ROSE DOOR 
 
 ESIELLE BAKER
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 FOR ANSWER, HE KNOCKED HER FLAT TO THE FLOOR Page 19.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 BY 
 ESTELLE BAKER 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 
 1913
 
 Copyright, 1911 
 BY CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 
 
 JOHN F. HIGGINS 
 
 PRINTER AND BINDER 
 
 376-382 MONROE STREET 
 CHICAGO. ILLINOIS
 
 PS 
 
 8 
 
 Count me once for all enslaved; 
 Twice for women, twice enslaved. 
 
 ESTELLE BAKER.
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT IS MADE OF EXCERPTS FROM: 
 
 Effects of Tropical Light on White Men (Major Charles 
 
 E. Woodruff) 
 The Social Evil (J. H. Greer, M.D.)
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " In the name of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, 
 take that shawl off your head, Rebecca ! " 
 
 " And shall I walk through the streets bare- 
 headed?" she retorted. 
 
 " Why didn't you get a hat in New York? " 
 
 " Did my brother send me so much money 
 that I had some left for millinery? " 
 
 This in Yiddish. 
 
 A Rebecca should be mild eyed and meek ; this 
 one was black-eyed and self-willed. 'Way back 
 in the Fatherland, after a day's work in the field, 
 she had been known to take her worn-out mother 
 by the shoulders and, after forcibly seating her 
 in a rocking-chair, do, herself, a day's work in- 
 doors between supper and bedtime. This was the 
 Rebecca whom steerage passage and overland 
 immigrant trains had landed bareheaded and un- 
 washed at the San Francisco Ferrv.
 
 io THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Back in the Fatherland were five graves and 
 Benjamin ; here, in America, were golden oppor- 
 tunities and a brother. Benjamin, too, would 
 come over and then they would marry. Benja- 
 min was twenty and she, sixteen. 
 
 She followed her brother to his home two 
 rooms and a v/ife. Rebecca slept on the kitchen 
 floor. Her brother told her that she would not 
 be able to get worth while wages till she could 
 speak English. With characteristic vigor she 
 attacked the strange tongue ; by pleadings, bribe 
 and nagging she coerced her brother's wife into 
 teaching her to read and write English; when 
 the eacher, weary from a day of factory work 
 fell asleep over the enforced lesson, Rebecca 
 roused her by an insistent question. Each and 
 every person who spoke to her was required to 
 repeat his words till she could pronounce them 
 precisely. At the factory, they would gladly 
 have quarantined her, like any other plague, while 
 her brother and his wife felt that they were as 
 veritable martyrs as any boiled in oil. 
 
 It would have taken a meek-eyed Rebecca five 
 years to learn the English acquired by this one in 
 five months. 
 
 What she earned did not pay for what she ate. 
 much less enable her to make any payments on
 
 THE ROSE DOOR n 
 
 the transportation with which her brother, by 
 great privation, had provided her. How, then, 
 would she ever be able to buy wedding clothes? 
 These thoughts kept her awake when she should 
 have slept, and made her irritable at her work. 
 
 Month after month slipped by; Benjamin 
 would soon be in America and she not ready, was 
 all her thought. One more letter she would re- 
 ceive from him, just one telling of his sailing. 
 
 The letter came; it was of absorbing interest; 
 she read it twenty times ; it stated, first, the news 
 of the unexpected death of his father; second, 
 the long-known fact of a mortgage on the shanty 
 he called home ; the equally familiar truth of the 
 existence of a mother plus five children younger 
 than himself. The inter-mezzo was a tragedy 
 he would not be able to come to America for 
 years, if ever! The grand finale was a hope 
 that between them they might be able to save 
 money enough for her return passage, when they 
 would marry and all live together on the mort- 
 gaged patch. 
 
 Rebecca was never known to yield to Fate 
 or anything else. She had to be knocked down. 
 
 She wrote Benjamin a long reply. She 
 enumerated her obligations : back board and pas- 
 sage money due her brother, to acquire; wedding
 
 12 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 clothes to buy and return conveyance to secure. 
 All this she would earn herself, for, she told 
 him, he could spare nothing from the mortgage 
 and family of se\-en. This she must accomplish 
 before they could be married, but, she assured 
 him, she could and would do it if not in one 
 year, why, then in two, and she comforted by 
 reminding him that as he was barely twenty-one 
 and she seventeen, they would not be so very 
 old even in two years. She closed by writing 
 " Good-bye " in English just to show him how 
 much she had learned. 
 
 She " could " and she " would " was her song 
 at work ; her prayer at night ; yet try as she 
 might, she could never get beyond something to 
 eat and wear and a few pennies paid to her 
 brother. 
 
 One day her brother's household was increased 
 by a wee person and the wife no longer worked 
 in the factory. Later, Rebecca, too, left, re- 
 solved to seek riches elsewhere. An agency 
 placed her in domestic service and she was actu- 
 ally able to save more pennies for the back board 
 but always pennies. 
 
 Max knew Rebecca's brother before he knew 
 that brother had a sister, therefore he came to 
 visit Rebecca's brother. Hence, he saw Rebecca
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 13 
 
 without coming to see her and having seen her 
 he came to see her. 
 
 Good feeding showed in Max's cheeks and his 
 clothes were tine enough for a Rabbi. Better 
 yet, thought the brother, he smiled on Rebecca. 
 
 However, there is only one man for one 
 woman and Rebecca cared no more for him 
 than for a street cat and showed it. 
 
 The months slipped by. In the kitchen of a 
 strange people Rebecca worked till weary each 
 day, yet midnight, in her bedroom, saw her 
 seated before a pile of books "English, more 
 English ; more, more/' that was why she 
 couldn't get a job that paid well. She must 
 speak it " exactly like Americans and quick as 
 lightning " ; and she must " write good " too. 
 
 She stole newspapers and read them through, 
 literally through, every word, with a dictionary 
 at hand that needed another dictionary to clear 
 up its own unintelligible words. 
 
 The whole city lay between her and her 
 brother the brother as poor as herself. 
 
 Between her and her lover stretched the 
 whole world the lover as poor as her brother. 
 
 \Yhile the dinner burned Rebecca balanced her 
 account with America ; poorer, far poorer than
 
 14 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 when sire put her foot on the ship that had chased 
 the setting sun; in the home land she had owed 
 nor man nor woman; she could earn her living 
 there any day ; the customs held no strange ways ; 
 the people all were friends. What had she 
 gained in this land of uncaring folk? A debt 
 she could never lift and a distance she could never 
 traverse. Yet that distance must be covered if 
 life were to be worth living. 
 
 Max knew she was homesick to the death. 
 Max knew she was in despair but he wasn't 
 going to help a girl who wouldn't give him 
 even a smile. 
 
 The months kept slipping along, as uncaring as 
 the people. Still Rebecca clung with might and 
 main to the rock of her determination. She 
 could and would get back to Benjamin. 
 
 Valiantly Life pounded away at the clinging 
 hands. Milady would loosen their hold, never 
 fear ! They were maiden hands. Pshaw ! 
 What of that? They were honest hands. Pooh ! 
 Success is the word. 
 
 Right merrily the dinner sizzled to a crisp. 
 Rebecca pondered on. Surely, there must be 
 some better paid work for a girl who was as 
 strong as a man and spoke English as fast as an 
 American she had some vanity on both points
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 15 
 
 She would ask Max; he knew the city thor- 
 oughly. So the dinner didn't matter. 
 
 Rebecca's only brother received a visit from 
 his only sister. The sister intimated that she 
 would like to see Max. The suggestion met 
 with the brother's approval; also with that of 
 Max therefore he materialized. When he ap- 
 peared, Rebecca condescended to say " Good 
 evening." Encouraged, he accompanied her 
 back to her place of servitude. The way was 
 long; but not too long for all Rebecca's eager 
 tongue had to say. She took an outside seat on 
 the street car so that the tongue could gallop to 
 the end of the route. 
 
 " Max, I must have money ! Why can't I 
 earn more than just something to eat and wear? 
 Why, Max, I am stronger than you and my Eng- 
 lish is almost as good as yours. You are earning 
 lots of money easily, for you are well dressed 
 and have hours of leisure. Tell me how ; do, 
 Max. I don't care how hard the work is, only 
 so there is splendid pay for it oh, lots of 
 money, Max! I must get back to the Father- 
 land. I must, Max. I'd kill myself if I thought 
 I'd never get back." 
 
 Before he said " Good night " he admitted 
 that there was work which she could do that
 
 16 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 was well paid, generously paid. " But," he con- 
 cluded, " you are too stuck up to do it." 
 
 Although she declared Rebeccaishly, that she 
 did not care how hard or distasteful it might be 
 so she could earn big money, he would tell her no 
 more. 
 
 For a week he purposely kept out of her reach, 
 till as he foresaw, there was but one face she de- 
 sired to see ; one voice she longed to hear the 
 voice that could tell her how to earn " big 
 money." 
 
 When they did meet, she went straight to the 
 mark. 
 
 "Tell me what it is, Max; tell me, tell 
 me! " 
 
 " Oh, you'll get mad." 
 
 " No, I won't, Max; just try me and see." 
 
 He tried, her with but a shadow of the truth, 
 and she used up all the Yiddish she knew, to ex- 
 press, loafer, blackguard, skunk! 
 
 A week passed. He kept out of her way. 
 
 Another week passed and she had not met him ; 
 if she had she would have struck him in the face. 
 He knew she would. 
 
 She laid new plans, she would walk to New 
 York City, begging from door to door but 
 she couldn't beg her way across the Atlantic!
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 17 
 
 And Life battered away at the benumbing 
 hands. 
 
 Another week passed ; then she passed Max on 
 the street; she did not strike him she only 
 dropped her eyes. 
 
 Another week and she saw him again. He 
 said, " Good-day," and she did not strike him. 
 He walked by her side ; she did not strike him. 
 
 "Isn't this a cozy room, Rebecca?" 
 " My God ! Max, I can't see it. Hurry up 
 and bring the customers. The sooner it is be- 
 gun, the sooner it will be over and then good-bye 
 to ' American opportunity ' ! " 
 
 " Well, how will I do for the first one? " 
 She dropped her eyes. " Not you, Max, not 
 you ; let them be strangers, all strangers." 
 
 He seated himself by her side. " I think there 
 is a reserved seat for me before the crowd ar- 
 rives." 
 
 '"' I ran onto a big fish to-day a millionaire ; 
 if I can land him, he will be a steady income 
 for us." 
 
 " You needn't land him. It's three months 
 to-day, and that's the length of time we agreed
 
 i8 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 upon; I'm through. Give me my money and let 
 me go. I must have earned a thousand dollars, 
 and I want my two-thirds as you said. You 
 say it is in the bank go and get it and we will 
 part friends, Max." 
 
 " How do you know how much you have 
 earned ? I set the prices and I handled the 
 money." 
 
 " Some of them told me how much they paid." 
 
 " Oh, their prices differed. If I thought a 
 man would stand bleeding to the tune of ten dol- 
 lars, I charged him ten dollars; but, if I knew he 
 had only fifty cents, I took that half a loaf is 
 better than none; furthermore, I don't see why 
 you should get more out of this deal than I; if I 
 didn't hustle for you there would be no busi- 
 ness." 
 
 " One reason why I should get two-thirds is, 
 that you, yourself, said that I should. Another 
 reason is, that I work ten times harder than you 
 do. There has been a constant stream pouring 
 in here, and I am tired out." 
 
 " Tired out ! Rubbish ! There are women 
 who keep at it for years." 
 
 " Then they are never rested. But my time is 
 up ; give me my money and let me go." 
 
 " What do you want your money for ? You
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 19 
 
 have plenty to eat and wear and a comfortable 
 room to rest in, if you must rest a while." 
 
 " You know what I want my money for." 
 
 " To marry Benjamin? Get that out of your 
 head. You will never marry Benjamin." 
 
 " Give me my money and let me go." 
 
 " Benjamin is married ! " 
 
 "You lie!" 
 
 For answer, he knocked her flat to the floor. 
 
 She struggled to her feet. " You lie," she 
 gave him again. 
 
 Again she lay on the floor. 
 
 When once more she stood, she leaned against 
 the wall. 
 
 "Got enough?" he asked. 
 
 " Give me my money and let me go." 
 
 " Maybe a little proof will help you," and he 
 fumbled in his pockets. " Here is a letter I've 
 had for a week, but have been waiting the 
 fitting moment to deliver it; I think this is the 
 time." 
 
 He touched her hand with the letter; it was 
 directed to her brother, but it was Benjamin's 
 writing. 
 
 She opened it and read: 
 
 " I didn't believe the stranger, but when you 
 wrote that it was true and that you had cast her
 
 20 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 off, I had to give up. Your cousin Sarah and I 
 got married yesterday." 
 
 She sat down. Then she lay down on the 
 bright-cushioned lounge. 
 
 He lit a cigarette and paced the floor. 
 
 A half hour of silence is a long time some- 
 times. So he thought. He came to the lounge 
 and stood. " Get up and eat and dress, ready 
 for business." 
 
 She looked up at him. " You told Benja- 
 min? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You promised that no one should ever 
 know." 
 
 " I wrote him the very day you came here. 
 What are you going to do about it? " 
 
 She did not tell him. 
 
 "If you have good sense you will see what a 
 lot of money you can make. You are a mighty 
 good-looking girl and not eighteen years old. 
 Do you know that if you will get right down to 
 business, and I can get the right sort of men 
 coming here, you can make thousands of dollars? 
 You can brace up on drink; they all do." 
 
 " Make thousands of dollars for you to keep? " 
 
 " Well, I shall keep my share, of course."
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 21 
 
 " I have already earned more than a thousand 
 dollars," she repeated, " and yet I have only ten 
 dollars in my purse. When do I get the hun- 
 dreds still due me? " 
 
 " That depends upon how docile you are." 
 
 Into her eyes flashed murderous hate. He 
 knew the look it had been shot at him from the 
 eyes of other women. 
 
 " I am going out for an hour. If you are not 
 dressed and smiling when I get back, I'll kick a 
 grin or two out of you." 
 
 A few minutes later she went down a back- 
 stairs. 
 
 " Mary, Mary Sullivan," she called softly. 
 
 " Here I am," came from an inner room. 
 
 " Mary, will you lend me your long gray coat 
 and black hat and veil for half an hour? I'll 
 leave my short blue coat and hat for you." 
 
 " Sure ! Have the Cops been butting in? " 
 
 " Yes, but I'll fool them a bunch." 
 
 When Max returned, Rebecca was still absent. 
 
 Presently the door opened. Max was obliged 
 to explain to the caller that the lady had been 
 suddenly summoned to the bedside of her dying 
 father. Four times had he been required to 
 make this sad statement and his face had become
 
 22 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 as white as his collar. He reached for his cane 
 and as he fondled it he murmured, " When she 
 does come, I'll beat the life out of her ! " 
 The cane was never used.
 
 II 
 
 John and Anna sat on the kitchen door step 
 looking out on a dirty alley. It might just as 
 truthfully be said that they sat in the doorway 
 of the parlor or bedroom, for it was all of these; 
 the only room for the housing of four people 
 two children and their parents. 
 
 Anna was eleven years old ; John was " four 
 going on five." Their bodies were round as 
 suckling pigs, and their cheeks, red as the red, 
 red rose. They laughed often. If you would 
 know what glee-producing power lies in a kitchen 
 door step and a filthy alley, ask your own little 
 Peggy, for there is a knowledge that dims as ex- 
 perience widens. 
 
 Just inside the door was a mother ; her cheeks 
 were redder still ; eyes and chest were caverns. 
 A hundred months of coughing had ploughed a 
 hundred furrows on face and hands. Omnipo- 
 tent, that cough had changed a landscape of 
 brook and meadow for one of ash and tin cans ; 
 it had transformed a cushion of thick, green 
 grass into a greasy kitchen step ; it had, ten years 
 23
 
 24 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 before, removed husband, wife and baby from a 
 village tailor shop to a tiny half-supporting farm. 
 But there were vegetables and fruit the year 
 round besides a cow and pig, so the baby thrived ; 
 and a second baby grew and prospered. The 
 cough grew, too, and prospered with the jubila- 
 tion of such coughs. Its latest malevolence had 
 been to whisper of a miracle to be performed by 
 a free dispensary and a San Francisco alley. 
 
 Besides the kitchen door step and kitchen, 
 there was a shop door step and shop the other 
 half of this two-room shack. On the shop door 
 were letters, maimed but not halt for they 
 ran; bumped right into each other. Yet, if the 
 passerby could mentally wedge in the necessary 
 hyphens, he might make the legend read : 
 " Cleaning and Repairing Neatly Done." 
 At night Cleaning and Repairing vacated and 
 Jack Warner took possession. The pressing 
 bench he labeled " bed " and spoke of the space 
 as " lodgings." A teamster without a team, his 
 business was less wearing than that of others in 
 his line. Nevertheless, his weekly dollar was all 
 that kept a roof over the heads of husband, wife 
 and two children. Cleaning and Repairing, 
 when it did knock on the lettered door barely 
 brought unbnttered bread for four.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 25 
 
 One month after locating in the San Francisco 
 alley the cough ceased and the worn-out mother 
 rested. Nothing was changed. 
 
 Two children sat on the door step and there 
 were still three at the table. 
 
 A few weeks and the father went a cut while 
 ripping a begrimed garment and a tired man 
 rested. Nothing was changed. 
 
 Two children sat on the kitchen door step and 
 there were yet three to sit at the table, for Jack 
 Warner brought in bread and meat which Anna 
 cooked in childish fashion. 
 
 One night John and Anna were awakened; 
 Jack Warner was crawling into bed with them ; 
 he was cold, he said. It was an easy after mat- 
 ter, by threats, to bind to secrecy two children 
 who had no one to tell. 
 
 Two children continued to sit on a kitchen 
 door step, but they talked in whispers. When 
 they heard Jack Warner coming home to supper 
 they got up quickly and went inside. Anna's 
 eyes took on a furtive look as she cooked the 
 meat, while John's wide open and terrified were 
 ever fixed upon the man. At the end of seven 
 months a public school teacher heard of Anna 
 as a child who ought to be in school, and she 
 called. Through her, Miss Alice Duncan of the
 
 26 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Associated Charities was informed that there 
 were two motherless children living alone in a 
 shanty and she called. The following day, Miss 
 Duncan, with a co-worker and a policeman, took 
 the children away. 
 
 In course of time Miss Duncan drew out the 
 whole story of their lives. What Anna did not 
 tell concerning Jack Warner, Miss Duncan saw 
 implied, and by direct questioning learned all. 
 But Jack Warner, the criminal, could not be 
 found. 
 
 John was placed in an orphanage, but Miss 
 Duncan determined that Anna should have a 
 home in a good and loving family where she 
 would be enwrapped by the influences especially 
 fitted to her need. Miss Duncan's mind went 
 out to Mrs. Miller, a woman of wealth both in 
 dollars and heart. Other homes and women 
 were considered, but always her thoughts, like a 
 glad homing pigeon, winged toward the angelic 
 soul, who, though having two idolized sons of her 
 own, had found room in her motherhood for a 
 young criminal, because Judge Earle had said 
 that the boy had good stuff in him and would 
 make a useful citizen, if he were given a 
 chance. 
 
 Mrs. Miller had a little daughter about Anna's
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 27 
 
 age and if she would but take this heart-starved 
 girl into her household of purity, love and light, 
 as she had taken Philip Norder, Miss Duncan 
 foresaw a cultured, magnificent womanhood 
 blossoming for the child. Success meant such 
 stupendous results that she would risk nothing 
 by hurry. Not till the furtive look should have 
 fled from Anna's eyes; not till ringing laughter 
 should return to the spiritless voice ; not till they 
 had made several thoughtful visits to a childrens' 
 outfitting department would she venture with the 
 child to Mrs. Miller. 
 
 So the days grew into weeks ; the weeks into 
 months; and still Miss Duncan's home sheltered 
 Anna. When the child first entered the house, 
 Miss Duncan had a small bed placed close against 
 her own and regularly she tucked the little girl 
 into her nest, and kissed her good night. One 
 night she woke to find Anna sitting bolt upright 
 in the dark. Anna explained that she had heard 
 someone trying to open the door. Knowing 
 what the child feared, Miss Duncan assured her 
 that no one could get in and that the noise was 
 on the street. Always afterward when Miss 
 Duncan heard her restless in the night, she 
 reached out her hand, which was eagerly clasped 
 by a smaller one.
 
 28 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Hats off to you, Alice Duncan! and if there 
 are any plums awarded in the next world, you'll 
 get a handful. 
 
 At last one day did actually find them ringing 
 Mrs. Miller's door bell. Very kindly the hostess 
 took Anna's hand and very lovingly she called 
 her own little Mary to show her dolls to the small 
 visitor. 
 
 The children away, delicately, even cautiously, 
 Miss Duncan stated her errand, but no detail of 
 Anna's life would she omit. Full of tears were 
 Mrs. Miller's eyes when the story was done ; in 
 her face shone pity, sympathy and repulsion. 
 When she could reply she did. 
 
 " Miss Duncan, I couldn't." 
 
 Then she added, " Not for every dollar I pos- 
 sess, would I have Mary know that such a hide- 
 ous thing could occur in this wide, beautiful 
 world." ^ 
 
 Miss Duncan's tears were in her voice. " It 
 is a wide world, but not all beautiful." She 
 choked and could not go on for a moment, then 
 she continued : " Mrs. Miller, I am positive that 
 nothing but force could induce the child to speak 
 of it. People, most of all, children, do not roll 
 as a sweet morsel under their tongues, that which 
 is a terror to them."
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 29 
 
 " I couldn't risk it, Miss Duncan, I couldn't 
 risk it," replied Mrs. Miller, wiping her eyes. 
 
 " You have taken Philip Norder into your 
 home," returned Miss Duncan, gently insistent. 
 
 " That is different," answered Mrs. Miller. 
 
 " May he not instruct your sons in the tricks 
 and skill of criminals?" quietly argued Miss 
 Duncan, though already she read defeat. 
 
 " Oh, I hope not ! I cannot believe he would 
 so betray our confidence in him. But it is dif- 
 ferent, Miss Duncan ; my Mary is a girl! " 
 
 " In the whole natural world it is not differ- 
 ent," said Miss Duncan, the tears having reached 
 her eyes. " We have made it different by an arti- 
 ficial sentiment and we are being punished for it ; 
 but our sufferings have just begun; a cataclysm 
 awaits us nature's way of throwing down 
 man-made walls, and directly, or through those 
 we love, in unavailing travail, we shall learn the 
 truth!" 
 
 " Miss Duncan, you speak like a prophet," said 
 Mrs. Miller gently. " I can only hope that you 
 may prove to be a false one." 
 
 " I lay no claim to super-knowledge," an- 
 swered Alice Duncan, also gently, " but I meet 
 this ' difference, 3 as you term it, so constantly in 
 my work. The uplifting hand of men to men, the
 
 30 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 helping hand extended by women to men, but 
 neither reached out to women, that I have come 
 to see the handwriting on the wall." 
 
 " Miss Duncan, our purse is yours for any 
 needs of the child." 
 
 Alice Duncan rose, thanking her, and Mrs. 
 Miller sought the children. 
 
 Oh, Agnes Miller, put to your nostrils the 
 hand with which you clasped the child's ; is there 
 not the smell of death upon it? 
 
 Out on the street the full bitterness of her fail- 
 ure flooded Alice Duncan's soul. Neither Mrs. 
 Miller's purse, nor any number of purses could 
 buy the one great need of the child walking 
 blithely by her side; for Anna had spent the 
 rosiest hour of her life and was pouring into 
 Miss Duncan's unhearing ears descriptions of 
 mamma dolls and papa dolls, baby dolls, soldier 
 dolls, crying dolls, sleeping dolls and wide-awake 
 dolls. 
 
 A long month passed before Miss Duncan 
 could calmly contemplate a second choice. Then 
 she bethought her of Mrs. Brown, a wealthy 
 widow in poor health, who, with a daughter full 
 of years, lived in a large house without servants 
 Japanese help coming by the day as needed.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 31 
 
 It would be a chilly atmosphere for a live rosy 
 child but it would be safe ! 
 
 So Mrs. Brown's door bell was rung and Mrs. 
 Brown was willing to try Anna, who was to go 
 to school and do light tasks mornings and even- 
 ings. 
 
 A dungeon, called a basement, and three 
 stories were the bounds of the house. The re- 
 ceiving room, drawing-room, and music room, 
 with their pictures, statuary, piano, Indian bas- 
 kets, bright rugs and shining floors were fairy- 
 land to Anna. 
 
 The never-used dining-room attracted her also, 
 for a shelf running entirely around it held up- 
 right plates and saucers covered with flowers, 
 pictures, and gilding, while cups and jugs as 
 pretty hung beneath. Anna thought she never 
 should have time to look at them all but she 
 did. 
 
 A narrow passage led from china painting to 
 kitchen. Here was one window, one table and 
 one chair; the etchings on the wall were from 
 smoking fats. The bedroom opening off would 
 be Anna's. The back yard Anna's yard 
 was walled in by a fifteen-foot tight board fence, 
 of color, gray ; that there might be harmony, the
 
 32 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 kitchen and bedroom floors had been painted 
 gray ; and gray were the ashes in the stove. Cin- 
 derella, your aesthetic soul has been saved ! 
 
 On the second floor to the far-removed front 
 slept Mrs. Brown and her daughter, full of years. 
 So Anna lay down to cozy rest each night 
 vacancy in front of her, vacancy above her, va- 
 cancy below and a dogless yard behind. Sleep- 
 conducing thoughts of the big, dark basement 
 lulled her. The kitchen clock sang a lullaby, 
 with stroke twice as loud as in daylight, while 
 stealthy footsteps moved about the back yard. 
 At any rate, it was the same thing, for when you 
 expect footsteps, you do not listen for wind- 
 blown leaves. However, soon or late, the most 
 frightened child will fall off to sleep and those 
 hours of oblivion to the Terror, together with 
 the pleasant ones at school saved her. 
 
 Every morning the daughter full of years 
 made coffee and mush and carried them upstairs 
 where she breakfasted with her mother. Cin- 
 derella ate in the kitchen. Breakfast over, it 
 was Anna's privilege to take a very soft cloth 
 and, lifting carefully one of the beautiful plates 
 upon the unending shelf in the never-used dining- 
 room, wipe gently from it any dust, real or im- 
 aginary, thereon; the space upon the shelf was
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 33 
 
 to be caressed in the same manner, after which 
 the plate must be lovingly returned to its resting 
 place. This enlivening exercise was to be re- 
 peated with the next plate and then the next ad 
 infinitum, after which followed the manicuring 
 of the saucers. She was instructed that when 
 these, also, should have been put back to bed be- 
 tween clean sheets, she should beat Columbus by 
 a second cycle with the cups and jugs, and as she 
 could massage but a limited number before school 
 time she calculated that if she should live a thou- 
 sand years she could never hope to see them all 
 freshly shampooed upon the same day. Thus 
 Anna surpassed the most hoary philosopher in a 
 concrete knowledge of eternity. Having been 
 solemnly warned that a crack in a china land- 
 scape would constitute a felony, she always ap- 
 proached the crockery department with a cheerful 
 shiver. At half past eight, Red Riding Hood 
 took her lunch basket and started off to school, 
 where she forgot the wolf till four o'clock. On 
 her return to her boudoir in gray, she prepared 
 such articles for dinner as the full-of -years 
 daughter directed. When these were cooked, 
 each carried a tray full upstairs, where mother 
 and daughter dined. Anna ate in her own suite. 
 After dinner she washed the dishes dinner
 
 34 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 and breakfast went down into the creaking 
 basement for fuel, swept the mauve floor, also, 
 the yard of neutral tint. She didn't feed the cat, 
 because there wasn't any how she wished there 
 was. The laundry was sent out of the house, 
 but Anna was expected to wash and iron her 
 own clothes on Saturdays, also the handkerchiefs 
 of Mrs. Brown and her adult daughter, also their 
 aprons and towels and stockings. When these 
 were all flirting with her from the line, she 
 turned her back upon them to scrub the one chair, 
 the one table and the one window. Then she as- 
 sumed a devotional attitude, but it was merely to 
 wash up the dove-colored floor. Next she hosed 
 the cement yard, brought fuel from the dungeon 
 and prepared vegetables for dinner. That meal 
 over, dishwashing was in order. If, after this, 
 time hung heavy and daylight lasted it was un- 
 derstood that she would always be allowed, rev- 
 erently, with cloth in hand, to approach the china 
 counter. 
 
 On Sundays Anna sat with Mrs. Brown while 
 the full-of-years daughter went to church. Up- 
 stairs were the same bright rugs and shining 
 floors. Very slippery they were, too, as Anna 
 had once found to her cost by spilling a tray. The 
 Sunday custom was a cold midday dinner, after
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 35 
 
 which, the dishes being washed, Anna was al- 
 lowed the remainder of the day to amuse her- 
 self. To this end, she regularly seated herself 
 on the kitchen door step and studied color 
 gray. 
 
 If only John had been sitting there, too, she 
 knew they would have laughed and laughed 
 ask Peggy for the why. 
 
 One day Miss Brown said : " Anna, I bought 
 three dozen clothespins just before you came 
 and one is missing. Do you know anything 
 about it? " 
 
 Anna grew red, but made no reply. 
 
 "Why don't you answer me?" 
 
 Still no reply. 
 
 "If you know where it is, I want you to get it 
 at once." 
 
 Anna hung her head, but slowly rose. Miss 
 Brown decided to follow her. Evidently the 
 child was light fingered, and where the clothes- 
 pin lay hidden, might be other articles of value. 
 
 Anna entered her bedroom; Miss Brown was 
 at her heels. Anna approached her bed Miss 
 Brown a close second. Anna reached her hand 
 under the one little pillow. . Ah, the spoons that 
 were probably lying side by side with that stolen 
 clothespin! Anna drew out the clothespin
 
 36 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 wrapped about with a handkerchief it was a 
 doll. 
 
 Once upon a time a long time after the 
 clothespin disaster, after miles and miles around 
 the china orbit, after Sundays and Sundays and 
 Sundays of amusement on the kitchen door step 
 on a Saturday morning, Anna started out to 
 the grocery for a pint of milk. She had the ex- 
 act change she was always given the exact 
 change. At the corner she paused to look at 
 Mt. Tamalpais and the Bay. Tamalpais had on 
 her spring dress such a pretty, clean dress. 
 The Sleeping Maiden lay in her lap, looking 
 straight up to the sky with the sun shining strong 
 in her eyes. As Anna looked a great longing to 
 see Miss Duncan came over her. Many, many 
 times during the gray months at Mrs. Brown's 
 she had longed for Miss Duncan and the little 
 bed close to the hand she could touch when the 
 footsteps came. To-day she longed harder than 
 ever. Tamalpais was Miss Duncan and herself 
 the Sleeping Maiden. When at last she turned 
 away, the nickel rattled in the pitcher. She 
 stopped. A great temptation smiled. She 
 looked about her stealthily the old look that 
 Miss Duncan had worked so hard to efface. A 
 rose bush close to the street and an untenanted
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 37 
 
 house seemed to please her mightily. Hurriedly 
 she put the pitcher behind the bush and then 
 walked quickly to the grocery. 
 
 " Could you tell me where Miss Duncan 
 lives?" she asked the grocer. 
 
 "Miss Alice Duncan? Oh, yes." 
 
 He opened the city directory and wrote down 
 the address for her. 
 
 " What car do you take ? " 
 
 " Take the Jackson car and transfer to 
 Kearny." 
 
 The Jackson car! She would never dare take 
 that, it passed right by Mrs. Brown's house ! 
 
 Trembling, she questioned further : " Can't 
 you get to Miss Duncan's house by any car but 
 the Jackson? " 
 
 The grocer laughed. " I think you might. 
 Try the Sacramento, California, Geary, Sutler, 
 Ellis, Turk and then some, but the Jackson is the 
 nearest for you." 
 
 " What is the next nearest after Jackson? " 
 
 " Sacramento." 
 
 Several blissful months with Miss Duncan; 
 and though no word criticizing the Browns was 
 ever uttered before the child, in her heart Alice 
 Duncan wondered that the girl had not come 
 screaming to her that first terrifying night.
 
 38 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Miss Duncan's health was failing and she must 
 leave the city for a long rest, so once more she 
 set to work to find a " home " for Anna, to whom 
 environment became increasingly important as 
 childhood was left behind. 
 
 All hope of obtaining the care so much needed 
 by the girl, and the love of which she was so 
 Worthy, had long since been abandoned by Miss 
 Duncan. She must be content if the affiliation? 
 were sound. She found a little more. 
 
 The Merrills lived in a top story flat; had an 
 old Chinese servant and a two-year-old baby. 
 It would be Anna's work to attend the baby out 
 of school hours. The baby worked her redemp- 
 tion by removing, once and for all, the tempta- 
 tion to steal a clothespin. Very soon Baby 
 Frank loved this other fellow's sister better than 
 he loved his mother as is the way of sons. 
 He was no feather weight and Anna was always 
 tired out by bed time, but she had a snug little 
 bed in the nursery and slept like a log for there 
 was no empty basement, no vacant upstairs, no 
 dark back yard leering in at her window and baby 
 Frank's bed touched hers. 
 
 After a few months of Anna's willing spirit, 
 Mrs. Merrill decided that she and the girl could 
 " manage it alone," though which one was to
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 39 
 
 be alone did not then appear. Ah Wah went 
 down the two flights of stairs with his pay, his 
 pig tail and disgust. Mrs. Merrill sat down in 
 a rocker with pencil and paper to figure out the 
 number of extra hats and suits Wah's salary 
 would afford her. 
 
 It was arranged that Anna should, after school 
 each day, prepare the vegetables, set the table 
 for dinner and then take care of Baby Frank 
 while Mrs. Merrill did the rest. Sometimes 
 Mrs. Merrill found it necessary to do some shop- 
 ping after school, at which time she assured 
 Anna: " I'll be back in time to get dinner, but 
 if I should be a little late, just put the roast in 
 the oven and start the vegetables cooking 1 
 sometimes the cars are stalled, you know." 
 
 How those cars acted! From three to four 
 nights a week and all day Saturday they balked. 
 
 In course of time, cook, nurse and laundress 
 came to cost only the board and clothes of a 
 school girl. 
 
 On Sundays, Anna was allowed to go out from 
 two o'clock till five, after which she remained 
 with Baby Frank, while Mr. and Mrs. Merrill 
 went down town to a French dinner and finished 
 out the evening at the theatre or by a trip across 
 the Bay to Mrs. Merrill's mother.
 
 40 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 On one of these Sunday evenings Anna had 
 a birthday party for herself to which Baby 
 Frank was invited. Mrs. Merrill had allowed 
 her to make a cake and given her fourteen can- 
 dles for it. The party ate every slice of the 
 cake, then picked up some pieces which had fallen 
 to the floor and swallowed them and lastly raked 
 together the crumbs on the table and consumed 
 them and never got sick at all. 
 
 There was no place that lured Anna like Gol- 
 den Gate Park. The lovely walks; the beautiful 
 flowers; the music; and very often schoolmates. 
 The Sunday following the birthday party found 
 her in the Park sitting on a bench near the merry- 
 go-round. People passed her in dozens, half 
 dozens, triplets and single. 
 
 One single was a boy about sixteen years of 
 age. He noticed Anna, hesitated, then some- 
 what timidly approached her bench and seated 
 himself at the extreme end from her. He was 
 a beautiful boy and so thought Anna. She 
 was a very sweet- faced girl and he had eyes 
 to see. After a lengthy silence he said in a low 
 voice, " Do you like that ? " pointing to the 
 merry-go-round. 
 
 " Yes," from Anna, also in a low tone. 
 
 "Will you?" he asked.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 41 
 
 "Yes," said she. 
 
 Arrived at the whirling pleasure, he helped 
 her into a seat, then got in beside her. Several 
 times, as they flew around and around, their 
 shoulders touched as they were jostled together, 
 and through their bodies passed a thrill such as 
 neither had ever before felt. Each looked at 
 the other for explanation but neither spoke. 
 When they had ridden their money's worth, the 
 boy paid another fare and on they circled. And 
 yet another fare he paid. Finally they alighted 
 and without comment walked away together. 
 By flower beds, by people sitting, by people 
 riding, over rustic bridges, past the deer, up a 
 knoll, down an incline, where to aid her he ex- 
 tended his hand, which meeting hers sent again 
 that glad, mysterious thrill through them both. 
 At the music stand they sat down and listened 
 silently. After listening for well they could 
 not have told you whether it was a minute or 
 a ^year ; at any rate, there did come a time when 
 they arose and walked again; past people they 
 did not see, by birds they did not hear. They 
 communed with each other but did not talk. 
 There came a time no, time did not exist. 
 Well, at last Anna came out of her trance and 
 asked what o'clock it was. The boy took out
 
 42 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 his watch and held it for her to see. Her face 
 went white. 
 
 " Six o'clock ! " she gasped. 
 
 " What difference does that make? " he asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 "Oh, hurry, hurry!" she, running. 
 
 He followed her lead to a street ;:ar which 
 they boarded sitting outside, shoulder to shoul- 
 der, as in the ever-to-be-loved merry-go-round., 
 The happy thrill came, too, though fear tried to 
 thrust it out. 
 
 "Why must you hurry so?" asked the boy 
 gently. 
 
 " They were going with a party of friends to 
 a down-town dinner, and oh, I shall be late! " 
 
 " Who are ' they ' ? " he inquired, in the same 
 gentle manner. 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. Merrill." 
 
 " Your parents? " 
 
 " Oh, no, I live there and assist Mrs. Merrill. 
 My parents are dead." 
 
 " Ah, you are more sorrowful than I ! " he 
 said pityingly. " My mother is dead, but I have 
 a father, the best father in all the countries of 
 the world. I would not say that if your father 
 were alive," he apologized. 
 
 Suddenly the car stopped. As suddenly it
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 43 
 
 changed its mind and started on; then capri- 
 ciously rested again. After a time the conductor 
 sat down resignedly. After another time some 
 passengers got off and walked and after a third 
 time the face of the motorman took on a look of 
 infinite peace. 
 
 Anna was four miles from home. To get 
 there afoot, would be to face a lost cause as 
 certainly as not to get there at all. Locked and 
 unlocked her fingers in nervous misery; deeper 
 and deeper grew the red in her cheeks ; brighter 
 and brighter the blue of her eyes till the gazing 
 boy wondered when she would reach the maxi- 
 mum of her prettiness. 
 
 Sometime the car resumed its way it nearly 
 always does. Sometime they reached the Mer- 
 rill's door bell, but it was sulky it would not 
 answer. Again it was pulled ; still it pouted. 
 
 " They have gone and taken the baby ! " All 
 the red dashed out of her cheeks. 
 
 "Why should they not take their baby?" 
 asked the perplexed boy. 
 
 Once and once only before had Anna spoiled 
 a Sunday evening for the Merrills by getting 
 home late; and the sting of the tongue feminine 
 and the force brutal of the masculine had left 
 an impression of value as the tongues intended.
 
 44 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Nothing short of a trip to Paradise could have 
 caused her to forget again but that was just 
 the journey she had made. 
 
 Every line of her dress, and the ribbons on 
 her hair kept rhythmical quiver with her limbs 
 as she tried to tell the boy that having been dis- 
 appointed in their plans, they had gone across 
 the Bay to Mrs. Merrill's mother where they 
 might remain all night. 
 
 "And they have locked me out!" 
 
 " Perhaps they have left the key under the 
 door mat," suggested he. 
 
 No, it was not there. He looked in the step 
 corners; it was not in them. He hunted for a 
 possible nail ; no nail. 
 
 " Oh, they are very angry," said the shaking 
 girl. 
 
 " This is not cause for great anger," said the 
 boy gravely. 
 
 " But they had reserved a whole table and I 
 heard them say each plate was to cost five dollars 
 in advance, so Mr. Merrill will lose ten dollars ! " 
 explained Anna. 
 
 " Pooh ! What is ten dollars? " 
 
 Anna looked at him in wonder. Then being 
 bankrupt in words and overstocked in tears she 
 produced the latter.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 45 
 
 " Why do you care so much, do you love 
 them? " he asked. 
 
 She quieted a moment. " I love the baby." 
 
 "If you do not love them why do you so much 
 mind their displeasure? " 
 
 Again she looked at him, again she wondered. 
 
 " Did they pay you a large salary ? " he con- 
 tinued. 
 
 Such a stupendous idea must be seen clearly. 
 She wiped her eyes. 
 
 " They did not pay me any money. Yes, 
 they did too. They gave me some money. I 
 had ten cents for car fare every Sunday, but the 
 rest of my pay was board and clothes." 
 
 For the first time the boy turned his eyes to 
 her apparel. He saw a neatly made muslin 
 dress, a pretty straw hat, a pair of well-fitting 
 shoes. He estimated the whole cost to be a 
 couple of dollars; but he was only a boy and 
 he was mistaken it would have footed up 
 double that amount. 
 
 It was growing dark; the street lights were 
 on; a passing policeman gave them a searching 
 look. 
 
 " Come," said the boy, " I will take you to 
 your friends." 
 
 " I have no friends."
 
 46 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 "No friends in all this big city?" questioned 
 he, puzzled. 
 
 " I did have one," explained the girl, " but she 
 had to go away for a rest." 
 
 " Perhaps you have acquaintances across the 
 Bay?" 
 
 Anna shook her head. A helpless look stole 
 into the boy's face, but rallying, l^e said : " I 
 know one man here; rather a good old fellow; 
 he will be able to tell me where you can be com- 
 fortable for the night. I am a stranger, myself, 
 in San Francisco." 
 
 When they reached the one man the boy 
 knew, the whole city lay between them and the 
 deaf door bell. 
 
 D. Porwancher had a jeweller's shop on the 
 ground floor. Above, lived Mrs. Lacey, de- 
 scribed by him as a lady with a kind heart, who 
 would not see the girl go shelterless for the 
 night. He accompanied the boy and girl up- 
 stairs and stated the case. Mrs. Lacey rose 
 splendidly to the occasion. She would give up 
 her bedroom-parlor for the night and sleep on 
 the wash bench in the laundry-kitchen, herself. 
 Mrs. Lacey insisted that she lived in a four- 
 room apartment. And didn't she? When the 
 folding bed folded wasn't there a parlor. When
 
 MRS. LACEY ROSE SPLENDIDLY TO THE OCCASION Page 40.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 47 
 
 it unfolded " sure and it's a bedroom." Like- 
 wise, when the potatoes were cooking wasn't the 
 back room a kitchen; and when the wash board 
 went " rub-a-dub-dub " wasn't it proof of a 
 laundry? 
 
 By the time everybody had become acquainted 
 it was so early that it was the next day, and the 
 boy asked Mrs. Lacey if she could accommodate 
 him also, for the night. 
 
 Mrs. Lacey gave him a look. She had given 
 up her bed to sleep on a board. Did he want 
 the board, too? She was speechless. She was 
 also wrinkled. She was fifty years old and 
 looked sixty. She had drudged in other peo- 
 ple's kitchens till she married she had drudged 
 in her own ever since. To kitchen drudgery had 
 been added the bearing and nursing of a dozen 
 children. Eventually, the mother and drudge 
 became the wage earner over a washtub; the 
 drunken husband had grown tired and gone, no 
 one knew where. The children, too, were gone, 
 most of them dead, and the living with nothing 
 to spare. So she was still drudging. She had, 
 as D. Porwancher said, a kind heart out of 
 no other sort can a satisfactory drudge be made. 
 She had also easy morals for others. Out of 
 her long and unvaried experience, she had
 
 48 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 evolved a philosophy for others. It was : 
 " Don't work ; there's nothing in it." 
 
 The boy stood waiting her reply. It came. 
 
 " The lady is ayther your sister or your wife. 
 Ye can take the sofy and she, the bed," and with 
 royal tread she passed to the wash bench. 
 
 They looked at each other the boy and the 
 girl. 
 
 " It is nearly morning and I am not sleepy ; I 
 will sit in the hall till daylight," said he. 
 
 " No, we can both sit up, and this sofa is 
 more comfortable than the hall stairs," said the 
 girl 
 
 They talked ; he told her he had become ac- 
 quainted with D. Porwancher through the boys 
 the University boys, he explained. D. Por- 
 wancher accommodated them on the side 
 literally, in the back room. It was pretty gener- 
 ally known at the " U " that he would supply 
 cash on any article of value, and he had the 
 reputation of being honest and easy in the matter 
 of time. 
 
 D. Porwancher had lost his family twenty 
 years before and cared only, so he said, to make 
 a living for himself and Girt. Girt was a dog. 
 The boy continued to talk. He was attending 
 the University at Berkeley; he had been there
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 49 
 
 but a month; he had never been in the United 
 States before; he was an Hawaiian; his father 
 had come up the Pacific with him and got him 
 settled in apartments with another student 
 Carl Stoft. His own name was Ralph Young. 
 
 Very tired was the girl and his voice began 
 to sound far off. When finally, her head tipped, 
 forward, he guided it to his shoulder and felt a 
 delicious sense of protecting strength. 
 
 But he, too, was tireder than he knew, and his 
 own head drooped toward hers and both slept 
 babes in the woods. 
 
 Next day, constituting himself and Mrs. Lacey 
 a Committee on Ways and Means, a meeting 
 was called in the Laundry-Kitchen Department 
 where Ralph transacted much business but 
 none at Berkeley. 
 
 The building occupied by D. Porwancher and 
 Mrs. Lacey, though new, had a history. It cov- 
 ered every square inch of a tiny oblong of 
 ground which cut a chunk out of a magnificent 
 corner lot. For a decade the owner of the ob- 
 long had held it at a prohibitive price to the 
 corner lot owners whose land it defaced. The 
 corner owners in turn demanded half the money 
 in the U. S. Mint before they would sell to the 
 city for municipal purposes.
 
 50 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Jimmie Bates had done business in the city 
 for ten years. Jimmie Bates had waited fifteen 
 years to marry one of three capable sisters who 
 lived in a distant county. He was thirty-eight, 
 she, thirty-five. 
 
 A bedridden mother and a debtridden farm 
 had held the three sisters loyally together. At 
 last a great idea was born to Jimmie. He took 
 the ferry and showed his scheme to the three 
 sisters. He would lease the oblong and put up 
 a building to be operated by the three sisters as 
 a Business Woman's Dining Room with Home 
 Cooking, while the upper floor would be their 
 residence. He planned yet further in his heart 
 but of that he said nothing. The three capa- 
 ble sisters agreed, and provided with their own 
 hands home cooking that was really home 
 cooked. They threw open the wide front door. 
 A passing stenographer strayed in; then a mil- 
 liner or two, and finally the best kind of adver- 
 tising began to tell free advertising. How 
 they came for the home cooking that was really 
 home cooked ! Women doctors, women lawyers, 
 women journalists, women brokers, women den- 
 tists, women notaries public! 
 
 One day the mother died. Jimmie gave a con- 
 cealed sigh of relief. Two months later, the
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 51 
 
 eldest capable sister went to her eternal rest 
 over-work and typhoid. The two remaining 
 sisters went back to the old home. Jimmie tried 
 to sublet. It was easy. Many jealous eyes had 
 noted the money -making business of the sisters. 
 They, too, would gather wealth from hungry 
 business women. By the most effective adver- 
 tising in the world failure to deliver the 
 goods there was no trade in a month. Jim- 
 mie turned the key in the wide front door. The 
 key remained turned. A boy was paid to stay 
 in the building at night he slept elsewhere. 
 Jimmie chanced upon Mrs. Lacey and gave her 
 two rooms rent free in exchange for her serv- 
 ices in showing the other rooms to would-be 
 tenants who never called. Jimmie reduced 
 the rent. Then he reduced it again. At the sec- 
 ond reduction, D. Porwancher took the ground 
 floor and put in half-length partitions. He 
 transacted business in front and kept house in 
 the back with Girt. Later three front rooms 
 above stairs were taken for business offices re- 
 quiring elegant furniture but no accompanying 
 manager. A boy, prematurely experienced and 
 immaturely developed, remained in the rooms 
 from 9 A.M. to 4 P.M.; if callers arrived he 
 telephoned somewhere and a " manager " came
 
 52 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 promptly in response, though rarely the samr v-.e 
 twice. 
 
 " A fake," said Mrs. Lacey, '' and a \vhole 
 gang workin' it." 
 
 Between these offices and Mrs. Lacey's four- 
 roomed apartment was a large empty room with 
 alcove and wardrobe closet. Three spacious 
 windows looked joyously out over the vacant 
 corner lot. Long would the sunshine pour into 
 those windows undimmed by nearby building. 
 Gloriously it rolled in as Mrs. Lacey showed the 
 room to Ralph, while informing him that it could 
 be had for a song. Ralph produced the song 
 and Mrs. Lacey delivered the room. The fur- 
 nishings would take several songs, but Ralph 
 obligated himself to procure them. Here Anna 
 was to remain comfortably till they could see 
 better things for her. To her, Ralph explained 
 somewhat. 
 
 " I can get whatever I wish but it will require 
 'a little calculation. You see, it's this way. 
 Father limits me only in cash. He arranged 
 with my banker to introduce me personally to 
 every business house in Berkeley and as many 
 reputable firms in Oakland and San Francisco 
 as I might desire and any bills coming from 
 them signed by me will be paid by the banker;
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 53 
 
 all bills to be sent later to my father. If I want 
 to go to the theatre, I don't pay for my ticket, 
 but sign for the price of it and that is sent to 
 the bank. If I paid five dollars per ticket and 
 took a dozen friends, father wouldn't care, and 
 yet he allows me only twenty dollars a week 
 which is to be used for board, lodgings and other 
 current expenses. When those are paid there 
 is nothing left to harm myself with. I think 
 father is terribly afraid I might be led into 
 gambling. Being already established in rooms 
 in Berkeley, a bill for furniture could not rea- 
 sonably be sent to father, but I'll think it out." 
 
 How he thought it out Anna did not learn for 
 several days, but on the very next one a great 
 load came for the sunshine room. 
 
 On Wednesday, Ralph thought he had better 
 make a showing in his classes, so it was not till 
 Thursday that he and Anna and a Japanese boy 
 set about arranging the big, airy room. School 
 saw him no more for a week. The Jap cleaned 
 the room and Ralph applied a wide border of 
 stain around the floor. Shades went up at the 
 windows and creamy lace curtains, a great cen- 
 tral rug was laid, the white and gold bed and 
 bureau were placed in the alcove, the white and 
 gold clock set on a shelf, a lounge with a score
 
 54 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 of silk cushions, a wide arm-chair, a low rocker, 
 a book-case, a center table and a six-foot wall 
 mirror were arranged as Anna directed, and a 
 half : dozen pictures were hung at her dictation. 
 When she wondered out loud how he could have 
 thought of so many pretty things, Ralph con- 
 fessed that he just turned the whole question over 
 to an outfitter telling him to provide everything 
 necessary for a lady's comfort, limited only by 
 the dimensions of the room. 
 
 " The pictures I chose myself," he stated with 
 some pride. They were water colors and en- 
 gravings of landscape and ocean. 
 
 " The book-case I left empty that you might 
 fill it with such books as you may wish." 
 
 When the room was all ready for occupancy 
 it occurred to them that they had assumed that 
 Anna would live on air. One corner was im- 
 mediately labeled " Dining Room," portieres 
 hung across it, and a shelf, gas plate, table and 
 dishes put within. Then all three, Anna and 
 Ralph and Mrs. Lacey seated themselves to de- 
 cide the ponderous problem of groceries. With 
 list in hand Ralph went to the nearest store and 
 in an hour the Dining Room was piled high with 
 packages, tins and bags, smelling of sugar and 
 spice and everything nice.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 55 
 
 Mrs. Lacey looked on in delight and kindly 
 said that if Anrta ever wanted to " roast ony- 
 thing " she was welcome to her laundry-kitchen 
 stove. 
 
 All being settled Mrs. Lacey got Ralph to one 
 side to remark that he ought to send for Anna's 
 trunk as she would need her good clothes to 
 match her " foine " room. 
 
 Ralph was grateful for the hint and asked if 
 she would accompany Anna for necessary pur- 
 chases. 
 
 " That I will," she answered heartily. 
 
 When he inquired the sum of money needed 
 she said, " Well suits do be dirt cheap just now," 
 and she thought that a hundred dollars would 
 cover a comfortable outfitting. 
 
 With the requisite money she and Anna made 
 the delightful tour of hat, suit and lingerie shops 
 while Ralph went back to school to try to buckle 
 on the sober, brown harness of study, after hav- 
 ing pranced about in green fields for a whole 
 week without so much as a head stall. 
 
 The Sunday following, Ralph came over and 
 he and Anna went out to Golden Gate Park. 
 Sitting on the green grass he told her how he 
 did " think it out." 
 
 " Carl Stoft and I occupy, together, a suite
 
 56 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 of rooms at Berkeley, as I told you that first 
 time we met. Unlike me, Carl pays his own 
 bills, and his father is rather liberal. I frankly 
 told him that I was writing my father for 
 money, but that I was hard up against it till it 
 should arrive. He asked me how much would 
 keep me afloat and gave me his check on the bank 
 for the amount. 
 
 Albert Young, at Hilo Bay received Ralph's 
 letter : 
 
 " DEAR DAD : the dearest in the whole world, I am 
 writing to ask for money. I have every personal need 
 supplied plentifully, extravagantly, but you will admit, I 
 think, that you do keep me short on cash. I want to do 
 something fine for a friend a friend in need and 
 there are some things that can't decently be done on credit. 
 I give you my word that this matter is honorable in every 
 sense." 
 
 A cablegram replied : 
 
 "Am cabling banker to place one thousand dollars a* 
 your command ; would just as soon make it ten thousand 
 if it would not injure you.. It's all right Laddie, only 
 don't deceive me. I couldn't bear that." 
 
 Delighted, Ralph showed it to Anna who little 
 guessed that those few words had cost the price 
 of a pretty dress. 
 
 Albert Young's first child was to be a boy, 
 to learn, side by side with him, to handle his
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 57 
 
 great interests in the land of the big moon. It 
 was a girl. The girl died. Not for four years 
 did hope spring anew. Then a child came. It 
 was a girl. This babe lived and seemed to be 
 the last, for seven years passed before the 
 dreamed of, the prayed for, arrived. 
 
 The boy had come! The beautiful boy! 
 The boy who grew more beautiful! The boy, 
 who at six years rode his pony like the wind 
 or a Hawaiian; the speed is the same. Who 
 at ten years could swim and dive like a fish 
 or a Hawaiian; they are peers. Who mastered 
 mathematics as most children do their readers. 
 Who at sixteen had become an invaluable aid 
 in the gigantic enterprises of his father. Yet, 
 Albert Young, holding his hand hard against his 
 own heart, had sent that boy afar to get the 
 best that learning could give. When Ralph was 
 eight years old, Albert Young stumbled upon a 
 diamond in the streets of Honolulu and knew 
 it to be a diamond. Hermann Burckhardt was 
 only twenty-eight years old when he consented 
 to accompany Albert Young to Hilo Bay as tutor 
 to Ralph and had named a salary so modest that 
 Albert Young doubled it. Hermann Burckhardt 
 was in the islands to study their geologic forma- 
 tion, so he said, but the only excursions he was
 
 58 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 ever known to make were in the company of his 
 pupil for the latter's instruction. Ralph's books 
 were wing, fin, blossom and stone; his class 
 room, all out doors. When Hermann Burck- 
 hardt had been at Hilo Bay for four years he 
 gave Albert Young two day's notice of his de- 
 parture. 
 
 Albert Young replied : " Hermann Burck- 
 hardt, a hundred thousand dollars are yours if 
 you will remain four years longer with my 
 boy." 
 
 Two days later an inter-island boat carried 
 Hermann Burckhardt to Honolulu and a Pacific 
 steamer took him thence. Whatever the bar- 
 riers which had corralled him on Hawaii, the 
 bars were then down and he sprang through the 
 opening. Was his name Hermann Burckhardt? 
 They never knew. 
 
 It was the fourth Sunday since Ralph and 
 Anna had tried to be sociable with the untalka- 
 tive door bell and Ralph had come over from 
 Berkeley, They were going out to the beach. 
 Anna wore a dark blue suit and hat which she 
 and Mrs. Lacey had selected. 
 
 They boarded a car and chattered till it reached 
 Sutro Station. They left the car and chattered 
 on till they reached the beach. They strolled
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 59 
 
 on the sand, they bought peanuts, they climbed 
 Sutro Heights, they stood on the parapet and 
 looked out over the ship-specked ocean, and when 
 the sun had swelled and dimmed, they entered a 
 town-bound car and chattered all the way back 
 to Anna's room where they had tea and sand- 
 wiches and then all the glory faded out of their 
 sky Ralph had to leave to catch the ferry. 
 
 Wednesday he came over with tickets for the 
 theatre. 
 
 " Oh, what a large picture ! " exclaimed Anna. 
 It was the beautiful landscape on the stage cur- 
 tain. " And such a lovely frame, just electric 
 lights ! " she went on to Ralph's wonderment, 
 for he had yet to learn that, except in God's free 
 gallery she had seen nor stage nor play. 
 
 " The ceiling's almost as pretty as the sky at 
 night it's blue just like it, and it's all spangled 
 with electric lights that are brighter than the 
 stars, only there aren't so many," she prattled 
 on. 
 
 The boy looked at her, joying in her joy, 
 though he could not understand it. 
 
 "Oh, it's a fairy story!" This when the 
 white-plumed caps of the men and the spangled 
 silks of the women came into view. 
 
 Hours later they had supper to the music of
 
 60 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 an orchestra, a car ride home, a little chatting 
 in Anna's room then Ralph must get back to 
 Berkeley. He glanced at the white and gold 
 clock, took out his watch and estimated : " Seven 
 minutes to catch the last ferry; time needed, 
 twenty; can't be caught." 
 
 He replaced his watch and fished in his other 
 pockets for gold and silver. 
 
 " Five cents for car fare in the morning," he 
 announced triumphantly, " ten cents for ferry 
 transportation," holding up the proof, " and ten 
 cents left for lodgings." 
 
 Then he laughed, " Me for Mrs. Lacey's wash- 
 bench." 
 
 " Oh, no ! It's nearly morning," said Anna 
 as once before. " We can both sit up and this 
 room is more comfortable than the kitchen." 
 
 But it was different. Then she was sorrow- 
 ful and he sorry. Now they were both happy, 
 happy, happy!
 
 Ill 
 
 In time, it came to be Anna's custom, if she 
 awoke, to slip on a pretty kimono and make a 
 cup of coffee for Ralph before he left for school, 
 but if she slept, he kissed her very lightly and 
 went out with a soft " Aloha ! " 
 
 " Do you like Grand Opera ? " he asked her 
 one evening. 
 
 Anna didn't know, she had never heard one. 
 
 " You shall have a chance to find out." 
 
 The next week she discovered that she liked 
 it she was certain of it; it was angel land and 
 every angel had a good voice. 
 
 Ralph did not give his undivided attention to 
 the angels. He was perfectly conscious of the 
 girl at his side. There was not a prettier one 
 in sight but they were all better dressed! A 
 fact he could not understand when he knew her 
 clothes to be new, up-to-date and of the best 
 material. He set to work to " think it out " and 
 he did. Anna was in a street suit, the others in 
 full evening dress! 
 
 They talked it over that night and next day 
 61
 
 62 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Anna and Mrs. Lacey undertook another en- 
 trancing expedition. 
 
 The following evening Anna lay sound asleep 
 on the lounge of silken pillows while Ralph sat 
 digging at school work which had piled the 
 higher from his previous night's neglect. 
 
 When he returned from school next day he 
 opened the door upon a strange woman sitting in 
 the big arm-chair. Her head drooped forward 
 and a large hat shaded her face. No common 
 person, she! Her clothes proclaimed taste and 
 money. A pale blue silk dress peeped from a 
 long, white cloak and the white hat was covered 
 with ostrich tips. He couldn't " think it out." 
 When he had stood irresolute as long as the lady 
 thought proper, she sprang up and threw her 
 arms about his neck. From behind the Dining 
 Room portieres came a hearty, boisterous laugh, 
 while between the curtains poked Mrs. Lacey's 
 head. 
 
 " Do you like them ? " asked the lady in white. 
 
 Ralph looked her over and approved and at 
 the opera that night he compared her with the 
 best dressers and was satisfied. 
 
 "What does 'Aloha' mean?" asked Anna 
 one morning, as Ralph was leaving her with the 
 word on his lips.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 63 
 
 With his hand on the door knob he paused: 
 "Why, 'Aloha' means everything that is kind and 
 nothing that is not. It means ' Good day ' ; it 
 means ' Good-bye ' ; ' it means friendliness ; it 
 means, ' I love you ' ; but unlike the word ' love,' 
 it can be sent through any third person, from 
 anyone to anyone, without offense, because it sig- 
 nifies whatever the receiver interprets it to say, 
 with the certitude that only kindness is intended. 
 Is it clear, Anna? " 
 
 Being assured that it was, he hurried on to 
 school. 
 
 One Sunday they took an automobile ride, 
 stopping at the orphanage for John, who sat with 
 the chauffeur. Wildly flew John's hair, ditto 
 his tongue, likewise his head in attempts to see 
 both sides of the street at once. It was John's 
 habit each time he met Anna, to tell her that 
 when he got big he would buy a house for her ; 
 to-day he added, " and a automobile." 
 
 On his return from school one afternoon 
 Ralph found Anna darning a pair of his socks. 
 
 " Oh, throw the things away ! I wouldn't 
 wear them, dear, if you did repair them," he ex- 
 plained. " I don't think they would feel good. 
 I never have worn a mended pair." 
 
 One dav Anna mounted the stairs of the For-
 
 64 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 wancher-Lacey house just ahead of on'e of the 
 many " managers " of the offices adjoining her 
 room. At the top he paused till she entered the 
 Middle Room. 
 
 Though she closed her door, he remained 
 standing watching it; but she did not reappear. 
 He paced back and forth past the door, still it 
 did not open. Finally, he sauntered down the 
 corridor to the laundry-kitchen firm. The soap- 
 suds lady was communing with the wash-board 
 in front, oblivious of the apparition at her 
 back. 
 
 Without preliminaries he said, " Who's the 
 little peach in the middle room? " 
 
 The wash-board lady unbent her back ; the un- 
 bent lady faced him. The straightened-up lady 
 answered him, " It's me niece ! " 
 
 " Oh, there's a watchdog in the case, is there? " 
 But he left. " Business " called him to the of- 
 fices the next day and the next and for many 
 days. In time he chanced to see Ralph enter 
 with ease the door so persistently closed. 
 
 " Ah ! the man in the case," he proclaimed to 
 himself. Then he proceeded to the tub-bent 
 lady. 
 
 " Good day ! " she heard close behind her. 
 
 Again she unbent her back; again she faced
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 65 
 
 him. He spoke again, " Is the swell who visits 
 the middle room, your nephew ? " 
 
 The lady of the foaming tubs put her hands 
 on her hips. " It's a young man what is keepin' 
 company with me niece with me corjil ap- 
 proval." 
 
 " And endorsed by the police," added the 
 " manager " of the empty offices. 
 
 One day Anna came home from shopping and 
 found Ralph at study in the big arm-chair. To- 
 gether they made oyster soup and a salad ; opened 
 a can of fruit and sliced the bread when they 
 arose from the meal there was nothing left but 
 the dishes. 
 
 In due time a whisper was heard. The city 
 turned its ear to listen. The whisper multiplied. 
 It was Christmas, Christmas, everywhere. 
 
 Ralph had asked Anna what she wished and 
 Anna had inquired of Ralph what he desired. 
 They had selected John's present and now they 
 were discussing suitable gifts for D. Porwancher 
 and Mrs. Lacey. 
 
 " I want to do the handsome thing by Mrs. 
 Lacey," Ralph had said, " for we are under many 
 obligations to her." 
 
 " I'll give her dress goods and gloves," said 
 Anna.
 
 66 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " I shall give her pure, unadulterated money," 
 declared Ralph. " I am always so short of it 
 myself that nothing looks so good to me." 
 
 That was how the soap-and-starch lady came 
 to find five twenty-dollar gold pieces on her wash- 
 bench Christmas morning. 
 
 On New Year's eve, Anna initiated Ralph into 
 carnival life, where they blew tin horns, threw 
 confetti, laughed at everything and joked with 
 everybody all down Market Street and back till 
 midnight, when they were glad to cover their 
 ears for a quarter of an hour while ten thousand 
 horns blew simultaneously, and every bell and 
 whistle in the city spoke. 
 
 Once Anna threw a handful of confetti in the 
 face of a policeman, which he caught and tossed 
 back, in the spirit of the night. 
 
 " It's jolly fun," said Ralph. 
 
 One quiet evening at home Ralph looked up 
 from a book to say, " Come here, Anna, I want 
 to show you something." 
 
 Anna tripped over to his chair. 
 
 " That's almost a counterpart of my home," 
 pointing to a picture. 
 
 "Why, it's just like Golden Gate Park!" she 
 exclaimed.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 67 
 
 " That's the Honolulu house, but the one I 
 love is the one at Hilo Bay. I was born there, 
 my pony was born there; Kalani was orphaned 
 there and became my playmate brother and 
 there Hermann Burckhardt taught me for four 
 years. Not far from the living house is my play 
 house. It was built before I can remember; it 
 is one story with open sides and grass roof but 
 covers as much ground as this entire building. 
 I have played in it with Kalani all my life when 
 the weather was bad. When we got well 
 enough acquainted with Hermann Burckhardt to 
 be sure we liked him, we allowed him to come 
 and play with us. There's everything in it, from 
 a baby's rattle to a trapeze bar. Everywhere 
 about are palm trees, banana groves, tree ferns 
 and vines, till places become jungles. And 
 the cascades! Baby cascades, grandfather cas- 
 cades; oh, cascades by the single, double and 
 dozen. One minute rainbows laugh at you 
 through feathery showers, and the next, the 
 sun's smile has dried your garments. Then 
 comes another tear, another rainbow and an- 
 other smile. Do you know, Anna, it seems 
 gloomy here without the rainbows. Hundreds 
 of them; thousands of them! Dear Rainbow
 
 68 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Land! And the moonlight! The moon is four 
 times as large as it is here. I never went to bed 
 on moonlight nights." 
 
 " Mercy ! did you sleep all day ? " 
 
 Ralph laughed, " I rode part of the night, then 
 I lay on the veranda and slept the rest of the 
 time. Some day you'll see my Hilo home and 
 some day you'll own it Anna, and we'll ride all 
 night under the big moon and the brightest stars 
 you ever saw." 
 
 D. Porwancher gave a party one night a 
 birthday party. Girt was nine years old. The 
 Middle-Room folks were invited, so was the 
 wash-bench lady. There was a turkey roasted by 
 D. Porwancher himself. Girt got the first help- 
 ing. There was a cake with nine candles, and a 
 candy dog on top. Girt got the first cut. D. 
 Porwancher poured the wine and all drank many 
 happy returns to Girt. Three glasses were empty 
 and one was full. An explanation was called 
 for and everybody laughed when Anna said that 
 her wine was bitter. 
 
 " I wish we could have a whole arrnful of 
 fresh flowers in a great big jar here in the room 
 all the time. I do love flowers," said Anna one 
 day. 
 
 " Nothing easier than that," asserted Ralph.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 69 
 
 " A bill for flowers explains itself. An obvious 
 interpretation would read, ' Fresh flowers daily 
 for bachelor apartments.' " 
 
 Next day a tabouret and jardiniere came to the 
 Middle Room and the day following six dozen 
 La France roses nodded at Anna from the " great 
 big jar." As fast as the " armful " expired 
 Anna proclaimed their successor to Ralph, who 
 in turn spoke their name to the florist. 
 
 On a morning after an evening at the theatre, 
 where Anna had again worn the beautiful white 
 cloak and hat, a fellow student said to Ralph 
 as they sat in recitation, " Say, that was a classy 
 little girl you had with you at the show last 
 night ! " 
 
 " Sure, did you think I'd have any other 
 kind ? " returned Ralph. 
 
 One Sunday in February a great idea came to 
 Ralph. He shared it with Anna. " Let's go 
 out to the Park and sit on that bench, near the 
 merry-go-round, and say the same things to each 
 other, walk the same walks, listen to the music 
 and run for a car at last, just as we did that 
 first Sunday we met." 
 
 Anna agreed merrily and the program was 
 carried out. That evening she seated herself in 
 the big arm-chair Ralph already occupied it.
 
 70 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " I didn't feel the same to-day in the merry- 
 go-round as I did that first time we rode together 
 in it." 
 
 There was an aggrieved tone in her voice. 
 " When our shoulders joggled together, I didn't 
 feel any little shiver at all." 
 
 Ralph put both arms around her. " Neither 
 did I, but this is a thousand times better; is .it 
 not so to you, Anna? " 
 
 For answer, she reached her arms up about 
 his neck and drew them tight. 
 
 There came a* stormy night when the wind 
 shook the Middle Room with ever-increasing 
 shudders. The unreasoning terror of the help- 
 less sick, exhibited by Anna's mother since the 
 child could remember, had engendered a morbid 
 fear, in both herself and John. To-night, added 
 to the tumult of wind roar and hissing rain, two 
 earth jars rippled through the house to accelerate 
 Anna's quivering nerves. She sat up in bed and 
 put her fingers in her ears; "but the periodic 
 tremors reached another sense. 
 
 To quiet her, Ralph talked : " Kilauea was the 
 first to rock my cradle ; night after night Pele 
 has swayed me to sleep; morning after morning 
 she has jostled me awake, but she never harmed 
 a hair of my head she was simply brusque in
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 71 
 
 her caressings. I'll tell you a story of Pele that 
 Joe used to tell me : 
 
 " A Kamaaina was surf-boat riding one evening when 
 Pele, five thousand feet tall, stood up to look over her do- 
 main. At once a strong desire seized her to ride a surf- 
 board. Shrinking her stature and putting on a girdle of 
 ti leaves and a lei of jessamines, she approached the man, 
 begging to be allowed the use of his board. He, supposing 
 her to be a bold woman, refused with an insulting answer. 
 The goddess waited, apparently humiliated, till he came 
 out of the surf when she sent a boiling river of lava 
 chasing him. For a while terror enabled him to outdis- 
 tance the stream, but soon he began to stumble and later, 
 falling, the melted fire licked off one of his hands; at 
 another fall it took a foot and at the third he never rose 
 again, whereupon Pele, to torture him sent the lava around 
 him in the shape of a dragon whose head and tail touched, 
 and which ever narrowed the circle, till at last it pressed 
 him at every point, sizzling up everything but his skull, 
 after which the dragon lay cold and quiet with wide-open 
 stone eyes, fixed always on Pele for her next command. 
 Joe showed me the proof, but all I could see was a smooth 
 round stone enclosed by an old lava coil." 
 
 He talked on till she lay down; till he knew 
 by her breathing that she had reached No- fear- 
 land. 
 
 Long afterward, the moon looked in to see 
 if all were well. She lingered as she looked, 
 and smiled as she lingered, while the lace cur- 
 tains threw flowers and foliage upon two chil- 
 dren babes in the woods !
 
 72 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 The very next morning Anna stood in slippers 
 and kimono begging, " Please, Ralph, please, 
 please! " 
 
 It was all about two eggs. Two eggs there 
 were in the Dining Room and there was nothing 
 more. She was insisting that he eat both eggs 
 because : " You'll have to work till noon without 
 another bite, while I have only to dress and run 
 down to the grocer for more eggs." 
 
 One evening, " Can you swim, Anna ? " 
 
 No, she could not. 
 
 "Well, you must learn. We will go out to 
 the ocean baths to-morrow night for your first 
 lesson. I know you'll like it and after you learn 
 we will go regularly two or three times a week. 
 Father says in every letter, ' Look well to your 
 physical development ' and swimming is one of 
 the best of exercises. Before I met you on that 
 blessed Sunday in the kindest of parks I had 
 intended to get on a base ball team if I could. 
 But after the ride in the merry-go-round, it was 
 ' no base ball for mine ! ' ' 
 
 Once upon another time, Ralph sat writing a 
 letter to his father and upon that same time Anna 
 stood looking over his shoulder saucy lady ! 
 
 " You always say ' Dad ' in your letters, but I 
 never hear you speak of him in that way."
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 73 
 
 He paused a moment to " think it out." 
 " Why, ' Dad ' is sacred ; to be heard only be- 
 tween us two. It was what he called himself to 
 me when I was a baby. When I grew older, I 
 refrained from using it in public for the same 
 reason that I would not call you ' Dear ' before 
 others." 
 
 Another day : " Can you play tennis, Anna? " 
 
 No, she could not. 
 
 " It's very easy to learn," he assured her, and 
 she found it so. She also found it the most de- 
 lightful thing she had ever done. She could not 
 get enough of it. Whenever Ralph got back 
 from school early, they took a hurried lunch and 
 boarded a car for Golden Gate Park, where they 
 played as long as they could see the balls. Then, 
 joyously tired and ravenously hungry they rode 
 from the park straight down town to dine at a 
 hotel grill. 
 
 " Can you ride a horse, Anna? " 
 
 No, she could not. 
 
 " You shall go to riding school at once." And 
 she did. 
 
 A couple of weeks later in a cross-saddle suit 
 of dark green she took her first ride with Ralph. 
 Often and again, they measured off the ocean 
 boulevard on horseback, but she never became
 
 74 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 entirely unafraid, so they never attempted more 
 than a gentle canter together, but it became 
 Ralph's practice to take one dash alone each time, 
 riding like an Indian straight ahead for a mile 
 and then back, while she walked her horse leis- 
 urely in his direction. 
 
 One morning Ralph had not been gone two 
 hours before he returned much excited. 
 
 " What do you think, Anna, father is here ! " 
 
 "Where?" said she, also excitedly. 
 
 " Here in San Francisco, at the Palace Hotel. 
 He came yesterday and went directly to my apart- 
 ment at Berkeley. Carl covered my absence mag- 
 nanimously, and father left a note telling me to 
 dine with him to-day at fwe o'clock. I'll be back 
 here to-night, though it will probably be late." 
 
 It was past midnight when he returned and 
 there was much to tell. 
 
 " Father said that business brought him, but I 
 half believe that he came to assure himself about 
 me. He is going to stay ten days and I'll have 
 to remain in Berkeley till he leaves, for he will 
 be dropping in on me at all sorts of hours. But 
 I'll phone you twice a day, and say, Anna, I've 
 just got to have you see him. All through din- 
 ner I was planning how I could arrange it and 
 I think I see a way to bring it about. Suppose
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 75 
 
 you go to Golden Gate Park next Sunday and sit 
 on the bench by the merry-go-round and I'll steer 
 father that way sometime between three and four 
 o'clock. You'll see him as we pass by, but he'll 
 never guess who you are. Oh! if I only dared 
 lead you up to him and say, ' Let me marry her.' 
 Not that marriage is of any consequence, but the 
 world demands it. Undoubtedly he would see, 
 in such a step, the downfall of all his hopes for 
 me, and the end of my education. But I know 
 how wrong such a conclusion would be. During 
 my first month at Berkeley I was homesick and 
 restless and tempted more than once to take pas- 
 sage for Hawaii. Then I met you. My con- 
 science pricks me when I remember how my 
 homesickness ceased; as though there were no 
 home to long for; how contentment quieted the 
 heart that had been calling ' Father, Father.' As 
 soon as I came here to live with you, in our dear 
 Middle Room, I began to study with my whole 
 mind upon my work, for the great Unsatisfac- 
 tion no longer distracted my thoughts. I know ; 
 I know ; but how can I make him understand ? " 
 
 Anna spent her days of desolation picturing 
 Ralph's father. 
 
 Of course he would have Ralph's glorious dark 
 eyes only there would be wrinkles around
 
 76 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 them. Like Ralph, he would be slender and of 
 medium height but stooped. He would have 
 the same black, waving hair streaked with 
 gray. The dusky red in Ralph's cheeks would be 
 faded out of the father's. 
 
 In Ralph's quarters in Berkeley Albert Young 
 sat facing the light of his life. " Well, Laddie, 
 you've grown two inches and gained a score of 
 pounds. If I had not interviewed your teachers 
 and been made proud, I should have thought you 
 had put in all your time developing the physical," 
 and his glad eyes devoured the form before him, 
 and yet remained as hungry as when the feast 
 began. 
 
 Sunday came to Golden Gate Park. So did 
 Anna. She reached the bench by the merry-go- 
 round at two o'clock, so fearful was she of being 
 too late to see the wonderful father. She waited 
 long. The bench grew hard as wood which it 
 was. Then it grew hard as stone, which it was 
 not. It was three o'clock and still they had not 
 appeared. It was half past three and yet no 
 sight of them. When it was nearly four o'clock 
 an old gentleman sat down on the bench and 
 talked to her a little, so for a few minutes she 
 forgot the unyielding disposition of the bench.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 77 
 
 When at last she did see Ralph approaching, she 
 was dum founded. The man walking by his side 
 weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. He was 
 a head taller than Ralph. He had blue eyes and 
 no wrinkles about them. He had yellow hair 
 she couldn't see any gray. His cheeks were red. 
 He did not stoop. 
 
 Just as they passed Anna, Ralph dropped one 
 step behind to give her a smile. Instantly Albert 
 Young noticed the movement and turned his head 
 for the cause. He discovered it. 
 
 " Ah, you rascal, flirting with every pretty girl 
 you see," he laughed, slapping Ralph's shoulder. 
 " But she belongs to your class ; I should not like 
 to have you take up with nurse girls. Fine look- 
 ing old gentleman, her father." 
 
 Albert Young went home, his pulses singing 
 songs. 
 
 " Joe told father to bring me home. He said 
 the United States was a very bad country," Ralph 
 was saying to Anna an hour after the American- 
 Hawaiian steamer had carried Albert Young 
 through the Golden Gate. 
 
 " Who is Joe? " 
 
 " Joe," repeated Ralph, " oh, Joe is my nurse." 
 
 Anna laughed amusedly. " Do men have 
 nurses in your country?"
 
 78 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Then Ralph laughed. " That did sound funny, 
 didn't it? I guess an explanation is in order. 
 When I said ' Good morning ' to life, my mother 
 bid it ' Good-bye.' Father sent to the United 
 States for a nurse and kept her till I was five 
 years old. Then he thought it better for me to 
 be cared for by Joe. He wanted to guard against 
 my being made a molly coddle. My sister was 
 twelve years old and she, too, looked after me. 
 Joe put me on horseback at once, first in his arms, 
 but very soon alone. He taught me to swim al- 
 most at once. Kalani taught me surf-board rid- 
 ing and to climb a palm tree." 
 
 "Can't any boy climb a tree?" asked Anna, 
 " and what is surf-board riding? " 
 
 Ralph laughed again. " I guess any boy could 
 climb a palm tree that can climb an eighty-foot 
 flag pole. Surf-board riding is standing on a 
 board on top of a breaker and riding in to'* shore. 
 It is not as easy as it sounds, and unless one is 
 born on the water, so to speak, it is almost im- 
 possible to learn it. Kalani taught me to swing, 
 too not your kind, just one rope and a cross 
 stick. The first time I rode off on my pony with- 
 out Joe's help he crawled away and. cried, and so 
 he did at each successive independence on my 
 part. He looked upon my growing self-reliance
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 79 
 
 as base ingratitude, but it never weakened his 
 love." 
 
 The disturbing but undisturbed father had been 
 gone many days and life was just as it should be 
 once more. Anna sat reading " Snowbound." 
 She had read it in school, and she had a way of 
 liking better to re-read books she had enjoyed 
 than to peep between strange covers. 
 
 " I wonder what snow is really like? " she said 
 aloud. 
 
 Ralph looked up from his book. " Of course 
 I don't know any more about it than you do, but 
 a Minnesotan at the University told me that it is 
 like standing in ice cream; so it must be chilly. 
 Miles distant on the tops of Mauna Loa and 
 Mauna Kea I have seen it all my life, but it was 
 a picture, not a temperature." 
 
 One day D. Porwancher was taken ill; so ill 
 that he had to close his shop for three days. Mrs. 
 Lacey put cold-water compresses on his throat 
 and lungs, gave him hot drinks and sweated him ; 
 while Anna made him soups and went to the mar- 
 ket for bones for Girt. When D. Porwancher 
 was well again he gave Mrs. Lacey a gold pin 
 and Anna a bracelet from 1 his stock. 
 
 One afternoon as Ralph entered the Middle 
 Room, Anna rushed at him and put her handker-
 
 So THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 chief over his nose. " Guess what I've rnacK- for 
 dinner." 
 
 Faintly from under the handkerchief, " If I arn 
 to be smothered, I won't need any dinner." 
 
 " But you'll smell it, if I don't cover your 
 nose," she complained. However, she removed 
 the handkerchief, but even then he could not guess 
 what it was. 
 
 "It's scalloped oysters!" she announced, and 
 led him over to the tiny oven on the little, gas 
 plate, where she opened tlr<? door a cradc and al- 
 lowed him to peep in. 
 
 " Stoop down," she commanded. " Doesn't it 
 smell delicious? " 
 
 " It smells like good eating antf then some," 
 complimented Ralph. 
 
 When they sat devouring the oyster pie Ralph 
 told her there was to be a great game of base ball 
 between Berkeley and Stanford. 
 
 " I'll get some good seats and we'll go, it will 
 be great ! " 
 
 It was great. Ralph pointed out the different 
 teams to her : " Those with a big ' C ' on their 
 breasts are our fellows and the ones with ' S ' are 
 Stanford's." He also explained the main points 
 of the game, and Anna experienced a bitter dis- 
 appointment every time a " C " failed to get
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 81 
 
 " clear around the square " at one run. All 
 around her buzzed a confusing foreign tongue 
 " a pop fly," " starting for the pill," " loaded the 
 pillows," " slam to short," " fumbled his roller," 
 " bat pounder," " main squeeze," " umph failed 
 to call," " walloped out of the box," and yet more. 
 From a prof undo basso behind, " What's he 
 doing? Embroidering hisself a shadow-work 
 shirt waist ? " 
 
 " What you talking about ? " interrupted a fal- 
 setto tenor. 
 
 " What am I talking about ? Why, you big 
 hick, can't you see that this is the made-to-order 
 place for 'em to pull the squeeze play ? Only one 
 hand gone, man on first, and a man on third, and 
 a zoop at the bat that can lay one down, like a 
 Jap auctioneer putting a fish platter in a plush 
 case." 
 
 On her left Tragedy moaned : " Well, it's the 
 bush league stuff they pull in this yard, believe 
 me," which was seconded by his Man Friday in 
 the words : " You'd nachully think, now, 
 wouldn't you, that they'd get away from the old 
 army game in a town like this. I wonder if they 
 think that people that came over with the price 
 at the gate, like to dig up with their cush to see 
 this old barnyard stuff?"
 
 82 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " Look at that big prune ! " commanded the 
 basso ; " only last week a pitcher hauled him a 
 soak on the bean for doing just that stuff. Oh, 
 well, he won't miss a broken bone or two in his 
 conk ; none of them would, the bunch o' Swedes ! " 
 
 Were they Swedes? Why, some of them were 
 as dark as Indians. She would ask Ralph when 
 they got home, decided Anna. 
 
 Vacation approached ; that period which Ralph, 
 in September, had felt certain would never arrive 
 and which now, he wished would never come. 
 His ideas of honor were rather high Hermann 
 Burckhardt had left his mark but he had a se- 
 cret conviction that could he meet Father Time 
 he would do his utmost to bribe that official to 
 turn back his clock. 
 
 Vacation ! and Ralph must spend it at home ! 
 
 The Land of the Big Moon! Bah! A San 
 Francisco gas jet was transcendently greater 
 it could show him Anna. Rainbow Land ! 
 Didn't San Francisco fog make a tender frame 
 for the blue of Anna's eyes and the crimson in her 
 cheeks? Was there a soul in any rainbow? 
 
 Vacation coming! Ralph must spend it with 
 his father. And such a father ! The heart that 
 forever said " yes " and the wisdom to some- 
 times say, " no." Ralph tried to think it out.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 83 
 
 He did not want to go and that ought to have 
 been shame to him and yet he knew it was 
 not. The time drew pitilessly nearer and nearer. 
 Reluctantly they thought of it, reluctantly they 
 spoke of it, and, as an evening alone did not tend 
 toward forget fulness, they filled each one with 
 theatre, motoring, or a long-drawn-out dinner at 
 a down-town cafe. 
 
 But there were some words which must be 
 spoken. 
 
 " I've borrowed two hundred dollars from Carl 
 for you and I will cable some more in D. Por- 
 wancher's name. Go out a great deal, dear, while 
 I am away so that you will keep happy and well, 
 but take Mrs. Lacey or D. Porwancher with you 
 evenings for protection. Isn't it strange that I 
 should prefer remaining here with you, whom I 
 have known only a few months, to going to my 
 father, who was my all in all for sixteen years. 
 There would be an intolerable ache in his heart 
 if he knew it. Have you been entirely happy in 
 this room, Anna ? " 
 
 "I? I didn't know before how happiness felt. 
 My mother was always too sick to take care of us 
 or play with us or even to sing us lullabies. 
 Sometimes she was too sick to speak to us. Then 
 she died. Almost as soon as she was buried, my
 
 84 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 father died, and then John was put in an or- 
 phanage and I went to live with Mrs. Brown, 
 where I was always afraid. One day I ran away 
 and went to my only friend, Miss Duncan; but 
 she had to leave the city, so she took me to the 
 Merrill's, where you found me. No one, except 
 Miss Duncan, was ever good to me before I knew 
 you. You're just like her, Ralph. I wish we 
 three could live together all our lives." 
 
 " Well, there are two of us who are going to 
 do that. For your sake I should be willing to 
 include your friend, but personally, I am quite 
 satisfied as the number now stands," and he in- 
 sisted that Anna sit in the big arm-chair 
 though it was already filled. 
 
 " I feel here just the way I did in Miss Dun- 
 can's house so happy all day and so safe all 
 night. I never had any pretty clothes till you 
 bought them for me and I never went anywhere 
 for a good time till you took me. And Oh, 
 Ralph, I never dreamed of ever having such a 
 beautiful room as this for my own." 
 
 " There is a far lovelier home than this waiting 
 for you out in the blue Pacific when I'm 
 through at the ' U.' Three years won't be long." 
 
 " This won't be bright or pretty at all when 
 you are gone. Don't go away, Ralph." Three
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 85 
 
 or four warm tears, not his own, trickled down 
 inside his collar. He brushed some from his own 
 eyes as he tried to kiss away hers. 
 
 Sailing day found Ralph on a steamer and 
 Anna, Mrs. Lacey, D. Porwancher and Girt on 
 the wharf. Anna could not see Ralph for tears, 
 and when promptly at noon, the boat backed out 
 of her slip, the girl dropped her head on Mrs. 
 Lacey's shoulder and cried without restraint. 
 
 " See, darlin', he's wavin' good-bye to you," 
 said Mrs. Lacey, but Anna's only reply was to 
 cry on. 
 
 Almost before Anna had dried her tears, a mes- 
 sage by wireless came : 
 
 " S. S. SKYLINE. 
 
 " Two days out. Weather fine, but oh, so homesick for 
 dear Middle Room. Aloha, Aloha ! " 
 
 When this had slept next her heart by day and 
 under her pillow by night, for two sunrises, its 
 mate came fluttering in : 
 
 " S. S. SKYLINE. 
 " Will land in three days. Aloha, dear Middle Room." 
 
 A third carrier dove : 
 
 " HONOLULU. 
 
 " Father is so glad, but I pine for the Middle Room and 
 one it contains, Aloha, Aloha ! "
 
 86 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 A letter : 
 
 " AT HOME, HILO BAY. 
 
 "Dear Hilo hills and fruits and flowers, but dearer still 
 the dear Middle Room with the one God-given to me ; for me, 
 for me alone. How almighty He makes the bond between 
 the two He creates for each other. Young as I am, I already 
 know, without teaching, that it is the most powerful force 
 in the world. I met a hundred beautiful girls in Hono- 
 lulu, but one face only looked out from each, and the lips 
 which spoke to me were the lips I had kissed two thousand 
 miles away. I fear I mope, for father has remarked that 
 I need rest which I do not. I need a change of climate 
 San Francisco fog. But I am going to brace up for his 
 sake and make him as happy as I can, with a heart that 
 has committed treason to him. Oh, I do love him ! As 
 much as ever? When I started for the United States 
 there was not one thing he could have asked of me to 
 which I would not have replied, ' Yes, father, I will, for 
 I am sure you know best.' Now, there is one thing, which, 
 should he request it, I would refuse." 
 
 The earth continued to rotate and each turning 
 made a day and even three months is only ninety 
 days, so if the world would only continue to spin 
 there would have to come an end to those three 
 times thirty days ; and there did. Then there had 
 to be three people and a dog at the dock; and 
 there were. The tears should all have been 
 turned to smiles at this time; and they were. 
 Upon landing, Ralph should have run down the 
 gang plank and kissed all four and he did !
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 87 
 
 And that is the way in which every sorrowful 
 parting should conclude. 
 
 " You've grown like everything, Anna," said 
 Ralph, when they were once more in the beloved 
 Middle Room. Thereupon, they both must needs 
 measure against the wall. Ralph marking for 
 Anna and she doing the same for him. They 
 measured to the same mark. Next, they had to 
 go to the grocery and be weighed, and Anna had 
 the best of the weight. 
 
 " You're not going to make any fairy, Anna ; 
 you'll be a Venus de Milo," declared Ralph. 
 
 About three weeks after Ralph's return Anna 
 gave a birthday party, to which she invited Ralph, 
 Mrs. Lacey, and D. Porwancher. It was Anna's 
 birthday and her cake required six more candles 
 than had Girt's. D. Porwancher gave her a chain 
 and locket ; the locket, he said, was from Girt, 
 who, though uninvited, wished to show his grati- 
 tude for the bones she had brought him when D. 
 Porwancher was ill. Mrs. Lacey presented her 
 with two yards of pale blue ribbon. Ralph's gift 
 was the talk of the evening. It was a bracelet 
 made of three hundred tiny yellow feathers, over- 
 lapped, like shingles on a roof. 
 
 " I had it made for Anna from a feather lei 
 of my great-grandmother," explained Ralph.
 
 88 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " A hundred and fifty little birds contributed to 
 this bracelet," he continued. " Each bird has a 
 small yellow feather under each wing, of which it 
 is robbed. The birds are not killed, but caught 
 and plucked of those two feathers and then set 
 free." 
 
 D. Porwancher had brought wine and all drank 
 " A thousand years " to Anna. She tasted her 
 glass, in recognition, but still the wine was bitter. 
 
 " Tell us a Hawaiian story," said D. Por- 
 wancher. 
 
 Ralph consented. 
 
 " The morning after Hawaii rose out of the water a 
 monstrous bird swam to its shore and from under its 
 wings crept brown chiefs with their wives and children. 
 
 "The sea gave them their all ; food, recreation and clean-" 
 liness. Daily the daughters of the chiefs came to its edge 
 to bathe and play. One day the maiden liwi heard a 
 whisper and looking up, all dripping and shining, beheld 
 a handsome young chief gazing admiringly at her from 
 behind a tall rock. 
 
 " ' Send the other maidens away, and I will show you 
 something beautiful,' he whispered, and as she hesitated, 
 he continued, ' I will lead you to pearls enough to net into 
 a veil that will cover you from head to foot.' 
 
 " At that she directed the others to proceed farther along 
 the shore to find a more excellent beach. When they were 
 alone he stepped forth extending his hand which she took. 
 He led her to the water's edge and as their feet entered 
 the surf, the hand she clasped became a flipper and the 
 young chief stood not upon two feet, but upon a furcated
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 89 
 
 tail, while his stature grew to forty feet. At the moment 
 she tried to withdraw her hand he raised her aloft and 
 dived twenty thousand fathoms down into the water. 
 
 '' Long and tearful was the search for liwi but she was 
 never seen again. 
 
 " In time another maiden disappeared, and then another. 
 It came finally to be noticed that ten days always inter- 
 vened between the disappearances. The reason was this : 
 the handsome chief who abducted liwi was the shark king, 
 and he seized the maidens not for his food that con- 
 sisted of the smaller fish but as a condiment; maidens 
 being an acquired taste. He ate but one meal a day and 
 as each upper limb of a maiden sufficed for a meal, a 
 lower limb for two meals, and the trunk for four, one 
 maiden provided him with sauce for ten days." 
 
 " The Hawaiians knew how to tell stories," 
 commented D. Porwancher. 
 
 " Oo-o," shivered Anna, " I don't think their 
 stories are nice." 
 
 " Tell us a ra,le love story," begged Mrs. Lacey. 
 
 " I'll give you one Hermann picked up some- 
 where." 
 
 " Akaaka, whose name means laughter, was a maiden 
 sixteen years of age and so beautiful that her father al- 
 ways left her locked in his hut whenever he was called to 
 battle or to fish. It was his intention to sell her to some 
 chief of great wealth. On one of his expeditions, a tor- 
 rential storm delayed him and Akaaka was without food 
 for two days. She wept and moaned hour after hour. 
 Toward dark of the second day, a young hunter knocked 
 for cover from the deluge. Akaaka called to him that
 
 90 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 the door was fastened from the outside. He quickly 
 effected an entrance and stood with kindling eyes gazing 
 at her smooth brown plumpness, her full red lips, her 
 gentle dark eyes, the curling lashes glittering with tears, 
 and the long soft hair like a feather mantle about her. 
 When Akaaka had told him the story of her imprisonment 
 he quickly opened his uki bag and took out sugar cane and 
 taro. While she ate he looked beseechingly at her and 
 when her hunger was appeased, exclaimed, ' Wilt thou go 
 with me ? ' 
 
 " ' I will go with' thee, my lord,' she answered, looking 
 back into his eyes, ' I will mix the poi and bring the cala- 
 bash of awa to thee all the days of my life, and if Oi-e, 
 the Death, calleth thee, I will still sleep by thy side.' 
 
 " ' Good ! ' said the love-stricken hunter, ' but to-night 
 thy father's kapa shall cover us and close held in each 
 other's arms we will forget the kona. With the rising sun 
 we will up and away before thy father returns.' 
 
 " The morning broke fair. Akaaka awoke with brood- 
 ing love in her eyes and clasping her hunter's hand they 
 both passed from beneath the ahos of her father. At the 
 very moment their feet touched the goat path her father 
 came in sight. With intensest anger he gazed at the 
 youth ; with deadly hatred he noted the new-born language 
 of Akaaka's eyes. 
 
 "'Where goest thou?' he demanded of her. 
 
 " ' With the lord of my love,' she replied, with a strange 
 courage. 
 
 " ' Back, under my thatch ! ' he commanded. 
 
 " ' Not so, respected father of my love,' interposed the 
 youthful hunter, 'even as her mother left her aged father 
 to twine her young arms about thy neck, so would Akaaka 
 wind hers around me, sheltered by my kapa.' 
 
 " The old man pondered warily a moment. Should he 
 engage in combat with the boy, he, the old, would prob-
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 91 
 
 ably be fatally wounded. He would temporize; ' I am an 
 old man, my son, and the old forget. All thou sayest is 
 true, but I had forgotten. Take my daughter, but take 
 her not so abruptly ; give an old father time to school his 
 heart to the age-eld recurring bitterness of fathers. Leave 
 Akaaka with me for the fulling of but one moon and I 
 shall have disciplined myself to lift her with mine own 
 arms into thine.' 
 
 ' Sorrowfully, the young people consented, and the 
 handsome hunter returned alone to his hut. 
 
 " Moodily, day after day, sat the old man in his door- 
 way. The great and wealthy chief of whom he had 
 dreamed as providing him with hogs and goats and taro to 
 the end of his life in exchange for his lovely daughter 
 would brook no woman already wived. But revenge 
 soothes and cruelty relishes. On the last day before the 
 fulling of the moon, he arose, staff in hand telling Akaaka 
 to follow him. Up the steeps of Kilauea he led her, lift- 
 ing her by her hair when she fell ; dragging her where she 
 could not climb. 
 
 " To all the males of his line, Pele owed a service once 
 a decade, in return for a battalion of warriors furnished 
 her by a far-removed ancestor of his during her long war- 
 fare against Kaiakahinalii who had sought to drown her. 
 
 " When he had reached the height desired, the old man 
 opened his uki bag and took from it a skin filled with awa 
 which he emptied on the ground ; following that he lighted 
 some twigs, and kneeling before the blaze called three 
 times upon Pele. At the third call she arose standing one 
 thousand feet tall. 
 
 " ' O Pele,' the old man prayed, ' dost thou call to mind 
 thy promise to the descendants of him who aided thee in 
 thy death grapple with Kaiakahinalii ? ' 
 
 " Three times Pele sprang into the air. This was her 
 answer, ' Yes.'
 
 92 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " ' Before thee, O Pele,' continued fhe old man, ' lies my 
 deceiving, disobedient, unchaste daughter. Cause, O Pele, 
 the land to break away on every side from the spot upon 
 which she rests, isolating her, by a chasm five thousand 
 fathoms deep, from every living creature.' 
 
 " Instantly thunder rumbled and Akaaka and her father 
 were rolled about like marbles while a crack circled around 
 the maiden ever widening and deepening till she sat alone 
 high in space with an unbridgeable gulf on every side. 
 Then the old man descended to his hut to be met at his 
 door by the young husband. Tauntingly, he described 
 Akaaka's predicament. The maddened youth struck the 
 unnatural father to the ground, then filling his uki bag 
 with food and drink, dashed to the rescue of his love. 
 She could see him flying toward her, but the grave all 
 around stopped him half a league away. He tried to talk 
 to her, but she could only make out that his mouth moved, 
 his voice could not be heard. He attempted to throw 
 cocoanuts across to her, but they fell into the abyss before 
 they had covered a fourth of the distance. When dark- 
 ness fell, he desisted till dawn ; then another day of futile 
 effort followed by another night. The third day he saw 
 her lie down. He knew. She was starving and thirsting 
 to death. Frantically he tried to clamber down his side 
 of the grave. At his first move he lost his hold and rolled 
 to the bottom. Bleeding, he rose and tried to traverse the 
 glass-like cutting rocks at the base. He stepped, he stum- 
 bled, he fell. He rose to step and stumble and fall again 
 and then he rose no more. 
 
 " Akaaka had said truly, ' If death calleth thee, I will 
 still sleep by thy side.' " 
 
 " That is not a nice story either," adjudged 
 the dictator', Anna. " If I wrote a story I'd make 
 it end happy."
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 93 
 
 The weather was perfect for tennis. Their joy 
 was without alloy; the lost was found; the Be- 
 loved, who had gone afar, was returned. The 
 swimming tanks claimed them often and their 
 horseback riding was resumed. 
 
 One Sunday all took their lunch and went out 
 to the beach all but Girt. They stripped off 
 shoes and stockings and paddled in the surf all 
 but D. Porwancher. Daringly they followed far 
 out after the receding waves. Cravenly they ran 
 for shore when the waters turned on them. Long 
 after Anna and Ralph had decided to rest, Mrs. 
 Lacey continued the game. Few had been such 
 days in her life. They ate their lunch; they lay 
 full length in the warm sand; they watched the 
 seals diving off the rocks, seals climbing up the 
 cliffs, seals wailing croupily, seals scratching their 
 chins with their hind flippers, seals yawning like 
 sleepy children, enormous males and little baby 
 seals all peaceably taking a sun bath together. 
 They lingered to see the sun cuddle down in the 
 arms of China, and they had the rare luck to see 
 what they might have come a hundred times to 
 see and failed to see; a ragged bar of vapor 
 had parted, cutting off the upper and lower rims 
 of the sun, and lo ! licking flames in the waters, 
 not beyond them.
 
 94 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Hungry and happy, they said " Good night " 
 to wave and sand and Ralph led the party to a 
 down-town restaurant, where they ate a delicious 
 dinner to the music of a full orchestra. 
 
 In the morning Ralph was up and off for school 
 betimes, while Anna swept and " straightened up 
 the house." 
 
 Another Sunday Ralph and Anna went over to 
 the Presidio. They entered through the Avenue 
 entrance past the little gate guard house, on by 
 the officers' homes, the hospital, and the rows and 
 rows of white tents. They strolled under shady 
 trees, over rustic bridges, by tangles of vine and 
 flower clear to the water's edge, where, far down 
 the reservation, the great Fort came into view, 
 guarding Golden Gate. Anna, growing tired, sat 
 down on a bench, while Ralph wandered farther ; 
 a young soldier came over and sat beside her, of- 
 fering some bits of information on Presidio life. 
 Whenever he spoke he smiled, but between times 
 his face settled, dull and tired. Anna noting the 
 shadow, decided within herself that he felt as she 
 did at the Merrill's, when she had Sundays from 
 two to five and car fare. 
 
 One evening Ralph said, " Anna, what do you 
 say to shooting the chutes to-night? " 
 
 " Let's," said Anna.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 95 
 
 " Suppose we invite Mrs. Lacey and D. Por- 
 wancher to go with us ? " 
 
 " Say we do," assented she. And so it was. 
 
 At first all four shot down the incline together, 
 Mrs. Lacey shrieking each time they struck the 
 water. After a while Anna and D. Porwancher 
 tired of it and went below to stand at the railing 
 and watch Ralph and Mrs. Lacey fly into the 
 water. Mrs. Lacey could not get enough of it, 
 though her shrieks continued. Her play time had 
 come at the wrong end of her years, but she gave 
 it royal greeting when it did pass by. 
 
 " B-r-r," rang the telephone one afternoon; 
 Anna flew to answer it. 
 
 " Hello," she called. 
 
 "Is that you, Anna?" came back Ralph's 
 voice. 
 
 " Yes, Ralph," she answered. 
 
 " How would you like to go up Mt. Tamalpais? 
 I've never been there. Have you ? " 
 
 No, she never had, and she would like it. 
 
 " Meet me at the Ferry for the 2 130 boat 
 then," he closed. 
 
 Anna hurried into her street clothes and ran 
 for a car. Ralph was awaiting her at the Ferry. 
 The boat chug-chugged them across the Bay. 
 They stood at the rail and watched the sea gulls
 
 96 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 follow, follow, follow, never tiring, never alight- 
 ing. At Sausalito they took the electric car for 
 Mill Valley; from there they climbed the moun- 
 tain in a bobtailed gasoline rail car. They read 
 all the little sign boards along the track. 
 
 " We are now rising forty-five feet to the min- 
 ute," said one. 
 
 " This is a curve of ninety degrees," another. 
 
 They rounded S9mething like nine hundred and 
 ninety-nine other curves that were ninety degrees 
 minus oh, very little minus. 
 
 " A snake could get points on twisting, from 
 this road," remarked Ralph. 
 
 For three thousand feet they zig-zagged up- 
 ward. When they were ready to return, the car 
 brought them all the way down by gravitation. 
 
 Again Christmas came bustling along. Clerks 
 were worked to death ; street-car conductors 
 thought on hari-kari. Beggars with one leg 
 stood on the corners ; beggars with no legs sat on 
 the pavement ; beggars with sightless eyeballs ex- 
 tended a pair of shoe strings; beggars without 
 eyeballs held forth a couple of lead pencils. 
 
 Again Anna and Ralph questioned each other 
 as to gifts desired. Once again they consulted 
 together over presents for John, Mrs. Lacey and 
 D. Porwancher.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 97 
 
 Once again ten thousand tin horns bellowed 
 the New Year in and carloads of confetti made 
 soft walking on Market Street. January passed 
 and the February sun grew bright. Thousands 
 of tourists lay in the warm beach sands. Some 
 coughed as they lay. Children of the wealthy, 
 nurse-guarded, flitted about in blue and red and 
 yellow, like flower petals in a breeze. Here, too, 
 came Anna and Ralph. Sometimes they pre- 
 ferred to canter by the crowd on their horses. 
 Anna sat her horse well, and, never looked lovelier 
 than in her pretty cross-saddle habit. The beach 
 loungers watched her far. 
 
 In March, tennis was resumed. When April 
 dropped her tears, Anna let fall some, too, for 
 their ghost, who would not down was abroad; 
 the skeleton in their closet was again stalking 
 about vacation was coming with brutal alac- 
 rity! 
 
 If they spent an evening alone in the Middle 
 Room both pretended to read, though each saw 
 only words which were forbidden to their 
 tongues. 
 
 One evening after many painful evenings, 
 Ralph broke tabu. 
 
 " Do you know, Anna," he spoke up suddenly, 
 " that I am strongly inclined to come right out
 
 98 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 with our whole affair to father, and ask him to 
 let me marry you and bring you home with me 
 this vacation. If he only knew what you've done 
 for me ; what you've saved me from. If he could 
 understand how happy we've been, and how com- 
 pletely alone you will be when I leave, he would 
 say, ' Come, Laddie, and don't come alone.' Oh, 
 he would be so good to you, if he could only be 
 made to understand. I know my father he'd 
 make you forget you had ever been an orphan. 
 He would not allow you to remember that you 
 ever were friendless. He'd love you because 
 I love you and finally, he would love you be- 
 cause you are lovable." 
 
 Again Anna sat down in the big arm-chair 
 already occupied. Ralph talked on : " We'd 
 land at Honolulu, and father would give us a 
 great party. A dancing and surf party com- 
 bined. We would ride our horses out to the pa- 
 vilion and dance till we were satisfied, and then 
 we would get into swimming suits, and play in 
 the water till we wished supper. After that we 
 would dance some more, and finish by riding 
 home in the moonlight." 
 
 " But I cannot dance," said Anna, regretfully. 
 
 "Is that so?" asked Ralph in surprise. He 
 did not know when he could not dance. Always
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 99 
 
 he had seen plantation workers dancing in the 
 moonlight, and always he had imitated them. 
 When he was fourteen he had attended dancing 
 school, but he had little to learn. 
 
 " We'll go to Faure Dancing Academy, to- 
 morrow night, and every evening for an hour, 
 till we sail for home. Home ! Anna, my home ; 
 your home ! Doesn't it sound heavenly ? " 
 
 Anna learned to dance. She learned easily. 
 She was fascinated by it, but she had to keep 
 her mind on the steps, while Ralph could have 
 solved a problem in mathematics and his feet 
 would have waltzed on, unconscious of the ab- 
 stracted brain. 
 
 The ghost had become a fairy; the skeleton 
 was clothed in flesh and showed the face of a 
 friend. Vacation was the dearest subject of con- 
 versation. Enthusiastically Ralph talked, de- 
 scribed and explained. 
 
 " We'll go to Rainbow Land together ! At 
 Honolulu we'll take an inter-island boat for the 
 Bay. You'll see the house where I was born. 
 Father had it remodeled according to Hermann 
 Burckhardt's ideas. Hermann said that the ac- 
 tinic or short rays" of light destroy living pro- 
 toplasm and that the roof of a veranda in the
 
 ioo THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 tropics should come down so low that a person 
 seated in a room cannot see the sky. So a low- 
 roofed veranda, as wide as this room runs en- 
 tirely around the house, and is supplied with ham- 
 mocks, chairs and tables, for we live on it, except 
 in rainy times. There you shall lie through the 
 warm, still days, for Hermann would positively 
 forbid your being outside from eleven o'clock 
 in the forenoon, till four o'clock in the afternoon. 
 He said that all living forms were distributed 
 in zones, whose boundaries were isothermals, and 
 that the human type found in one zoological zone 
 is found nowhere else. He said that acclimatiza- 
 tion is impossible, therefore, when migrated out 
 of its zone, extinction always follows, sooner or 
 later. He repeatedly said that the United States 
 is not an Aryan climate, and is fit only for Span- 
 iards, Japanese and Indians of swarthy skin and 
 pigmented eyes and hair. White men in India, 
 he said, by their intelligence, -survive as long as 
 two generations, but with all their care, a third 
 generation is unknown. In Australia, the native 
 white families are already dying out, and he said 
 we are safe in predicting the death of the Boer 
 type in time. Upon that basis, father asserts that 
 the United States need have no fear of permanent 
 German colonies in South America, for they will
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 101 
 
 die out and there will be no third generation of 
 such blondes to cause the United States any fu- 
 ture trouble. Hermann maintained that a spe- 
 cies is sharply limited in its northern and south- 
 ern extensions." 
 
 " Ralph ! how could you remember such a lot 
 of science? " exclaimed Anna, putting her hands 
 to her head. 
 
 " Oh, I didn't/' laughed Ralph. " You see, 
 father swears by Hermann Burckhardt to this 
 day and his religious stunts consist of the intona- 
 tion of Hermann's credos into my ears." 
 
 " Tell me some more about the house, but leave 
 out the zones," begged Anna. 
 
 " All right ; you're in the hammock, you know. 
 Just lie there and watch the white doves fly down 
 to the fountains; smell the thousand blossoms 
 climbing over the lattice, reach out a hand and 
 pluck an orange from a salaaming branch, and if 
 you hunger, Kalani will run to the far-removed 
 cook house and fetch you Kona coffee and cakes. 
 And I shall be a nonentity ! " sighed Ralph. " Joe 
 will fall in love with you and forget that I was, 
 am, or ever shall be. Kalani will spend all his 
 days weaving leis of roses for you, and father 
 will love me more thart ever for bringing him 
 Venus de Milo ! "
 
 102 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " Oh, Ralph, how foolish you are," and a hand 
 was clapped over his mouth. 
 
 When the hand was removed he continued : 
 " Then at night we'll mount our ponies and ride 
 under the glorious moon. Ride fast and free 
 over smooth roads under arching branches ; ride 
 gingerly over coils of old lava; ride between walls 
 of night-blooming cereus ; ride down into gulches, 
 where you will have to stand in your stirrups to 
 keep your mount ; ride abreast over green velvet ; 
 ride singly along rocky precipices. Ride, ride, 
 ride, till the red ball dies. Then we will return 
 to sleep on Hermann's cool, dark veranda. Next 
 day we will go out to the big pili-thatched play- 
 house and you and Kalani and I will pretend we 
 are all just six years old again, and we will set 
 up the toy trees and houses and animals and eat 
 out of dishes no bigger than a dime. There will 
 come a day," Ralph's voice took on a serious 
 tone, " when Kalani will prepare you a meal of 
 the most delicious food ever made by mortal 
 hand. He will bring you a bowl of poi! When 
 you taste it you will call it sour paste but 
 don't. Don't if you want Kalani to live. 
 
 " Oh, it can all come true, Anna ; I am not too 
 young to marry ; I am nearly eighteen and father 
 married young."
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 103 
 
 " But how would I ever get you back to the 
 Middle Room? Penned up in just one room 
 after all the sky for a roof? " 
 
 Ralph tried to look perplexed. Then he 
 seemed to solve the riddle. 
 
 " I see ! I see ! There won't be any Middle 
 Room after father meets Venus de Milo. It will 
 be an airy suite at Sea View Villa." 
 
 The days sped, but the faster the better ! 
 
 " We'll go home on one of father's boats," de- 
 clared Ralph. " Captain Cunningham is my 
 brother-in-law and we'll take passage with him. 
 The boat is a sailer, and therefore slow, but that 
 will be all the jollier." 
 
 A few days later : " I am thinking out my 
 great letter to father ; every day I think of some- 
 thing to strengthen my case. I don t want to 
 pen it till, I have made it so strong and so con- 
 vincing that he will draw the inevitable conclu- 
 sion that his ' No ' and not his ' Yes ' will wreck 
 my future. 
 
 " When I finish school, father and I are to take 
 a two years' tour around the world. Now, in- 
 stead of two people, there will be three. The 
 immortal three ! One for all and all for one ! " 
 
 One evening Ralph lay stretched out on the , 
 lounge among the innumerable cushions, while
 
 io 4 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Anna washed the dishes in the Dining Room. 
 
 " I am going out for a Turkish bath," he said, 
 rising. "If I am very late, please put Venus de 
 Milo to bed," and laughing, he went out. 
 
 When Anna opened her sleepy blue eyes next 
 morning, she concluded that it was late, for Ralph 
 was gone to school. She leaned out of bed to 
 look at the white and gold clock, but it had 
 stopped it pointed to six o'clock; but, no, it 
 was ticking robustly. The hands must have 
 caught. She got into slippers and kimono and 
 went to Mrs. Lacey's room. 
 
 " What is it, darlin' ? " came through the door. 
 
 Anna asked the time. 
 
 " It's just six o'clock," she was answered. 
 
 Anna stood irresolute a moment and then went 
 back to her room. She was dazed. What had 
 happened to Ralph ? 
 
 Had his heart failed in the bath ? As soon as 
 she lieard Mrs. Lacey stirring she went white and 
 trembling to her. 
 
 " Don't you worry, darlin', he's all right. He 
 just laid down to rest after his bath and fell 
 asleep. He'll be home soon." 
 
 At nine o'clock she said to the crying girl: 
 " He just overslept, and when he woke it was 
 school time. You'll be gettin' a telephone, soon."
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 105 
 
 Anna tried to kill time by dressing herself; by 
 combing her hair ; by making coffee she could not 
 drink ; by toasting bread she could not eat. Then 
 she went again to Mrs. Lacey. 
 
 " Now, darlin', be aisy, you'll hear by noon," 
 she solaced. 
 
 And so it was. 
 
 As the white and gold clock told twelve, some- 
 one knocked on her door. She opened it to a 
 messenger boy, who gave her a letter from Ralph. 
 It read: 
 
 " A terrible thing has happened. It will kill my father 
 and break your heart. I am enclosing a money order for 
 all the cash I can raise and will send more later. Oh, 
 Anna, dear love, dear wife, Aloha ! Aloha ! " 
 
 For an hour she read and re-read the note, then 
 she took it to Mrs. Lacey. 
 
 " He says he will ' send ' the money," she 
 pointed out. " Isn't he coming back ? " and she 
 laid her head on Mrs. Lacey's shoulder and cried 
 as once before she had done on a wharf, when 
 she had thought she might see him no more for- 
 ever. 
 
 " Whativer is the matter, don't ye doubt him, 
 darlin'," comforted that lady, " he'll come back 
 just as soon as iver he can and it's not his fault, 
 whatever it is the sweet young man."
 
 106 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 But when Anna had gone restlessly back to her 
 room, Mrs. Lacey had a word with Mrs. Lacey 
 " They're all divils, ivery one ov them," said the 
 former lady to the latter. 
 
 In the middle of the night, Mrs. Lacey was 
 awakened; she listened; she heard a sound; she 
 located it; she went to Anna's room; the door 
 opened at her touch. Anna's door unlocked at 
 midnight! The girl forever afraid of the softest 
 step outside her door! Mrs. Lacey found her 
 sitting up in bed weaving to and fro and crying 
 so unrestrainedly that the policeman on his beat 
 might have heard had he been on his beat. 
 
 She looked not up at Mrs. Lacey, nor ceased 
 to weave or cry. 
 
 " Oh, darlin', lay down and go to sleep. He'll 
 be back soon. Ye couldn't keep him away. 
 You're the light of his eyes, and he is the true- 
 hearted boy that he is." And Mrs. Lacey con- 
 tinued to talk and caress till Anna did most un- 
 willingly float off to No-fear-land. 
 
 Then Mrs. Lacey had another word with Mrs. 
 Lacey. " The dirty loafer! Sure it was meself 
 that knew him for a blackguard the first time I 
 set me eyes on him. The hathen Oriental ! " 
 
 Night after night, Mrs. Lacey was awakened. 
 Night after night she made her journey through
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 107 
 
 the door which was always open. Night after 
 night she sounded Ralph's praises into Anna's 
 eager ears, till the ears heard not and the blue 
 eyes saw but dreams dreams all happiness with 
 Ralph forever returned ! 
 
 Faint and fagged for want of sleep, Mrs. 
 Lacey, each morning, resumed her daily stoop 
 over tub and irons. At last it did occur to Anna 
 that it must tire out Mrs. Lacey to be so robbed 
 of her rest and she resolved to cry more softly 
 to cry with her face in her pillow. When 
 Anna expressed regret at the thoughtlessness in 
 disturbing Mrs. Lacey's sleep, that lady ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " It's glad I am, darlin', to have an excuse to 
 roam about at night. I am that restless that I 
 don't be gettin' two hours' sleep the whole night 
 through and I lay till me back is achin' from the 
 bed." 
 
 Great was Mrs. Lacey at fairy tales. 
 
 At the end of the month, Anna paid the rent 
 and waited. At the close of the second month 
 she repeated the two acts. The third month, 
 Mrs. Lace\ r paid the M iddle Room rent " Just 
 a loan to the sweet, young man," she told Anna. 
 " and well I know, it's big interest he'll pay me 
 when he comes back."
 
 io8 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 The fourth month D. Porwancher paid the 
 rent of the Middle Room. " I owed him some 
 money," said D. Porwancher, " and I know he 
 will be glad to have it returned in this way." 
 
 D. Porwancher, you have the essentials of a 
 novelist ! 
 
 The fifth month Anna sold the white and gold 
 bed. The sixth month the great floor rug went. 
 Another thirty days and the floor space was in- 
 creased by the removal of the bookcase, center 
 table and big, easy chair. 
 
 One day Mrs. Lacey met Anna at the ground 
 floor entrance. Mrs. Lacey 's arms were full of 
 groceries. At Anna's side stood a gentleman. 
 As Mrs. Lacey drew near he lifted his hat and 
 passed on. 
 
 " Why didn't you ask him in, dearie ? " said 
 Mrs. Lacey. " It's when we're lonesome that we 
 dp be needin' friends. Have you known him 
 long? " she queried. 
 
 " Only a week. He sat opposite me in the 
 street car one day and we happened to alight at 
 the same corner, so he helped me off the car." 
 
 Mrs. Lacey and Anna ascended the stairs. 
 
 " Come into my room, darlin'." 
 
 Anna followed her.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 109 
 
 " Was that the last ye saw of him till to-clay? " 
 continued Airs. Lacey. 
 
 " No, he walked on by my side that first time, 
 till we passed a cafe, then he asked me to have 
 lunch. At first I refused, but he urged me and I 
 was hungry, Mrs. Lacey, so finally, I went in. 
 He came back on the car with me. He didn't 
 ask permission to do so and I couldn't very well 
 prevent him, after eating at his expense. I've 
 met him often since on the car, and each time he 
 has begged me to let him call at my room ; but I 
 can't let him come into the Middle Room," and 
 down dropped the tears that had worn .Mrs. 
 Lacey to an angularity that was dangerous to the 
 public. 
 
 Mrs. Lacey pressed her pillow that night in a 
 deeply contemplative frame of mind. 
 
 " Darlin'," she said, next morning, " do ye be- 
 lieve in warnin's ? " 
 
 Anna didn't know. None had ever visited her. 
 
 Mrs. Lacey lowered her voice " I always 
 have them when there's a death ! " 
 
 She paused to give the idea time to get into 
 Anna's practical head. 
 
 " And they always come true ! " another 
 pause.
 
 no THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 "In all me life, they've niver failed me!" 
 further rhetorical silence. 
 
 " I had one last night ! " 
 
 Anna woke up. " Did you? " she asked with 
 widening eyes. 
 
 " I did that," emphasized Mrs. Lacey. " There 
 was three knocks on the head of me bed that's 
 a death ! There was two knocks on the foot of 
 me bed that means it's in me house. There 
 was a knock on the right side of me bed ; on the 
 right side, mind ye that means it's a man! 
 And last came sivin knocks ; sivin do ye mind, on 
 the left side of me bed that means," Mrs. 
 Lacey's voice repeated in a whisper, " that means 
 he's been dead sivin months ! " 
 
 Mrs. Lacey waited for the proper ghostly faith 
 to germinate in Anna, and then with every fac- 
 ulty at " attention," prepared for a final and vic- 
 torious onslaught. 
 
 " Now, darlin', isn't it a great comfort to know 
 that he niver deserted ye at all, at all, but just 
 died, the sweet young man ! " 
 
 A momentary halt was strategic ; then the gen- 
 eral advanced. " And ye are a widow ! " The 
 general saluted. " And it's no good ye will be 
 doin' him or yourself by stayin' here all alone." 
 The general sounded taps.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR in 
 
 The gentleman of the street car called. He 
 arrived late and left early. The first time he en- 
 tered the Middle Room, he put an arm around 
 Anna, saying, " Give me a kiss." 
 
 She stood passive, while he pressed his mouth 
 to hers. 
 
 " Oh, warm up ! " said the street-car gentle- 
 man. 
 
 He had the habit of coming rather regularly for 
 a couple of weeks, and then staying away for the 
 same length of time. 
 
 On one of his visits Anna said to him, " I need 
 a pair of shoes." 
 
 " Let me see your shoes." 
 
 She showed them. The soles were worn 
 through and the kid peeled off in patches. He 
 walked to the closet to see if there were a better 
 pair which she was hiding. There were no 
 others. 
 
 " You can get these half soled for fifty cents, 
 and a ten-cent bottle of blacking will make 
 them look like new." He handed her sixty cents. 
 
 On another visit Anna said, " There is nothing 
 to eat in the house." He crossed over to the 
 Dining Room and opened some cans. One con- 
 tained coffee, the others, nothing. In a paper
 
 ii2 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 bag was a half loaf of bread, on a saucer, an 
 inch square of butter. 
 
 " You should get a package of breakfast 
 cereal ; it is very nourishing and lasts a long 
 time," he told her, " and it will cost only twenty- 
 five cents a cake of butter, also twenty-five 
 cents; milk, a pint, five cents per day; one loaf 
 of bread a day, five cents. I'll fix you out for a 
 couple of weeks, then I'll be around again." He 
 handed her two dollars. 
 
 Months make years, according to the almanac, 
 and one day there came a day when it was one 
 year from the day of the Turkish bath. 
 
 Venus de Milo celebrated the anniversary by 
 crying. Crying the kind of tears that swell the 
 eyelids and make the nose red which also blis- 
 ter the heart and break the hold on life. 
 
 Toward evening, Venus put on her cloak and 
 hat ; also a veil. Then she walked back into the 
 laundry-kitchen department and put both arms 
 around the wash-board lady's neck and kissed her 
 twice and then again. From there she descended 
 to D. Porwancher and put her arms about his 
 neck and kissed him on both cheeks. She found 
 Girt and kissed him also. Then she went. 
 Where? To hell!
 
 IV 
 
 Far across the continent where they stand in 
 ice cream half the year, Grace Howells was walk- 
 ing slowly from University Avenue on to the 
 Campus of the University of Minnesota. As she 
 walked, she read from a book of red and gold : 
 
 " Unless you can think, when the song is done 
 
 No other is soft in the rhythm; 
 Unless you can feel, when left by one, 
 
 That all men else go with him; 
 Unless you can know when unpraised by his breath, 
 
 That your beauty itself wants proving; 
 Unless you can swear 'for life, for death' 
 
 Oh, fear to call it loving ! " 
 
 Partly closing the book, she left the broad way 
 leading to the main building and crossed the soft 
 green tJ sit under the majestic oaks. Reopening 
 the boc k she continued to read : 
 
 ' Unless you can muse in a crowd all day, 
 On the absent face that fixed you ; 
 
 Unless you can love as the angels may, 
 With the breadth of heaven betwixt you ; 
 
 Unless you can dream that his faith is fast 
 Through behooving and unbehooving; 
 
 "3
 
 ii4 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Unless you can die when the dream is past 
 Oh, never call it loving ! " 
 
 " Too early, Grace, to sit on Mother Earth's 
 lap her apron is damp from the spring wash- 
 ing." 
 
 " I guess you're right, Tom." 
 
 At which reply a strong hand reached down to 
 help her up and they passed on together. 
 
 Hours later, when she faced homeward, she 
 again opened the book of red and gold : 
 
 " Unless you can feel when left by one, 
 That all men else go with him " 
 
 "Where is he? Will I ever find him?" she 
 whispered. 
 
 " Oh, to ^eel ' That all men else go with him.' 
 How would it feel ? I have never felt it, and yet 
 I am not young." 
 
 No, not young; she had lived two and twenty 
 years ; and how she ached to look upon the One. 
 
 For a few weeks, however, she forgot the One 
 To Be for the One Who Had Been her father. 
 With failing eyes and shriveling lungs, he had 
 clung to his high stool and low pay at the small 
 desk of a little business concern and by sheer 
 bull-dozing had forced his coward heart to stand 
 by the pumps, had ordered the dimming eyes to
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 115 
 
 continue to see, till Grace should have finished 
 her college course and now, with not a drop of 
 yellow in him, those miserable subalterns had de- 
 livered him to the foe and Grace not through 
 school by a whole year! 
 
 Grace returned from the cemetery to several 
 things an empty home ; an empty purse ; a cer- 
 tainty of having to work ; an uncertainty of being 
 able to find work and the definite postponement 
 to an indefinite time of her graduation day. 
 
 Her first step was to leave the rooms for two 
 and seek one for one. Her next, to secure em- 
 ployment. In the latter quest she had two sur- 
 prises one at the ease with which office work 
 was obtained, and the other at the microscopic 
 salary attached. 
 
 She cried herself to sleep the night following 
 the surprises. There was not enough money in 
 the pay to buy clothes. How, then, was she to 
 save enough for another college year? 
 
 She was young, which is a synonym for inextin- 
 guishable hope. She felt sure that faithful, effi- 
 cient work would be recognized and rewarded. 
 But for her confidence on the last point it might 
 have been necessary to beg pardon for calling her 
 young, after her own statement to the contrary. 
 Intrepidly she entered her workshop door, but
 
 n6 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 with all that hope and resolution could do for her, 
 the work bored her. It was a repetitious, me- 
 chanical grind, which any child could perform if 
 trained. All day long in the mill she guided the 
 logs to the steel teeth. 
 
 The people bored her the girls, who thought 
 advertising rhymes were poetry; the men, who 
 had finished school at a dozen years of age ; and 
 most of all, the manager, who condescended to 
 her in grammar that would have shamed a 
 baboon, she thought. 
 
 " Unless you can muse in a crowd all day, 
 On the absent face that fixed you," 
 
 she repeated day after day, as she shoved the 
 lumber to the saw. If only she had One to muse 
 on, she might shut out the stupid faces about her 
 and the still stupider twaddle. 
 
 Then the vision appeared. It rose before her 
 in the elevator; He was handsome as a Greek 
 god, but so had been more than one university 
 athlete who had smiled on Grace Howells. His 
 clothes were faultless; but so was the apparel 
 of many a student who had striven for her 
 favor. 
 
 She knew him at once as the One, for in his 
 eyes sat Mastery. The others had begged ; when
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 117 
 
 the time came, he would simply walk into posses- 
 sion. 
 
 And the man? He felt that he had found a 
 suitable female a goddess for the god. On 
 her cheeks flushed girlhood's bloom, but out of 
 the eyes looked the woman, hungering for her 
 mate. As he gazed, he desired, and with him 
 desire and determination to possess went ever 
 hand in hand. He sometimes failed of his goal 
 not often. He held her eyes till they dropped 
 in surrender. He would not fail this time! 
 
 No more did the office rabble annoy. 
 
 She could "muse in a crowd all day, on the 
 absent face that fixed " her; but would she have 
 to " love as the angels may, with the breadth of 
 heaven betwixt" them? Where did he live? 
 Had he vanished from her sight forever? 
 
 , Never fear, Grace Howells! The Greek god 
 knows where you are. 
 
 He " happened " to be on the sidewalk when 
 she came down from work that night. The next 
 night it " happened " again. The third night, 
 and all the rest, he waited for her. He requested 
 permission to call on her and he called. 
 
 Grace's room, like all rooms of all girls, who 
 are artistic, intellectual and~poor, was a charming 
 little parlor when a friend came, a dining-room
 
 n8 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 when she set out her canned food, and a bed- 
 room when the folding bed unfolded. 
 
 On his first call, the charming little parlor was 
 made more charming by fresh flowers and the 
 canned goods were obliterated by new curtains 
 over their shelves. Rose-colored shades made 
 sunset of the gas ; the folded bed was a chiffonier, 
 holding photos and college souvenirs. The 
 kitchen table cowered out of sight, under a silken 
 spread and load of books. 
 
 She learned his name Merritt Jordan ; his 
 business, junior manager for an insurance com- 
 pany. His work took him out of Minneapolis 
 a part of each month. Every evening, when 
 in town, he spent in Grace's small room. 
 Always, before he left, she spread a dainty 
 luncheon. 
 
 At first they conversed or read to each other. 
 Later, one evening, as he sat fingering the pages 
 of a volume of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 
 poems, a brilliant scheme unfolded before his 
 exulting eyes. He would court by proxy. From 
 those throbbing sonnets he would read to Grace, 
 and she should reply in the impassioned words 
 of the most impassioned of women lovers. With 
 the same book of poems between them, he would 
 read :
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 119 
 
 " Love me, sweet, with all thou art, 
 
 Feeling, thinking, seeing; 
 
 Love me in the lightest part, 
 
 Love me in full being." 
 
 Then she : 
 
 " The face of all the world is changed I think, 
 Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul." 
 
 He: 
 
 " Love me with thy open youth 
 
 In its frank surrender; 
 With the vowing of thy mouth 
 With its silence tender." 
 
 She: 
 
 " What can I give thee back, oh, liberal 
 And princely giver, who hast brought the gold 
 And purple of thine heart unstained, untold, 
 And laid them on the outside of the wall 
 For such as I ? " 
 
 Periodically, Grace Howells framed her heart 
 in crepe for the days she could not see him, 
 hear him, feel him ; when all her occupation was 
 to " muse in a crowd all day on the absent face 
 that fixed " her, when all sensation was summed 
 up in feeling that, " When left by One, all men 
 else go with him." 
 
 For their mutual enjoyment he brought a piano 
 into her room. He sang, but could not play; she
 
 120 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 played, but did not sing. Leaning against the 
 piano till he faced her playing his accompaniment, 
 and holding her eyes with the mastery of his own, 
 he would lift his well-trained baritone in : " Love 
 Me and the World is Mine." 
 Again : 
 
 " Oh, wert thou in the cold blast, on yonder lea, on yonder 
 
 lea, 
 My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter 
 
 thee ! " 
 
 He was a dramatic singer an arm answered 
 for the plaidie. 
 
 Then again came those days of blackness when 
 he came not, to be succeeded by the flood tide 
 radiance of his presence. 
 
 Two must needs sit very close to read out of 
 the same book. Shoulders often touched, and 
 sometimes, even heads. Sitting thus he would 
 read: 
 
 "Red grows the cheek and warm the hand, 
 
 The part is in the whole ; 
 Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, 
 When soul is joined to soul." 
 
 He put it to the test. 
 Her reply: 
 
 " I should not love withal unless that thou 
 Hadst set me an example, shown me how,
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 121 
 
 When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed, 
 And love called love." 
 
 Then both to the piano : " Give me your hand, 
 say you understand, My Dearie, My Dearie." 
 
 Did ever lover before woo wholly in quotation? 
 Grace wondered. 
 
 " But the king may fashion his own path," she 
 loyally declared. 
 
 When the fact that he never spent an evening 
 with her outside of her own room, caused her to 
 ponder a moment, the very next she exonerated 
 him and accused her own heart of selfishness. 
 
 In her prettiest house dress, she sat waiting, 
 waiting after several days of having been " left 
 by One." Of a surety, days in which all men 
 else went with him. All men? Oh, all ex- 
 istence ! 
 
 With the blood sprung threefold into the pink 
 cheeks she waited. Waited, the saint with 
 adoring eyes. On its knees knelt her spirit in 
 renunciation life-consuming; waiting, watching 
 for the the softest sign of the Presence. She 
 heard, she saw, she felt. A tap outside, lips to 
 lips, two forms close seated and the book. 
 
 He: 
 
 " Love me with thy azure eyes 
 Made for earnest granting;
 
 122 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Love me with their lids that fall 
 Snow-like at first meeting." 
 
 She: 
 
 My own, my own who earnest to me when the world was 
 
 gone, 
 And I who looked for only God, found thee." 
 
 He: 
 
 "Love me with thy hand stretched out freely; 
 Love me with thy voice that turns 
 Sudden faint above me; 
 Love me with thy blush that burns 
 When I murmur, ' love me ' ! " 
 
 She: 
 
 " Thou comest ! All is said without a word. 
 I sit beneath thy looks as children do 
 In the noon sun, with souls that tremble thru 
 .Their happy eyelids from an unaverred 
 Yet prodigal joy." 
 
 He: 
 
 " Love me with thy thoughts that roll 
 On through living, dying, 
 Love me in thy gorgeous airs 
 When the world has crowned thee; 
 Love me gaily, fast and true 
 As a winsome lady ; 
 Love me for the house and grave " 
 
 He closed the book. 
 
 " Oh, you left out the last verse," she laughed.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 123 
 
 " That's a libel on my sex," he retorted. 
 " Why did Elizabeth fling that slur at men and 
 then lie down at Robert's feet? " 
 
 Grace's mouth spoke never a word, but she 
 lifted his hand to her lips. 
 
 With the mastery she loved he drew her to 
 the piano and with the lilt of a nesting thrush, 
 sang: 
 
 " Oh, that we two were Maying 
 
 Down the stream of the soft spring breeze; 
 Like children with violets playing 
 In the shade of the whispering trees." 
 
 Pink apple blossoms showered the earth as 
 she listened. 
 
 " Oh, that we two sat dreaming 
 
 On the sward of some sheep trimmed down 
 Watching the white mist steaming 
 Over river and mead and towr." 
 
 Two, just two, in all the world sitting on the 
 sward of some sheep trimmed down! 
 
 " Oh ! that we two lay sleeping 
 
 In our nest in the church yard sod, 
 With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, 
 And our souls at home with God ! " 
 
 Grace Ho wells' soul looked out of her eyes. 
 What need then, to beg:
 
 i2 4 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 'Tell me that you love me, 
 For that's the sweetest story ever told." 
 
 Still, he was not getting on as well as he had 
 a right to expect after three months of rehears- 
 ing. In fact, he had not arrived anywhere. 
 There was a slight barrier he knew what it 
 was. He sometimes failed of his goal not 
 often. 
 
 After the usual tempting lunch he drew her 
 into his arms and with the requisite dramatic 
 action, softly sang: 
 
 " When I know that thou art near me, in my heart are joy 
 
 and rest; 
 I to slumber soft confide me, close my eyes, supremely 
 
 blest." 
 
 He felt her tremble against him. He knew 
 that she would lie awake long hours after he left, 
 gazing at a picture in which there was no " Good 
 night." His own desire was strong upon him, 
 but it must wait. 
 
 " I see papa ! I see papa ! " shrieked delightedly 
 a boy of seven years, standing at the window of a 
 cottage in the city of sand dunes. The boy's 
 next move was a flying one; out the front door 
 and down the walk to the gate.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 125 
 
 " I tummin, too ! " yelled number two, aged 
 three. 
 
 With a child hanging to either arm papa en- 
 tered the house, where he was met by a woman 
 who kissed him. " Don't hang onto papa so, 
 he's tired," said the woman. Then to him: 
 " Supper is all ready Merritt; come right out; " 
 and they all gathered around the table. 
 
 " Did you get me a pony, down in Minneapo- 
 lis? " asked the boy. 
 
 " No, son, not this time, but I'm keeping my 
 eye open for one." 
 
 " Did oo det me a dollie? " 
 
 " Yes, I did, Miss Susana, and you'll find it in 
 my overcoat pocket.'" 
 
 Whereupon Miss Susana upset her cup of milk 
 and clambered down to search the pocket. 
 
 " How was business ? " asked the woman. 
 
 " Good ; first class ! but I'll tell you what I've 
 a notion to do, Ida ; I met a good friend of 
 mine who is just back from a business trip to 
 California and he says the opportunities in real- 
 estate deals are ten there to one here, and I 
 really would like to exchange snow banks for 
 orange groves, and if I can settle up business 
 here Without a loss, I'd like to make my home
 
 126 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 in the land of sunshine and flowers. What do 
 you say ? " 
 
 " I know, Merritt, that Duluth is only a sand 
 hill," replied the woman, without enthusiasm, 
 " but father and mother live here, besides nearly 
 all the friends I have ever known, and the most 
 genial climate cannot warm a lonely heart." 
 
 The gentleman was not discouraged; he some- 
 times failed of his goal not often. 
 
 " There's a Charity Fair at Symphony Hall 
 to-night ; shall we go or are you too tired ? " 
 asked the woman. 
 
 " I suppose we'd better go, though to tell the 
 truth I'd rather crawl into bed. It pays any 
 business man to make himself popular and it is 
 particularly profitable to the dealer in real es- 
 tate. What will you do with the children? " 
 
 " We can take Frank with us and leave Susie 
 with mother, as we go by." 
 
 When they arrived at the hall, a chorus went 
 up : " Oh, here is Mr. Thompson ! " 
 
 "How is Wright, Black and Thompson?" 
 greeted the ticket taker. 
 
 " Flourishing," laughed Mr. Thompson, " real 
 estate is booming." 
 
 " We'll get him to sing at the Library Fund 
 Concert, next week," whispered a plump, white-
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 127 
 
 haired lady to an acquaintance, next her, and 
 together they crossed over to him. 
 
 Mr. Thompson assured them that he would 
 be more than happy to sing at the Library Fund 
 Concert. 
 
 " Has Thompson and Company cornered the 
 earth ? " asked the banker. 
 
 " Business is good," replied Mr. Thompson, 
 " but Mr. Wright is in Europe, and Black in 
 Florida, ill, so I have to hustle, with St. Paul 
 and Minneapolis territory, as well as my home 
 market to look after." 
 
 The preacher approached him animatedly, 
 " Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord," he 
 quoted as he shook hands warmly ; " the choir 
 misses you sadly, when you are out of town." 
 
 " And I miss not only the choir, but an ex- 
 cellent sermon, when I am out of town," re- 
 turned Mr. Thompson. 
 
 Ten days later, Mr. Thompson sat in his St. 
 Paul office signing type-written letters. One 
 hundred times he had written, " M. J. Thomp- 
 son," and one hundred times more he must set 
 that seal before he could board an inter-urban 
 car. Scratch, scratch, scratch was all the sound 
 in the room. In another room were only soft 
 little sighs. The room was ten miles distant.
 
 128 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 In it sat Grace Howells, facing a door she did 
 not see. She was looking through it, far and 
 away. 
 
 A light tap, outside! A silken rustle, within. 
 The vine reached up to the oak and was caught 
 fast in its branches. 
 
 "Are you glad to have me back?" he whis- 
 pered, lips to lips. 
 
 " And wilt thou have me fashion into words, 
 the love I bear thee? " she quoted. 
 
 That night he sang: 
 
 " Farewell, farewell my own true love, 
 A thousand times farewell ; " 
 
 and the plaintive sadness in his voice echoed and 
 reechoed long after he was gone, and stole all 
 too many hours of her sleep. 
 
 Again the following evening, he chose not a 
 joyous strain. With every word drawing blood, 
 he sang into her enthralled eyes : 
 
 " A hundred months have passed, Lorena, 
 
 Since last I held your hand in mine, 
 And felt the pulse beat fast, Lorena, 
 Tho mine beat faster far than thine." 
 
 Then, with the thrill of a meadow lark, he 
 finished :
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 129 
 
 "There is a future! Oh, thank God! 
 
 Of life this is so small a part. 
 'Tis dust to dust, beneath the sod, 
 But there, up there, 'tis heart to heart ! " 
 
 " Oh, don't ! " was all that came to his ears, 
 but her pounding heart was crying, " A hundred 
 months apart? Oh, better to fall dead here and 
 now." 
 
 Another evening from the book. 
 
 He: 
 
 " I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, 
 And looking in thine eyes, I overturn 
 The ashes at thy feet" 
 
 " Why so sad your words," she questioned, 
 caressing his hair. 
 
 He replied from the book: 
 
 " Accuse me not that I wear 
 Too calm and sad a face in front of thine ; 
 For we two look two ways and cannot shine 
 With the same sunlight on our brows and hair." 
 
 From the book she answered him: 
 
 "My own sweet love, if thou in the grave, 
 
 The darksome grave wilt be ; 
 Then will I go down by thy side and crave, 
 
 Love, room for me and thee."
 
 130 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Then another period of death when he came 
 not; another resurrection at the dear familiar 
 tap outside the door, and the heart's nectar of 
 kiss and embrace. But the cloud of a smothered 
 pain bedimmed his eyes and the halt of an aching 
 thought entangled his tongue so love inter- 
 preted; and Love cannot be blind for his arrow 
 wingeth sure. Often that evening, Merritt Jor- 
 dan's head rested in his hands; often faint sighs 
 escaped him. He sang a song, but his voice 
 broke in the singing. 
 
 " What is it? " she pkaded, when she could no 
 longer endure it. 
 
 He, without the book, " Could you forgive me 
 if I had done a wicked, wicked thing? " 
 
 " You wouldn't commit a wicked act, Mer- 
 ritt" 
 
 He, without the book, " I have done a great 
 wrong. I have won your love, have I not? " 
 
 She gave a relieved laugh and drew his face 
 down to hers. 
 
 " That was cruel, Merritt, to frighten me so." 
 
 " But Grace, you do love me, don't you ? Tell 
 me plainly." 
 
 " Merritt," she said, all gravity, " I wonder I 
 keep my office position I am in a daze all the 
 days through dreaming of the evenings when I
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 131 
 
 shall see you. Over everything is written, 
 ' Merritt ' on the walls, on the floors, and even 
 on the faces of those about me. The lightest 
 room is dark if you are not in it; the darkest 
 place is dazzling, if out of it looks your face. The 
 street is empty when you are not by my side," 
 she lowered her voice, " there would be no world 
 if you were dead." 
 
 " That is the wrong I have done I have 
 won your love," he said and sighed. 
 
 " Please stop joking, .Merritt." 
 
 "I am not joking!" He buried his face in 
 his hands. 
 
 "What do you mean, Merritt dear? Don't 
 speak in riddles." 
 
 He lifted his head a little. " I could not help 
 loving you, Grace. You were a blushing rose, 
 a stately lily and a luscious fruit all in one that 
 first time I saw you. I can't help loving you 
 now, for you are the same lovely flower, while 
 the fruit is riper and sweeter. But this spirit 
 of fragrance and color must be put without 
 the range of my vision this aroma which 
 I have breathed must be placed beyond my 
 power of inhalation. This heart food, whose 
 delicious flavor I have longed, oh, how I 
 have longed, to taste, must be gently set
 
 132 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 aside far aside where the temptation to ap- 
 propriate it may not lure me on to its spoliation. 
 Grace, dear Grace, sweetest of women, I must 
 leave you forever for your sake." 
 
 " Merritt ! " It was a cry. 
 
 " Grace," he spoke, encircling her with his 
 arms, " how much could you forgive the man you 
 love ? " 
 
 She leaned exhaustedly, contentedly against 
 him and closed her eyes. Without opening them 
 she told him how much she could forgive the 
 man she loved. 
 
 " I could forgive him murder, theft, forgery, 
 arson and perjury are there any more 
 crimes ? " 
 
 "A few more," he answered. 
 
 " Well, I forgive him all the others, without 
 knowing what they are," was her absolution. 
 
 " Suppose," and he bent his head down over 
 her eyes, " suppose a married man won the love 
 of a girl " 
 
 She pulled away as by a spasm. She looked 
 at him until he felt cut into halves. 
 
 " Good-bye, Grace," and he moved as if to 
 rise. 
 
 She looked at him. He rose hesitatingly to
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 133 
 
 his feet. She only looked at him. He walked 
 slowly toward the door. 
 
 He was going! She could never find him if 
 he went ! The room would never be light again ! 
 The street would always be empty! There 
 would be no world! She tried to speak loudly; 
 she accomplished a whisper, " Stay, Merritt."
 
 Among hundreds of beautiful residences sit- 
 ting in the lap of Ocean View, three companions 
 lean contentedly against her bosom blinking at 
 the water through plate-glass windows. About 
 the verandas of one winds royal wistaria; mak- 
 ing fitting canopy for her of queenly heart. At 
 one side an arched way gives passage from street 
 to garage ; terraces slope toward Golden Gate ; 
 roses hedge the grounds ; the great trees, shading 
 hammocks, felt the pull of swings and heard the 
 creak of boards in the see-saw days of the chil- 
 dren of the house. The splendid attic, once 
 nursery, now contains boxing gloves and fencing 
 foils; its walls are adorned with the pennants 
 and souvenirs, considered proper for a male den, 
 by very young males. One corner was gener- 
 ously offered to the only sister, to decorate as 
 she would, but she had considered her neighbors 
 too barbarous. 
 
 Before the top-spinning days of her own two 
 sons were passed, Agnes Miller took into this 
 134
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 135 
 
 beautiful home a lad, whose abode had been the 
 streets; she laid soft raiment upon him who had 
 been naked; the day before he had dined at a 
 garbage barrel, to-day, a bondsman serves his 
 dinner. 
 
 No protest comes from Charles Miller, the keen 
 eyed and alert. Should his wife incorporate a 
 whole orphanage into the house, he would stipu- 
 late only that he be allowed one small corner to 
 himself. 
 
 " Mine the business, hers the home," his 
 motto. 
 
 Agnes Miller has not found " Marriage, a 
 failure," nor " Life, a blunder and a shame." 
 
 On the right of Wistaria House stands a brick 
 mansion containing Ross and Lillian Kenyon and 
 their baby. True the baby is twenty-five years 
 old and taller than his father, yet he must once 
 have been infantile else why the hobby-horse in 
 the brick attic ? 
 
 Schoolmates, brides and mothers together, 
 have been Lillian Kenyon and Agnes Miller. To 
 bind a friendship that needed no bonds, this only 
 son and Agnes Miller's only daughter early 
 evinced a fondness for each other, which, like 
 that of their mothers but grew the more as grew 
 the years.
 
 136 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 A wizard, caught and imprisoned for three 
 years in Ross Kenyon's gilded cage, placed a 
 violin in the hands of the five-year-old boy. 
 Then, though the genius was old and poor, he 
 would away ; but Ross Kenyon, the banker, could 
 secure the best teachers of the world, if not the 
 genii for his son; small wonder that the boy 
 played divinely. 
 
 Mary Miller performed equally well upon the 
 piano but divinity doth not dwell within its 
 bones. 
 
 The yoke to which Herbert Kenyon gladly 
 bends his neck is neither that of violin nor bank 
 he has bars upon his shoulders. A military 
 cousin to adore, and a Presidio to visit has timed 
 his life's reveille. 
 
 When, after a score of years, Ross and Her- 
 bert Kenyon came to realize that to express a 
 wish t was to find it unexpectedly obtained for 
 them by the wife and mother, Lillian Kenyon, 
 they began to grow considerate in their audible 
 longings. If they had ever spoken words to her 
 that left a hurt they had long since ceased to 
 do so, and the sunset of life had grown so satis- 
 fying that she cried through happy tears : " O 
 Sun, do not set ! " 
 
 On Mrs. Miller's left are newer and younger
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 137 
 
 acquaintances. The Thompsons had from the 
 first been congenial, both to herself and to Lillian 
 Kenyon, though the children were too young to 
 be companionable with their own grown-up 
 progeny. Up the side of the house of the newer 
 neighbors struggles a fuchsia, whose one am- 
 bition is to peer into the chamber window of 
 a maiden Susie by name. Each morning the 
 maiden throws open her window, to smile down 
 upon it, after which it twists and clambers 
 afresh. 
 
 It is Friday morning in the wistaria-draped 
 
 house. An extra cook reinforces the kitchen. 
 
 The only daughter inspects tree, bush and bloom. 
 
 " Muddie, what flowers would you choose for 
 
 the individual bouquets?" 
 
 " I'm not choosing," smiled Agnes Miller, 
 " this is the reign of Philip and Mary." 
 " Well, then, I'll wait till Philip comes." 
 When Philip came, the flower question re- 
 vived. 
 
 " Let's use the flower language," suggested he, 
 " and place the bouquets according to the message 
 we wish them to convey." 
 
 " Philip ! What a gorgeous idea ! " 
 " Mary ! What stunning diction ! " 
 Jeopardized are the lives of tender plants;
 
 138 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 disunited, friendly boughs, forever separated, 
 dear couplets of flowers. 
 
 The great, unsociable, company dining-room 
 is dusted; Philip hangs wreaths; Mary fills 
 vases. 
 
 Friday night, in the reign of Philip and Mary, 
 arrived. A party also arrived just a neigh- 
 borhood party. Good looking people ! the cam- 
 era declared, for Mary " snapped " them all. 
 
 Ross Kenyon: full head of white hair, black 
 eyes. 
 
 Lillian Kenyon : gray haired, bright eyed. 
 
 Lieutenant Herbert Kenyon : six feet and a 
 uniform. 
 
 Merritt Thompson: head of a Greek god; 
 clothed, befitting a prince. 
 
 Ida Thompson : brown haired, mild eyed. 
 
 Frank Thompson : thirteen and vigilant. 
 
 Miss Susie : nine and plump. 
 
 Judge Earle : bald ; no wedding bells for him. 
 
 Dr. Hamilton: widower, big and blond. 
 
 Charles Miller: thin, white haired, keen eyed. 
 
 Agnes Miller : silver threads among the gold. 
 
 Robert Miller: first born, twenty-four years, 
 black eyes, black hair. 
 
 Philip Norder: twenty-three, adopted son. 
 
 Arthur Miller : fifteen, the baby.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 139 
 
 Mary Miller : pointing the camera ; gentle and 
 gay, twenty-one years. 
 
 At one end of the table, Agnes Miller; at the 
 opposite, her husband of the discerning eyes. 
 
 When the courses had come and gone, and 
 come and gone again, Agnes Miller spoke a 
 word : " Dear friends, we have gathered as 
 now many times, just neighbors, but I never had 
 so glad a word to say as to-night, when I can 
 announce the coming marriage of our daughter 
 and Lieutenant- Herbert Kenyon, on the twenty- 
 seventh day of this month, in our daughter's 
 home, to which we most lovingly invite you." 
 
 " Hear ye! Hear ye! " cried Robert. 
 
 " Thus it is our daughters leave us 
 Those we love and those who love us " 
 
 quoted Charles Miller teasingly, yet wistfully. 
 
 Agnes Miller spoke again : " The night is 
 filled with gladness. To-day our beloved son, 
 Philip Norder, has opened offices whose doors 
 bear the inscription : 
 
 " ' Philip Norder, Attorney-at-Law.' " 
 
 " Never forget, Philip, that when men be- 
 come angels, lawyers will starve," from Judge 
 Earle. 
 
 " Tell us, Philip, what kind of law breaking
 
 140 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 will best give you a start and Rob and I will 
 enter upon it at once," volunteered Lieutenant 
 Kenyon. 
 
 As they dallied with fruits and ices, Mrs. 
 Miller directed attention to the place flowers and 
 beginning with her own, wistaria, interpreted 
 it: "A cordial welcome." Her husband held 
 up a full-blown rose, looking helplessly from one 
 to another. 
 
 Mary tame to the rescue. " That means ' en- 
 gagement,' you know you have so many engage- 
 ments, we can hardly ever get you for an evening 
 at the theatre. We are very lucky to have caged 
 you for to-night." 
 
 " I should never have suspected it of you, 
 Miller," from Ross Kenyon. 
 
 " Judge, what does your flower say ? " 
 
 He scrutinized it. " It's from the lemon, I 
 think, but my law library does not instruct on 
 cases botanical." 
 
 " Then the interpreters must be called in. 
 Philip! Mary!" 
 
 " It means discretion, Judge," announced 
 Philip, " you have been exceedingly discreet re- 
 garding marriage." 
 
 The Judge nearly blushed and everybody else 
 quite laughed.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 141 
 
 " You are next, Mr. Kenyon." 
 
 " Can't even tell the flower, let alone giving in- 
 formation on its conversation." 
 
 " It's persimmon, Mr. Kenyon," assisted Mary, 
 " and says, ' I'll surprise you by and by ' ; the 
 trip in the aeroplane that you have set your heart 
 on, don't you see? " 
 
 " Don't, don't suggest aeroplanes to him," 
 begged Lillian Kenyon. 
 
 " Doctor Hamilton?" 
 
 " I hold a holly, but my knowledge ends with 
 that statement." 
 
 "Holly asks, 'Am I forgotten? Why five 
 years a widower ? ' " queried Philip. 
 
 The doctor laughed a jolly laugh. 
 
 " Mr. Thompson ? " 
 
 " I have a small fig and leaf, will Miss Mary 
 please translate?" 
 
 " It announces, ' I keep my secrets,' " com- 
 plied Mary. " Secrecy is a prime requisite of a 
 dealer in real estate." 
 
 " Lillian," spoke the hostess. 
 
 " Pink carnation, but I have forgotten my 
 school-girl lore." 
 
 "Woman's love," Mary aided. 
 
 "Why do I get a withered flower?" com- 
 plained Philip.
 
 142 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 "It's a withered white rose isn't it?" asked 
 Mary. 
 
 " Yes," he answered. 
 
 " That reads, ' I am in despair.' " 
 
 Everybody roared, for everybody knew how 
 a pink-cheeked girl had been sent to Europe to 
 prevent a too early marriage. 
 
 Philip bore the hilarity as well as he could, 
 which means that his lips smiled while his feet 
 longed to run. 
 
 " Next ! " Robert's mother called to her first 
 born. 
 
 " Syringa," he called back, " but I left my spec- 
 tacles in my room." 
 
 " You shall be happy yet," expounded Philip, 
 " although sweet love has passed you by thus far ; 
 while there's life there's hope." 
 
 " That's cheering," returned Robert. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Thompson, pardon me, you've very 
 nearly been left out." 
 
 " Blue violet, but I plead ignorance." 
 
 " Faithfulness," defined Mary. 
 
 " Now to the nursery," teased Robert, as his 
 mother called for Susie's flower. 
 
 " It's a daisy," she returned promptly. 
 
 " And means ' Innocence/ " explained Mary. 
 
 " Frank Thompson."
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 143 
 
 " Don't know what it is," in a don't-care tone. 
 
 " It's candy tuft and ' Indifference/ " spoke 
 Philip, *' a condition of heart accompanying 
 youths of your age, for an infinitesimally short 
 period of time." 
 
 " Arthur," to her baby. 
 
 " I haven't any flower," flushing. 
 
 " Well, I gave you one," returned his sister. 
 
 " You did not," warmly. 
 
 A tender, reproving look from his mother. 
 
 " She gave me a lettuce leaf, mother," holding 
 it up. 
 
 " And that says ' A cold heart,' " exulted his 
 sister. 
 
 " True, true," nagged Robert ; " there's the girl 
 with the Sis Hopkins braids, and the girl with 
 the Gibson neck, and the little girl, with the little 
 curl right in the middle of her forehead, all 
 throwing goo-goo eyes at him and if he sees one 
 of them anywhere, straightway he searches the 
 sky for comets. And what have you, Miss 
 Mary ? " continued the tormenting Robert, " and 
 you, Lieutenant Kenyon ? Methinks your flowers 
 are identical. This is mystery, indeed." 
 
 Mary colored. The lieutenant laughed. 
 
 " Hold them up," commanded the brutal Rob- 
 ert. Only the Lieutenant obeyed.
 
 144 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " Oh, bridal roses. No need for schooling on 
 that, no call to utter its speech," quoth the un- 
 quenchable big brother. 
 
 " But it has a tongue and says ' Happy love,' " 
 interposed Philip. 
 
 "Of course," spoke on Robert, " what else do 
 wedding bells ever bring? " 
 
 " Miss Mary, I would fain suggest that you 
 pin these sweet-voiced flowers on the gentlemen, 
 while Philip does like duty for the ladies," said 
 Mr. Thompson. 
 
 " Thompson always scores," declared Dr. 
 Hamilton. 
 
 Mary and Philip did as requested. When 
 Mary reached Herbert Kenyon, eyes spoke to 
 eyes. 
 
 " Oh, hurry, sweet day," said his. 
 
 " I fear it a little," from hers. 
 
 When at last the flowers were secured to each 
 one Mr. Thompson scored again: 
 
 " Let us drink to the maker of the feast 
 Our Lady Bountiful." 
 
 And so it was. 
 
 " And now to the bride and groom," added 
 Judge Earle, offering 
 
 "To the bachelor who is always free! 
 To the husband who sometimes may be."
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 145 
 
 Philip gave: 
 
 Let love be your lawyer, dear, 
 
 To him your case report; 
 Till both shall need my service dear, 
 
 In some divorce court. 
 
 " To wish you well, were to wish myself ill," 
 complained Dr. Hamilton. 
 
 "You may write it on his tombstone; 
 You may cut it on his card, 
 That a young man married 
 Is a young man marred." 
 
 quoted Robert. 
 
 " Jealousy," pronounced Lieutenant Kenyon. 
 
 Mr. Thompson had, unobserved, taken out his 
 note-book and written a few lines which he 
 passed on to Mary; then he called out: " From 
 the bride to the groom!" 
 
 Mary read from the quotation he had given 
 her: 
 
 " Let's be gay, while we may, 
 
 And seize love with laughter ; 
 I'll be true as long as you, 
 And not a minute after." 
 
 " From the groom to the bride, now," called 
 Mr. Thompson. 
 
 Lieutenant Kenyon rose. The other toasts 
 had been given in conversational tones and with
 
 146 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 tinkling mirth. His voice thrilled with feeling. 
 He fixed his eyes on Mary and gave : 
 
 " I have known many, 
 Liked a few, 
 Loved one 
 Here's to you," 
 
 bowed and touched his glass to his lips.
 
 VI 
 
 Saturday morning came to Wistaria House 
 and other places. Office and store claimed the 
 men of the neighborhood party of the previous 
 night; home and social duties occupied the 
 women of that party. 
 
 Saturday night came to the Rose Door and 
 other places. . The Rose Door was a house. It 
 was so named by its visitors from a small carv- 
 ing above the front entrance of a full-blown rose 
 with an upright leaf on either side, and a bud be- 
 low, also upright. 
 
 " Ladies ! " she called, with the sliding rising 
 inflection. 
 
 Down the stairs they rustled ; blonde, bru- 
 nette, the plump, the ethereal. Take your pick. 
 
 Robert Miller stepped up to a girl called Anna, 
 and as the piano played, Lieutenant Kenyon 
 crossed over to one, Rebecca by name. With 
 arms around waists, they ascended the stairs. 
 
 A little later hilarious singing came from a 
 room : " Oh, you'll be the peaches, and I'll 
 be" 
 
 147
 
 148 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " Sh ! Herb, the police ! " silenced Rebecca. 
 
 In another room. " Where did you get this 
 bracelet, Anna ? " 
 
 " A friend brought it to me from Hawaii ; it 
 was his great-grandmother's. Don't take it off, 
 Robert ! " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Well, I put it on to cover up a bruise." 
 
 " Let's see, I'll diagnose the case." 
 
 The girl laughed and pulled her arm loose 
 from his grasp. 
 
 " You needn't laugh. I studied medicine for 
 a year once, when I had caught the professional 
 fever," and he renewed his hold on her arm. 
 She struggled, but he pulled off the bracelet and 
 studied the hurt. 
 
 " All it needs, is to be opened ; get me a needle," 
 ordered the doctor. 
 
 The patient complied, and he pricked it several 
 times. 
 
 " Nothing doing," was his dictum and he gave 
 back the needle. 
 
 The prophesied Twenty-Seventh arrived one 
 morning at Dr. Hamilton's office ; in the evening 
 it will have reached Wistaria House the
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 149 
 
 Twenty-Seventh foretold at the neighborhood 
 party. 
 
 Among the large number always waiting in 
 Dr. Hamilton's reception room sat a woman in a 
 dark, tailored suit, like many another there ; and 
 veiled, as were others. In her turn, she entered 
 the private office. 
 
 "What's the trouble this time, Anna?" 
 
 " I don't know myself, but I'll show you," and 
 she bared her arm. 
 
 When his last patient had left and his office 
 door been locked, Dr. Hamilton reached for 
 paper and pen to write a letter, although he 
 would be hurried to make his professional calls 
 and dress and reach Wistaria House by six 
 o'clock. It was a letter of many pages, well 
 sprinkled with interrogation points. 
 
 The wistarias were all in the shade when Dr. 
 Hamilton passed beneath them. Not because it 
 was dark, for never had they been so deluged 
 with light. Festoons of electric globules, three 
 deep, wound about the verandas ; every palm and 
 pepper was a mighty Christmas tree, a-glitter 
 from top to bottom. Out in space hung balls of 
 light, suspended from nothing. From house to 
 waiting automobiles a roadway of roses made soft
 
 150 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 stepping. A flood tide of brightness swept from 
 basement to attic. 
 
 The great unsociable dining-room is all too 
 small. Again flowers wreathe the walls, fill 
 vases and lie by the plates. The choicest of 
 fruit and fowl await the order of the chef. In 
 the conservatory an orchestra bides the signal 
 of their leader, who in turn watches tensely 
 through the doorway. She comes! His hand 
 upraises. Half a hundred strings thrill out: 
 " Hail to the Bride ! " 
 
 Again glad words and happy replies, around a 
 prodigal table, through all of which the orchestra 
 sings in whispers. 
 
 Deserted is the table at last; hand shaking, 
 kissing and good-byes follow. Down the rose 
 road walks a man in uniform leading the daugh- 
 ter the only daughter of the house. 
 
 " So long, Mary," calls her big brother. 
 
 A shower of rice from Philip; a wave of hand 
 from the father; a flutter of handkerchief by the 
 mother. The machine is out of sight. 
 
 Another night came to the Rose Door. As a 
 matter of fact nights never failed to come to that 
 Public Benefit ; had the calamity of an immortal 
 day fallen on that tollbooth its commanding buc-
 
 ANOTHER NIGHT CAME 
 
 TO THE ROSE DOOR Page 150.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 151 
 
 cancer would have wirelessed Mars to put out the 
 sun. Nights were indispensable to the Rose 
 Door. 
 
 Two girls were holding a conversation were 
 they? The dictionary defines "conversation" 
 as " an interchange of ideas." 
 
 " You make me tired, Mary Sullivan, honest 
 to God you do, standing up for folks that don't 
 lift a ringer for you. Here we are and here we 
 have always got to stay ; but the men in the biz 
 with us, can leave it and get to be mayor or sen- 
 ator or preacher. Oh, the preachers ! We here, 
 and they sitting with their bellies full, studying 
 their Sunday lesson, ' Whatever is, is right.' 
 Ugh, to hell with them my Rabbi and your 
 Priest ! " 
 
 " But maybe, Rebecca " 
 
 " Oh, shut up with your ' maybes.' Maybe 
 they are tearing their hair out because we are 
 sick to the death of this life. Maybe they walk the 
 floor all night because we can't get out and make 
 a living another way, any more than a fly that is 
 pulling itself in two on sticky fly paper, can ever 
 get off it. Didn't you try? Didn't I try? Did 
 you ever hear of a preacher going insane thinking 
 about our case ? A prize fight makes them nutty, 
 but us "
 
 152 THE ROSE EK X.)R 
 
 " Still, Rebecca, maybe " 
 
 " Yes, maybe they'll pull down the^e walls to- 
 night, like the French people did to that prison 
 and maybe they'll just go to bed and sleep," and 
 Rebecca removed her cigarette, to spit straight 
 out into their faces, while Mary Sullivan gave 
 up and went out of the room. 
 
 The wise business man smiles in business 
 hours. The customer has troubles, certainly, 
 but the seller of goods has none. 
 
 " I heard you got married, Herb." 
 
 "Who told you?" 
 
 " Oh, a little bird. I didn't think I'd see Lieu- 
 tenant Kenyon any more." 
 
 " A man can't give up all his friends just be- 
 cause he gets married, Rebecca." 
 
 Rebecca hummed : 
 
 " There's no place like home, dear, 
 But I'm afraid to come home in the dark."
 
 VII 
 
 Another twenty-seventh arrived. The very 
 next twenty-seventh to the great twenty-seventh 
 when the wistaria gave forth electric blossoms; 
 when moon and stars came down to twinkle in 
 tall trees; when ten thousand roses gave their 
 soft bodies to the dainty tread of a maiden. 
 Such a twenty-seventh would never come again 
 so said the servants of Wistaria House. 
 
 On the second twenty-seventh, Dr. Hamilton 
 sits looking over his mail. One letter he retains,* 
 pushing the others unopened aside. The en- 
 velope is postmarked, " Hilo, Hawaii." He 
 opens it hurriedly he reads it eagerly: 
 
 " Your letter to the Postmaster at Honolulu, was for- 
 warded to me for an answer. 
 
 ".Ralph Youne returned home one month before the 
 close of "his second year at Berkeley. He went direct from 
 the steamer to his Honolulu house and sent immediately 
 for his father. The moment he appeared, Ralph retreated 
 a step and uttered the word most hated in all the land of 
 Kamehameha. But Albert Young went straight to him and 
 winding both arms about him said : ' That is a sorry jest, 
 Laddie.' 
 
 153
 
 154 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 "When Ralph had said his say his father termed the 
 San Francisco doctors, ' a pack of idiots ' and sent post 
 haste for me. I was in Honolulu and went at once. 
 
 "It was an attendant at the Turkish baths himself 
 Hawaiian who called Ralph's attention to his body and 
 in a significant tone advised him to see a doctor at once. 
 
 " Ralph stripped for me ; it was all under his clothes. 
 When Albert Young saw, his face took on the look of 
 fallen gladiator, when thumbs are down. 
 
 " ' Yes ' or ' No,' doctor, he said, with a brave attempt at 
 courage. 
 
 " My tongue wouldn't say it. I nodded my head. He 
 began to shiver; then he strangled and would have gone 
 to the floor, but that Ralph and I took hold of him. I 
 thought he was dying then and there if he only had 
 been. Of all cruel things there's nothing to compare with 
 living. 
 
 " We seated him. He never stood again. He rallied, 
 however, and cried, ' My boy, my boy, my boy ! ' Then 
 there was swaying and inarticulate moaning, followed by 
 an attempt to rise; but he could not. 
 
 " ' Come to your father, L^ddie^ his old legs have turned 
 traitors,' he said. 
 
 " Ralph went to him. His father drew him down on 
 his lap and putting his arms about him, pressed Ralph's 
 face against his own, as he had done eighteen years before, 
 when the nurse laid a soft, little bundle in his arms, say- 
 ing, ' Herejs your son.' 
 
 " Presently Ralpli~felt the encircling arms relax and he 
 arose. 
 
 "A tremor rippled over Albert Young followed by an 
 ague that threw his hands off the arms of the big chair and 
 made his feet dance upon the floor. This passed and his 
 voice returned. ' My boy, my Laddie, my little, little Lad- 
 die ! ' Then quiet.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 155 
 
 " He was far back, sitting in the lap of existence, play- 
 ing with a beautiful man child back where Life made 
 fair promises and where no man might call her ' liar ' 
 without being laid low by the eloquence of his enraptured, 
 believing heart. 
 
 " This passed. He raised his voice ; Doctor, you are a 
 surgeon; can't you do anything. Cut them out. Cut them 
 out!' 
 
 " Then, as though he knew he spoke folly, he dropped 
 his face in his hands, and moaned and swayed and swayed 
 and moaned. 
 
 " Then another arousing : ' But Molokai shan't get you, 
 Laddie ! We'll hide you where devils and a pack of blood 
 hounds couldn't find you. We'll go to Hilo Bay Mauna 
 Loa is long and Mauna Loa is high. You won't be alone, 
 Laddie. Your father will be with you all the time, and 
 Joe will come too, to take care of you.' 
 
 " He paused to ponder some other thought. 
 
 " In a lowered voice : ' And, Laddie, there will always 
 be a bright piece of steel close to your hand, and when the 
 sight has grown intolerable, you can erase it.' 
 
 "Then around the cycle again moaning, ague, raving, 
 quiet. 
 
 " In one of his quiet periods, Ralph spoke : ' Daddie, 
 there's someone worse off than I. Someone without 
 either parent; who is in utter poverty. One who had not 
 a friend in the world, till I came to her.' 
 
 " The word ' her ' caught Albert Young's attention and 
 held it for a second. 
 
 " ' Was she good to you ? ' he asked eagerly. 
 
 " ' We loved each other,' answered Ralph. 
 
 ' ' Yes, but was she good to you, or was she after your 
 money ? ' he repeated. 
 
 " ' She asked nothing and gave all that a woman can 
 give to a man,' said Ralph.
 
 156 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " ' Then, by God ! though she be a Chinatown harlot she 
 shall be the richest woman in San Francisco ! ' he shouted. 
 
 " The next minute he wilted, as a plant wilts in an un- 
 moist, withering heat. 
 
 " I never saw a well man die so fast. He crumpled up 
 like a slug thrust on to a fish hook. In four days he 
 was gone. They said he would not eat. He could not 
 perceive food. He was a disembodied spirit from the mo- 
 ment he read my verdict. 
 
 "Ralph died two years back thank God! But Mo- 
 lokai got him."
 
 VIII 
 
 Four days later, a happy woman in a love-filled 
 home sat studying her own name upon an un- 
 opened envelope. The writing was unfamiliar, 
 so she inspected postmark and date for knowledge 
 of the author, instead of reading the letter at once 
 as a man would have done so they say. After 
 breaking the covering, she turned to the signa- 
 ture, but that was equally unknown. Then she 
 began at the beginning: 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Miller: 
 
 " Maybe you won't remember me, but I have never for- 
 gotten your kind eyes and .Mark's lovely playthings. Miss 
 Duncan once took me to visit you. I am the girl to whom 
 Mary showed her dolls. I am writing you because I must 
 tell you something. It will give you sorrow, but I have 
 to tell you. 
 
 " Something so beautiful has just happened to me, that 
 I am all the more sorry to make you sad. It is a letter 
 that has made me so glad ; while this letter will give you 
 pain. 
 
 " My letter was not written to me, but to my doctor, 
 though it was all about one who loved me and whom I 
 loved. 
 
 " I will have to tell you quite a long story to show you 
 
 157
 
 158 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 why I ought to write to you before I go away forever 
 for to-morrow I am going to a place I shall never leave. 
 
 " Two years after Miss Duncan took me to see you and 
 Mary's wonderful dolls, I met a Prince in Golden Gate 
 Park. I did not know then that he was a Prince, but I 
 know now. When it grew dark I was afraid and I cried, 
 because I had no place to go. Then he took my hand and 
 led me to a Palace. It was only one room, but now I 
 know that it was a palace. 
 
 " Every day he took me on a trip to Fairyland. He 
 called it tennis, theatre, lying on the beach sands, and 
 many other happinesses. Hand in hand always hand in 
 hand we sang and played all the days through, for two 
 years. Then one day, the Prince turned into a spirit, and 
 I couldn't see him any more, or hear his voice, or feel 
 him with my hands. He didn't get sick, or die, or say 
 good-bye! Just one day, I couldn't find him. He had 
 given me beautiful clothes, and we dined to sweet music, 
 but after I had called and called to him, I grew hungry, 
 for there was nothing ui the Palace to eat. Then piece 
 by piece, I gave all the pretty things in the Palace for 
 food. After awhile the food was all eaten and I got 
 hungry again and then hungrier and hungrier. 
 
 " At last I knew that he could not hear me, so I went 
 away. I wanted to die. My heart ached so much that at 
 last it couldn't feel at all. 
 
 " I wandered about till one day I came to a place where 
 I thought I would res? for awhile and then go on. But 
 I never left it. No one can leave it. In this place it was 
 as dark as the Palace had been light. It was filled with 
 men who cared only to be naked and indecent. I tried 
 to hide in a corner, but they pulled me out and laughed at 
 me. They said I would get used to it, but I never did. 
 Drink and drug helped a good deal, for they blurred my 
 eyes and I was glad of that.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 159 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Miller even you could not live this kind of 
 life without drink and drug." 
 
 Agnes Miller shivered and then blood-red, 
 there danced across the page : " I am the girl to 
 whom Mary showed her dolls." 
 
 " For three days I have left drink and drug alone, so 
 that my head might be clear enough to write to you 
 you can't know how hard it has been to go without them. 
 
 " Because I couldn't get used to the men, an awful 
 thing happened to me. My doctor calls it ' hallucination.' 
 I will describe it to you. If anyone calls my attention to 
 a man on the street or any other place, instantly his 
 clothes fall to his feet and I see him naked and indecent. 
 Once I stopped to listen to a Salvation Army girl talking 
 to a crowd of men. She told them that they were made 
 in the image of God. In a flash I saw every one of them 
 standing naked and indecent before her. I turned and 
 ran down the street, till a policeman stopped me and 
 asked if I was drunk or crazy. It doesn't make any differ- 
 ence if it is a judge or a preacher; I can never see them 
 any other way. 
 
 " But, .oh. Mrs. Miller ! the Prince went away to save 
 me from a dreadful disease that came upon him. But I 
 had already caught it, though I did not know it. Even 
 my doctor was not sure till he got a letter the dear, dear, 
 letter I told you of from a far-off country telling of the 
 death of my Prince. If only I could have gone with him ! 
 To live while he lived; to die when he died. If only he 
 had told me. 
 
 " But now the second beautiful thing has come into my 
 life. I am to go where I can rest, rest, rest! Where I 
 can dream all over again the two joyous years in the Pal- 
 ace. To-morrow night they will take me to a leprosarium !
 
 160 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Do not be afraid dear Mrs. Miller, for a friend has prom- 
 ised to copy this letter on to paper I have not touched." 
 
 Again a shivering seized Mrs. Miller; again 
 a scarlet line shot across the page " I am the 
 girl to whom Mary showed her dolls." 
 
 " And now I don't know how to tell you but I 
 want to save your other son and Mary. Robert has been 
 my friend for two years and has visited me often. Don't 
 feel too bad because he came, for every man comes to my 
 kind " 
 
 Under Mrs. Miller's staring eyes, a thousand- 
 legged worm straggled on to the paper. All its 
 legs curled into wriggling letters, and the letters 
 crawled apart, into writhing words; the words 
 heaved and fell to the line : " And directly, or 
 through those we love, in unavailing travail we 
 shall learn the truth ! " And the closing punctua- 
 tion was a face the face of Alice Duncan. 
 
 " You need not tell Robert, and he can be just as happy 
 as ever till it does come, and maybe it will never come. 
 But you can keep watch. 
 
 " Good-bye, dear Mrs. Miller, good-bye, forever ! " 
 
 Mrs. Miller's chin tipped forward onto her 
 chest.
 
 IX 
 
 On the same day Lillian Kenyon also received 
 a letter. She, too, sought the signature before 
 reading it but there was none: 
 
 " Don't tear up this letter till you read it all, for I will 
 tell you how to find out if it is the truth or a lie. 
 
 " Your husband has been keeping a woman at the Poin- 
 settia Apartments, for five years. Go there and find out 
 for yourself. They say she is only twenty-two and a 
 beaut. If you want to get a hunch on, I'll put you wise. 
 Keep away from the house detective, he is your husband's 
 watch dog not your blood hound. And don't monkey 
 with the elevator boy; he will be true to your husband's 
 tips ; but make a pal of the janitor with some little yellow 
 boys and he will get the number of his suite for you. I 
 can tell you some more. Your hubbie kept another 
 woman for four years before this one, but she got to 
 drinking too much to suit him, so he threw her down. Men 
 like to have us hog it with them, but they want us to 
 keep straight all the rest of the time. I'll tell you why I 
 am helping you to spot him because it will spoil your 
 life. Because it will break your heart as a man once 
 broke mine. Because you wouldn't touch me with a ten- 
 foot pole Herb uses a shorter one. 
 
 " You and your new daughter sit in your fine house with 
 servants to wait on you and don't give a cuss if I rot here, 
 and I don't give one if this letter makes you bug house 
 / hope it will! 
 
 161
 
 162 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " When your son, Herbie, puts the police on my track 
 and they break in my door to break my bones, they'll find 
 me sucking on a gas tube like a sleeping baby with its 
 bottle. See? But if I were you I wouldn't snitch go to 
 the Poinsettia Apartments. Now, good-bye, and I hope 
 you and your new daughter will die hating life as much 
 as I do. Ha, ha, ladies ! " 
 
 Lillian Kenyon clenched her hands. " It is an 
 infamous slander! " then she got up and walked 
 the floor. "It's an abominable lie!" she paced 
 faster. "The miserable wanton!" she crushed 
 the letter into a million wrinkles. Then she sat 
 down and burst into tears. That meant : " If it 
 should be true ! " 
 
 She got up and walked the floor again. " But 
 it couldn't be!" She continued to walk. 
 
 If a lifetime devoted to husband and son had 
 not trained her to do what their happiness re- 
 quired, unmindful of all personal discomfort, the 
 result must have been very different. 
 
 She could carry to the grave the sting in the 
 letter, if she could also hold absolute trust in the 
 two who made up her heaven and earth ; but to be 
 faithful to them as she spelled fidelity, was to 
 prove the letter a lie down to the last word. 
 
 That night her husband found a note on his 
 bureau stating that she had been called out of 
 town by a sick friend.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 163 
 
 Quiet elegance of dress and subdued voice and 
 manner were inseparable from Lillian Kenyon. 
 After writing the note, she attired herself in a 
 dark tailored suit and took a car for down town, 
 where she entered a large store. In an hour she 
 came out wearing a long, silk, champagne-colored 
 coat ; an extremely large hat with a dozen plumes 
 and a champagne-colored veil. 
 
 Through a messenger boy she made an appoint- 
 ment with the janitor of the Poinsettia Apart- 
 ments. They met at an obscure restaurant, and 
 conversed as they lunched. 
 
 " I want a little information and I know your 
 time is valuable," and she slid a twenty-dollar 
 gold piece into his hand. 
 
 The janitor began to sit up and take notice. 
 
 Were there any vacant rooms at the Poinset- 
 tia? 
 
 " A few," he stated. 
 
 Another twenty dollars touched his hand. The 
 janitor gasped. 
 
 At the Poinsettia, the house detective and ele- 
 vator boy were considered the valuable men. He 
 waited the sequel. 
 
 Did a gentleman, whom she described, have a 
 suite there?
 
 164 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 In the language of Rebecca, the janitor " got a 
 hunch on." 
 
 He could find out ; the housekeeper was a good 
 friend of his, he assured her. 
 
 And would he take a slight compensation to 
 the housekeeper for her trouble another " yeK 
 low boy " reached him. He agreed to do so. 
 He also agreed to meet the yellow-gowned lady 
 at the same hour and place next day. 
 
 Lillian Kenyon slept that night at a down-town 
 hotel. 
 
 Another day and another lunch with the jani- 
 tor. 
 
 Yes, the gentleman described had a suite at 
 the Poinsettia. 
 
 Would the janitor ascertain if the housekeeper 
 could secure her rooms on the same floor? 
 
 He would try. 
 
 Another yellow trifle was laid at his plate and 
 still another for the housekeeper. Both janitor 
 and housekeeper narrowly escaped a stroke of 
 apoplexy. 
 
 Another night at a down-town hotel. Another 
 day ; another luncheon for two at the renownless 
 cafe. Lillian Kenyon spent that night at the 
 Poinsettia. 
 
 Next day, the yellow-plumed lady visited a
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 165 
 
 printer. The second morning every lady on the 
 same floor with the yellow lady found a card un- 
 der her door : 
 
 HARRIET BROWN 
 
 SHAMPOOING AND MANICURING 
 
 THREE TREATMENTS FREE 
 
 and in pencil, the added words, Suite 404 Poin- 
 settia Apartments. 
 
 Suite 404 was comfortably close to the De- 
 scribed Gentleman's Suite, as averred by the jani- 
 tor and sworn to by his good friend the house- 
 keeper. The complaisant housekeeper did more ; 
 while Harriet Brown stood in her own doorway 
 the janitor's friend walked casually down the cor- 
 ridor and marked, "_D. . G,..S*!Lon a certain door; 
 on her return, she felt a piece of metal touch her 
 hand. 
 
 On the very day of the card issue a customer 
 knocked ; the next morning three called for treat- 
 ment, and the third day every hour was filled. 
 She was certainly doing business free business. 
 
 Invariably Harriet Brown held open the door 
 for each departing guest and solicitously watched 
 her patient out of sight 
 
 On the fifth day of Harriet's Brown's success, 
 Ross Kenyon received a letter stating that his 
 wife would be indefinitely detained.
 
 i66 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Harriet Brown continued to shampoo, con 
 tinued yellow thanks to housekeeper and janitor, 
 continued to hold open the door for outgoing 
 patrons, continued anxiously to assure herself of 
 their safety within her range of vision; but none 
 entered the D. G. S. 
 
 At noon, on the eleventh day of the card issue, 
 she answered a tap on her door. A lady in a 
 pink kimono slipped inside, saying, " I just got 
 up, but I want a shampoo before I dress." 
 
 Uncombed curls hugged her neck ; dimples 
 laughed when lips were still; soft and merry were 
 the eyes and pink as the silken robe were the 
 cheeks just risen from a restful pillow. 
 
 Curly-head got an unusually long and gentle 
 shampoo ; when she finally slid down from the 
 chair, Harriet Brown bowed her thanks and 
 courteously held open the door, till pink gown 
 entered D. G. S. 
 
 That night, as on previous nights, footsteps 
 passed suite 404 and stopped at J3. .Gr-!iL_, 
 
 That night, as on previous nights, Harriet 
 Brown heard them. She felt sure of the dis- 
 tance; she had measured it mentally so many 
 times, and once she had even paced it off. 
 
 In a week, curly-head came for another sham-
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 167 
 
 poo. She talked a little this time, and nearly 
 went to sleep. 
 
 " You have so much magnetism," she told Har- 
 riet 
 
 On a third visit she said, " I'll never let an- 
 other person touch my head as long as you live. 
 You are so gentle and you never hurry. The 
 others hurt and pull out lots of hair." 
 
 One night, after footsteps had passed and 
 stopped at D. G. S., after a door had softly opened 
 and softly closed, Harriet Brown as quietly 
 opened her own door and stepped to D. G. S. 
 She gave a light tap upon the door. 
 
 " Who is it? " asked a soft voice. 
 
 " It's only Harriet Brown," was the reply. 
 
 " What do you want, Miss Brown ? " queried 
 Curly. 
 
 " I'm so frightened! May I speak to you for 
 a moment? " begged Harriet. 
 
 The door was softly unlocked and opened a 
 tiny crack. 
 
 " What's the matter, Miss Brown? " asked the 
 soft voice. 
 
 Harriet stepped close to the crack. Then she 
 pushed vigorously inside and kept going. 
 
 "My God, Lillian!"
 
 i68 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Speechless, Curly looked from one to the other. 
 
 "What are you doing here, Lillian? " 
 
 " What are you doing here? " she counter ques- 
 tioned. 
 
 " Nothing wrong, as you see," he replied. 
 
 " How wrong would you see it to find me in a 
 man's apartment, under similar circumstances?" 
 
 " That is different," he returned. 
 
 " From your point of view," she answered. 
 
 " From everyone's point of view ; even you 
 must allow that there is some difference between 
 the social liberty of a man and a woman." 
 
 " From my point of view as recently attained, 
 there is absolutely no difference in the social lib- 
 erty of a man and a woman," she replied, with 
 colorless lips. 
 
 " For God's sake, let me take you home, Lil- 
 lian!" 
 
 " Where is my home? " 
 
 " Where it has always been," he answered 
 firmly. 
 
 "And where is your home?" 
 
 " Where it has always been," he replied as 
 firmly. 
 
 " One roof for us two can never again be suf- 
 ficient," she said.
 
 'FOR GOD'S SAKE, UET ME TAKE YOU HOME, LILLIAN!" Page 168.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 169 
 
 " What do you mean, Lillian ? You are beside 
 yourself." 
 
 " I have just answered you. Two roofs from 
 now till the sun sets may it soon set." 
 
 " Do you mean divorce? " 
 
 " I mean divorce." 
 
 " You are making a mountain out of a mole 
 hill. You have been happy with me for a quar- 
 ter of a century, and I am the same man to-day 
 that I have always been." 
 
 " I know that now. I know you havt always 
 been the man you are to-day, but my education 
 has all been acquired within six weeks." 
 
 The good breeding of a lifetime held perfect 
 sway over voice and word ; but such chaos reigned 
 within her heart that Lillian Kenyon was fain to 
 admit that the blood running riot through her 
 veins was of a near savage ancestry, and as her 
 pulses fought, she carried on a dual conversation 
 one within and one with the man before her. 
 
 "If you intend to give no consideration to the 
 harm such publicity would do my business inter- 
 ests, or the injury to your own social standing, 
 will you try to remember that you have a son 
 whom you have always professed to hold dearer 
 than your own personal comfort? "
 
 170 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " My son is a mature man and married. He 
 should not wish me to live an insufferable life that 
 his serenity may not be disturbed. I am going 
 to assume that he would not so wish and act upon 
 the assumption." 
 
 " Lillian, you are crazy ! " 
 
 " I may be later, but just now I see clearly." 
 
 " To err is human, to forgive, divine, Lillian ! " 
 
 " When the man does the erring and the woman 
 the forgiving; but the other way around, the 
 erring is unpardonable." 
 
 " Upon what grounds shall you ask for a di- 
 vorce ? " 
 
 " Upon the truth." 
 
 Then while the conversation within went on in 
 a shrieking, ape-like uproar, she drew herself 
 together tight and white : " And when the de- 
 cree is granted, you owe it to this girl younger 
 than your own child to marry her and give her 
 home and name. She has given you her all, and 
 there will be no divine forgiveness extended to 
 her." 
 
 Curly looked at her with wondering eyes.
 
 " She's from the Rose Door the third to the 
 right," pointed the matron; "they brought her 
 here six days ago, but it should have been six 
 months before. You may be sure she has in- 
 fected more than one with tuberculosis." 
 
 The place was the Woman's Hospital and the 
 listening lady, a patron, who made regular visits. 
 
 " She's college bred not a common happen- 
 ing at the Rose Door, I take it," continued the 
 matron. " She is frantic to get back home. Of 
 course, she would not live through the long jour- 
 ney. Also, of course, we do not tell her so, but 
 lead her to believe that she will be taken there as 
 soon as she is better." 
 
 " Where is her home? " 
 
 " Minnesota." 
 
 " Minnesota ? Why, that is my birth state, 
 and oh, I know how the longing for it hurts. 
 May I talk to her?" 
 
 " She'll be happy to -have you do so, and ex- 
 cept at coughing periods, she talks easily." 
 171
 
 172 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Later, by an hour, the visiting lady sought the 
 matron to exclaim : " We've got it all arranged. 
 She's to come to me. I shall send for her to- 
 morrow, and a tent on our back lawn will be ready 
 for her. She shall at least have Minnesotans 
 near her for the short time she has to live. 
 Please send with her the best nurse you can pro- 
 cure." 
 
 " You are certainly an angel of mercy, Mrs. 
 Thompson'," replied the matron. But Mrs. 
 Thompson's husband viewed the transaction dif- 
 ferently. 
 
 " What possessed you to bring her here? " 
 
 " She's a dying girl, Merritt." 
 
 " All the more reason for leaving her at the 
 hospital." 
 
 " But she was so homesick for Minnesota." 
 
 " Well, our lawn is not Minnesota." 
 
 " No, but Minnesota is our native state, as it is 
 hers, and she is entranced when I talk to her of 
 the homeland. Surely it is a little thing for us 
 to do, and yet it is so much to her. Go in some- 
 time, Merritt, and speak to her. She has been 
 beautiful." 
 
 "Is there any of it left?" 
 
 " Yes, waves of brown hair, shining blue eyes 
 all too shining and cheeks all too retf "
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 173 
 
 " Well, I'll think about it." 
 
 Several hours each day, Mrs. Thompson sat 
 in the tent, but she did not do all of the interest- 
 ing talking. 
 
 " And there's a little girl ? " 
 
 " Yes, she's past five now, but she's only a year 
 old to me, and just toddling, because that was all 
 she could do the last time I saw her." 
 
 " Do you mind telling me all about it, a little at 
 a time, as you feel inclined from day to day? 
 The knowledge may help me to aid some other 
 girl before she has suffered as much as you 
 have." 
 
 And so it was told. 
 
 " I had to leave an almost finished college 
 course to earn my living. Soon after, I met the 
 One, the Only One, that every girl dreams of 
 from maidenhood to marriage. By day we both 
 worked, but evenings we looked into each other's 
 eyes. As I gazed, a picture grew of home, of 
 love and children, but I never uttered the vision. 
 What he saw, he did not speak, but I knew by 
 the light in his eyes that he held it dear. When 
 his business should shape itself aright, he would 
 talk of the home ; this, my heart confided to me. 
 Dear at the first, he grew always dearer, till 
 heaven would have been hateful without him.
 
 174 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 One day close held in his arms he whispered, " To 
 err is human, forgiveness is divine. I love you ; 
 shall I go? I am already married!" 
 
 " I fell down and died awhile, but fear tossed 
 me back to life, and quickly I called out, just one 
 word, ' Stay ! ' 
 
 " Heaven came close. Then the ephemeral went, 
 and the everlasting came. My baby my little 
 baby. For a whole year I refused such work as 
 would separate me from her; and for a whole 
 year we starved my baby and I. Then with a 
 needle rusty from dropping tears, I worked her 
 name Jordana Howells on all her little gar- 
 ments, and left her at a foundling door. 
 
 " Not a few knew me as the mother of an 
 illegitimate child, and deserted. Poverty cannot 
 hide those things. When I obtained office work 
 it was accompanied by the supposition that I was 
 common rental, so I had to give that up. Then 
 I tried teaching, but I was not allowed to finish 
 my term. A little later, a wealthy bachelor, 
 stricken with tuberculosis, was leaving for Cali- 
 fornia, and suggested that I accompany him. I 
 did. What else was there left for me to do? 
 The world would not permit me to earn an honest 
 living it would not let me redeem my jewel 
 from the pawn in which I had placed it ; my only
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 175 
 
 alternative was one man or many. I preferred 
 one. He died within a year." 
 
 Day after day Mrs. Thompson listened; wider 
 parted her eyelids as she listened and faster beat 
 her pulse. Who had cast Grace Howells out of 
 her school work? Was it men? Immaculate 
 men? Was it women who always forgive 
 erring man? She would ask Grace. Grace 
 swered : " Men send girls to the bad, Mr 
 Thompson, but women keep them there." 
 
 " How, Grace? " 
 
 " Leaving out of count the mongrels among 
 men, and the felines among women, the men of 
 fine principle will say : " Give the girl another 
 chance, give her a dozen chances. But the 
 women of integrity they will not have it so." 
 
 And Mrs. Thompson thought as she listened. 
 And as she lay in bed at night, she thought. Did 
 girls really wish to get out of that life? She 
 would ask Grace. 
 
 " Many, many girls at the Rose Door and like 
 places, struggle feebly or vigorously, according 
 to the strength of their characters, to get out 
 after a short apprenticeship," answered Grace. 
 " A girl named Rebecca told me her story ; a 
 great many gave me their experiences, but hers 
 particularly impressed me; not because her per-
 
 176 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 sonality charmed me she was forceful, not gen- 
 tle ; aggressive, not winsome ; loyal, not yielding ; 
 and handsome, not pretty. But because she was 
 a foreigner and without knowledge of the world, 
 the pity of it was intensified. 
 
 " If I were to declare that every girl in im- 
 moral work was first drugged, you would hardly 
 credit me. But I do say so all of them, by the 
 most powerful of all drugs Deception. And 
 none are so effectually deceived as those who de- 
 liberately enter it for money. There is no money 
 in it for the girl. Four prices are charged her 
 for the necessaries of her life. Her " Mana- 
 gers " have what they choose to name. The po- 
 lice take the rest. She has food and clothes 
 yes, but money in the bank for broken-down- 
 health days ; that would be an affront to the po- 
 lice et al." 
 
 Another day. 
 
 " Will you tell me the story of the girl you 
 mentioned the foreigner? " asked Mrs. Thomp- 
 son. 
 
 " Oh, Rebecca, yes. Rebecca was poor when 
 she came to America, and still poorer when she 
 wished to leave. There was a lover in the Father- 
 land, too poor to send her passage money home- 
 ward. She was homesick; she was despairing.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 17; 
 
 She would have walked the whole distance back, 
 begging from door to door, if some thousands of 
 miles had not been water. 
 
 " A man of her own race proposed a partner- 
 ship with her in I was going to say * crime,' 
 but a business desired by the best element of so- 
 ciety as a safeguard for virtuous women cannot 
 be called a crime. An occupation fostered by the 
 state as promoting commercial prosperity is surely 
 a social blessing. And when the breaking of one 
 half of its daughters that the other half may live, 
 is pronounced by the nation Expediency, its dy- 
 ing ones deserve to rank with the soldier the 
 patriot who fights and dies for his * boarding 
 house/ as Jngersoll has put it. So I will amend 
 my statement. He planned a philanthropic en- 
 terprise with the vicarious act exclusively hers. 
 This for a period of three months, out of which 
 she was to receive two-thirds of the intome, and 
 with that sum she could return to homeland and 
 lover to spend the rest of her days in devout 
 thankfulness at having escaped from the ' Land 
 of the Free and the Home of the Brave.' 
 
 " At the end of the three months there were 
 several hundred dollars due her. But in order to 
 get away from the man at all, she had to steal out 
 only ten dollars in her pocket.
 
 1 78 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " She was done with that kind of life. She had 
 learned its lessons absolute subjection, robbery, 
 abuse. 
 
 " Through an employment agency, she obtained 
 kitchen work. Her mistress valued her, not only 
 as a domestic, but also as protection during the 
 many days that business took her husband away 
 from home. It was six weeks before Rebecca 
 served him at table ; then she placed the roast be- 
 fore a former customer! 
 
 ' ' Send that girl off, bag and baggage,' were 
 his directions to his wife when Rebecca had left 
 the room. 
 
 " The obedient wife paid Rebecca and told her 
 that if she were not out of the house in an hour, 
 she would call the police. 
 
 " That she might not be traced, Rebecca sought 
 work through a different labor bureau. A month 
 passed a comfortable month; full of cooking, 
 washing and ironing, but she owned her own 
 body. Nor was hope extinguished; she would 
 get back to the Fatherland ; she was earning three 
 dollars a week; she would not spend one penny 
 and at the end of a year she would go back. She 
 had her dreams, too by day and by night ; she 
 would go to Benjamin; she would tell him the 
 whole story; he would believe her. It was the
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 179 
 
 truth ; it would sound like the truth. Then his 
 old love for her and her constant love for him 
 would aid her in convincing him. She was 
 young yet, and good looking yes, better look- 
 ing that when she left the Fatherland, and 
 that would help some. She determined to re- 
 gain Benjamin's love, though she could not 
 marry him. He belonged to her not to the 
 other woman hadn't she paid the price ? 
 
 " One day she fairly collided with a down-town 
 policeman who recognized her and demanded 
 former favors. When she told him she was ' liv- 
 ing straight now,' he laughed and re-demanded. 
 She refused. He was offended. He asked her 
 where she was working. She refused to tell. 
 He told her he would find out, and he did. 
 
 " Manfully he did his duty to the virtuous 
 woman Rebecca was serving, and out Rebecca 
 went, ' bag and baggage.' 
 
 " But Rebecca was a stubborn spirit as bad 
 as Banquo's ghost. To the very edge of the city, 
 she went, seeking work. 
 
 " A young married woman and a baby needed 
 her. Rebecca grew fond of the baby, therefore 
 the mother grew fond of Rebecca. 
 
 " One day Ah Sing brought the husband's laun- 
 dry. Rebecca took it.
 
 i8o THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " When the wife paid him, he lowered his voice 
 to say : ' She livee your house ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, she does my work.' 
 
 " ' You nicee lady. You no keepee her. She 
 badee woman in Chinatown.' 
 
 " The lady interviewed Rebecca. Rebecca told 
 her all and insisted that she wished to work hard 
 for the rest of her life. 
 
 " The lady told her she feared she could not be 
 trusted. 
 
 " Rebecca arrived at the Rose Door, ' bag and 
 baggage.' 
 
 " Mrs. Thompson, do you want to hear a 
 fable?" 
 
 " Yes, if you are the narrator." 
 
 " Once a boat capsized with a dozen people, half men 
 and half women ; but as a bridge was just over their heads 
 they all succeeded in climbing up the supports to its road- 
 way. Whenever a man was seen clutching the balustrade 
 the hurrying travellers above paused to offer a hand to 
 him. Especially did the women do noble work, a score 
 sometimes assisting one man over the railing. Later, the 
 white fingers of the capsized women appeared grasping the 
 floor of the bridge. The rushing men scarcely noticed 
 them but the quick sympathy of the women spied them on 
 the instant, and they gently stepped on them. If that act 
 were not sufficient to make the clingers take the hint, 'they 
 quietly in a ladylike way, and patiently in a Christianlike 
 way, but persistently in a businesslike way kicked the 
 fingers with their toes till the hands loosened their hold
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 181 
 
 and their owners each and all fell back into the water, 
 and were never seen on the bridge again. 
 
 " Then it went down in history that the chief difference 
 between a man and a woman is that when they both fall 
 into the water, the woman likes it so well that she always 
 remains with the mermaids while the man is commonly 
 known to climb away from those wicked vocalists into the 
 outstretched arms of the heavenly singers on the bridge 
 above." 
 
 Each night, after the day's narrative, Mrs. 
 Thompson heard, close pressed to her ear as the 
 pillow, the whisper, " Men send girls to the bad, 
 but women keep them there." 
 
 One day Grace volunteered : " Next to Re- 
 becca, the most unusual character that I met at 
 the Rose Door was a Socialist. He preferred 
 me to the other girls because I would listen to his 
 talk. Socialism was his religion. Personally, he 
 would not have cared if the whole world knew he 
 was a regular at the house ; but he would rather 
 have been unsexed than injure the Cause. I had 
 heard Socialism called a ' home breaker ' ; he 
 called it a home maker, and always ended his 
 visit with : ' When Socialism comes, it will wipe 
 prostitution off the earth. It is only a matter of 
 bread and butter,' he said. ' Since the world 
 began, maid and youth have mated outside the 
 marriage bond and they will continue to do so
 
 182 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 until the end of time, because God says, omy, 
 " Mate," while man alone, pipes, " Marry." But 
 since the world began woman has never given her 
 body willingly to men she loathed, except as a 
 means of subsistence, and to the end of time, she 
 never will for any other reason.' " 
 
 " My Susie, my Susie ! " and the morning stars 
 looked in on Mrs. Thompson's sleepless pillow. 
 
 Another day, " Tell me more of your odd 
 friend, if you don't mind. It is a new thought 
 to me." 
 
 " Yes, it was to me and I haven't been able to 
 digest it all, yet. He said the Rose Door was 
 a business, like any other business for the 
 money in it. That it was a competitive business, 
 like all businesses. Its dealers, like all dealers, 
 must make the business attractive, must struggle 
 for the largest market; for the highest prices. 
 Must obtain supply of goods our girls ; must 
 stimulate the demand for the goods our boys. 
 Must lower the price of stale goods; and sweep 
 into the alley the unsalable. Must order fresh 
 goods continually, and evoke desire by the best ad- 
 vertising methods." 
 
 With down-dropped lids Mrs. Thompson 
 mused. At last rousing, " How could you,
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 183 
 
 Grace, with your refinement, endure to wallow 
 witH the swine of menkind? " 
 
 " Oh, I didn't, Mrs. Thompson. The Rose 
 Door is one of the respectable places. The dirty, 
 the ragged, the drunkard, the negro, the soldier, 
 and the Mongolian, are barred out." 
 
 " Then how much business could you do ; 
 
 " A rushing business, continuous and regular." 
 
 " Where did you get your trade? " 
 
 " From high-school students and business men 
 and officers of the Presidio." 
 
 " High-school students ! You don't mean that, 
 Grace, surely." 
 
 " In three years, Mrs. Thompson, your Frank 
 will know the street and number of the Rose 
 Door Oh, forgive me, dear Mrs. Thompson, 
 I didn't mean to say that." 
 
 The blood tide had ebbed and flowed in Mrs. 
 Thompson's face. 
 
 " Do you mean you made a misstatement ? " 
 
 There was no reply from Grace. 
 
 " Or, do you mean that you regret that you 
 thoughtlessly told me a killing truth a truth 
 that would kill ? " 
 
 From between Grace's white eyelids splashed 
 tears upon her whiter hands. Mrs. Thompson
 
 184 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 left the tent to be alone, all alone for a time. My 
 Frank, my Frank! was the chant that night. 
 
 Another day, " What more did your friend 
 say, Grace ? " 
 
 " He made one very strong statement one 
 I meant to study up to see if it could be verified, 
 but, well, in my work, we have one all-absorbing 
 study how to get and hold men, and I never 
 found time to read up on it. He said that if all 
 the women in the world were brutally ravished 
 they would not sustain one-thousandth of the ; 
 physical and mental injury that now comes to ; 
 them from the love-plague via prostitution. '. 
 Father and husband contract it; heredity and } 
 marriage transmit it. There is no cure for it ; 
 doctors merely drive it out of sight and some 
 day the healed looks up to see a grisly wraith 
 ambling along at his side ataxia or its brother. 
 He quoted the great Doctor Zossler as saying, I 
 ' Whoever learns all there is to know about the | 
 love disease, need study no other disease.' " 
 
 Hours later Mrs. Thompson closed her eyes to 
 the lullaby, " My Susie ; my Frank ; my Frank ; 
 my Susie." 
 
 " I'm going to the public library," said Mrs. 
 Thompson one morning, " to get some books on 
 the subjects your peculiar friend was so fond of
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 185 
 
 discussing, and together we'll put him to the 
 test." 
 
 " He certainly was unlike any other man who 
 came to us. One night I had a sore throat and 
 fever; when he left, he paid the price of a night 
 on condition that I be not disturbed. 
 
 " Another time he arranged for me to hear a 
 noted Socialist speak. I met him at Kearny and 
 Market Streets, where we took a car. When we 
 reached the hall he gave me a ticket and I went 
 in alone. After the meeting he took me 
 home " 
 
 " Home ! " There was a little shock in Mrs. 
 Thompson's voice. 
 
 " Well, I know the word wouldn't bear analy- 
 sis," acquiesced Grace. " A year ago, he went 
 to New York, but he stopped over a whole day in 
 Minneapolis to find my baby and write me all 
 about her. He had her picture taken, and the 
 photographer sent it to me. She isn't the baby 
 I left, but she is a beautiful child I wonder 
 what her fate will be." 
 
 " I wonder what her fate will be ? " was the 
 song Mrs. Thompson carried to dreamland that 
 night. 
 
 One day, as his wife had suggested, Mr. 
 Thompson stepped to the tent door and looked
 
 i86 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 in. Mrs. Thompson looked up from a book. 
 The sick girl also looked up ; then she raised her- 
 self upon an elbow to look " Merritt ! " 
 
 He will be no whiter when he is dead. He 
 will be no more motionless when he is coffined 
 for one moment then he walked away. 
 
 Can you picture the composite Question, In- 
 credulity, Terror? Then you have the look on 
 Ida Thompson's face. 
 
 There was silence in the tent ; the girl's breath 
 came fast. 
 
 "Tell me, Grace!" 
 
 Only silence. 
 
 " Was it was it he ? " 
 
 " Don't ask -me, dear Mrs. Thompson." 
 
 " I am answered. And his name at 
 that time?" 
 
 " Merritt Jordan ! " 
 
 " And the baby you named ' Jordana Howells.' 
 - 1 see." 
 
 Calling the nurse, Mrs. Thompson left for the 
 night. 
 
 There was a conversation in the house of the 
 ambitious fuchsia. 
 
 "Did you know there was a child, Merritt?" 
 
 " I refuse to discuss the matter, Ida. The
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 187 
 
 man is all to blame, if you let the woman tell the 
 story." 
 
 " I am not weighing the blame at present. I 
 am merely asking if you knew there was a child, 
 of which you are the father? " 
 
 " How do I know how many visitors she had in 
 my absence? " 
 
 " I am answered," said Ida Thompson. " For 
 the children's sake, the same roof shall cover us. 
 Continue to live a bachelor life, when absent from 
 home; I, too, shall live single, though in a dif- 
 ferent sense. For the children's sake, also, we 
 must be courteous to each other in their presence 
 out of their sight, we shall not meet. When 
 they are grown I shall claim the right to live 
 elsewhere ; but at no time, will I be a party to con- 
 signing one child of the same family to poverty 
 and loneliness, while the others have love and 
 luxury." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I am going to Minneapolis for the child." 
 
 " And start the tongues of the whole city to 
 wagging? Great consideration for your children, 
 that!" 
 
 " I can count my own life as naught for my 
 children, but I will not abandon their sister to
 
 188 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 misery and shame. You can proclaim the child 
 an orphaned relative, and let it go at that, if you 
 wish, but I am going to Minneapolis for the 
 child." 
 
 " You're a fool! " 
 
 " I am not a knave ! " 
 
 Merritt Jordan Thompson left on a business 
 trip. 
 
 " You've grown fond of writing of late," said 
 Mrs. Thompson, when Grace had scribbled on and 
 off for three consecutive days. 
 
 " Oh, I'm just dreaming of Minnesota, and 
 writing down my dreams," she smiled back. 
 
 "If they're homesick dreams, I shall spoil 
 them, for I have something beautiful to tell you; 
 I am going to Minneapolis for your baby; you 
 shall have her here with you ; when you get well 
 you shall still have her she shall never leave 
 you again." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Thompson ! " was all the answer 
 for that day. 
 
 The next day : " Dear Mrs. Thompson, I am 
 not going to get well ; I thought for a long time 
 that I would, but at last, I see that I cannot." 
 
 " We are going to hope that you will, Grace, 
 but if you should leave us, your baby shall for- 
 ever more live with her brother and sister; to
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 189 
 
 share their home, their education and the love I 
 bear them." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Thompson ! " was all the answer. 
 
 Day after day in Mrs. Thompson's ears, rang 
 the accusation " Men send girls to the bad, but 
 women keep them there." 
 
 " But Grace," she said in defense, " I have 
 been told that such women are invariably un- 
 truthful and deceitful in every particular, and 
 spend their whole thought upon setting traps of 
 every description for men." 
 
 " Prostitution is a business, Mrs. Thompson, 
 nothing more. Selling intoxicating drinks is a 
 business also. In each case, the salesman's 
 whole occupation is to stimulate trade to ad- 
 vertise, to attract the largest number of patrons 
 possible without concern as to the result to the 
 customer. Remove the profits in either business, 
 and you have killed the business."
 
 XI 
 
 The next day Grace held out a little boo' cc 
 Mrs. Thompson, saying: 
 
 " This was a gift from my idiosyncratic frwnd 
 I think it will interest you." 
 
 That evening in bed, Mrs. Thompson opened 
 it: 
 
 "The Social Evil is very old, nearly as old as human 
 society itself. As far back as history gives any record, 
 evidences of the existence of this peculiar and terrible 
 traffic can be found. Throughout the ages man has been 
 the strong, invasive, dominant sex and women have been 
 more or less weak, dependent, subservient. In various 
 ways, from savagery to modern civilization, women have 
 been subjugated; they have been first captured, beaten, 
 stolen, then bought, and cajoled; and after all, prostitu- 
 tion is but one phase of this general and all-prevailing 
 dominance of man. Out of this very prevalence of mas- 
 tery on the one hand and subserviency on the other, men 
 have grown stronger physically and mentally, women 
 smaller, weaker, more dependent in character. The differ- 
 ence in strength and power very early in the history of 
 the race became fixed and permanent. In the early stage 
 of society, after masculine dominance had been established, 
 sex relations were merely a matter of capture and con- 
 quer. Women had no choice in the transaction, whatever, 
 IQO
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 191 
 
 " Of course, such a state of society, made prostitution 
 impossible. Prostitution is denned, as, ' selling one's self 
 for the use of another for a price ' and this could not be 
 done by persons who did not own their own bodies. 
 Women could be lent or sold by their masters, but they did 
 not possess the right to bestow themselves on any man, 
 for money or love. 
 
 " It is true that riotous and excessive intercourse pre- 
 vailed during the earlier stages of human society. But 
 women were not consulted as to their wishes. The chiefs 
 of the tribes owned all the women and they exchanged or 
 lent them to one another." 
 
 Mrs. Thompson threw the book down; it nau- 
 seated her; perhaps a woman who had led the 
 life Grace had, might be able to read the article 
 without qualm, but she, herself, did not feel 
 benefited by the perusal. She looked about her 
 to change the current of her thoughts; the soft 
 tinted walls rested her eyes; the velvet carpet 
 spoke of quiet footfall and the down beneath 
 her body held her easy as a rocking mother's 
 arms. There was peace in the world and rest 
 and sleep. 
 
 The next night in the same bright room on 
 the same couch of down she reached for the 
 book. 
 
 " The idea of marriage arose thus : a scarcity of women, 
 or admiration for one particular woman, first aroused in 
 man the desire for permanent possession ; but for a long
 
 192 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 while wives were communal property for the communal 
 system extended to everything. For her to dispose of her 
 person without authorization was a capital crime, but the 
 husband had the undisputed right to lend out or barter his 
 wives. 
 
 " So that as yet, there were no women free to sell them- 
 selves and personally receive the price. They were still 
 sold, given away or lent; but they could not dispose of 
 themselves in any of these ways. Modern prostitution had 
 not yet begun. 
 
 " With the evolution of private property, in lands, dwell- 
 ings and cattle, the idea of permanent marriage between 
 one man and one woman began to grow up. But even 
 where a monogamic form of marriage prevailed, polygamy 
 has always existed; also cases of polyandry. But with 
 the conception of private possessions came the desire that 
 one's own children might inherit these possessions; there- 
 fore the custom of one man taking one woman to be ex- 
 clusively his own, to whom no other man must ever be 
 admitted, sprang up and came to be a deeply rooted in- 
 stitution. When the man's own strong, right arm could 
 not always be present to enforce obedience, a sort of men- 
 tal watch dog was provided, by inculcating the idea of 
 duty and of the honor to be found in faithfulness and 
 virtue on the part of the wife. Moses, too, at a very 
 opportune time strengthened the spiritual shackles with 
 a convenient : ' Thus saith the Lord ! Thy desire shall 
 be unto thy husband and he shall rule over thee.' Thus 
 woman's status in society was fixed for ages to come." 
 
 Mrs. Thompson laid down the book. She 
 must digest that much before reading further. 
 
 Another night in lounging robe of delicate 
 feel, on the bed of down by a low-hanging bulb
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 193 
 
 of light, Mrs. Thompson picked up the book of 
 disgusting recital to look for the name of the 
 irritating author. Why, the investigations of a 
 physician? Were they really facts ? She opened 
 to her last reading. 
 
 " The earth and its products coming to be held as private 
 property, it naturally followed that a large portion of man- 
 kind were left without land or homes or means of living. 
 The majority of women were married or owned exclu- 
 sively by individual men and in that sense, 'provided for.' 
 But there was still a large class of women who did not 
 belong to anyone; fathers, uncles or brothers not being 
 able to care for or suitably dispose of all their womenkind. 
 Naturally, the dispossessed put their wits to work to make 
 themselves useful to, or desired by the possessing classes 
 in any and every way possible to imagine. Men prosti- 
 tuted their talents, their powers, their skill, and the women 
 who belonged to them in any way. Free women prosti- 
 tuted themselves. 
 
 " Thus the history of prostitution is the history of pri- 
 vate poverty in the earth and all that it brings forth when 
 labor is applied to it." 
 
 Mrs. ' Thompson leaned back on soft pillows 
 and closed her eyes. As a young girl, she had 
 been sent to a " finishing " school where gracious- 
 ness of manner and musical and literary polish 
 had been grafted on to a nature already sweet 
 and refined. As a wife, she was chastity itself; 
 as a mother, unselfish, utterly. Society found 
 her interested in philanthropic enterprises, and
 
 194 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 an authority in Shakespearian Clubs. " Ver- 
 satile," her friends called her. "Educated!" 
 Mrs. Thompson spoke to Mrs. Thompson, " and 
 I knew no more of the origin of marriage and 
 private property than does Susie! A well-in- 
 formed woman ! who thought prostitution was 
 entered upon for pleasure." 
 
 She took up the book with the light gone out 
 of her eyes. 
 
 " Man has set the world-old example of sex barter with 
 no element of love whatever in it. Women, driven by 
 destitution, find it easy to do what they have been cowed 
 and beaten into doing for ages. 
 
 " Now the thought will arise that not all women who 
 sell themselves do so because of actual, dire destitution. 
 Many have yielded themselves through an extreme love of 
 finery and things of beauty, or from the hope of greater 
 luxury and more leisure than an honest life would afford 
 them. This is all too true. Society has made the earning 
 of a good, decent living for the average woman a very 
 difficult thing. It has made the opportunities for exercis- 
 ing her faculties and abilities to advantage very scarce 
 indeed. Always, under our economic system, there is a 
 large class of unemployed workers. This must inevitably 
 be the case when the actual workers are not paid enough 
 to buy back one-fourth of what they produce. An ever 
 abundant surplus of goods on the market, necessitates hard 
 times, or no work at all to a large number of wage 
 workers. The individual members of the class change 
 each month perhaps, but the class is always there. Women 
 have a natural love for the beautiful and for refinement 
 and sweetness of life and a little daily leisure is like a
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 195 
 
 glimpse of heaven to most of them. For the innate, un- 
 comprehended craving so many women experience, they 
 do voluntarily sell themselves, without love and without 
 passion, hoping to find the ease, luxury, beauty and cheer 
 they long for, and little dreaming how much worse their 
 fate will be than it was before. 
 
 " Women marry to gain wealth, position, influence, leisure 
 and luxury, and the world does not condemn them ; yet 
 they are no different and no better than the women who 
 give themselves for a month, a week or an hour for these 
 same things." 
 
 Again Mrs. Thompson laid down the book. 
 Her mind ran over the marriages of her school- 
 girl friends. Clara loved Sammy and married 
 Dick; they went to Europe for a year. Emily 
 married a widower sixty years old, but she has 
 servants and a chauffeur. 
 
 She resumed her reading : 
 
 "What is the alternative to-day for the good woman, 
 who will not give herself in either of these ways, and who 
 has not inherited money or has no father or brother who 
 is willing to support her? Progress has opened up many 
 new fields of activity for woman, but after all she will 
 find the struggle to earn a living a nerve-wearing and 
 bitter struggle. Not all women can marry the men they 
 love what else can they do? 
 
 " If the woman takes up sewing for a living she must 
 work ten, twelve or more hours a day, as fast as her fingers 
 can fly, seated in a close room, getting no physical exer- 
 cise, until disease sets its fatal mark upon her; and she 
 will receive for it barely enough to keep body and soul
 
 196 THE ROSE 
 
 together. Or else she can work in some cf tb factories 
 under similar conditions ; or she can go to work in some- 
 body's kitchen and be looked upon as a machine, without 
 feelings, desires or capacity for happiness; a creature not 
 fit to sit with, to eat with or to talk with, one who is not 
 supposed to need love or friendship or companionship. 
 What self-respecting woman will voluntarily choose such 
 an existence? to wash and scrub and grow bent and 
 wrinkled with hard, knotted hands and ugly form; be al- 
 ways tired and always just outside the circle where life is 
 really lived. 
 
 " Or one may rise to be a stenographer, a bookkeeper 
 or a clerk. But even here, unless one buys her position 
 with her sex favors, it is insecure and she is poorly paic 
 and ill-considered." 
 
 " Susie ! " burst from Mrs. Thompson's lips 
 and, " Susie, Susie," rang through all her dreams 
 that night. 
 
 Every word she had read she hated. She 
 hated the very color of the book, yet she opened 
 it at the first moment of leisure next day. 
 
 "A teacher, perhaps, has a better chance as her hours 
 are not so long and she is treated with some respect by 
 her patrons. But women who teach continuously, are usu- 
 ally nervous wrecks at forty or forty-five. Women do 
 sometimes make good canvassers or agents. If they pos- 
 sess a quality generally known as ' cheek ' and are not sen- 
 sitive to the treatment they receive from strangers they 
 may make a success of it and may not be compelled to 
 work all the time. But the woman has to know that she 
 is forcing articles upon people which they do not want, 
 and she must too often feel herself a fraud. All these
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 197 
 
 devious ways are so dreary, so ugly, so devoid of all 
 that makes life worth living, that it is a strong character 
 indeed that can turn back y from the enticement of an 
 apparently easy life spent in ministering to a man's desires, 
 to take up the dull plodding life of a common wage worker. 
 
 " The majority of prostitutes come from the wage-earn- 
 ing classes, which proves that women are driven to such a 
 life. Typewriter girls, /bookkeepers and clerks are easy 
 prey to their employers, because ,they are often in the 
 midst of well-dressed, refined people, and see gaiety, en- 
 joyment, good cheer on every side and find it impossible 
 to participate in any of these, or to dress decently on the 
 wages they receive for mere toil 'The master, or the 
 master's son considers the domestic servant legitimate 
 prey; when the masters have tired of them, or they have 
 been discovered by the mistresses, they are turned out; 
 what other resource have they but to drift to the houses 
 of prostitution? 
 
 " Laundry women seldom work longer than three or four 
 years before breaking down. They earn from four to 
 eight dollars a week." 
 
 Mrs. Thompson arose and left the house for a 
 walk. She wanted to look at life as she had 
 done before Grace Howells loomed upon her 
 horizon. She would, by calm reflection, get 
 back to her previous point of view "God's in 
 his heaven ; all's right with the world " and 
 forget that of this pessimistic doctor. 
 
 She walked one block, and then headed for 
 home, where she removed her wraps and hur- 
 riedly took up the book.
 
 198 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 " Women are not as sweet and noble to-day as nature 
 would have had them, for woman was first mastered, 
 beaten into submission, robbed, outraged, violated ; until 
 her whole sweet, natural sex nature became distorted and 
 stunted ; later on she was starved and frozen into offering 
 her body with apparent willingness, and then she was 
 flattered, coaxed, and humored until she would consent 
 to become a docile plaything. Sometimes, she has been 
 placed upon a pedestal and worshipped, not for her hu- 
 manity but for her sex; again she has been hawked about 
 and offered for sale by ambitious parents seeking buyers 
 in worn-out old roues, with titles or money bags. 
 
 " Can there be any wonder that women are what they 
 are shallow, volatile, deceitful, vain, incapable of great 
 love or of great actions." 
 
 . Mrs. Thompson leaned back in her chair, 
 "Where, oh where, is the cure for this?" she 
 groaned. 
 
 " Mamma, do something quick ! " Susie stood 
 before her with a cut finger. 
 
 It was a dear task tenderly to bind it nature 
 would do the rest. But the incident only caused 
 her question to echo more loudly " Where is 
 the cure? Where is the cure?" Perhaps the 
 book would answer at the last. She took it up : 
 
 "Where there is poverty and destitution there will be 
 prostitution, both of men and women." 
 
 " Yes, but where is the cure ? " she persisted.
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 199 
 
 " A prominent merchant in a large city was asked to 
 subscribe five hundred dollars toward the building of a 
 ' home ' for fallen women. He amiably complied, and the 
 next morning reduced the wages of all the sewing women 
 in his manufacturing department and thus gave them 
 an extra push toward the path that led to his 'home' for 
 fallen women." 
 
 "But the cure?" 
 
 " Vice and crime can be abolished. When ? When we 
 are certain of the cause of them and then remove those 
 causes. What are their causes? Involuntary poverty." 
 
 A trifle indeed! Remove poverty! But a 
 command is not an explanation. How was this 
 petty obstruction to be pushed aside ? Could the 
 gloomy healer prescribe the antidote? She re- 
 sumed the book. 
 
 " ' But the law might do something to wipe out the evil, 
 surely,' exclaim some. The world has been legislating 
 against sin for thousands of years, but the sin remains 
 just the same. Cleaning out a bagnio is like clearing an 
 old, decaying house of rats by making a loud noise and 
 frightening them away for a time. All the unhappy 
 wretches exist still and must live in some way. They 
 have no other way of securing it except by practicing their 
 old profession, only, now, they do it more secretively and 
 in darker and more dangerous corners. Nothing but a 
 complete change in the social and economic institutions 
 and systems of our civilization will effect a cure for the 
 evil under discussion ; little remedies do not actually affect
 
 200 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 the evil and its underlying cause. The world is waking 
 up to the fact that all human beings are related and that 
 what concerns one concerns all! " 
 
 " The concern of one is the concern of all," 
 murmured Mrs. Thompson. " It is true, it is 
 true ! My Frank ! My Susie ! " and again Mrs. 
 Thompson leaned back with closed eyes which 
 saw. 
 
 The book continued to call. 
 
 " While there are owners of the earth and homeless ones, 
 because of it ; while there are masters and servants ; while 
 there are the favored few and the oppressed majority, 
 there will always be wrongs and abuses which cannot be 
 cured. The earth and all its resources, must belong to all 
 alike. Useful labor must be the only foundation for the 
 ownership of wealth. None should be overworked 
 drudgery dulls the faculties, paralyzes the brain and dwarfs 
 the body. This is pure selfishness, enlightened, for each 
 will possess enough and need not fear the encroachments 
 of his needy brother. 
 
 " When all are afforded full opportunity to act and de- 
 velop and grow, does anyone think that man or woman 
 will sell himself or herself for base uses? Would there be 
 any cause for prostitution? Certainly not." 
 
 Mrs. Thompson closed the book, repeating, 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 One day the eyes did not open; one day the 
 cheeks were not red ; and from the stiffened fin-
 
 THE ROSE DOOR 201 
 
 gers Mrs. Thompson drew a crumpled paper 
 the dreams, the homesick dreams of Minnesota: 
 
 Home of gentle Minnehaha, 
 
 Of Winona, child of air; 
 Shrine of grieving Hiawatha, 
 
 Minnetonka's shady lair. 
 Temple of Saint Anthony's alto 
 
 Where he singeth without care; 
 Hunting ground of the Dacotah 
 That, oh that is Minnesota. 
 
 Where the clouds are sunlit ever ; 
 
 Where the skies give deepest blue ; 
 Where a thousand lakes laugh heavenward; 
 
 Where a thousand bluffs peer through 
 Pine tree boughs, whose leaves drop healing, 
 
 Where come hope and youth anew, - 
 And where loved the fierce Dacotah 
 There, oh there, is Minnesota. 
 
 Where the breezes croon in chorus, 
 
 Mississippi's birth place o'er; 
 Where great oak trees, giant sentries, 
 
 Guard the mighty river's shore ; 
 Where the golden-rod, the regal, 
 
 Makes an endless golden floor, 
 And where sleeps the brave Dacotah 
 There, oh there, is Minnesota. 
 
 When thy sons, beyond thy valleys, 
 
 By life's toil are pushed afar ; 
 Homesick grow they for thy glories, 
 
 For thy winter's snowy spar!
 
 202 THE ROSE DOOR 
 
 Long they for the Cloudy Water, 
 
 Hear it calling, calling far 
 As it called to the Dacotah: 
 Minnesota! Minnesota! 
 
 THE END
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 NOV 1 1970 
 
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 OCT 
 
 Form L9-Series 4939 
 
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 Uerlibrary Loan 
 
 1630 University R^searcn Library 
 
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 PS3503. B166R 
 
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