends
in the glowing west, he may say with the poet '
What the poet said I have forgotten, but the
words of Mrs. Buhl brought tears to the eyes of
many of her auditors, who, at the meeting's close,
pressed about her with out - stretched hands,
assuring her that she had quite outdone herself
and that never in their lives had they heard
IS 221
Miss Primrose
anything more scholarly, anything more thought-
fully thought or more touchingly said. Would
she not publish it, she was asked, pleadingly?
No ? It was declared a pity. It was a shame,
they said, that she had never written a book
herself, she who could write so charmingly of
another's.
"Ladies! Ladies!" murmured Mrs. Buhl,
much affected by this ovation, but her modest
protest was drowned utterly in a chorus of
"Yes, indeed!"
Sleepington Fair aroused much speculation
as to its author's rise in the outer world, chiefly
with reference to the money he must be making,
the sum being variously estimated at from five
to twenty-five thousand a year.
"Too low," said Shears. " Suppose he makes
half a dollar on every book, and suppose he sells
well, say he sells one hundred thousand "
"One hundred thousand!" cried Caleb Kane.
"Go wan!"
"Why, darn your skin," said Colonel Shears,
" why not ? The Old Red Barn sold five hundred
thousand, and only out two years. Saw it my-
self in the paper, the other day."
"No!"
222
Johnny Keats
"I say yes! Five hundred thousand, by
cracky!"
"Oh, well," said Caleb, "that thing was
written by a different cuss."
When it was learned one morning that Karl
had returned under cover of night for a visit
to Grassy Ford, those who had known the boy
looked curiously to see what manner of man he
had become. And, lo! he was scarcely a man
at all, but a beardless youth, no laurel upon his
head, no tragic shadow on his brow! a shy
figure flitting down the long main street, darting
into stores and out again, and nodding quickly,
and hurrying home again as fast as his legs would
take him to dodge a caller even there and
wander, thankful for escape, on the banks of
Troublesome.
"Well, you 'ain't changed much," said Colonel
Shears, when he met the author.
"No," said Karl.
" Look just as peaked as ever," was the cheer-
ful greeting of Caleb Kane.
"Yes," said Karl.
"Don't seem a day older," said Grandma
Smith.
"No?" said Karl.
223
Miss Primrose
"Why, Karl," said Shears, "I thought you'd
change; thought you'd look different, somehow!
Yes, sir, I thought you'd look different but, I
swan,' you don't!"
"No," said Karl, and there was such honest
chagrin in the faces of those old-time friends, he
was discomfited. What had they expected, he
asked at home?
"Why," said his mother, "don't you know?
Can't you guess, my dear? They looked at
least for a Prince - Albert and a stove-pipe
hat."
" Silk hat! Prince-Albert!"
"Why, yes," said his father. "The outward
and visible sign of the soul within."
Karl's clothes, it is true, were scarcely the
garb to be hoped for in so marked a man. The
dandies of Grassy Ford noted complacently that
his plain, gray, wrinkled suit did not compare
for style and newness with their own, while they
wore at their throats the latest cravats of emer-
ald and purple loveliness. Karl's tie was black,
and a plain and pinless bow which drooped de-
jectedly. His hat was a mere soft, weather-
beaten, shapeless thing, and he walked on Sunday
with gloveless hands. Miss Johnson, a reigning
224
Johnny Keats
belle, tells how he once escorted her from the
post-office to her father's gate, talking of Words-
worth all the way, and all unconscious of the
Sun Dial burrs still clinging to his coat !
Letitia, for one, declared that she was not
disappointed in the author of Sleepington Fair.
In honor of her old pupil she gave a dinner, and
spent such thought upon its menu and took
such pains with its service, lest it should offend
a New-Yorker's epicurean eye, it is remembered
still, and not merely because it was the only
literary dinner Grassy Ford has known. There
was some agitation among the invited guests as
to the formality involved in a dinner to a lion
even though that lion might be seen commonly
with burrs in his tail. The pride and honor of
Grassy Ford was at stake, and the matter was
the more important as the worthy fathers of
the town seldom owned dress - suits in those
days. For a time, I believe, when I was a boy,
Mr. Jewell, the banker, was the sole possessor,
and became thereby, no less than by virtue of
the manners which accompany the occasional
wearing of so suave a garment in so small a
town our first real gentleman. In his case,
however, the ownership was the less surprising
225
Miss Primrose
in that he was known to enjoy New York con-
nections, on his mother's side.
Now, to those who consulted Letitia as to the
precise demands of the approaching feast, she
explained, gracefully, that they would be wel-
come in any dress adding, however, for the
gentlemen's benefit, and hopefully no doubt,
for she had the occasion in heart and hand, that
the conventional garb after six o'clock was a
coat with tails. As a result of the conference
two guests-to-be might have been seen through
a tailor's window, standing coatless and erect
upon a soap-box, much straighter than it was
their wont to stand, much fuller of chest, robin-
like, aad with hips thrown neatly back to
match, as the Colonel said. Two other gentle-
men of the dinner-party told their wives bluntly
that they would go "as usual," or they would
be not go at all, before which edicts their
dames salaamed.
Letitia counted on five dress-suits, at least,
including the author's and my own. Mine I
must wear, she said, or she would be shamed
forever; so I put it on when the night arrived,
wormed my way cautiously into its outgrown
folds, only to find then, to my pain, that an up-
226
Johnny Keats
right posture alone could preserve its dignity
and mine.
The hour arrived, and with it the Buxtons, old
friends and neighbors; Dr. Jamieson, homoeo-
pathic but otherwise beyond reproach, and Miss
Jamieson, his daughter, who could read Brown-
ing before breakfast, much, I suppose, as some
robust men on empty stomachs smoke strong
cigars; the Gallowses, not wanted overmuch,
but asked to keep the white wings of peace
hovering in our hills ; the Jewells, and some one
I've forgotten, and then the Buhls Mr. Buhl
smiling, but unobtrusive to the ear, Mrs. Buhl
radiant and gracious, and pervading the as-
semblage with a dowagerial rustling of lavender
silk. To my mind the quieter woman in the
plain black gown adorned only by an old-lace
collar and antique pin, her hair the whiter for
her cheeks now rosy with agitation, her eyes
shining with the joy of the first great function
she had ever given, was the loveliest figure
among them all.
Last came two plain, unassuming folk, though
proud enough of that only son of theirs, and
then
"Oh!" cries Mrs. Buhl, so suddenly, so ec-
227
Miss Primrose
statically that the hum ceases and every head
is turned. "Mister St. John!"
It is indeed the author of Sleepington Fair.
And behold the lion! a slight and faltering
figure, pausing upon the threshold, burrless in-
deed, but oh! in that old sack suit of gray!
Letitia bore the shock much better than might
be expected. She changed color, it is true, but
the flush came back at once, and, standing loyal-
ly at his side, she led the lion into the room.
It was a trying moment. He was an Author
he had written a Book but we were thirteen
to his one, and four dress-suits besides ! Thirteen
to one, if you omit his parents, and four dress-
shirts, remember, bulging and crackling before
his dazzled eyes! New York wavered and fell
back, and the first skirmish was Grassy Ford's.
At the same instant it was whispered anxious-
ly in my ear that the ices had not arrived, but I
counselled patience, and dinner was proclaimed
without delay. The lion and Letitia led the
procession to the feast, and I have good reason
for the statement that he was a happier lion
when we were seated and he had put his legs
away. Still, even then he could scarcely be
called at ease. Once only did he talk as if he
228
Johnny Keats
loved his theme, and then it was solely with
Letitia, who had mentioned Troublesome, out
of the goodness of her heart, as I believe. His
face lighted at the name, and he talked so glad-
ly that all other converse ceased. What was
the lion roaring of so gently there ? Startled to
hear no other voices, he stopped abruptly, and,
seeing our curious faces all about him, dropped
his eyes, abashed, and kept them on his plate.
Then Mrs. Buhl, famous in such emergencies,
came to the rescue.
"Oh, Mr. St. John," she said, while we all sat
listening, " I've wanted to ask you: how did you
come to write Sleepington Fair?"
"Oh," he replied, reddening, "I I wanted
to that was all."
"I see," she replied.
"Do you like 'Sordello'?" asked Miss Jamie-
son, in the awkward silence that ensued.
"Well, really I cannot say; I have never
read it," was his confession.
"Not read 'Sordello'!"
"No."
" Let's see, that's Poe, isn't it ?" asked a young
dress-shirt, swelling visibly, emboldened to the
guess by the lion's discomfiture,
229
Miss Primrose
"Robert Browning," replied the lady, with a
look of scorn, and the dress-shirt sank again.
"New York is a great place, isn't it?" volun-
teered Jimmy Gallows.
"Yes," said the lion.
"Been up the Statue of Liberty, I suppose?"
Jimmy went on.
. "No," said the lion.
"What!" cried the chorus. "Never been up
the"
"What did he say?" asked Mrs. Jewell, who
was deaf. Mr. Buxton solemnly inclined his lips
to her anxious ear and shouted :
" He has never been up the Statue of Liberty."
"Oh!" said the lady.
The silence was profound.
"What, never?" piped Jimmy Gallows.
"Never," said the lion, shaking his mane a
little ominously. " I have never been a tourist."
Letitia mentioned Sun Dial, and would have
saved the day, I think, had not Mrs. Buhl leaned
forward with the sweetest of alluring smiles.
"Oh, Mr. St. John," she said, "I've been go-
ing to ask you in fact, for a long, long time I
have wanted to know, and I wonder now if you
won't tell me: how do authors" she paused sig-
230
Johnny Keats
nificantly " how do authors get their books ac-
cepted?"
A dress-shirt crackled, but was frowned upon.
" What did he say?" asked the lady who was
deaf.
"He hasn't said anything yet," roared Mr.
Buxton.
"Oh!"
" Do tell us," urged Mrs. Buhl. " Do, Mr. St.
John. I almost called you Karl."
"Was it a conundrum?" inquired the deaf
lady, perceiving that it had been a poser.
" No. Question: how do authors get their books
accepted ?"
"Yes how do they?" urged Mrs. Buhl.
"Why," said the lion at last, for all the table
hung upon his answer, "by writing them well
enough I suppose."
It was a weak answer. There was no satis-
faction in it, no meat, no pith at all, nothing to
carry home with you. Mrs. Buhl said, "Oh!"
"To what, then," piped Jimmy Gallows, "do
you attribute your success?"
He was a goaded lion, one could see quite
plainly; the strain was telling on his self-con-
trol.
231
Miss Primrose
" It is not worth mentioning, Mr. Gallows," he
replied, stiffly.
"Mr. St. John," Letitia interposed, in a quiet
voice, " was just now telling me that there is no
music in all New York to compare with Trouble-
some's. Shall we go into the other room?"
That night, when the last guest had departed,
I asked Letitia, " Well, what do you think of the
author?"
"/ am not disappointed," she replied.
"Not much of a talker, though?" I sug-
gested.
"He does not pretend to be a talker," she
replied, warmly. "He is a writer. No," she
repeated, " I am not disappointed in my Johnny
Keats."
Next day, I think it was, in the afternoon, he
asked Letitia to walk with him to the banks of
Troublesome, to a spot which she had praised the
night before. His heart was full, and as they
lingered together by those singing waters he
told her of his struggles in the city whose statue
he had never climbed. He told her of his
black days there, of his failure and despondency,
of his plans to leave it and desert his dreams,
but how that mighty, roaring, dragon "creature
232
had held him pinioned in its claws till he had
won.
"And then," he told her, "when I saw my
book, I looked again, and it was not a dragon
which had held me it was an angel!"
Seeing that her eyes were full of tears, he
added, earnestly:
" Miss Primrose, I wanted you to know. You
had a part in that little triumph."
"I?"
" You. Don't you remember? Don't you re-
member those books you left for us ? in our old
school-room? on the shelf?"
Ill
THE FORTUNE-TELLER
AUTUMN comes early in Grassy
Fordshire. In late September the
nights are chill and a white mist
hovers ghostly in the moonlight
'among our hills. The sun dispels
it and warms our noons to a summer fervor,
but there is no permanence any longer in heat
or cold, or leaf or flower all is change and
passing and premonition, so that the singing
poet in you must turn philosopher and hush
his voice, seeing about him the last sad rites
of those little lives once blithe and green as
his own was in the spring.
Ere October comes there are crimson stains
upon the woodlands. "God's plums, father!"
Robin cried, standing as a little boy on Sun
Dial and pointing to the distant hills. A spell
is over them, a purple and enchanted sleep,
234
The Fortune-teller
though all about them the winds are wakeful,
and the sumac fire which blazed up crimson in
the sun but a moment gone, burns low in the
shadow of white clouds scudding before the gale.
Here beneath them the bloom of the golden-rod
is upon the land ; fieldsful and lanesful, it bars
your way, or brushes your shoulders as you
pass. Only the asters, white and purple and
all hues between, vie here and there with the
mightier host, but its yellow plumes nod triumph
on every crest, banks and hedgerows glow with
its soldiery, it beards the forest, and even where
the plough has passed posts its tall sentries at
the furrow's brim.
In the lower meadows there is still a coverlet
of summer green, but half hidden in the taller,
rusting grasses, whose feathery tops ripple in
the faintest wind, till suddenly it rises and whips
them into waves, now ruddy, now flashing silver,
while a foam of daisies beats against the gray
stone hedges like waters tumbling on a quay.
There is cheerful fiddling in these dying grasses,
and crickets scuttle from beneath your feet ; there
is other music too a shrill snoring as of elder
fairies oversleeping; startled insects leap upon
you, flocks of sparrows flee from interrupted
235
Miss Primrose
feasts, squirrels berate you, crows spread horrid
tales of murder stalking in the fields.
Then leave the uplands tripping on its hidden
creepers; part the briers of the farthest hedge-
row, and descend, Down in the valley there is a
smell of apples in the air, pumpkins glow among
the wigwams of the Indian-corn, and deeper still
runs Troublesome among the willows, shining
silver in the waning sun. There in the sopping
lowlands they are harvesting the last marsh hay.
A road leads townward, the vines scarlet on its
tumbling walls ; the air grows cooler
"Oh, it is beautiful!" says Letitia, sadly
"but it is fall."
I observe in her always at this season an un-
usual quietness. She is in the garden as early
as in the summer-time, and while it is still drip-
ping with heavy dew, for she clings tenderly to
its last flowers to her nasturtiums, to the morn-
ing-glories on the trellis, and the geraniums and
dahlias and phlox and verbenas along the path ;
but she gives her heart to her petunias, and
because, she says, they are a homely, old-fash-
ioned flower, whom no one loves any more.
As she caresses them, brushing the drops from
their plain, sweet faces, she seems, like them, to
236
The Fortune-teller
belong to some bygone, simpler time. Some
think her an odd, quaint figure in her sober
gown, but they never knew the girl Letitia, or
they would see her still, even in this elder woman
with the snow-white hair.
Every fall gypsies camp in the fields near
Troublesome on their way southward. It is
the same band, Letitia tells me, that has stopped
there year after year, and Letitia knows: she
used to visit them when she was younger and
still had a fortune to be told. It was a weakness
we had not suspected. She had never acknowl-
edged a belief in omens or Horoscopes, or proph-
ecies by palms or dreams, though she used to
say fairies were far more likely than people
thought. She had seen glades, she told us,
lawn or meadow among encircling trees, where,
long after sundown, the daylight lingered in a
fairy gloaming ; and there*, she said, when the
fire-flies danced, she had caught such glimpses
of that elf -land dear to childhood, she had come
to believe in it again. There was such a spot
among our maples, and from the steps where
we used to sit, we would watch the afterglow
pale there to the starlit dusk, or that golden
glory of the rising moon break upon the shadowy
16 237
Miss Primrose
world, crowning the tree-tops and quenching
the eastern stars. Then, sometimes, Dove and
Letitia would talk of oracles and divination and
other strange inexplicable things which they
had heard of, or had known themselves; but
Letitia never spoke of the gypsy band till three
giggling village maids, half-fearful and half-
ashamed of their stealthy quest, found their
school-mistress among the vans! She flushed,
I suppose, and made the best of a curious matter,
for she said, simply, when we charged her with
the story that had spread abroad :
" They are English' gypsies, and wanderers like
the Primroses from their ancient home. That
is why they fascinate me, I suppose."
How often she consulted them, or when she
began or ceased to do so, I do not know, but
when I showed her the vans by the willows and
the smoke rising from the fire, last fall, she
smiled and said it was like old times to her
but she added, quaintly, that palms did not itch
when the veins showed blue.
" Nonsense," I said, "we are both of us young,
Letitia. Let us find the crone and hear her
croak. I am not afraid of a little sorcery."
Paying no heed to her protestations I turned
238
The Fortune-teller
Pegasus I have always a Pegasus, whatever
my horse's other name through the meadow-
gate. A ragged, brown-faced boy ran out to
us and held the bridle while I alighted, and then
I turned and offered Letitia a helping hand.
She shook her head.
"No, I'll wait here."
"Come," I said, "have you no faith, Letitia?"
"Not any more," she replied. "This is fool-
ishness, Bertram. Will you never grow up?"
" It's only my second-childhood," I explained.
"Come, we'll see the vans."
"Some one will see us," she protested.
"There is not a soul on the road," I said.
Shamefacedly she took my hand, glancing
uneasily at the highway we had left behind us,
and her face flushed as we approached the fire.
An ugly old woman with a dirty kerchief about
her head, was stirring broth for the evening meal.
"Tripod and kettle," I said. "Do you re-
member this ancient dame?"
"Yes," said Letitia, "it is"
"Sibyl," I said. "Her name is Sibyl."
Letitia smiled.
"Do you remember me?" she asked, offering
her hand. The old witch peered cunningly into
239
Miss Primrose
her face, grinning and nodding as if in answer.
Two or three scraggy, evil-eyed vagabonds were
currying horses and idling about the camp,
watching us, but at a glance from the fortune-
teller, they slouched streamward. The crone's
entreaties and my own were of no avail. Letitia
put her hands behind her but we saw the vans
and patted the horses and crossed the woman's
palm so that she followed us, beaming and
babbling, to the carriage-side. There we were
scarcely seated when, stepping forward so
suddenly that I glanced, startled, towards the
camp the gypsy laid a brown hand, strong as a
man's, upon the reins; and turning then upon
Letitia with a look so grim and mysterious that
she grew quite pale beneath those tragic eyes,
muttered a jargon of which we made out nothing
but the words :
"You are going on a long journey," at which
the woman stopped, and taking a backward
step, stood there silently and without a smile,
gazing upon us till we were gone.
Letitia laughed uneasily as we drove away.
"Did she really remember you?" I asked.
"No, I don't think so which makes it the
more surprising."
240
The Fortune-teller
"Surprising?"
"Yes; that she should have said again what
she always told me."
"And what was that?"
"That I was going on a long journey."
" Did she always tell you that ?"
"Always, from the very first."
"Perhaps she tells every one so," I suggested.
" No, for I used to ask, and very particularly,
as to that."
Why, I wondered, had she been so curious
about long journeys ? I had never known travel
to absorb her thoughts. Why had she inquired,
and always so very particularly, as she confessed,
about that single item of gypsy prophecy, and
the very one which would seem least likely to
be verified ? Never in my knowledge of Letitia's
lifetime had there been any other promise than
that of the fortune-teller that she would ever
wander from Grassy Ford. I might have asked
her, but she seemed silent and depressed as we
drove homeward, which was due, I fancied, to
the gypsy's rude alarm. For some days after
she continued to remark how strangely that
repetition of the old augury had sounded in her
ears, and smiling at it, she confessed how in
241
Miss Primrose
former years she had laid more stress upon it,
and had even planned what her gowns would be.
"Did you guess where you were going?" I
ventured to inquire.
"Well, I rather hoped "
"Yes?" I said.
"You know my fondness for history," she
continued. "I rather hoped I should see some
day what I had read about so long castles and
things and then, too, there were the novels I
was fond of, like Lorna Doone. I always wanted
to see the moors and the Doone Valley, and the
water-slide that little John Ridd had found so
slippery, when he first saw Lorna."
"You wanted to see England then," I said.
"Yes, England," she replied. "England, you
know, was my father's country."
"The Doone Valley," I remarked, "would be
Devon, wouldn't it?"
"Yes," she replied, "and it was Devon where
father was a boy."
"And our old friend Robin Saxeholm came
from Devon, you know," I said.
"So he did," she answered. Then we talked
of Robin and his visit to Grassy Fordshire years
ago, and what Letitia had forgotten of it I re-
242
The Fortune-teller
called to her, and what I could not remember,
she supplied, so that it all came back to us like a
story or a summer dream.
When she had gone up-stairs I sat for a long
time smoking by the dying fire, and musing of
some old-time matters which now came back to
me in a clearer light. From thinking of my own
youth, little by little, I came to Robin's I mean
the younger, who was now so soon to be a man.
Tall and fair like the youth he was named for,
though not red-haired, he had all but completed
that little learning which is a " dangerous thing ":
he was a high-school senior now, and over-
whelmed sometimes with the wonder of it, but a
manly fellow for all that, one whom my eyes
dwelt fondly on more often than he knew. In
the springtime he would have his parchment;
college would follow in the fall college! What
could I do to give my son a broader vision of the
universe, lest with only Grassy Ford behind him,
he should think the outside world lay mostly
within his college walls ?
"You are going on a long journey."
The gypsy's words came back unbidden as I
rose by the embers of the fire. "A long jour-
ney," I repeated; "and why not?"
243
IV
AN UNEXPECTED LETTER
CURING the winter a great piece of
news stirred Grassy Ford, and in
spite of the snow-drifts on our
[walks and porches furnished an
i excuse for a dozen calls that other-
wise would never have been made so soon. Old
Mrs. Luton was discovered in a state of apoplexy
on our steps, but on being brought in and di-
vested of her husband's coon-skin cap, a plush
collar, a scarf, a shawl, a knitted jacket, and a
newspaper folded across her chest, recovered her
breath and told her story. Mrs. Neal, so Mrs.
Luton said, had been heard to say, according to
Mrs. Withers, who had it from Mrs. Lowell, who
lived next door to Mrs. Bell who, as the world
knows, called more often than anybody else at
the Neal farm-house, feeling a pity for the lonely
woman there, as who did not? Mrs. Neal had
244
An Unexpected Letter
been heard to say, what Mrs. Luton would not
have repeated for the world to any one but her
dear Miss Primrose, who could be trusted im-
plicitly, as she knew, and she had said it in the
most casual way Mrs. Neal, that is but se-
cretly very well pleased, though, Heaven knows,
she, Mrs. Luton
" Won't you have some coffee ?" asked Letitia,
for the breakfast was not yet cold.
"Yes, thank you, I will, for I'm as cold as
can be," exclaimed her visitor, laughing hys-
terically, and she was profuse in her praise of
Letitia's beverage, and inquired the brand. Her
manner of sipping it as she sat in an easy-chair
before the fire did away with all necessity for a
spoon, but was a little trying to a delicate sense
of hearing like Letitia's, and was responsible be-
side for what was wellnigh a disastrous deluge
when in the midst of a copious ingurgitation
she suddenly remembered what she had come
to tell:
"Ffff Peggy Neal's a-living in New York!"
she splashed, her eyes popping. It would be
impossible to relate the story as Mrs. Luton told
it, for its ramifications and parentheses involved
the history of Grassy Ford and the manifold
245
Miss Primrose
relationships of its inhabitants, past and present,
to say nothing of the time to come, for in specu-
lations Mrs. Luton was profound.
Mrs. Neal, it seems, had broken her long silence
and had been heard to allude to "my daughter
Peggy in New York." Some years had passed
since the farm-gate clicked behind that forlorn
and outcast girl, and in all that time the mother
had never spoken the daughter's name, nor had
any one dared more than once to question her.
Letitia had tried once, but once only, to inter-
cede for the pupil she had loved, the manner of
whose departure was well enough understood in
the town and country-side, though where she had
gone remained a mystery.
On leaving the farm that September evening,
Peggy, with a desperate and tear-stained face,
had been met by a neighbor girl, who as a con-
fidant in happier hours, was intrusted with
the story. It was not a long one. The mother
had pointed to the gate.
"Look there!" she cried. "He went that
way. I guess you'll find him, if you try, you
Then her mother struck her, Peggy said. She
did not know it was the name which felled her.
Now after silence which had seemed like death
246
An Unexpected Letter
to the lonely woman in the hills, Peggy had
written home to her, to beg forgiveness, to say
that in a life of ease and luxury in a great city,
she could not help thinking of the farm, which
seemed a dream to her; she could never return
to it, she said, but she wondered if her father
was living, and if her mother had still some
heart for her wayward daughter, and would
write sometimes. She said nothing of a child.
That she was still unmarried seemed evident
from the signature " Your loving, loving Peggy
Neal." That some good -fortune had befallen
her in spite of that sad beginning in her native
fields, was quite as clear, for the paper on which
she had scrawled her message was of finest text-
ure and delicately perfumed ; and, what was more,
between its pages the mother had found a sum
of money, how much or little no one knew.
It was observed that the mother's face had
relaxed a little. That she had answered her
daughter's message was asserted positively by
Mrs. Bell, though what that answer was, and
whether forgiveness or not, she did not know.
It was assumed, however, to have been a pardon,
for the mother seemed pleased with the daugh-
ter's progress in the world, which must have
247
Mis s Primrose
seemed to her the realization, however ironical,
of her discarded hopes; and it was she herself
who had divulged the contents of the letter. To
the cautious curiosity manifested by elderly la-
dies of Grassy Ford, who called upon her now
more often than had been their wont, as she
took some pleasure in reminding them, to their
obvious discomfiture, and to all other hints and
allusions she turned her deafer ear, while to di-
rect questions she contented herself with the
simple answer:
"Peggy's well."
"You hear from her often, I suppose?" some
caller ventured. The reply was puzzling:
"Oh, a mother's apt to."
She said it so sadly, looking away across the
farm, that Letitia's informant as she told the
story burst into tears.
"She's a miserable woman, Miss Letitia, de-
pend upon it. She's a miserable, broken-down,
heart-sick creature for what she's done. 'You
hear often, I suppose?' said I. 'A mother's
apt to,' says she, and turned away from me
with a face so lonesome as would break your
heart."
For myself, as Letitia told me, I had my own
248
An Unexpected Letter
notion of the mother's sad and evasive answer,
but I held my peace.
It was the coldest winter we had known in
years. For weeks at a time our valley was a
bowl of snow, roads were impassable, and stock
was frozen on the upland farms. Suddenly
there came a thaw: the sun shone brightly, the
great drifts sank and melted into muddy streams,
and early one morning Farmer Bell, his shaggy
mare and old top-buggy splashed with mire and
his white face spattered, stopped at the post-of-
fice and called loudly to the passers-by.
"Old Neal's dead and I want the coroner."
To the crowd that gathered he told the story.
Neal's wife, waiting up for him Christmas night,
had made an effort to reach the Bells to ask for
tidings, but the wind was frightful and the drifts
already beyond her depth. She had gone back
hoping that he was safe by his tavern fire, but
she sat by her own all night, listening to the
roaring of the wind and the rattling windows
through which the snow came drifting in. At
dawn, from an upper chamber, she peered out
upon a sight that is seldom seen even in these
northern hills. The storm was over, but the
world was buried white; roads and fences and
249
Miss Primrose
even the smaller trees were no longer visible,
and the barn and a neighbor's cottage were un-
familiar in their uncouth hoods. For days she
remained imprisoned on the lonely farm. She
cut paths from the woodshed to the near-by
barn and saved the cattle in their stalls. Then
the thaw came, and she reached the Bells.
Hitching his mare to his lightest buggy, for
the roads were rivers, the farmer drove through
the slush and the remnant drifts to the corner
tavern where Neal had been. The bartender
stared blankly at his first question.
"Neal?" he stammered out at last.
" Yes, Neal ! John Neal, confound you ! Can't
you speak?"
The man laid the glass he was wiping upon the
bar.
"Neal left here Christmas day along about
four in the afternoon, when the storm began."
As Bell drove homeward he saw two figures at
the Neal farm-gate that gate which Peggy had
closed behind her and, coming nearer, he made
out his own man Tom and the widow, lifting
the body from the melting snow.
Peggy Neal did not come to her father's
funeral. Letitia herself would have written the
250
An Unexpected Letter
news to her, for the woman, dry-eyed and dumb
and sitting by the coffin-side, had aged in a day
and was now as helpless as a child.
"Shall I write to Peggy?" Letitia asked her,
but she did not hear. Twice the question was
repeated, but they got no answer, so Letitia
wrote, and laid the letter on the casket, open
and unaddressed. It was never sent.
V
SURPRISES
BOGGING homeward from a country
call one afternoon in May, I was
admiring the apple - orchards and
the new -ploughed fields between
them, when I chanced upon my son
Robin with a handful of columbine, gathered
among the Sun Dial rocks.
"Oh," said he, "is that you, father?" It is
an innocent way of his when he has anything in
particular to conceal..
"At any rate," I replied, "you are my son."
He smiled amiably and I cranked the wheel,
making room for him beside me.
"Columbine," I remarked.
"Yes."
"Letitia will be pleased," I said.
Now I knew it was for the Parker girl Rita
Parker, who blushes so when I chance to meet
252
Surprises
her that I know now how it feels to be an ogre,
a much-maligned being, too, for whom I never
had any sympathy before.
"I just saw a redstart," remarked my son.
" So ?" I replied. " Did you notice any bobo-
links?"
"Did I?" he answered. "I saw a million of
them."
"You did?"
"Down in the meadows there."
"A million of them?"
" Almost a million, ' ' he replied. " Every grass-
stalk had one on it, teetering and singing away
like anything."
"Why, I didn't know Rita was with you."
"Rita!" he exclaimed, reddening.
"Why, yes," I said. "You saw so many
birds, you know."
It was a little hard upon the boy, but I broke
the ensuing silence with some comments on
the weather, and having him wholly at my
mercy then, I chose a subject which so long
had charmed me, I had been on the point
of telling him time and again, yet had re-
frained.
"Robin," said I, "you will be a graduate in a
" 253
Miss Primrose
day or two. What do you say to a summer in
England, boy?"
He caught my hand so violently that the
rein was drawn and Pegasus turned obediently
into the ditch and stopped.
"England, father!"
"If we are spared," I said, getting the buggy
into the road again.
"All of us!" he cried.
"No."
"But you'll come, father?" He said it so
anxiously that I was touched. It isn't always
that a boy cares to lug his father.
"I should like to," I said, "but no."
"Why not?"
"I cannot leave," I replied. "Jamieson's
going. We can't both go."
"Oh, bother Jamieson!" Robin exclaimed.
"What does he want to choose our year for?
Why can't he wait till next?"
" It's his wife," I explained. " She's ill again.
But you go, Robin, and take Letitia."
"When do we start?"
"In June."
11 This June?"
"Next month. I've laid out the journey for
254
Surprises
you on a map, and I've got the names of the
inns to stop at, and what it will cost you, and
everything else."
"But when did you think of it?" asked my
son.
"Last fall."
" Last fall! Does Aunt Letty know ?"
"Partly," I said. "She knows you're going,
but not herself. It's a little surprise for her.
You may tell her yourself, now, while I stop at
the office."
He scrambled out and hitched my horse for
me, so I held the flowers. He flushed a little as
he took them.
"Father, you're a trump," he said.
I bowed slightly: it is wise to be courteous
even to a son. I had stopped at the office to
get the map, and an hour later Letitia met me in
our doorway.
"Bertram!" she said, taking my hand.
"Robin told you?"
"Yes. Oh, it's beautiful, Bertram, but I
cannot go."
"Nonsense," I said.
"But you?"
"I shall do very nicely."
255
Miss Primrose
"But the cost?"
"Will be nothing," I said. "The boy must
not go alone."
"That's not the reason you are sending me,
Bertram."
"It's a good one," I replied.
"No," she insisted, shaking her head.
"You have been good to the boy, Letitia," I
explained. "This is only a way of saying that
I know."
"You do not need to say it," she replied. " I
have done nothing."
"You have done everything, Letitia for us
both."
The tears ran down her cheeks. My own
eyes
"You have loved Dove's husband and son,"
I told her. "We shall not forget it."
Her face was radiant.
"It has been nothing for me to do," she said.
"Loving no one in particular, I have had the
time to love every one, don't you see? Why, all
my life, Bertram, I've loved other people's dogs,
and other people's children" -she paused a
moment and added, smiling through her tears
"and other people's husbands, I suppose."
256
Surprises
"You will go?" I asked.
"I should love to go."
"You will go, Letitia?"
" I will go," she said.
That evening I took from my pocket a brand-
new map of the British Isles I mean brand-new
last fall. Many a pleasant hour I had spent
that winter at the office with a red guide-book
and the map before me on my desk. With no
little pride I spread it now on the sitting-room
table which Letitia had cleared for me.
"What are the red lines, father?" asked my
son. He had returned breathless from telling
the Parker girl.
" Those in red ink," I replied, " I drew myself.
It is your route. There's Southampton where
you land and there's London and there's
Windsor and Oxford and Stratford and War-
wick and Kenilworth : and here," I cried, sweep-
ing my hand suddenly downward to the left
"here's Devonshire!"
" Where father was a boy," Letitia murmured,
touching the pinkish county tenderly with her
hand.
Ah, I was primed for them ! There was not a
question they could ask that I could not answer.
257
Miss Primrose
There was not a village they could name, I could
not instantly put my finger on. Those winter
hours had not been spent in vain. I knew the
inns the King's Arms, the Golden Lion, the
White Hart, the Star and Anchor, the George
and Dragon, the Ring o' Bells! I knew where
the castles were I had marked them blue. I
knew the battle-fields I had made them crim-
son. For each cathedral a purple cross. Each
famous school a golden star. Never, I believe,
was there such a map before for convenience,
for ready reference : one look at the margin where
I made the notes a glance at the map and
there you were!
"Oh, it is beautiful!" exclaimed Letitia.
"Isn't it?" I cried.
"You should have it patented," said my son.
"Suppose," I suggested, "you ask me some-
thing something hard now. Ask me some-
thing hard."
I took a turn with my cigar. Robin knitted
his brows, but could think of nothing. Letitia
pondered.
"Where's"
She hesitated.
"Out with it!" I urged.
258
Surprises
"Where's Tavistock?" she asked.
I thought a moment.
"Is it a castle?"
She shook her head.
"Is it a battle-field?"
"No."
" Is it just a town, then?"
"Yes, just a town."
" Did anything famous happen there?"
She hesitated.
"Well," she said, "perhaps nothing very fa-
mous but it's an old little town one that I've
heard of, that is all."
Well, she did have me. It was not very fa-
mous, and only a an idea came to me.
"Oh," I said, shutting my eyes a moment,
"that town's in Devon."
Letitia nodded.
" See," I said. Adjusting my glasses, and peer-
ing a moment at the pinkish patch, I tapped it,
Tavistock, with my finger-nail. "Right here,"
I said.
We made a night of it that is, it was mid-
night when I folded my map and locked it away
with the guide-book and the table of English
money I had made myself. There was one in
259
Miss Primrose
the book, it is true, but for ready reference, for
convenience in emergencies, it did not compare
with mine mine worked three ways.
A fortnight later I had the tickets in my hand
ss. Atlantis, date of sailing, the tenth of June.
I myself was to steal a day or two and wave
farewell to them from the pier. Robin already
had packed his grip; indeed, he repacked it
daily, to get the hang of it, he said. It was a
new one which I had kept all winter at the
office in the bottom of a cupboard, and it bore
the initials, R. W., stamped on the end. And
he had a housewife a kind of cousin to a needle-
book stuffed full of handy mending-things, pre-
sented by the Parker girl. The boy was radiant,
but as June drew nigh I saw he had something
heavy on his mind. A dozen times he had
begun to speak to me, privately, but had changed
the subject or had walked away. I could not
imagine what ailed the fellow. He seemed rest-
less; even, as I fancied, a little sad at times,
which troubled me. I made opportunities for
him to speak, but he failed to do so, either
through neglect or fear. I saw him often at the
office, where he was always bursting in upon me
with some new plan or handy matter for his
260
Surprises
precious bag. He had bought a razor and a
brush and strop.
"But what are they for?" I asked, amazed.
A blush mantled his beardless cheeks.
"Those? Oh just to be sure," he said.
Now what could be troubling the lad, I won-
dered? It was something not always on his
mind, for he seemed to forget it in preparations,
but it lurked near by to spring out upon his
blithest moments. His face would be shining;
an instant later it would fall, and he would walk
to the window and gaze out thoughtfully into
the street, in a way that touched me to the heart,
for, remember, this was to be my first parting
with the boy. The more I thought of it, the
more perplexed I was; and the more I wondered,
the more I felt it might be my duty to speak
myself.
"Robin," I said one day, and as casually as I
could make my tone, "did you want to tell me
anything? What is it? Speak, my boy."
We were alone together in my inner office and
the door was shut. He walked resolutely to the
desk where I was sitting.
"Father," he said, "I have."
My heart was beating, he looked so grave.
261
Miss Primrose
"Well," I remarked, "you have nothing to
fear, you know."
"Father," he said, doggedly, "it's about
it's about
"Yes?" I encouraged him.
"It's about this trip."
"This trip?"
"Yes. It's about father, you'll tell her"
"Tell her?" I repeated.
"Yes. You tell her."
" Tell whom ? Tell what ?"
"Why, Aunt Letty."
"Aunt Letty! Tell Aunt Letty what?"
He blurted it fiercely :
" About her hat."
' ' Her hat ! Her hat ! Good Lord, what hat ? "
"Why, her Sunday hat!"
"You mean her '
"Why, yes, father! You know that hat."
I knew that hat.
"Do you object," I asked, "to your aunt's
best Sunday hat?"
His scowl vanished and his face broke into
smiles.
"That's it," he said.
"Don't be alarmed," I assured him, keeping
262
Surprises
my own face steady no easy matter, for, as I
say, I knew the hat. " Don't be alarmed, my
son. She shall have a new one, if that will
please you."
His smiles vanished. He seemed suspicious.
His tone was cautiousness itself.
" But who will buy it ?" he asked.
"Why, you!" I said.
He leaped to my side.
"/?"
"You," I repeated.
He laughed hysterically whooped is the bet-
ter word.
"You wait!" he cried, and, fairly dancing, he
seized his cap and rushed madly for the door.
It shut behind him, but as swiftly opened again.
"Oh, dad," he said, beaming upon me from
the crack, "it '11 be a stunner! You'll see."
It was.
VI
AN OLD FRIEND OP OURS
IH, I know the town," I had told
them confidently had I not been
there in 18 ? But no, it was not
my town. It was not my New
York at all that we found at our
journey's end, but belonged apparently to the
mob we fell among, bags and bundles, by the
station steps, till from our cabman's manner,
when I mildly marvelled at the fare he charged
us, the place, I suspected, belonged to him.
Four days and nights we heard it rumbling
about us. Robin got a mote in his eye, Letitia
lost her brand-new parasol, and I broke my
glasses but we saw the parks and the squares
and the tall buildings and the statue which
Johnny Keats never climbed. Reluctantly, for
the day was waning as we stood on the Battery
looking out at it across the bay, we followed his
264
An Old Friend of Ours
example. On the third afternoon Letitia pro-
posed a change of plans. Her eyes, she confessed,
were a little tired with our much looking. Why
not hunt old friends?
" Old friends ?" I asked. " Whom do we know
in New York, Letitia?"
"Why, don't you remember Hiram Ptolemy
and Peggy Neal?"
" To be sure," I said" the Egyptologist! But
the addresses?"
" I have them both," she replied. " Mrs. Neal
came to the house crying, and gave me Peggy's,
and begged me to find her if I could. And Mr.
Ptolemy why can I never remember the name
of his hotel?"
"You have heard from him then?"
She blushed.
"Yes," she replied. "It's a famous hotel,
I'm sure. The name was familiar."
"Hotel," I remarked. "Hiram must be get-
ting on then?"
" Oh yes," she said, fumbling with her address-
book. " It's the Mills Hotel."
"And a famous place," I observed, smiling.
" So he lives at a Mills Hotel ?"
" I forgot to tell you," she continued, " I have
265
Mis s Primrose
been so busy. He wrote me only the other day,
that, after all these years mercy! how long it
has been since he fed us lemon-drops! after all
these years of tramping from publisher to pub-
lisher, footsore and weary, as he said, he had
found at last a grand, good man."
" One," I inferred, " who will give his discovery
to the world."
"Oh, more than that," explained Letitia,
"this dear, old, white-haired
" Egyptologist," I broke in.
"Publisher," she said, with spirit, "has prom-
ised him to start a magazine and make him
editor a scientific magazine devoted solely to
Egyptology, and called The Obelisk."
"Well, well, well, well," I said. "We must
congratulate the little man. Perhaps you may
even be impelled to recon
"Now, Bertram," began Letitia, in that tone
and manner I knew of old so I put on my hat,
and, freeing Robin to likelier pleasures, we drove
at once to " the " Mills Hotel. Letitia 's address-
book had named the street, which she thought
unkempt and cluttered and noisy for an editor
to live in, though doubtless he had wished to
be near his desk.
266
An Old Friend of Ours
" Is Mr. Hiram Ptolemy in?" inquired Letitia.
" I'll see," said the clerk, consulting his ledgers.
He returned at once.
" There is no one here of that name, madam."
"Strange!" she replied. "He was here let
me see but two weeks ago."
"No madam," he said. "You must mean
the other Mills Hotel."
"Is there another Mills Hotel?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied. "Hotel number "
"I thought" said Letitia, "this place seem-
ed"
She glanced about her.
" But," said I, "the address is of this one."
"True," she replied. "Did you look in the
P's?" she inquired, sweetly.
"Why, no; in the T's. You said"
"But it's spelled with a P," she explained.
"P-t-o-1 "
Then her face reddened.
"Never mind," she said. "You are right
quite right. It is the other hotel. But can
you tell me, please, if Mr. Hiram De Lancey
Percival lives here?"
The clerk smiled broadly.
"Oh yes," he said. "Mr. Percival does, but
267
Miss Primrose
he's out at present. You will find him, however,
at this address."
He wrote it down for her and she took it
nervously.
" Thank you," she said, glancing at it. " Don't
be silly, Bertram. Yes, it's the publisher's. Let
us go. Good-day, sir."
It was not a large publisher's, we discovered,
for the place was a single and dingy store-room
in a small side street. Its walls were shelved,
filled from the floor to the very ceiling volume
after volume, sets upon sets, most of them shop-
worn and bearing the imprints of by-gone years.
Between the shelves other books, equally old and
faded, and offered for sale at trifling prices, lay
on tables in that tempting disarray and dust
which hints of treasures overlooked and waiting
only for recognition always on the higher shelf,
or at the bottom of the other pile. The window
was filled with encyclopaedias long outgrown by
a wiser world, and standing beside them, and
looking back towards the store-room's farther
end, was a melancholy vista of discarded and
forgotten literature.
"Who buys them?" asked Letitia.
"Who wrote them?" I replied.
268
An Old Friend of Ours
A bell had tinkled at our entrance, but no
one came to us, so we wandered down one nar-
row aisle till we reached the end. And there,
at the right, in an alcove hitherto undiscernable,
and at an old, worm-eaten desk dimly lighted
by an alley window, sat our old friend Ptolemy,
writing, and unaware of our approach. It was
the same Hiram, we observed, though a little
shabbier, perhaps, and scraggier-bearded than of
old, but the same little, blinking scientist we had
known, in steel -bowed spectacles, scratching
away in a rickety office - chair. He was quite
oblivious of the eyes upon him, lost, doubtless,
in some shadowy passage of Egyptian lore.
I coughed slightly, and he turned about, peer-
ing in amazement.
"Miss Primrose! Dr. Weatherby! I do be-
lieve!" he exclaimed, and, dropping his pen,
staggered up to us and shook our hands, his
celluloid cuffs rattling about his meagre wrists
and his eyes watering with agitation behind his
spectacles.
" You in New York!" he piped. "I why,
I'm astounded I'm astounded but delighted,
too delighted to see you both! But you
mustn't stand."
18 269
Miss Primrose
I looked curiously at Letitia as he brought us
chairs, setting them beside his desk. She was a
little flushed, but very gracious to the little
man.
"Miss Primrose," he said, fidgeting about her,
"allow me allow me," offering what seemed to
be the stabler of the wooden seats. She had ac-
cepted it and was about to sit, when he stopped
her anxiously with a cry, "Wait! wait, I beg
of you!" and replaced it with his own. His was
an elbow chair whose sagging leathern seat had
been reinforced with an old green atlas, its
pasteboard cover still faintly decorated with a
pictured globe.
Seating himself again beside his desk, he
turned to us beaming with an air of host, and
listened with many nervous twitchings and
furtive glances at Letitia, while I explained our
presence there.
" It's a grand journey a grand journey, Miss
Primrose," he declared. "I only wish I were
going, too."
"Tell us," said Letitia, kindly, "about The
Obelisk. Is the first number ready yet?"
He sat up blithely, wetting his lips, and with
that odd mannerism which recalled his visit to
270
An Old Friend of Ours
Grassy Ford, he touched with one finger the tip
of his celluloid collar, and thrust out his chin.
"Almost," he said. "It's almost ready. It
'11 be out soon very soon now it '11 be out
soon. I've got it here right here right here
on the desk."
He touched fondly the very manuscript we
had surprised him writing.
"That's it," he said. "The Obelisk, volume
one, number one."
"And the great stone of Iris-Iris?" queried
Letitia.
He half rose from his chair, and exclaimed,
excitedly, pointing to a drawer in the paper-
buried desk:
"Right there! The cut is there! cut of the
inscription, you know. It's to be the frontis-
piece. Here : page one my story story of the
translation and how I made it, and what it
means to the civilized world. Don't fail to read
it!"
He wiped his glasses.
"When," I asked, "will it be out?"
"Soon," he replied. "Soon, I hope. Not
later than the fall."
"That's some time off yet," I remarked.
271
Miss Primrose
"You do not understand," he replied, anx-
iously. " You do not understand, Dr. Weather-
by. A magazine requires great preparation-
great preparation, sir and particularly a scien-
tific magazine, Dr. Weatherby."
"Ah," I said. "I see."
"Great preparation, sir," the little man went
on, leaning forward and tapping me on the
knee. "There must be subscribers, sir."
"To be sure," I assented. "They are quite
essential, I believe."
"Very," said Hiram Ptolemy. "Very, sir.
We must have fifty at the fewest before we go
to press. My publisher is obdurate fifty, he
says, or he will not invest a penny not a penny,
sir."
" And you have already ?" I inquired. I was
sorry afterwards to have asked the question.
It was not delicate. I asked it thoughtlessly,
intending only to evince my interest in the cause.
Coloring slightly, he wet his lips and cleared his
throat before replying.
"One, sir; only one, as yet."
"Then put me down number two," I said,
eager to retrieve my blunder.
His face lighted, but only for a moment, and
272
An Old Friend of Ours
turning an embarrassed countenance upon Le-
titia, and then on me, he stammered:
"But I"
"Oh, by all means, Bertram," said Letitia,
"we must subscribe."
The Egyptologist swallowed hard.
"I think" he began.
" Bertram Weatherby is the name, Mr. Per-
cival," said Letitia, in a clear, insistent tone,
and at her bidding the little man scrawled it
down, but so tremulously at first that he tore up
the sheet and tried again.
"And the subscription price?" I inquired,
opening my pocket-book.
"You you needn't pay now, doctor," he
replied.
" Is one dollar a year," said Letitia, promptly,
and I laid the bill upon the desk.
Hiram Ptolemy touched it gingerly, fumbled
it, dropped it by his chair, and, still preserving
his embarrassed silence, fished it up again from
the cluttered floor. Ten minutes later, when
we said farewell to him, he still held it in his
hand.
"What was the matter with him?" I asked
Letitia, as we drove away, glancing back at that
273
Miss Primrose
odd and shamefaced figure standing wistfully
in the doorway.
" The other subscriber," she replied. " Didn't
you guess?"
"What!" I said. "You, Letitia?"
She smiled sadly.
"Poor little man!"
VII
SUZANNE
was evening when we set out, not
without trepidation, to find Peggy
Neal. We had dined over-dined
in a room of gilt and mirrors and
shining silver, watching the other
tables with their smiling groups or puzzling
pairs; some so ill-assorted that we strove vainly
to solve their mystery, others so oddly man-
nered for a public place, we thought the men
so brazen in their attentions, the women so
prinked and absurdly gowned and unabashed,
Letitia at first was not quite sure we were rightly
there.
"Still," she said, "there are nice people here
why, even children!"
"The place is famous," I protested.
"I suppose it must be respectable," she re-
plied, "but I never saw such a mixture!"
275
Miss Primrose
She gazed wonderingly about her.
"I suppose it must be New York," she said.
It was half -past eight when we entered the
street again. We drove at once to the number
Mrs. Neal had given, riding silently and a little
nervously, but still marvelling at the scene we
had left behind us, a strange setting for two
such elder village-folk as we, making us wonder
if we had missed much or little by living our
lives so greenly and far away.
"I hope she will be at home," said Letitia.
"Every one seemed to be going to the the-
atre."
"For my part," I confessed, "I rather hope
we shall not find her."
"But why, Bertram?"
I could not say. The cab stopped. There
were lights in the house, and, leaving Letitia, I
went up the steps and pulled the bell. The
household was at home, apparently, for I heard
voices and the music of a piano as I stood wait-
ing at the door. It was one of the older streets,
ill-lighted and lined monotonously by those red-
brick fronts so fashionable in a former day.
The door was opened by a colored maid, and
there was a gush of laughter and the voices of
276
Suzanne
men and women, with the tinkling undercurrent
of a waltz.
" Is Miss Neal at home?" I asked.
"Miss who?"
"Miss Neal."
"Miss Neal?"
"Miss Peggy Neal."
She hesitated. "I'll see," she said. "Will
you come in, suh?"
" No," I replied. " I'll wait out here."
She returned presently.
"Did you say Miss Peggy Neal, suh?"
"Yes," I replied, "Miss Peggy Neal."
"Don't any such lady live heah, suh."
"Strange," I murmured, and was about to
turn away when a woman clad in a floating
light-blue robe, her face indefinite in the dimly
illumined hallway, but apparently young and
pretty, or even beautiful, perhaps, and with an
amazing quantity of golden hair, slipped through
the portieres and pushed aside the maid.
"I am Peggy Neal," she said, in a low voice.
"What is wanted?"
"You!" I gasped, but Letitia had left the
carriage and was at my shoulder.
"Peggy!" she said.
277
Miss Primrose
"Miss Primrose! And this is Dr. Weather-
by!"
"Dear Peggy," Letitia murmured, kissing the
astonished girl on both powdered cheeks. " But
how you've changed! You're so pale, Peggy
and your eyes and your hair Peggy, wha*
have you done to your hair?"
"Yes, my hair," murmured Peggy.
"Why, it used to be jet," Letitia said. " But
you don't ask us in, my dear and here we've
come all the long way from Grassy Ford to see
you."
"Hush!" said Peggy, and Letitia paused, for
the first time noting the voices in the inner rooms.
"Oh," she whispered, "I see: you have a
party."
"Yes," Peggy answered. "We we have a
party."
"I think we should go, Letitia," I interposed,
but she did not hear me.
"I can't get over your hair," she murmured,
holding Peggy at arm's -length from her and
then turning her head a little to look about her.
"Do they smoke at your parties?" she asked.
"Oh yes," laughed Peggy, "all the men
smoke, you know."
278
Suzanne
"But I thought," said Letitia, "I saw a
woman with a cigarette."
"It may have been a candy cigarette,"
Peggy answered.
"That's true," said Letitia, "for I've seen
them at Marvin's in Grassy Ford."
The portieres before which Peggy stood, one
hand grasping them, parted suddenly behind
her head, and the face of another girl was thrust
out rudely behind her own and staring into
mine. It was a rouged and powdered face, with
hard-set eyes that did not flinch as she gazed
mockingly upon me, crying in a voice that filled
the hall with its harsh discords:
"Aha! Which one to-night, Suzanne?"
Then she saw Letitia, and with a smothered
oath, withdrew laughingly. The music and
talking ceased within. It was not in the room
behind the curtains, but seemingly just beyond
it, and I could hear her there relating her dis-
covery as I supposed, though the words were
indistinct.
"How I hate that girl!" hissed Peggy, her
eyes black with anger.
"Then I wouldn't have her, my dear," said
Letitia, soothingly. "I should not invite her."
279
Miss Primrose
There was a burst of laughter within, followed
by subdued voices, and I heard footsteps stealth-
ily approaching. Peggy heard them too, no
doubt, though she was answering Letitia's
questions, for she grasped the curtains more
tightly than before, one hand behind her and
the other above her head. As she did so the
loose sleeves of her robe slipped down her arm,
disclosing a spot upon its whiteness.
"Peggy, dear," Letitia said, anxiously, "you
have hurt yourself."
"Yes," was the answer, "I know. It's a
bruise."
It was a heart, tattooed. She hid it in her
hair.
"We must go, Letitia," I urged. "We must
not keep Peggy from her friends."
"Yes," she assented. " But I had so much to
ask you, Peggy, and so much to tell."
The curtains parted again, this time far above
Peggy's head, and I saw a man's eyes peering
through. She appeared to be disengaging the
flounces about her slippered feet, but I saw her
strike back savagely with her little heel, and he
disappeared. But other faces came, one by one,
though Letitia did not see them. Her eyes
280
Suzanne
were all for her darling Peggy whom she plied
with questions. How had her health been?
How did she like New York? Did she never
yearn for little old Grassy Ford again? Was
she quite happy?
"Yes," Peggy murmured, "quite; quite
happy."
She spoke in a hurried, staccato voice, in an
odd, cold monotone. There was no kindness in
her eyes.
The door-bell rang, and we stepped aside as
the maid answered it. Two young men swag-
gered in, flushed and garrulous, nodding, not
more familiarly to the servant than to Peggy
herself, who parted the curtains to let them pass.
They gazed curiously at her guests.
"Why, they kept on their hats!" Letitia said,
in a shocked undertone. " Is it customary here,
Peggy?"
"Everything," was the bitter answer, "is
customary here. How is my mother?"
"It was your mother, Peggy, who asked me
to find you." Letitia spoke, gently. "She wants
to see you. She is not very strong since your
father's"
She paused.
281
Miss Primrose
"Is my father dead?"
"Didn't you know?"
"No; but I thought as much; he was such a
boozer."
Letitia stared. "Peggy!" she said.
" Oh, I know what you think," the girl replied,
wearily, seating herself upon the stairs, and
putting her chin upon her hands. She did not
ask us to be seated.
" Letitia," I said, firmly, " come ; we must go."
I put my hand upon the door-knob.
" Doctor," said Peggy Neal, rising again, "you
won't mind waiting outside a moment ? I have
something to say to dear Miss Primrose."
"Certainly," I replied. "Good-bye, Miss
Neal."
She gave her hand to me. "Good-bye, doc-
tor." Then she looked me strangely in the
eyes, saying in an undertone, " Mind, I shall tell
her nothing" and paused significantly, adding
in a clearer tone again "but the truth."
I waited anxiously upon the steps. Five
minutes passed ten twenty thirty and I
grew impatient. Then the door opened, and
Letitia appeared with Peggy, and radiant
though in tears.
282
Suzanne
"Good-bye," she said, kissing her, "dear,
dear Peggy. Oh, Bertram, I have heard such a
wonderful story!"
"Indeed?"
"Yes," Peggy said from the doorway, "Miss
Primrose is the same enthusiast she used to be
when I went to school to her."
" It is like a novel," declared Letitia; "but we
must go. You must forgive me for keeping you
so long away from your newer friends."
"It is nothing," was the answer. "I'm so
glad you came."
"Remember your promise, Peggy!"
"Oh yes my promise," Peggy murmured.
"Good-bye, Miss Primrose. Good-bye, doctor.
Good-bye. Good-bye."
The carriage-door had scarcely closed upon us
when Letitia seized my arm.
" Bertram, " she said, " it is a story ! I thought
it was only in books that such things happened.
I would not have missed this visit for the world!"
"But," I said, "do you trust"
" Trust her ? Yes. A woman never cries like
that when she's lying, Bertram. Listen: she
came to New York from Grassy Ford. He was
nowhere to be found. He had given her a false
283
Miss Primrose
address. Then a little girl was born dead.
Oh, you can't imagine what that child's been
through, Bertram^ the disgrace, the sorrow,
the rags and poverty, hunger even and only
think how we were eating and sleeping soundly
in Grassy Ford, all that time she was starving
here! Then temptations came in this miserable,
this wicked, wicked place ! Oh, how can man
Well she did not dare to come home, but stayed
on here. It was then she took the name Su-
zanne, to hide her real one. Twice twice, Ber-
tram she went down to the river
Letitia's voice was breaking.
"Oh, I can't tell you all she told me. But
just when it all seemed darkest, she met this
good, kind woman with whom she lives."
" What!" I said. " Did she tell you that ?"
" Bertram, that woman saved her! saved her
from worse than death took her from the very
street clothed her, fed her, and nursed her to
health again. Did you see her dress? It was
finest silk and lace. Did you see the rings on
her fingers? One was a diamond, Bertram, as
large as the pearl you wear; one was an opal,
set in pearls; another, a ruby and she told me
she had a dozen more up-stairs."
284
Suzanne
"Who is this woman?"
"She did not tell me. I forgot to ask."
"What was the promise she made you?"
" To visit us to come next summer to Grassy
Ford."
"Us, Letitia?"
"Yes; I made her promise it. She refused
at first, but I told her there were hearts as loving
in Grassy Ford as in New York oh, I hope there
are, Bertram ; I hope there are ! She will go first
to the farm, of course, to see her mother, and
then, before she comes back to this new mother,
who makes me burn, Bertram, when I ask my-
self if any woman in Grassy Ford would have
done as much then she will visit us. It will
mean so much to her. It will set that poor,
spoiled life right again before our petty, little,
self-righteous world. Oh, I shall make them re-
ceive her, Bertram ! I shall make them take her
in their arms!"
She paused breathlessly, but I was silent.
"I thought you wouldn't mind," she said.
Still I could not speak.
"Tell me," she urged, "did I presume too
much? Was I wrong to ask her without con-
sulting you?"
19 285
Miss Primrost
''No," I answered but not through kindness
as Letitia thought, let me confess it ; not through
having the tenderest man's heart in the world,
as she said, gratefully, but because I knew
how, she will always wonder that Peggy would
never come.
VIII
IN A DEVON LANE
HAVE never seen an English lane,
but I have a picture of one above
the fireplace, and I once smelled
hawthorn blooming. A pleasant,
hedgerow scent, it seemed to me,
with a faint suggestion of primroses on the other
side I say primroses, but Letitia smiles when I
declare I can smell them still, or laughs with
Robin: they have been in England.
"Are you quite sure about it, Bertram?"
"They do have primroses," I reply, defiantly.
"But are you sure they are primroses?" she
demands.
"Smell again, father!" cries my son.
"Yes," I retort; "or violets; they may be
violets beyond the hedge."
It is then they laugh at me, and they make a
great point of their puzzling questions: am I
287
Miss Primrose
certain for example, that the primrose is fra-
grant enough to be smelled so far, and is it in
flower when the hawthorn blooms? That is
important, they insist. It is not important, I
reply in my England.
" Your England!" they cry.
"To be sure," I say. "In my England and
I see it as plainly as you do yours the haw-
thorn and primrose is always flowering. In my
England it is always spring."
It is summer in theirs. It is always cool and
fragrant and wholly charming in my Devonshire.
It was rather hot when they got to theirs that
is, the sunny coast of it they brag of was a lit-
tle trying, sometimes, I suspect, in midsummer,
though neither will confess.
"But not the moors!" they say.
"Oh, well the moors no; I should think
not," I answer. "I am not such a fool as to
think that moors are hot."
" How cool are the moors?" they then inquire,
innocently, but I see the trick; I hear the plot
in their very voices, and am wary.
"Oh," I reply, "as cool as usual."
"But there are dense forests on the moors,"
Robin suggests. " Regular jungles eh, father ?"
288
In a Devon Lane
I am not to be taken without a struggle.
"Hm," I reply.
"Hm what, father?"
" Well, I prefer the coast myself."
"The dear white coast," says Letitia, slyly.
"The dear red coast!" I cry in triumph, but
they only sigh:
"Ah, it was a wonderful, wonderful journey!
One could never imagine it or even tell it. One
must have been there."
It was a wonderful journey, I then admit, and
I do not blame them for their pridefulness, but
what, I ask, would they have done without my
map?
I am bound by honesty to confess, however,
that fair as my Devon is with the vales and
moorlands I have never seen, Letitia 's Devon
must be fairer. She found it lovelier far than
she had thought, she tells me, and she smiles
so happily at the mere sound of its magic
name what, I ask, must a shire be made
of to stand the test of that woman's dreams ?
"Here we have hills," I tell her.
"But not those hills, Bertram."
"Have we not Sun Dial?" I protest.
"Yes, we have Sun Dial," she admits.
289
Miss Primrose
"We have winds," I say, "and singing waters,
in Grassy Fordshire."
She shakes her head.
" You never heard the Dart or Tamar or the
Tavy. You never stood on the abbey bridge."
"And where," I ask, "was that?"
" That was at Tavistock," she replies, " at dear
little Tavistock after a rain, with the brown
water rushing through the arches where the
moss and fern and ivy clings rushing over
bowlders and swirling and foaming and falling
beyond over a weir; then racing away under
elm-trees and out into meadows oh, you never
heard the Tavy, Bertram."
"We have Troublesome," I insist.
"Yes," she replies, but her mind is absent.
"We have Troublesome, to be sure."
Then I rouse myself. I fairly menace her
with her treason.
" Surely," I cry, " you do not prefer old Devon
to Grassy Fordshire!"
It is a question she never answers.
"Grassy Fordshire is your native heath," I
remind her, jealously.
"Devon was my father's," she replies, "and
mother's, too."
290
In a Devon Lane
" Still," I insist, "you do not prefer it to your
own?"
" It is beautiful," is her answer.
Had ever man so exasperating an antagonist ?
She declines utterly to be convinced; she talks
of nothing but that ruddy land as if it always
had been hers to boast of, is forever telling of
ancient villages cuddled down in the softest cor-
ners of its hills and headlands to doze and dream
in the English cloud-shadows and the sun some
of them lulled, she says, by the moorland music
of winds among the granite tors, and waters
falling down, down through those pastoral val-
eys to the sea; some lapped by the salt waves
rippling into coves blue and tranquil as the sky
above them, and others still in a sterner setting,
clinging to edges in the very clefts of a wild and
rugged coast, like weed and sea-shells left there
by the fury of the autumn storms. So, she tells
me, her Devon is; so I picture it as we sit to-
gether by the winter fire, while for the thou-
sandth time she tells her story: how she and
Robin, with my map between them, made that
long journey which, years before it, the gypsy
had found forewritten in her hand. It was the
very pilgrimage that as a boy I planned and
291
Miss Primrose
promised for myself when I should come to be a
man, but have found no time for yet my son
has seen it, that land of the youth whose name
he bears, so that, listening, I take his glowing
word, as I took that of the youth before him,
for its moorland heather and its flashing streams.
Robin, it seems, preferred north Devon Lyn-
ton and Lynmouth and their crags and glens.
Letitia, I note, while yet agreeing with his wild-
est adjectives, leans rather towards the south.
"But think," he says, "of Watersmeet and
the Valley of Rocks, Aunt Letty!"
"I do think of them," she answers, "but
think of Dartmoor, my dear."
"And so I do," is his reply.
"That day the wind blew so," she calls to
mind, "that morning when we rode to Tavis-
tock."
"Tavistock?" I always ask. "Tavistock?
Where have I heard that name ? Do all Devon-
shire roads lead up to Tavistock?"
She only smiles.
"You should see Tavistock," she says, and
resumes her memories. I sit quite helpless be-
tween the combatants. They differ widely, one
might think, to hear their voices rising and fall-
292
In a Devon Lane
ing in warm debate, yet listening to their words
I detect nothing but a rivalry of praise, an ef-
fort on the part of each to outdo the other, as I
tell them, in pasans and benisons on what I am
led inevitably to believe is the fairest of earthly
dwelling-places.
When Robin withdraws his youthful vigor and
goes off to bed, or if he is away at school, from
which he writes such letters as I wish Dove could
but see, the talk is tranquil by our hearth, or lit-
tle by little drops quite away.
"Such lands breed men," observes Letitia
for the hundredth time. It is her old, loved
theory, the worth and grace of a rare environ-
ment, of which she speaks, sewing in the fire-
light. "The race must be hardy to wring its
living from such shores and heights."
"True," I answer, thinking of the wreckers
and smugglers who haunted those creeks and
coves in years gone by more lawless summers
than the quiet one which found a woman on the
very sands their heels had furrowed, or choosing
flowers to press on the very cliffs they climbed
with their spray-wet booty. I think vaguely
of the soldiers and sailors who fought the battles
whose dates and meanings it was Letitia 's joy
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Miss Primrose
to teach in the red-brick school-house. I think
more vividly of great John Ridd and Amyas
Leigh, and then a clearer vision I remember
that other, that later Devonshire lad who was
flesh and blood to me; and sitting here by my
Grassy Fordshire fire, a man grown gray who
was once a boy eating the slice two lovers spread
for him, I keep their covenant.
You go up from Plymouth, Letitia tells me,
and by-and-by you are on the moors, marvelling ;
and you like everything, but you love Tavistock.
It is in a valley, with the Tavy running beneath
that bridge of which she is forever dreaming,
for, as she stood there watching the waters play-
ing, and listening to their song, she said :
"Here Robert Saxeholm was a boy. How
often he must have stood here!"
" Robin Saxeholm ?" asked a clear voice almost
at her side; and Letitia turned. A pretty Eng-
lish lady stood there smiling and offering her
hand.
"Yes," said Letitia, "did you know him,
too?"
The lady smiled a sad little smile it was.
She was in black.
" fie was my husband, " she replied, " and this "
294
In a Devon Lane
turning to the blue-eyed, fair-haired girl beside
her "is Letitia Saxeholm."
"Why," my Robin cried "why, that's"
Letitia Primrose stopped him with a glance,
and turning swiftly to that little English maid
"Letitia?" she said, taking those pink cheeks
gently between her hands, and kissing them
wellnigh with every word she uttered. "Le-
titia what a sweet sweet name!"
THE END
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