ZADOC PINE 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 AIRS FROM ARCADY AND ELSE 
 WHERE. i6mo $1.25 
 
 THE MIDGE. I2mo, paper, . . .50 
 Cloth i.oo 
 
 THE STORY OF A NEW YORK 
 HOUSE. Illustrated by A. B. Frost. 
 I2mo, ...... 1.25 
 
 ZADOC PINE AND OTHER STORIES. 
 I 2mo, paper, 50
 
 ZADOC PINE 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 H. C. BUNNER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 1891
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 Press of 1. J. Little & Co. 
 Astor Place, New York
 
 TO 
 A. L. 
 
 2041546
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION I 
 
 NATURAL SELECTION : A ROMANCE OF CHELSEA VIL 
 LAGE AND EAST HAMPTON TOWN, 39 
 
 CASPERL, 125 
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY, 139 
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE, 162 
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM, 212
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 \WHEN Zadoc Pine s father died, Zadoc 
 found himself alone in the North Woods, 
 three miles from Silsbee s Station, twenty-one 
 years old, six foot one inch high, in perfect 
 health, with a good appetite. He had gone 
 to school one summer ; he could read and 
 write fairly well, and could cipher very well. 
 He had gone through the history of the United 
 States, and he had a hazy idea of geography. 
 When his father s estate was settled up, and 
 all debts paid, Zadoc owned two silver dollars, 
 the clothes he stood in, one extra flannel shirt, 
 done up in a bandanna handkerchief in com 
 pany with a razor, a comb, a tooth-brush, and 
 two collars. Besides these things he had a six- 
 inch clasp-knife and an old-fashioned muzzle- 
 loading percussion-cap rifle. 
 
 Old man Pine had been a good Adirondack 
 guide in his time ; but for the last six years he 
 had been laid up, a helpless cripple, with in 
 flammatory rheumatism. He and his son old
 
 2 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 Pine s wife had died before the boy was ten 
 years old lived in their little house in the 
 woods. The father had some small savings, 
 and the son could earn a little as a sort of 
 auxiliary guide. He got a job here and there 
 where some party needed an extra man. Zadoc 
 was an excellent shot ; but he was no fisherman, 
 and he had little knowledge of the streams and 
 ponds further in the woods. 
 
 So, when the old father was gone, when 
 Zadoc had paid the last cent of his debt to the 
 storekeeper at Silsbee s the storekeeper taking 
 the almost worthless shanty of the Pines in part 
 payment when he had settled with Silsbee s 
 saw-mill for the boards out of which he himself 
 had made his father s coffin, Zadoc Pine stood 
 on the station-platform and wondered what was 
 going to become of him, or, rather, as he put it, 
 "what he was a-going for to do with himself." 
 
 There was no employment for him at Sils 
 bee s Station. He might, perhaps, get a job as 
 guide ; but it was doubtful, and he had seen 
 too much of the life. It seemed to him a 
 waste of energy. To live as his father had 
 lived, a life of toil and exposure, a dreary ex 
 istence of hard work and small profit, and to 
 end at last penniless and in debt for food, was 
 no part of Zadoc s plans. He knew from the 
 maps in the old geography that the whole Ad-
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 3 
 
 irondack region was only a tiny patch on the 
 map of the United States. Somewhere outside 
 there he was sure he would find a place for 
 himself. 
 
 He knew that the little northern railroad at 
 his feet connected with the greater roads to 
 the south. But the great towns of the State 
 were only so many names to him. His eyes 
 were not turned toward New York. He had 
 " guided " for parties of New York men, and he 
 had learned enough to make himself sure that 
 New York was too large for him. " I wouldn t 
 be no more good down there," he said to him 
 self, " then they be up here. Tain t my size." 
 
 Yet somewhere he must go. He had 
 watched the young men who employed him, 
 and he had made up his mind to two things : 
 First, these young men had money ; second, 
 he could get it if they could. One had jok 
 ingly shown him a hundred-dollar bill, and had 
 asked him to change it. There was some part 
 of the world, then, where people could be free 
 and easy with hundred-dollar bills. Why was 
 not that the place for him ? " They know a lot 
 more n I do," he said ; " but they hed to Tarn 
 it fust-off ; an I guess ef their brains was so 
 everlastin much better n mine they wouldn t 
 souse em with whiskey the way they do." 
 
 As Zadoc Pine stood on the platform, feeling
 
 4 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 of the two silver dollars in his pocket, he saw 
 the wagon drive up from Silsbee s saw-mill with 
 a load of timber, and old Mr. Silsbee on top of 
 the load. There was a train of flat cars on the 
 siding, where it had been lying for an hour, 
 waiting for the up-train. When the wagon ar 
 rived, Mr. Silsbee, the station-master, and the 
 engineer of the train had a three-cornered col 
 loquy of a noisy sort. The station-master after 
 awhile withdrew, shrugging his shoulders with 
 the air of a man who declines to engage further 
 in a profitless discussion. 
 
 "What s the matter?" asked Zadoc. 
 
 "That there lumber of Silsbee s," said the 
 station-master, who was a New England man. 
 "The durned old cantankerous cuss is kickin 
 because he can t ship it. Why, this here train s 
 so short o hands they can t hardly run it ez tis, 
 let alone loadin lumber." 
 
 " Where s it goin to? " inquired Zadoc, " an 
 why s this train short o hands?" 
 
 "Goin to South Ridge, Noo Jersey," said 
 the station-master, " or twould be ef twan t 
 for this blame strike. Can t get nobody to 
 load it." 
 
 " Where s South Ridge ? " was Zadoc s next 
 inquiry. 
 
 " Bout ten or twenty miles from Noo York." 
 
 " Country? "
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 5 
 
 "Country nough, I guess. Ask Silsbee." 
 
 Zadoc walked after Mr. Silsbee, who was by 
 this time marching back towards the saw-mill, 
 red in the face and puffing hard. Zadoc got in 
 front of him. 
 
 " Mornin , Mr. Silsbee," he said. 
 
 " Mornin er who are ye ? Oh, Enoch 
 Pine s boy, hey? Mornin , young man I 
 hain t got no time " 
 
 " How much is it wuth to you to get them 
 sticks to where they re goin to ? " demanded 
 Zadoc. 
 
 "Wuth? It s wuth hundreds of dollars to 
 me, young man it s wuth 
 
 " Is it wuth a five-dollar bill ? " Zadoc inter 
 rupted. 
 
 " Whatyermean ? " 
 
 " You know me, Squire Silsbee. If it s wuth 
 a five-dollar bill to get them timbers down to 
 South Ridge, New Jersey, an you can get 
 that engineer to take me on as an extra hand 
 that far, I ll load em on, go down there with 
 em, an unload em. All I want s five dollars 
 for my keep while I m a-goin ." 
 
 "You don t want t go to South Ridge?" 
 gasped Mr. Silsbee. 
 
 " Yaas, I do." 
 
 " Whut fer?" 
 
 " Fer my health," said Zadoc. The squire
 
 O THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 looked at the muscular, sunburnt animal be 
 fore him, and he had to grin. 
 
 " Well," he said, " tain t none o my business. 
 You come along, an I ll see if that pig-headed 
 fool will let you work your way down." 
 
 One hour later Zadoc was rolling southward 
 on a flat car, and learning how to work brakes 
 as he went. It was a wonderful pleasure-trip 
 to him. The work was nothing ; he was strong 
 as a bull-moose ; and he was simply en 
 chanted to see the great world stringing itself 
 out along the line of the railroad track. He had 
 never in his life seen a settlement larger than 
 Silsbee s, and when the villages turned into 
 towns and the towns into cities, he was so 
 much interested that he lost his appetite. He 
 asked the train hands all the questions he could 
 think of, and acquired some information, al 
 though they did not care to talk about much 
 except the great strike and the probable 
 action of the unions. 
 
 * * * # % * 
 
 It was about six o clock of a cloudy May 
 evening when Zadoc Pine jumped off the car 
 at South Ridge and helped to unload Mr. Sils 
 bee s cargo of timber. The brakeman on his 
 end of the train said, " So long ! " Zadoc said, 
 " So long ! " and the train whirled on to New 
 York.
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. / 
 
 Zadoc stood by the track and gazed some 
 what dismally after his travelling home. He 
 was roused from something like a brown study 
 when the station-master of South Ridge hailed 
 him. 
 
 " Hi, country ! where are you ? " 
 
 " Is this New Jersey? " asked Zadoc. 
 
 " Yes. What do you think it was Ohio? " 
 
 Zadoc had heard something of the national 
 reputation of the State from his late com 
 panions. 
 
 " Well," he reflected, " I must be pretty mil 
 dewed when a Jerseyman hollers country at 
 me." 
 
 Zadoc made this reflection aloud. The sta 
 tion-master walked off with a growl, and two 
 or three gentlemen who were talking on the 
 platform laughed quietly. Zadoc walked up 
 to one of them. 
 
 " I brung that there lumber down here," he 
 said ; " I d like to know who owns it. Maybe 
 there s more job in it fer me ? " 
 
 " I don t think so," one of the gentlemen 
 said, in a rather cold and distant way. " That 
 is for the new station, and the railway com 
 pany has its own hands." 
 
 Zadoc looked all about him. There was no 
 town to be seen. He was among the foot-hills 
 of the Orange Mountains, and on all sides of
 
 O THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 him were undulating slopes, some open, some 
 wooded. He saw old-fashioned farm-houses, 
 and many more modern dwellings, of what 
 seemed to him great size and beauty, although 
 they were only ordinary suburban cottages of 
 the better sort. But nowhere could he see 
 shops or factories. There was a quarry high 
 up on one of the slopes, but that was all. It 
 looked like a poor place in which to seek for 
 work. 
 
 " Well," he remarked, " maybe there s some- 
 wheres where I can put up fer to-night." 
 
 " What sort of place ? " the gentleman asked. 
 
 " Well," said Zadoc, " some sort of inn, or 
 tavern, or suthin , where I c n get about ten 
 cents wuth o style an ninety cents w r uth o 
 sleep an feed." 
 
 Two of the gentlemen laughed ; but the one 
 to whom Zadoc had spoken, who seemed a 
 dignified and haughty person, answered in a 
 chilly and discouraging way : 
 
 " Go down this street to the cross-roads, and 
 ask for Bryan s. That is where the quarrymen 
 board." 
 
 He turned away, and went in the other 
 direction with his companions. Zadoc Pine 
 shouldered his rifle, picked up the handker 
 chief which held his other belongings, and 
 trudged down the road under the new foliage
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 9 
 
 of the great chestnuts. He came in a little 
 while to the cross-roads, where there were four 
 huddled blocks of shabby square houses. 
 There was a butcher s shop, a grocer s, a bak 
 er s, three or four dririking-places, and Bryan s. 
 This was the forlornest house of all. There 
 was a dirty attempt at an ice-cream saloon in 
 the front, and in the rear was a large room 
 with a long table, where the quarrymen took 
 their meals. When Zadoc arrived, the quarry- 
 men were sitting on the sidewalk in front of 
 the house with their feet in the gutter. They 
 were smoking pipes and talking in a dull way 
 among themselves. By the time that Zadoc 
 had bargained for a room, with supper and 
 breakfast, for one dollar, supper was announced, 
 and they all came in. Zadoc did not like 
 either his companions or his supper. 
 
 He did not know enough of the distinguish 
 ing marks of various nationalities to guess at 
 the nativity of these men ; but he knew that 
 they were not Americans. He tried to talk to 
 the man nearest him, but the man did not 
 want to talk. Zadoc asked him about the 
 work and the wages at the quarry. 
 
 " It s a dollar-twinty-five a day," the quarry- 
 man said, sullenly ; " an it s a shame ! The 
 union ain t doin nothin fer us. An there 
 ain t no more quarrymen wanted. There s
 
 IO THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 Milliken, he owns the carrts ; mebbc he ll take 
 a driver. But if ye want a job, ye ll have to 
 see McCuskey, the diligate." 
 
 "What might a diligate be?" inquired the 
 young man from the North Woods. 
 
 " The mon what runs the union. Ye re a 
 union mon, ain t ye?" 
 
 " Guess not," said Zadoc. 
 
 "Thin ye d best be out of this," the man 
 said, rising rudely and lumbering off. 
 
 " Guess I won t wake McCuskey up in the 
 mornin ," Zadoe thought ; " dollar- n -a-quar- 
 ter s big money ; but I don t want no sech 
 work ez quarryin , ef it makes a dead log of a 
 man like that." 
 
 He finished his meal and went into the 
 street. Bryan was leaning against the door- 
 jamb, conversing with a tall man on the side 
 walk. It was the gentleman whom Zadoc had 
 seen at the station. 
 
 " You can t get him this week, Mr. Thorn- 
 dyke," said Bryan. " Bixby s ahead of you, 
 and the Baxters. They been waitin three 
 weeks for him. Fact is, Andy don t want to 
 do no more th n two days work in a week." 
 
 " Can t you think of any other man ? " Mr. 
 Thorndyke queried, irritably. " Here I have 
 been waiting for this fellow a whole fortnight 
 to dig a half-dozen beds in my garden, and I
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. II 
 
 don t believe he intends to come. There ought 
 to be somebody who wants the job. Can t 
 some of these men here come after hours, or 
 before, and do it ? I pay well enough for the 
 work." 
 
 There was no movement among the quarry- 
 men, who were once more sitting on the edge 
 of the sidewalk, with their feet in the gutter. 
 
 " I don t know of no one, Mr. Thorndyke," 
 said Bryan, and Mr. Thorndyke turned back 
 up the road. 
 
 " Diggin garden-beds ? " mused Zadoc. " I 
 ain t never dug no garden-beds ; but I hev dug 
 fer bait, n I guess the principle s the same 
 on y you don t hev to sort out the wums." He 
 walked rapidly after Mr. Thorndyke, and over- 
 to x ok him. 
 
 " Don t you want me to dig them beds fer 
 you ? " he inquired. 
 
 ^Can you dig them?" Mr. Thorndyke 
 looked surprised and suspicious. 
 
 " That s what I m here fer." 
 
 " Do you know where my house is ? The 
 third on the hill ? " 
 
 " Third she is," said Zadoc. 
 
 " Come up to-morrow morning." 
 
 Zadoc went back to Bryan s and went to bed 
 in a narrow, close room, overlooking an ill-kept 
 back yard. It was dirty, it was cheerless ;
 
 12 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 worst of all, it was airless. Zadoc s mind was 
 made up. " Ef this suits quarrymen, quarryin 
 don t suit me." 
 
 ****** 
 He had a bad night, and arose at five the 
 next morning. At six he went to a breakfast 
 that was worse than the supper had been. 
 Zadoc had been used to poor and coarse fare 
 all his life, but there was something about this 
 flabby, flavorless, greasy, boarding-house food 
 that went against him. He ate what he could, 
 and then walked up the road toward Mr. Thorn- 
 dyke s house. As he went higher up the hill 
 he saw that the houses at the cross-roads were 
 very much unlike their surroundings. To a 
 man born and brought up in the skirts of the 
 North Woods, this New Jersey village seemed 
 a very paradise. The green lawns amazed 
 him ; the neat fences, the broad roads, the 
 great trees, standing clear of underbrush, were 
 all marvels in his eyes. And besides the com 
 fortable farm-houses and the mansions of the 
 rich and great, he saw many humbler dwellings 
 of a neat and well-ordered sort. From one of 
 these a pretty girl, standing in the doorway, 
 with her right arm in a sling, looked at him 
 with curiosity, and what Zadoc took to be 
 kindly interest. It was really admiration. If 
 Zadoc had ever thought to inquire, he would
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 13 
 
 have learned that he was not only big, but 
 good-looking. 
 
 He lingered a little as he passed this place, 
 to admire it. The house had two stories, of 
 which the lower was of rough stone, brightly 
 whitewashed. In front was a bit of a garden, 
 in which green things were sprouting. In the 
 little woodshed, to one side, a neat old woman, 
 with pretty, white hair, was cutting kindling- 
 wood. The girl in the doorway was very 
 pretty, if her arm was in a sling. Zadoc 
 looked it all over with entire approval. "That s 
 my size," he thought. 
 
 He found no one awake at Mr. Thorndyke s 
 house, and he sat on the front steps until half- 
 past seven o clock, when Mr. Thorndyke him 
 self came out to get the morning paper, which 
 had been left on the front porch. Zadoc had 
 read it through already. 
 
 "You are early," was Mr. Thorndyke s 
 greeting. 
 
 " I was earlier when I come," returned 
 Zadoc. " Been here more n an hour. Awful 
 waste o God s sunlight, when there s work 
 a-waitin ." 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Thorndyke coldly, as he 
 led the way around the corner of the house, 
 " here are the beds. The lines are pegged out. 
 I suppose there is about a day s work on them,
 
 14 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 and I will pay you at the usual rate for gar 
 deners work, hereabouts a dollar and a half." 
 
 " Yaas," said Zadoc, as he looked over the 
 territory staked out, " I see. But if this job s 
 wuth a dollar- n -a-half to you, I d ruther take 
 it ez a job, at them riggers. I can fool away a 
 day on it, ef that ll please you better; but I d 
 ruther git through with it when I git through, 
 ef it s all the same to you." 
 
 " I don t care how you do it," Mr. Thorn- 
 dyke said, "so long as it is done, and done 
 properly, when I come home to-night at six." 
 
 "You needn t put off coming home for me," 
 was Zadoc s cheerful assurance. 
 
 Then he proceeded to ask Mr. Thorndyke 
 a number of questions about the manner in 
 which the beds were to be dug. Mr. Thorn- 
 dyke knit his brows. 
 
 " Haven t you ever dug beds before ? " 
 
 " I never dug no beds fer you. When I do 
 work fer a man I do it to suit him, an not to 
 suit some other feller." 
 
 " How do I know that you can do the work 
 at all?" 
 
 "You don t," said Zadoc, frankly ; "but ef 
 tain t satisfactory you don t hev to pay. 
 Thefs cheap fer a hole in the ground." 
 
 " Have you a spade?" Mr. Thorndyke de 
 manded, and his manner was depressingly stern.
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 15 
 
 " No, I ain t," said Zadoc, " but I ll git one." 
 ****** 
 
 Zadoc walked up to the next house on the 
 hill, which was a large and imposing structure. 
 It belonged to the richest man in South Ridge, 
 and the richest man was sitting on his front 
 porch. 
 
 " Got a spade to lend ? " Zadoc asked. 
 
 " What do you want it for ? " the richest man 
 demanded. 
 
 " Fer a job down there to Squire Thorn- 
 dyke s, next door," Zadoc informed him. 
 
 " Did Mr. Thorndyke send you?" 
 
 "No, I come myself." 
 
 The millionaire of South Ridge stared at 
 Zadoc for a moment, and then arose, walked 
 around the house, and presently reappeared 
 with a spade. " When you bring this back," 
 he said, " give it to the man in the stable." 
 
 " Much obliged ! " said Zadoc. 
 
 The beds were all dug before three o clock, 
 and Mrs. Thorndyke came out and expressed 
 her approval. Zadoc took off his hat and 
 bowed, as his father had told him he should 
 do when he met a lady. 
 
 "I see," he remarked, "you ve got some 
 mornin -glories set out alongside o the house. 
 Ef you ll get me a ladder an some string, an 
 nails an a hammer, I ll train em up fer yer."
 
 1 6 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION, 
 
 Mrs. Thorndyke looked doubtful. 
 
 " I don t know what arrangement my hus 
 band has made with you," she began; but 
 Zadoc interrupted her. 
 
 "There ain t nothin to pay fer that, ma am. 
 One pertater on top f the measure don t break 
 no one, and it kinder holds trade." 
 
 The ladder and the other things were brought 
 out, and Zadoc climbed up and fastened the 
 strings as he had seen them arranged for the 
 morning-glories that climbed up the walls of 
 Squire Silsbee s house. 
 
 While he was on the ladder, the rich man 
 next door, whose name, by the way, was Vre- 
 denburg, came down and leaned on the fence 
 and talked to Mrs. Thorndyke. 
 
 " Getting the place in good trim, aren t 
 you ? " 
 
 " Trying to," said Mrs. Thorndyke. " There 
 are ever so many things to do. I ve sent to 
 three men already, to cart my ash-heap away, 
 and they won t come. There s a wandering 
 gardener here who has just dug my beds ; if it 
 hadn t been for him, I should have gone with 
 out flowers all the summer." 
 
 Zadoc heard this and grinned ; and then he 
 began to think. He had been looking over 
 toward the quarry during the day, and he had 
 noticed that the horses stood idle a large part
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. I/ 
 
 of the time. There was one tall gray hitched 
 to a cart, whose business it was to remove the 
 small stones and waste, and who did not make 
 one trip an hour, resting for the greater part of 
 the time under a huge tree. 
 
 "That horse ain t too tired," thought Zadoc, 
 "to give a feller a lift after workin hours." 
 
 By four o clock the strings were up for the 
 morning-glories. Mr. Thorndyke would not 
 return before six. Zadoc strolled down to the 
 quarry and found Milliken. He asked Mil- 
 liken what would be a proper charge for the 
 services of the big gray horse for two hours 
 after six o clock. Milliken thought fifty cents 
 would pay him and the horse. Then Zadoc 
 continued his stroll, and found out that the 
 dumping-grounds of South Ridge were near 
 the river, among the tailings of an abandoned 
 quarry. 
 
 After that he went back to Bryan s and got 
 a couple of eggs cooked for his private supper. 
 He had had his dinner at the noon hour, and it 
 was worse than the breakfast. The eggs were, 
 as he told Mr. Bryan, " kinder twixt grass and 
 hay." He felt that he had had enough of 
 Bryan s. 
 
 Going up the road to Mr. Thorndyke s, he 
 came to the neat little house that he had 
 noticed the night before ; he looked at it for
 
 1 8 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION, 
 
 a minute, and then he went in and asked the 
 white-haired old woman if she did not want to 
 take him as a boarder. She said that she did 
 not ; she was a lone widow-woman, and she 
 had all she could do to pay her way with 
 doing washing, and she didn t want no quarry- 
 men fooling around her house ; she knew what 
 quarrymen were. 
 
 Zadoc explained to her that he was not a 
 quarryman. He told her all about himself, 
 and about his dissatisfaction with Bryan s 
 arrangements ; but she only shook her head 
 and said that she didn t want him. He was 
 going out of the door, when the young girl who 
 had smiled on him yesterday, and who had 
 been listening in a corner, came forward and 
 spoke earnestly to the old woman. 
 
 " He looks good, mother," Zadoc heard her 
 say ; " and it s to his credit that he don t like 
 Bryan s. If he s a decent man, we oughtn t to 
 send him back to a place like that. It s a 
 shame for a young man to be left among those 
 people." 
 
 The old woman wavered. " We might try 
 him," she said. 
 
 Zadoc came back. 
 
 " You try me, and you ll keep me," said he. 
 " An ez fer you, young woman, ef you use ez 
 much judgment when you pick out a husband
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 1 9 
 
 ez you do when you choose a boarder, you ll 
 do first-rate." The young woman blushed. 
 
 Then they talked about the proper price of 
 Zadoc s board, and they all agreed that two 
 dollars a week would be fair. Zadoc paid 
 down the two dollars in advance, and was 
 without a cent in the world, for Bryan had 
 taken his other dollar for the two bad meals. 
 But Zadoc did not mind that, and within fif 
 teen minutes he had moved his possessions 
 into a clean little whitewashed room in the 
 second story of the widow Dadd s house. The 
 widow was much troubled at the sight of his 
 rifle ; but she finally consented to let it hang 
 on his white wall ; and Zadoc ate his supper, 
 although he had eaten one already, and made 
 the meal as cheerful as he could to Mrs. Dadd 
 and her daughter, which was not difficult to 
 him, for it was a good supper. A little before 
 six he marched off to Mr. Thorndyke s. 
 
 Mr. Thorndyke paid him his dollar and a 
 half ; and Zadoc broached a new project. 
 
 " There s that there ash-heap o yourn," he 
 said, " why can t I cart that off fer you ? " 
 
 " But you haven t a cart," Mr. Thorndyke 
 objected. 
 
 "I ll have one," Zadoc said. "What s the 
 job wuth ? " 
 
 " I ve always paid a dollar."
 
 20 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 Zadoc rubbed his chin and mused. " I ll 
 call on ye for thet dollar when I ve earned it," 
 he said. " Evenin ! " 
 
 Zadoc had been at the back of the house 
 during the day, and had sized up the ash-heap, 
 as well as one or two other things. He walked 
 down to the quarry and got the big gray and 
 his cart, and drove up to the Thorndykes back 
 yard. There he shovelled the ash-heap (the 
 shovel went with the horse and cart) into the 
 vehicle. There was just one load. There had 
 been a heavy rain during the night, and the 
 ashes were packed close. The cart held a 
 cubic yard, and it was not overloaded when 
 Zadoc drove it down the road toward the old 
 quarry. 
 
 As he drove he looked ahead, and he noticed 
 that the sidewalks, or raised paths to right and 
 left of the road, were made of ashes pounded 
 down not cinders from the railroad, but ordi 
 nary hard-coal ashes, beaten into a compact 
 mass. Before he had driven half a mile he 
 saw, some hundred feet in front of him, a 
 broad break in the sidewalk to his right a 
 gully washed out by the rain. He stopped 
 his horse behind a clump of trees, alighted, 
 and walked forward to the gate in front of a 
 comfortable house. The owner was pottering 
 about, looking at the vines that were begin-
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 21 
 
 ning to climb up the wires on his veranda. 
 Zadoc accosted him. 
 
 " Evenin ! You ve got a bad hole in that 
 there path o yourn." 
 
 " Are you a road-inspector ? " asked the 
 man of the house, in a disagreeable tone of 
 voice. 
 
 " No," said Zadoc, " I m a road-mender. 
 You ve got ter fill that hole up. S pose I fill 
 it up fer you fer fifty cents ? " 
 
 " Yer ain t going to drive out here and mend 
 that walk for half a dollar, are you ? " the man 
 asked, incredulously. 
 
 " I m a-goin to take it on my reggleler rowt," 
 replied Zadoc. "Does she go ? " 
 
 The man looked over the fence at the big 
 hole. " She goes," he said. 
 
 It was just one hour later, when some light 
 lingered in the sky, that the householder with 
 the broken sidewalk paid Zadoc Pine his fifty 
 cents. He paid it with a dazed look on his 
 face ; but Zadoc was as bright and airy as 
 usual as he pocketed the money and drove 
 back to the quarry-stables. His cubic yard of 
 ashes had filled the gap and left a little over, 
 with which he had patched a few smaller 
 breaks. 
 
 When Zadoc arose on the morrow and 
 stepped out of doors to breathe the morning
 
 22 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 air, he saw the white-haired widow chopping 
 kindling-wood in the shed. 
 
 " That ain t no work fer you," he said. 
 
 " Who s to do it ? " the widow asked ; " my 
 darter, her arm s lame. She lamed it snatchin 
 a child off the railroad-track in front of the 
 engyne. The engyne hit her. It was one o 
 them delegate s children, an no thanks to 
 nobody. Who s to chop kindlin if I don t?" 
 
 " I be, I reckon," said Zadoc. He took the 
 hatchet out of her hands and split up a week s 
 supply. It was sharp work on an empty stom 
 ach ; but he took it out of the breakfast, a little 
 later. 
 
 After breakfast he walked down to Centre, 
 the nearest large town, and spent an hour in a 
 paint-shop there. He asked a great many 
 questions, and the men in the shop had a good 
 deal of fun with him. Zadoc knew it, but he 
 did not care. " Amooses them, don t hurt me, 
 an keeps the derned fools talkin ," he said to 
 himself. 
 
 He returned to South Ridge in time for din 
 ner, and in the afternoon sallied out to look 
 for a job. Remembering the Bixbys and the 
 Baxters, and the fact that " Andy " did not 
 care for more than two days work in the week, 
 Zadoc thought he would offer his services to 
 the two families. " Thar ain t no room in this
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 2$ 
 
 world," he reflected, "for two-day men. The 
 six-day men has first call on all jobs." 
 
 The Bixbys gave him the work, and paid 
 him a dollar for the afternoon s work ; but he 
 could not come to terms with the Baxters. 
 They wanted him to take fifty cents for half a 
 day s work. 
 
 " But you d a had ter pay that there other 
 feller a dollar," Zadoc objected. 
 
 "But that s different," said Mrs. Baxter; 
 "you aren t a regular gardener, you know." 
 
 " The job ain t different," replied Zadoc ; 
 " and ef Andy c n get a dollar fer it, I m a-goin 
 to let him have it." And he shook his long 
 legs down the road. 
 
 He loomed up, long and bony, before Mr. 
 Thorndyke just after dinner. 
 
 "You ve come to cart the ash-heap away, I 
 suppose?" Mr. Thorndyke said. 
 
 " That ash-heap moved out of town last 
 evenin . Ef you ve got time, though, I want 
 yer to step around to the back o the house. 
 Got somethin to show yer." 
 
 The "something" was Mr. Thorndyke s 
 barn. He kept no horse; but the small build 
 ing that goes with every well-regulated cottage 
 in New Jersey he utilized as a play-room for 
 his children and a gymnasium for himself. 
 
 "That there barn," Zadoc told him, "is jest
 
 24 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 a sight to look at. It stands to the north o 
 the house, an takes all the weather there is. 
 The paint s most off it. Look at these here 
 big scales ! I took one of those there fer a 
 sample, and here s the color, the way it ought 
 to be, on this here bit o shingle." Zadoc 
 pulled the sample out of his pocket. " Now 
 you wanter let me paint that barn for yer. 
 I ve figgered thet it ll cost yer jest twenty-five 
 dollars. Thet s a savin for yo2i, an I c n take 
 my time about it, and put in a week on the 
 job an do some other work round the town at 
 the same time." 
 
 "Have you other engagements?" Mr. 
 Thorndyke asked. 
 
 " No," was Zadoc s answer ; " but I m goin 
 to hev em." 
 
 " But do you know how to paint ? " 
 
 " Anythin the matter with my gardenin ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " All right on ash-heaps, ain t I ? " 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 " Well, you jest try me on paint. Same old 
 terms no satisfaction, no pay. I can t make 
 that there barn look wuss n it does now ; an 
 I m goin ter make it look a heap better." 
 
 The next afternoon Zadoc was painting the 
 Thorndyke barn. He worked there only in 
 the afternoons ; in the mornings he hunted up
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 2$ 
 
 odd jobs about the town, and the money he 
 eot for these he took to Centre and invested 
 
 o 
 
 in paint and brushes. As he paid cash, he had 
 to buy in small quantities ; but when the barn 
 was painted and it was painted to Mr. 
 Thorndyke s satisfaction Zadoc found himself 
 something more like a capitalist than he had 
 ever been in his life. 
 
 But there was one unpleasant incident con 
 nected with this job. He was sitting one 
 afternoon in the children s swing, which he 
 had borrowed to use in painting those parts of 
 the barn which he could not reach with a 
 ladder : he tied the ends of the ropes around 
 the cupola, twisted himself up to the ridge 
 pole, and untwisted himself as he painted 
 downward. He was slathering away on his 
 second coat, whistling cheerily to himself, 
 when a man in overalls and a painty jacket 
 came up and made some remarks about the 
 weather. Zadoc told him that the weather 
 was a good thing to take as it came ; and then 
 the man inquired : 
 
 " Do you belong to the union ? " 
 
 What union?" asked Zadoc; "I ain t no 
 Canuck, ef thet s what yer mean." 
 
 " The house-painters union," said the man. 
 
 "Well, no," said Zadoc, still slathering 
 away, with his head on one side. " Guess I m
 
 26 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 union enough, all by myself. I m perfec ly 
 united, I am all harmonious and unanimous 
 an comfortable." 
 
 "What are you a-paintin for, then?" 
 demanded the stranger. 
 
 " Fer money," said Zadoc. " What are you 
 a-foolin around here for? " 
 
 " Have you ever served an apprenticeship 
 to this business? " the man asked. 
 
 " Hev you ever served an apprenticeship ter 
 rollin off a log?" Zadoc asked, by way of 
 answer. 
 
 The man muttered something and moved 
 away. Zadoc communed with himself. 
 
 " Ap-prenticeship ter sloppin paint ! Well, 
 I be derned ! Why, fool-work like thet s born 
 in a man, same s swimmin ." 
 
 ****** 
 
 As Zadoc became known to the community 
 he found that work came right to his hand. 
 The laboring native of South Ridge was the 
 sort of man who said, when a job was offered 
 to him, " Well, I guess I ll take a day off some 
 time week arter next and tend to it." This 
 energetic person from the North Woods, who 
 made engagements and kept them, was a reve 
 lation to the householders of the town. He 
 mended fences and roads ; he cut grass and 
 sodded lawns ; he put in panes of glass and
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 2/ 
 
 whitewashed kitchens ; he soldered leaky re 
 frigerators and clothes-boilers ; he made paths 
 and dug beds ; he beat carpets and pumped 
 water into garret tanks in short, he did every 
 thing that a man can do with muscle and intel 
 ligent application. He was not afraid to do a 
 thing because he had never done it before. 
 
 Moreover, he made his services acceptable 
 by doing, as a rule, more than his contract 
 called for. He was not above treating his 
 employers as so many fellow human beings. 
 When the doctor prescribed wild-cherry cor 
 dial for Mrs. Thorndyke, Zadoc put in a whole 
 afternoon in scouring the country for wild 
 cherries, and brought back a large basketful. 
 He would take no pay. 
 
 " Them s with my compliments," he said. 
 " They growed wild, an I guess they growed 
 wild a-puppus. Knowed thar was sick folks 
 a-needin of em, mebbe." 
 
 * #&* -X- 
 
 But it was not to be all plain sailing for 
 Zadoc. One evening he went home to the 
 widow Dadd s, and found the widow in tears 
 and her daughter flushed and indignant. They 
 told him that a " boycott " had been declared 
 against him for doing union men s work, and 
 against them for harboring him. The butcher 
 of the town, who was also the green-grocer,
 
 28 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 would sell Mrs. Dadd nothing more until she 
 turned Zadoc out of doors. Centre was the 
 nearest town from which she could get sup 
 plies, and Centre was three miles away. 
 
 Zadoc walked over to the butcher s shop. 
 The butcher was a German. 
 
 " What s this here, Schmitzer ? " he demand 
 ed. " Ain t my money good enough fer you ? " 
 
 " I ken t help it, Mr. Pine," said Schmitzer, 
 sullenly. " If I don boygott you, dem fellis 
 boygott me. I got noddin against you, Mr. 
 Pine, but I ken t sell you no mead, nor Mrs. 
 Tatt neider." 
 
 " Runnin me out of town, are ye? " Zadoc 
 said. " Well, we run men out whar I come 
 from. But we don t run em out unless they ve 
 done suthin , an they don t let emselves be 
 run out onless they ve done suthin. I ain t 
 done nothin but what I ought, an I m a-goin 
 ter stay here." 
 
 He went back to the widow Dadd s, and told 
 her that he would take charge of the commis 
 sariat. That night he got a large packing-case, 
 which Mr. Vredenburg was quite willing to 
 give him, and a barrow-load of saw-dust from 
 the waste-heap at the saw-mill. After an hour s 
 work he had a fairly good ice-box, and by the 
 next night he had that box filled with ice from 
 Centre and with meat and vegetables from New
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 29 
 
 York. Zadoc read the papers ; he had seen 
 the market reports, and now he was able to 
 determine, by actual experiment, the differ 
 ence between South Ridge prices and New 
 York market prices. He discovered that the 
 difference was very nearly forty per cent. The 
 express company s charge for transportation 
 was forty cents for an ordinary flour-barrel 
 well packed. 
 
 Zadoc saw a new vista opening before him. 
 He called on Mr. Thorndyke, and proposed to 
 do that stately person s marketing, and to 
 divide the forty per cent, profit evenly be 
 tween them. Mr. Thorndyke was at first 
 doubtful and suspicious. He cross-examined 
 Zadoc, and found out what had started the 
 young man on this new line. Then his man 
 ners changed. Mr. Thorndyke was not in the 
 habit of carrying himself very graciously 
 toward those whom he considered his social 
 inferiors. But now he grasped Zadoc s hand 
 and shook it heartily. 
 
 " I m glad to know this, Pine," he said. " If 
 you ve got the pluck to fight those cowardly 
 brutes and their boycott, I ll stand by you. 
 You may try your hand at the marketing, and 
 if you suit Mrs. Thorndyke, all right. If you 
 don t, we ll find something else for you to 
 do."
 
 30 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 Zadoc went in town on the morrow with a 
 list of Mrs. Thorndyke s domestic needs. He 
 had, on his previous visit, sought out the 
 venders who dealt in only one quality of 
 goods, and that the best. To these, in his 
 ignorance of the details of marketing, he 
 thought it best to apply, although their higher 
 prices diminished his profits. In this way he 
 was able to send home a full week s supply of 
 the best meat and vegetables in the market. 
 They proved to be better than Schmitzer s 
 best, and Mr. Thorndyke paid a bill smaller by 
 one-fifth than he had ever received from 
 Schmitzer. Zadoc was only forty-three cents 
 to the good ; but he had made his point. 
 Within one month he was buying for ten 
 families, and receiving the* blessing of ten 
 weary housewives, who found it easier to sit 
 down of a Friday night, lay out a bill of fare 
 for a week, and hand it to Zadoc Pine with a 
 tranquil dismissal of all further care, than it had 
 been to meet every recurring morning the old, 
 old question, What shall we have for dinner 
 to-day ? And Zadoc found his profit therein. 
 ****** 
 
 One warm evening in September, Zadoc 
 Pine sat in the front yard of the widow 
 Dadd s house, whittling a plug for the cider- 
 barrel. He looked up from his whittling and
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 31 
 
 saw a party of a dozen men come up the road 
 and stop at the gate. He arose and went for 
 ward to meet them. 
 
 " Good-evenin , friends!" he said, driving 
 his jack-knife into the top rail of the fence 
 and leaning over the pickets : " Want to see 
 me, I s pose ? What c n I do fer ye ? " 
 
 One man came forward and put himself at 
 the head of the party. Zadoc knew him by 
 sight. It was McCuskey, the " walking-dele 
 gate." 
 
 " You can get out of this town," said 
 McCuskey, " as fast as you know how to. 
 We ll give you ten hours." 
 
 " That s friendly-like," said Zadoc. " I ain t 
 had a present o ten hours free time made me 
 since I wuz a boy at school." 
 
 " Well," McCuskey broke in, annoyed at 
 some suppressed laughter in his rear, " you 
 can take them ten hours and use them to get 
 out of South Ridge." 
 
 "Ken, eh?" said Zadoc. "Well, now, ef 
 I ve gotter go, I ve gotter go. I ain t got no 
 objection. But I jest wanter know what I ve 
 gotter go fer. Then maybe I ll see if I ll go 
 or not." 
 
 "You have got to go," McCuskey began, 
 " because you have interfered with the inalien 
 able rights of labor ; because you have taken
 
 32 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 the bread out of the mouths of honest toil 
 ers 
 
 " Sho ! " Zadoc interrupted him, " don t talk 
 no sech fool-talk ez that ! I ain t taken no 
 bread outer no man s mouth. I ain t got 
 down to that yet. S pose you tell me in plain 
 English what I ve done to be run outer town 
 fer?" 
 
 There was more hushed laughter in the 
 spokesman s rear, and he set his teeth angrily 
 before he opened his lips again. 
 
 "You have no trade, and you have taken 
 jobs away from men who have trades. You 
 took away a painter s job when you painted 
 that barn on the hill." 
 
 " I didn t take away no painter s job. It 
 wasn t nobody s job it wasn t no job at all 
 until I made a job of it. Ef the painter wanted 
 it, why didn t he go an get it ? " 
 
 " You ve took away Andy Conner s garden 
 ing-work all around the town." 
 
 " Tha s so ! " from Andy Conner, at the back 
 of the crowd. 
 
 " Where was Andy Conner when I took his 
 jobs away from him ? " Zadoc asked, and 
 answered himself : " Drunk, in Bryan s back 
 yard. Andy Conner works two days in the 
 week, an I work six. I ain t got no time to 
 be sortin out Andy Conner s jobs from mine."
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 33 
 
 Then there came a husky howl from out the 
 thickest of the crowd. 
 
 " Veil, you take avay my chob, aynyhow ! 
 You take my bissness avay you take my 
 boocher bissness." 
 
 "Ah ! " said Zadoc, "that s you, Schmitzer, 
 is it? Yes, ye re right. I m takin yer job away 
 the best I know how. But I didn t take it 
 away until you took the food outer my mouth 
 thet s what ye did, an no fancy talk, neither 
 an outer the mouths o two helpless wimmin. 
 An under them circumstances, every time, I d 
 take your job away, ef you was the President 
 of the United States." 
 
 This was a solemn asseveration for Zadoc. 
 He respected the office of the President of the 
 United States. But it was lost on his hearers. 
 No man in that crowd respected the President 
 of the United States. There came a low, 
 growling murmur from the group : 
 
 " Kill him ! Hang the scab ! Kill him ! " 
 
 " Kill ? " 
 
 Zadoc let out a voice that only the Adiron 
 dack hills had heard before. Then he checked 
 himself, and talked quietly, yet so that every 
 man on the street heard him. 
 
 " I came from the North Woods," he said. 
 " They make men whar I came from. I ain t 
 wronged no man in this town. I come here to 
 3
 
 34 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 make my livin , an here I ll stay. Ef you 
 wanter fight, I ll fight yer, one at a time, or 
 the hull gang! Ye can kill me, but ye ve got- 
 ter kill me here. An ef it comes ter killin , I 
 c n hold my end up. I c n kill a rabbit at 
 forty rod, an I own my rifle yit. But I know 
 ye won t give me no fair fight ; ye want to 
 crawl up behind me. Well, I m a man from 
 the woods. I c n hear ye a half a mile off, an 
 I c n smell ye. a hundred yards." 
 
 He made an end, and stood looking at them. 
 He had picked up his big jack-knife, and was 
 jabbing its blade deep into the top rail of the 
 fence and picking it out again. A silence fell 
 upon the crowd. Zadoc Pine was a large man 
 and a strong man. He had a knife, and in 
 the doorway behind him stood the widow 
 Dadd s daughter with his rifle, held ready for 
 him. 
 
 Zadoc broke the silence. 
 
 " Boys," he said, " I ain t no hog. I want 
 you to understand thet I m goin to earn my 
 own livin my own way. I take what work I 
 c n get ; an ef other folks is shif less enough 
 ter leave their work fer me ter do, thet s their 
 business. I ve took one man s job away from 
 him fer cause. But I ain t got no spite ag in 
 him. He s on y a fool-furriner. Thet s you, 
 Schmitzer. An ter show you that I ain t got
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 35 
 
 no spite agin yer, I m a-goin ter make you an 
 offer. I ll take yer inter partnership." 
 
 There was a derisory laugh at this from the 
 whole delegation, but Zadoc checked it. 
 
 " Schmitzer," he said, " you come inside 
 here and talk it over with me. I ain t goin 
 to hurt ye, an yer friends here 11 go down 
 street ter Bryan s an take a drink. They ve 
 been a-talkin , an I guess they re thirsty." 
 
 After a moment of irresolute hesitation the 
 delegation moved off. The men were puzzled. 
 The exiling of Zadoc Pine seemed no longer a 
 simple matter, and they felt the need of dis 
 cussing a new situation. Zadoc and Schmitzer 
 were left together in the little stone house. 
 
 " Schmitzer," said Zadoc, " I m makin most 
 as much clean profit outer my ten families ez 
 you re makin out of yer whole business, an I 
 don t have no rent t pay. Here s my figgers 
 look em over. Now, Schmitzer, thar s np end 
 of business hereabouts thet you ain t worked 
 up. These farmers all around about are livin 
 on salt pork, an eatin butchers meat wunst a 
 week. We ve gotter get their trade and teach 
 em Christian livin . These here quarrymen 
 ain t eatin meat like they oughter. S pose we 
 show em what they c n get for a dollar ? " 
 
 Schmitzer looked carefully over Zadoc s 
 figures. He knew the risks of carrying perish-
 
 36 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 able stock. He saw that people bought more 
 when the opportunities of the great markets 
 were offered to them. Before he left the house 
 he had agreed to work with Zadoc, and to fol 
 low his leader in the new scheme for supplying 
 South Ridge with meat and vegetables. 
 
 "An what ll yer friends down street say?" 
 queried Zadoc. 
 
 " I don care vot dey say," responded Schmit- 
 
 zer; "dose fellus ain t no good. I got better 
 
 bissness now. If dey don like it, dey go down 
 
 to Cendre un bring deir meat home demselfs." 
 
 x- * * # -* * 
 
 Zadoc retains his share in the Pine & Schmit- 
 zer Supply Company; but after he had 
 drummed up the local trade on the new basis, 
 and broken Schmitzer into the routine work, 
 he branched off for himself in a new line. 
 
 He had found an amateur electrician among 
 his customers, and with this gentleman s aid 
 he organized the South Ridge Fire Depart 
 ment and Protective Association. Thirty-six 
 householders paid him ten dollars for the plant 
 and ten dollars for yearly service; and he con 
 nected their houses in an electric circuit, of 
 which his own bedroom was the central station. 
 In each house was a combined bell and alarm ; 
 and if a citizen awoke at night to find his 
 chimney on fire or to hear a stranger within
 
 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 37 
 
 his chicken-house, he rang a wild tocsin in 
 thirty-five other houses, and then sounded a 
 signal-letter by dot and dash to proclaim his 
 identity. Then the whole town turned out, 
 and Zadoc drove a small chemical engine 
 behind Schmitzer s horse. If the cause of the 
 disturbance was a chicken-thief, and the cause 
 was caught, Zadoc played upon him. 
 
 " Can t bring out that engyne fer nothin ," 
 he said ; " she s gotter serve a moral purpose 
 somehow." 
 
 Two years and a half have passed since 
 Zadoc left the North Woods. He is an 
 employer now, and an owner of real-estate, in 
 a small way, and he still has South Ridge 
 under his protecting wing, and keeps her yards 
 clean and her lawns trim or his men do. 
 Moreover, he is the husband of the girl whose 
 smile first welcomed him to the Ridge. 
 
 " Man must earn his bread in the sweat of 
 his brow," he has said ; "but some men sweat 
 inside o their heads an some outside. I m 
 workin my brain. I could a done more with 
 it ef I d a had edication. When that there 
 boy o mine gets a few years on top o the six 
 weeks he s got now, I ll give him all he wants, 
 an he c n do the swaller-tail business ef he 
 wants to. Thet goes with edication." 
 
 " You have done much for the town, Mr.
 
 $8 THE ZADOC PINE LABOR UNION. 
 
 Pine," the Dominie once said to him, "and I 
 am glad to say that your success has been due 
 to the application of sound principles those 
 principles on which true success has ever been 
 founded." 
 
 " Yaas," said Zadoc, meditatively, "an then 
 I m an Amerikin, an I guess thet goes fer 
 suthinV
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 A ROMANCE OF CHELSEA VILLAGE AND EAST 
 HAMPTON TOWN. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 /"^HELSEA Village has never had the ag- 
 ^^ gressive exclusiveness of Greenwich. It 
 exists to-day, and vaguely knows itself by 
 name, close to the heart of the great city that 
 has swallowed it up ; but it is in nowise such 
 a distinct entity as the brave little tangle 
 of crooked streets a few blocks to the south. 
 Greenwich has always been Greenwich, and the 
 Ninth Ward has been the centre of civilization 
 to the dwellers therein. But Chelsea has tried 
 to be fashionable, has opened its doors to for 
 eign invaders, and has even had an attack of 
 Anglomania, and branched out into Terraces 
 in the true London style. And so it has lost 
 homogeneity and originality, and it has only a 
 peculiar and private air of ambitionless and 
 uninviting gloom to set it apart as a special
 
 4 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 quarter of New York. But Chelsea certainly 
 does look like the inhabitants of its own board 
 ing-houses most respectable people, who have 
 only tried too hard at elegant gentility for 
 their own comfort or prosperity. And the 
 place has one other strong individuality. I do 
 not know that there are very many ailanthus- 
 trees in Chelsea ; but there is, to me, a pervad 
 ing odor of that gruesome exotic in all the 
 streets, and I think an imaginative person 
 might detect the smell even in the midwinter 
 blasts that howl up from the North River. 
 
 Contemplation of one Chelsea street had a 
 depressing effect upon Miss Celia Leete, as 
 she sat by her window at five o clock of a sum 
 mer Saturday afternoon. Her room was in 
 the front of a third story of a comfortable 
 white wooden house, one of a little squad that 
 stood well back from the street, the first two 
 stories all but hidden by green-latticed ver 
 andas. 
 
 Miss Celia Leete looked through the thin 
 and dusty leaves of the horse-chestnut-tree on 
 the sidewalk, and her gaze roved idly up and 
 down the line of boarding-houses across the 
 way. They were boarding-houses with certain 
 aspirations. They had also high stoops and 
 elaborate cast-iron balconies. Yet, somehow, 
 they did not look like even the second-cousins
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 41 
 
 of those lordlier structures within the sacred 
 one block s space east and west from Fifth 
 Avenue. Perhaps this was partly because right 
 next to them came the little tailor s shop, red 
 brick, painted redder yet, ten feet wide and 
 one story high, with the German tailor s wife 
 forever standing in the doorway, holding her 
 latest baby in her bare red arms. 
 
 The children of shabby and not over-clean 
 gentility were playing in shrill-voiced chorus 
 on the sidewalk in front of the high-stoop 
 houses. Occasionally one of them would rec 
 ognize a home-returning father, and, without 
 pausing in the merry round of Spanish Fly or 
 Par, would give his parent the hail of easy 
 equality, " H lo, Pa." 
 
 The heads of families in the boarding-house 
 colony were sometimes employed in the whole 
 sale houses down-town ; but oftener were clerks 
 or floor-walkers in large dry-goods shops, or 
 proprietors of smaller establishments on the 
 West-side avenues. One of these gentlemen 
 arrived at his domicile as Miss Celia Leete 
 looked out of her window. He mechanically 
 took his night-key from his pocket, but he re 
 placed it, for the door was open, and most of 
 the ladies of the house were disposed about the 
 steps, in all the finery that " bargain counters " 
 of Fourteenth Street could furnish. Then this
 
 42 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 conversation fell sharply upon the dull and 
 sultry air : 
 
 " Why, Mr. Giddens, that you ? Early to 
 night, ain t you ? Wasn t it awful hot down 
 town ? " 
 
 By a delicate convention of the place, even 
 the boarder who was in charge of the Gents 
 Furnishing Goods Department of Messrs. Son- 
 nenschein & Regenschirm, a mile up Eighth 
 Avenue, was supposed to transact his business 
 " down-town." 
 
 " Hot enough for me [a responsive ripple of 
 merriment]. I ain t a hog, Miss Seavey. Why, 
 Miss Wicks, you down again ? Haven t seen 
 you in three days. Quite a stranger. How s 
 the neuralger? " 
 
 " Better now, thank you, Mr. Giddens ; but 
 I had an awfle siege of it this time. I was 
 most afraid to show myself, I ve run down so." 
 
 " /dersed you d run up, stid f down. Never 
 saw you lookin better." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Giddens, you re so gal// / I 
 wonder your wife ain t jealous of you, you re 
 so gal/rtw/ to all the ladies. There, you go 
 right along to her, or she ll say somethin to 
 me, I know she will." And with a gentle push, 
 and amid much tittering, Mr. Giddens disap 
 peared in the dark door- way. 
 
 Celia Leete turned from her window. She
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 43 
 
 was sick of life, of the place, of herself of 
 something, she could not quite tell what. 
 
 And yet her ailment was common enough, 
 and simple enough, and she defined her longing 
 sufficiently well when she said to herself, as she 
 sometimes did, " I wish I was some one else." 
 
 It would not require a profound psycholo 
 gist, knowing who and what Miss Celia Leete 
 was, and knowing also that she had spent one 
 year of the most purely formative period of 
 her young life in a semi-fashionable boarding- 
 school, to deduce from this statement a general 
 idea of what manner of person Miss Celia 
 Leete wished to be, could she be some one 
 other than herself. 
 
 Miss Celia Leete was the younger daugh 
 ter of David Leete, the manufacturer of the 
 once famous " William Riley " baking-powder. 
 There was no levity prepense in the peculiar 
 suggestiveness of this name. Mr. Leete had 
 perhaps never heard of the Celtic lover who of 
 old time was bidden by his aristocratic lady 
 love to " rise up " and accompany her to " far 
 Amerikey." But he had bought the receipt 
 for his excellent baking-powder from a clever 
 young Irishman who chanced to be a namesake 
 of the lovelorn emigrant whose tale is told in 
 immortal verse, and he loyally gave the in 
 ventor due credit, and stood upon hisown merits
 
 44 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 as an honest manufacturer. It was long ago, 
 in the earlier days of baking-powder, that 
 David Leete put the " William Riley " on the 
 market. It was a great success among those 
 first adventurous housewives who were hereti 
 cal enough to shake off the thralldom of yeast. 
 Of later years, other baking-powders had 
 crowded between it and the great baking pub 
 lic, yet it still sold much as it had at first, when 
 hundreds only, instead of thousands, put faith 
 in the fermenting powers of the new discovery. 
 The adventurous housewives of the first gen 
 eration had grown old and conservative, and 
 they clung to the William Riley powder, and 
 thought ill of those giddy young matrons who 
 dallied with more modern compounds. 
 
 So David Leete was well-to-do. He might 
 have lived in a much finer house than the 
 white frame cottage ; but that was the first 
 house he had ever bought, and thence he had 
 ordered that he should be borne when the time 
 came for him to leave New York forever. For 
 even the truest old New Yorker must now go 
 into exile with Death, and lie down at last in a 
 Brooklyn cemetery or far up in trim Wood- 
 lawn. 
 
 From the old house, then, he walked to his 
 Houston Street factory every morning at eight 
 o clock. It had been six o clock in the baking-
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 45 
 
 powder s first days of struggle, and then it had 
 been seven, and half-past seven, and now that 
 his son Alonzo was old enough to look after 
 the business, he was thinking of making it 
 nine. At half-past twelve he came back for 
 dinner ; at six he was at home, in his shirt 
 sleeves and his big slippers, waiting for supper 
 with a good appetite and a clear conscience. 
 
 Mr. Leete had a better appetite for his sup 
 per than his younger daughter could often 
 muster up. By six o clock, as a general thing, 
 the day had grown veiy heavy to this young 
 lady, and she was not tempted by the cold 
 meat, the hot biscuit, the cake and the tea 
 which were good enough for her father and 
 her mother, her brother Alonzo and her sis 
 ter Dorinda, more commonly called Dodie or 
 Doe. 
 
 But then there were many things that Celia 
 did not fancy, in spite of the fact that the rest 
 of the family liked them. Such strange differ 
 ences of taste will occasionally occur in even 
 the most conservatively regulated households 
 and the standard-bearer of a new school of 
 domestic ethics has to suffer, as a rule. Were 
 we not well abreast with the world when last 
 we took our bearings, some twenty or thirty 
 years ago ? Are we to set our sails now to suit 
 these saucy chits whom we ourselves brought
 
 46 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 into the world ? What was right in our time 
 is right for all time, and there s an end of it. 
 
 Celia did not, however, suffer martyrdom 
 because of any ideas which may have stimu 
 lated her young imagination. Her mother 
 said she was "a peaky, Miss Nancy sort of a 
 fussy child, not tall like Popper Leete, nor 
 like my own folks, neither." Father Leete 
 thought sometimes that she had been " spilte 
 by that highty-tighty boardin -school." Do- 
 rinda considered her " awfle queer," and wished 
 she were " like the other girls," and Alonzo 
 silently disapproved of her ways and man 
 ners saying once, in fact, that he thought she 
 had too many of the latter. Yet they all 
 loved her and indulged and petted her. They 
 did not understand her, of course ; but then 
 there was no necessity of understanding her. 
 Children are fanciful, and Celia was still the 
 child of the house. 
 
 And although these quoted utterances told, 
 in a broad way, the truth about Celia s differ 
 ences with the family standard of ethics, it is 
 safe to say that no member of the household 
 had anything like a realizing sense of that 
 truth. If they perceived in the young woman 
 an unwise and futile ambition, they misappre 
 hended the nature of the ambition itself, and 
 pictured the aspirant as desirous merely of
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 47 
 
 those material things the possession of which 
 represented to them social superiority. If 
 they had been asked to put their ideas in 
 words, they would have said that Celia wished 
 to live in a house on Fifth Avenue, to drive on 
 that thoroughfare in a fine carriage, to give 
 balls, and to dance the german, whatever that 
 was, and to have her name in the Home Jour 
 nal every week. And, doubtless, these things 
 were all in Celia s list of vague desires ; but 
 also her heart yearned after a certain some 
 thing which sometimes goes with these things, 
 which yet she knew was not hers by birth 
 whereas the notion that there was any differ 
 ence in human quality between themselves and 
 the haughtiest of the people in what was called 
 society had never entered into the head of any 
 living Leete until Celia was sent to a boarding- 
 school in the Orange Mountains, the year that 
 they thought her lungs were weak. 
 
 The Leetes had, like other folks, their own 
 little foot-rule to measure the world with, and 
 they used it with stern and unimaginative jus 
 tice. They measured all people with it king 
 and clodhopper, poet and peasant. If you fell 
 below what they held to be proper stature of 
 man, they might recognize you in your place 
 as a fellow-mortal and a factor in the affairs of 
 life ; but they would have none of you socially.
 
 48 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 If you touched the exact mark, you were a 
 "gentleman" or a "lady," as the case might 
 be. If by mischance you rose above that 
 fixed line why, there was something wrong 
 about you, that was sure ; at the best, you 
 were queer, and queer was a word of serious 
 condemnation in the Leete vocabulary. 
 
 As an instance of this impartiality in judg 
 ment, let us take the case of the Wykoffs. The 
 Wykoffs were the owners of the whole block in 
 which Mr. Leete s factory stood, and for thirty 
 years old John Wykoff had been a model land 
 lord. That is, he had treated Mr. Leete like 
 a gentleman, and Mr. Leete had treated him 
 like a gentleman, and everything was perfectly 
 satisfactory. But now John Wykoff was dead, 
 and his son reigned in his place, and it 
 appeared that this young whippersnapper of a 
 Randolph Wykoff, through his lawyers, had 
 ordered that Mr. Leete s lease should not be 
 renewed when his five years came to an end in 
 the spring. The lease was not to be renewed 
 that had been renewed once every five years 
 since 1862. The rent had always been paid 
 promptly John Wykoff had never had to 
 wait a day or an hour, nor* had he ever been 
 called upon to pay a cent for repairs. And 
 here was this young pup of a son turning out 
 his best tenant, just for some crazy scheme of
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 49 
 
 building a great co-operative factory to cover 
 the whole block. John Wykoff was a perfect 
 gentleman, but his son was no gentleman at 
 all, that was one thing sure and settled. 
 
 " But I ll give him a piece of my mind," said 
 Mr. Leete, at dinner. " I ll give him a piece 
 of my mind when he comes back from galli 
 vanting about Europe. Gimme some more 
 cabbage, Ma Leete ; I ain t lost my appetite, 
 if the Wykoffs have gone back on me." 
 ****** 
 
 Celia Leete, whose brief experience of a 
 strange social world had led her to doubt the 
 accuracy and the usefulness of the Leete foot- 
 rule, sat alone, on this particular afternoon, in 
 the chamber which she shared with Dorinda. 
 She was trying to read a novel of local manu 
 facture, which, according to a press-notice 
 quoted from the Peoria Palladium, gave " a 
 vivid glimpse into the highest stratum of New 
 York s most exclusive society." It told about 
 a young country-girl, of overpowering refine 
 ment and general moral and mental correct 
 ness, who had come to New York to pay a 
 visit to some worldly and aristocratic relations, 
 several of whom she lured into righteousness 
 during her stay. This young lady was finally 
 saved from the wiles of a titled foreign adven 
 turer by the interposition of the hero, a dark 
 
 4
 
 50 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 and superficially cynical person who had 
 sounded all the depths and heights of swell- 
 ness, and who, finding all things else hollow 
 and objectionable, married her and took her 
 off to do missionary work in the far West, 
 where he felt that he could readily win the con 
 fidence and friendship of the miners and the 
 Red Indians, and let the light of apostolic 
 Episcopalianism into their darkened lives. 
 
 Celia Leete was not successful in her at 
 tempt to read this tender tale. She had got it 
 out of the Mercantile Library on the strength 
 of the advertisement which quoted the Peoria 
 Palladium s notice. Almost all the characters 
 had names that began with "Van " or " Van- 
 der," and the dinner-table talk and ball-room 
 chat were of an elegance that would have been 
 intolerable in any but the very highest stratum 
 of society. Yet Celia was not pleased with it. 
 She longed for a higher social life ; but this was 
 too much for her. Her desire had in it a more 
 modest working. She even wondered whether 
 it was true or not she wondered if the man 
 who had written that book knew anything 
 more about the life he described than she did 
 herself. It was a puzzling thing. She wanted 
 to be "nice;" but what was it, in fact, to be 
 " nice " ? Was it to talk in that long-winded 
 way, and make references to all sorts of things
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. $1 
 
 which could only be learned out of books? 
 If it was, it must be desperately stupid. She 
 wished that she had some clear idea of what 
 really constituted that better life which she 
 knew existed somewhere, somehow. She 
 wished that some sudden miracle would open 
 a higher circle of society (she believed in " cir 
 cles;" nay, in iron-bound rings of society) to 
 the Leete family, and that all of them might 
 be given a supernatural grace to fit them for 
 their new surroundings. 
 
 Yes, she was looking for the Fairy Prince ; 
 that was it. She did not know it, but she was 
 looking for him. If she could have seen deep 
 enough into the depths of her unformulated 
 fancy, she would have seen that the miracle 
 she awaited was a man. 
 
 She let her eyes wander idly about the 
 room, as she dropped the book on her lap. 
 They rested first on Dorinda s bureau, splen 
 dent with chromo cards of variegated gor- 
 geousness ; and she sighed. Then they fell on 
 her own severely simple chest of drawers 
 those her mother had owned in her girlhood. 
 Then they turned to the window, and she 
 looked out, and sighed again, and saw the 
 Fairy Prince. 
 
 For the Fairy Prince still comes among us, 
 in spite of what the photographers of fiction
 
 52 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 say ; and every now and then he marries the 
 beggar maid, and takes her home to live with 
 
 oo 
 
 his people, and is mightily sorry for it after 
 ward, although, as his antique prototype most 
 likely did, he makes shift to live happily 
 with her ever after before the eyes of the 
 world. 
 
 The Fairy Prince was instantly recognizable 
 to Celia s eyes, although I am afraid other 
 people would have seen in him no more than 
 a good-looking, robust young man, with 
 shoulders so broad that they drew attention 
 from his six feet of stature a young man 
 with a well-bred carriage, a healthy, dark skin, 
 fine eyes under soft, heavy, black eyebrows, 
 good teeth, and the promise of a moustache 
 a young man with an expression of dignified 
 earnestness upon his face which suggested the 
 idea that he took things in this world some 
 what seriously, and regarded his own progress 
 through it as an event not to be lightly con 
 sidered. In short, other people would have 
 seen just such a young man a? Harvard Col 
 lege turns out by the dozen, into a gibing, 
 vulgar world, too much given to levity. 
 
 But Celia saw in this stranger, as he stood 
 at her father s gate, a vast deal more than 
 this. Perhaps she could not have told us any 
 thing further about him than that he was " dif-
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 53 
 
 ferent." Different, she meant, from the men 
 she knew in her daily life, with a difference 
 that was not only in looks and in bearing, but 
 that even went, to her perception, to his very 
 garments, or at least to his way of wearing a 
 very plain every-day suit of tweed. 
 
 He felt about the gate for a bell-handle, 
 and, not finding it, pushed in and walked up 
 the path, casting an inquiring glance upward 
 as he went, and catching a glimpse of Celia at 
 her upper window. In another moment his 
 ring clanged through the empty house. Mrs. 
 Leete was making purchases for the house 
 hold against Sunday. Dorinda was buying 
 unnecessary personal adornments at twenty- 
 seven cents and thirty-nine cents apiece, as 
 was her. wont of a Saturday afternoon. Mr. 
 Leete and Alonzo were still at the factory, for 
 it was pay-day, and they stayed later than the 
 hands. And Susan, the "help," was enjoying 
 herself at the eleventh annual picnic of the 
 Daughters of Temperance and Grand Re- 
 bekah Protective Lodge. It was clear that 
 Celia had to go down-stairs and answer the 
 bell. Why should it make her heart flutter 
 and throb with wild and irrational disturbance 
 just to open the door to a stranger of amiable 
 and pacific appearance? 
 
 She hurried down the stairs, after a hasty
 
 54 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 glance at the mirror and the administration of 
 a deft pat or two to what she called, I am 
 sorry to say, her drapery. She wondered how 
 she would look to such alien eyes. She wished 
 that she were in her white flannel, her dearest 
 dress; but there was no time for vain wishing, 
 and she opened the door. 
 
 He had not vanished : he was there, raising 
 his hat and asking if this were Mr. Leete s 
 house. The quiet deference of his manner, 
 his low, clear voice, his somewhat unfamiliar 
 accent, all caught her pleased attention and 
 fitted with his outward seeming into one har 
 monious whole that to Celia appeared nothing 
 short of absolute masculine perfection. It 
 was like a dream coming true ; it was as 
 though a more than human messenger had 
 arrived, to summon her to that world which 
 she pictured only in her thoughts. She won 
 dered if her voice was trembling, or if her face 
 was white. Meanwhile the young gentleman 
 looked up at what he believed was the pretti 
 est girl he had ever seen, and heard her say, 
 softly and sweetly : 
 
 "Yes, this is Mr. Leete s house; but my 
 father is not in. Do you want to see him ? " 
 
 Perhaps Celia put forward her relationship 
 to Mr. Leete thus promptly, because of some 
 faint fear that the Fairy Prince might take her
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 55 
 
 for the house-maid, though nothing in his 
 courtly manner suggested the idea. 
 
 "I do wish to see Mr. Leete," he said, and 
 Celia thought again that his voice was quite in 
 keeping with his other perfections. " My/ 
 name is Wykoff Randolph WykofT and I 
 am anxious to speak to Mr. Leete on a matter 
 of business. I am afraid he has been greatly 
 annoyed by an error an inadvertence of my 
 agents." 
 
 " Won t you come in ? " asked Celia. Ran 
 dolph Wykoff ! There was no doubt about 
 this young monarch s pedigree or his posses 
 sions. 
 
 "I m afraid I haven t time," Mr. Wykoff 
 said, as he stepped into the entry and told his 
 tale with a flattering deference in his manner. 
 
 " Of course I didn t mean, when I made up 
 my mind to build on that unfortunate block 
 I didn t mean to give annoyance to any of the 
 tenants certainly not to Mr. Leete. I have 
 always heard my father speak of Mr. Leete in 
 the highest terms he has often said that he 
 would rather lose all the rest of his tenants 
 than Mr. Leete." 
 
 It may be doubted whether John Wykoff 
 had ever said anything quite so enthusiastic; 
 but his son was young and impulsive, and Mr. 
 Leete s daughter was very pretty.
 
 56 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 " I should like very much to leave a message 
 for Mr. Leete, if it wouldn t trouble you too 
 much. No ? Well, then, you see 
 
 Randolph Wykoff was in Yokohama when 
 the news of his father s death reached him. 
 He started for home at once, by way of 
 Europe, for he had some business in Belgium. 
 He was a very young man, and as soon as he 
 began to think of anything outside of his 
 immediate grief, he found his whole mind 
 occupied with the consideration of his vast 
 responsibility as the custodian of a mighty for 
 tune. He felt that it was his duty to do some 
 thing for the world. He could not tell exactly 
 what he ought to do ; but he felt that the 
 world expected something of him, and he set 
 to work at once, hunting for a rich man s mis 
 sion. Now, he had heard of a certain model 
 usine near Brussels, and he stopped on his 
 homeward way to inspect it. It was in truth 
 an ingeniously planned structure. By a clever 
 economy in the design and in the application 
 of steam-power, it gave cheap and suitable 
 lodgment to a large number of workers in vari 
 ous handicrafts, forming a congeries of facto 
 ries and workshops within a wonderfully small 
 space. It was, in its way, a nineteenth-century 
 marvel of saving in space and power. Wykoff 
 decided at once that a similar building should
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 57 
 
 take the place of the motley group of wasteful 
 old buildings on his Houston Street block; and 
 he instantly telegraphed his determination to 
 his lawyers in New York, and instructed them 
 not to renew leases. But his brief instructions 
 did not make clear the fact that he meant only 
 to give his tenants a little temporary trouble 
 for their own permanent good ; and when he 
 reached New York, he had to face a storm of 
 protests from angry leaseholders. These peo 
 ple he was now striving to placate, and to win 
 over to his new plans. And as the plans were 
 really good as he had stumbled on a wise 
 enterprise in all honest ignorance and as he 
 went about his work with much youthful en 
 thusiasm, he had less trouble than might have 
 been looked for. 
 
 Much of all this did Mr. Randolph Wykoff 
 communicate to Miss Celia Leete. But even 
 after an exposition so long that he had hardly 
 time, when he left the house, to catch the 
 train for his mother s summer home at East 
 Hampton even after so long a parley, he 
 thought it necessary to see Mr. Leete agam, 
 and in Mr. Leete s house. 
 
 " Of course," he said, " I could see him at his 
 office ; but I must show him my plans, and my 
 architect s place is very near here in Broadway, 
 and unless "
 
 58 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 He paused. 
 
 " I m sure father would be very glad to see 
 you here, Mr. Wykoff," said Celia. What 
 could she say else ? 
 
 So it was arranged that Mr. Wykoff should 
 call on Monday, just after dinner ; and Mr. 
 Wykoff took the glory of his presence cut of 
 the dark old entry, and Celia stood in the 
 doorway just long enough to see the Fairy 
 Prince turn at the gate and lift his hat to her. 
 Then she went in and shut the door and hid 
 her face in her hands. 
 
 * % * & * -x- 
 
 It was a grand story that Celia had to tell a 
 little later, while her mother and Dorinda were 
 setting the table, and Popper Leete sat in his 
 shirt-sleeves, with his stocking-feet on the win 
 dow-sill, and divided his attention between the 
 evening paper and his chattering family. The 
 visit of a stranger was always an event of some 
 importance in that quiet household ; surely a 
 visitor with such a mission was a rare bird, and 
 one to be well talked over. And then, I regret 
 to say, there was something in the fact that 
 the visitor was a Wykoff, something in the fact 
 that the Wykoffs were " swells." Not that a 
 Wykoff was better than any other man ; not 
 that a swell did not deserve the contempt of 
 plain people with no nonsense about them
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 59 
 
 and yet I believe that every member of that 
 family was secretly conscious of receiving an 
 increment of social value from the fact that a 
 Wyk off had stood within their doors. Some 
 how it emphasized the fact of their common 
 humanity. They all felt freshly reassured of 
 the great truth which they had always known 
 that they might be swells themselves, if they 
 would but stoop to it. 
 
 " I told you, Popper Leete," said his wife, as 
 she trotted about the room ; " I told you folks 
 like the Wykoffs ain t likely to play such mean 
 tricks as that. It ain t their way. I declare, 
 Celia, how many napkins have you had this 
 week? Now, I see your ring when you put it 
 away yesterday, an it was jest as clean as it 
 could be, that napkin. If you re so mighty 
 finicky, you d better wash em yourself." 
 
 Mr. Leete took Wykoff s explanation as an 
 admission of defeat. There are some people 
 who cannot bear to own that they have been 
 angry for naught. 
 
 " I thought he d come to his senses," Popper 
 Leete condescended to say ; " he s a young 
 feller, an he s got suthin to learn in this world, 
 he ll find in good time. I give those lawyers 
 a piece of my mind that time, an I guess he 
 heard of it. Yes, I m glad he s come to his 
 senses."
 
 60 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 " What d he look like, Cele ? " Dorinda pes 
 tered her; " was he reel good-lookin ? Did he 
 have dimun studs in his shirt? They say it s 
 awfle toneyin England to have dimun studs." 
 
 Alonzo was the only one who took no inter 
 est in the evening s topic of conversation. His 
 air of chill indifference showed that if young 
 Mr. Wykoff were twenty young Mr. Wykoffs, 
 he would have to prove his claims to notice 
 before Alonzo Leete would waste a single 
 question upon him. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Mr. Wykoff appeared promptly at one 
 o clock on the Monday. He had a long talk 
 with Mr. Leete in the dining-room, and spread 
 his plans out on the broad table. When Mr. 
 Leete saw that for the same rent he was then 
 paying he could have a larger factory, and that 
 the progress of construction could be so ar 
 ranged as to obviate all necessity for a double 
 removal of his goods and chattels, he expressed 
 a qualified approval of Mr. Wykoff s proposi 
 tion. When he pointed out a few changes in 
 the plans which he thought would better fit 
 them for American conditions, and the sugges 
 tions were gratefully accepted, he in some 
 manner fathered the whole scheme. 
 
 After the business-talk Mr. Wykoff went 
 into the parlor, where the ladies of the family
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 6l 
 
 had assembled, and lingered for a little chat. 
 He found a theme in his recent travels, and he 
 got on nobly when his auditors discovered that, 
 while he had no objectionable personal acquaint 
 ance with the royal family of England, yet he 
 had seen the Queen and the Prince of Wales 
 and smaller lights of the reigning house, and 
 could tell many entertaining things of their 
 appearance in public, their manners, and their 
 ways. With a tact which comes to a young 
 man only under certain circumstances, he sup 
 pressed the fact that he had been presented 
 at court, and said nothing of driving in coro- 
 neted carriages and dining at the tables of the 
 great. The chat stretched out ; it was past 
 three when Celia tied up his plans for him, and 
 he took his leave. 
 
 Dorinda thought him a reel elegant gentle- 
 m n, and Mrs. Leete said : " Why, / think he s 
 a nice, pleasant-spoken, well-behaved young 
 feller. I ain t seen a young man I liked so well 
 in some time." 
 
 It is a simple tale. Mr. Wykoff found occa 
 sion to come again with his plans, that he 
 might avail himself of Mr. Leete s superior 
 knowledge of the exigencies of practical busi 
 ness. Then he found still other occasions. 
 When the actual work of building began, and 
 he had to superintend it, he fell into a way of
 
 62 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 walking home with Mr. Leete, and dropping 
 in for a friendly call sometimes to share a 
 meal. He was received with a shy welcome 
 of subtle significance from Celia, and with a 
 flattered and fluttering cordiality on the part 
 of the rest of the family. Even Alonzo was 
 willing to say, in casual conversation with his 
 friends: " Wykofi that s Randolph Wykoff, 
 old John Wykoff s son was in at our house 
 last night, and he said 
 
 But at last they all understood why he 
 sought their society, and that was the drop of 
 acid in the cloudy solution. There were five 
 different individual reactions in the family of 
 Leete. To Celia came the consciousness of a 
 great and closely impending possibility. Her 
 father was disturbed in mind, suspicious, and 
 anxious. He had sufficient knowledge of the 
 world to grasp the fact that men held, in such 
 matters, widely differing codes of morality. 
 He had no idea what Mr. Wykoff s code might 
 be. The young man seemed a well-meaning 
 youth but what were his intentions ? Dorinda 
 had similar doubts, and the thought of losing 
 her only sister, coupled, perhaps, with a trifle 
 of natural jealousy, moved her to an enmity 
 toward the intruder which she could hardly 
 repress. As to Alonzo, he was wounded past 
 all soothing wounded in the inmost tender-
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 63 
 
 ness of a hidden pride. For Alonzo s heart 
 worshipped what his lips contemned. In his 
 secret soul he adored swelldom. And now the 
 aristocracy had held out its shapely hand to 
 him, and for a brief space he had hugged the 
 delusion that he was accepted on his own 
 merits, and that the disadvantages of his par 
 entage and his surroundings which he recog 
 nized, and yet loyally accepted did not count 
 against him personally. And now he found 
 that he was only the brother of a pretty girl. 
 His spirit was filled with a bitterness that 
 nourished itself in silence, and the dreadful 
 things that he expected to come of the unhal 
 lowed courtship are beyond all mentioning 
 here. Good Mrs. Leete alone stood Wykoff s 
 friend in his wooing, and her simple, honest 
 breast heaved with motherly pride and fond, 
 foolish hopes and aspirations. 
 
 And meanwhile Randolph Wykoff kept on 
 calling, and seemed totally unconscious of any 
 loss of spontaneity or heartiness in his welcome 
 at the house of the Leetes ; and late in Sep 
 tember he and Celia told each other that love 
 at first sight was a living truth. After which, 
 Randolph went home to tell his mother.
 
 64 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 DANDOLPH S communication was not a 
 *^ surprise to his mother. In such matters 
 the maternal instinct needs but a small clew 
 for its wonderful intuitive processes. It is not 
 often that a young man surprises his mother 
 in this sort of avowal. There are such cases, 
 but they are rare. I knew one dear old lady 
 whose son took her aside one day. "I m en 
 gaged," he said. " I know it, dear," the sweet 
 old gentlewoman replied, " and I wish you 
 would tell Sally Hastings that I shall love her as 
 though she were my own daughter." " But it 
 isn t Sally Hastings, mother," said the young 
 man, who had never been a steadfast young 
 man ; " it s Miss Mcllvaine, from Tonawanda." 
 Mrs. Wykoff had known for some months 
 that her son was a constant visitor at the Leetes . 
 She knew that there were two girls in the fam 
 ily, and that the younger was a pretty girl, and 
 superior to the rest of the Leetes in taste and 
 education. She knew, also, that however val 
 uable Mr. Leete s aid and advice might be to 
 her son, the young man s enthusiasm for his 
 new work was not great enough to make him 
 forget a social code acquired by inheritance,
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 6$ 
 
 inculcated in early youth, and ratified by the 
 authority of Harvard College. There was but 
 one interpretation to be put upon his devotion 
 to these new friends. 
 
 All this Mrs. Wykoff knew from the little her 
 son had told her. It was little enough. Ran 
 dolph was not secretive or deceitful, but he 
 rarely talked personalities, and of his own 
 doings he spoke no oftenerthan was necessary. 
 He had a young man s sensitiveness to the 
 criticism and comment that fall to the lot of 
 the open-mouthed enthusiast. And then his 
 position was not so clear to himself that he 
 could make it clear to others. Do not blame 
 him. If you were falling deeper and deeper 
 into love, and knew that the object of your 
 affections could not be acceptable to your kind 
 parents, would you issue daily bulletins of the 
 progress of your case, with conscientious diagno 
 sis and prognosis ? Was there ever a pair of lov 
 ers who did not yearn to keep their common joy 
 eternally a selfish secret ? Frown all you care 
 to, stern censor ; if all the lovers had their way, 
 there would not be desert islands enough to go 
 around. 
 
 Mrs. Wykoff knew something and guessed a 
 great deal, yet she could not act either on the cer 
 tainty or the suspicion. She knew that she could 
 not oppose Randolph. He had all his father s
 
 66 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 self-confidence and stubborn courage without 
 the widow sadly thought without, as yet, 
 John Wykoff s clear judgment, fine sense of 
 right and wrong, and unselfish devotion to 
 principle. 
 
 John Wykoff s wife knew well the Wykoff 
 strain. She married John Wykoff when his 
 father, by ill-judged speculations, had ruined 
 not himself only but all the Wykoff family, root 
 and branch, and had made himself hated by 
 the whole body of his kith and kin. She had 
 been her husband s best friend and counsellor 
 through all the years it took to build up again 
 the great shipping house of Wykoff & Son, and 
 during those years she had led a pinched, nar 
 row, meagre life. Then, when the new fort 
 une was made, and the honor and credit of the 
 old firm reestablished, it was her tact that 
 won them admission to the society from which 
 Grandfather Wykoff s recklessness and their 
 own poverty had exiled them. It was her task 
 to renew old associations, to strengthen long- 
 enfeebled ties, to close up breaches, and nego 
 tiate reconciliations. She had to bear snubs 
 and slights ; she had to win her right to respect 
 and esteem in a long and hard fight ; and all 
 that she had to do and bear was done and 
 borne, not for her own sake, but for the sake of 
 her husband and her boy. For herself she had
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 67 
 
 no need to take thought ; she was a Broadwood, 
 of Philadelphia, and her family thought that 
 she lowered herself when she married the son 
 of a bankrupt Wykoff. 
 
 The struggle had ended years ago, and now 
 Mrs. Wykoff was a widow, still handsome, rich 
 in money and in friends. The discipline of 
 her life had not been lost on her. Her nature, 
 that was always sweet, had grown strong in 
 troublous times, and she was, at forty-five, a 
 chastened woman of the world. I think the 
 world makes as many saints as sinners. 
 
 She received her son s story with a calm ac 
 ceptance of the situation that ought to have 
 put him on his guard. To be sure, she cried a 
 little, but only for a moment ; and for the rest 
 she was all loving interest and attention. It 
 must be said for Randolph that, having come 
 to confession, he made a good, honest, clean 
 breast of it. He made no attempt to put an 
 imaginative gilding on the Leetes. In speak 
 ing of the family he dwelt only on their unim 
 peachable probity and respectability. Of Celia 
 he could truthfully say that her manners and 
 her speech were correct. If he dwelt too much 
 on her intelligence, on her cleverness, and on 
 her understanding of and sympathy with his 
 hopes and ambitions, it must be kept in mind 
 that Celia was an uncommonly good listener.
 
 68 NATURAL SELECTION, 
 
 " I am thinking of your happiness, my dear," 
 his mother said ; " I trust I am not selfish. I 
 could have wished, of course, that it had been 
 some one who some one whom I knew and 
 loved, but 
 
 There lurked in this broken sentence an allu 
 sion that Randolph understood an allusion to 
 a cherished hope of his mother s. Perhaps he 
 felt in some way guilty, for he made no direct 
 reply, saying only : 
 
 " You will know Celia, mother, and you will 
 love her. You cannot help it." 
 
 " I hope so," said the poor woman, with the 
 best smile that she had for the occasion. 
 " When shall I see her ? Would it not be well 
 for me to call on her mother? " 
 
 Randolph Wykoff went away from this inter 
 view with an easy mind and a heart filled with 
 loving admiration of his mother. She was a 
 wonderful woman, he thought, thus to com 
 bine feminine gentleness with masculine com 
 mon-sense. How kindly and how wisely she 
 had taken it ! It did not come into his mind 
 that in the course of that brief conversation he 
 had been led to propose and to pledge himself 
 to two things which he had never thought of 
 before first, that there should be no announce 
 ment of his engagement to Celia no actual en 
 gagement, in fact for a year to come ; second,
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 69 
 
 that the engagement should be of not less than 
 a year s duration from the date of the announce 
 ment. These two ideas seemed to have been 
 of his own conception. He knew, or he thought 
 he knew, how much personal annoyance his 
 marriage to Celia Leete would bring him. He 
 had no desire to add to this annoyance, or be 
 guilty of a precipitancy which he himself could 
 not excuse. His world would be ill-spoken 
 enough ; it was not for him to justify unkind 
 criticism. It came to him as the most natural 
 thing imaginable that Celia Leete ought to 
 be introduced to some of his friends, at least, 
 as Celia Leete, before they knew her as his 
 betrothed. And he could hardly get his pres 
 ent business off his hands and feel free to 
 devote himself to a wife short of a year or two 
 of hard work. 
 
 Three days later Mrs. Wykoff was sitting in 
 the darkened front parlor of the Leete house 
 on the hair-cloth sofa under the chromo of the 
 " Old Oaken Bucket." On the opposite wall 
 hung the ambrotype of Mrs. Leete s mother, 
 taken at the age of eighty-seven. Mrs. Leete s 
 mother showed a mouth that seemed to be 
 simply a straight line where the lips turned 
 in. What little hair she had hung in a large 
 flat festoon on either side of her head. A 
 broad lace collar covered her shoulders. It was
 
 7O NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 fastened under the chin by a brooch of vast 
 size, which was, in fact, a box with a glass 
 front, designed, apparently, to contain speci 
 mens of the hair of deceased members of the 
 wearer s family, after the depressing fashion of 
 the days of ambrotypes and inchoate civiliza 
 tion. On the face of Mrs. Leete s mother was 
 an expression of stern resolve. She was sitting 
 for her picture, and she was sitting hard. 
 
 Mrs. Wykoff was gazing hopelessly at this 
 monument of respectability when Mrs. Leete 
 entered the room, red in the face from a hasty 
 change of dress, and agitated by a nervousness 
 the existence of which she would not have 
 admitted to herself. 
 
 Why does your thoroughbred collie bark at 
 the tramp or the peddler within your gates, 
 and greet shabbiest gentlehood with a friendly 
 wag of the tail ? It is because there is a dif 
 ference in human beings, just as there is in 
 dogs, and the dogs know it. The human 
 beings know it, too, although there are some 
 who belie their knowledge who, having 
 learned that the rank is but the guinea s stamp 
 and that the man s the gowd for a that, go 
 about trying to make themselves and others 
 believe that there is no such thing as an alloy 
 in the world, no counterfeit coin, no base 
 metal.
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 7 1 
 
 Mrs. Leete was agitated even to her inmost 
 spiritual recesses when she saw this handsome 
 and well-dressed woman rise and come forward 
 to meet her, with such an easy grace and dig 
 nity with such a soft rustling of her black 
 raiment. It was five minutes at least before 
 the perfect tact that went with these outward 
 and visible things had put the hostess at her 
 ease. 
 
 After a little, Celia came shyly into the 
 room, with cold hands and a pale face. Mrs. 
 Wykoffs heart leaped in pleased surprise when 
 she saw the girl of her son s choice. She 
 kissed Celia almost with tenderness, and she 
 felt a genuine thankfulness for the child s deli 
 cate beauty and her modest bearing. " I can 
 understand it now," she thought, " and it is 
 better than I had dared to hope." 
 
 But presently in came Mr. Leete, in his 
 Sunday broadcloth, with a new collar making 
 him very uncomfortable about the chin, and 
 with him came Dorinda, red as to her bodice 
 and black as to her skirts and wonderful as to 
 the dressing of her hair, and all was not so well 
 with Mrs. Wykoff. 
 
 Mrs. Wykoff s visit lasted scarcely an hour, 
 yet, when she had gone, every member of the 
 family except Celia felt that affairs wore a new 
 and less pleasing aspect. There was no longer
 
 72 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 a delightful certainty about the prospective 
 alliance of the Leetes to one of the oldest and 
 wealthiest families in the country. Three days 
 before, Randolph Wykoff had asked Mr. Leete 
 for his daughter s hand, and the offer had been 
 accepted with no longer hesitation than was 
 absolutely demanded by the self-respect of the 
 head of the house. Since then, all the family 
 had lived in a rose-tinted dream. Now, Mrs. 
 Wykoff s friendly, informal chat had somehow 
 served to marshal before their eyes an array of 
 hard, cold, unwelcome facts. How had it been 
 done? They did not know. They could not 
 blame Mrs. Wykoff ; she had been amiability 
 itself. Yet there were the facts, patent to all of 
 them. Why, it was Mr. Leete himself who had 
 advanced the idea that for two young people 
 to talk of marriage after three months of 
 acquaintance was simply absurd. It was he 
 who had said that people he did not perhaps 
 know what people, but, in fact, people would 
 comment with justifiable severity upon such 
 heedless haste. Certainly the suggestion that 
 at least a year must elapse before the announce 
 ment of the engagement had come from him ; 
 and none of the house of Leete was sufficiently 
 versed in the subtleties of polite diplomacy to 
 inquire how the notion came to Mr. Leete. 
 It was at Popper Leete, in very truth, that
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 73 
 
 Mrs. Wykoff had directed her masked batter 
 ies, and with more effect than she suspected. 
 She had touched lightly on Randolph s youth, 
 his inexperience, his impulsive nature, and she 
 had called attention to the undeniable truth 
 that young men do not always know their own 
 minds. Mr. Leete had taken the hint, and to 
 his mind it had an exaggerated significance. 
 
 " I d no but what she s right," he said to his 
 wife ; " mebbe we ve been too easy about sayin 
 yes. She s a business-woman, and she s got 
 a good, sound head. Folks useter say that 
 John Wykoff and wife was as good a busi 
 ness firm as there was in town. Now, she 
 knows this young feller, an what do we know 
 about him ? Nothin , when you come right 
 down to it. We don t know what his ideas 
 are, or what sort of a man he is, anyway. We 
 don t know how he spends his evenin s, or 
 what he does with himself when we don t see 
 him. Now, s pose he was on y foolin with 
 Celia, and was to get tired of her an skip out 
 to Europe, some day eruther? We can t tell. 
 S pose he was to marry her and then turn out 
 bad? Look at the way them Newport folks 
 are all the time gittin divorced an bein shown 
 up in the noozpapers. How do we know but 
 what he s bean a-makin up to a dozen girls 
 over there in Europe. Now, reelly, we don t
 
 74 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 know much more about that young man than 
 if he was a European himself." 
 
 " Oh, Popper Leete," remonstrated his wife, 
 " tain t so bad as that ! " 
 
 "Well," Mr. Leete insisted, shaking his head 
 in stubborn doubt, " tain t much better, when 
 you come right down to it." 
 
 ****** 
 
 There are plenty of married couples in the 
 world who can lay their hands on their twain 
 hearts and unanimously declare that the time 
 of their betrothal was the happiest times of 
 their lives. There are other people, however, 
 who can as honestly say that they were never 
 more uncomfortable and generally miserable 
 than they were in the No Man s Land through 
 which civilized matrimony must be approached. 
 
 Perhaps the months or years of engagement 
 may be enjoyable to those who enter upon 
 their contract in a business-like and practical 
 spirit, or to those easy-going mortals who take 
 their love on trial, much as they might take 
 a type-writer or a patent lamp. But to two 
 young people dreadfully in love and dreadfully 
 iri earnest, this stretch of time is like the trying 
 pause when the soldier on the battle-field waits 
 for the order to advance. 
 
 The woman s position is certainly doubtful 
 and disagreeable. She belongs neither to her
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. ?$ 
 
 parents nor to her betrothed not even to her 
 self. Hers is the proud prerogative of decid 
 ing between blue and pink for the dining-room 
 paper, between script and old English for the 
 engraving on the spoons while, perhaps, her 
 former owners and her future owner are set 
 tling on a religion for her and for her children 
 in posse. 
 
 We do not all of us have to suffer the possi 
 ble rigors of this state of interregnum. The 
 kindly refinements of modern life make the 
 situation as agreeable as may be. Yet, among 
 the gentlest and most delicate of people, it is 
 often a situation at best but barely tolerable. 
 What must it be among people who are not 
 given to yielding to others, and who are given 
 to speaking their minds those hastily made-up 
 minds which, for the most part, were best left 
 unspoken? 
 
 It was a cock-sure and outspoken family into 
 which Randolph Wykoff had tumbled ; and one 
 that had well-defined opinions on all matters 
 of personal conduct, and wanted no new lights 
 from any source. And as Randolph himself 
 could be cock-sure on occasion, and as he cer 
 tainly had not come down to Chelsea Village 
 to seek illumination on any dark points of 
 social doctrine, a clash was inevitable, and the 
 clash came promptly.
 
 76 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 It came when the chilling truth was first 
 clearly recognized by the Leetes that young 
 Mr. Wykoff was engaged to Celia exclusively, 
 and did not hold himself bound to the rest of 
 the family by any ties so tender. To be sure, 
 Wykoff was the soul of kindly courtesy in his 
 relations with them all, and yet, like the old 
 farmer in Punch, sipping airy champagne in 
 place of his accustomed old ale, they " didn t 
 seem to get no forr ader." When Randolph 
 broke one of Mrs. Leete s teacups, he made the 
 accident an excuse for sending her a full tea-set 
 so delicate of mould that Mrs. Leete never 
 dared to use it. He gave Father Leete a 
 meerschaum that he had brought from Europe. 
 He adorned Alonzo s scarf with a scarabaeus 
 of rare beauty. (Alonzo held the gift but 
 lightly until it occurred to him to have its 
 money value appraised at a Broadway jewel 
 ler s.) He loaded Celia with gifts, and he did 
 not forget to select for her sister, every now 
 and then, a trinket of a fashion more notice 
 able than he would have held fitting for his 
 betrothed. And as for flowers he made the 
 dingy house brilliant with the artificial refine 
 ments of the hot-house. But beyond courteous 
 speech and an open hand, they soon found that 
 nothing was to be expected of the new comer 
 in the family circle.
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 77 
 
 Alonzo had to^accept the obvious fact that 
 he would never be put up at Mr. Randolph 
 Wykoff s club, even if he sought such an 
 honor which he told his own conscience he 
 did not. Dorinda saw bright visions fade 
 before her eyes when she learned that Mr. 
 Wykoff, whether he were in mourning or out 
 of mourning, was not in the habit of taking his 
 " lady friends " to the public balls, and that he 
 did not so much as know the " Triton " from 
 the " Mannerchor." And Mrs. Leete, while 
 she understood that John Wykoff s widow must 
 live for many months, at least, in strict retire 
 ment from the world, yet felt that it had in 
 some subtle way been made clear to her own 
 perceptions that the hand of Society would 
 never be stretched out to the Leetes at the 
 particular request of the Wykoffs. 
 
 There was no question about it, Mr. Wykoff 
 had no proper sense of his position as a pros 
 pective son- and brother-in-law ; and hint and 
 suggestion fell upon his calm unconsciousness of 
 his delinquency as little sparks upon the breast 
 of an ice-bound lake. They did their best to 
 bring him to a knowledge of what they called 
 among themselves "the proper thing;" but 
 neither precept nor example availed against 
 his vast innocent ignorance. 
 
 In this he was quite honest, although the
 
 78 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 Leete family could hardly believe it. It did 
 occur to him, at one time, that he had been 
 made to hear a great deal about a certain Mr. 
 Cargill, soon to be wedded to one of Dorinda s 
 bosom friends. This gentleman had acquired 
 what seemed to Randolph a strange habit of 
 taking his bride-to-be and all her family, in 
 cluding a maiden aunt, to the theatre some 
 four or five times a week. For this ceremony, 
 or operation, Mr. Cargill was wont to array 
 himself, according to Dorinda s account, in a 
 swallow-tail coat, a lavender satin tie, and 
 an embroidered shirt. But beyond a vague 
 wonder if perchance Cargill completed this 
 costume with shepherd s plaid trousers and 
 Roman sandals, Mr. Wykoff saw no hidden 
 significance in the parable. 
 
 Thus it came to pass that Randolph, for his 
 contumacious and persistent abiding in dark 
 ness, was put under a ban by all save one 
 member of the family. Father and Mother 
 Leete, it is true, visited their displeasure upon 
 him only passively, and far, far more in sor 
 row than in anger. But Alonzo and Dorinda 
 declared him anathema, and would have none 
 of him. I need hardly say that their parents 
 knew nothing of this unwise severity. 
 
 There was a time when Wykoff was wel 
 comed at the portal by Celia s brother or her
 
 NA TURAL SELECTION. 79 
 
 sister, as it might happen. (It was a conven 
 tion in the family one of the " whats " which 
 are "what" that Celia might not with pro 
 priety open the front door to her beloved.) He 
 was allowed to meet her in the hall-way, and 
 they went into the parlor to chat out their 
 private chat. Then they joined the family 
 circle in the dining-room, where the evening 
 lamp shone cheerily on the red cloth that 
 turned the dining-table into a centre-table, 
 and Randolph answered questions about his 
 mother s health, or talked of building matters 
 with Mr. Leete, or made engaging conversa 
 tion on topics judiciously selected from the 
 news of the day. 
 
 But that time was long past ere the winter 
 had travelled over the brow of Christmas Hill. 
 Now it was always Dorinda who opened the 
 door to him. He did not know it, but Dorinda, 
 on the nights when he might be looked for, 
 took her seat by the dining-room door, on the 
 most uncomfortable chair in the room, and 
 awaited his coming in a gloomy spirit of duty. 
 She always opened the door with the chain up, 
 and peered through the crack as though she 
 were expecting a stranger of murderous inten 
 tions. Then she said, with the corners of her 
 mouth drawn down in a painful smile : " Oh, I 
 beg your pardon, Mr. Wykoff ; I didn t know
 
 80 NATURAL SELECTION 7 . 
 
 it was you, to-night." The door was closed, 
 the chain let down, the door swung open slowly, 
 and Randolph was admitted, to face a greeting 
 that rarely varied much in form : 
 
 "I don t spose you want to see tf\Qfamly, 
 Mr. Wykoff ; if you ll be so kind as to step 
 into the parlor, I ll tell my sister you re here." 
 
 Dorinda had reduced the difficult arts of 
 irony and sarcasm to a few simple formulas of 
 vigorous emphasis, applied to the direct de 
 liverances of ordinary conversation. Yet, had 
 it not been for a certain ring of triumphant 
 satisfaction in her tone, and a sparkle of proud 
 achievement in her eye, Wykoff would perhaps 
 have failed to suspect her intent. 
 
 In the front parlor, dimly lit and chilly 
 Alonzo was in charge of the furnace Ran 
 dolph awaited his betrothed. After what was 
 held a proper and dignified space of time, she 
 was permitted to join him. She came in, often, 
 with a flush high on her cheeks and with a 
 fluttering breath, and hid her head on his 
 shoulder, where he let it lie. He was not an 
 observant young man, he was not a demon 
 strative wooer, but he felt that his little girl 
 was suffering persecution, and he pitied her. 
 
 He had more than Dorinda s depressing sal 
 utation to open his eyes. As he sat in the 
 shadowy parlor, waiting for Celia, he heard
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 8 1 
 
 Dorinda return to the dining-room to announce 
 his coming. Her entrance was followed by a 
 silence. Then came a loud grunt, from far 
 down in Mr. Leete s deep lungs, as if he said, 
 "Oh, is that all?" Sometimes a profound 
 sigh was audible through the closed folding- 
 doors, and he could guess that there was a 
 weight on Mother Leete s mind. And regu 
 larly, every night that he sat there, he heard 
 Alonzo arise, march through the hall, put on 
 his coat and hat, and go out into the night. 
 And in doing this simple thing, Alonzo con 
 trived, in every step along the hall, to put a 
 staccato accentuation into the setting down of 
 his heel which could not fail to carry its mean 
 ing to the lost soul in the front parlor. It was 
 the righteous man stalking out of the neigh 
 borhood of the accursed thing. 
 
 But of Celia s sufferings at her relatives 
 hands Randolph had an exaggerated concep 
 tion. Alonzo and Dorinda annoyed her in their 
 different ways, but she was quite able to take 
 care of herself in every sort of family spat. She 
 was gentle of spirit, gentle in her tastes ; but 
 she had learned to spar in many wordy contests, 
 and she was now no longer dependent upon 
 the love or the approval of either Alonzo or her 
 sister. Indeed, all minor matters, all the little 
 things of the house which had been important 
 6
 
 82 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 to her a few months before, meant nothing to 
 her now. She was leading a life of which her 
 brother, her sister, her father, her mother, knew 
 nothing ; she was walking in paths where their 
 petty jealousies, spites, disappointments, and 
 misunderstandings could not follow her. 
 
 There is, however, no telling where combat 
 ants like Alonzo and Dorinda will stop when 
 they once start on a line of aggressive conduct. 
 It is not enough for them to see that their 
 weapons strike home ; to see the punctures, to 
 know, whatever momentary exaltation of soul 
 may stay the physical pain of the victim, that, 
 sooner or later, the wounds must begin to 
 bleed, and the tender flesh to burn with fever. 
 Theirs is a grosser warfare. They must see 
 the suffering, they must hear the cries; they 
 must realize that they have inflicted material 
 damage before they can feel that they have 
 done what they set out to do. Especially must 
 their vengeance be complete when it constitutes 
 what they consider merited punishment and 
 to judge and to punish is the especial mission 
 of these right-thinking and right-doing pepple, 
 who, being ever in the right, have but small 
 pity for those erring mortals who have not 
 their light. 
 
 So it was not long before Dorinda laid down 
 the foil of polite irony, and took to broad-
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 83 
 
 sword-practice. She had been content with 
 the pleasure to be derived from outspoken con 
 jectures as to her sister s probable behavior 
 after she should have joined her " swell friends " 
 whether or no she would recognize her kins 
 folk when she met them on the street or look 
 at any one who lived in a frame house or use 
 baking-powder in her kitchen. But now she 
 relieved her mind with open and vituperative 
 onslaughts upon Randolph Wykoff, his mother, 
 and all that they stood for and represented in 
 the social scheme. She gave up going to the 
 door to let Randolph in, and that duty was 
 delegated to Alonzo, who performed it in abso 
 lute silence, with a discourteous hostility in his 
 bearing that, had he not been Celia Leete s 
 brother, would have got him a sound thrashing 
 at the hands of a young gentleman who had 
 been held, in his time, one of the prettiest mid 
 dle-weight boxers that had ever sparred at Har 
 vard College. 
 
 It was a most unpleasant state of things for 
 the engaged pair, and they talked it over at 
 every meeting. Wykoff was for going to Mr. 
 Leete and demanding an abatement of the 
 nuisance ; but Celia, who underestimated the 
 strength of her position, told him that parental 
 interference would only embitter her perse 
 cutors, and make her lot the harder ; and her
 
 84 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 lover unwillingly held his peace. It was Do 
 rinda who brought matters to a climax. 
 
 Mrs. Wykoff had been ill. Her lungs were 
 not over-strong, and she had been taken with 
 something that looked like pneumonia. Ran 
 dolph stopped at the Leetes, late one January 
 afternoon, to tell Celia of his mother s progress 
 toward recovery. He was admitted by the 
 servant a rare event ; for attendance upon 
 the front door was not among that handmaid s 
 many duties. She let him into the parlor, and 
 there he found Dorinda, volubly entertaining a 
 young man and a young woman whom he at 
 once guessed to be the much-vaunted Cargill 
 and his bride-elect. Cargill was a tall young 
 man with a large black moustache. His cloth 
 ing had that effect of shiny and unwrinkled 
 newness which is rarely to be observed save on 
 the wire frames in the tailors windows. Huge 
 diamonds sparkled on his fingers, in his neck 
 tie, and even in a shamelessly exposed collar- 
 stud. Mrs. Cargill, that was to be, was clad 
 in a blue velvet dress that just held its own 
 for brilliancy against Dorinda s red bodice of 
 state. 
 
 The Cargill and the Cargill-expectant glanced 
 at the Wykoff as he entered and sat down in 
 the farthest corner of the room. Dorinda did 
 not even turn her head, but pitched the con-
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 85 
 
 versation in a higher key, so that he might 
 lose no word of it. 
 
 " Was you at the Sweatmans sociable ? " 
 she inquired. 
 
 " Nope," said Mr. Cargill, sucking the big 
 silver head of his cane. 
 
 " I heard it was real el gant," Miss Leete ran 
 on ; "I couldn t go ma n me had to go to a 
 meetin of the church fair c mittee. I s pose 
 you know I m goin to have the Rebekah booth 
 at the fair. Hope you re comin to patronize 
 me. I ll sell you some lem nade f you ever 
 drink lem nade, Mr. Cargill." 
 
 The simper with which this speech was ended 
 was a beautiful tribute to Cargill in his quality 
 of man of the world. 
 
 " Ain t sellin beer this trip ? " was Mr. Car- 
 gill s jocular inquiry. " Then I guess I ll take 
 lem nade. Sell a stick with it ? " 
 
 " Oh, do hush," said the bride-elect, dab 
 bing at him with her muff, and pretending to 
 be scandalized at his wickedness. " / think 
 lem nade s reel nice, don t you, D rinda? I m 
 comin to get some, n I m goin to make him 
 pay for it, too." 
 
 Two treble laughs and a bass laugh did 
 honor to this witticism, and, when the spasm 
 of merriment was over, Dorinda began again. 
 
 " D you see Mr. Cree at the Sweatmans ? /
 
 86 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 think he s one f the nicest gentlemen I ever 
 saw." 
 
 Celia was out ; it was a quarter of an hour 
 before she came in, and through that quarter 
 of an hour Randolph Wykoff sat in his corner 
 of the parlor and heard the chronicle of a soci 
 ety that in one way might well be called, as it 
 would have called itself, " el gant." 
 
 This was bad enough, but there was worse 
 yet. The visitors took their leave at last, and 
 Dorinda followed them into the hallway. She 
 closed the door behind her, but one door was 
 a poor obstruction to Dorinda s voice, and 
 Wykoff heard what probably it was intended 
 that he should hear: 
 
 "Him? Oh, that s Mr. Wykoff Celia s 
 friend, you know he ain t any f mine. I d 
 have introduced you, on y I don t hardly know 
 him well enough. We ain t fine enough for 
 him, n I thought maybe our friends wasn t. 
 Guess you ain t lost much, though." 
 
 When Celia came in Randolph told her, as 
 gently as possible, but definitely and defini 
 tively, that thereafter he would come to the 
 house only when her sister was not at home, 
 and he kept his word. 
 
 Yet they had to see each other, and so they 
 fell into a bad way of meeting in the streets. 
 Celia contrived to let her lover know that on
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 8/ 
 
 such a day a shopping tour would bring her 
 through such and such a street at this or that 
 hour; and at the time and place appointed, 
 Randolph would meet her to walk -home with 
 her. This unwise arrangement brought itself 
 to a timely end, happily for both of them. 
 Celia s sources of supply were among the marts 
 of fashion that line West Fourteenth Street 
 and the region round about. Thence she could 
 find no route homeward on which a young man 
 like Randolph Wykoff could have the ghost of 
 an excuse for loitering. He therefore sug 
 gested to her to make her purchases at the 
 larger shops on Broadway, so that he might 
 join her in the quiet side-streets to the east of 
 the great thoroughfare. Those streets between 
 Union and Madison Squares are, for the most 
 part, given over to boarding-houses and lodg 
 ing-houses of dull respectability, and although 
 they are not much traversed, they lie in lines 
 that any one might follow who would pass from 
 Murray Hill to say, for a fine old-fashioned 
 quarter, Stuyvesant Square. And as the Wy- 
 koffs lived near Stuyvesant Square, Randolph 
 might well take any one of them on his way 
 home, without drawing undesired attention to 
 the fact of his meeting a young lady, and turn 
 ing on his track to walk a few blocks with her. 
 But the Broadway tradesmen have not the
 
 88 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 Fourteenth Street idea of "bargains;" and it 
 soon became known in the Leete household, 
 where nothing was done in privacy, that Celia 
 was buying embroidery silk, and gros-grain 
 ribbons, and cotton lace, and ruchings, and the 
 like, at prices that were simply scandalous to 
 the apprehensions of Fourteenth Street shop 
 pers. Dorinda drew her own conclusions, 
 which were quite correct; she communicated 
 them to her mother ; her mother brought the 
 case before Mr. Leete, and he, summoning Celia 
 to his presence, heard the whole story. Up to 
 that point Celia had suffered in silence, obey 
 ing that unnumbered commandment which 
 the experience of childhood has added to 
 the Decalogue : Thou Shalt Not Tell Tales. 
 Now, there was nothing for it but to uncover 
 the history of her ill-treatment and her lover s 
 at the hands of Alonzo and Dorinda. Popper 
 Leete heard ; he constituted himself a dic 
 tatorial court of inquiry and judgment, and 
 when the culprits had made their inadequate 
 defence, he laid down the law. 
 
 " I want this nonsense stopped right here," 
 he said, sternly ; "when your ma n me wanter 
 break off that match we ll do it, an when we 
 want any help from either of you we ll let you 
 know. What your ma an me think of him is 
 none of your business, you understand! When
 
 NA TURAL SELECTION. 89 
 
 he comes here you want to treat him decent 
 and civil. I m ashamed of you, that a gen 
 tleman should come into my house, and be 
 treated so by you two young whippersnappers 
 that he can t come to see your sister like she 
 was a lady. Don t let me hear of this non 
 sense no more ; you hear me NO more ! An 
 quit a-naggin of your sister ! " 
 
 Mr. Leete s judgment, once put forth, 
 allowed no disobedience, either in letter or in 
 spirit, and as he took pains in his own person 
 to show a proper and dignified courtesy toward 
 Mr. Wykoff, it was not long before Celia and 
 her betrothed were enjoying to the full such 
 comfort as there may be in a forced peace. 
 But it was not a pleasant air to breathe, and 
 though the occasion of their parting was sad 
 in itself, they both felt more relief than either 
 would have cared to own when Randolph was 
 summoned to Florida, where his mother lay 
 ill. She had gone South to regain strength, 
 after her illness of January, only to catch cold 
 again in six weeks. She was nursed by the 
 two Curtis girls, the daughters of her favorite 
 cousin, and she was well nursed ; but her 
 relapse proved a serious matter, and Randolph 
 was sent for. He set out at once, and stayed 
 with his mother until the worst was over, and 
 while she regained her strength. It was in.
 
 go NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 the last of May that he brought her home to 
 the old Wykoff house near East Hampton. 
 During this time he and Celia corresponded 
 with regularity. It was a most satisfying cor 
 respondence, at the bottom, as our French 
 friends say ; but when Randolph tied up the 
 little package of letters and tucked it away in 
 the safest corner of the trunk that he was 
 packing for the homeward journey, he thought 
 that perhaps it would be a good thing to sug 
 gest to Celia that he would be greatly pleased 
 if she cared to read one or two books that he 
 had found serviceable in his own studies. 
 ****** 
 
 One little incident that took place just 
 before Mrs. Wykoff went to Florida made a 
 deep impression upon Mr. Leete, and set him 
 to thinking uneasily of the future. His wife 
 drew his attention to the fact that, Mrs. 
 Wykoff having passed through a serious ill 
 ness, a call of congratulation from the head 
 of the house of Leete would be an appro 
 priate and delicate attention to the convales 
 cent. Perhaps, the good wife suggested, the 
 Leete family had been remiss in such matters 
 of courtesy. Mrs. Wykoff s visit was still 
 unreturned, and, as Mrs. Leete truly said, it 
 was only because Popper Leete had kept say 
 ing that he would go with her some day, and
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 91 
 
 had never yet found the day to suit him. 
 Now, they didn t both of them want to go 
 streakin down there together, when Mrs. Wy- 
 koff was sick, or sort of sick ; and she her 
 self couldn t go, with the church fair to look 
 after ; but Popper Leete could just as well as 
 not, and it would look as if they meant to do 
 the right thing; and if he d go now, he d never 
 have to go again, and he might just as well go, 
 and have done with it. 
 
 Mr. Leete went. Dressed in his Sunday 
 broadcloth, he presented himself at the door 
 of the Wykoffs great house on Second Ave 
 nue, and gave the liveried menial his one 
 card, neatly written in Dorinda s elaborate 
 " Anserian System " handwriting. 
 
 Mrs. Wykoff was lying on the lounge in 
 her sunny sitting-room, which looked out on 
 a little snow-covered corner of the garden, 
 where a half-clad Venus snatched at her 
 scanty raiment, and looked as though she 
 would like to be able to shudder, and shake 
 the snow off her bare shoulders. 
 
 Mr. Leete had a pleasant call. He soon 
 found himself talking readily with the gentle, 
 gracious lady on the lounge, and he was so 
 much at his ease that he was even able to 
 cast furtive glances at the room and its furni 
 ture rich, yet simple and old enough in fash-
 
 Q2 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 ion to come within the scope of his knowledge. 
 He was so much at ease, indeed, that when 
 Mrs. Wykoff s tea was brought in he accepted 
 her offer of a cup, and becoming interested 
 in the conversation, dropped the cup on the 
 floor and broke it into many fragments. 
 
 He was deeply distressed. It took all Mrs. 
 Wykoff s tact and discretion to make him feel 
 that she saw no uncommon awkwardness in 
 his mishap. 
 
 " They are absurd things, those little egg 
 shell cups," she said ; " they are forever break 
 ing. Randolph brought me that set only three 
 months ago, and I think that he and I between 
 us have contrived to break half a dozen cups 
 since then. Don t give it another thought, 
 please." 
 
 Mr. Leete did give it another thought, how 
 ever. He gave it thought enough to privily 
 examine the mark on the bottom of the broken 
 cup. It bore a French name, strange to him ; 
 but he succeeded in getting some sort of men 
 tal picture of the combined characters. In his 
 own phrase, he sized it up roughly. When, 
 a quarter of an hour later, he found himself in 
 the street, with no clear idea of the means by 
 which his visit had been brought to a painless 
 close and an easy exit, he was already nursing 
 the germ of a great idea.
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 93 
 
 Why should not a Leete, as well as a Wykoff, 
 replace a broken set of chinaware? Mrs. 
 Wykoff had said that six cups were already 
 gone Mr. Leete s cup made the seventh. 
 Here was a chance to perform an act of sub 
 stantial courtesy, and with credit to the family. 
 "I guess I ll do a little suthin in the crockery 
 line myself," thought Mr. Leete. 
 
 He remembered that Randolph s gift of 
 china had come from a well-known shop on 
 Broadway, and thither he went at once. A 
 polite little salesman met him near the door of 
 the long wareroom, and inquired his pleasure. 
 Mr. Leete was conscious of feeling large, pon 
 derous, and solid amid all the fragility. 
 Faience and Limoges were in front of him, 
 Sevres and Belleek to right and left, and his 
 eyes rested on nothing simpler or more modest 
 than that sturdy Meissen ware which is still 
 honored under the name of Dresden. 
 
 " I want some tea-things," began Mr. Leete, 
 " of the kind you call " the French word 
 failed him, but his eye lit on the thing itself, a 
 set of the identical pattern, different only in 
 color, lying in state among the satin folds of a 
 huge leather case. 
 
 " There them ! " he said ; " that s what I m 
 lookin for, only I want it in blue." 
 
 " We haven t a blue set, sir," said the clerk;
 
 94 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 "we had one, but we sold it a few months 
 ago." 
 
 " D ye know who you sold it to ?" queried 
 Mr. Leete, hiding his detective intent under a 
 mask of simplicity. " Maybe the party would 
 be willin to sell." 
 
 The clerk smiled superciliously. 
 
 " I hardly think so," he said ; " our trade is 
 pretty much with private customers." 
 
 " I d like to have you make sure," persisted 
 Mr. Leete ; "I want blue, an I m willin to 
 pay for it." 
 
 The salesman trotted to the back of the 
 shop, and spoke to a clerk at a desk. The 
 clerk fluttered the leaves of a great book, and 
 the salesman trotted back, with a superior 
 smile on his lips. 
 
 " I don t think you ll be very successful, sir," 
 he said ; " that other set was bought by Mr. 
 Wykoff, son of old John Wykoff, who died 
 last year. You may have heard of him. 
 They re one of the oldest families in the city, 
 and one of the richest. I don t believe 
 they d be willing to dispose of anything they 
 bought." 
 
 " I ve heard of em," said Mr. Leete, smiling 
 in his turn. He wanted to see that salesman s 
 face when he told him to box up the pink set 
 and send it to Mrs. John Wykoff, Second Ave-
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 95 
 
 nue. After all, the pink would do as well as 
 the blue. 
 
 "What s the price of this set here?" he 
 asked, touching one of the egg-shell cups with 
 a careful finger. 
 
 " Four hundred and twenty dollars," said the 
 salesman. 
 
 " Eh?" said Mr. Leete. 
 
 " Very cheap at that, sir marked down from 
 four hundred and seventy-five. All hand- 
 painted by one of the first artists in France. 
 Only these two sets ever imported quite 
 unique." 
 
 " Hum !" snorted Mr. Leete, " too bad you 
 ain t got the blue. Good-day." 
 
 Out in the street he made a rapid calcula 
 tion. 
 
 " Four hundred n twenty cup n saucer s 
 one piece, I s pose ; one ain t good for much 
 thout t other twelve teapot, jug, an sugar s 
 fifteen wa n t no slop-bowl fifteen into four 
 hundred n twenty twenty -eight dollars. 
 Moses Taylor ! " 
 
 This is the New Yorker s special oath of 
 astonishment ; though why that eminent and 
 sober-minded merchant has received such 
 strange canonization in the calendar of mild 
 profanity no one may know. When he was at 
 home he told his wife all about it, and shook
 
 96 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 his head dubiously as he drew some uncom 
 fortable conclusions. 
 
 " I don t see," he said, " that we ve got any 
 occasion to travel with folks that c n smash 
 twenty-eight dollars wuth f crockery an not 
 so much as know it. That ain t any sort of 
 housekeeping for Celia. She ain t been brought 
 up in that way, an I don t want her to get 
 sech ideas. Twenty-eight dollars ! Why, Ma 
 Leete, I d ruther have her eat off stone china 
 all the days f her life an so would you." 
 ******* 
 
 And yet Mr. Leete was as much pleased as 
 was his wife when, in July, a letter came from 
 Mrs. Wykoff, at East Hampton, inviting Celia 
 to spend a few weeks at the Wykoff home 
 stead. 
 
 "You will have a dull time," she wrote, "for 
 I am still something of an invalid, and, of 
 course, we see no one; but my nieces I call 
 them so are spending the summer with me, 
 and they and Randolph will do what they can 
 to make it pleasant for you. Write me that 
 you will come, and Parker, my faithful facto 
 tum, will call for you and make you comfort 
 able on your journey." 
 
 Even Alonzo felt some tender stirrings 
 toward mercy in the depths of his stern soul ; 
 and Dorinda gave it as her opinion that Celia
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 97 
 
 could adequately display her self-respect and 
 sense of independence by delaying her answer 
 for the space of twenty-four hours. 
 
 As it took poor Celia that time to prepare a 
 missive sufficiently lofty in tone to pass the 
 family conclave, Dorinda had her own way, 
 and, being placated, entered with an interest 
 only too active and energetic into the prepara 
 tion of her sister s paraphernalia. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 DORINDA threw herself upon the task of 
 preparing Celia for the fray with a zeal 
 and ardor that brought only dismay to her 
 younger sister s breast. It having been de 
 cided that the victim of society must have 
 some new gowns, Dorinda at once planned a 
 wardrobe of variegated brilliancy. Celia strove 
 with all her tact for a more modest working, 
 but she had to stand up and do battle-royal 
 for her own standards when Dorinda wanted 
 her to purchase a certain " Dame Trot " gar 
 ment, of a pattern which was at the time excit 
 ing the irreverent attention of the press. They 
 came to an open rupture. Celia finally ap-
 
 9? NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 pealed to the head of the house, who decided, 
 with masculine justice, that she was entitled 
 to choose her clothes for herself. Dorinda 
 writhed ; but came back to the fascinating 
 employment more in sorrow than in anger. 
 
 When the little trunk was at last packed, 
 Dorinda s verdict on the contents was that 
 they were good enough, but had no sort of 
 style about them. Celia, doubtful of their 
 possessing any merits at all, took a negative 
 comfort from this. Ah ! if she could only 
 gather an idea of Mrs. Wykoff s likes from 
 Dorinda s dislikes ! 
 
 The day came when Mrs. Wykoff s maid was 
 to convey her charge to the further shore of 
 Long Island. This relegation of Celia to a 
 menial s care had somewhat troubled the family 
 conclave ; but it had been decided that, in view 
 of the differences in social ethics revealed by 
 past dealings with the Wykoff family, it would 
 be fair to assume that the lady s intent was 
 respectful, however much her course was open 
 to the criticism of the right-minded. The sun 
 was shining on the mid-day dinner when the 
 carriage was announced ; Celia had finished a 
 nervous attempt at a meal, and was ready for 
 the ordeal. Five napkins fell to the ground, 
 and amid a storm of caresses and tears Celia 
 was hustled to the door. Even Alonzo shook
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 99 
 
 her hand with a stern cordiality which hinted 
 that, under favorable circumstances, all might 
 yet be forgiven. Her father kissed her brow, 
 and in a minute she was in the carriage the 
 Wykoff carriage with Parker. 
 
 Parker was a Briton, and she stood by her 
 colors. Long years before, when her firm but 
 kindly rule over Mrs. Wykoff was just begin 
 ning, her employer made one single effort to 
 treat her as an American. 
 
 "Your name is Jane, I believe?" she said: 
 " I will call you Jane, I think, hereafter, instead 
 of Parker." 
 
 Jane Parker dropped an old-world courtesy, 
 and set her thin lips. 
 
 " Indeed, mum, I would not be that disre 
 spectful to my betters; and I ope, mum, you 
 will not insist." Mrs. Wykoff did not insist, 
 and Parker remained Parker. 
 
 The carriage rolled away, and Celia leaned 
 back in her corner and felt a delicious glow of 
 yearning fright and mysterious hope. Oppo 
 site her sat Parker, bolt upright, an eminently 
 respectable guide to the gates of Elysium. 
 Beyond her, through the windows, Celia saw the 
 silver W tossing on the rounded flanks of the 
 Wykoff horses. At the railroad station or 
 the corral called by that name Stephen met 
 them, Mrs. Wykoff s aged but efficient butler
 
 100 NATURAL SELECTION, 
 
 and general manager the masculine equiva 
 lent of Parker. Here they were taken under 
 the wing of that vigilance of which an accom 
 plished servitor like Stephen makes a pride. 
 Celia did nothing for herself, she was not even 
 sure that she had used her own means of loco 
 motion when she found herself seated in the 
 best seat in the car, Parker close behind her, 
 her light wrap and little satchel on the seat by 
 her side, and a monthly magazine on her lap. 
 
 She had not thought of taking a book with 
 her, and she did not even know that for this del 
 icate attention she was indebted to Stephen s 
 own inspiration. Later she learned of the con 
 scientious care he had given to the selection. 
 He felt it his duty to report his exercise of dis 
 cretion to Mrs. Wykoff. 
 
 " Seeing her unprovided, ma am," he ex 
 plained, " I felt that I might go so far. I 
 would not take the responsibility of choosing 
 what a young lady should read, but I had seen 
 that particular paper here on your own table, 
 ma am, and I run through it on the news-stand 
 to see that there was no nudity pictures nor 
 anything that you could object to, ma am." 
 
 Celia hardly glanced at her magazine. She 
 was too full of a new and sweet content to care 
 to read any other woman s love-story. She 
 looked out of the window, and was interested
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. IOI 
 
 in the landscape. Perhaps no one else ever 
 cared to look at that dull, flat country, divided 
 between swampiness and aridity ; but* Celia 
 gazed at it with an indulgence that had in it 
 a touch of proprietorship. Most of the time, 
 however, it pleased her to lean back in her 
 seat and sense the guardianship of her lover s 
 emissaries. It was as though the aegis of her 
 Prince of the Golden World was stretched out 
 over her. She had discovered Stephen sitting 
 unobtrusively at the furthest end of the car, 
 watching her with a steady eye that took in all 
 her surroundings, her every movement. She 
 half lifted her hand toward the window he 
 was at her side in an instant, and had raised 
 the sash. She drew back a little from the 
 draught Parker silently slipped her wrap over 
 her shoulders. At one of the stations a tall, 
 handsome young man entered and wandered 
 down the aisle, looking for a seat. His eye 
 fell on the empty place next to hers ; then, 
 as if lured by some strange magnetism, that 
 youthful masculine eye was attracted to Ste 
 phen s, sitting weazened and bent in the far 
 corner of the car, and the young man passed 
 on his way. Celia felt sure that if he had hesi 
 tated in the least, he would have been snatched 
 up and wafted iato the most distant car on the 
 train. Surely such service was sweet.
 
 IO2 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 It was dusk when they arrived at the station 
 nearest to the Wykoffs place a summery 
 dusk, yet chill and damp. Randolph was wait 
 ing, with his mother s victoria. He did not 
 kiss her ; he only pressed her hand and mur 
 mured " Dearest ! " in stately confidence. 
 There were people all about them ; it could 
 not be otherwise, and Celia knew it : yet some 
 how she felt a little disappointed a trifle 
 chilled. 
 
 The carriage went swiftly over the sandy 
 roads, while Randolph talked to his betrothed 
 in low, deep tones talked of such things only 
 as Parker, sitting on the box, might hear. 
 They passed under dim trees, and through 
 pigmy forests of underbrush, the cool gloom 
 growing deeper and deeper. Celia listened 
 almost in silence. An indefinable loneliness 
 and a joyous, fluttering expectancy struggled 
 within her. She was trying to adjust her con 
 sciousness to a sudden change in her surround 
 ings. She felt she was more than the length 
 of the longest railroad from Chelsea Village 
 and Popper Leete s mid-day dinner. 
 
 " We didn t expect to have any one at the 
 house except my cousins," she heard Randolph 
 saying as her mind tried to picture the life that 
 already seemed to have slipped far behind her; 
 " but I ve got an old college chum of mine
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 1 03 
 
 down here for a month or two Jack Claggett. 
 He s an artist, and he is doing some of the 
 decorative work on the Cooperative Buildings. 
 That is only one end of his cleverness. Clag 
 gett is going to be a great man some day. And 
 then, just for to-night, we have old Jedby at 
 dinner. He invited himself he lives with his 
 brother six or seven miles down the road 
 near Sag Harbor. He s a jolly old gossip, and 
 used to be a friend of my father s. He s a sort 
 of tame cat with us. But you ll see nobody 
 else except my mother and the girls." 
 
 " The girls ? " queried Celia. 
 
 " Yes, my cousins. And you ve got to fall 
 in love with them, you know. They re dear 
 good girls. I ve known them ever since they 
 were little mites. We used to play together. 
 Laura is uncommonly clever, and no end of 
 fun. She s the eldest. Annette is the pretty 
 one ; but she isn t as bright as Laura. But 
 mind, you must admire them both." 
 
 " I will if they will let me," said Celia 
 meekly. 
 
 " Let you ! " exclaimed her lover ; " they 
 will worship you see if they don t ! " And 
 then, catching sight of Parker s back, he became 
 silent. 
 
 They swung through a gateway in a long 
 stone wall, and the wheels crashed up a gravelled
 
 104 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 drive. Red windows flashed out through the 
 trees, a flood of warm light came from a broad 
 open door, and presently Celia was standing on 
 the veranda, receiving a motherly kiss from 
 Mrs. Wykoff, and furtively examining two tall, 
 pretty, and very talkative girls who had a num 
 ber of unimportant things to say with bird-like 
 volubility. 
 
 " Parker will take you to your room, my 
 dear," said Mrs. Wykoff ; " and she will help 
 you to change your dress, or you shall come to 
 dinner just as you are, whichever pleases you. 
 Are you tired ? You are a little pale." 
 
 " I I have a headache, I think," faltered 
 Celia, truly enough, for the strong, sharp sea- 
 air had struck hard on her nerves. 
 
 " You shall have your dinner in your own 
 room," declared Mrs. Wykoff; but Celia would 
 not consent. It was only the ghost of a head 
 ache, and it would go away itself. 
 
 She found it very awkward to be helped by 
 Parker, and when Parker opened her trunk and 
 took out the contents she watched Parker s eye 
 with uneasiness in her soul. She might as well 
 have tried to read the eye of the sphinx. 
 
 " Which dress, mum ? " inquired her assist 
 ant. 
 
 "The gray one, I think," said Celia, naming 
 the garment on which she placed her main
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 1 05 
 
 reliance, as being what women call "always 
 nice." It was a dark gray silk, so made as to 
 fall, to Celia s apprehension, just about at the 
 vanishing point or horizon-line between the 
 heaven of full dress and the lowly simplicity of 
 work-a-day attire a compromise gown, in fact. 
 And truly, the modest square-cut corsage with 
 pretty lace (the first real lace Celia had ever 
 bought) at the neck was as proper garb as you 
 shall see a pretty maid in. 
 
 But when Celia saw that gray dress come out 
 of the trunk, the kindly current of her blood 
 flew back to her heart s chill core. Down the 
 front in an arabesque pattern, over the back in 
 simulation of impossible festoons, nay, down 
 the skirt in a mad cascade of color ran a ribbon 
 of two shades of arsenical green, occasionally 
 exhibiting a reverse side of pale yellow. Do- 
 rinda had done good by stealth, and had vio 
 lated the sanctity of the trunk after it had been 
 packed. Dorinda had always said that that 
 dress lacked style. 
 
 " No, not that one," Celia said to the im 
 movable Parker : " that is a a mistake. 
 There s a black silk dress there I ll get it." 
 
 Celia blessed her mother s peculiar fancy, 
 that was responsible for the existence of the 
 black silk dress. " Mrs. Wykoff bein in 
 mournin ," Mrs. Leete had speculated, " she
 
 106 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 might like to see you in black of a Sunday. It 
 looks more considerate." 
 
 Ten minutes after the appearance of the 
 black silk, Celia had begun to live her dream : 
 she sat at her lover s table ; whatever this life 
 might be for which she had yearned, she was 
 in the midst of it. She had wished a wish, and 
 the wish had come true, as in a fairy tale. 
 
 A dream she thought it at first. She sank 
 into her great leather chair with a pleasant 
 sense of physical fatigue. She saw everything 
 in the rosy dazzle of the crimson-shaded 
 candles. She had a vague, diffused perception 
 of luxurious comfort. The table spread before 
 her, a glittering, snowy plain. She heard the 
 murmur of gentle voices all about her ; even 
 the soft laughter was musical to her ears. 
 
 It was only a moment of dreamy ecstasy. 
 She lifted a spoonful of soup to her lips, and 
 awoke herself to observe, to study, to learn. 
 Eve ate of the fruit of knowledge, and the 
 glories of uncomprehended Paradise began the 
 slow process of resolving themselves into so 
 much land and so much water, so many trees, 
 so many shrubs, and so many spotted, speckled 
 and striped birds and beasts and creeping 
 things. 
 
 She sat at her hostess s right hand, and at 
 the distant end of the table she saw Randolph,
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. IO/ 
 
 and saw him for the first time in all the gran 
 deur of what he would have called his " war 
 paint." She accepted him as a revelation, and 
 wondered whether she had ever sufficiently 
 revered him. When Alonzo got into evening 
 dress, he always looked as though he might 
 break in the middle if he were carelessly handled. 
 Nothing of this painful effect was observable 
 in Randolph. To her right was Mr. Jedby, an 
 ancient beau, who had begun to wax his mous 
 tache in the Presidency of the late Louis Na 
 poleon, but whose juvenility was otherwise 
 carefully conserved, save in the matter of his 
 collar, which was as high as the prevailing style 
 required, yet, in pattern, warped somewhat by 
 memories of an older fashion. Mr. Jedby was 
 pouring into the ear of Miss Laura Curtis a mo 
 notonous stream of gossip, confined between 
 walls of elegant diction. Mr. Jedby rounded 
 his sentences as though each one was to be 
 taken down for publication in the " Autobiog 
 raphy of a Diner-Out," or the " Literary and 
 Anecdotic Remains of Mr. Richard Jedby, 
 edited with a preface by - ." 
 
 The Lisles, Celia learnt, were at Vevey ; the 
 Oakleys at Bonn. Where the De la Hunts 
 were he should know by the next European 
 mail. (Mr. Jedby kept up a correspondence 
 a sort of gossip exchange with all the idle
 
 IO8 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 widows and busy old maids of his acquaintance. 
 Yes, the Carroll party was in the Riviera, and 
 they were talking, at last accounts, of a trip 
 through the south of Italy and the Mediter 
 ranean Isles ; but Mr. Jedby did not believe 
 the plan would be carried out. Mortimer 
 Faxon was with them, and Jack Ludlow s 
 widow, and Mr. Jedby did not believe she 
 would let him get too far from a legation. 
 
 " Opportunity, my dear young lady," said 
 Mr. Jedby, " opportunity is elusive, and should 
 be seized with promptitude and alacrity." 
 
 It was all a foreign language to Celia. Do 
 you remember your first day at school, when 
 you sat waiting for your assignment of lessons, 
 and listened to the elder classes reciting Greek 
 verbs ? Some day, you knew, you would do 
 the same thing ; but what a world of unintelli- 
 gibility lay before you ! 
 
 Mr. Jedby had done no more than acknowl 
 edge his introduction to Miss Leete in the 
 drawing-room, and he could not even pay 
 attention to his dinner until he had made an 
 end of his recital to Laura Curtis. Thus Celia 
 was left to the ministrations of Mrs. Wykoff, 
 who asked after each member of the Leete 
 family in turn. Celia answered her almost 
 mechanically, and quietly studied Mr. Claggett, 
 opposite her.
 
 NATURAL SELECTION, 1 09 
 
 She did not, perhaps, formulate the idea, but 
 she felt that Mr. Claggett did not altogether 
 harmonize with his surroundings. It was 
 not only that he was tall, gaunt, and breezily 
 Western in all his ways and manners ; it was 
 not only that he was a carelessly picturesque 
 figure in a trim and decorous picture: in some 
 way that she did not attempt to define he dif 
 fered from the types about him. She was des 
 tined to receive more light upon the subject. 
 
 Claggett was, as Randolph Wykoff fre 
 quently had occasion to assert, a good fellow. 
 He was also a promising young artist in his 
 friend s eye the most promising young artist of 
 the day. Randolph had, like most young men 
 of his serious and earnest temperament, a circle 
 of youthful friends who were setting out to 
 revolutionize everything in Art, Science, Litera 
 ture, and Religion, and Claggett was the coming 
 apostle of Art. But what Harvard College 
 had done for Mr. Claggett and what Nature had 
 done for him were two widely different things, 
 and out of the conflict between Nature and Ed 
 ucation came a side-issue unpleasant for Celia. 
 
 It happened that five or six wine-glasses by 
 her plate and a number of courses presented to 
 her in various styles and shapes somewhat puz 
 zled this poor novice in the ways of the Golden 
 World. She had been trying hard to recollect
 
 HO NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 what she had learned at boarding-school of the 
 technicalities of the social board; but unfa 
 miliar problems arrived, and some exhibition 
 of hesitation or indecision attracted Mr. Clag- 
 gett s attention. Now it was not many years 
 since Mr. Claggett had wondered what terrapin 
 might be, and had boggled at croquettes and 
 bouchees. This fact ought to have made him 
 charitable, and given him a kindly sympathy 
 for others in such sad condition ; but the 
 experience had, in truth, embittered the young 
 man. Why is the " tenderfoot " ill-treated in 
 the far West ? Because the " old settler" was 
 a new settler but yesterday. The lust of tor 
 turing awoke in Claggett s breast. 
 
 The little confabs of two or three that began 
 a dinner had broken up. Conversation crossed 
 and criss-crossed the table. Mr. Claggett ad 
 dressed himself to Miss Leete, and began to 
 ply her with questions in gastronomy, designed 
 for her confusion. What were her views on 
 the cooking of terrapin ? Did she agree 
 with a Baltimore friend of his who thought 
 that canvas-back duck should be cooked fifty 
 seconds to the pound? 
 
 Mrs. Wykoff, talking across the board to 
 Mr. Jedby, noticed nothing. The Curtis girls 
 did notice, and made one or two ineffectual 
 diversions in Celia s behalf. Randolph had
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. Ill 
 
 some notion that his friend was conversing in 
 a strain foreign to the normal Claggett taste, 
 and good-naturedly told him not to be absurd. 
 But the baiting continued until Annette Curtis 
 said under her breath her face flushing hotly 
 " Mr. Claggett ! " 
 
 Claggett, like most people who have gone 
 too far, went a little farther. 
 
 " I was only trying to take a rise out of our 
 young friend," he explained, aside. 
 
 He lowered his voice as he spoke ; but Celia 
 heard him, and the Curtis girls knew that she 
 had heard. Probably no one else at the table 
 would have known the significance of that 
 piece of slang. But slang is a part of the mod 
 ern girl s education, and Randolph s cousins 
 were none the worse for recognizing the phrase 
 and catching the rude allusion. They became 
 Celia Leete s champions on the instant. 
 
 Celia s eye flashed, but she said nothing. 
 Mr. Claggett looked at Miss Annette Curtis s 
 face, and was silent. The dinner was ended in 
 peace and calm. 
 
 The good old fashion prevailed in the Wy- 
 koff household, and the gentlemen had their 
 hour of tobacco and chartreuse. In the draw 
 ing-room Annette sang a song or two, and when 
 the men appeared, she and Randolph set them 
 selves to sorting out piles of sheet-music.
 
 112 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 Claggett, anxious to reestablish himself, began 
 a little monologue on farm-life in Wisconsin. 
 He was a sharp observer of externals ; and he 
 told his tale with some cleverness, and he was 
 really getting on very well when it occurred to 
 him to inquire of Celia, with the best intentions 
 in the world, but with an unfortunate inflection : 
 
 " Were you ever in the West, Miss Leete? " 
 
 " No," said Celia ; " we have too much of the 
 West here, as it is." 
 
 There was silence in that place for the space 
 of a minute after this speech was uttered. An 
 expression of puzzled surprise on Mr. Claggett s 
 features slowly lost itself in a broad smile; but 
 there was no smile on any other face. Annette 
 Curtis, at the piano, let her hands wander 
 over the keys, struck a chord or two, and said : 
 
 " Ah ! that s it. Don t you want to try that 
 anthem over with me, Laura? la la la la 
 la la! " 
 
 Late that night Mrs. Wykoff tapped at Celia s 
 door. Celia was sitting up, ripping the party- 
 colored ribbon from her gray dress, and remov 
 ing other superfluities, in conformity with sug 
 gestions gathered from her observation during 
 the evening. She went guiltily to the door, 
 and opened it half way. 
 
 " I saw the light in your room," said Mrs. 
 Wykoff, " and I was afraid you might be ill."
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 113 
 
 "Oh, no," said Celia, very red and nervous, 
 "I m feeling much better I think I ll go to 
 bed now." 
 
 " I hope," Mrs. Wykoff continued, her brows 
 contracted in an anxious way, " I hope you 
 didn t mind that Mr. Claggett did not say 
 anything anything that might 
 
 " Oh, no," Celia interrupted. 
 
 " He is peculiar. He is not exactly Ran 
 dolph is very fond of him, and he is a young 
 man of many excellent qualities; but his sense 
 of humor sometimes runs away with him, I m 
 afraid." 
 
 " I didn t mind him the least little bit," said 
 
 Celia. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The next day there was tennis in the morn 
 ing, at which Celia looked on ; then a drive to 
 the beach in the afternoon, and again Celia sat 
 with Mrs. Wykoff and saw a quartette of ath 
 letes making merry. Randolph and Claggett 
 and the two girls all swam until Celia shivered 
 in wasted sympathy. 
 
 At twilight she took a little walk with An 
 nette Curtis, and their walk brought them 
 through a neighboring country place, a spa 
 cious old house, almost the mate of the Wykoff 
 homestead. 
 
 "That is our place," said Annette, "or, at
 
 H4 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 least, it used to be, before papa had troubles. 
 We used to live here when Randolph was a 
 little boy. I don t remember much about it, 
 because I was the baby, you know ; but Laura 
 and Randolph played together all the time. 
 The neighbors used to call them * the twins. 
 They re almost of an age Randolph s just one 
 week older. One day they went out in a boat 
 together, and the boat struck a rock and sunk, 
 and Randolph couldn t swim then, and Laura 
 swam ashore with him. That s reversing the 
 usual story, isn t it? And do you know he 
 was so angry with her for being able to swim 
 when he couldn t, that he wouldn t speak to 
 her for ever so long?" 
 
 Thus began a summer of country life. One 
 day was like another. Randolph was as affec 
 tionate in private, as delicately attentive in the 
 presence of others as his sense of the propri 
 eties of the situation permitted him to be. 
 Celia s status was anomalous, yet she was not 
 uncomfortable. Although her engagement to 
 Randolph was never hinted at, she knew that 
 all in the house were in the secret, and that 
 their discretion was to be trusted. There were 
 few visitors ; Mr. Jedby made rare appear 
 ances, and if Mr. Jedby knew why she was 
 under the Wykoff roof, he gave no sign. 
 
 Claggett alone enlivened the calm monotony
 
 NATURAL SELECTION . H5 
 
 of Celia s days. He followed up his declara 
 tion of war with a series of attacks, in which 
 he generally got fully the equivalent of what 
 he gave. This warfare was carried on without 
 the knowledge of Mrs. Wykoff. Both the com 
 batants feared her disapprobation. Randolph, 
 from his infinite height, saw something of it, 
 and it annoyed him. But, in so far as it 
 touched his own interests, he dismissed it with 
 the reflection in which young men who are 
 betrothed sometimes indulge themselves, that 
 he would have to make some alterations in the 
 character of his affianced, after the wedding. 
 The Curtis girls saw and heard, and talked 
 much between themselves. 
 
 And Randolph himself could not long remain 
 in his position of uninterested superiority. 
 There came an occasion when he was forced to 
 see and act. 
 
 The young people were off for a day s sail, 
 with an incidental crabbing expedition, in Ran 
 dolph s cat-boat ; and toward the end of the 
 homeward trip Celia was out of temper. 
 
 She had come down to the boat in the morn 
 ing attired in what she had purchased for a 
 " sailor costume." There was much white 
 braid about it, and a stiff little white collar, 
 that later was limp. Then she had found the 
 Curtis girls in old blue flannel gowns, with
 
 Il6 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 water-stained silk handkerchiefs knotted loosely 
 at their throats. Randolph had looked at her 
 dress put on for the first time with as near 
 an approach to frank surprise as he was capa 
 ble of. Then she had been sea-sick, in a fee 
 ble, doubtful way, through all the outward sail. 
 Then the crabbing came, to crush her with 
 astonishment and disappointment. How could 
 any one like such a disgusting employment ? 
 She sat in the dirty flat-bottomed boat they 
 had hired of the neighboring fisherman : she 
 was rowed about the glaring waters of a little 
 cove ; she gazed with abhorrence upon the 
 squirming, uncanny crabs, the grinning fish- 
 heads, the livid strings of soaked raw meat, and 
 she marvelled how they could laugh and chat 
 ter and enjoy it all. She was glad Dorinda 
 could not see her at the moment. " They " 
 she thought her " they " was the Wykoffs, 
 this time, not her own family " may be aw 
 fully swell, and we mayn t be ; but I know 
 none of us would think this was nice" 
 
 It was on the sail home that Celia exhibited 
 the cumulative effect of these annoyances. A 
 bushel-basket full of crabs had been spilt in the 
 cockpit, and Claggett was restoring the scut 
 tling wretches to their prison. Celia lay on 
 the seat, trying not to be sea-sick. A fold of 
 the white-braided dress hung down to the deck
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. llj 
 
 " Do keep those nasty things away from my 
 skirt, Mr. Claggett ! " she said, with asperity. 
 
 " Do not be too harsh with the crabs, Miss 
 Leete," responded Claggett, unperturbed ; 
 "they are simple, humble, semi-marine creat 
 ures, and they have never seen a dress like 
 that before. They merely wish to admire its 
 gorgeousness. Give them a chance to make 
 some approach to taste and fashion." 
 
 " Well," Celia returned, " they do seem to 
 be getting away from you as hard as they can." 
 
 Randolph, who was at the tiller, heard this. 
 A moment later he was called forward to the 
 halliards, and he did not know that Celia, 
 cheered up by her own triumph of witticism, 
 forgot her qualms, and engaged merrily in a 
 prolonged contest of wit with the young man 
 from the West. 
 
 Randolph waited until he and Claggett were 
 left to put the boat to rights for the night ; 
 and then he unburdened his mind. 
 
 " Look here, Jack," he said, kindly but 
 firmly ; " I wish you wouldn t talk to Miss 
 Leete in "the way you were talking down in 
 the cock-pit. It s all very well, you know, 
 between fellows, and at college, and all that 
 sort of thing; but I think it s out of place 
 with ladies." 
 
 " Has Miss Leete said anything to you
 
 Il8 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 about it?" Claggett inquired, looking up 
 quickly from his work. 
 
 " She has not." 
 
 " I thought not. You take things too seri 
 ously, old man. She likes it, and so would 
 you, if you had any sense of humor. It s all 
 pure fun and nonsense, and she s quite well 
 able to take care of herself." 
 
 " I do not wish," said Randolph, coldly, 
 " that Miss Leete should be obliged to take 
 care of herself. I am the best judge in such 
 matters; and I suppose that you understand 
 the situation." 
 
 " No," said Claggett, standing up straight, 
 and looking his friend in the eye : " I do not 
 understand the situation." 
 
 " I am " Randolph hesitated "Miss Leete 
 and I are engaged." 
 
 Unfortunately for Randolph, he could never 
 rid himself of the idea that there was a spe 
 cial sanctity attaching to his private and per 
 sonal affairs. When he was obliged to make 
 even the most indirect mention of them, he 
 assumed the tone which the boy at college 
 tries to assume when you speak to him of his 
 " secret society." It is the tone of stern, self- 
 conscious dignity which some people take on 
 in speaking of the unspeakable things of life. 
 I knew one man, once upon a time, who used
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. Iig 
 
 this tone whenever he had occasion to talk of 
 a cold in the head. The members of his fam 
 ily seemed to be peculiarly afflicted with this 
 ailment ; and, somehow, I got the idea that 
 they were not "proper" people. Perhaps Mr. 
 Claggett had similar associations with the pecul 
 iar tone, for he smiled in a way that greatly 
 irritated Mr. Wykoff. And then he dealt a 
 blow which left his friend paralyzed and dumb 
 with inexpressible indignation. 
 
 " Well," Mr. Claggett said, " I don t know 
 of any man more peculiarly fitted to make 
 her unhappy." 
 
 He shouldered the sweeps, and walked off 
 to the boat-house. Wykoff stood still for a 
 minute, nearly, and his soul boiled within him. 
 He wanted to do to Claggett many things 
 which he could not do, under the social con 
 ditions of our age. Perhaps he came near to 
 attempting some of them. But he checked 
 himself. Instead, he walked for half an hour 
 on the sands, arid thought it all over. It may 
 be that he communed with the spirit of his 
 father, for a glimmering of John Wykoff s good 
 sense visited his excited brain. He resolved 
 to wreak no vengeance on the irreverent Clag 
 gett, but to establish for him a suitable 
 " place " in the social scale ; to put him there, 
 and to keep him there. He carried out his
 
 120 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 programme to the letter. He put Claggett in 
 his " place " at once, and he kept him there. 
 There was only one limitation to his satisfac 
 tion : Claggett never seemed to know what 
 had happened to him. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Celia had accommodated herself to her sur 
 roundings how thoroughly she did not know 
 until a little thing set her to thinking. 
 
 Old habit led her to rise early, when only 
 the servants were stirring. The mail of the 
 previous night was brought in from the distant 
 post-office early in the morning, and was spread 
 out on a table in the hall. It was a week after 
 her arrival that Celia came down and found a 
 letter from Dorinda awaiting her a letter in 
 an envelope of pink, bordered with pale blue, 
 stamped with a huge initial L, and scented. 
 She snatched it up with an involuntary move 
 ment of concealment ; checked herself, and 
 then walked out into the clear sunshine with a 
 guilty and troubled heart. Was she ashamed 
 of her own people ? Or was it only that she 
 was rightly ashamed of her people s ways? 
 Where was she drifting where had she drifted ? 
 Had she turned her back on the little frame 
 house in Chelsea Village? What lay before 
 her here in the house of strangers?
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 121 
 
 Poor little Eve ! she had to look around 
 Paradise, and ask herself how she liked it. And 
 she had to confess to herself that only as a 
 mystery was it wholly delightful. 
 
 Personalities were not the staple of conver 
 sation in the Wykoff household ; yet personali 
 ties there must be, and these were still Greek 
 to Celia. And even in the employments of 
 every day she found herself set apart from all 
 the others. She tried to play tennis, and gave 
 it up, after a little while. Her muscles were 
 flaccid ; her heart rebelled at the least strain ; 
 flushing and palpitating, she went to sit with 
 Mrs. Wykoff, an uninterested spectator. It 
 was the same at the afternoon swim she 
 could not overcome her dread of the pounding 
 surf. She tried to walk with the Curtis girls, 
 and three miles in an hour sent her to bed sore 
 and tired. Indeed, she reflected, she had not 
 come there to bat tennis-balls, to swim, to 
 tramp over sandy roads. These things had no 
 charm for her. Perhaps the pleasantest time 
 of all the day was when she leaned back in 
 Mrs. Wykoff s victoria and rolled gently through 
 the streets of the village, when the summer 
 boarders sat on the verandas and stared hard 
 at the plump horses and the carriage. 
 
 In August the Curtis girls went to join their 
 mother in the Catskills. Laura went to Celia s
 
 122 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 room to bid her good-bye. She put her arms 
 around Celia s neck " Be good to him, my 
 dear," she said. 
 
 ******* 
 
 It was a dull day after they went. Mrs. 
 Wykoff seemed to be anxious and apprehen 
 sive. Randolph was grave. Claggett was 
 moody and cynical. Celia showed depression 
 of spirits in her dull silence. 
 
 " I wonder if Claggett annoys her in any 
 way," Randolph said to his mother, who only 
 shook her head. 
 
 He saw her grow more listless day by day ; 
 but he loyally waited for the appointed hour. 
 When it came, he sought her out, and found 
 her in a far corner of the old-fashioned gar 
 den. 
 
 . " Celia," he said, " it is time to announce our 
 engagement." 
 
 An hour later he walked into his mother s 
 room, very pale, but collected, as became a 
 Harvard man. 
 
 " It is all over, mother," he said ; " and I am 
 going away on Saturday. I think I shall go to 
 California. I think I can do something there. 
 I have an idea of providing proper homes for 
 the farm-laborers." 
 
 He was John Wykoff s son, and there was 
 no arguing with him. Mrs. Wykoff listened to
 
 NATURAL SELECTION. 123 
 
 all he would tell her, and then went to find 
 Celia. Celia was in her room, packing up her 
 clothes in hysterical haste. Mrs. Wykoff took 
 her in her arms. 
 
 " I can t help it," Celia sobbed ; " I feel 
 mean and wicked, but I can t do anything else. 
 I did love him, and I do think he s the best 
 man in the world he s just as good and noble 
 as he can be but I couldn t be happy this way, 
 Mrs. Wykoff ! I don t like it I couldn t get 
 along at all. I ve made a mistake I ve made 
 a mistake right from the first ; but I won t 
 make any more mistakes, and I won t make his 
 life miserable because I ve spoiled my own. 
 Oh, don t be so good to me, Mrs. Wykoff I 
 don t deserve it I m a wretched girl ! Just 
 let me go home that s where I belong ! " 
 
 Mrs. Wykoff was as gentle as only a wise, 
 kindly, worldly woman can be. She soothed 
 poor Celia, and made her understand that, for 
 the sake of appearances, at least, she must out 
 stay the broken-hearted philanthropist bound 
 for California. Celia stayed. Randolph made 
 his preparations and went, hopelessly gloomy, 
 but punctiliously courteous and considerate to 
 the last. 
 
 After a quick fortnight, Celia knocked at 
 Mrs. Wykoff s room to say good-bye. She 
 tried, with a full heart, to give some measure
 
 124 NATURAL SELECTION. 
 
 of thanks for the kindness that was the one 
 real thing to her in the world she was quitting. 
 When she had made her timorous attempt, she 
 blushed and trembled, and grew more timor 
 ous yet. 
 
 " There s something you ought to know," 
 she said, huskily ; " I I I know it seems 
 queer but but I couldn t help it. While 
 Randolph while Mr. Wykoff while he was 
 here, you know, I wouldn t listen to it ; I 
 wouldn t let him I mean I wouldn t have let 
 anybody say anything to me, although we 
 both " Celia s voice was all but inaudible 
 " understood how we felt. But now it s 
 different, you know ; and and Mrs. Wykoff, 
 I m not a wicked girl, but I m going to marry 
 Mr. Claggett ! "
 
 CASPERL 
 
 /CASPERL was a wood-chopper, and the 
 ^-^ son of a wood-chopper, and although he 
 was only eighteen when his father died, he was 
 so strong and active, that he went on chopping 
 and hauling wood for the whole neighborhood ; 
 and people said he did it quite as well as his 
 father, while he was certainly a great deal 
 more pleasant in his manner and much more 
 willing to oblige others. 
 
 It was a poor country, however, for it was 
 right in the heart of the Black Forest, and 
 there were more witches and fairies and gob 
 lins there than healthy human beings. So Cas- 
 perl scarcely made a living, for all he worked 
 hard and rose up early in the morning, summer 
 and winter. His friends often advised him to 
 go to some better place, where he could earn 
 more money ; but he only shook his head and 
 said that the place was good enough for him. 
 
 He never told any one, though, why he 
 loved his poor hut in the depths of the dark
 
 126 CASPERL. 
 
 forest, because it was a secret which he did 
 not wish to share with strangers. For he had 
 discovered, a mile or two from his home, in the 
 very blackest part of the woods, an enchanted 
 mountain. It was a high mountain, covered 
 with trees and rocks and thick, tangled under 
 growth, except at the very top, where there 
 stood a castle surrounded by smooth, green 
 lawns and beautiful gardens, which were always 
 kept in the neatest possible order, although no 
 gardener was ever seen. 
 
 This enchanted mountain had been under a 
 spell for nearly two hundred years. The lovely 
 Princess who lived there had once ruled the 
 whole country. But a powerful and wicked 
 magician disguised himself as a prince, and 
 made love to her. At first the Princess loved 
 her false suitor ; but one day she found out 
 that he was not what he pretended to be, and 
 she told him to leave her and never to come 
 near her again. 
 
 " For you are not a prince," she said. " You 
 are an impostor, and I will never wed any but 
 a true prince." 
 
 " Very well," said the magician, in a rage. 
 " You shall wait for your true prince, if there 
 is such a thing as a true prince ; and you shall 
 marry no one till he comes." 
 
 And then the magician cast a spell upon the
 
 CASPERL. 127 
 
 beautiful castle on the top of the mountain, 
 and the terrible forest sprang up about it. 
 Rocks rose up out of the earth and piled them 
 selves in great heaps among the tree-trunks. 
 Saplings and brush and twisted, poisonous 
 vines came to fill up every crack and crevice, 
 so that no mortal man could possibly go to the 
 summit, except by one path, which was pur 
 posely left clear. And in that path there was 
 a gate that the strongest man could not open, 
 it was so heavy. Farther up the mountain 
 slope, the trunk of a tree lay right across the 
 way, a magic tree, that no one could climb 
 over or crawl under or cut through. And 
 beyond the gate and the tree was a dragon 
 with green eyes that frightened away every 
 man that looked at it. 
 
 And there the beautiful Princess was doomed 
 to live until the True Prince should arrive and 
 overcome these three obstacles. 
 
 Now, although none of the people in the 
 forest, except Casperl, knew of the mountain 
 or the Princess, the story had been told in 
 many distant countries, and year after year 
 young princes came from all parts of the earth 
 to try to rescue the lovely captive and win her 
 for a bride. But, one after the other, they all 
 tried and failed, the best of them could not 
 so much as open the gate.
 
 128 CASPERL. 
 
 And so there the Princess remained, as the 
 years went on. But she did not grow any 
 older, or any less beautiful, for she was still 
 waiting for the True Prince, and she believed 
 that some day he would come. 
 
 This was what kept Casperl from leaving the 
 Black Forest. He was sorry for the Princess, 
 and he hoped some day to see her rescued and 
 wedded to the True Prince. 
 
 Every evening, when his work was done, he 
 would walk to the foot of the mountain, and 
 sit down on a great stone, and look up to the 
 top, where the Princess was walking in her 
 garden. And as it was an enchanted moun 
 tain, he could see her clearly, although she 
 was so far away. Yes, he could see her face as 
 well as though she were close by him, and he 
 thought it was truly the loveliest face in the 
 world. 
 
 There he would sit and sadly watch the 
 princes who tried to climb the hill. There was 
 scarcely a day that some prince from a far 
 country did not come to make the attempt. 
 One after another, they would arrive with 
 gorgeous trains of followers, mounted on fine 
 horses, and dressed in costumes so magnificent 
 that a plain cloth-of-gold suit looked shabby 
 among them. They would look up to the 
 mountain-top and see the Princess walking
 
 CASPERL. 129 
 
 there, and they would praise her beauty so 
 warmly that Casperl, when he heard them, felt 
 sure he was quite right in thinking her the 
 loveliest woman in the world. 
 
 But every prince had to make the trial by 
 himself. That was one of the conditions which 
 the magician made when he laid the spell upon 
 the castle ; although Casperl did not know it. 
 
 And each prince would throw off his cloak, 
 and shoulder a silver or gold-handled axe, and 
 fasten his sword by his side, and set out to 
 climb the hill, and open the gate, and cut 
 through the fallen tree, and slay the dragon, 
 and wed the Princess. 
 
 Up he would go, bright and hopeful, and tug 
 away at the gate until he found that he could 
 do nothing with it, and then he would plunge 
 into the tangled thickets of underbrush, and 
 try his best to fight his way through to the 
 summit. 
 
 But every one of them came back, after a 
 while, with his fine clothes torn and his soft 
 skin scratched, all tired and disheartened and 
 worn out. And then he would look spitefully 
 up at the mountain, and say he didn t care so 
 much about wedding the Princess, after all ; 
 that she .was only a common enchanted prin 
 cess, just like any other enchanted princess, 
 and really not worth so much trouble. 
 9
 
 130 CASPERL. 
 
 This would grieve Casperl, for he couldn t 
 help thinking that it was impossible that any 
 other woman could be as lovely as his Princess. 
 You see, he called her his Princess, because he 
 took such an interest in her, and he didn t 
 think there could be any harm in speaking of 
 her in that way, just to himself. For he never 
 supposed she could even know that there was 
 such a humble creature as poor young Casperl, 
 the wood-chopper, who sat at the foot of the 
 hill and looked up at her. 
 
 And so the days went on, and the unlucky 
 princes came and went, and Casperl watched 
 them all. Sometimes he saw his Princess look 
 down from over the castle parapets, and 
 eagerly follow with her lovely eyes the strug 
 gles of some brave suitor through the thick 
 ets, until the poor Prince gave up the job in 
 despair. Then she would look sad and turn 
 away. But generally she paid no attention to 
 the attempts that were made to reach her. 
 That kind of thing had been going on so long 
 that she was quite used to it. 
 
 By and by, one summer evening, as Casperl 
 sat watching, there came a little prince with a 
 small train of attendants. He was rather 
 undersized for a prince ; he didn t look strong, 
 and he did look as though he slept too much 
 in the morning and too little at night. He
 
 CASPERL. 131 
 
 slipped off his coat, however, and climbed up the 
 road, and began to push and pull at the gate. 
 
 Casperl watched him carelessly for a while, 
 and then, happening to look up, he saw that 
 the Princess was gazing sadly down on the 
 poor little Prince as he tugged and toiled. 
 
 And then a bold idea came to Casperl. Why 
 shouldn t he help the Prince ? He was young 
 and strong; he had often thought that if he 
 were a prince, a gate like that should not keep 
 him away from the Princess. Why, indeed, 
 should he not give his strength to help to free 
 the Princess ? And he felt a great pity for the 
 poor little Prince, too. 
 
 So he walked modestly up the hill and 
 offered his services to the Prince. 
 
 " Your Royal Highness," he said, " I am 
 only a wood-chopper ; but, if you please, I am 
 a strong wood-chopper, and perhaps I can be of 
 use to you." 
 
 " But why should you take the trouble to 
 help me ?" inquired the Prince. "What good 
 will it do you ? " 
 
 " Oh, well ! " said Casperl, " it is helping the 
 Princess, too, don t you know? " 
 
 " No, I don t know," said the Prince. 
 4< However, you may try what you can do. 
 Here, put your shoulder to this end of the 
 gate, and I will stand right behind you."
 
 I3 2 CASPERL, 
 
 Now, Casperl did not know that it was for 
 bidden to any suitor to have help in his at 
 tempt to climb the hill. The Prince knew it, 
 though, but he said to himself, u When I am 
 through with this wood-chopper I will dismiss 
 him, and no one will know anything about it. 
 I can never lift this gate by myself. I will 
 let him do it for me, and thus I shall get the 
 Princess, and he will be just as well satisfied, 
 for he is only a wood-chopper." 
 
 So Casperl put his broad shoulder to the 
 gate and pushed with all his might. It was 
 very heavy, but after a while it began to move 
 a little. 
 
 " Courage, your Royal Highness ! " said Cas 
 perl. " We ll move it, after all." But if he 
 had looked over his shoulder, he would have 
 seen that the little Prince was not pushing at 
 all, but that he had put on his cloak, and was 
 standing idly by, laughing to himself at the 
 way he was making a wood-chopper do his 
 work for him. 
 
 After a long struggle, the gate gave way, 
 and swung open just wide enough to let them 
 through. It was a close squeeze for the Prince ; 
 but Casperl held the gate open until he slipped 
 through. 
 
 " Dear me," said the Prince, " you re quite a 
 strong fellow. You really were of some assist-
 
 CASPERL. 133 
 
 ance to me. Let me see, I think the stories 
 say something about a tree, or some such 
 thing, farther up the road. As you are a wood- 
 chopper, and as you have your axe with you, 
 perhaps you might walk up a bit and see if 
 you can t make yourself useful." 
 
 Casperl was quite willing, for he began to 
 feel that he was doing something for the 
 Princess, and it pleased him to think that even 
 a wood-chopper could do her a service. 
 
 So they walked up until they came to the 
 tree. And then the Prince drew out his silver 
 axe, and sharpened it carefully on the sole of 
 his shoe, while Casperl picked up a stone and 
 whetted his old iron axe, which was all he had. 
 
 " Now," said the Prince, " let s see what we 
 can do." 
 
 But he really didn t do anything. It was 
 Casperl who swung his axe and chopped hard 
 at the magic tree. Every blow made the chips 
 fly ; but the wood grew instantly over every 
 cut, just as though he had been cutting into 
 water. 
 
 For a little while the Prince amused himself 
 by trying first to climb over the tree, and then 
 to crawl under it. But he soon found that, 
 whichever way he went, the tree grew up or 
 down so fast that he was shut off. Finally he 
 gave it up, and went and lay down on his
 
 134 CASPERL. 
 
 back on the grass, and watched Casperl work 
 ing. 
 
 And Casperl worked hard. The tree grew 
 fast, but he chopped faster. His forehead was 
 wet and his arms were tired, but he worked 
 away and made the chips fly in a cloud. He 
 was too busy to take the time to look over 
 his shoulder, so he did not see the Prince lying 
 on the grass. But every now and then he 
 spoke cheerily, saying, " We ll do it, your 
 Royal Highness! " 
 
 And he did it, in the end. After a long, 
 long while, he got the better of the magic tree, 
 for he chopped quicker than it could grow, and 
 at last he had cut a gap right across the trunk. 
 
 The Prince jumped up from the grass and 
 leaped nimbly through, and Casperl followed 
 him slowly and sadly, for he was tired, and it 
 began to occur to him that the Prince hadn t 
 said anything about the Princess, which made 
 him wonder if he were the True Prince, after 
 all. "I m afraid," he thought, "the Princess 
 won t thank me if I bring her a prince who 
 doesn t love her. And it really is very strange 
 that this Prince has n t said a word about her." 
 
 So he ventured to remark, very meekly : 
 
 "Your Royal Highness will be glad to see 
 the Princess." 
 
 " Oh, no doubt," said the Prince.
 
 CASPERL. 135 
 
 " And the Princess will be very glad to see 
 your Royal Highness," went on Casperl. 
 
 " Oh, of course," said the Prince. 
 
 "And your Royal Highness will be very 
 good to the Princess," said Casperl further, by 
 way of a hint. 
 
 " I think," said the Prince, " that you are 
 talking altogether too much about the Princess. 
 I don t believe I need you any more. Perhaps 
 you would better go home. I m much obliged 
 to you for your assistance. I can t reward 
 you just now, but if you will come to see me 
 after I have married the Princess, I may be 
 able to do something for you." 
 
 Casperl turned away, somewhat disappointed, 
 and was going down the hill, when the Prince 
 called him back. 
 
 " Oh, by the way ! " he said ; " there s a 
 dragon, I understand, a little farther on. Per 
 haps you d like to come along and see me kill 
 him?" 
 
 Casperl thought he would like to see the 
 Prince do something for the Princess, so he 
 followed meekly on. Very soon they came to 
 the top of the mountain, and saw the green 
 lawns and beautiful gardens of the enchanted 
 castle, and there was the dragon waiting for 
 them. 
 
 The dragon reared itself on its dreadful tail,
 
 136 CASPERL. 
 
 and flapped its black wings ; and its great 
 green, shining, scaly body swelled and twisted, 
 and it roared in a terrible way. 
 
 The little Prince drew his jewelled sword and 
 walked slowly up to the monster. And then 
 the great beast opened its red mouth and blew 
 out one awful breath, that caught the Prince 
 up as if he were a feather, and whisked him 
 clear off the mountain and over the tops of the 
 trees in the valley, and that was the last any one 
 ever saw of him. 
 
 Then Casperl grasped his old axe and leaped 
 forward to meet the dragon, never stopping to 
 think how poor his weapon was. But all of a 
 sudden the dragon vanished and disappeared 
 and was gone, and there was no trace of it any 
 where ; but the beautiful Princess stood in its 
 place, and smiled and held out her white hand 
 to Casperl. 
 
 " My Prince ! " she said, " so you have come 
 at last ! " 
 
 " I beg your gracious Highness s pardon," 
 said Casperl ; " but I am no Prince." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you are," said the Princess ; " how 
 did you come here, if you are not my True 
 Prince ? Didn t you come through the gate 
 and across the tree, and haven t you driven 
 the dragon away ? " 
 
 " I only helped " began Casperl.
 
 CASPERL. 137 
 
 "You did it all," said the Princess, "for I 
 saw you. Please don t contradict a lady." 
 
 "But I don t see how I could Casperl 
 began again. 
 
 " People who are helping others," said the 
 Princess, " often have a strength beyond their 
 own. But perhaps you didn t come here to 
 help me, after all ? " 
 
 "Oh, your gracious Highness," cried Cas 
 perl, "there s nothing I wouldn t do to help 
 you. But I m sure I m not a Prince." 
 
 "And I am sure you are/ said the Princess, 
 and she led him to a fountain near by, and 
 when he looked at his reflection in the 
 water, he saw that he was dressed more mag 
 nificently than any prince who ever yet had 
 come to the enchanted mountain. 
 
 And just then the wedding-bells began to 
 ring, and that is all I know of the fairy story, 
 for Casperl and the Princess lived so happily 
 ever after in the castle on top of the moun 
 tain that they never came down to tell the rest 
 of it.
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 
 
 VN1TED STATES O 
 
 T HAVE a small book, and a small story, that 
 L I bought, the two together, for fifteen cents. 
 He thought, I suppose, 
 that he was selling the 
 book alone ; and I must 
 admit that it was but 
 a shabby sort of book. 
 You will hardly find it 
 in the catalogues. It is 
 not a first edition. It 
 is not a tall copy it is 
 a squat little volume, 
 in truth. It bears a 
 modest imprimatur. 
 
 The title-page reads 
 thus : 
 
 " Oh, I don t know," 
 said the bookseller, as I 
 leaned over the "sec 
 ond-hand counter," 
 and held it up to him. 
 
 AN IMPROVEMENT OF THE OLD VERSION 
 
 Allowed by the reverend Synod of New- 
 York and Philadelphia, to be uftd in 
 Churches and private Families. 
 
 All thingt written in the la-vi of Mqfet, 
 and the prophets, and the pfalms, con 
 cerning ME, muH be fulfilled. 
 
 ELIZABETH TOWN.- 
 PKIVTCD BY SHEPAR.D KOLLOCK. 
 
 JLU)CC.XCI. 
 
 " Fifteen cents, if you want it. 
 something you ought to see 
 
 Now, heres
 
 140 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 
 
 But I did not care to see it. I took my 
 fifteen cents worth away, and asked myself 
 in what Elizabethtown it was printed ; what 
 manner of man Shepard Kollock might have 
 been ; but most, what human being owned 
 this little book, handled it, read it, sang from 
 it belonged to it, in short, as we all belong 
 to our books. 
 
 I am told that to the man who has deter 
 mined to hand his conscience over to the 
 keeping of an established church this much 
 liberty of personal choice is conceded : that 
 he may elect to which one of the established 
 churches he will make delivery. Of this initial 
 liberty of personal choice I shall take advan 
 tage in my search after truth. To discover 
 the true history of this volume, I must ac 
 cept certain premises, and draw conclusions 
 there from. If the 
 
 y&&ffi$@$%^^%& conclusions are wrong, 
 
 the premises are clear- 
 
 PhilaJelpbia, May nth, 1787.- 
 
 THE Synod of New-Tori and Pb t . ty to blame, and I am 
 
 ladf/fbta did allow Dr. Watts s Imi- not. 
 
 tation of David s Pfalms, asrni/edfy Now, I find, On the 
 
 Mr.Bertaa.tobejugiitbeCburcbtt. sec ond page, behind 
 
 cad Families under their care. . .., . , . n- 1 
 
 _, .... ., the title, this official 
 
 Extraflej frcm tie rtcordt cf Synod, t) 
 
 GEORGE DUFFIELD, D. D. commission of the 
 
 Stated Clerk of Sjnai. 
 
 book : 
 N6iei6ieieiei6ieieieieieiei9K Hence we may set out
 
 A SECOND-HAND STOKY. 14! 
 
 with the almost certain knowledge that this 
 copy of Mr. Barlow s revision was owned in 
 Pennsylvania, in New York, or in New Jersey, 
 tucked away between them. If the owner were 
 a Pennsylvanian, why did the book not drift, 
 in the end, to Philadelphia instead of to New 
 York ? there are book-shops in Philadelphia, 
 I think. I found it in New York, yet I hardly 
 think it was first sold there. Dr. Watts 
 must have been tongueless among the Dutch 
 churches in 1791, and he could hardly have 
 been made welcome among the modish 
 Church-of-England sinners in Trinity or St. 
 John s. It was in New Jersey, then, that she 
 lived for I have decided that this book was 
 owned by a woman and that her name was 
 Prudence in New Jersey, perhaps on some 
 rich lowland along the calm Passaic. 
 
 I have a fancy that I know the place. It is 
 a small town, set between the river and the 
 softly rising hills that slope and fall and slope 
 and fall to the feet of the Orange Mountains. 
 Half-way up the long main street lies a little 
 triangle of green, bounded by posts and 
 chains, that is called " the square." The 
 church stands on the highest side, a solid 
 building of reddish-brown stone, with plain 
 rectangular windows, that look blankly out
 
 I4 2 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 
 
 from their many panes of pale green flint 
 glass. It has a squat wooden spire, painted 
 white a white that has been softened and 
 made pleasant to the eye by the ministrations 
 of the weather. Directly opposite the church 
 is a large square house of brick, with stone 
 about the doors and windows, and with a little 
 white-painted Grecian portico on that the 
 paint is ever white and new, defying the kindly 
 hand of time. That is the Squire s house, and 
 that is where Prudence lives. 
 
 There are trees all around the square, and 
 trees in it chestnuts and graceful beeches and 
 young oaks trees that seem to bring some 
 thing of the wood into the heart of the town. 
 You will not see the great drooping arbors of 
 the New England elms, set at regular intervals, 
 massive, shapely, and urban. These are children 
 of the forest, not afraid to venture into the 
 little town and to scatter themselves about her 
 grassy streets. 
 
 Their boughs, that wave in the sunlight, are 
 almost the only things that move, early of a 
 summer Sunday morning. The front doors 
 are closed that of a week-day open wide their 
 broad upper halves. There are no people in 
 the streets. Everybody is within doors, mak 
 ing ready for church. Even the dogs refrain
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 143 
 
 from running about the highways and byways 
 on the aimless errands which dogs affect ; they 
 lie in the sun on the doorsteps and wait the 
 appearance of that human world of which they 
 are but a humble auxiliary. Perhaps Prudence, 
 pinning her neckerchief before her dressing 
 glass, gives a look through her window hers 
 is the little room over the front door the 
 window with the fan-light at the top and 
 smiles to see the sunshine and the billowing 
 leaves flickering red and green ; but she is the 
 only woman in the town who has a thought 
 to give to anything save the great business of 
 Sunday morning tiring. 
 
 At last the old sexton stalks across the 
 square, and opens the church doors with his 
 huge iron key. Out of the sunlight he van 
 ishes into the black hollow of the vestibule ; 
 there is silence for a moment, then the husky 
 whir of the rope over the wooden wheel on 
 high, and the bell clangs out brazen and loud, 
 and the startled birds rise for a second above 
 the tree-tops, and Sunday life begins. 
 
 You will not see Prudence until all the 
 townspeople and the farmers from the country 
 round about are seated in the pews not until 
 the Dominie appears at the side door of the 
 church. Then the broad portal of the Squire s
 
 144 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 
 
 house springs open and the Squire marches 
 forth, looking larger than ever in his Sunday 
 black. There is a sombre grandeur about the 
 very silk stockings on his sturdy old legs. Be 
 hind him comes Caesar black Caesar his wool 
 as white as the Squire s powdered wig. Caesar 
 has his kit in his hand ; he plays the first fiddle 
 in the choir, and thereby enjoys a proud emi 
 nence above all the other negroes in the neigh 
 borhood. Moreover, he has been a freeman 
 since the first squire died. 
 
 Prudence walks by her father s side. The 
 white neckerchief is folded over her breast ; 
 her dress is gray ; her eyes are gray and dove- 
 like. She holds her hymn-book and a spray 
 of caraway in one hand ; the other lifts her 
 clinging skirt. The Squire looks straight 
 ahead as he walks, and Caesar looks straight at 
 the Squire s back. But Prudence s soft eyes 
 wander a little. Perhaps she is not sorry that 
 the Squire walks slowly ; that she has these few 
 moments under the trees and among the birds 
 before the great bare hollow of the church 
 swallows her up for the two long hours of 
 service. 
 
 As Prudence sits in her pew to-day the 
 front pew to the left of the aisle as you face 
 the Dominie she is conscious that there is
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 145 
 
 among the worshippers a concentration of 
 furtive attention upon the pew behind her 
 the one where old Jan Onderdonck used to 
 sit until he went to finish his mortal slumbers 
 in the graveyard. She does not wonder who 
 may be there ; she is too good a girl for that. 
 But she cannot help remembering that she will 
 know when church is out. And now she rises 
 to sing in the hymn, and she must have been 
 wondering, in spite of herself, or why is there 
 such a guilty start and thrill under the white 
 neckerchief when she hears the strong barytone 
 voice rise resonant behind her? The little 
 brown hymn-book trembles in her hands ; she 
 knows she is a wicked girl, and yet perhaps 
 it is part of her wickedness that she cannot 
 feel properly unhappy. Nay, she knows there 
 is a jubilant lilt in her voice as it joins the 
 strange voice and sings : 
 
 " Happy the heart where graces reign, 
 
 Where love inspires the breast ; 
 Love is the brightest of the train, 
 And strengthens all the rest." 
 
 Her father turned half around where he 
 stood, as a pillar of the church turning on its 
 base, and gazed at the stranger. Prudence 
 could not turn ; she could only glance shyly 
 at her father. He had his Sunday face on,
 
 146 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 
 
 and she knew that he would not relax a muscle 
 of it until he had shaken hands with the 
 Dominie in the porch. 
 
 I do not know what else Prudence sang that 
 day out of the brown hymn-book. Perhaps it 
 was " The Shortness and Misery of Life" or 
 " The World s Three Chief Temptations" or 
 " Corrupt Nature from Adam" or " The Song 
 of Zackarias, and the Message of John the 
 Baptist ; " but I do know that, as she was 
 going out of church, Prudence did something 
 she had never done since, ten years before, her 
 father put her dead mother s hymn-book into 
 her small hand and told her it was hers. She 
 left it lying on the seat behind her. It did 
 not lie there long ; she was not two steps down 
 the aisle before the tall, broad-shouldered 
 young man in the pew behind had pre 
 sented it to her with a low bow. She took it 
 with a frightened courtesy, and went down the 
 aisle, her heart beating hard. Indeed, now, 
 there was no doubt about it. She was sinful, 
 perverse, and wholly unregenerate to the last 
 degree. She wondered if iniquity so possessed 
 other girls. And just in that moment when 
 he bowed she had noticed that he had fine 
 eyes, and that he wore his black clothes with 
 an air of distinction. Of what use was it to
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 1 47 
 
 go to church at all, if such sinfulness was in 
 grained in her ? 
 
 ****** 
 
 The disturbed dust was settling down on the 
 pulpit cushion once more. The Dominie and 
 the Squire stood in front of the church. The 
 Dominie was powdering himself with snuff, as 
 he always did after a hard sermon, and waiting 
 for his regular invitation to dinner. The 
 Squire, however, was not as prompt as usual 
 to-day. His eyes followed a broad-shouldered 
 figure in black clothes of foreign cut, that 
 strolled idly through the square. 
 
 " Dr. Kuypers," he finally demanded, " who 
 is that young man ?" 
 
 " That," said the Dominie, as he put his 
 snuff-box in his pocket, " is Rick Onderdonck, 
 or, I might better say, Master Richard Onder 
 donck, the son of our old friend Jan Onder 
 donck, now at rest. He has been these four 
 years in Germany, where he has learnt a pretty 
 deal of Latin, I must say for him." 
 
 The Squire shook his head. 
 
 " A godless country for a boy," he said. 
 " I hope he got no worse than Latin there." 
 
 " Nay, nay," said the Dominie, indulgently; 
 " I find him a good youth, and uncorrupted. 
 He came home but yesterday, and stays with 
 me till his father s house shall be aired. He
 
 148 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 
 
 will work the old farm, he says, and I trust his 
 Latin may do him no harm." 
 
 Dr. Kuypers and the Squire bowed with 
 solemn courtesy. " I shall be honored with 
 your company at dinner, and with that of Mr. 
 Onderdonck." Then he dropped to a simple 
 week-day tone : " Four years, Dominie, four 
 years, is it, since you and I and Jan Onder 
 donck sat at dinner together? Yes, bring the 
 lad." 
 
 And Prudence, during this conversation, 
 stood at her father s elbow and said nothing at 
 all, as was decorous in a young girl. 
 
 Dr. Kuypers was a terrible man in the pul 
 pit, and a kind-hearted and merry man out of 
 it. The Sunday dinners in the great brick 
 house were always the brighter for his coming; 
 and if this dinner seemed to Prudence the 
 brightest she had ever known, the credit must 
 have been due to Dr. Kuypers, for young Mr. 
 Onderdonck was certainly most quiet and 
 modest, and contented himself for the most 
 part with giving fitting and well-considered 
 answers to the questions of the elder gentle 
 men as to his studies and the state of Europe. 
 
 The dinner came to an end long before Pru 
 dence wished it. And yet, at the end, there 
 was a new and delightful experience for her, 
 which she fled to her room to dream over.
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 149 
 
 She was only nineteen ; she sat at the head 
 of the table, but it was only as she had sat 
 since she was a little girl, just learning to 
 pour her father s coffee, and she had always 
 been a little girl to the Squire and the Dominie. 
 But to-day, when she rose from her seat, Mr. 
 Onderdonck rose too, and hurried to open the 
 door for her, and bowed low as she went 
 out and, O wondrous day ! as if this were 
 not joy enough, she saw over her shoulder 
 that her father and the Dominie rose too, 
 and stood until the door had closed behind 
 her. 
 
 Mr. Rick Onderdonck was modest even after 
 Mistress Prudence had left the room. I think 
 that the deference of young men toward their 
 elders will not die out in this world while old 
 men have fair daughters. Mr. Onderdonck 
 took his portion of post-prandial Schnapps, 
 and patiently let the Squire and the Dominie 
 whet their rusty Latin on his brand-new learn 
 ing. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Of course, Prudence married Rick Onder 
 donck. That was written from the beginning. 
 Why should it not be so ? What had the 
 Squire to say against the pretensions of young 
 Rick Onderdonck, heritor of all the square 
 miles of green upland that had once belonged
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 
 
 to old Jan, owner of seventy slaves, a virtuous 
 and a comely man, with very pretty manners 
 in the presence of his elders? Why, nothing. 
 He might, indeed, have said that the house 
 would be lonelier than he had thought with 
 out Prudence silently flitting here and there ; 
 but it was not the Squire s way to give such 
 reasons as that : and so the young people were 
 betrothed early in the spring that followed 
 that first winter when the neighborhood re 
 marked that Rick Onderdonck had taken to 
 going to the Squire s house more than his 
 father ever did. 
 
 I don t think the hymn-book saw much of 
 their courtship, although, to be sure, Mr. 
 Onderdonck probably went to church quite 
 regularly during that period of probation. 
 But she sang in the pew in front and he in the 
 pew behind her, and the most that the hymn- 
 book could know of what either of them felt 
 was that her fingers tightened on its smooth 
 cover whenever she heard his voice. 
 
 But she probably confided some thoughts of 
 her heart to the little book that had been 
 her mother s when she came to pack up her 
 " things " a day or two before the wedding I 
 mean her personal belongings the trifles dear 
 to her heart. 
 
 For days the ox-carts had creaked and
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 15 1 
 
 groaned up the rough hill roads to the Onder- 
 donck farm-house, leaving great loads of tables, 
 and chairs, and wardrobes, and chests of draw 
 ers, and corded boxes that held hundreds of 
 yards of sweet-clover scented linen, and dresses 
 made by modish seamstresses in New York, 
 and even liberal gifts from the Squire s store 
 of family silver. But besides such things as 
 these, there is always the pitiful little kit that 
 a girl makes up when she leaves the old home- 
 roof and takes ship on the great sea of wife- 
 hood. 
 
 This was truly a kit, done up in the red 
 bandanna handkerchief that old Susan, her 
 nurse (Caesar s wife, in her lifetime), had given 
 her long ago. For that matter, all the poor 
 treasures had been given to her. There was 
 this little hymn-book, first of all, and the gold 
 chain and locket with her mother s miniature. 
 Prudence sometimes looked at her mother s 
 portrait and wondered if those gentle blue eyes 
 had not looked frightened when the Squire 
 proposed to marry them. Then there were the 
 emery-bag and scissors she had got at school, 
 for working the neatest sampler, and there 
 was the sampler to speak for itself. There was 
 the ivory ship that Ezra Saunders had carved 
 for her Ezra, the dry, shrivelled old cobbler, 
 from some strange, far place in New England,
 
 IS 2 A SECOND-HAND STOJ?Y. 
 
 who had followed the sea in his younger days, 
 and whose dark back room in the cabin by the 
 river-side was hung with sharks teeth and 
 sword-fish spears, and ingeniously carved stay- 
 bones, with a smell of sandal-wood about them 
 all, wrapping north and south and east and 
 west in one atmo.-phere of spicy oriental mys 
 tery. There, too, was her collection of trinkets 
 an enamelled broach, a tall tortoise-shell 
 comb, a garnet ring or two, and such modest 
 odds and ends as served her for jewellery. 
 And all of these she did up in the red ban 
 danna handkerchief, with a guilty feeling, as 
 though she were deserting her girlish life after 
 an ungrateful fashion, and maybe the brown 
 book was sensible of some poor unformulated 
 prayers for the strange future. 
 
 And so it came about for the contents of 
 the handkerchief went up to her new home the 
 day before the wedding that the hymn-book 
 was not in church when she was married. If 
 it had been, I think it would have lain open 
 at page 271, as old Caesar s bow slid softly 
 over the strings, and the congregation sang: 
 
 " Thy wife shall be a fruitful vine, 
 Thy children, round thy board, 
 Each, like a plant of honor, shine, 
 And learn to fear the Lord. "
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 153 
 
 So now we have the brown hymn-book at 
 home in the Onderdonck homestead, a long, 
 low building, the lower story of red stone, the 
 upper of wood. It stood high up on the hills, 
 and looked down over grassy slopes of meadow- 
 land across the tops of the trees in the town, 
 to the clear, shining line of the river, that ran 
 in pleasant curves as far as the eye could fol 
 low it. 
 
 It is here that Prudence begins and ends her 
 life. For the best of life begins where she 
 began in the old farm-house, and what end the 
 world saw she made there. 
 
 There life s new joys and life s new troubles 
 began : the new joy of two living one life to 
 gether ; and then the great and awful trouble 
 of child-birth the worst forgotten, however, 
 as she lay in Grandmother Onderdonck s four- 
 poster bed and heard the sharp, small, queru 
 lous wailing from the next room. I think that 
 was of a Saturday morning in May, and I am 
 sure that on the Sunday she sent Rick to 
 church to receive the congratulations of the 
 neighborhood, and lay in her bed the while, 
 and perhaps turned over a page or two of the 
 hymn-book, finding a comfort in its terror- 
 fraught pages which our generation might seek 
 in vain. Then old Mother Sturt, who brought 
 all the town s babies into the world, took the
 
 154 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 
 
 book away from her, for fear it might hurt her 
 dear eyes ; and she lay there and hummed the 
 familiar airs under her breath, and if the tune 
 was sweet to her memory it mattered little 
 though the words ran : 
 
 " Should st thou condemn my soul to hell, 
 
 And crush my flesh to dust, 
 Heav n would approve thy vengeance well, 
 And earth must own it just." 
 
 The time went slowly, lying there in the 
 white waste of the four-poster bed ; but it 
 came to an end in time, and there was a day 
 when she went up the church aisle on her hus 
 band s arm, just after the sermon, and Dominie 
 Kuypers sprinkled water on the head of the in 
 fant, conceived in sin and born in iniquity, and 
 totally unconscious of it, the while the choir 
 sang : 
 
 " Thus Lydia sanctified her house, 
 When she received the word ; 
 Thus the believing jailer gave 
 His household to the Lord." 
 
 There were other children after that boy, 
 and Prudence found her days well filled up 
 with the little duties of a woman s life those 
 little duties which would distress women less 
 could they but see the grand total and esti 
 mate the value of it. Prudence must have 
 had some blessed comprehension of the worth
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 155 
 
 of a woman s work who does her duty as wife 
 and mother, w for I can see her going about her 
 daily tasks with a sweet and placid face, and 
 lifting tender welcoming eyes to her husband 
 as he comes home at sunset from some far 
 corner of the farm those sweet gray eyes that 
 were content, only a little while ago, with the 
 light of the sun on the trees and the gay face 
 of the summer-clad world. 
 
 It was a serious face, sometimes, that met 
 her look, for Rick was a man who took on his 
 broad shoulders some share of the world s 
 burdens beyond his necessary stint. They 
 had a troublous time when they made up their 
 minds to let their slaves work out their free 
 dom. It was some years before Rick regained 
 his popularity among the neighbors; he had 
 practically manumitted his entire holding of 
 slaves, and although such an act might have 
 been forgiven to mere benevolence, it was a 
 crime against the community when it was 
 dictated by principle. Rick had a sad scene 
 with the old Squire, who all but cursed him 
 for his foreign atheistical notions ; and even 
 good Dominie Kuypers looked gravely disap 
 pointed. They did not, in fact, fully restore 
 Rick to favor until it became clear beyond a 
 doubt that the farm was paying better under 
 a system of free labor than it had ever paid
 
 156 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 
 
 while it supported a horde of irresponsible 
 slaves. When that fact was proved beyond a 
 doubt, the most notoriously mean man in the 
 county ordered his slaves to work out their 
 freedom at the highest market-price ; and, after 
 that, the curse was taken off Rick and Pru 
 dence. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The shutters of the old farm-house are closed. 
 The broad spread of fields is empty of all but 
 waving grain and nodding corn. The farm 
 hands stand about the kitchen door, looking 
 strange in their Sunday clothes of black. At 
 the front door stands young Jan Onderdonck, 
 a shapely boy of eighteen, looking out on the 
 world with that white, blank face which the 
 first sight of death among his own puts on a 
 boy. He meets the neighbors as they drive 
 up to the gate in swaying carryalls or lumber 
 ing wagons, and goes silently before them to 
 the door. They go in, out of the clear, sum 
 mer sunshine, leaving the slope of long, un- 
 mown grass, the beds of bright flowers, the 
 tremulous green beeches behind them, into the 
 dim, cool front sitting-room, and range them 
 selves along the wall. Friend bows to friend, 
 in a constrained fashion, and here and there 
 are hushed interchanges of speech. " She is 
 taking it hard, poor soul," they say ; " but so
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. l$J 
 
 quiet and still, the doctor was frightened for 
 her." 
 
 Across the hall he lies, in the room opened 
 only for company. The air is close ; the shut 
 ters will not let the scent of the rose-bushes 
 enter. His calm face looks up to the cracked, 
 whitewashed ceiling of the plain old house 
 that was his home a few hours ago. How 
 calm it is ! How calm, to leave behind such a 
 void, so much and so unconquerable grief ! 
 Yet, would we have the shadow and impress 
 of our sorrow on his face ? Good man, good 
 husband, good father, he is gone. And this 
 poor face that lies here to tell us of him, let 
 us be thankful that it smiles calmly as our 
 poor bewildered eyes look at it for the last 
 time. 
 
 The darkest room in all the dim, closed 
 house is where Prudence sits, on the floor 
 above. There is a child at each side of her, 
 and when her hands are not clasped trembling 
 in her lap, they move to touch the soft, tear- 
 wet faces. And now the eldest son comes 
 softly into the room and slips his arm about 
 her, and a quick tremor shakes her, and she 
 hears the voice of the old minister, standing 
 upon the stairs, midway between the dead and 
 the living half of one existence, speaking the 
 words that part husband and wife upon this
 
 1 58 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 
 
 earth. There is a silence, and then the voices 
 of the singers come with a far-away sound 
 from the rooms below. One of the children, 
 with a child s poor, helpless effort to serve, 
 slips the book into her hands. She cannot 
 open it ; she could not see the page ; she does 
 not need it. She knows the words ; only two 
 lines come new to her ears " Nor should we 
 wish the hours more slow, to keep us from our 
 love." 
 
 ****** 
 It has been dropping light showers all the 
 afternoon ; showers that have caught the first 
 swaths of the cut grass. Then there has been 
 the brief glow of a high-hung rainbow, and 
 the warm sun has come to rest a few minutes 
 on the long heaps of grass, and to distil from 
 them an exquisite attar of new-mown hay. 
 The sun is behind the hills now ; the front of 
 the old farm-house where Prudence is sitting 
 in shade. She looks across her flower-beds, 
 down the long slope to where, beyond town 
 and trees, there is still a warm light on the 
 winding Passaic, that goes, presently, creep 
 ing up the farther hills, and last of all resting 
 on the white houses of a little settlement that 
 perched on those hills how many years ago? 
 Prudence forgets : many years ago, yet long 
 since the one date from which she reckons all
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 159 
 
 her days. Rick never saw it. The woods 
 were there when he died. 
 
 For thirty years Prudence has seen the sun 
 rise and set since he died. Thirty summers 
 she has tended the garden he dug for her in 
 their honeymoon. The house he left empty 
 is still home to her, to his children, and to his 
 children s children. The fires have long gone 
 out in the house where she was born ; she 
 looks now over the smokeless chimney; but 
 his home is still as he would wish to find it 
 were he coming home this evening across the 
 sweet fields. 
 
 Prudence, sitting there, sees his grandson 
 coming homeward now. She knows the broad 
 shoulders and the springy gait. She has 
 always called the boy Richard, though every 
 one else calls him Rick. She knows, too, the 
 girlish figure by his side ; she knows that he 
 will go past the gate and through the woods 
 to the Van Vorst farm. Yes, on he goes, 
 bending his tall head to talk with Mary Van 
 Vorst. 
 
 Prudence s face is sweet and her eyes are 
 patient ; but who shall blame her if the long 
 ing of her heart springs up and knows not 
 day or years? What days or years shall touch 
 that immortal youth? Has the summer grown 
 old? Has the green of the world grown dull,
 
 160 A SECOND-HAND STORY. 
 
 and the gold of the sun grown dim ? He 
 walked with her then, and the hay smelt as it 
 smells to-day ; the twilight air grew tender 
 and misty about them, the murmur of wood 
 land life made the cool darkness shrill, and the 
 young stars came out in the vague blue of the 
 sky. 
 
 What has grown old? What is changed in 
 her heart that it should not cry out for love 
 and joy? Why may she not feel his strong 
 arm about her shoulders, hear his voice in her 
 ears? Why may she not look up now and see 
 his face bent over hers, love speaking to love 
 in their eyes? 
 
 A small brown book slips from her hand and 
 falls upon the ground ; but she does not need 
 the printed page. She knows the hymn by 
 heart. The bassoon and the fiddle play softly 
 in the choir of the old church ; she hears them 
 faintly, for her heart is fluttering ; her hands 
 are cold, there is a mist of tears in her eyes as 
 she looks up into her husband s face, standing 
 before the altar. 
 
 It must have been on some evening such 
 as this that the little book dropped from 
 Prudence s hands for the last time. For un 
 less it fell there, and lay among the flowers, 
 and the flowers were untended after her 
 death, so that some stranger picked it up and
 
 A SECOND-HAND STORY. l6l 
 
 took it away as a thing of no account, I can 
 not tell why her children let their mother s 
 book find its way to a second-hand book-shop. 
 I am glad that in the end it did not fall into 
 the hands of some one who might not have 
 known her story.
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 ""THERE was high carnival held in North- 
 oak one breezy August day some twenty 
 odd years ago, in a time when the weather 
 seems to me, as I look back on it, much more 
 genially bracing and inspiriting than the wea 
 ther we have nowadays. I am sure of one 
 thing : we have no better days now than that 
 day, none when the breeze blows more briskly, 
 cool, and soft than it blew that day up and 
 down the rolling hillsides of Northoak, flutter 
 ing bright ribbons along every road and path. 
 
 It had been a carnival summer for Northoak 
 though, to be sure, the revellers had very 
 little thought that they were bidding farewell 
 to the delights of the world, the flesh, and 
 the devil, and were much astounded when the 
 penitential day arrived. And on that August 
 morning it was far enough off yet, and all they 
 had to do was to be gay. 
 
 Now, Northoak had never been gay before. 
 Contented, happy, and well-to-do it had always
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 163 
 
 been ; but it reached its high-water mark of 
 festivity each year with the regular annual lawn- 
 party (called a fete champetre by those who 
 were wise in such things), which each family 
 among the landed gentry took its turn at giv 
 ing. One year it was the Westfields, another 
 year the Lydeckers, the next the Turners, and 
 this year perhaps the Brinckerhoffs. But it 
 was always pretty much the same lawn-party ; 
 and while it was sure to be correct, decorous, 
 discreetly liberal in material gratifications, and 
 possibly enjoyable, it could not fairly it would 
 not if it could have been called gay. 
 
 The gayety of that long-ago summer came 
 to Northoak from outside, and was rather in 
 Northoak than of it. And perhaps its charac 
 ter, as well as its relation to Northoak life, may 
 be summed up in the statement that it was 
 hotel gayety. 
 
 For the curse of the summer hotel had come 
 upon Northoak, and Northoak had received it 
 with dignified submission, accepting it perhaps 
 as a punishment for the sins of well-bred pride 
 and polite self-complacency. 
 
 The place had always been well satisfied 
 with itself. The little village had been satis 
 fied to be a little village, with a few small 
 shops bidding lazily for the custom of the peo 
 ple on the "estates." The estates certainly
 
 164 MRS. TOM S SPREE, 
 
 could look contentedly down from their up 
 lands and rejoice in their well-cultivated acres 
 and in their substantial houses. 
 These houses the older ones, at least were 
 dwellings of an interesting and significant type, 
 much in favor in northern New York. Their 
 pattern is best described by saying that they 
 had their front door at the back. The front 
 must surely have been the end with the great 
 Doric portico looking out on the lawn. Yet 
 you entered at the other end, and found a broad 
 hall, perhaps with two reception-rooms. If the 
 reception-rooms were there, you went into one 
 or the other before you were announced in the 
 large drawing-room beyond the hall. And if 
 you were there to sell rose-bushes, or to collect 
 money for the heathen, or to take orders for 
 wine, the host came to you in the room on the 
 right. But if you were there to make a call, 
 the hostess came and led you forth from the 
 room on the left to the grander chamber that 
 looked out upon the lawn. 
 
 You may gather from this that Northoak 
 had an aristocracy and something of a feudal 
 system. It had both, and they were curiously 
 well developed and firmly established for a 
 downright rural community. This mainte 
 nance of an old-world social system in a demo 
 cratic new-world was characteristic of the elder
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 165 
 
 and larger towns of the State. It existed here 
 because Northoak was originally a settlement 
 of what are called retired business men, who 
 rented their New York houses and gardens 
 seventy-five or eighty years ago and turned 
 themselves into country gentlemen. Their 
 grandsons still collected rent for the same 
 property, only they leased factories and ware 
 houses ; and they spent thousands where their 
 grandfathers had spent hundreds, to live just 
 about as their grandfathers had lived. 
 
 This state of affairs may seem most iniquitous 
 to some, but I can testify that when I first went 
 to Northoak, toward the end of my boyhood, 
 Northoak great and Northoak small were well 
 pleased with themselves and with each other, 
 and that the stranger soon became sincerely 
 attached to both. 
 
 I was but a summer boarder in the village ; 
 
 o * 
 
 but summer boarders were rare birds in those 
 days, and if they were birds of any sort of so 
 cial plumage they were courteously entreated 
 and well fed by the hospitable folk of the es 
 tates. It was in Northoak that I wore my first 
 dress-coat to my first grand dinner, and I re 
 member just how proud and just how uncom 
 fortable I was. I would have died for the aris 
 tocracy that night died conscious of my tails, 
 but loyal.
 
 1 66 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 But, if the village had sinned, retribution had 
 come upon it. For the third time I came to 
 Northoak in June, and lo ! the village did not 
 know itself, and indeed was no more a village, 
 but a nameless suburb of a summer hotel. 
 
 Some sordid scout of the capitalists had 
 found out what we of the elect few had found 
 out long before that Northoak was pretty and 
 healthful. And so he desecrated Northoak in 
 giving it over to the populace. Now the great 
 hotel stood there, glaring in its paint of reddish- 
 yellow and reddish-brown, and ten splendid 
 elms had been done to death that it might rear 
 its hideous mansard-roof above its three-storied 
 veranda. Inside of it there were white kalso- 
 mined bedrooms, a great " general office," and 
 a greater dining-room, with frescoed ceilings 
 and gorgeous fittings of black walnut and gilt, 
 in the taste of what has been aptly called " the 
 Jim Fisk era." Then there were " French 
 bronze " chandeliers that were neither French 
 nor bronze, puffed upholstery of blue and yel 
 low satin, carpets where gigantic flowers spread 
 luxuriously over a white ground, walls covered 
 with velvet paper the hotel had every attrac 
 tion that went to make up elegance and com 
 pleteness in those happy days when we knew 
 no better. 
 
 The elegance had spread to the poor little
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. l6/ 
 
 village. The grocery was an emporium ; the 
 thread-and-needle shop was a bazar with only 
 two as. The honest old village inn was gone, 
 with its innocent " Philadelphia and XXX ales," 
 and in its place was a gaudily painted frame 
 building, of which the first floor was a sample- 
 room. Above the sample-room, reached by a 
 side stairway, was a mysterious apartment into 
 which men entered at all hours of the night, and 
 whence they emerged, as a rule, at about five or 
 six in the morning. The unceasing click of the 
 roulette-ball, clearly audible on the street below, 
 announced that a " quiet little game " was going 
 on in the " club-house." 
 
 These things changed the face of the town, 
 but the people brought a greater change. It 
 was an early year in that series of years which 
 linked the close of the war to the panic of 1873 
 a year, like its fellows, of general extrava 
 gance and ostentation. Thousands of peo 
 ple were rich who had never expected to be. 
 Shoddy had stood the good fairy to some of 
 them ; others had found wealth in government 
 contracts, in stock speculation, in the spouting 
 of petroleum wells. Now, when each of these 
 suddenly acknowledged children of wealth had 
 built his grand house, furnished and pictured it, 
 so to speak, and had made his trip to Paris and 
 seen something of the glory of the third Napo-
 
 1 68 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 Icon and Baron Haussmann, he had made up his 
 mind to live luxuriously, and had to face the 
 problem of ways and means. Luxury there 
 was to be had, but it was such luxury as min 
 istered to the quiet, conservative, and strictly 
 private and esoteric pleasures of a limited and 
 exclusive class. The new-made millionnaire 
 wanted something that showed for more in the 
 shop-window. He found plenty of people to 
 aid him in his search. The summer hotel 
 sprang into existence to relieve him of all 
 trouble for three months in the year. The 
 Parisian Optra bouffe and the British burlesque 
 came across the ocean to give a tone of sophis 
 ticated frivolity to the freshly formed society 
 in which he found himself. He accustomed 
 his palate to the taste of champagne It was 
 not long before his highest ethical aspirations 
 were satisfied. 
 
 And here he was, holding high carnival in 
 dazzled Northoak. He had brought his train 
 with him. There were people from Keokuk 
 and Peoria, people from Cynthiana, from 
 Omaha, from San Francisco, from Petrolia, 
 and from Des Moines. " Why, my dear," said 
 one scandalized old lady of Northoak, " I really 
 never supposed there were such places, except 
 on the map, you know." There were gentle 
 men in velvet smoking-jackets, gentlemen in
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 169 
 
 baggy knickerbockers, gentlemen with long 
 blond whiskers, and gentlemen who affected 
 smoking-caps. There were ladies in silks and 
 ladies in satin, and a great many .of them culti 
 vated a supposed resemblance to the Empress 
 Eugenie, while still more were modelled upon 
 the pattern of the " girl of the period." It was 
 what was known as a " fast crowd," and about 
 the most of its members there was nothing 
 worse than the exuberant folly born of sudden 
 luxury. They were gay birds of opulence, 
 and they wanted to spread their wings and 
 toss and tumble in the soft summer air. 
 And if some birds of prey slipped in among 
 them, who was to blame? The hotel-keepers 
 of the day were not so wise in the matter of 
 feathers as our experienced landlords of this 
 present year of grace. 
 
 ***** 
 On this August day of which I speak, the 
 hotellites had some merrymaking afoot which 
 awakened interest even among the people of 
 the estates. Between the large contingent 
 from the West and Southwest, and the minor 
 ity from the Eastern and Middle States, there 
 was a certain rivalry in all things, and each 
 side had its leaders and champions. Two of 
 these rivals (among the younger sets) were 
 Jack Mowatt of New York, and Clayton Adri-
 
 I/O MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 ance of Kentucky. These young men danced 
 equally well, they played about the same game 
 of billiards, each was past-master at croquet, 
 and each could 
 
 " Urge toward the table s centre, 
 With unerring hand, the squail." 
 
 (Squails and croquet ! O gilded youth, shall 
 aureate adolescence of 1910 smile thus at your 
 tennis; at your exceeding skill with a little 
 foolish round puzzle which has amused you 
 much of late?) In these accomplishments 
 there was nothing to choose between them ; 
 but in the matter of horsemanship, it seemed, 
 they were unwilling to divide honors. 
 
 Other young men there were, also, who chal 
 lenged their supremacy. To-day, therefore, a 
 race, a wonderful race of twenty miles, was to 
 be run, in four-mile heats, on the track of the 
 old county-fair grounds. It was an absurd 
 contest cruel on the country horses which 
 had to be hired to supply four out of the five 
 relays for each rider, and it was no fair test of 
 the horsemanship of the two youths. Adriance 
 was beyond doubt the more skilful and grace 
 ful horseman ; but in a match like this he stood 
 small chance against the superior wind and 
 strength of his lithe, wiry, deep-chested antag 
 onist, who had pulled in three college races, 
 and who outclassed him in size and weight.
 
 MRS. 70M S SPREE. \7\ 
 
 However, it was an opportunity for fun, for 
 excitement, for showing of pretty gowns, bet 
 ting of gloves and champagne and bon-bons 
 and cigars. The hotellites turned out, one and 
 all. Their landaulets and barouches and pony 
 phaetons whirled pretty girls along the dusty 
 highways, and all the primary colors flashed in 
 the sun. Even the hill people came. A horse 
 race aroused every true American among them. 
 
 I trudged along the road, happy enough, 
 yet longing for an invitation to ride beside the 
 least of those pretty girls. I knew the hotel 
 people, after a fashion ; I was kindly permitted 
 to hang on the outer edge of their grandeur. 
 Jack Mowatt, who was always good-hearted, 
 now and then deigned to patronize me I was 
 only three years his junior. I even had a love- 
 affair, if I am not mistaken, with the youngest 
 daughter of a family of eight girls. She was 
 waiting for her two elder sisters to marry, and 
 she condescendingly practised upon me while 
 she waited for her mother to bring her out. 
 But none of my new friends bade me mount 
 with them. It was the good old aristocracy 
 that took pity upon me. Tom Turner s dull, 
 creaky voice hailed me: 
 
 " Hi, young man ! going to the race ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "Jump in!"
 
 \7 2 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 Mr. Tom Turner never wasted words his 
 vocabulary did not allow of extravagance. I 
 climbed into his "two-seater," and sat behind, 
 talking to Mrs. Tom, who shared the front seat 
 with her husband. She had to look over her 
 shoulder as we conversed, and she paid my 
 budding manhood the tribute of a shy blush. 
 She called me " Mr.," too ; and I was proud 
 and happy as I sat there talking to her and 
 studying her as only a hobbledehoy can study 
 a young woman. 
 
 Every boy goes through this time of stand 
 ing outside the world of grown women and 
 studying them. A pretty face opens to him a 
 very treasure-house of speculation, and even 
 a plain girl is worth critical examination if the 
 faintest nimbus of romance hang around her 
 head if it be possible to imagine her loved 
 and loving. 
 
 Mrs. Tom was undeniably plain. Her fea 
 tures were sharp, and somewhat large. Her 
 hair and eyes were pale no other word sug 
 gests their faded, neutral dulness of tint. Her 
 teeth were white and regular, but sharply 
 prominent. She was well proportioned, yet her 
 figure had the awkward lines of immaturity. 
 
 And yet there was nothing about her honest 
 plainness to suggest that pitiless question : 
 " Why did he marry her? " Any man might
 
 MRS TOM S SPREE. 173 
 
 have married Mrs. Tom, for any one of a dozen 
 good reasons, without even endangering his 
 reputation for good taste. Mrs. Tom s face 
 was kind, and it had a simple, youthful whole- 
 someness about it that must have been almost 
 a positive charm, so pleasant does it seem to 
 my memory after all these years. And she 
 certainly had one positive charm, less subtle, 
 yet less easy to tell of in fitting words. Clean 
 liness is an attribute that we predicate of all 
 decent and lovable folk, yet there are persons 
 whose cleanliness is offensive, and there are 
 others whose cleanliness is so near to godliness 
 as to be altogether lovable. Mrs. Tom carried 
 with her an atmosphere of material as well as 
 moral purity that absolutely radiated a sweet 
 domesticity. Her fresh, soft skin was not 
 brilliant ; but it became her, it was character 
 istic ; it was pleasant to the eye part of a 
 harmonious whole. For Mrs. Tom s soft gray 
 and brown raiment helped to carry out the 
 idea of her that you got from her face. On 
 this day, I remember, she wore a gray gown 
 with a lawn kerchief at her neck not at all in 
 the fashion of the day, but quite in the eternal 
 fashion of good taste and fitness. 
 
 We passed through the gates of the fair 
 grounds and drove to a point on the back- 
 stretch of the track, from which we could see
 
 1/4 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 the bright ribbon of blue that already hung 
 between the judges little signal-tower and the 
 grand stand opposite. When I looked upon 
 the grand stand I stifled another wish that 
 the world of fashion might remember me. I 
 had seen that bleak, roofless structure before, 
 black with country-folk in their holiday attire ; 
 bat oh, how changed was it to-day ! A sea, a 
 multicolored sea of parasols covered it, and the 
 bright silken domes bobbed up and down over 
 pretty heads in a way that seemed madden 
 ingly vivacious and engaging to a half-grown 
 boy whose lot was cast, for the hour, with emi 
 nent but uninteresting respectability. How 
 ever, I was in for it where I was, and, having 
 been early instructed in a long antiquated code 
 of manners that forbade me to trample my 
 elders under foot, I did my best to make my 
 self agreeable to my hosts, and found some re 
 ward therein. It was something to know the 
 names of all the riders, and to be able to dis 
 play that proud knowledge. 
 
 "That s Jack Mowatt there, mounting the 
 bay with a star. Adriance is the thin fellow 
 with the chestnut. The little chap on the big 
 gray horse is De Vere I think he used to be 
 on the stage. The man on the queer-looking 
 buckskin see! that yellowish one is McAl- 
 pine. He plays billiards with his fingers. The
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 1 75 
 
 other one I think his name is Ferguson he s 
 on his own horse; he s so rich he doesn t know 
 what to do with his money, and he s got three 
 horses here ; he only had to hire two. But he 
 can t ride much. It s between Mowatt and 
 Adriance." 
 
 "And which is your man?" inquired Mrs. 
 Tom, smiling. 
 
 " Mowatt, of course. New York against 
 Kentucky." 
 
 "Then he s mine," said Mrs. Tom. 
 
 As she spoke the bell rang, the horses started 
 forward, made a bad start, and went back. 
 Then came another bad start, and then they 
 got off, on the worst start of all three, with 
 Mowatt in the lead, and Adriance badly pock 
 eted by De Vere and McAlpine. Jack pushed 
 his horse and rode like a madman. He was a 
 dozen lengths ahead when he passed us. 
 
 "Ah!" growled Tom Turner, in disgust: 
 " fool he ll never last ! " 
 
 Even to my eyes Jack was riding foolishly. 
 He had a great, heavy-built colt, strong and 
 willing ; but the cheers, the yelling, and, above 
 all, the brutal pace, frightened the poor beast, 
 and on the third lap, when he led by nearly a 
 mile, he began to go wild. 
 
 " Bolt, sure ! " said Tom, as he saw the leader 
 come into the back-stretch.
 
 I/ 6 MRS. TOM S SPXEE. 
 
 And bolt he did, heading straight for us. 
 We stood close to the track, with no rail to sep 
 arate us. Turner stood nearest the course ; I 
 was next, with Mrs. Tom just behind me. She 
 was nervously twisting her handkerchief in both 
 hands ; for she had taken her side already, and 
 she was as well able to judge of the chances as 
 any man on the ground. 
 
 Then came as quick a bit of work as I ever 
 saw. The big horse left the track, stumbled 
 on the turf, and came down on his knees, Jack 
 Mowatt going over his head. Turner had the 
 animal by the bridle and brought him to his 
 feet in a second, quivering and panting, but 
 unhurt save for a scratch or two. Jack, who 
 had landed lightly, was up again as soon as his 
 horse. In an instant his foot was in the stirrup 
 and his hand on the crupper, and then he 
 stopped. The blood from a sharp cut on his 
 forehead was trickling into his eyes. He dashed 
 it out with his left hand, and then, just as a 
 look of despair came over his face, Mrs. Tom 
 stepped up and tied her white handkerchief 
 around his head, tight and firm. Her face was 
 pale, but her hands were steady, and the blind 
 ing flow was stopped before any one except 
 Jack knew what she was doing. 
 
 He knew. His eyes lighted up ; he bent, 
 caught one of her hands in his free hand, kissed
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 1 77 
 
 it, and swung himself into the saddle. I saw 
 Mrs. Tom s white face flush a burning red, and 
 then I turned to see Jack take the track again, 
 just as the field thundered by us, Adriance far 
 ahead, leading by many lengths. 
 
 I am not going to tell the story of that race. 
 It was a cruel affair, as far as it went, for they 
 ran only three heats. Mowattwon. He took 
 his own horse for the next relay, and nearly 
 ruined a splendid animal in four miles of mad 
 riding. But he passed the field as if they stood 
 still, and he rode Adriance down after a long 
 and brutal struggle. At the end of the third 
 heat, when he led the Kentucky boy by a quar 
 ter of a mile, and the poor youngster looked as 
 though he were about to fall off his horse, the 
 judges stopped the race. All the other riders 
 had dropped off except the despised Ferguson, 
 who was sticking to it a mile or so in the rear. 
 Three horses had been spoiled for life, and the 
 "sporting blood" of the judges had had all it 
 could endure. 
 
 Adriance was badly shaken up. He was out 
 of training and incapable of sustained exertion. 
 He shook Mowatt s hand and tried to smile as 
 he said : 
 
 " My only regret is that you weren t born in 
 Kentucky." 
 
 The Grand Stand went wild, of course, and
 
 1/8 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 made the most of its two heroes, and even of 
 Ferguson, who had shown an unexpected pluck. 
 Jack Mowatt was the hero of the hour, and the 
 women fairly flung themselves at his feet. If 
 it had not been Jack s lot in life to bask in 
 women s smiles, his head might have been 
 turned. But Jack had flirted from his cradle 
 up, and to have a hundred women worshipping 
 him instead of one was an experience differing 
 only in degree, and not in kind, from many 
 which he had enjoyed in the brief course of his 
 youth. 
 
 He smiled on his admirers for a few minutes, 
 and then made for the stable. Half-way there, 
 as if a sudden thought had come to him, he 
 turned and came up the course to our group on 
 the back-stretch. Mrs. Tom flushed red once 
 more as she saw him, and there was still a touch 
 of color in her face when I proudly introduced 
 the hero, and he began to express his gratitude 
 in Jack s own demonstrative way. He said no 
 more than he meant, perhaps ; but he said a 
 great deal more than was necessary, and a great 
 deal more, I have no doubt, than he thought 
 he was saying. Mrs. Tom heard him for the 
 most part in silence. When she said anything, 
 it was with a fluttered, nervous brightness that 
 was wholly unlike her natural manner. Yet it 
 was a manner natural enough under the circum-
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 1/9 
 
 stances. Nine women out of ten would have 
 talked in just that tone. There was nothing 
 odd about the tone, except that it was Mrs. 
 Tom who used it. 
 
 Mowatt could not stay long ; the cut on his 
 head needed dressing, and the local doctor was 
 already beckoning him toward the stables. But 
 before he bade farewell to Mrs. Tom, I could 
 not help hearing a characteristic speech which 
 he made. Turner and I were tightening buckles 
 on the harness, and Mowatt had his back to me 
 as he said : 
 
 " I ll send your handkerchief back to-mor 
 row, Mrs. Turner. I wish I wish I might 
 keep it, as a memento of the race. But I 
 suppose 
 
 I did not hear what Mrs. Tom said in reply. 
 But as we drove home I learned that Tom had 
 agreed to take her to the " hop " at the hotel 
 that evening; and all the way that I went with 
 them Mrs. Tom looked back to talk to me in 
 that same softly fluttered way, asking questions 
 and running on without waiting for answers. 
 I noticed that the flush was still on her 
 cheeks. 
 
 " I ve never been to a hop at the hotel," she 
 said. " I suppose it s quite festive beside our 
 dull doings here. I haven t an idea what to 
 wear. What do the ladies generally wear?
 
 180 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 Oh, but there ! what do you know about such 
 things? You don t notice ladies dresses, do 
 you ? Men never do. But it must be lovely 
 to dance to that splendid band ! Do you dance ? 
 If you do, you mustn t forget your country 
 friends " and soon, while Tom drove stolidly 
 along, and I watched this poor little gray pigeon 
 preen her wings watched her with all a boy s 
 cruel but observant interest. 
 
 And here, as the conversation which I had 
 overheard a few minutes before was the begin 
 ning of a bad business, for which Jack Mowatt 
 has been often blamed, let me say a word for 
 that unlucky butterfly. I knew him well in 
 after years, and knew him for a perfectly harm 
 less and highly ornamental insect. Flirting was 
 as much a part of his daily existence as eating, 
 drinking, or sleeping if you can call that flirta 
 tion which was merely the exchange of the most 
 obvious flattery and innocently exaggerated 
 deference for that delightfully familiar sort of 
 petting which women are always ready to lavish 
 on the man who is not to be taken seriously. 
 And only two women that I have heard of ever 
 took Jack seriously. One was Mrs. Tom the 
 other was the girl who finally married him. 
 And it was characteristic of this graceful and 
 voluble woman-worshipper, that, when his time 
 came, and he was really in love, he lost his
 
 MRS. TOM S SPXEE. l8l 
 
 tongue and his wits, and had to be dragged 
 through his courtship and up to the speaking- 
 point like any country oaf. 
 
 So I think I may fairly say that when Jack 
 kissed Mrs. Tom s hand and begged her hand 
 kerchief, he did no more than he would have 
 done had it been his own grandmother, and 
 meant no more ill. It was Jack s way of being 
 decently and respectfully civil to a woman. 
 
 It was late that night when I laid aside my 
 books and hurried eagerly over to the hotel. 
 The distant music had twisted up my trigo 
 nometry for three hours, and the figures of the 
 lanciers and the quadrille had wellnigh driven 
 another sort of figures out of my young head. 
 However, young conscience was somehow sat 
 isfied when I entered the great dining-room, 
 turned into a ball-room by the presence of two 
 fiddlers and a double bass and a clarinet, sup 
 porting the lean hotel " accompanist " in the 
 piano-corner. Yet I had not been three min 
 utes in that scene of revelry before I wished 
 that I had not left my shabby calf-covered 
 books, my little white-cloth-topped table, my 
 poor kerosene lamp, whereon the moths and 
 mosquitoes stuck fast in the oil, looking like 
 Christian martyrs after the festival of human 
 torches. 
 
 Tom Turner was the first person I met. He
 
 1 82 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 was leaving the ball-room, headed for the bil 
 liard-room. He only nodded when he saw 
 me. 
 
 "Where is Mrs. Turner?" I asked. 
 
 " In there," he said, and went on his way. 
 He was always taciturn, impassive, chary of 
 his words; but he spoke with such a sullen 
 shortness that boy-like I fancied I had done 
 something to offend him. 
 
 I went " in there." It was a little parlor or 
 drawing-room opening from the large hall. 
 There sat Jack Mowatt on a yellow and blue 
 satin divan a hideous round structure, such 
 as you still may see in the abodes of the aris 
 tocracy, on our realistic modern stage. He 
 was doing the wounded hero to perfection, his 
 manly beauty not wholly marred by a narrow 
 strip of sticking-plaster running half-way across 
 his forehead. In front of him half a dozen 
 women had drawn up their chairs to form a 
 circle of worship. There were four young 
 girls not yet out of the age of gigglehood, a 
 black-browed, aquiline-nosed, handsome bird 
 of prey from San Francisco, and Mrs. Tom. 
 
 Mrs. Tom in a white silk dress, with a girlish 
 pink sash, and with the pinkest of pink roses 
 in her poor colorless hair; Mrs. Tom talking 
 loud and fast, and talking nonsense that is 
 what Mrs. Tom s young friend heard and saw
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 183 
 
 as he stood stupefied in the door-way of the 
 room with the yellow and blue satin divan. 
 
 " So like the knights and cavaliers of old ! " 
 this young man heard her say. " Didn t you 
 feel like a knight, Mr. Mowatt ? " 
 
 "Didn t Mr. Mowatt act like a knight?" 
 queried the Bird of Prey, dryly, and the four 
 girls giggled. 
 
 " I should have been a poor knight without 
 my rescuing lady," said Jack, and the girls 
 giggled again. Mrs. Tom heard them not. 
 
 " Mr. Mowatt was the knightliest of knights," 
 she said, laughing shrilly. Her eyes shone; 
 there was a hot color in her high cheek 
 bones. 
 
 I withdrew softly; no one had noticed my 
 presence. They were all too intent on draw 
 ing out poor Mrs. Tom all except Jack, who 
 was frowning furtively at the beauty with the 
 aquiline nose. 
 
 I was chagrined and humiliated. The reck 
 less jollity, the crude luxury of the hotel life 
 had attracted me ; but my friends were the 
 good, quiet gentlefolk on the hills, and to see 
 one of them made the dupe and the butt of 
 these half-breed savages wounded my juvenile 
 loyalty. I slipped out of the ball-room, and I 
 thought that the whole pleasure of the evening 
 was lost for me, until I stumbled across my
 
 1 84 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 own immature charmer, the youngest of the 
 eight, sulking in a dark corner of the veranda, 
 where she could look in at the gayety which 
 she might not share with her seven elders. 
 
 She confided to me that she considered her 
 exclusion " real mean " she said " reel " and 
 I sat down by her side and consoled her in the 
 soft summer night. By and by I forgot Mrs. 
 Tom (and myself, wellnigh), and I received a 
 painful shock when Maude Addie said: 
 
 "They re dancing the Caledonian quadrille! 
 Who is that queer creature dancing all out of 
 time?" 
 
 I knew before I looked in the window. It 
 was Mrs. Tom, and Jack Mowatt was her part 
 ner. She was dancing furiously, awkwardly, 
 and quite out of time. Some of the younger 
 girls were imitating her angular movements 
 to her very face ; but she danced on, smiling, 
 radiant, unconscious of everything but the 
 strange elation that had taken possession of 
 her. By the end the dance had degenerated 
 almost to a romp ; but Mrs. Tom smiled on, 
 gayly, triumphantly. A minute later she passed 
 us on Jack s arm. 
 
 " Upon my word, Mrs. Turner," I heard him 
 say, " there s no one I ever knew who could 
 dance like you." 
 
 "Oh, you flatterer!" said the poor woman,
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 185 
 
 looking up at him with blind gratitude in her 
 face. 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Tom, driving down 
 to the village, as was her custom, stopped at 
 the hotel to see the Bird of Prey, or some other 
 of her new friends, and incidentally carried Jack 
 off for a drive. The day after, Turner went 
 fishing, and Mrs. Tom passed most of the day 
 with the hotellites. The third day it was much 
 the same ; on the fourth, I was invited to din 
 ner at the Brinckerhoffs, who were Turner s 
 first-cousins, and after dinner old Mrs. Brinck- 
 erhoff took me aside and asked me plumply if 
 it was true that Tom s wife was associating so 
 freely with "those people." I tried to fib, but 
 the occasion was not happy for mendacity. 
 
 However, it mattered little. Mrs. Tom s 
 infatuation for her new society was beyond all 
 concealing, and the nature of it was clear 
 enough. She was fighting for her woman s 
 birthright of admiration, romance, and wor 
 ship. For the first time it had come into her 
 head that she might be as these other women 
 courted, petted, pelted with rose-leaf flat 
 teries; that she, too, might have her adorers; 
 might drink the champagne of this sparkling, 
 glorious life. A week before she had been 
 contented, in her wholesome dulness, with the
 
 1 86 MXS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 husband whom she had married as a matter of 
 course, who loved her (as she loved him) yet 
 had never made love to her. She had been 
 contented when the glass told her that her 
 face was plain : the thought troubled her no 
 more than the thought that she could not read 
 Greek. She could have honestly admired a 
 beautiful woman, just as she might have 
 respected a Greek scholar. She had never 
 longed for beauty: it went for little in her 
 world for less than fair birth or breeding, and 
 both of these she had. It was natural enough 
 that she should have been contented. Do you 
 envy the splendid colonel whom you admire as 
 he rides at the head of his regiment? Do you 
 want his uniform to go about your business in ? 
 Do you want his mettlesome great horse, that 
 you couldn t ride to save your life ? Do you 
 want even his glory, bought at the cost of 
 wounds and cares and privations? Not for an 
 instant. Envy of him will never keep you 
 awake o nights. But join his regiment as the 
 rawest of privates, and you will envy every rag 
 of gold lace on that man s body. So it was 
 with Mrs. Tom. A man had kissed her hand, 
 and she longed for beauty. 
 
 Beauty itself she must have known was be 
 yond her reach. But that she could be in the 
 ranks of beauty, be one of the women who
 
 MAS. TOM S SPREE. l8/ 
 
 charm and are courted, breathe the delicious 
 incense of men s adoration this had been 
 revealed to her by proof indubitable. Had 
 not the very paragon of women-worshippers 
 kissed her hand ? Was he not wearing her 
 handkerchief in his waistcoat ? Cinderella had 
 come to the court of the king! 
 
 It was a mad fancy of Mrs. Tom s, but it 
 was born, perhaps, of vague, half-formulated, 
 half-repressed dreams that none of those about 
 her knew of, and it was fostered by a most 
 malicious combination of circumstances. Jack 
 began his innocent blandishments in good 
 faith ; then he passed, all unsuspicious, to a 
 dangerous jest; then he found the jest broad 
 ening under the smiles of the spectators, and 
 sought a way out of it by turning it into pal 
 pable burlesque palpable, he found, to all 
 save the woman whose head he had turned a 
 woman who had no sense of humor, and who 
 had never heard of the possibility of raillery so 
 cruel and unchivalrous. And then, foreseeing 
 in himself a red-handed butcher of courtesy 
 and delicacy, he lost his head and took to his 
 heels. He was much to be condemned he 
 was condemned -but this is to be said for him, 
 that he began in good faith and went wrong 
 before he knew it ; and that the management 
 of a maniac, when that maniac is a woman
 
 1 88 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 insane on the subject of her own charms, is a 
 problem that might prove too much for many 
 an older man of the world than this poor flib 
 bertigibbet of twenty-one. 
 
 His solution of the problem was simple. On 
 Friday he went to New York on business, he 
 said. He was to be back by Saturday even 
 ing. Calypso waited for him Saturday, Sun 
 day, and Monday. On Tuesday she saw his 
 trunks go out of the hotel, marked for New 
 York. A letter to one of his friends among 
 the men conveyed the intelligence that he was 
 called away by the illness of a relative. 
 
 It turned out to be no solution at all. He 
 dealt his victim a cruel blow, but did not 
 awaken her from her dream. In that one 
 week Mrs. Tom had heard more about flirta 
 tions and jiltings and transfers of affection 
 generally than she had heard in all her previ 
 ous life. She had even met one ingenuous 
 Southern maid who was habitually engaged to 
 three gentlemen at once. She accepted this 
 as her first defeat in a world which she had 
 already learned was a world of secret but un 
 ceasing strife. She smothered her humiliation, 
 and determined to go on with the fight. 
 
 She had no difficulty in carrying on her 
 campaign. She was a rich joke for the hotel, 
 in more senses than one. The harpy contin-
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 189 
 
 gent had already discovered that she was well- 
 to-do in her own right. They set their young 
 men to "taking turns at Mrs. Tom," and keep 
 ing her supplied with all the flattering atten 
 tions which she would accept. And, by the 
 irony of fate, she found a genuine adorer. He 
 was a sulky, loutish youth, who had been 
 brought up on a farm until he came into the 
 fortune of an oil-well uncle. This silent, dull 
 youngster, half a dozen years her junior, fell 
 honestly in love with her, and trailed about 
 after her like an ill-conditioned poodle. 
 
 A lively chase Mrs. Tom led him. The end 
 of that second week found her in the fore 
 front of all the hotel gayety. She slept at 
 home ; but her days and her evenings were 
 passed with her hotellites, who diverted them 
 selves without ceasing. That week a flash, 
 fashionable dressmaker and milliner came up 
 from New York, and Mrs. Tom gave orders for 
 dresses that made the eyes shine in the schem 
 ing heads of the birds of prey. The dresses 
 were confected with great rapidity under their 
 directions, and such marvels of gorgeous bad 
 taste were they that, even in that day of loud 
 things, they scandalized the most advanced 
 thought of the hotel. Mrs. Tom, clean out of 
 her modest depth in color, fairly floundered 
 in reds and greens and blues and yellows ;
 
 1 90 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 and let me remind you that we had had no 
 Morris in those days, no Burne-Jones to tell us 
 of the sin of primary colors, or to teach us the 
 holiness of sage-green and the sacredness of 
 old gold and the terra-cotta family. Mrs. Tom 
 made ample return for these aids to fashion 
 able elegance. She lent money to ladies ex 
 pecting remittances, and showed unwearying 
 patience in awaiting the remittances ; she guar 
 anteed their credit at the dressmaker s ; she 
 gave them costly presents ; and she paid her 
 scot on all the excursions and picnic parties: 
 festivities which were not conducted on a 
 modest scale. One of them won some fame 
 at the time. Ferguson, the millionnaire con 
 tractor, took a driving-party of twenty to the 
 Mountain House, a sporting resort some ten 
 miles away, up in the hills; and when they sat 
 down to supper (cooked by a New York chef, 
 served by New York waiters) each lady found 
 her napkin rolled up in a gold bracelet set with 
 diamonds, by way of a napkin-ring a dainty 
 conceit of the millionnaire s. It was at this 
 supper, I believe, that they induced Mrs. Tom 
 to sing " dites-lui," and found great sport 
 therein. 
 
 But what, you ask, were Mrs. Tom s rela 
 tives doing all this while ? They were doing 
 just about what relatives and friends usually do
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. igi 
 
 under comparable circumstances, and to just 
 about as much purpose. " If any of my peo 
 ple," we have all said, at one time or another, 
 " were to attempt to disgrace the family, 1 
 should do this, that, or the other. But, 
 when the time comes, we all of us find that 
 we have very little influence in the matter, 
 and that a wilful whippersnapper of eighteen, 
 even, can peg stones at the family escutcheon 
 at his or her sweet will. How about your 
 niece? Didn t she run away and join the 
 comic-opera company, as she said she would ? 
 How about my cousin ? Didn t he marry her, 
 as he said he would? You and I are connec 
 tions by marriage, and we wouldn t be if we 
 could have helped it. 
 
 And what was Tom Turner doing? For the 
 first three weeks everybody asked that ques 
 tion. By the fourth week everybody knew 
 that he was drinking hard. He found himself 
 in a situation that was to him as incompre 
 hensibly unreal as a nightmare. His orderly, 
 narrow life afforded no precedent to guide 
 him. He knew that everything was wrong. 
 He knew not how to set it right. He remon 
 strated, he quarrelled with her; then he re 
 lapsed into sullen silence, went fishing day 
 after day, and drank more than was good for 
 him.
 
 IQ2 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 I have no doubt that his meagre vocabulary 
 put him at a disadvantage. He could tell his 
 wife that she was " carrying on," perhaps that 
 she was " making a fool of herself ; " but be 
 yond this he probably found himself unable to 
 characterize her conduct without saying that 
 it was " not respectable." And with men of 
 Tom s class this phrase had a specific meaning 
 which would have made its use impossible. 
 Tom could not insult his wife with the thought. 
 Indeed, through all the time of her folly, no 
 one ever dreamed of thinking it anything worse 
 than folly, pure and simple. Even the hotel 
 harpies knew better than to misconstrue her 
 silliness. The most cynical and reckless of the 
 velveteen-coated adventurers would not have 
 dared to enlighten Mrs. Tom s ignorance ; for 
 whatever black depths there might be in the 
 world where she moved, they were carefully 
 screened from her eyes, and to the end she be 
 lieved that the "flirtations" of those about 
 her were as innocent as her own. 
 
 As to Tom, she told him he was prejudiced, 
 unkind, and selfish. She was doing no harm, 
 she was spending her own money, she was 
 having a good time. If he did not like her 
 friends, well and good. And so Tom went off 
 to his fish and his bottle, and Mrs. Tom went 
 on making herself the laughing-stock of the
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 193 
 
 hotel and the horror of her family. The peo 
 ple on the hills wept over her, and the children 
 at the hotel invented a pretty pastime which 
 they called " making believe be Mrs. Tom." 
 ****** 
 
 One morning in the first week of September 
 I stood on the steps of the hotel gazing at Mr. 
 Ferguson s new span of horses, when I heard 
 a rustle of silks by my side, a hand was laid 
 lightly on my shoulder, and a high-pitched 
 voice, which I knew in spite of its affected, 
 drawling tone, said : 
 
 " Why, dc-ar boy ! I haven t seen you in an 
 age ! " 
 
 It was Mrs. Tom, or what passed for Mrs. 
 Tom in these days, though it was not easy to 
 recognize her at a glance, in her glaring red 
 and green shot-silk, with rouge and powder 
 making a hectic illumination on her high-boned 
 cheeks, with her eyebrows blackened, her hair 
 dyed a strange shiny yellow, and with diamonds 
 stuck and hung all over her at ten o clock in 
 the morning. 
 
 " I must get Ferguson," she said, " to let me 
 take you out behind these grays. You shall 
 handle the ribbons, and you shall smoke, too, 
 if you like. Why don t you let us see some 
 thing of you ? We " (she dwelt on the pronoun 
 as though it were sweet in her mouth) " would 
 13
 
 194 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 like to have you. And if you want to have a 
 good time, you know, you ve got to come with 
 us. And there s just the chance for you, dear 
 boy! Young Mason, who s been making him 
 self so sweet to Mrs. Gilderoy his mother s 
 just taken him away. She was afraid ! " (Mrs. 
 Tom tittered.) " Now s your chance. Do you 
 know Mrs. Gilderoy? No? She s from New 
 Orleans. The loveliest woman ! Yes, you posi 
 tively must come to the front." 
 
 I stumbled out some confused acknowledg 
 ment. I felt all the shame that she should 
 have felt. She saw my blush, and smiled com 
 placently as she moved away. She took it for 
 the tribute of bashfulness. 
 
 I watched her as she walked along the ve 
 randa. She was trying to imitate a carriage 
 that had a brief vogue at that time the body 
 was thrown forward of the hips, involving a 
 general distortion of various anatomical pro 
 cesses. 
 
 She sat down among her friends, who were 
 scarcely less besilked and bejewelled than she. 
 I looked back to the street, and saw Tom 
 Turner s road-wagon turning in from the High- 
 kill Falls road. 
 
 It was a sight common enough of late. 
 Turner often spent the night at Highkill, 
 where there was a sportsmen s tavern, and
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 1 95 
 
 his man drove over for him in the morning. 
 But to-day Turner was not in the wagon. His 
 man was driving alone, and he drove straight 
 for the hotel, peering under the veranda as he 
 came until his eye fell on his mistress. He 
 alighted, went up to her, gave her a note, and 
 marched back to his wagon. 
 
 Mrs. Tom read the letter, gave a husky 
 little cry, turned paler than her powder, and 
 straightened out rigid, as though she were in 
 an epileptic fit. The group of women closed 
 in about her. I hurried toward them, but, be 
 fore I came near, Mrs. Tom had recovered her 
 self, at least enough to walk with a woman on 
 each side of her, and they took her to the 
 nearest room. She passed within a yard of 
 me, and the frightened, stricken stare of the 
 eyes that looked out from that painted face 
 was like a vision of death and judgment. 
 
 I need hardly say that in her few moments 
 of unconsciousness somebody in the crowd read 
 her letter. I heard its contents discussed in 
 the open street. It was from Tom, and said 
 that he had gone away, and that she should 
 not see him again. It was a drunken man s 
 letter ; but, drunk or sober, Tom never failed 
 of his word. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The next day a delegation of the harpies,
 
 196 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 who had no notion to let their prey slip away 
 so easily, drove up to call on poor dear Mrs. 
 Turner. They were refused admittance at the 
 gates. The three children were dangerously 
 ill, the lodge-keeper said, and Mrs. Turner 
 would see no one. 
 
 It was believed for a time that the sickness 
 of the children was a mere excuse for retire 
 ment ; but the next day the local doctor hailed 
 me from his gig, and gave me some news. He 
 was a testy, kindly, vehement conservative, this 
 little gray old doctor. 
 
 " Your people have gone home, haven t 
 they? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, sir last week. I ve got to stay and 
 finish my grind. It s a beast." 
 
 " Well, you d best get out, too. There s 
 something like an epidemic in town. The 
 three Turner children are down. I think 
 they ll come out all right mother s with 
 em now, nursing em day and night but 
 it s hard to tell. Dysentery that s all 
 but I ve had seven other cases within thirty- 
 six hours, and there are one or two I don t 
 like the looks of. Don t believe in scares 
 but you know what the papers say. Cholera 
 on the other side had a genuine case in New 
 York yesterday. Just about time w r e had 
 another turn of it in this country. And if it
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 197 
 
 does come, young man, this is the sort of 
 place that s just ripe for it. Five hundred 
 new people here since June not a drain 
 not a damn drain beg your pardon, sir! It s 
 manslaughter rank manslaughter ! And if it 
 gets into that devil s toy-shop there " he 
 pointed to the hotel " it will have everything 
 its own way close the cussed place, I hope. 
 Clk ! Kitty, git up ! Don t you stay here, 
 my boy ; don t you stay here ! Clk ! " 
 
 Being a boy, of course I did not go. The 
 prospect of beholding a pestilence was far too 
 alluring. 
 
 The doctor was right. Bad drainage or, 
 rather, no drainage at all and a summer of 
 uninterrupted heat had worked together to 
 produce a local epidemic of a serious nature. 
 It was on a Monday that this conversation was 
 held ; on Tuesday a half dozen cases appeared 
 at the hotel, and then this little army of fri 
 volity, a host of weak creatures with nothing 
 to tie up to in this world or the next, were 
 smitten with utter, shameless panic. Those 
 of them who could go at once went. Before 
 Wednesday night one hundred and twenty- 
 seven people had left the hotel. More than 
 that number remained against their will, held 
 by one cause or another in most cases, im- 
 pecuniosity. There were many fair ladies in
 
 198 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 that caravansary who were in the habit of 
 depositing their diamonds in the hotel-safe 
 at night, not because they were in fear 
 of thieves, but because the proprietor par 
 ticularly requested it. Various gentlemen, 
 moreover, were chained, as it were, to the 
 bar-room slate and the account-book of the 
 billiard-room keeper. There was much tele 
 graphing for remittances, and the faro-bank 
 did a rushing business twenty-four hours in 
 the day, and would willingly have kept open 
 twenty-five hours, had it been possible. 
 
 Saturday ended this carnival of fear, for the 
 great hotel closed. Nearly sixscore people, 
 sick and well, left the great barracks staring 
 at the dull fall day out of its hundreds of 
 blindless windows, marched down the long 
 street, and piled in confusion into the two 
 stuffy little cars that made up a train on the 
 shaky little railroad that ran from Northoak 
 to the Hudson River. The more decent of 
 the lot somehow settled in the rearv/ard car ; 
 in that behind the engine, the wilder spirits got 
 together, and to watch these I slipped in and 
 seated myself on the wood-box. 
 
 That was a hideous journey. Fear the 
 most abject, dastardly, selfish fear possessed 
 this crowd that was so brazen three days be 
 fore ; and, after the manner of their kind, they
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 199 
 
 tried to hide it with bravado. Some had bot 
 tles of champagne, all had whiskey or brandy, 
 and as time went on they drank themselves 
 half-wild. They sang, they shouted, they 
 made mad and brutal jokes. The restric 
 tions of decency and even of discretion were 
 forgotten. Strange relationships stood out in 
 undisguised frankness, and the ugliest part of 
 all their ugliness was the open selfishness that 
 showed how frail was the tie that knit one 
 human being to another. And among them 
 all not one spoke the word that summed up 
 all their terrors. They spoke of " it," and 
 that "it" meant the Cholera. Typhus and 
 malaria were waiting for many of them ; but of 
 these dangers, which had obviously menaced 
 them through all their sojourn at that drain- 
 less barrack, they thought nothing. It was a 
 baseless terror, an all but impossible possi 
 bility, that struck terror to their weak souls. 
 
 Save myself, there were but two silent 
 passengers in the car. Directly opposite me 
 sat the bird of prey, Mrs. Gilderoy of New 
 Orleans. Sheer fright had prostrated her, and 
 had brought back an old trouble, quiescent for 
 years. She had been taken with hemorrhage 
 of the lungs. She had telegraphed to New 
 York, to a certain Sister of Charity. " She 
 will come," the scared wretch said ; and she
 
 2OO MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 had come, and now was taking this pallid 
 shadow of a woman back to New York, to 
 die within the white walls of a hospital, no 
 longer a person, an agent for good or ill in 
 the breathing world a number, in a numbered 
 cot, for which some other wretch waits, to be 
 a number in her turn. Looking at the faces 
 of these two women, as they sat side by side, 
 you saw that they were sisters in another sense 
 than that of Christian charity. But peace was 
 in one face and deadly fear in the other. 
 
 Just as we drew into our station on the 
 Hudson, a woman fainted, and an access of 
 fright set the whole carload of men and 
 women struggling for the doors. That was 
 the last I saw of them. They took the rail 
 road ; I crossed the river in a row-boat and 
 went down to New York in a freight-barge, 
 which is the ideal way of travelling, if there 
 are no calves aboard. 
 
 ****** 
 
 It was ten years before I saw Northoak 
 again, and it was only an idle impulse that 
 took me there. I had three or four last days 
 at the end of a vacation in the mountains. 
 My party had disbanded ; no one expected 
 me in New York before the next Monday. 
 It came into my head to stop at Northoak on 
 my way back, to whip the trout-streams after
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 2OI 
 
 my own fashion a luxury I cannot indulge in 
 when there are professional-amateur anglers 
 to wither me with their scorn. Yes, I take a 
 book in my pocket, and, if the trout will not 
 have me, I lie down under a tree and walk the 
 London streets with Mr. Samuel Pepys, mon 
 strous fine in his waistcoat made of his wife s 
 brocade petticoat, or stroll under the Italian 
 skies with Eichendorff s Good-for-nothing in 
 his mystic, magical Wanderjahre. North- 
 oak trout were too small game for the gentry 
 who despise this sort of fishing ; yet there be 
 trout at Northoak, so there I went. I had 
 other reasons, of course a foolish fancy of 
 reminiscence leading me back to look for 
 boyhood in boyhood s paths. 
 
 I found my old abiding-place, still a refuge 
 for the stranger, but now only as a lodging- 
 house for those who " mealed " at the hotel. 
 It was kept by a brisk woman of business, 
 fresh from New England, who could tell me 
 nothing of my old friends. I asked for the 
 room that had been mine ; but when I saw it, 
 and found how close and small it was (and 
 always must have been), I gladly took a larger 
 chamber on the floor below. 
 
 I went to dinner at the hotel. There it was, 
 the same hotel, but, oh ! how changed from 
 that hotel I had known. All the smartness of
 
 2O2 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 it had vanished. The wood-work was warped ; 
 the paint, of a later era of bad taste, was dull 
 and weather-worn ; the frescoed ceiling of the 
 great dining-room had fallen in a dozen places, 
 and the damages had been repaired with white 
 plaster. The yellow and blue satin furniture 
 was gone. Strange, angular furniture had taken 
 its place. I was told that it was in the East- 
 lake style. The house was full filled with 
 quiet, decorous families from Boston and Phila 
 delphia, with a small mingling of highly re 
 spectable, hard-working artists. I don t think 
 there was a bottle of champagne in the place. 
 I know that there was a sewing-circle in the 
 rooms where the faro-bank used to be, and a 
 candy-shop in the place of the saloon. 
 
 Not a trace left of the old life the old silly, 
 reckless, dangerous, hopeful, happy life. Every 
 thing is better now, wiser, more wholesome. 
 And yet we were happy in those days when 
 the " Blue Danube " was new ; when we first 
 beheld le sabre de mon ptre ; when our veins 
 thrilled with the potentiality of pleasures that 
 we have grown tired of since in those crude 
 days when things were fresher than they are 
 now. And this much I am sure of : we who 
 left our boyhood behind us a score of years ago 
 were a deal merrier, more companionable, 
 juicier fellows than the finished youths of
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 203 
 
 to-day, who take their pleasures so sadly, who 
 know such a weary, worrysome lot about what 
 is good form and what isn t, and who treat 
 women just as they treat men. 
 
 On the morning after my arrival I sat in my 
 room writing letters. Looking up and out the 
 window, I saw a dog-cnrt going along the street. 
 In it sat a gray-haired woman, bolt upright, 
 dressed in a gown of yellow and black, so 
 strange in fashion, as well as in color, that it 
 might have been the caprice of a madwoman. 
 I saw her and she was gone. But I knew 
 Mrs. Tom. 
 
 I had a feeling of something like dizziness as 
 I tried to realize that I had actually seen this 
 thing, and not dreamed it. I had seen Mrs. 
 Tom, gray-haired and pale, dressed in the 
 clothes I had seen her in a decade before. 
 What was she now ? A ghostly maniac, re 
 visiting the scenes of her mad happiness ? 
 
 I thought about it until I could write letters 
 no longer, and set out for a walk. I had hardly 
 crossed the threshold of the house when a voice 
 cried : 
 
 -Hello!" 
 
 I stopped, and a man grasped my hand. 
 
 " Knew you right off!" he said. "Glad to 
 see you. Changed, haven t you ? Stopping 
 here, eh ? No ! Won t do ! Come up to my
 
 2O4 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 house. Mrs. Turner glad to see you. After 
 trout ? Show you lots. Mustn t stay here 
 won t have it ! Come for you at three. Get 
 your traps ready. Bless you knew you right 
 off didn t I?" 
 
 I had been only a boy when he knew me 
 for a summer or two, but when he bade me 
 good-by, after making me promise to visit him, 
 he walked off, smiling, as though he had met 
 his best friend. He was changed, too. His 
 hair was grizzled, and when he was not speak 
 ing his eyes had a half-vacant, half-sleepy look 
 that had not belonged to his youthful stolidity. 
 
 At three he came for me, and I had to go, 
 much as I dreaded meeting Mrs. Tom. He 
 was cheerful as we drove along, but as taci 
 turn as of old. If he spoke, it was to say 
 something about the weather or the crops, or 
 the cattle in the fields which we passed. Mrs. 
 Turner was well, he said, and the children. 
 They had had another one since I had seen 
 them a splendid boy, four years old now. A 
 fine growing summer! They would have the 
 finest crop of hay ever gathered in the county 
 didn t I think so ? 
 
 We found Mrs. Tom in the great drawing- 
 room that opened on the lawn, and my heart 
 sank within me as I saw that she was dressed 
 in a gown of faded pink, almost as startlingly
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 out of fashion as the odd garment she had 
 worn in the morning. But though she blushed 
 a little as she greeted me (and her blush, 
 against her soft gray hair, made her look al 
 most pretty), she showed no embarrassment, 
 no strangeness of manner, and in a moment I 
 felt quite at ease, not only for myself but for 
 her. At the first look, I fancied that her pale 
 face seemed stern ; at the second, I saw in it 
 such a sweet dignity that I wondered why I had 
 ever thought of the clothes she had on. 
 
 After a while the children came in, and 
 presently Turner took them off to see if the 
 new Jersey cow had arrived. The three elder 
 were attractive children. The two girls were 
 perhaps fifteen and sixteen, well mannered, 
 and pretty, or comely at least. The boy was 
 a fine fellow of thirteen, with a manly way 
 about him. The youngest was of a different 
 sort. I thought him dull and heavy, and he 
 had the pettish bearing of a spoiled child. But 
 I saw that this Benjamin was as the apple of 
 his mother s eye. There was a difference not 
 only of degree but of kind in the look which 
 she cast after him as her eyes followed her 
 children out of the room. 
 
 They had hardly gone when she looked up 
 at me with a tremulous eagerness and said: 
 
 "You didn t want to come? No, I under-
 
 206 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 stand. But I wanted to tell you that I m glad 
 to have you here. Of course, I wanted you to 
 come because it pleased him; but I m glad to 
 see you, anyway for myself, don t you know." 
 
 I said that I had hoped she would care to 
 see me ; but she paid no attention to my 
 awkward commonplaces, and went on : 
 
 " I thought you d feel that I wouldn t want 
 to see you, on account of that time, you 
 know my spree. Oh, yes, I know. That s 
 what they called it. I know a good deal now 
 that I didn t know then. I know just how- 
 just how I seemed to people. That s why I 
 don t mind seeing you. It wasn t quite the 
 same with you. You never had anything to 
 do with making me behave as I did." 
 
 She snatched up a little dress from the work- 
 basket by her side, stretched it out and shaped 
 it upon her lap, threaded a needle with that 
 mechanical deftness which belongs to women, 
 and began sewing and talking at once. 
 
 " I don t believe you ever made fun of me. 
 They all did. I ve often thought since, think 
 ing how those men pretended to make love to 
 me, that you were always respectful don t 
 you understand me ? It made me feel, when 
 I used to think about it, that I was worth it 
 you know what I mean ? I ve ground my 
 teeth sometimes just for pain, and then I ve
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 2O/ 
 
 thought how nice you were to me, and I ve 
 felt better." 
 
 Great God ! I thought to myself, can the 
 chance of a boy s decent breeding mean so 
 much to his fellow-beings ? 
 
 " I didn t mean to talk about that time," 
 she began again, after she had stitched for a 
 minute in silence. " I only meant to tell you 
 something so that you would understand how 
 it is now. I don t know whether you heard 
 much about what happened afterwards." 
 
 " I heard something," I said ; " you went 
 West." 
 
 " Not till the next summer. We tried all 
 we could, but we didn t find out where he was 
 till then. And Ethel wasn t really strong until 
 June. Then I heard where he was, and I went 
 out and found him in Omaha." 
 
 She paused again, and kept her head down 
 close over her work. 
 
 " He wouldn t even see me. He wouldn t 
 let me come near him. He was drinking, you 
 know. I don t mean that I blame him " she 
 raised her head and looked me in the eye, 
 feeling herself the champion of her husband 
 " he never v/ould have done it if it hadn t been 
 for me and he wasn t himself." She dropped 
 her head again. " Then he had the delirium, 
 and I could come and nurse him, and then
 
 2O8 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 came the brain fever, and after that he woke 
 up one morning just as clear as ever just 
 like his own self and he s been so ever since. 
 That s when we came home ; and, oh, it seemed 
 to me that I could just get down and kiss the 
 ground ! " 
 
 She held her work at arm s length and 
 winked at it until she could see it clearly. 
 
 " I don t know that I should say just his 
 old self," she began again ; " he s never been 
 the same, exactly. You know he used to be 
 quite bright." 
 
 I never had known it but I said I had. 
 
 " Well, I think he s getting clearer all the 
 time. He knew you at once, didn t he? " 
 
 " He spoke to me first," I hastened to say, 
 " before I recognized him." 
 
 " Yes, he came home and told me. He was 
 very proud of it. That s one reason why I was 
 so glad you came. He knows it, you know, 
 and it s such a gain when he feels sure of him 
 self." 
 
 I nursed my vanity for a while. Then Mrs. 
 Tom began once more, looking straight at me, 
 though her cheeks were flushed. 
 
 " Of course you ve noticed Her eyes 
 dropped, and she looked at her dress as though 
 she would have me look at it. " I m wearing 
 them out."
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 2CX) 
 
 I suppose my eyes were blankly inquisitive. 
 
 " They re the things I had then. I m wear 
 ing them out. It s a part of my penance. I 
 don t mean in a Roman Catholic way, you 
 know," she interpolated, with a look of shocked 
 affright in her eyes ; " I don t mean anything 
 of that sort, of course, but only oh, you can t 
 get away from what you ve done. And you 
 wouldn t believe it, but in that one month that 
 I was on my spree I had nineteen dresses 
 made, and had eleven more ordered, just to 
 have more than anybody else in that horrid 
 place. And then there were fourteen that I 
 had ordered from Paris. They came home at 
 Christmas, just the day before. That was my 
 only Christmas present that year and hadn t 
 I bought it myself ? Oh, I knew that then ! " 
 
 She had dropped her work and had folded 
 her hands in her lap. 
 
 " I don t know that I can make you under 
 stand why I wear those things," she said. " It s 
 like having a whip on my back, sometimes, to 
 get them on. I don t know why I m talking 
 to you like this, anyway, except that I never 
 have talked to any one. But, don t you see, 
 the children are growing up, and they ll know 
 all about it. Oh, I ve told them the older 
 ones but they don t understand. It doesn t 
 mean anything to them. They can t think 
 14
 
 2IO MRS. TOM S SPREE. 
 
 their mother ever did anything wrong. It s 
 like talking of original sin to them. But you 
 know they ll be out in the world that is, our 
 world here in a little while, and then it will 
 all be told to them, and you know how it will 
 be told you know just how they ll have to 
 hear it. And it s always seemed to me that if 
 they saw me in those clothes they d under 
 stand it that they wouldn t be so far away 
 from it that they d feel they knew about it, 
 and it was something that had come naturally 
 to them ; and they could forgive it, and say, 
 Poor mother, we don t mind that! And 
 they re so used to me so used to these things 
 I think they will. Don t you understand?" 
 
 The setting sun made the white walls pink. 
 I watched the warm light spreading. I had 
 looked once in Mrs. Tom s eyes, and I had 
 nothing to say. But soon she spoke again, in 
 a cheerful, hopeful voice. 
 
 " I ve worn them all almost out. When I 
 get to the end of them, I ll have my own things 
 again." 
 
 By and by the children came in once more. 
 The new cow had arrived, and papa was wait 
 ing for mamma in the lower pasture. We went 
 down, and joined with Tom in praising the 
 beautiful Jersey. I noticed that at every word 
 of critical praise he uttered he appealed to his
 
 MRS. TOM S SPREE. 211 
 
 wife, and that she confirmed his judgment in a 
 tone that was almost maternal. Even so might 
 a mother assent to her boy s simple guesses at 
 the use and meaning of the things about him. 
 
 As we left the pasture Tom took his wife s 
 hand to direct her attention to something in 
 the economy of the farm about which he asked 
 her advice. We went up the hill in the twi 
 light, and I lingered behind with the children, 
 and saw that he still kept hold of the tips of 
 her ringers, as they walked up the hill together. 
 ****** 
 
 Mrs. Tom is dead, or this tale would not be 
 told. But it is only a few years ago that she 
 died, and I think that she had time enough on 
 earth to wear out those cruel clothes, and to 
 sit a while with her husband and her children, 
 clad in such a soft gray gown as I saw her wear 
 once upon a time, with a white handkerchief 
 folded over a peaceful breast.
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 FHERE had been a heavy rain the night 
 before, and I was playing with sand and 
 water in the deep trench between the road and 
 the lower wall of my father s garden, and enjoy 
 ing it as much as a boy of eight years can 
 enjoy anything without the company of other 
 boys. A swift stream of clear water rushed 
 down this sandy gutter, and made for me a far- 
 western river, on whose bank I was construct 
 ing a fort to defy the hostile Indians. I had 
 selected a grassy promontory jutting out into 
 the stream, and had pulled all the grass out by 
 the roots and levelled the earth, and was begin 
 ning on my fortifications, when I observed with 
 alarm the dissolution of the point of my site, 
 which, no longer held together by the fibrous 
 grass roots, was rapidly turning into black mud 
 and going down the current in a cloud. 
 
 I tried to stem the flood with a flat stone set 
 on end ; but it would not stay on end, and I
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 21$ 
 
 was contemplating the necessity of a change of 
 base for my military operations, when the tip 
 of a thick walking-stick was thrust between my 
 face and the water, and I heard a tremulous, 
 eager old voice cry earnestly : 
 
 "Further up further up, my lad; there 
 there where you have it now set off the cur 
 rent ever so little. Ay, that s it ! Now build 
 your sea-wall good boy ! " 
 
 I obeyed him mechanically, and in a few sec 
 onds saw the stream swirl off from my point, 
 leaving it in a safe space of calm water. The 
 Indians on the other shore must have felt 
 gloomy forebodings. 
 
 I looked up. A tall, gaunt old gentleman, 
 with a Roman nose, and a delicate mouth with 
 deep wrinkles about it, as though he drew his 
 lips together a good deal, stood and looked 
 hard at the water. He did not look at me at 
 all ; but I looked hard at him at his sad old 
 face, his shabby brown broadcloth coat, the 
 great rusty black satin stock about his neck, 
 and his napless beaver hat with its rolling brim. 
 
 He stared at the water fora moment or two, 
 gave an odd sort of half-choked sigh, and passed 
 on his way. 
 
 That was the first time Squire Five-Fathom 
 spoke to me. 
 
 The town where I lived and fought Indians
 
 214 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 was called Gerrit s Gate. (For the benefit of a 
 generation that pronounces Coney Island and 
 Hoboken as they are spelled, that knows not 
 oelykoeks, and that desecrates suppawn by 
 calling it mush, let me say that Gerrit to the 
 eye is Garrit to the ear.) The story of Gerrit s 
 Gate is the story of Myndert Gerrit and his son, 
 the old gentleman who helped me in my civil- 
 engineering. 
 
 Myndert Gerrit came from Schenectady to 
 found the place. He was a rich man by inher 
 itance, and he had moreover inherited pride, 
 ambition, and a high temper a mental and 
 spiritual outfit which put him sadly out of place 
 in a conservative old midland town. I do not 
 know just what was his quarrel with Schenec 
 tady ; but I know he bought his square mile of 
 "military lots" on the shore of Lake Ontario 
 with the avowed intention of building up a 
 town that should be to Schenectady as a moun 
 tain to a hill and that should incidentally out 
 rival Rochester and Oswego. He said, and 
 indeed it seemed, that the finger of Heaven had 
 pointed out the place. 
 
 As he stood on the hill to the southwest of 
 his new purchase, Myndert Gerrit saw before 
 him three wooded promontories stretching out 
 into the lake Near Point to the east, Far Point 
 to the west, and Middle Point, shorter by half
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 21$ 
 
 than its neighbors, nestling between them, and 
 dividing a large bay into two snug harbors. 
 Middle Point must have been, centuries ago, 
 as long as the others, but it had been fighting 
 a slowly losing battle with the mighty current 
 from the west that swept inward from Far and 
 out again past the end of Near Point. This 
 current made entrance to the western harbor 
 difficult even dangerous ; but the eastern it 
 was an easier matter to reach, and, once in, the 
 largest ship on the lake could lie in safe water 
 while the northwester went by Far and Near 
 and the current hammered away at Middle, 
 making a poor foot a year out of the firm, root- 
 bound soil. And at the head of this little 
 haven the land lay in a low plateau, forming a 
 natural levee. 
 
 Here came Myndert Gerrit in 1822, with his 
 only son (he was a widower) and his whole 
 household, including ten free negroes, formerly 
 his slaves. The son was then a man of thirty, 
 unmarried, and devoted in all things to his fa 
 ther. They were constant companions, and, as 
 far as I could learn, they cared little for other 
 society. Gerrit reserved the high eastern 
 promontory for his own mansion. He laid the 
 foundation that year, while he and his people 
 lived in log cabins. During the summer he 
 surveyed the level land, and staked it out for
 
 2l6 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 streets. In the fall he went to New York, and 
 he returned the next spring, leading a caravan 
 of some twenty families, and bringing with him 
 the machinery for a saw-mill and a grist-mill. 
 It was a long and tiresome journey a great 
 labor of transportation ; but, by water and by 
 wagon, they made it in about a month. 
 
 Laborers came from neighboring villages (or 
 rather settlements), and ground was broken 
 without delay. They cut a good road running 
 two miles to the eastward, where it opened up 
 a branch of Gravelly River, which gave them 
 flat-boat navigation to the line of the Grand 
 Canal, as they called the Erie, at that time 
 within a year or two of completion. 
 
 The mansion on Near Point was finished in 
 September, and the two Gerrits went to live in 
 it. Standing at his west window late one after 
 noon, he looked out and saw a sight that filled 
 him with pride. Middle Point was shorn of 
 every tree, and bristled only with surveyor s 
 stakes. Only the great gaps in the earth showed 
 where the twisted roots had been, and these 
 were growing into larger holes, that marked the 
 sites of houses to be. Up in the streets back 
 of the levee a few light structures had already 
 arisen. Two or three temporary docks stretched 
 out into the quiet blue waters of the harbor. 
 Myndert Gerrit looked longest at Middle Point,
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 21 J 
 
 now a low table of land with water on both 
 sides. A street or what was to be a street 
 ran down its middle, from the water to where, 
 at the mainland, it joined the great road that 
 stretched away through the woods to the river 
 to the great world to trade and life and 
 fortune. 
 
 " Now," he said to his son, " my part is done. 
 I have made all ready for them. Now we may 
 begin to look for returns." 
 
 Ay, Myndert Gerrit, your part is done, and 
 it was done when you uprooted the first tree 
 and dug the first well on Middle Point. Look 
 from your window to-day in the red Fall sun 
 set, and see if you can, in your fancy, the town 
 of your love and hope. See the glister of 
 the evening sun on the low roofs of houses, 
 on steeple and spire rising serenely above 
 them. See it redden the chimneys of homes 
 and set its dazzling blaze in the window- 
 panes. Hear if you can, in your thought, the 
 sound of people moving about the streets, of 
 children s voices at play, of clanking anvils, 
 of horses feet on the roadways, of creaking 
 cordage and flapping canvas where your laden 
 ships lie at their docks with their white sails 
 emblazoned by the warm light of the west ! 
 See it hear it be glad of it in the pride of 
 your heart ; rejoice in the town in which you
 
 2l8 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 have sunk all your wealth and the heritage of 
 your son ! For when you wake to-morrow you 
 will awake from a dream, your returns shall be 
 water and the wind of the North ; your house 
 shall be taken from you, and in a little while you 
 shall have no part or lot in this home of your 
 own choosing save in six feet of earth above 
 your face. 
 
 That night Myndert Gerrit heard the north 
 wester come roaring down from the Canada 
 forests ; but he paid no heed to it. He had 
 heard it many a night before. It might knock 
 at his headland gates till it wearied, for all he 
 cared. 
 
 But the next morning at five o clock, his son, 
 looking pale and frightened, came to his bed 
 side, and told him he must go at once to the 
 town so they called it already. He dressed 
 himself and hastened to Middle Point, and there 
 he found all the townspeople gathered. They 
 stood in little knots, or wandered about trying 
 to make out the full extent of the damage. 
 Their faces were pale, and showed ghastly in the 
 gray and doubtful light. A chill of alarm and 
 apprehension had seized them. They looked 
 suspiciously and almost resentfully at the old 
 man and his son. What had these two men 
 brought them to ? 
 
 Myndert Gerrit saw his great mistake with
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 21$ 
 
 his eyes, but his heart at first refused to accept 
 the truth. He was like a man who sees death 
 for the first time, knows it is death, and yet 
 cannot make it real to his own mind that the 
 blood will no more flow in the cold veins, that 
 the heart shall not beat again, that breath and 
 life have gone out together. At first he went 
 about bravely, showing the people how a jetty 
 here, and a dyke there, and a sea-wall in a third 
 place would put all to rights; but even before 
 his hearers had seen that the remedy was far 
 beyond any means that they possessed, he him 
 self knew that the danger to come was not to 
 be met by any scheme of his devising. The 
 greater part of the Point was still there, but 
 fifty yards were gone from the farther end, and 
 the unprotected earth was still crumbling into 
 the turbid current. The cellars were full of 
 water, and along the western side deep gullies 
 ran up to the line of the main street. The 
 framework and foundation of the Point were 
 gone ; it was a mere bank of earth before that 
 violent and uncontrollable inland ocean. 
 
 When he saw this, he went back to his house 
 and locked himself in his room, and not even 
 his son saw him until the next day. Then he 
 appeared again, and tried, for a little, to save 
 the day by moving his settlement farther back. 
 But the panic was too strong for him ; the
 
 22O SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 people would have none of him or his settle 
 ment. Some of them were for going back to 
 their old homes ; but the most went over to 
 Far Point and bought land there, for Gerrit 
 paid back to every man what his land had cost 
 him. Then he took to his bed, and died on 
 New Year s day, leaving his son to straighten 
 out the tangle of his affairs. This task, prose 
 cuted with the sternest economy and industry, 
 occupied seven years. At the end of the seven 
 years, he had paid off every cent that his father 
 owed, and he himself was able to live on a 
 pitiful remainder of their great fortune, just 
 enough to pay for what little he ate and drank. 
 He lived rent free in one of the old cabins on 
 the level land. That marshy strip was his yet, 
 for no one cared to take it from him. 
 
 Middle Point was gone entirely. A low 
 earth bluff marked its landward end. The 
 water had crept up, urged by the current, that 
 now set far in, and out along Near Point ; and 
 a shallow inlet ran far up into what had been 
 the levee. On the edge of the inlet, among the 
 low trees and underbrush at the base of the high 
 point on which his father s house had stood, 
 old John Gerrit dwelt in his little log cabin, 
 that had once been the temporary shelter of 
 his father s negroes. He was fifty years old 
 when the sad work of his life was done ; and
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 221 
 
 knowing of no other work for himself, having 
 no other aim in life, he sat himself down to 
 live life out without troubling his neighbors. 
 ****** 
 
 A quarter of a century passed between the 
 wreck of the Gerrit fortunes and the days when 
 I first saw the old man, who had once been the 
 young man of the house, walking about the 
 streets of Gerrit s Gate in those unaccountable 
 rusty clothes of his, which, though he changed 
 them often enough, never looked new or fresh. 
 Gerrit s Gate, in the meanwhile, had thriven, 
 after a fashion, in the very teeth of fortune, 
 and in spite of being settled upon the site de 
 spised of Myndert Gerrit. In my boyhood it 
 had a couple of grain-elevators (which changed 
 hands every year or so), a steam saw-mill, a 
 lumber-yard, and a patent-medicine factory. 
 It had old residents and new residents, a con 
 servative party and a progressive party. Need 
 I say that the progressive party was divided 
 from its opponents on the question of getting 
 such an appropriation from Congress as would 
 stimulate the town s consumptive prosperity 
 with the glow of commercial health, and make 
 her the metropolis of the northern lakes ? 
 
 What I have here set down of John Gerrit s 
 early history I gathered in part from my father, 
 in part from John Gerrit himself. But it was
 
 222 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 not until after the old man s death that I learned 
 why the old folks of the town called him Squire 
 Five-Fathom. It seemed, an old lake sailor 
 told me, that the water off the end of what had 
 been Middle Point stood just thirty feet deep, 
 and the ridge of rock that had formed the 
 Point s foundation was marked " Five-Fathom 
 Point " on old charts marked as a dangerous 
 spot, where the current had seized more than 
 one storm-driven ship and cast her against the 
 stony shore. 
 
 But what I had heard was quite enough to 
 fire a boy s imagination ; and, from the day he 
 first spoke to me, Squire Five-Fathom was to 
 me a figure of romance and mystery who got 
 tangled up in my dreams with Old Mortality, 
 and Robinson Crusoe, and Ethan Brand I had 
 no " Jack Popaways " or " Young Gold Coiners " 
 to read about in my lone provincial youth. I 
 stood at the gate to watch him as he went 
 past the house every morning toward the town, 
 on the pitiful little errands of his commissary. 
 How long he made those errands how 
 much ground he contrived them to cover ! 
 Many a time, in later years, I have seen him 
 going from shop to shop, and even wandering 
 in search of street stands, that he might buy 
 the one apple that seemed to him best worth a 
 " penny."
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 22$ 
 
 Thus I worshipped for a long time, in silence 
 and at a distance. Then came a dull, cloudy 
 summer Saturday afternoon, when my parents 
 went to Catullus Corners, a town some miles 
 down our little branch railroad, for the funeral 
 of some aunt or cousin, and I was left alone, 
 in charge of an Irish handmaiden, who pres 
 ently swore me to secrecy and herself went off 
 to a christening. She told me, as she departed, 
 that if I stirred " off the block " my usual 
 limits of solitary excursion, set by paternal 
 decree the banshee of the family would catch 
 me. But, ah ! I was beyond the day of faith 
 in the banshee, and the Celtic wraith had no 
 terrors for me. I hung awhile on the gate, 
 watting for some wandering boy that I might 
 lure him in to play with me ; but no boy came. 
 As I look back now, it seems to me that boys 
 must have been very scarce at Gerrit s Gate. 
 Perhaps they were all fishing on that day, for 
 it was cloudy and still. All I know is, they 
 came not. I looked up and down the road. I 
 walked to the east corner and back, and then 
 to the west corner, and then temptation seized 
 me. It was only a couple of hundred yards 
 down the dusty high-road to the head of the 
 lane that led down to the inlet. There, in the 
 mysterious, enchanting thickets by the water s 
 edge, lay the dwelling of the one human being
 
 224 SQUIRE FIFE-FATHOM. 
 
 of my acquaintance who looked as though he 
 had come out of one of those books which 
 were far more real to me then than real life. 
 
 Far off, the clock in our kitchen struck three. 
 Three long hours before my father and mother 
 should return ! Three long hours of a lonely 
 summer afternoon, and only a feeble and in 
 adequate conscience of eight years growth 
 to stiffen my moral backbone and nerve me to 
 heroism and renunciation ! One stray mo 
 mentary glimmer of sunlight flashed through 
 the clouds, and lit up the leafy entrance to the 
 lane. 
 
 Three minutes later I was running down 
 that bough-roofed avenue, my pace gradually 
 slowing, for the gleam of sunlight was gone, 
 and it was dismally dim under the trees. But 
 the delicious thrill of illicit adventure was in all 
 my small body, and by and by I was out of the 
 dim shade and on the broad, open path that 
 the pot-hunters had trodden all around the 
 inlet. Then I saw below me its shallow reaches 
 of water, paved with round stones, and bor 
 dered with bushes. Then, almost before I 
 knew where I was, the log cabin lay right 
 under my feet, between the path and the edge 
 of the inlet. 
 
 There were bushes all about it, except for a 
 little space in front. A mountain-ash at one
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 22$ 
 
 end towered above it, and tossed high in the 
 air its bunches of reddening berries. In my 
 memory of that guilty hour, the smell of the 
 mountain-ash is stronger than the picture of 
 the dark cabin, the dull sky, and, to the north 
 ward, the gray, uneasy lake, restless even in 
 that heavy, storm-breeding calm. 
 
 I stole cautiously down into the little clear 
 ing, and viewed my field of exploration. 
 Smoke rose from the chimney ; a smell of 
 broth on the fire overcame the rank, raw smell 
 of the ash-berries. I was too deeply steeped 
 in crime to attempt to resist an irrational im 
 pulse which came over me, and I walked up to 
 the door and knocked loudly. Then I stood 
 there with my heart beating hard, like a re 
 peated echo of my knock. Would he come to 
 the door ? What would he say ? What should 
 I say? Would he speak pleasantly to me? 
 Would he talk to me of his strange history? 
 Should we stray into delightful confidences? 
 Could I trust him with certain speculations 
 which I had long nursed concerning the treas 
 ures of Captain Kidd? What was before me 
 the magic vista of romance, or the bitter 
 ignominy of a snub ? 
 
 The door opened, and the tall figure of 
 Squire Five-Fathom leaned over me. Be 
 tween his legs I saw the fire on the cabin 
 15
 
 226 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 hearth. All else was a smoky darkness. He 
 looked down at me, and his great dark eyes 
 stared, startled, questioning, out of their deep 
 sockets. My hand was in all human probabil 
 ity the first that had knocked at his door in a 
 quarter of a century. Even the tax-collector 
 left him alone. 
 
 "What do you want, little boy?" he asked, 
 in a voice that seemed to come from the 
 ground underneath him. 
 
 Inwardly I was something dashed, but the 
 spirit of my impulse was not to be overcome. 
 
 " I have come to call," I said, and I said it 
 firmly. 
 
 His eyes, still troubled with the wonder of 
 lonely old age at any unusual thing, looked me 
 all over. Slowly he seemed to comprehend 
 that I was but a natural, mortal boy. His 
 voice had lost its startled tone of depth and 
 had come back to the quaver of old age when 
 he spoke again, asking my name. I gave it, 
 and he repeated it in an accent of recognition 
 mixed with reserve, which I noted at the time 
 without understanding it at all. But I have 
 not forgotten that delicate inflection, and I 
 know now that my grandfather and his father 
 were warm friends, and that their sons knew 
 each other only by name. 
 
 However, if Squire Five-Fathom remem-
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 22/ 
 
 bered anything of this sort, he checked his 
 memory suddenly, for he drew back with a 
 courteous bow, invited me to enter, and asked 
 me to be seated with a grace so fine and stately 
 that before I had put myself on a low old-fash 
 ioned chair I had forgotten that I had ever 
 been addressed as a " little boy." 
 
 While I talked with the Squire I looked 
 furtively around the cabin. I saw first the 
 great fireplace of logs and flat stones, where 
 was a crane from which a pot hung simmering 
 over a light wood fire. Then my eyes rose 
 above the high mantel-shelf, and saw the old 
 flint-lock shot-gun that had been Myndert 
 Gerrit s, hanging on its hooks. Then, bit by 
 bit, out of the dull gloom of the place, I picked 
 the strange appointments of the last home of 
 the Gerrits. Odd bits of make-shift fishing- 
 tackle were all about ; some nets hung on the 
 wall over a mahogany sideboard with great 
 claw-feet, on the top of which stood a brush 
 and comb and a poor little square of looking- 
 glass. Opposite these things a pair of oars, 
 wound with twine to cover many breaks, 
 leaned against a lady s work-stand, with its 
 faded green silk bag all in shreds and tatters. 
 
 Two miniatures, rimmed with thin bands of 
 gold, hung over the Squire s bed, which was a 
 hospital cot. The white spread was clean,
 
 228 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 but there were holes in it, and the edges were 
 frayed. On this bed the Squire sat down, 
 by the side of a heap of old clothes. We 
 looked shyly at each other for nearly a minute 
 before we began a formal and elegant con 
 versation. 
 
 " It was very kind of you to call very kind 
 indeed," said the Squire ; " but unexpected 
 quite unexpected." 
 
 "Yes, sir," I replied, in all sincerity ; "it was 
 very unexpected indeed. I only made up my 
 mind when I heard the clock strike three." 
 
 The Squire looked puzzled. 
 
 " Do you do you make many calls ? " he 
 inquired. 
 
 " No, sir," I replied. Then, after reflection 
 and self-examination, I added : " I think this 
 is the first one I ever made." 
 
 The Squire somehow brightened up at 
 this. 
 
 " I make very few calls myself," he said ; 
 " ve-ry few. In fact," he continued, in a burst 
 of confidence like my own, " I don t think I ve 
 made a call in twenty-five years twen-ty-five 
 years ! " 
 
 He had a habit of repeating words, by way 
 of giving a gentle emphasis to his speech. That 
 is a trick that rather belongs to old ladies than 
 to old men. He had, in truth, something of
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 2 29 
 
 an old lady s manner of talking, with an occa 
 sional hesitancy as though he were not much 
 in the way of using his tongue. 
 
 " It must be lonely for you, sir," I ventured. 
 
 " Lonely ! " he repeated, in surprise, " why, 
 no ! Oh, dear me, not at all." Then he re 
 flected. " Perhaps it is, though. I am not 
 sure but that you are right. Yes, I suppose 
 it is lonely. I had not thought of it, how 
 ever." 
 
 He mused over this new idea for some mo 
 ments. 
 
 "You see," he began again, "one has so 
 much to think of so many things to think of, 
 that there is really no time to think of being 
 lonely aha ! " he laughed a crackling, pleased 
 little laugh " d ye see ? no time to think of it 
 -aha ! " 
 
 He smiled over his little ghost of a joke, and 
 I laughed too, for I saw he expected it. That 
 broke the ice, and we became more friendly. 
 
 "Why," he said, "there s many a night 
 many and many a night when I don t get to 
 bed before half-past eight or nine. But then, 
 you know, I lie awake a good deal, in the 
 course of the night thinking, too. I suppose 
 that s what keeps me awake. It s wonderful 
 what a deal of thinking there is in this life." 
 
 He stopped to think over this, and I hastily
 
 230 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 took up the conversation, lest he should give 
 over talking altogether. 
 
 " I suppose, sir," I said, " you are a great 
 sportsman? " and I glanced at the gun on the 
 wall. 
 
 "Oh, no ! " he returned hastily, " I was fond 
 of my gun, at one time ; but I have lost the 
 fancy. I have so much else to do Here 
 his hand wandered involuntarily to the heap 
 of clothes by his side then it went quickly 
 back to his lap. (I thought he colored faintly.) 
 He looked at me and then at the clothes in 
 irresolute hesitation, and at last said anxiously : 
 
 " Would it disturb you if I were to continue 
 my work? It need not interrupt our conversa 
 tion in the least, I assure you." 
 
 " Oh, please don t stop for me, sir," I cried, 
 much shocked at the idea. (It is within the 
 memory of the present generation that it was 
 once held improper for little boys to disturb 
 the occupations of their elders.) 
 
 " Thank you," he said gravely, and, lifting 
 a faded coat from the heap, he laid it across 
 his lap, and began sewing a worn velvet collar 
 upon it. 
 
 " I must have it ready for Sunday," he said ; 
 " pray converse." 
 
 I stared at him and forgot my manners. 
 
 " Is it your coat, sir? " I asked.
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 2$l 
 
 " It was my father s coat," he replied ; " but 
 I have cut it over for myself, and it fits me 
 very well very well indeed." 
 
 Every child is something of a snob, and I do 
 not think we can fairly blame the child. We 
 must consider that he has only material stand 
 ards of comparison ; that a fine coat is to him 
 clearly and naturally an object of admiration, 
 while it may take a lifetime to learn the beauty 
 of an ethical virtue ; that, moreover, he is, by 
 the necessity of his condition, a dependent, a 
 pauper, who has not yet worked for his free 
 dom and his self-respect. I felt ashamed of 
 my hero--when I saw him making over his 
 father s old clothes for himself. 
 
 But he was unconscious of my secret con 
 demnation, and he went on cheerfully : 
 
 " I should prefer to patronize the tailor in the 
 town the little tailor from Germany, I mean. 
 He is a worthy man, and it is our duty, of 
 course, to encourage the industries of the 
 place. But my income, owing to circumstances 
 which occurred very long ago very long ago 
 is limited, yes, quite limited." 
 
 Whatever I may have felt in my small secret 
 heart, I was mannerly enough to keep it to 
 myself, and even to feign an interest in the old 
 gentleman s confidences; for he went on to tell 
 me with some pride of his achievements in tail-
 
 232 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 oring, and of the almost inexhaustible stock of 
 garments which his father had left behind him 
 garments, he assured me, much finer in fab 
 ric and workmanship than anything that later 
 days could produce. The interest at last be 
 came real, in spite of myself, and although I 
 felt that my sympathies were low and repre 
 hensible, when the Squire (with grave apologies 
 for the informality of the act) took off his old 
 coat and tried on -his new-old coat, I helped 
 him with conscientious criticism on the set of 
 the back and the fulness of the skirts. 
 
 We got to be quite easy and friendly with aH 
 this, and when we heard a knock at the door 
 I hastened to save my host the trouble of 
 opening it. 
 
 " It s only an Indian, sir," I reported, with 
 easy contempt. 
 
 This may sound like a startling announce 
 ment ; but it was no painted brave who stood 
 before me. It was only a very old Reservation 
 Indian, hideous and wrinkled. Yet he was no 
 darker, no more coarse of hair, and but little 
 dirtier than any one of the French Canadians 
 who lived on the outskirts of the town. I knew 
 him for an Indian only by his high cheek-bones 
 and his tall hat. I regarded him with scornful 
 disgust ; but it was only because I conceived 
 that to be the feeling which an American boy
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 233 
 
 ought to bear toward a colored person who 
 could not speak English, and who lived by 
 selling baskets and feather fans and bunches of 
 Seneca grass. 
 
 " It s Abe," said the Squire. " Come in, 
 Abe." 
 
 Abe came in, thrust an empty basket, into 
 the Squire s hand, and stood still and silent 
 regarding me. One of his eyes was wholly 
 blinded by a cataract ; the other, as if it were 
 uncomfortably conscious of having to do double 
 duty, rolled about in a grewsome way. With 
 this eye Abe examined me, and there was no 
 friendship in his look. 
 
 The Squire took the basket and put into it 
 some packages which he took from a corner 
 cupboard, talking all the while in a tone of 
 cheery affability, of which I thoroughly disap 
 proved. The Indian responded only by half- 
 audible grunts, which might have meant either 
 Yes or No. 
 
 "Ah, Abe," said the old gentleman; "and 
 how is Abe to-night ? How is the back, Abe ? 
 Did you have any difficulty in rinding your way ? 
 It s getting dark." (I had noted this as I opened 
 the door, and I had a twinge of conscience.) 
 " Here s the bacon, Abe, and the beans, and the 
 tea ; but I can t let you have more than a quar 
 ter of a pound you ll have to put catnip with
 
 234 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 it. And you have a little sugar left, have you 
 not? ah, yes, a little sugar left. Well, that 
 will have to do for the present, till better times 
 come, Abe." 
 
 Then, with a kindly pat on the back, Abe 
 was dismissed ; but on the threshold he paused 
 and turned to say : 
 
 " Um biddle new house this side town." 
 
 "Yes, yes, Abe," said the Squire, with a 
 smile on his lips and a sad look in his eyes, 
 " it ll come, it ll come. They will recognize 
 our advantages some day, never fear." 
 
 And Abe vanished into the stormy twilight 
 that was fast settling down. 
 
 " Abe was my body-servant when I was 
 when I was a young man," said the Squire. 
 " He taught me to shoot yes, to ride and to 
 swim. We were great friends, Abe and I. 
 And now he is old and half blind, I I we 
 help each other along yes, help each other 
 along." 
 
 I had taken my hat to go, but the Squire 
 did not notice me. He had gone to the fire, 
 where he lifted the lid of the pot to glance at 
 its contents. Then he sat down on the low 
 chair I had just quitted, and talked, half to me, 
 half to himself. At first he recalled the days 
 of his hunting and fishing with Abe, and lin 
 gered over their common scrapes and adven-
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 235 
 
 tures. Then he began to speak of his father 
 in a lower tone, almost reverential in its 
 fondness and at last he began the story of 
 the wreck of the old man s great ambition. 
 I stood with my hat in my hand, ready to 
 take my leave ; but I could no more have 
 gone home than if I had stood on Robinson 
 Crusoe s island, and looked over his shoulder 
 at the footprint on the sand. I heard the pat 
 ter of the first rain-drops on the one window 
 ot the cabin, and the growling of the distant 
 thunder ; I heard the full rush of the summer 
 storm break upon us, and the rain pouring 
 gusty torrents upon the roof; but I stayed and 
 listened and forgot all things, for my excited 
 spirit was back in Myndert Gerrit s world, in 
 Myndert Gerrit s generation. 
 
 ****** 
 
 " But it will all come back some day," he 
 said, as he made an end of the story; "some 
 day Congress will recognize the vast import 
 ance of this location, and build the pier we 
 have asked for. And then it will be only a 
 question of time only a question of time till 
 they enclose the whole harbor. And then 
 and then which is the better site I ask you 
 on your honor, sir, on your honor as a gentle 
 man, which is the better this, or that?" 
 
 He stretched out his long right arm and
 
 236 SQUIRE FIFE-FATHOM. 
 
 pointed to the new town, with an infinite con 
 tempt on his fine old face. His eyes glowed ; 
 his voice had grown deep and hollow and firm 
 once more. 
 
 " Some day we shall get the appropria 
 tion 
 
 " But we ve got it now," I broke in, speaking 
 for the first time. 
 
 " What what do you mean, sir? " 
 
 " We got the appropriation yesterday. I 
 heard father say so last night I mean, Mr. 
 Tappan told father." 
 
 He caught at the sleeve of my coat with his 
 bony fingers. 
 
 " What do you say, sir? Say it again, sir ! " 
 
 " I heard Mr. Tappan tell father that we got 
 the appropriation yesterday yes, and he said 
 something about three hundred thousand dol 
 lars, too," I asserted with vigor. 
 
 "Tappan, "he said; " they ought to know. 
 You aren t mistaken ? Say it again ! " 
 
 His voice had now grown tremulous. He 
 was standing erect, trembling with an excite 
 ment that frightened me. As well as I could, 
 I repeated the brief conversation between the 
 mayor of the town and my father. He heard 
 me through, I thought, though his eyes glared 
 straight ahead, as though he heard some dis 
 tant sound. Then, when I ceased, he turned
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 away from me and fell on his knees by the side 
 
 of the bed, burying his face in his faded coat 
 
 #**### 
 
 He knelt there so long that I was frightened, 
 and after awhile I touched him gently on the 
 shoulder. He arose with a start, and I saw 
 that he hardly knew where he was. Then his 
 look fell upon me, and an expression of com 
 punction came over his face. 
 
 " My poor boy," he said, " I have been 
 shamefully careless shamefully careless. You 
 should have been at home long ago. How 
 have I treated the messenger of good tidings ! " 
 He smiled again, and this time not only with 
 his lips. There was a light in his eyes that 
 almost made me think him young. 
 
 " You cannot go home by yourself," he said ; 
 "you must let me go with you." With this 
 he bustled about and brought from a corner 
 a great mohair cloak with a cape to it. The 
 cape he took off and fastened over my should 
 ers. Then he put on the cloak, and we set 
 forth. 
 
 " I would ask you to stay and sup with me," 
 he said, " but I fear your parents might be 
 anxious : so we will postpone that pleasure 
 we will postpone it." 
 
 As we walked along, he held my hand, and 
 occasionally patted it gently. He kept his
 
 238 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 face lifted somewhat toward the sky, although 
 the rain beat on it. I thought it must be 
 unpleasant for him ; but when he glanced 
 down at me I saw that he was smiling. 
 
 We came soon to the dark lane, and here he 
 gently insisted upon carrying me. I made 
 some protest ; but he lifted me up, and I felt 
 the muscles of his arm like a bar of iron under 
 my thighs. His tall figure swayed a trifle ; 
 but he set a firm foot upon the slippery ground 
 under the trees, and in a little while we were 
 in the high-road. I got down then, and we 
 walked together to my father s door. My 
 heart was beating hard harder than when I 
 set out. 
 
 I am afraid it would have gone hard with 
 me, for it was past six, and the maid was dis 
 charged, and my mother wellnigh in hysterics, 
 and my father just setting out with a lantern 
 .to call the neighbors, when we arrived. But 
 the Squire took so much blame upon himself, 
 and pleaded for me with such courtly and gen 
 tle grace, that my parents contented themselves 
 with harrowing my feelings, which were sore 
 enough already, and so, when my mother and 
 I had wept enough, I was forgiven, and the 
 Squire went back down the dark highway. He 
 would not be persuaded to stay to supper. 
 " His own was waiting," he said. Perhaps he
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 239 
 
 found in his thoughts better company than we 
 could offer him. 
 
 That evening I told my tale, and it excited 
 interest enough to satisfy even a boy. When 
 I came to the part about the tailoring, my 
 mother drew in her breath as though she were 
 in pain. 
 
 " Oh," she cried, " I wish we could do some 
 thing for him ; but I suppose 
 
 My father shook his head. 
 
 " We could only wound him." 
 
 The comments of my parents on the whole 
 story cleared my infant mind of one set of 
 snobbish ideas, and I perceived that even old 
 coats and Indians were entitled to respectful 
 consideration from a white American boy who 
 was still walking around in the clothes his 
 parents had bought for him. 
 
 Nor was it long before Abe and I were 
 friends. This friendship came as a corollary 
 to my greater friendship for his patron. I was 
 allowed to visit the Squire at all proper times 
 and seasons, and there grew up between us a 
 strong attachment. This association was of 
 infinite value to me, and I humbly trust that 
 it brought some pleasure into the dear old 
 gentleman s life. It certainly drew him some 
 what nearer to his fellow-men. On dark even 
 ings he would walk home with me, and stay to
 
 240 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 chat with my father for a half-hour. Never 
 could he be prevailed upon to share our even 
 ing meal, save on a formal invitation delivered 
 the day before. Then he would come in his 
 best black satin stock and his favorite coat, and 
 would hand my mother into the dining-room 
 with pomp and circumstance. 
 
 On one of these occasions we had a Distin 
 guished Guest, a Travelled Celebrity at the 
 house, who fell in love with the Squire s sweet 
 and simple courtliness. " Madam," said the 
 Celebrity to my mother, after Mr. Gerrit was 
 gone, " I need no inducement to avail myself 
 of the chance of accepting yoiir hospitality ; 
 but were I invited to meet that gentleman who 
 has just left, in the hovel of a Pawnee Indian, 
 I would come, if I had to come from the Cape 
 of Good Hope." This praise of my idol so 
 filled my boyish heart that I lay awake half the 
 night thinking of it. 
 
 As the years went on, the Squire and Abe 
 took me into their united lives, and we formed 
 a triple alliance. Poor Abe s part in this was 
 but small. He lived on the Squire s slender 
 bounty, and the only "help " he could give in 
 return was a lively sympathy with his bene 
 factor s ambition. Of this he knew more than 
 I had thought possible. As I grew older, and 
 acquired an intelligent comprehension of the
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 241 
 
 hope that was the old Squire s life, I found 
 that Abe had concentrated all the mental pow 
 ers he possessed on that one subject. 
 
 When I was fourteen, the great pier was 
 nearing completion. It ran northeastward from 
 Far Point, and was to be supplemented by a 
 similar structure extending due north from 
 the eastward end of the town. From the 
 mouth of the inlet we watched its daily growth, 
 expectant of an end unforeseen by the build 
 ers. 
 
 It was the first warm day in June, and the 
 three of us sat on the shore. Abe, with his 
 head cocked on one side, so as to bring his 
 work within the range of his good eye, was 
 making a fleet of toy ships out of the chips 
 washed to our beach from the distant lumber 
 yard. We watched him intently. 
 
 He launched eleven ships, and was setting 
 the twelfth in the water when, of a sudden, he 
 turned his one eye toward the lake, and with 
 his trembling thin brown fingers pointed to a 
 stake set amid heavy stones a hundred feet 
 from the shore. There the first ship of his 
 fleet danced in the breeze danced out to the 
 stake beyond it into how many feet of 
 smooth water I know not ; for it had not gone 
 two yards before the Squire was laughing and 
 
 crying at once, I was shouting with all the 
 16
 
 242 SQUIRE F1VE-FATPIOM. 
 
 strength of my lungs, and even the old Indian 
 had raised his stiff arms above his head, and 
 stood swaying them from side to side, thank 
 ing his Indian god after his Indian fashion. 
 
 The great pier on Far Point had crawled out 
 till it stemmed the current and turned it off 
 from the shore. With every stone that should 
 be laid, with every day s work, that terrible 
 stream would be forced further and further 
 out further and further away from our level 
 shore. Our day had come. 
 
 The engineers had builded better than they 
 knew. The old Gerrit site had been such a 
 thing of tradition, such a futile memory of the 
 past, that it had been left out of the towns 
 people s calculations, and no one, save the 
 Squire, had considered that the removal of 
 the current from its low shore must bring it 
 once more into usefulness. But Gerrit s site 
 spoke for itself. The pier crawled out fifty 
 feet farther that summer, and the water in 
 the inlet began to sink. No longer fed by the 
 resistless current, it fell away in scattered pools. 
 In September I walked dry-shod where I had 
 waded ankle-deep in June. 
 
 " Our time has come," the Squire said, his 
 face beaming; " we ll buy the old house back, 
 and when you come to pass the night with me, 
 my boy, remember that your room is the little
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 243 
 
 one over the front entry you won t forget 
 eh ? you won t forget ? " 
 
 It was true enough. Something that looked 
 like fortune lay close ahead. The ship-captains 
 brought the news of the shifted channel ; the 
 towns-folk came out to look at " the flats 
 a-dryin up ; " hard-featured men of business 
 discussed the ways and means of draining and 
 filling in. By September there was no talk of 
 building the second pier between the Squire s 
 land and Gerrit s Gate : it was to go westward 
 from the extremity of Near Point, and there 
 was to be a Gerrit s Gate in very deed between 
 the two breakwaters, wherethrough Prosperity 
 should come from the North, scattering plenty 
 from full hands. 
 
 Of course the lands should have been sold 
 for taxes, over and over again ; the Squire had 
 but the simplest notions of business, and alto 
 gether he would have reaped little good of his 
 fortune had not my father and a few of the 
 older residents made a friendly league to pro 
 tect him. He was deeply grateful to them, 
 although he had not the slightest comprehen 
 sion of what they did for him. They secured 
 his property to him, and he sold his first lot in 
 October, and marked it off on his father s map. 
 He would recognize no later survey. 
 
 He sold one or two more lots, and then the
 
 244 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 sale stopped. Nobody was willing to invest 
 money where it could only lie idle until the 
 completion of the harbor-works gave the new 
 port a positive value. This grieved the old 
 gentleman s soul. He had begun to look upon 
 his father s old house as his own ; it seemed a 
 hardship to be kept out of it another year just 
 for the want of a few beggarly thousands of 
 ready money. That was all that he needed. 
 The present owner was ready and willing to 
 sell. He was a prosperous Westerner, who 
 had brought an ailing wife to Gerrit s Gate in 
 the hope that the strong lake winds might 
 strengthen her. They had, however, availed 
 only to keep her within doors and make her 
 fretful. Mr. Garbutt, for himself, was dis 
 gusted with the whole town. He despised its 
 petty hopes, he laughed at its modest future ; 
 he called it old-fashioned and behind-the-times, 
 and he openly expressed his desire to sell out 
 at cost and go to some region where, as he 
 expressed it, things was alive. 
 
 Fifteen thousand dollars would buy the 
 whole Point, and the Squire made several 
 attempts to get this money at a ruinous sacri 
 fice. The friends who had saved him before 
 stepped in and drove off the sharpers who 
 would have taken advantage of him, and for 
 the first time I saw the old man bitterly and
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 245 
 
 unjustly angry. He was kept out of his house, 
 he cried why were they keeping him out of 
 his house ? 
 
 By November the Squire had become so 
 fretful and unreasonable that his friends de 
 cided upon raising the money for him at their 
 own risk. This took some time. Money was 
 not plentiful in the town, and it was hard to 
 negotiate a loan that must wait a year or 
 eighteen months for its interest and arrears of 
 interest. During the week required for this 
 piece of financiering, I was deputed to keep 
 an eye on my old friend, and I passed most of 
 my time, out of school-hours, in the little cabin 
 which the Squire had declared he would not 
 quit until he took possession of his father s 
 house. 
 
 The last day of my watch I went to the 
 post of duty with a heart less light than usual. 
 For two days the old gentleman had been 
 silent, dull, and depressed. I wished the finan 
 ciers would hurry up, and let the Squire and 
 me be happy and cheerful once more. 
 
 I was surprised to find the Squire cheerful, 
 even gay. His depression had vanished. Had 
 I been a little older I might have suspected 
 the feverish excitement that had taken its 
 place ; being only a boy, I accepted it grate 
 fully, and we set about cooking our supper.
 
 246 SQUIXE FIVE-FATHOM, 
 
 We had royal suppers nowadays. There was 
 a hot, peppery fish-chowder that the Squire 
 alone could make, a great slice of smoked eel 
 broiled to a rich golden brown, and baked 
 potatoes the best in the world baked in 
 the ashes. And new cider to wash it all 
 down ! 
 
 But though all was good, and I ate as a 
 healthy boy should eat, the Squire hardly 
 touched his food, and seemed to be in haste 
 to make an end of the meal. When it was 
 done, he changed his every-day coat for his 
 best the same old best coat and took down 
 his great cloak from its hook. 
 
 " Come, my boy," he said excitedly ; " come 
 with me ! I ve triumphed at last at last at 
 last ! " 
 
 " What do you mean, sir ? " I asked. 
 
 " I ve got the money," he shouted, almost 
 like a madman. " They ll keep me out of my 
 own house no longer. I ve got the money. I 
 sold the water-front to-day, my boy, and I ve 
 got the money, here, here, here ! " and he 
 slapped his breast-pocket with his trembling 
 old hand. 
 
 " Sold the water-front ? " I cried. " Oh, 
 sir 
 
 " Never mind, never mind," he said, frown 
 ing ; " there s more there are acres and acres.
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 247 
 
 And what do I care for it all ? I ll have my 
 father s house this night this night. You 
 hear me, sir ! " 
 
 I loved him well, but I was only a boy, and 
 I had neither the wit nor the strength to com 
 bat his resolution. I felt that my father should 
 be sent for, but I knew that I could not find 
 him in time to be of service. The Squire was 
 determined to go to Mr. Garbutt that night 
 and buy the house. I spoke of necessary 
 papers, but he would have none of them. 
 What did he care for papers ? Let the law 
 yers see to the papers in their own good time. 
 That was their work. He would pay his money, 
 and own his house. He could not sleep in it ; 
 but he would sleep owning it. 
 
 The northwest gale was a tempest when we 
 started up the hill. It was hard work to fight 
 our way across its path ; and the booming of 
 the great waves far off at the end of the Point 
 frightened me, long as I had known that dreary 
 sound. 
 
 When the great door of the house opened 
 for us, and we stepped into the broad entrance 
 hall, we were breathing hard I from exhaus 
 tion ; he, I verily believe, from sheer excite 
 ment. He looked about him with a wild, 
 uncertain stare. Perhaps, for the moment, he 
 thought it was a dream. Then he grasped my
 
 248 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 hand firmly, and stalked ahead of the servant 
 into the drawing-room, avast apartment where 
 Mr. Garbutt sat in his velvet smoking-jacket, 
 grand and lonely. 
 
 In Mr. Garbutt I found a friend. He was 
 short, he was fat, he was vulgar in every stitch 
 of his clothing; but he had brains in his big 
 bald head, and a heart sound as the diamond 
 on his breast. The Squire stated his errand, 
 struggling between dignity and impetuosity, 
 and Mr. Garbutt listened, at first in astonish 
 ment, and then with a quick understanding of 
 the situation, which he promptly conveyed to 
 me by a quick, significant twist of one eyelid. 
 It was not even a wink ; but I knew that he 
 understood. When the Squire ended, he rose 
 politely. 
 
 " Set down, Mr. Gerrit," he said ; " set down, 
 sir. We folks out West do business putty 
 lively, but we ain t got to your style of speed 
 yet. This thing ain t to be done quite so 
 quick." 
 
 The Squire forced himself to sit down. 
 
 "It must be done to-night, Mr. Garbutt," he 
 began. 
 
 " It ll be done to-night," said Mr. Garbutt, 
 reassuringly; "but it s got to be done busi 
 ness-like. I can t give you a deed 
 
 " Your word, your word, Mr. Garbutt," cried
 
 SQUIKE FIVE-FATHOM. 249 
 
 the Squire; "your word is quite enough for 
 me ! " 
 
 " Ef I sh d die "to-night," said Mr. Garbutt, 
 impressively, " my word ain t wuth shucks to 
 my executors, without papers to back it. 1 
 know them, n you don t. Now, you jest dror 
 up to that little desk there, an you write me a 
 little sort of a letter, makin me an offer for the 
 prop ty, an I ll write a letter acceptin your 
 offer. Then I can stow your money away n feel 
 that all s business-like n right. Mow s that? " 
 
 The Squire sat down at the gaudy little desk 
 and tried to write ; but his hand trembled so 
 that what he wrote (I have the sheet now) was 
 but a tremulous scrawl that no man could read. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Garbutt was addressing me 
 in my capacity of guardian. 
 
 " Know your pa, don t I ? " he said. " You 
 kinder look after the old man, eh ? Got sorter 
 crazy on this business, ain t he ? Well, you 
 tell your pa that I ll lock the old man s money 
 up safe for the night, an he can call n get it 
 when he wants to. Oughter have some one 
 appointed to take charge of him. Heard he 
 sold out his whole water-front to-day to them 
 swindlin speculators from Buffalo. Well, I ll 
 fix him up somehow to-night, and quiet him 
 down a bit. Can you git him home ? " 
 
 Mr. Garbutt kept his promise, and he man-
 
 25O SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 aged matters with a skill at which I marvel as 
 I look back upon it. When the Squire had 
 finished his poor pretence of writing, the West 
 erner took the scrawled sheet, made an effect 
 ive pretence of reading it slowly and critically, 
 and then sat down at the desk and wrote a 
 business-like acceptance, which he made me 
 read after the Squire had looked at it. He 
 examined the drafts which the Squire tendered 
 him, and laid them away in a gorgeously be 
 dizened safe in the wall. 
 
 " There," he said, " that s settled. Posses 
 sion in May, as per my letter. But if you 
 don t conclude to close, Mr. Gerrit, it ain t no 
 more than an option. Suit yourself. Any 
 ways, we ll wet the transaction." 
 
 He rang for a servant, and had a decanter 
 of sherry and three heavy cut-glasses set on 
 the table. We must each take a drink, to bind 
 the bargain, he said. 
 
 We filled our glasses and lifted them. Mr. 
 Garbutt and I were about to drink, when we 
 saw that the Squire held his glass poised before 
 his lips, and that he looked expectantly toward 
 us. I did not understand what this meant, 
 but Mr. Garbutt did. 
 
 "Thinks he s at home," he whispered to me, 
 with a chuckle. Then he inclined his head 
 toward the Squire.
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 2$ I 
 
 " Your health, Mr. Gerrit," he said ; and we 
 both drank, and the Squire after us, bowing 
 courteously. 
 
 " I don t blame you, Mr. Gerrit," said Mr. 
 Garbutt, lolling back in a great velvet easy- 
 chair, " for buying this piece of prop ty, as a 
 matter of fancy. It s a first-rate house, an 
 a good bit of land, I ll say that for it. But, as 
 for me, this town ain t live enough for me. 
 Mrs. Garbutt, she mostly goes to bed long 
 about eight or ha -pas -eight, an I set here n 
 read Patent Office Reports till I go to sleep. 
 If there s any society here, it ain t took the 
 trouble to root me out." 
 
 Here he noticed that the Squire s glance was 
 wandering about the room. The old man was 
 looking at the unfamiliar furniture in a puzzled 
 way. 
 
 "Things seem a kinder new, eh ^ " suggested 
 Mr. Garbutt. " Well, I put some money into 
 this here set. Rosewood, the hull of it. Good 
 stuff the best there was when I bought it. 
 Maybe you d like to take it off my hands? 
 Well, no, I s pose not. Come pretty high. 
 Well, now ! I hadn t thought of that. There s 
 all your old traps up garret. Found em here 
 when I come here, an couldn t quite get a 
 straight title to em with the house, so I packed 
 up these. Plenty of room, says I might s
 
 252 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 well be filled s not. I didn t jest feel safe to 
 give em away don t know as anybody d 
 want em. First-rate furn cher, too ; but ma 
 hogany old s the hills out f fashion. No 
 sort of good to me." 
 
 " Did you say, sir," asked the Squire, with a 
 suppressed earnestness that suggested a return 
 of his earlier excitement, " that my father s 
 furniture is now in the attic story? I should 
 greatly like to see it, sir I should greatly like 
 to see it." 
 
 " Why, cert nly," said Mr. Garbutt, rising, 
 with an uneasy glance at me ; " glad to have 
 you see it if you want to ; but I don t think 
 you ll find any use for it. Putty well eaten up 
 by this time, I guess." 
 
 It was clear that the Squire had set his mind 
 on it, in spite of anything that his host could 
 politely suggest, and as soon as Mr. Garbutt 
 could procure a hand-lamp, we began the toil 
 some ascent of the back-stairs. Here the win 
 dows faced the north, and caught the fury of 
 the storm. The external wall of the house 
 fairly shivered as the recurrent blasts struck it, 
 and the strong wind, coming in through the 
 cracks of the windows, set our lamp flickering. 
 I was second in our line, and, looking over my 
 shoulder, I saw the Squire s familiar face dis 
 torted in the wavering light. Up and up we
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 253 
 
 mounted, until we crawled through a narrow 
 hole, and a smell of dry dust and seasoned 
 wood told us that we were in the garret. 
 
 Mr. Garbutt lifted the lamp above his head. 
 Its light illumined but a small space in that 
 great chamber under the roof. It fell upon 
 the old furniture of the old house great pieces 
 of solid mahogany, of broad and generous lines. 
 The cushions were moth-eaten and faded to 
 the color of the dust that covered the polished 
 wood. Still there was a stern dignity about 
 their dishonored forms, almost a sentient re 
 sentment of the indignity put upon them. 
 " First-class furniture in its time," said Mr. 
 Garbutt, as if he felt the need of apology. 
 
 The Squire said nothing. He walked among 
 the flickering shadows, and looked from one 
 thing to another with a steady gaze. Once or 
 twice he laid his hand on some table or chair, 
 and I thought that he had a particular reason 
 for doing so. 
 
 After he had seen all that lay within the 
 light of Mr. Garbutt s lamp, he came back to 
 where we were standing, and, laying his hand 
 on my head, gently stroked my hair. He must 
 have stood thus full a minute, while neither 
 Mr. Garbutt nor I spoke. Then he turned 
 aside, and going to the west window (he walked 
 through the darkness as one who knows his
 
 2 54 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 way) he opened it and looked out. I followed 
 him, and looked over his shoulder. 
 
 The Squire looked out upon the same view 
 on which his father had gazed when the fort 
 unes of the Gerrits were at their height. Only 
 now he could see nothing of the plain of 
 promise upon which his father had rested his 
 eyes. All below us was hid in blackness. 
 Looking toward the west, we could see the 
 mad turbulence of the bay, and just beyond it 
 a line of clear white a line that came and 
 went, was broad and dazzling for a second, and 
 then narrowed into darkness. It was the sea 
 breaking on the great pier. 
 
 As we stood there, we could hear nothing 
 but the deafening roar of the wind as it rushed 
 in great shuddering blasts through the window. 
 Then, as the ear grew accustomed to the noise, 
 we caught the tremendous undertones of the 
 storm, and at last could distinguish the heavy 
 fall of each successive wave upon the far-off 
 pier. 
 
 I was gently drawing the Squire away when 
 there came one of these falls so tremendous 
 that it seemed as though the house shook in 
 answer to it. We all stood still, and then came 
 a second shock so awful that our very thoughts 
 stood still, and we were like stunned men for 
 the moment. When we turned our eyes to the
 
 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 2$$ 
 
 window, we saw the line of white for the last 
 time; a fainter sound of falling billows reached 
 our ears, and we saw only the confused tur 
 moil of dark waves where the pier had been. 
 ****** 
 
 " Where is the old man ?" Garbutt asked, a 
 moment or two later ; and we both listened. 
 " Great God ! " he cried, " where is he going? " 
 
 We could hear his footsteps going down the 
 uncarpeted stairs, and we followed him as fast 
 as we could ; but he was outside before we got 
 to the outer door at the foot. 
 
 Garbutt tried manfully to run, but he had 
 no strength for such a race. I was strong and 
 swift, for my age, and I ran at full speed down 
 the winding path, and in the first flash of light 
 ning saw the Squire far below me, rushing 
 down the hillside, through the trees and over 
 the rocks taking, as I saw him, a leap that 
 would have killed any sane man. 
 
 He was far ahead of me when I reached the 
 level of the shore. I had lost him in the dark 
 ness ; but a great wave rolled up a wall of light, 
 and against it I saw the Squire s form, with his 
 arms raised high above his head. He ran upon 
 the wave ; I saw him beat his arms against it 
 as if to drive it back, and then the wave melted 
 into the night, and when the next wave came 
 I could not see him.
 
 256 SQUIRE FIVE-FATHOM. 
 
 It was six o clock in the morning when I 
 again came to the place with the searching 
 party. A dim sun shone from the east over 
 the heaving waters. Against its light we saw 
 Indian Abe coming up from the lake, along 
 the edge of the flooded inlet, bearing on his 
 back his master s body.
 
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