THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE BACKWOODS PHILOSOPHER. 
 (Frontispiece. See page 40.)
 
 The End of the World. 
 
 A LOVE STORY. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD EGGLESTON, 
 
 AUTHOK OF "THE HOOSIER SCHOOIrMASTER," ETC. 
 
 WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 ORANGE JUDD AND COMPANY, 
 
 245 BKOADWAY.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 
 
 ORANGE JUDD & CO., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
 
 SZ2, 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 [IN THE POTENTIAL MOOD.] 
 
 IT is the pretty unanimous conclusion of book-writers that 
 prefaces are most unnecessary and useless prependages, since no- 
 body reads them. And it is the pretty unanimous practice of 
 book-writers to continue to -write them with such pains and 
 elaborateness as would indicate a belief that the success 
 of a book depends upon the favorable prejudice begotten of 
 a graceful preface. My principal embarrassment is that it is 
 not customary for a book to have more than one. How 
 then shall I choose between the half-dozen letters of in- 
 troduction I might give my story, each better and worse on 
 many accounts than either of the others ? I am rather 
 inclined to adopt the following, which might for some rea- 
 sons be styled the 
 
 PEEFACE SENTIMENTAL. 
 
 Perhaps no writer not infatuated with conceit, can send out a 
 book full of thought and feeling which, whatever they may be 
 worth, are his own, without a parental anxiety in regard to the fate 
 of his oftspring. And there are few prefaces which do not in some 
 way betray this nervousness. I confess to a respect for even the 
 prefatory doggerel of good Tinker Bunyan a respect for his paternal 
 tenderness toward his book, not at all for his villainous rhyming. 
 When I saw, the other day, the white handkerchiefs of my children 
 waving an adieu as they sailed away from me, a profound anxiety 
 seized me. So now, as I part company with August and Julia, with 
 my beloved Jonas and my much-respected Cynthy Ann, with the 
 mud-clerk on the latan, and the shaggy lord of Shady-Hollow Castle, 
 and the rest, that have watched with me of nights and crossed the 
 
 881880
 
 6 PBEFACE. 
 
 ferry with me twice a day for half a year even now, as I see them 
 waving me adieu with their red silk and "yaller" cotton "hand- 
 kerchers," I know how many rocks of misunderstanding and crit- 
 icism and how many shoals of damning faint praise are before them, 
 and my heart is full of misgiving. 
 
 But it will never do to have misgivings in a preface. How 
 
 often have publishers told me this ! Ah ! if I could write with 
 half the heart and hope my publishers evince in their adver- 
 tisements, where they talk about " front rank " and " great Amer- 
 ican story " and all that, it would doubtless be better for the 
 book, provided anybody would read the preface or believe it 
 when they had read it. But at any rate let us not have a 
 preface in the minor key. 
 
 A philosophical friend of mine, who is addicted to Carlyle, 
 has recommended that I try the following, which he calls 
 
 THE HIGH PHILOSOPHICAL PREFACE. 
 
 Why should I try to forestall the Verdict? Is it not foreordained 
 in the very nature of a Book and the Constitution of the Reader 
 that a certain very Definite Number of Readers will misunderstand 
 and dislike a given Book ? And that another very Definite Number 
 will understand it and dislike it none the less ? And that still a 
 third class, also definitely fixed in the Eternal Nature of Things, will 
 misunderstand and like it, and, what is more, like it only because 
 of their misunderstanding? And in relation to a true Book, there 
 can not fail to be an Elect Few who understand admiringly and 
 understandingly admire. Why, then, make bows, write prefaces, 
 attempt to prejudice the Case ? Can I change the Reader ? Will I 
 change the Book ? No ? Then away with Preface ! The destiny of 
 the Book is fixed. I can not foretell it, for I am no prophet. But let 
 us not hope to change the Fates by our prefatory bowing and scraping. 
 
 1 was forced to confess to my friend who was so kind as to 
 
 offer to lend me this preface, that there was much truth in it 
 and that truth is nowhere more rare than in prefaces, but 
 it was not possible to adopt it, for two reasons: one, that
 
 PREFACE. 7 
 
 iny proof-reader can not abide so many capitals, maintaining 
 that they disfigure the page, and what is a preface of the 
 high philosophical sort worth without a profusion of capitals ? 
 Even Carlyle's columns would lose their greatest ornament if 
 their capitals were gone. The second reason for declining to 
 use this preface was that my publishers are not philosophers 
 and would never be content with an " Elect Few," and for 
 my own part the pecuniary interest I have in the copyright 
 renders it quite desirable that as many as possible should be 
 elected to like it, or at least to buy it. 
 
 After all it seems a pity that I can not bring myself to use a 
 straightforward 
 
 APOLOGETIC AND EXPLANATORY PREFACE. 
 
 In view of the favor bestowed upon the author's previous story, both 
 by the Public who Criticise and the Public who Buy, it seems a little 
 ungracious to present so soon, another, the scene of which is also 
 laid in the valley of the Ohio. But the picture of Western country 
 life in " The Hoosier School-Master " would not have been complete 
 without this companion-piece, which presents a different phase of it. 
 And indeed there is no provincial life richer in material if only one 
 knew how to get at it. 
 
 Nothing is more reverent than a wholesome hatred of hypocri- 
 sy. If any man think I have offended against his religion, I must 
 believe that his religion is not what it should be. If anybody 
 shall imagine that this is a work of religious controversy leveled 
 at the Adventists, he will have wholly mistaken my meaning. Lit- 
 eralism and fanaticism are not vices confined to any one sect. They 
 are, unfortunately, pretty widely distributed. However, if 
 
 And so on. 
 
 But why multiply examples of the half-dozen or more that 
 I might, could, would, or should have written ? Since every- 
 body is agreed that nobody reads a preface, I have concluded 
 to let the book go -without any. 
 BROOKLYN, September, 1873.
 
 "And as he [ Wordsworth} mingled freely with all kinds of men, he found 
 a pith of sense and a solidity of judgment here and there among the unlearned 
 which he had failed to find in the most lettered; from obscure men he 
 
 heard high truths And love, true love and pure, he 
 
 found was no flower reared only in what was called refined society, and 
 
 requiring leisure and polished manners for its growth 
 
 He believed that in country people, what is permanent in human nature, 
 the essential feelings and passions of mankind, exist in greater simplicity 
 and strength." PBINCIPAI, SHAIBP. 
 
 A. DEDICATION. 
 
 IT would hardly be in character for me to dedicate this book 
 in good, stiff, old-fashioned tomb-stone style, but I could not have 
 put in the background of scenery without being reminded of the 
 two boys, inseparable as the Siamese twins, who gathered mussel- 
 shells in the river marge, played hide-and-seek in the hollow syca- 
 mores, and led a happy life in the shadow of just such hills as those 
 among which the events of this story took place. And all the more 
 that the generous boy who was my playmate then is the generous 
 man who has relieved me of many burdens while I wrote this story, 
 do I feel impelled to dedicate it to GBOBGB CABY EGGLESTON, a 
 manly man and a brotherly brother.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. In Love with a Dutchman 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. An Explosion 22 
 
 CUAPTEB III. A Fare well -26 
 
 CHAPTER IV. A Counter-irritant 35 
 
 CHAPTER V. At the Castle 39 
 
 CHAPTER VI. The Backwoods Philosopher 47 
 
 CHAPTER VII. Within and Without 54 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. Figgera won't Lie 57 
 
 CHAPTER IX. The New Singing-Master 62 
 
 CHAPTER X. An Offer of Help 71 
 
 CHAPTER XI. The Coon-dog Argument 75 
 
 CHAPTER XII. Two Mistakes 79 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. -The Spider Spins 89 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. Th Spider's Web 94 
 
 CHAPTER XV. The Web Broken 101 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. Jonas Expounds the Subject 109 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. The Wrong Pew 115 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. The Encounter 123 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. The Mother 129 
 
 CHAPTER XX. The Steam-Doctor 133 
 
 CHAPTER XXL The Hawk in a New Part 145 
 
 CHAPTER XXII Jonas Expresses his Opinion on Dutchmen 149 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. Somethin' Ludikerous 154 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. The Giant Great-heart 162 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. A Chapter of Betweens 167 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. A Nice Little Game 171 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. The Result of an Evening with Gentlemen 181 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL Waking up an Ugly Customer 187 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. August and Norman 193 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. Aground 197 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. Cynthy Ann's Sacrifice 200 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. Julia's Enterprise 207 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. The Secret Stairway 212 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. The Interview 215 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. Getting Ready for the End 220 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. The Sin of Sanctimony 225 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. The Deluge 232 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. Scaring a Hawk 238 
 
 CHAPTER X.X.XLX.. Jonas takes an Appeal 243 
 
 CHAPTER XL. Selling out 251 
 
 9
 
 10 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLL The Last Day and What Happened in it 256 
 
 CHAPTER XLIL For Ever and Ever... : 264 
 
 CHAPTER XLIIL The Midnight Alarm 271 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. Squaring Accounts 278 
 
 CHAPTER XL V. New Plans 288 
 
 CHAPTER XL VI. The Shiveree ... 293 
 
 ILLUSTRA.TIONS. 
 
 BY FRANK BEARD. 
 
 The Backwoods Philosopher Frontispiece. 
 
 Taking an Observation 14 
 
 A Talk with a Plowman 17 
 
 A little rustle brought her to consciousness 31 
 
 Gottlieb 86 
 
 The Castle 41 
 
 The Sedilium at the Castle 45 
 
 " Look at me " 49 
 
 " Don't be oncharitable, Jonas " 64 
 
 The Hawk 67 
 
 "Tell that to Jule" 85 
 
 Tempted .... 91 
 
 " Now I hate you " 97 
 
 At Cynthy's Door 102 
 
 Cynthy Ann had often said in class-meeting that temptations abounded on 
 
 - every hand 105 
 
 Jonas ...112 
 
 Julia sat down in mortification 121 
 
 " Good-by ! " 126 
 
 The Mother's Blessing 131 
 
 Corn-Sweats and Calamus 134 
 
 "Fire! Murder! Help!" 131 
 
 Norman Anderson 151 
 
 Somethin' Ludikerous 151 
 
 To the Rescue ". 163 
 
 A Nice Little Game 17S 
 
 The Mud-Clerk 183 
 
 Waking up an Ugly Customer 191 
 
 Cynthy Ann's Sacrifice 204 
 
 A Pastoral Visit 221 
 
 Brother Goshorn 24tf 
 
 " Say them words over again " 246 
 
 " I want to buy your place " 253
 
 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN LOVE WITH A DUTCHMAN. 
 
 DON'T believe that you'd care a cent if she 
 did marry a Dutchman ! She might as well as to 
 marry some white folks I know." 
 
 Samuel Anderson made no reply. It would 
 be of no use to reply. Shrews are tamed only by 
 silence. Anderson had long since learned that the little shred 
 of influence which remained to him in his own house would 
 disappear whenever his teeth were no longer able to shut his 
 tongue securely in. So now, when his wife poured out this 
 hot lava of argumentum ad hominem, he closed the teeth down 
 in a dead -lock way over the tongue, and compressed the lips 
 tightly over the teeth, and shut his finger-nails into his work- 
 hardened palms. And then, distrusting all these precautions, 
 
 fearing lest he should be unable to hold on to hia temper even 
 11
 
 12 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 with this grip, the little man strode out of the house with his 
 wife's shrill voice in his ears. 
 
 Mrs. Anderson had good reason to fear that her daughter 
 was in love with a " Dutchman," as she phrased it in her con- 
 tempt. The few Germans who had penetrated to the West at 
 that time were looked upon with hardly more favor than the 
 Californians feel for the almond-eyed Chinaman. They were 
 foreigners, who would talk gibberish instead of the plain Eng- 
 lish which everybody could understand, and they were not yet 
 civilized enough to like the yellow saleratus-biscuit and the 
 "salt-rising" bread of which their neighbors were so fond. 
 Reason enough to hate them ! 
 
 Only half an hour before this outburst of Mrs. Anderson's, 
 she had set a trap for her daughter Julia, and had fairly 
 caught her. 
 
 "Jule! Jule! O Jul-y-e-ee!" she had called. 
 And Julia, who was down in* the garden hoeing a bed in 
 which she meant to plant some "Johnny -jump- ups," came 
 quickly toward the house, though she knew it would be of no 
 use to come quickly. Let her come quickly, or let her come 
 slowly, the rebuke was sure to greet her all the same. 
 
 " Why don't you come when you're called, I'd like to know ! 
 You're never in reach when you're wanted, and you're good 
 for nothing when you are here!" 
 
 Julia Anderson's earliest lesson from her mother's lips had 
 been that she was good for nothing. And every day and almost 
 every hour since had brought her repeated assurances that she 
 was good for nothing. If she had not been good for a great 
 deal, she would long since have been good for nothing as the 
 result of such teaching. But though this waa not the first, nor
 
 IN LOVE WITH A DUTCHMAN. 13 
 
 the thousandth, nor the ten thousandth time that she had been 
 told that she was good for nothing, the accustomed insult 
 seemed to sting her now more than ever. Was it that, being 
 almost eighteen, she was beginning to feel the woman blos- 
 soming in her nature? Or, was it that the tender words of 
 August Wehle had made her sure that she was good for some- 
 thing, that now her heart felt her mother's insult to be a stale, 
 selfish, ill-natured lie ? 
 
 "Take this cup of tea over to Mrs. Malcolm's, and tell her 
 that it a'n't quite as good as what I borried of her last week. 
 And tell her that they'll be a new-fangled preacher at the 
 school-house a Sunday, a Millerite or somethin', a preachin' 
 about the end of the world." 
 
 Julia did not say "Yes, ma'am," hi her usually meek style. 
 She smarted a little yet from the harsh words, and so went 
 away in silence. 
 
 Why did ske walk fast ? Had she noticed that August 
 Wehle, who was "breaking up" her father's north field, was 
 just plowing down the -.rest side of his land ? If she hast- 
 ened, she might reach the cross-fence as he came round to 
 it, and while he was yet hidden from the sight of the house 
 by the turn of the hill. And would not a few words from 
 August Wehle be pleasant to her ears after her mother's sharp 
 depreciation ? It is at least safe to conjecture that some such 
 feeling made her hurry through the long, waving timothy of the 
 meadow, and made her cross the log that spanned the brook 
 without ever so much as stopping to look at the minnows 
 glancing about hi the water flecked with the sunlight that 
 struggled through the boughs of the water-willows. For, in 
 her thorough loneliness, Julia Anderson had come to love the
 
 14 
 
 THE END OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 birds, the squirrels, and the fishes as companions, and in all her 
 life she had never before crossed the meadow brook without 
 stooping to look at the minnows. 
 
 All this haste Mrs. Anderson noticed. Having often scolded 
 
 TAKING AN OBSERVATION. 
 
 Julia for "talking to the fishes like a fool," she noticed the 
 omission. And now she only waited until Julia was over the 
 hill to take the path round the fence under shelter of the black- 
 berry thicket, until she came to the clump of elders, from the
 
 IN LOVE WITH A DUTCHMAN. 15 
 
 midst of which she could plainly see if any conversation should 
 take place between her Julia and the comely young Dutchman. 
 
 In fact, Julia need not have hurried so much. For August 
 Wehle had kept one eye on his horses and the other on the 
 house all that day. It was the quick look of intelligence be- 
 tween the two at dinner that had aroused the mother's suspi- 
 cions. And Wehle had noticed the work on the garden-bed, the 
 call to the house, and the starting of Julia on the path toward 
 Mrs. Malcolm's. His face had grown hot, and his hand had 
 trembled. For once he had failed to see the stone in his way, 
 until the plow was thrown clean from the furrow. And when 
 he came to the shade of the butternut-tree by which she must 
 pass, it had seemed to him imperative that the horses should 
 rest. Besides, the hames-string wanted tightening on the bay, 
 and old Dick's throat-latch must need a little fixing. He was 
 not sure that the clevis-pin had not been loosened by the col- 
 lision with the stone just now. And so, upon one pretext and 
 another, he managed to delay starting his plow until Julia came 
 by, and then, though his heart had counted all her steps from 
 the door-stone to the tree, then he looked up surprised. Noth- 
 ing could be so astonishing to him as to see her there ! For love 
 is needlessly crafty, it has always an instinct of concealment, of 
 indirection about it. The boy, and especially the girl, who 
 will tell the truth frankly in regard to a love affair is a miracle 
 of veracity. But there are such, and they are to be reverenced 
 with the reverence paid to martyrs. 
 
 On her part, Julia Anderson had walked on as though she 
 meant to pass the young plowman by, until he spoke, and then 
 she started, and blushed, and stopped, and nervously broke off 
 the top of a last year's iron-weed and began to break it into
 
 16 THE END OF THK WORLD. 
 
 bits while he talked, looking down most of ^the time, but lifting 
 her eyes to his now and then. And to the sun-browned but 
 delicate-faced young German it seemed a vision of Paradise 
 every glimpse of that fresh girl's face in the deep shade of the 
 sun-bonnet. For girls' faces can never look so sweet hi this 
 generation as they did to the boys who caught sight of them, 
 hidden away, precious things, in the obscurity of a tunnel of 
 pasteboard and calico! 
 
 This was not their first love-talk. Were they engaged ? 
 Yes, and no. By all the speech their eyes were capable of in 
 school, and of late by words, they were engaged hi loving one 
 another, and in telling one another of it. But they were young, 
 and separated by circumstances, and they had hardly begun to 
 think of marriage yet. It was enough for the present to love and 
 be loved. The most delightful stage of a love affair is that in 
 which the present is sufficient and there is no past or future. 
 And so August hung his elbow around the top of the bay horse's 
 hames, and talked to Julia. 
 
 It is the highest praise of the German heart that it loves 
 flowers and little children ; and like a German and like a lover 
 that he was, August began to speak of the anemones and the 
 violets that were already blooming in the corners of the fence. 
 Girls hi love are not apt to say anything very fresh. And Julia 
 only said she thought the flowers seemed happy in the sun- 
 light. In answer to this speech, which seemed to the lover a bit 
 of inspiration, he quoted from Schiller the lines: 
 
 41 Yet weep, soft children of the Spring; 
 The feelings Love alone can bring 
 Have been denied to you ! " 
 
 With the quick and crafty modesty of her sex, Julia evaded
 
 IN LOVE WITH A DUTCHMAN. 19 
 
 this very pleasant shaft by saying: "How much you know, 
 August ! How do you learn it ? " ^ 
 
 And August was pleased, partly because of the compliment, 
 but chiefly because in saying it Julia had brought the sun-bon- 
 net in such a range that he could see the bright eyes and blushing 
 face at the bottom of this camera-oscura. He did not hasten to 
 reply. While the vision lasted he enjoyed the vision. Not until 
 the sun-bonnet dropped did he take up the answer to her question. 
 " I don't know much, but what I do know I have learned out 
 of your Uncle Andrew's books." 
 
 " Do yoa know my Uncle Andrew ? What a strange man he 
 is ! He never comes here, and we never go there, and my mother 
 never speaks to him, and my father doesn't often have anything 
 to say to him. And so you have been at his house. They say 
 he has all up-stairs full of books, and ever so many cats and 
 dogs and birds and squirrels about. But I thought he never let 
 anybody go up-stairs." 
 
 " He lets me," said August, when she had ended her speech 
 and dropped her sun-bonnet again out of the range of his 
 eyes, which, in truth, were too steadfast in their gaze. " I spend 
 many evenings up-stairs." August had just a trace of German 
 in his idiom. 
 
 " What makes Uncle Andrew so curious, I wonder ? " 
 "I don't exactly know. Some say he was treated not just 
 right by a woman when he was a young man. I don't know. 
 He seems happy. I don't wonder a man should be curious 
 though when a woman that he loves treats him not just right. 
 Any way, if he loves her with all his heart, as I love Jule 
 Anderson ! " 
 
 These last words came with an effort. And Julia just then
 
 20 THE END OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 remembered her errand, and said, " I must hurry," and, with a 
 country girl's agility, she climbed over the fence before August 
 could help her, and gave him another look through her bon- 
 net-telescope from the other side, and then hastened on to return 
 the tea, and to tell Mrs. Malcolm that there was to be a Millerite 
 preacher at the school-house on Sunday night. And August 
 found that his horses were quite cool, while he was quite hot. 
 He cleaned his mold-board, and swung his plow round, and 
 then, with a " Whoa ! haw ! " and a pull upon the single line 
 which Western plowmen use to guide their horses, he drew the 
 team into their place, and set himself to watching the turning 
 of the rich, fragrant black earth. And even as he set his plow- 
 share, so he set his purpose to overcome all obstacles, and to marry 
 Julia Anderson. With the same steady, irresistible, onward 
 course would he overcome all that lay between him and the 
 soul that shone out of the face that dwelt in the bottom of the 
 sun-bonnet. 
 
 From her covert in the elder-bushes Mrs. Anderson had seen 
 the parley, and her cheeks had also grown hot, but from a very 
 different emotion. She had not heard the words. She had seen 
 the loitering girl and the loitering plowboy, and she went back 
 to the house vowing that she'd "teach Jule Anderson how to 
 spend her time talking to a Dutchman." And yet the more she 
 thought of it, the more she was satisfied that it wasn't best to 
 " make a fuss " just yet. She might hasten what she wanted to 
 prevent. For though Julia was obedient and mild in word, she 
 was none the less a little stubborn, and in a matter of this sort 
 might take the bit in her teeth. 
 
 And so Mrs. Anderson had recourse, as usual, to her hus- 
 band. She knew she could browbeat him. She demanded that
 
 IN LOVE WITH A DUTCHMAN. 21 
 
 August Wehle should be paid off and discharged. And when 
 Anderson had hesitated, because he feared he could not get 
 another so good a hand, and for other reasons, she burst out 
 into the declaration : 
 
 "I don't believe that you'd care a cent if she did marry a 
 Dutchman ! She might as well as to marry some white folks I 
 know."
 
 22 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 AN EXPLOSION. 
 
 '^^\y 
 
 was settled that August was to be quietly 
 
 discharged at the end of his month, which was 
 Saturday night. Neither he nor Julia must suspect 
 any opposition to their attachment, nor any discovery 
 of it, indeed. This was settled by Mrs. Anderson. 
 She usually settled things. First, she settled upon the course 
 to be pursued. Then she settled her husband. He always made 
 a show of resistance. His dignity required a show of resistance. 
 But it was only a show. He always meant to surrender in the 
 end. Whenever his wife ceased her fire of small-arms and her- 
 self hung out the flag of truce, he instantly capitulated. As in 
 every other dispute, so in this one about the discharge of the 
 "miserable, impudent Dutchman," Mrs. Anderson attacked her 
 husband at all his weak points, and she had learned by heart a 
 catalogue of his weak points. Then, when he was sufficiently 
 galled to be entirely miserable ; when she had expressed her 
 regret that she hadn't married somebody with some heart, 
 and that she had ever left her father's house, for her father was 
 always good to her; and when she had sufficiently reminded 
 him of the lover she had given up for him, and of how much 
 he had loved her, and how miserable she had made him by 
 loving Samuel Anderson when she had conducted the quarrel
 
 AN EXPLOSION. 23 
 
 through all the preliminary stages, she always carried her point 
 in the end by a coup de partie somewhat in this fashion : 
 
 " That's just the way ! Always the way with you men ! 
 I suppose I must give up to you as usual. You've lorded it 
 over me from the start. I can't even have the management of 
 my own daughter. But I do think that after I've let you have 
 your way in so many things, you might turn off that fellow. 
 You might let me have my way in one little thing, and you would 
 if you cared for me. You know how liable I am to die at any 
 moment of heart-disease, and yet you will prolong this excite- 
 ment in this way." 
 
 Now, there is nothing a weak man likes so much as to be 
 considered strong, nothing a henpecked man likes so much 
 as to be regarded a tyrant. If you ever hear a man boast of 
 his determination to rule his own house, you may feel sure 
 that he is subdued. And a henpecked husband always makes 
 a great show of opposing everything that looks toward the en- 
 largement of the work or privileges of women. Such a man 
 insists on the shadow of authority because he can not have 
 the substance. It is a great satisfaction to him that his wife 
 can never be president, and that she can not make speeches 
 in prayer-meeting. While he retains these badges of superiority, 
 he is still in some sense head of the family. 
 
 So when Mrs. Anderson loyally reminded her husband that 
 she had always let him have his own way, he believed her 
 because he wanted to, though he could not just at the moment 
 recall the particular instances. And knowing that he must yield, 
 he rather liked to yield as an act of sovereign grace to the poor 
 oppressed wife who begged it. 
 
 " "Well, if you insist on it, of course, I will not refuse you,"
 
 24 THE END OP THE WORLD. 
 
 he said; "and perhaps you are right." He had yielded in this 
 way almost every day of his married life, and in this way he 
 yielded to the demand that August should be discharged. But 
 he agreed with his wife that Julia should not know anything 
 about it, and that there must be no leave-taking allowed. 
 
 The very next day Julia sat sewing on the long porch in 
 front of the house. Cynthy Ann was getting dinner in the 
 kitchen at the other end of the hall, and Mrs. Anderson was 
 busy in her usual battle with dirt. She kept the house clean, 
 because it gratified her combativeness and her domineering dis- 
 position to have the house clean in spite of the ever-encroach- 
 ing dirt. And so she scrubbed and scolded, and scolded and 
 scrubbed, the scrubbing and scolding agreeing in time and 
 rhythm. The scolding was the vocal music, the scrubbing an 
 accompaniment. The concordant discord was perfect. Just at 
 the moment I speak of there was a lull hi her scolding. The 
 symphonious scrubbing went on as usual. Julia, wishing to 
 divert the next thunder-storm from herself, erected what she 
 imagined might prove a conversational lightning-rod, by asking 
 a question on a topic foreign to the theme of the last march 
 her mother had played and sung so sweetly with brush and 
 voice. 
 
 " Mother, what makes Uncle Andrew so queer ? " 
 
 "I don't know. He was always queer." This was spoken 
 in a staccato, snapping-turtle way. But when one has lived 
 all one's life with a snapping-turtle, one doesn't mind. Julia did 
 not mind. She was curious to know what was the matter with 
 her uncle, Andrew Anderson. So she said: 
 
 " I've heard that some false woman treated him cruelly ; is 
 that so?"
 
 AN EXPLOSION. 25 
 
 Julia did not see how red her mother's face was, for she 
 was not regarding her. 
 
 " Who told you that ? " Julia was so used to hearing her 
 mother speak in an excited way that she hardly noticed the 
 strange tremor in this question. 
 
 " August." 
 
 The symphony ceased in a moment. The scrubbing-brush 
 dropped in the pail of soapsuds. But the vocal storm burst 
 forth with a violence that startled even Julia. "August said 
 t7tat, did he ? And you listened, did you ? You listened to 
 that ? You listened to that ? You listened to that f Hey ? He 
 slandered your mother. You listened to him slander your 
 mother 1 " By this time Mrs. Anderson was at white heat. Julia 
 was speechless. " I saw you yesterday flirting with that Dutch- 
 man, and listening to his abuse of your mother ! And now you 
 insult me ! Well, to-morrow will be the last day that that 
 Dutchman will hold a plow on this place. And you'd better 
 look out for yourself, miss ! You " 
 
 Here followed a volley of epithets which Julia received 
 standing. But when her mother's voice grew to a scream, 
 Julia took the word. 
 
 " Mother, hush ! " 
 
 It was the first word of resistance she had ever uttered. 
 The agony within must have been terrible to have wrung it 
 from her. The mother was stunned with anger and astonish- 
 ment. She could not recover herself enough to speak until Jule 
 had fled half-way up the stairs. Then her mother covered her 
 defeat by screaming after her, " Go to your own room, you im- 
 pudent hussy ! You know I am liable to die of heart-disease any 
 minute, and you want to kill me I "
 
 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A FAREWELL. 
 
 RS. ANDERSON felt that she had made a 
 mistake. She had not meant to tell Julia that 
 August was to leave. But now that this stormy 
 scene had taken place, she thought she could 
 make a good use of it. She knew that her hus- 
 band co-operated with her in her opposition to " the Dutchman," 
 only because he was afraid of his wife. In. his heart, Samuel 
 Anderson could not refuse anything to his daughter. Denied 
 any of the happiness which most men find in loving their wives, 
 he found consolation in the love of his daughter. Secretly, as 
 though his paternal affection were a crime, he caressed Julia, and 
 his wife was not long in discovering that the father cared more 
 for a loving daughter than for a shrewish wife. She watched 
 him jealously, and had come to regard her daughter as one who 
 had supplanted her in her husband's affections, and her husband 
 as robbing her of the love of her daughter. In truth, Mrs. 
 Samuel Anderson had come to stand so perpetually on guard 
 against imaginary encroachments on her rights, that she saw
 
 A FAREWELL. 27 
 
 enemies everywhere. She hated Wehle because he was a Dutch- 
 man ; she would have hated him on a dozen other scores if he 
 had been an American. It was ofiense enough that Julia loved 
 him. 
 
 So now she resolved to gain her husband to her side by her 
 version of the story, and before dinner she had told him how 
 August had charged her with being false and cruel to Andrew 
 many years ago, and how Jule had thrown it up to her, and how 
 near she had come to dropping down with palpitation of the 
 heart. And Samuel Anderson reddened, and declared that he 
 would protect his wife from such insults. The notion that he 
 protected his wife was a pleasant fiction of the little man's, 
 which received a generous encouragement at the hands of his 
 wife. It was a favorite trick of hers to throw herself, in a meta- 
 phorical way, at his feet, a helpless woman, and in her feeble- 
 ness implore his protection. And Samuel felt all the courage 
 of knighthood in defending his inoffensive wife. Under cover 
 of this fiction, so flattering to the vanity of an overawed hus- 
 band, she had managed at one time or another to embroil him 
 with almost all the neighbors, and his refusal to join fences had 
 resulted in that crooked arrangement known as a " devil's 
 lane " on three sides of his farm. 
 
 Julia dared not stay away from dinner, which was mis- 
 erable enough. She did not venture so much as to look at 
 August, who sat opposite her, and who was the most unhappy 
 person at the table, because he did not know what all the unhap- 
 piness was about. Mr. Anderson's brow foreboded a storm, Mrs. 
 Anderson's face was full of an earthquake, Cynthy Ann was 
 sitting in shadow, and Julia's countenance perplexed him. 
 Whether she was angry with him or not, he could not be sure.
 
 28 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Of one thing he was certain : she was suffering a great deal, and 
 that was enough to make him exceedingly unhappy. 
 
 Sitting through his hurried meal in this atmosphere sur- 
 charged with domestic electricity, he got the notion he could 
 hardly tell how that all this lowering of the sky had some- 
 thing to do with him. What had he done ? Nothing. His 
 closest self-examination told him that he had done no wrong. 
 But his spirits were depressed, and his sensitive conscience con- 
 demned him for some unknown crime that had brought about 
 all this disturbance of the elements. The ham did not seem very 
 good, the cabbage he could not eat, the corn-dodger choked him, 
 he had no desire to wait for the pie. He abridged his meal, and 
 went out to the bam to keep company with his horses and 
 his misery until it should be time to return to his plow. 
 
 Julia sat and sewed- in that tedious afternoon. She would 
 have liked one more interview with August before his departure. 
 Looking through the open hall, she saw him leave the barn 
 and go toward his plowing. Not that she looked up. Hawk 
 never watched chicken more closely than Mrs. Anderson watched 
 poor Jule. But out of the corners of her eyes Julia saw him 
 drive his horses before him from the stable. As the field in 
 which he worked was on the other side of the house from 
 where she sat she could not so much as catch a glimpse of him 
 as he held his plow on its steady course. She wished she might 
 have helped Cynthy Ann hi the kitchen, for then she could have 
 seen him, but there was no chance for such a transfer. 
 
 Thus the tedious afternoon wore away, and just as the sun 
 was settling down so that the shadow of the elm in the front- 
 yard stretched across the road into the cow-pasture, the dead 
 silence was broken. Julia had been wishing that somebody
 
 A FAREWELL. 29 
 
 would speak. Her mother's sulky speechlessness was worse than 
 her scolding, and Julia had even wished her to resume her 
 storming. But the silence was broken by Cynthy Ann, who 
 came into the hall and called, " Jule, I wish you would go to the 
 barn and gether the eggs ; I want to make some cake." 
 
 Every evening of her life Julia gathered the eggs, and there 
 was nothing uncommon in Cynthy Ann's making cake, so that 
 nothing could be more innocent than this request. Julia sat 
 opposite the front-door, her mother sat farther along. Julia 
 could see the face of Cynthy Ann. Her mother could only hear 
 the voice, which was dry and commonplace enough. Julia 
 thought she detected something peculiar in Cynthy's manner. 
 She would as soon have thought of the big oak gate-posts with 
 their round ball-like heads telegraphing her in a sly way, as to 
 have suspected any such craft on the part of Cynthy Ann, who 
 was a good, pious, simple-hearted, Methodist old maid, strict 
 with herself, and censorious toward others. But there stood 
 Cynthy making some sort of gesture, which Julia took to mean 
 that she was to go quick. She did not dare to show any eager- 
 ness. She laid down her work, and moved away listlessly. And 
 evidently she had been too slow. For if August had been in 
 sight when Cynthy Ann called her, he had now disappeared 
 on the other side of the hill. She loitered along, hoping 
 that he would come in sight, but he did not, and then she 
 almost smiled to think how foolish she had been in imagining 
 that Cynthy Ann had any interest in her love affair. Doubtless 
 Cynthy sided with her mother. 
 
 And so she climbed from mow to mow gathering the eggs. 
 No place is sweeter than a mow, no occupation can be more 
 delightful than gathering the fresh eggs great glorious pearls,
 
 30 THE END OF THE WOULD. 
 
 more beautiful than any that men dive for, despised only because 
 they are so common and so useful ! But Julia, gliding about 
 noiselessly, did not think much of the eggs, did not give much 
 attention to the hens scratching for wheat kernels amongst the 
 straw, nor to the barn swallows chattering over the adobe dwell- 
 ings which they were building among the rafters above her. 
 She had often listened to the love-talk of these last, but now 
 her heart was too heavy to hear. She slid down to the edge of 
 one of the mows, and sat there a few feet above the threshing- 
 floor with her bonnet in her hand, looking off sadly and 
 vacantly. It was pleasant to sit here alone and think, without 
 the feeling that her mother was penetrating her thoughts. 
 
 A little rustle brought her to consciousness. Her face was 
 fiery red in a minute. There, in one corner of the threshing- 
 floor, stood August, gazing at her. He had come into the barn 
 to find a single-tree in place of one which had broken. While 
 he was looking for it, Julia had come, and he had stood and 
 looked, unable to decide whether to speak or not, uncertain how 
 deeply she might be offended, since she had never once let 
 her eyes rest on him at dinner. And when she had come to the 
 edge of the mow and stopped there in a reverie, August had 
 been utterly spell-bound. 
 
 A minute she blushed. Then, perceiving her opportunity, 
 she dropped herself to the floor and walked up to August. 
 
 "August, you are to be turned off to-morrow night." 
 
 " What have I done ? Anything wrong ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Why do they send me away ? " 
 
 "Because because " Julia stopped. 
 
 But silence is often better than speech. A sudden intelligence
 
 A PAEKWELL. 33 
 
 came into the blue eyes of August. " They turn me off because 
 I love Jule. Anderson." 
 
 Julia blushed just a little. 
 
 " I will love her all the same when I am gone. I will always 
 love her." 
 
 Julia did not know what to say to this passionate speech, so 
 she contented herself with looking a little grateful and very 
 foolish. 
 
 "But I am only a poor boy, and a Dutchman at that" he 
 said this bitterly " but if you will wait, Jule, I will show them 
 I am of some account. Not good enough for you, but good 
 enough for them. You will " 
 
 "I will wait; -forever for you, Gus." Her head was down, 
 and her voice could hardly be heard. " Good-by." She stretched 
 out her hand, and he took it trembling. 
 
 "Wait a minute." He dropped the hand, and taking a pencil 
 wrote on a beam : 
 
 "March 18th, 1843." , 
 
 " There, that's to remember the Dutchman by." 
 
 "Don't call yourself a Dutchman, August. One day in 
 school, when I was sitting opposite to you, I learned this defi- 
 nition, ' August : grand, magnificent,' and I looked at you and 
 said, Yes, that he is. August is grand and magnificent, and 
 that's what you are. You're just grand !" 
 
 I do not think he was to blame. I am sure he was not re- 
 sponsible. It was done so quickly. He kissed her forehead 
 and then her lips, and said good-by and was gone. And she, 
 with her apron full of eggs and her cheeks very red it makes 
 one warm to climb went back to the house, resolved in some 
 way to thank Cynthy Ann for sending her ; but Cynthy Ann's,
 
 34 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 face was so serious and austere in its look that Julia concluded 
 she must have been mistaken, Cynthy Ann couldn't have known 
 that August was in the barn. For all she said was : 
 
 " You got a right smart lot of eggs, didn't you ? The hens 
 is beginnin' to lay more peart since the warm spell sot in."
 
 A COUNTER-IRRITANT. 
 
 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A COUNTER-IRRITANT. 
 
 66' ( (vVteS^TO J/r OT you kits doornt off vor ? Hey ? " 
 Gottlieb Wehle always spoke English, or 
 what he called English, when he was angry. 
 " Vot for ? Hey ? " 
 
 All the way home from Anderson's on that 
 Saturday night, August had been, in imagination, listening to 
 the rough voice of his honest father asking this question, and 
 he had been trying to find a satisfactory answer to it. He might 
 say that Mr. Anderson did not want to keep a hand any longer. 
 But that would not be true. And a young man with August's 
 clear blue eyes was not like'ly to lie. 
 
 "Vot vor ton't you not shpeak? Can't you virshta blain 
 Eenglish ven you hears it? Hey? You a'n't no teef vot shteels 
 I shposes, unt you ton't kit no troonks mit vishky ?, Vot you 
 too tat you pe shamt of? Pin lazin' rount? Kon you nicht 
 Eenglish shprachen ? Got mit id do vonst ! " 
 
 " I did not do anything to be ashamed of," said August. And 
 yet he looked ashamed.
 
 36 THK END OF THE AVORLD. 
 
 " You tidn't pe no shamt, hey ? You tidn't ! Vot vor you 
 loogs so leig a teef in der bentenshry ? Vot for you sprachen 
 not mit me ven ich sprachs der blainest zort ov Eenglish mit 
 you? You kooms sneaggin heim Zaturtay nocht leig a tog 
 vots kot kigt, unt's got his dail dween his leks ; and ven I 
 aks you in blain Eenglish vot's der madder, you loogs zheepish 
 leig, und says you a'n't tun nodin. I zay you tun sompin. If 
 
 GOTTLIEB. 
 
 you a'n't tun nodin den, vy don't you dell me vot it is dat you 
 has tun? Hey?" 
 
 All this time August found that it was getting harder and 
 harder to tell his father the real state of the case. But the old 
 man, seeing that he prevailed nothing, took a cajoling tone. 
 
 " Koom, August, mine knabe, ton't shtand dare leig a vool. 
 Vot tit Anterson zay ven he shent you avay ? " 
 
 " He said that I'd been seen a-talking to his daughter, Jute 
 Anderson."
 
 A COUNTER-IRRITANT. 37 
 
 "Veil, you nebber said no hoorm doo Shule, tid you? If I 
 dought you said vot you zhoodn't zay doo Shule, I vood shust 
 drash you on der shpot ! Tid you gwarl mit Shule, already ? " 
 
 " Quarrel with Jule ! She's the last person in the world I'd 
 think of quarreling -with. She's as good as ' 
 
 " Oh ! you pe in lieb mit Shule ! You vool, you ! Is dat all 
 dat I raise you vor? I dells you, unt dells you, unt dells you 
 to sprach nodin put Deutsche, unt to marry a kood Deutsche 
 vrau vot kood sprach mit you, unt now you koes right 
 shtraight off unt kits knee-teep in lieb mit a vool of a Yangee 
 kirl! You doo ant pe doornt off!" 
 
 August's countenance brightened. All the way home he had 
 felt that it was somehow an unpardonable sin to be a Dutch- 
 man. Anderson had spoken hardly to him in dismissing him, 
 and now it was a great comfort to find that his father returned 
 the contempt of the Yankees at its full value. All the conceit 
 was not on the side of the Yankees. It was at least an open 
 question which was the most disgraced, he or Julia, by their lit- 
 tle love affair. 
 
 But more comforting still was the quiet look of his sweet- 
 faced mother, who, moving aoout among her throng of children 
 like a hen with more chickens than she can hover,* never 
 forgot to be patient and affectionate. If there had been a look 
 of reproach on the face of the mother, it would have been the 
 hardest trial of all. But there was that in her eyes the dear 
 Moravian mother that gave courage to August. The mother 
 was an outside conscience, and now as Gottlieb, who had lapsed 
 
 * Not until my attention was called to this word in the proof did I know 
 that in this sense it is a provincialism. It is so used, at least in half the coun- 
 try, and yet neither of our American dictionaries has it.
 
 38 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 into German for his wife's benefit, rattled on his denunciation of 
 this Canaanitish Yankee, with whom his son was in love, the 
 son looked every now and then into the eyes, the still German 
 eyes of the mother, and rejoiced that he saw there no reflection 
 of his father's rebuke. The older Wehle presently resumed his 
 English, such as it was, as better adapted to scolding. Whether 
 he thought to make his children love German by abusing them 
 in English, I do not know, but it was his habit. 
 
 " I dells you tese Yangees is Yangees. Dere neber voz 
 put shust von cood vor zompin. Antrew Antershon is von. 
 He shtaid mit us ven ve vos all zick, unt he is zhust so cood as 
 if he was porn in Deutschland. Put all de rest is Yangees. 
 Marry a Deutsche vrau vot's kot cood sense to ede kraut unt 
 shleep unter vedder peds ven it's kalt. Put shust led de Yan- 
 gees pe Yangees." 
 
 Seeing August put on his hat and go to the door, he called 
 out testily : 
 
 " Vare you koes, already ? " 
 
 " Over to the castle." 
 
 " Veil, das is koot. Ko doo de gassel. Antrew vill dell you 
 vat sorts de Yangee kirls pe ! "
 
 AT THE CASTLE. 39 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 AT THE CASTLE. 
 
 Y the time August reached Andrew Anderson's 
 castle it was dark. The castle was built in 
 a hollow, looking out toward the Ohio River, a 
 river that has this peculiarity, that it is all beau- 
 tiful, from Pittsburgh to Cairo. Through the trees, 
 on which the buds were just bursting, August looked out on the 
 golden roadway made by the moonbeams on the river. And 
 into the tumult of his feelings there came the sweet benediction 
 of Nature. And what is Nature but the voice of God ? 
 
 Anderson's castle was a large log building of strange con- 
 struction. Everything about it had been built by the hands of 
 Andrew, at once its lord and its architect. Evidently a whim- 
 sical fancy had pleased itself in the construction. It was an 
 attempt to realize something of medieval form in logs. There 
 were buttresses and antique windows, and by an ingenious trans- 
 formation the chimney, usually such a disfigurement to a log- 
 house, was made to look like a round donjon keep. But it was 
 strangely composite, and I am afraid Mr. Ruskin would have 
 considered it somewhat confused; for while it looked like a
 
 40 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 rude castle to those who approached it from the hills, it looked 
 like something very different to those who approached the 
 front, for upon that side was a portico with massive Doric 
 columns, which were nothing more nor less than maple logs. 
 Andrew maintained that the natural form of the trunk of a tree 
 was the ideal and perfect form of a pillar. 
 
 To this picturesque structure, half castle, half cabin, with 
 hints of church and temple, came August Wehle on Saturday 
 evening. He did not go round to the portico and knock at the 
 front-door as a stranger would have done, but in behind the 
 donjon chimney he pulled an alarm-cord. Immediately the 
 head of Andrew Anderson was thrust out of a Gothic hole 
 you could not call it a window. His uncut hair, rather darker 
 than auburn, fell down to his waist, and his shaggy red beard 
 lay upon his bosom. Instead of a coat he wore that unique gar- 
 ment of linsey-woolsey known in the West as wa'mus (warm 
 us ?), a sort of over-shirt. He was forty-five, but there were 
 streaks of gray in his hair and beard, and he looked older by 
 ten years. 
 
 " What ho, good friend ? Is that you ? " he cried. " Come 
 up, and right welcome ! " For his language was as archaic and 
 perhaps as incongruous as his architecture. And then throwing 
 out of the window a rope-ladder, he called out again, " Ascend ! 
 ascend ! my brave young friend ! " 
 
 And young Wehle climbed up the ladder into the large upper 
 room. For it was one peculiarity of the castle that the upper 
 part had no visible communication with the lower. Except 
 August, and now and then a literary stranger, no one but the 
 owner was ever admitted to the upper story of the house, and 
 the neighbors, who always had access to the lower rooms, re-
 
 THE CASTLK.
 
 AT THE CASTLE. 43 
 
 garded the upper part of the castle with mysterious awe. 
 August was often plied with questions about it, but he always 
 answered simply that he didn't think Mr. Anderson would like 
 to have it talked about. For the owner there must have been 
 some inside mode of access to the second story, but he did 
 not choose to let even August know of any other way than 
 that by the rope-ladder, and the few strangers who came to see 
 his books were taken in by the same drawbridge. 
 
 The room was filled with books arranged after whimsical 
 associations. One set of cases, for instance, was called the 
 Academy, and into these he only admitted the masters, follow- 
 ing the guidance of his own eccentric judgment quite as much 
 as he followed traditional estimate. Homer, Virgil, Dante, and 
 Milton of course had undisputed possession of the department 
 devoted to the " Kings of Epic," as he styled them. Sophocles, 
 Calderon, Corneille, and Shakespeare were all that he admitted 
 to his list of " Kings of Tragedy." Lope he rejected on literary 
 grounds, and Goethe because he thought his moral tendency 
 bad. He rejected Rabelais from his chief humorists, but ac- 
 cepted Cervantes, Le Sage, Moliere, Swift, Hood, and the then 
 fresh Pickwick of Boz. To these he added the Georgia Scenes 
 of Mr. Longstreet, insisting that they were quite equal to Don 
 Quixote. I can only stop to mention one other department in 
 his Academy. One case was devoted to the " Best Stories," and 
 an admirable set they were! I wish that anything of mine 
 were worthy to go into such company. His purity of feeling, 
 almost ascetic, led him to reject Boccaccio, but he admitted 
 Chaucer and some of Balzac's, and Smollett, Goldsmith, and 
 De Foe, and "Walter Scott's best, Irving's Rip Van "Winkle, Ber- 
 nardin St. Pierre's "Paul and Virginia," and "Three Months
 
 44 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 under the Snow," and Charles Lamb's generally overlooked 
 " Rosamund Gray." There were cases for " Socrates and his 
 Friends," and for other classes. He had amused himself for 
 years in deciding what books should be " crowned," as he called 
 it, and what not. And then he had another case, called " The 
 Inferno." I wish there was space to give a list of this depart- 
 ment. Some were damned for dullness and some for coarse- 
 ness. Miss Edgeworth's Moral Tales, Darwin's Botanic Garden, 
 Rollin's Ancient History, and a hideously illustrated copy of 
 the Book of Martyrs were in the first-class, Don Juan and some 
 French novels in the second. Tupper, Swinburne, and Walt 
 Whitman he did not know. 
 
 In the corner next the donjon chimney was a little room 
 with a small fireplace. Thus the hermit economized wood, for 
 wood meant time, and time meant communion with his books. 
 All of his domestic arrangements were carried on after this frugal 
 fashion. In the little room was a writing-desk, covered with 
 manuscripts and commonplace books. 
 
 " Well, my young friend, you're thrice welcome," said Andrew, 
 who never dropped his book language. " What will you have ? 
 Will you resuir.e your apprenticeship under Goethe, or shall we 
 canter to Canterbury with Chaucer ? Grand old Dan Chaucer ! 
 Or, shall we study magical philosophy with Roger Bacon the 
 Friar, the Admirable Doctor ? or read good Sir Thomas More ? 
 What would Sir Thomas have said if he could have thought that 
 lie would be admired by two such people as you and I, in the 
 woods of America, in the nineteenth century ? But you do not 
 want books ! Ah ! my brave friend, you are not well. Come 
 into my cell and let us talk. What grieves you?" 
 
 And Andrew took him by the hand with the courtesy of a
 
 AT THE CASTLE. 
 
 45 
 
 knight, with the tenderness of a woman, and with the air of an 
 astrologer, and led him into the apartment of a monk. 
 
 " See ! " he said, " I have made a new chair. It is the high*- 
 
 THE SEDILITTM AT THE CASTLE. 
 
 est evidence of my love for my Teutonic friend. You have 
 now a right to this castle. You shall be perpetually welcome. 
 I said to myself, German scholarship shall sit there, and the
 
 46 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Backwoods Philosopher will sit here. So sit down on my 
 sedilium, and let us hear how this uncivil and inconstant world 
 treats you. It can not deal worse with you than it has with me. 
 But I have had my revenge on it ! I have been revenged ! I 
 have done as I pleased, and defied the world and all its hollow 
 conventionalities." These last words were spoken in a tone of 
 misanthropic bitterness common to Andrew. His love for 
 August was the more intense that it stood upon a background 
 of general dislike, if not for the world, at least for that portion 
 of it which most immediately surrounded him. 
 
 August took the chair, ingeniously woven and built of rye 
 straw and hickory splints. He knew that all this formality and 
 apparent pedantry was superficial. He and Andrew were bosom 
 friends, and as he had often opened his heart to the master of 
 the castle before, so now he had no difficulty in telling him his 
 troubles, scarcely heeding the appropriate quotations which An- 
 drew made from time to time by way of embellishment.
 
 TUK BACKWOODS 1'IIILOSOPHEU. 47 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE BACKWOODS PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 "NE reason for Andrew's love of August Wehle 
 was that he was a German. Far from sharing 
 in the prejudices of his neighbors against foreign- 
 ers, Andrew had so thorough a contempt for his 
 neighbors, that he liked anybody who did not 
 belong to his own people. If a Turk had emigrated to Clark 
 township, Andrew would have fallen in love with him, and 
 built a divan for his special accommodation. But he loved 
 August also for the sake of his gentle temper and his genuine 
 love for books. And only August or August's mother, upon 
 whom Andrew sometimes called, could exorcise his demon of 
 misanthropy, which he had nursed so long that it was now hard 
 to dismiss it. 
 
 Andrew Anderson belonged to a class noticed, I doubt not, 
 by every acute observer of provincial life in this country. In 
 backwoods and out-of-the-way communities literary culture pro- 
 duces marked eccentricities in the life. Your bookish man at 
 the West has never learned to mark the distinction between
 
 48 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the world of ideas and the world of practical life. Instead of 
 writing poems or romances, he falls to living them, or at 
 least trying to. Add a disappointment in love, and you will 
 surely throw him into the class of which Anderson was the 
 representative. For the education one gets from books is sadly 
 one-sided, unless it be balanced by a knowledge of the world. 
 
 Andrew Anderson had always been regarded as an oddity. 
 A man with a good share of ideality and literary taste, placed 
 against the dull background of the society of a Western neigh- 
 borhood in the former half of the century, would necessarily 
 appear odd. Had he drifted into communities of more cul- 
 ture, his eccentricity, begotten of a sense of superiority to his 
 surroundings, would have worn away. Had he been happily 
 married, his oddities would have been softened ; but neither of 
 these things happened. He told August a very different his- 
 tory. For the confidence of his " Teutonic friend " had awak- 
 ened in the solitary man a desire to uncover that story which 
 he had kept under lock and key for so many years. 
 
 " Ah ! iny friend," said he with excitement, " don't trust the 
 faith of a woman." And then rising from his seat he said, 
 " The Backwoods Philosopher warns you. I pray you give good 
 heed. I do not know Julia. She is my niece. It ill becomes 
 me to doubt her sincerity. But I know whose daughter she is. 
 I pray you give good heed, my Teutonic friend. I know wJiose 
 daughter she is! 
 
 " I do not talk much. But you have arrived at a critical 
 point a point of turning. Out of his own life, out of his own 
 sorrow, the Backwoods Philosopher warns you. I am at peace 
 now. But look at me. Do you not see the marks of the 
 ravages of a great storm ? A sort of a qualified happiness I
 
 THE BACKWOODS PHILOSOPHER. 61 
 
 have in philosophy. But what I might have been if the storm 
 had not torn me to pieces in my youth what I might have 
 been, that I am not. I pray you never trust in a woman's keep- 
 ing the happiness of your life ! " 
 
 Here Andrew slipped his arm through Wehle's, and began 
 to promenade with him in the large apartment up and down an 
 alley, dimly lighted by a candle, between solid phalanxes of 
 books. 
 
 " I pray you give good heed," he said, resuming. " I was 
 always eccentric. People thought I was either a genius or fool. 
 Perhaps I was much of both. But this is a digression. I did 
 not pay any attention to women. I shunned them. I said that 
 to be a great author and a philosophical thinker, one must not 
 be a man of society. I never went to a wood-chopping, to an 
 apple-peeling, to a corn-shucking, to a barn-raising, nor indeed to 
 any of our rustic feasts. I suppose this piqued the vanity of the 
 girls, and they set themselves to catch me. I suppose they 
 thought that I would be a trophy worth boasting. I have 
 noticed that hunters estimate game according to the difficulty of 
 getting it. But this is a digression. Let us return. 
 
 " There came among us, at that tune, Abigail Norman. She 
 was pretty. I swear by all the sacred cats of Egypt, that she 
 was beautiful. She was industrious. The best housekeeper in 
 the state ! She was high-strung. I liked her all the more for 
 that. You see a man of imagination is apt to fall in love with 
 a tragedy queen. But this is a digression. Let us return. 
 
 " She spread her toils in my path. While I was wandering 
 through the woods writing poetry to birds and squirrels, Abby 
 Norman was ambitious enough to hope to make me her slave, 
 and she did. She read books that she thought I liked. She
 
 52 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 planned in various ways to seem to like what I liked, and yet 
 she had sense enough to differ a little from me, and so make 
 herself the more interesting. I think a man of real intellect 
 never likes to have a man or woman agree with him entirely. 
 But let us return. 
 
 " I loved Abigail desperately. No, I did not love Abigail 
 Norman at all. I did not love her as she was, but I loved her 
 as she seemed to my imagination to be. I think most lovers 
 love an ideal that hovers in the air a little above the real r6ci- 
 pient of their love. And I think we men of genius and imagin- 
 ation are apt to love something very different from the real 
 person, which is unfortunate. 
 
 " But I am digressing again. To return : I wrote poetry to 
 Abby. I courted her. I cut off my long hah- for a woman, like 
 Samson. I tried to dress more decently, and made myself 
 ridiculous no doubt, for a man can not dress well unless he 
 has a talent for it. And I never had a genius for beau-knots. 
 
 " But pardon the digression. Let us return. I was to have 
 married her. The day was set. Then I found accidentally that 
 she was engaged to my brother Samuel, a young man with better 
 manners than mind. She made him believe that she was only 
 making a butt of me. But I think she really loved me more 
 than she knew. When I had discovered her treachery, I shipped 
 on the first flat-boat. I came near committing suicide, and should 
 have jumped into the river one night, only that I thought it 
 might flatter her vanity. I came back here and ignored her. 
 She broke with Samuel and tried to regain my affections. I 
 scorned her. I trod on her heart ! I stamped her pride into 
 the dust ! I was cruel. I was contemptuous. I was well-nigh 
 insane. Then she went back to Samuel, and made him marry
 
 THE BACKWOODS PHILOSOPHER. 53 
 
 her. Then she forced my imbecile old father, on his death-bed, 
 to will all the property to Samuel, except this piece of rough 
 hill -land and one thousand dollars. But here I built this 
 castle. My thousand dollars I put hi books. I learned how 
 to weave the coverlets of which our country people are so fond, 
 and by this means, and by selling wood to the steamboats, I have 
 made a living and bought my library without having to work 
 half of my time. I was determined never to leave. I swore 
 by all the arms of Vishnu she should never say that she had 
 driven me away. I 1 don't know anything about Julia. But I 
 know whose daughter she is. My young friend, beware ! I 
 pray you take good heed ! The Backwoods Philosopher warns 
 you!"'
 
 54 THE END OF THE WOULD. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 
 
 the gentleman is not born in a man, it can not 
 be bred in him. If it is born in him, it can not be 
 bred out of him. August Wehle had inherited from 
 his mother the instinct of true gentlemanliness. And 
 now, when Andrew relapsed into silence and abstrac- 
 tion, he did not attempt to rouse him, but bidding him good- 
 night, with his own hands threw the rope-ladder out the window 
 and started up the hollow toward home. The air was sultry 
 and oppressive, the moon had been engulfed, and the first thun- 
 der-cloud of the spring was pushing itself up toward the zenith, 
 while the boughs of the trees were quivering with a premon- 
 itory shudder. But August did not hasten. The real storm was 
 within. Andrew's story had raised doubts. When he went 
 down the ravine the love of Julia Anderson shone upon his 
 heart as benignly as the moon upon the waters. Now the light 
 was gone, and the black cloud of a doubt had shut out his 
 peace. Jule Anderson's father was rich. He had not thought of 
 it before ! But now he remembered how much woodland he
 
 WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 55 
 
 owned and how he had two large farms. Jule Anderson 
 would not marry a poor boy. And a Dutchman ! She was not 
 sincere. She was trifling with him and teasing her parents. Or, 
 if she were sincere now, she would not be faithful to him 
 against every tempting offer. And he would have to drive on 
 the rocks, too, as Andrew had. At any rate, he would not 
 marry her until he stood upon some sort of equality with her. 
 
 The wind was swaying him about hi its fitful gusts, and he 
 rather liked it. In his anguish of spirit it was a pleasure to 
 contend with the storm. The wind, the lightning, the sudden 
 sharp claps of thunder were on his own key. He felt in the 
 temper of old Lear. The winds might blow and crack their 
 cheeks. 
 
 But it was not alone the suggestions of Andrew that aroused 
 his suspicions. He now recalled a strange statement that 
 Samuel Anderson made in discharging him. " You said what 
 you had no right to say about my wife, in talking to Julia." 
 What had he said ? Only that some woman had not treated 
 Andrew "just right." Who the woman might be he had not 
 known until his present interview with Andrew. Had Julia 
 been making mischief herself by repeating his words and giving 
 them a direction he had not intended ? He could not have 
 dreamed of her acting such a part but for the strange influence 
 of Andrew's strange story. And so he staggered on, wet to the 
 skin, defying in his heart the lightning and the wind, until he 
 came to the cabin of his father. Climbing the fence, for there 
 was no gate, he pulled the latch-string and entered. They were 
 all asleep; the hard-working family went to bed early. But 
 chubby-faced Wilhelmina, the favorite sister, had set up to wait 
 for August, and he now found her fast asleep in the chair.
 
 56 THE END OF THE "WORLD. 
 
 " "Wilhelmina ! wake up!" he said. 
 
 " O August ! " she said, opening the corner of one eye and 
 yawning, " I wasn't asleep. I only ah shut my eyes a minute. 
 How wet you are ! Did you go to see the pretty girl up at Mr. 
 Anderson's ? " 
 
 "No," said August 
 
 
 " O August ! she is pretty, and she is good and sweet," and 
 
 Wilhelmina took his wet cheeks between her chubby hands 
 and gave him a sleepy kiss, and then crept off to bed. 
 
 And, somehow, the faith of the child "Wilhelmina counter- 
 acted the skepticism of the man Andrew, and August felt the 
 storm subsiding. 
 
 When he looked out of the window of the loft in which he 
 slept the shower had ceased as suddenly as it had come, the 
 thunder had retreated behind the hills, the clouds were already 
 breaking, and the white face of the moon was peering through 
 the ragged rifts.
 
 FIGGBRS WON'T LIB. 
 
 57 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FIGGERS WON'T LIE 
 
 IGGERS won't lie," said Elder Hankins, the 
 Millerite preacher. " I say figgers won't lie. 
 When a Methodis' talks about fallin' from grace 
 he has to argy the pint. And argyments can't 
 be depended 'pon. And when a Prisbyterian 
 talks about parseverance he haint got the absolute sartainty on 
 his side. But figgers won't lie noways, and it's figgers that 
 shows this yer to be the last yer of the world, and that the 
 final eend of all things is approachin'. I don't ask you to 
 listen to no 'mpressions of me own, to no reasonin' of nobody ; 
 all I ask is that you should listen to the voice of the man in 
 the linen-coat what spoke to Dan' el, and then listen to the voice 
 of the 'rithmetic, and to a sum in simple addition, the simplest 
 sort of addition." 
 
 All the Millerite preachers of that day were not quite so illit- 
 erate as Elder Hankins, and it is but fair to say that the Advent- 
 ists of to-day are a very respectable denomination, doing a work 
 which deserves more recognition from others than it receives.
 
 58 THE EHD OF THE WOULD. 
 
 And for the delusion which expects the world to come to an end 
 immediately, the Adventist leaders are not responsible in the 
 first place. From Gnosticism to Mormonisrn, every religious 
 delusion has grown from some fundamental error in the previ- 
 ous religious teaching of the people. By the narrowly verbal 
 method of reading the Scripture, so much in vogue in the polem- 
 ical discussions of the past generation, and still so fervently 
 adhered to by many people, the ground was prepared for Miller- 
 ism. And to-day in many regions the soil is made fallow for 
 the next fanaticism. It is only a question of who shall first sow 
 and reap. To people educated as those who gathered in Sugar 
 Grove school-house had been to destroy the spirit of the Scrip- 
 ture by distorting the letter in proving their own sect right, 
 nothing could be so overwhelming as Elder Hankins's " figgers." 
 
 For he had clearly studied figgers to the neglect of the other 
 branches of a liberal education. His demonstration was printed 
 on a large chart. He began with the seventy weeks of Daniel, 
 he added in the "time and times and a half," and what Daniel 
 declared that he " understood not when he heard," was plain sail- 
 ing to the enlightened and mathematical mind of Elder Han- 
 kins. When he came to the thousand two hundred and ninety 
 days, he waxed more exultant than Kepler in his supreme mo- 
 ment, and on the thousand three hundred and five and thirty 
 days he did what Jonas Harrison called " the blamedest tallest 
 cipherin' he'd ever seed in all his born days." 
 
 Jonas was the new hired man, who had stepped into the 
 shoes of August at Samuel Anderson's. He sat by August and 
 kept up a running commentary, hi a loud whisper, on the sermon, 
 "My feller-citizen," said Jonas, squeezing August's arm at a 
 climax of the elder's discourse, " My feller-citizen, looky thar,
 
 PIGGERS WON'T LIE. 59 
 
 won't you ? He'll cipher the world into nothin' in no time. 
 He's like the feller that tried to find out the valoo of a fat shoat 
 when wood was two dollars a cord. ' Ef I can't do it by sub- 
 straction I'll do it by long-division,' says he. And ef this 'rith- 
 metic preacher can't make a finishment of this sublunary speer by 
 addition, he'll do it by multiplyin'. They's only one answer in 
 his book. GUI him any sum you please, and it all comes 
 out 1843!" 
 
 Now in all the region round about Sugar Grove school-house 
 there was a great dearth of sensation. The people liked the 
 prospect of the end of the world because it would be a spectacle, 
 something to relieve the fearful monotony of their lives. Fune- 
 rals and weddings were commonplace, and nothing could have 
 been so interesting to them as the coming of the end of the 
 world, as described by Elder Hankins, unless it had been a first- 
 class circus (with two camels and a cage of monkeys attached, so 
 that scrupulous people might attend from a laudable desire to see 
 the menagerie !) A murder would have been delightful to the 
 people of Clark township. It would have given them some- 
 thing to think and talk about Into this still pool Elder Han- 
 kins threw the vials, the trumpets, the thunders, the beast with 
 ten horns, the he-goat, and all the other apocalyptic symbols 
 understood in an absurdly literal way. The world was to come 
 to an end in the following August. Here was an excitement, 
 something worth living for. 
 
 All the way to their homes the people disputed learnedly 
 about the " tune and times and a half," about " the seven heads 
 and ten horns," and the seventh vial. The fierce polemical dis- 
 cussions and the bold sectarian dogmatism of the day had taught 
 them anything but " the modesty of true science," and now the
 
 60 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 unsolvable problems of the centuries were taken out of the 
 hands of puzzled scholars and settled as summarily and posi- 
 tively as the relative merits of " gourd - seed " and " flint " corn. 
 Samuel Anderson had always planted his corn in the " light " of 
 the moon and his potatoes in the " dark " of that orb, had 
 always killed his hogs when the moon was on the increase lest 
 the meat should all go to gravy, and he and his wife had care- 
 fully guarded against the carrying of a hoe through the house, 
 for fear "somebody might die." Now, the preaching of the 
 elder impressed him powerfully. His life had always been not 
 so much a bad one as a cowardly one, and to get into heaven by 
 a six months' repentance, seemed to him a good transaction. 
 Besides he remembered that there men were never married, and 
 that there, at last, Abigail would no longer have any peculiar 
 right to torture him. Hankins could not have ciphered him into 
 Millerism if his wife had not driven him into it as the easiest 
 means of getting a divorce. No doom in the next world could 
 have alarmed him much, unless it had been the prospect of con- 
 tinuing lord and master of Mrs. Abigail. And as for that op- 
 pressed woman, she was simply scared. She was quite unwilling 
 
 * 
 to admit the coming of the world's end so soon. Having some 
 
 ugly accounts to settle, she would fain have postponed the pay- 
 day. Mrs. Anderson might truly have been called a woman 
 who feared God she had reason to. 
 
 And as for August, he would not have cared much if the 
 world had come to an end, if only he could have secured one 
 glance of recognition from the eyes of Julia. But Julia dared 
 not look. The process of cowing her had gone on from child- 
 hood, and now she was under a reign of terror. She did not yet 
 know that she could resist her mother. And then she lived in
 
 FIGGERS WON'T LIE. 61 
 
 mortal fear of her mother's heart-disease. By irritating her 
 she might kill her. This dread of matricide her mother held 
 always over her. In vain she watched for a chance. It did 
 not come. Once, when her mother's head was turned, she 
 glanced at August. But he was at that moment listening or 
 trying to listen to one of Jonas Harrison's remarks. And Au- 
 gust, who did not understand the circumstances, was only able 
 to account for her apparent coldness on the theory suggested 
 by Andrew's universal unbelief in women, or by supposing that 
 when she understood his innocent remark about Andrew's dis- 
 appointment to refer to her mother, she had taken offense at 
 it. And so, while the rest were debating whether the world 
 would come to an end or not, August had a disconsolate feeling 
 that the end of the world had already come. And it did not 
 make him feel better to have Wilhelmina whisper, " Oh ! but 
 she is pretty, that Anderson girl a'n't she, August?"
 
 62 
 
 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE NEW SINGING-MASTER. 
 
 sings like an owlingale ! " 
 Jonas Harrison was leaning against the 
 well-curb, talking to Cynthy Ann. He'd been 
 down to the store at Brayville, he said, a listenin' 
 to 'em discuss Millerism, and seed a new sing- 
 ing-master there. " Could he sing good ? " Cynthy asked, rather 
 to prolong the talk than to get information. 
 
 " Sings like an owlingale, I reckon. He's got more seals to 
 his ministry a-hanging onto his watch-chain than I ever seed. 
 Got a mustache onto the top story of his mouth, somethin' like 
 a tuft of grass on the roof of a ole shed kitchen. Peart ? He's 
 the peartest-lookin' chap I ever seed. But he a'n't no singin'- 
 master not ef I'm any jedge of turnips. He warn't born to 
 sarve his day and generation with a tunin'-fork. I think he's 
 a-goin' to reckon-water a little in these parts and that he's only 
 a-playin' singin' -master. He kin play more fiddles'n one, you 
 bet a hoss ! Says he come up here fer his wholesome, and I 
 guess he did. Think ef he'd a-staid where he was, he mout
 
 "DON'T BE ONOHAHITABLE, JONAS."
 
 THE NEW SINGING-MASTEB. 65 
 
 a-suffered a leetle from confinement to his room, and that room 
 p'raps not more nor five foot by nine, and ruther dim-lighted 
 and poor-provisioned, an' not much chance fer takin' exercise in 
 the fresh air ! " 
 
 " Don't be oncharitable, Jonas, don't. We're all mis'able shi- 
 ners, I s'pose ; and you know charity don't think no evil. The 
 man may be all right, ef he does wear hah 1 on his lip. Charity 
 kivers lots a sins." 
 
 " Ya-as, but charity don't kiver no wolves with wool. An' ef 
 he a'n't a woolly wolf they's no snakes hi Jarsey, as little Ridin' 
 Hood said when her granny tried to bite her head off. I'm dead 
 sot in favor of charity, and mean to gin her my vote at every 
 election, but I a'n't a-goin' to have her put a blind-bridle on to 
 me. And when a man comes to Clark township a-wearing, 
 straps to his breechaloons to keep hisself from leaving terry- 
 firmy altogether, and a-weightin' hisself down with pewter watch- 
 seals, gold-washed, and a cultivating a crap of red-top hay onto 
 his upper lip, and a-lettin' on to be a singin' -master, I suspicions 
 him. They's too much in the git-up fer the come-out. "Well, 
 here's yer health, Cynthy ! " 
 
 And having made this oracular speech and quaffed the hard 
 limestone water, Jonas hung the clean white gourd from which 
 he had been drinking, in its place against the well-curb, and 
 started back to the field, while Cynthy Ann carried her bucket 
 of water into the kitchen, blaming herself for standing so long 
 talking to Jonas. To Cynthy everything pleasant had a flavor 
 of sinfulness. 
 
 The pail of water was hardly set down in the sink when 
 there came a knock at the door, and Cynthy found standing by 
 it the strapped pantaloons, the "red-top" mustache, the watch-
 
 66 THE END OF THE WOULD. 
 
 seals, and all the rest that went to make up the new singing- 
 master. He smiled when he saw her, one of those smiles which 
 are strictly limited to the lower half of the face, and are wholly 
 mechanical, as though certain strings inside were pulled with 
 malice aforethought and the mouth jerked out into a square 
 grin, such as an ingeniously-made automaton might display. 
 
 " Is Mr. Anderson in ? " 
 
 "No, sir; he's gone to town." 
 
 " Is Mrs. Anderson in ? " 
 
 And so he entered, and soon got into conversation with the 
 lady of the house, and despite the prejudice which she enter- 
 tained for mustaches, she soon came to like him. He smiled 
 so artistically. He talked so fluently. He humored all her 
 whims, pitied all her complaints, and staid to dinner, eating 
 her best preserves with a graciousness that made Mrs. Ander- 
 son feel how great was his condescension. For Mr. Humphreys, 
 the singing-master, had looked at the comely face of Julia, and 
 looked over Julia's shoulders at the broad acres beyond ; and he 
 thought that in Clark township he had not met with so fine a 
 landscape, so nice a figure-piece. And with the quick eye of a 
 man of the world, he had measured Mrs. Anderson, and calcu- 
 lated on the ease with which he might complete the picture 
 to suit his taste. 
 
 He staid to supper. He smiled that same fascinating square 
 smile on Samuel Anderson, treated him as head of the house, 
 talked glibly of farming, and listened better than he talked. 
 He gave no account of himself, except by way of allusion. 
 He would begin a sentence thus, " When I was traveling in 
 France with my poor dear mother," etc., from which Mrs. Ander- 
 son gathered that he had been a devoted son, and then he would
 
 67 
 
 THE HAWK.
 
 THE NEW SIXCJI NO-MASTER. 69 
 
 relate how he had seen something curious " when he -was dining 
 at the house of the American minister at Berlin." "This hazy 
 air reminds me of my native mountains in Northern New York." 
 And then he would allude to his study of music in the Con- 
 servatory in Leipsic. To plain country people in an out-of- 
 the-way Western neighborhood, in 1843, such a man was better 
 than a lyceum full of lectures. He brought them the odor of 
 foreign travel, the flavor of city, the " otherness " that every- 
 body craves. 
 
 He staid to dinner, as I have said, and to supper. He staid 
 over night. He took up his board at the house of Samuel 
 Anderson. Who could resist his entreaty? Did he not assure 
 them that he felt the need of a home in a cultivated family ? 
 And was it not the one golden opportunity to have the daughter 
 of the house taught music by a private master, and thus give a 
 special eclat to her education ? How Mrs. Anderson hoped 
 that this superior advantage would provoke jealous remarks 
 on the part of her neighbors ! It was only necessary to the 
 completion of her triumph that they should say she was " stuck 
 up." Then, too, to have so brilliant a beau for Julia ! A beau 
 with watch-seals and a mustache, a beau who had been to Paris 
 with his mother, studied music in the Conservatory at Leipsic, 
 dined with the American minister in Berlin, and done ever so 
 many more wonderful things, was a prospect to delight the 
 ambitious heart of Mrs. Anderson, especially as he flattered the 
 mother instead of the daughter. 
 
 " He's a independent citizen of this Federal Union," said 
 Jonas to Cynthy, " carries his head like he was intimately 
 'quainted with the 'merican eagle hisself. He's playin' this game 
 sharp. He deals all the trumps to hisself, and most everything
 
 70 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 besides. He'll carry off the gal if something don't arrest him in 
 his headlong career. Jist let me git a chance at him when 
 he's soarin' loftiest into the amber blue above, and I'll cut his 
 kite-string fer him, and let him fall like fork-ed lightnin' into 
 a mud-puddle." 
 
 Cynthy said she did see one great sin that he had committed 
 for sure. That was the puttin' on of gold and costly apparel. 
 It was sot down in the Bible and in the Methodist Discipline 
 that it was a sin to wear gold, and she should think the poor 
 man hadn't no sort o' regard for his soul, weighing it down with 
 them things. 
 
 But Jonas only remarked that he guessed his jewelry warn't 
 no sin. He didn't remember nothing agin wearin' pewter.
 
 AN OFFER OF HELP. 71 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AN OFFER OF HELP. 
 
 'HE singing-master, Mr. Humphreys, went to 
 singing-school and church with Julia in a mat- 
 ter-of-course way, treating her with attention, but 
 taking care not to make himself too attentive. Ex- 
 cept that Julia could not endure his smile which 
 was, like some joint stock companies, strictly limited she 
 liked him well enough. It was something to her, in her monot- 
 onous life under the eye of her mother, who almost never left 
 her alone, and who cut off all chance for communication with 
 August it was something to have the unobtrusive attentions 
 of Mr. Humphreys, who always interested her with his adven- 
 tures. For indeed it really seemed that he had had more adven- 
 tures than any dozen other men. How should a simple-hearted 
 girl understand him? How should she read the riddle of a life 
 so full of duplicity of multiplicity as the life of Joshua Hum- 
 phreys, the music-teacher ? Humphreys intended to make love 
 to her, but during the first two weeks he only aimed to gain her 
 esteem. He felt that there was a clue which he had not got.
 
 72 THE END OP THE \VORLD. 
 
 But at last the key dropped into his hands, and he felt sure that 
 the unsophisticated girl was in his power. 
 
 Among the girls that attended Humphreys'? singing-school was 
 Betsey Malcolm, the near neighbor of the Andersons. The 
 singing-master often saw her at Mr. Anderson's, and he often 
 wished that Julia were as easy to win as he felt Betsey to be. 
 The sensuous mouth, the giddy eyes of Betsey, showed quickly 
 her appreciation of every flattering attention he paid her, and 
 though in Julia's presence he was careful how he treated her, 
 yet when he, walking clown the road one day, alone, met her, he 
 courted her assiduously. He had not to observe any caution in 
 her case. She greedily absorbed all the flattery he could give, 
 only pettishly responding after a while : " O dear ! that's the way 
 you talk to me, and that's the way you talk to Jule sometimes, 
 I s'pose. I guess she don't mind keeping two of you as strings 
 to her bow." 
 
 " Two ! What do you mean, my fair friend ? I havn't seen 
 one, yet." 
 
 " Oh, no ! You mean you haven't seen two. You see one 
 whenever you look in the glass. The other is a Dutchman, and 
 she's dying after him. She may flirt with you, but her mother 
 watches her night and day, to keep her from running off with 
 Gus Wehle." 
 
 Like many another crafty person, Betsey Malcolm had fairly 
 overshot the mark. In seeking to separate Humphreys from 
 Julia, she had given him the clue he desired, and he was not 
 slow to use it, for he was almost the only person that Mrs. An- 
 derson trusted alone with Julia. 
 
 In the dusk of the evening of the very day of his talk with 
 Betsey, he sat on the long front-porch with Julia. Julia liked
 
 AN OPFEK OF HELP. 73 
 
 him bettsr, or rather did not dislike him so much in the dark 
 as she did in the light. For when it was light she could see 
 him smile, and though she had not learned to connect a cold- 
 blooded face with a villainous character, she had that childish 
 instinct which made her shrink from Humphreys's square smile. 
 It always seemed to her that the real Humphreys gazed at her 
 out of the cold, glittering eyes, and that the smile was some- 
 thing with which he had nothing to do. 
 
 Sitting thus in the dusk of the evening, and looking out over 
 the green pasture to where the nigher hills ceased and the dis- 
 tant seemed to come immediately after, their distance only indi- 
 cated by color, though the whole Ohio " bottom" was between, 
 she forgot the Mephistopheles who sat not far away, and dreamed 
 of August, the "grand," as she fancifully called him. And he 
 let her sit and dream undisturbed for a long time, until the 
 darkness settled down upon the hills. Then he spoke. 
 
 " I I thought," began Humphreys, with well-feigned hesi- 
 tancy, " I thought, I should venture to offer you my assistance 
 as a true and gallant man, in a matter a matter of supreme 
 delicacy a matter that I have no right to meddle with. I 
 think I have heard that your mother is not friendly to the suit of 
 a young man who who well, let us say who is not wholly 
 disagreeable to you. I beg your pardon, don't, tell me anything 
 that you prefer to keep locked in the privacy of your own bo- 
 som. But if I can render any assistance, you know. I have 
 some little influence with your parents, maybe. If I could be the 
 happy bearer of any communications, command me as your obe- 
 dient servant." 
 
 Julia did not know what to say. To get a word to August 
 was what she most desired. But the thought of using Hum-
 
 74 THE END OP THE WOULD. 
 
 phreys was repulsive to her. She could not see his face in the 
 gathering darkness, but she could feel him smile that same 
 soulless, geometrical smile. She could not do it. She did not 
 know what to say. So she said nothing. Humphreys saw that 
 he must begin farther back. 
 
 " I hear the young man spoken of as a praiseworthy per- 
 son. German, I believe ? I have always noticed a peculiar 
 manliness about Germans. A peculiar refinement, indeed, and a 
 courtesy that is often wanting hi Americans. I noticed this 
 when I was in Leipsic. I don't think the German girls are quite 
 so refined. German gentlemen in this country seem to prefer 
 American girls oftentimes." 
 
 All this might have sounded hollow enough to a disinterested 
 listener. To Julia the words were as sweet as the first rain 
 after a tedious drouth. She had heard complaint, censure, in- 
 nuendo, and downright abuse of poor Gus. These Avere the 
 first generous words. They confirmed her judgment, they com- 
 forted her heart, they made her feel grateful, even affection- 
 ate toward the fop, in spite of his watch-seals, his curled mus- 
 tache, his straps, his cold eyes, and his artificial smile. Poor 
 fool you will call her, and poor fool she was. For she could 
 have thrown herself at the feet of Humphreys, and thanked 
 him for his words. Thank him she did in a stammering way, 
 and he did not hesitate to repeat his favorable impressions of 
 Germans, after that. What he wanted was, not to break the hold 
 of August until he had placed himself in a position to be next 
 heir to her regard.
 
 THE COON-DOG ARGUMENT. 75 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE COON-DOG MIGUMENT. 
 
 HE reader must understand that all this time Elder 
 Hankins continued to bombard Clark township 
 with the thunders and lightnings of the Apocalypse, 
 continued to whirl before the dazed imaginations of 
 his rustic hearers the wheels within wheels and the 
 faces of the living creatures of 'Zek'el, continued to cipher the 
 world out of existence according to formulas in Dan' el, marched 
 out the he-goat, made the seven heads and ten horns of the 
 beast do service over and over again. And all the sweet mys- 
 teries of Oriental imagery, the mystic figures which unex- 
 pounded give so noble a depth to the perspective of Scripture, 
 were cut to pieces, pulled apart, and explained as though they 
 were tricks of legerdemain. Julia was powerfully impressed, 
 not by the declamations of Hankins, for she had sensibility 
 enough to recoil from his vivisection of Scripture, though she had 
 been all her life accustomed to hear it from other than Miller- 
 ites, but she was profoundly affected by the excitement about 
 her. Her father, attracted in part by the promise that there
 
 76 THE END OF THE WOKL3X 
 
 should be no marrying there, had embraced Millerism with 
 all his heart, and was in such a state of excitement that he 
 could not attend to his business. Mrs. Anderson was in con- 
 tinual trepidation about it, though she tried not to believe it. 
 She was on the point of rebelling and declaring that the world 
 should not come to an end. But on the whole she felt that the 
 government of the universe was one affair in which she would 
 have to give up all hope of having her own way. Meantime 
 there was no increase of religion. Some were frightened out of 
 their vices for a time, but a passionate terror of that sort is the 
 worst enemy of true piety. 
 
 " Fer my part," said Cynthy Ann, as she walked home with 
 Jonas, " fer my part, I don't believe none of his nonsense. John 
 Wesley" (Jonas was a New-Light, and Cynthy always talked 
 to him about Wesley) "knowed a heap more about Scripter 
 than all the Hankinses and Millerses that ever was born, and 
 he knowed how to cipher, too, I 'low. Why didn't he say 
 the world was goin' to wind up ? An' our persidin' elder is a 
 heap better instructed than Hankins, and he says God don't 
 tell nobody when the world's goin' to wind up." 
 
 " Goin' to run down, you mean, Cynthy Ann. 'Kordin' to 
 Hankins it's a old clock gin out in the springs, I 'low. How 
 does Hankins know that 'Zek'el's livin' creeters means one 
 thing more'n another? He talks about them wheels as nateral 
 as ef he was a wagon-maker fixin' a ole buggy. He says the 
 thing's a gone tater; no more craps of corn offen the bottom 
 land, no more electin' presidents of this free and glorious Co- 
 lumby, no more Fourths, no more shootin' crackers nor span- 
 gled banners, no more nothin'. He ciphers and ciphers, and 
 then spits on his slate and wipes us all out. Whenever Gabr'el
 
 THE COON-DOG ARGUMENT. 77 
 
 blows I'll b'lieve it, but I won't take none o' Hankins's tootin' 
 in place of it. I shan't git skeered at no tin-horns, and as tot 
 papaw whistles, why, I say Jericho wouldn't a-tumbled for no 
 sech music, and they won't fetch down no stars that air way." 
 
 Here old Gottlieb Wehle, who had just joined the Miller- 
 ites, came up. " Yonas, you mags shport of de Piple. Ef dem 
 vaces in der veels, and dem awvool veels in der veels, and dem 
 figures yot always says aideen huntert vordy dree, ef dem tond 
 mean sompin awvool, vot does dey mean ? Hey?" 
 
 "My venerated friend and feller-citizen of forren birth," 
 said Jonas, "you hit the nail on the crown of the head squar, 
 with the biggest sort ov a sledge-hammer. You gripped a-holt 
 of the truth that air time like the American bird a-grippin' the 
 arries on the shield. What do they mean? That's jest the 
 question, and you Millerites allers argies like the man who 
 warranted his dog to be a good coon-dog, bekase he warn't 
 good fer nothin' else under the amber blue. Now, my time- 
 honored friend and beloved German voter, jest let me tell you 
 that on the coon-dog principle you could a-wound up the trade 
 and traffic of this airth any time. Fer ef they don't mean 
 1843, what do they mean? Why, 1842 or 1844, of course. 
 You don't come no coon-dog argyments over me, not while I 
 remain sound in wind and limb." 
 
 " Goon-tog ! Who zed goon-tog ? Ich tidn't, Hankins tidn't, 
 Ze'kel's wision tidn't zay nodin pout no goon-tog. What's 
 goon-togs cot do too mit de end of de vorld? Yonas, you pe 
 a vool, maype." 
 
 " The same to yerself, my beloved friend and free and en- 
 lightened feller-citizen. Long may you wave, like a green bay 
 boss, and a jimson-weed on the sunny side of a board-fence!"
 
 78 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Gottlieb hurried on, finding Jonas much harder to under- 
 stand than the prophecies. 
 
 "I hear the singing-master is goin' to jine," said Cynthy Ann. 
 " Wonder ef they'll take him with all his seals and straps, and 
 hair on his upper lip, with the plain words of the Bible agin 
 gold and costly apparel? Wonder ef he's tuck in, too?" 
 
 "Tuck in? He an't one of that kind. He don't never git 
 tuck in he tucks in. He knows which side of his bread's got 
 quince presarves onto it. I used to run second mate on the 
 Book of Orleans, and I know his kind. He'll soar around like 
 a turkey-buzzard fer a while. Presently he'll 'light. He's 
 rusticatin' tell some scrape blows over. An' he'll make some- 
 thin' outen it. Business afore pleasure is his motto. He don't 
 hang that seducin' grin under them hawky eyes fer nothin'. 
 "Wait till the pious and disinterested example 'lights some- 
 wheres. Then look out for the feathers, won't ye ! He won't 
 leave nary bone. But here we air. I declare, Cynthy, this 
 walk seems the sliortest, when I'm in superfine, number-one 
 comp'ny ! " 
 
 Cynthy was so pleased with this remark, that she did pen- 
 ance in her mind for a week afterwards. It was so wicked 
 to enjoy one's self out of class-meeting !
 
 TWO MISTAKES. 79 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TWO MISTAKES. 
 
 T the singing-school and at the church August 
 waited as impatiently as possible for some sign 
 of recognition from Julia. He little knew the 
 fear that beset her. Having seen her hysterical 
 mother prostrated for weeks by tfie excitement 
 of a dispute with her father, it seemed to her that if she turned 
 one look of love and longing toward young Wehle, whose 
 sweet German voice rang out above the rest in the hymns, she 
 might kill her mother as quickly as by plunging a knife into 
 her heart. The steam-doctor, who was the family physician, had 
 warned her and her father separately of the danger of exciting 
 Mrs. Anderson's most excitable temper, and now Julia was the 
 slave of her mother's disease. That lucky hysteria, which the 
 steam-doctor thought a fearful heart-disease, had given Mrs. 
 Abigail the whip-hand of husband and daughter, and she was 
 not slow to know her advantage, using her heart in a most 
 heartless way.
 
 80 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 August could not blame Julia for not writing, for he had 
 tried to break the blockade by a letter sent through Jonas and 
 Cynthy Ann, but the latter had found herself so well watched 
 that the note oppressed her conscience and gave a hangdog 
 look to her face for two weeks before she got it out of her 
 pocket, and then she put it under the pillow of Julia's bed, and 
 had reason to believe that the suspicious Mrs. Anderson confis- 
 cated it within five minutes. For the severity of maternal 
 government was visibly increased thereafter, and Julia received 
 many reminders of her ingratitude and of her determination to 
 kill her self-sacrificing mother by her stubbornness. 
 
 " Well," Mrs. Anderson would say, " it's all one to me 
 whether the world comes to an end or not. I should like to 
 live to see the day of judgment. But I shan't. No affectionate 
 mother can stand such treatment as I receive from my own 
 daughter. If Norman was only at home ! " 
 
 It is proper to explain here that Norman was her son, in 
 whom she took a great deal of comfort when he was away, and 
 whom she would have utterly spoiled by indulgence if he had 
 not been born past spoiling. He was the only person to whom 
 she was indulgent, and she was indulgent to him chiefly be- 
 cause he was so weak of will that there was not much glory 
 in conquering him, and because her indulgence to him was a 
 rod of affliction to the rest of her family. 
 
 Failing to open communication through Jonas and Cynthy 
 Ann, August found himself in a desperate strait, and with an 
 impatience common to young men he unhappily had recourse to 
 Betsey Malcolm. She often visited Julia, and twice, when Julia 
 was not at meeting, he went home with the ingenuous Betsey, 
 who always pretended to have something to tell him "about
 
 TWO MISTAKES. 81 
 
 Jule," and who yet, for the pure love of mischief-making, tried 
 to make him think as poorly as possible of Julia's sincerity, 
 and who, from pure love of flirtation, puckered her red lips, 
 and flashed at him with her sensuous eyes, and sighed and 
 blushed, or rather flushed, while she sympathized with him hi 
 a way that might have been perilous if he had been an Amer- 
 ican instead of a constant-hearted " Dutchman," wholly ab- 
 sorbed with the image of Julia. But, so far as carrying mes- 
 sages was concerned, Betsey was certainly a non-conductor. 
 She professed never to be able to run the blockade with any 
 communication of his. She said to herself that she wasn't 
 going to help Jule Anderson to keep all the beaus. She meant 
 to capture one or the other of them if she could. And, 
 indeed, she did not dream how grievous was the wrong she 
 did. For she could appreciate no other feeling hi the matter 
 than vanity, and she could not see any particular harm hi 
 " taking Jule Anderson down a peg." And so she assured the 
 anxious and already suspicious August that if she was in his 
 place she should want that singing-master out of the way. 
 " Some girls can't stand people that wear jewelry and mus- 
 taches and straps and such things. And Mr. Humphreys is 
 very careful of her, won't let her sit too late on the porch, and 
 is very comforting hi his way of talking to her. And she 
 seems to like it. I tell you what it is, Gus " and she looked 
 at him so bewitchingly that the pure and sensitive August 
 blushed, he could hardly tell why " I tell you Jule's a nice 
 girl, and got a nice property back of her, and I hope she 
 won't act like her mother. And, indeed, I can't hardly believe 
 she will, though the way she eyes that Humphreys makes me 
 mad." She had suggested the old doubt. A doubt ia danger-
 
 82 THE END OF THE WOELD. 
 
 ous when its face grows familiar, and one recognizes the " Mon- 
 sieur Tonson come again." 
 
 And all the message the disinterested and benevolent Betsey 
 bore to Julia was to tell her exultingly that Gus had twice 
 walked home with her. And they had had such a nice time ! 
 And Julia, girl that she was, declared indignantly that she didn't 
 care whom he went with ; though she did care, and her eyes 
 and face said so. Thus the tongue sometimes lies or seems 
 to lie when the whole person is telling the truth. The only 
 excuse for the tongue is that it will not be believed, and it 
 knows that it will not be believed ! It only speaks diplo- 
 matically, maybe. But diplomatic talking is bad. Better the 
 truth. If Jule had known that her words would be reported 
 to August, she would have bitten out her tongue rather than 
 to have let it utter words that were only the cry of her 
 wounded pride. Of course Betsey met August in the road 
 the next morning, in a quiet hollow by the brook, and told him 
 sympathizingly, almost affectionately, that she had begun to 
 talk to Julia about him, and that Jule had said she didn't care. 
 So while Julia uttered a lie she spoke the truth, and while 
 Betsey uttered the truth she spoke a lie, willful, malicious, and 
 wicked. 
 
 Now, in the mean time, Julia, on her side, had tried to open 
 communication through the only channel that offered itself. She 
 did not attempt it by means of Betsey, because, being a woman, 
 she felt instinctively that Betsey was not to be trusted. But 
 there was only one other to whom she was allowed to speak, 
 except under a supervision as complete as it was unacknowl- 
 edged. That other was Mr. Humphreys. He evinced a con- 
 stant interest in her affairs, avowing that he always did have
 
 TWO MISTAKES. 83 
 
 a romantic desire to effect the union of suitable people, even 
 though it might pain his heart a little to see another more 
 fortunate than himself. Julia had given up all hope of commu- 
 nicating by letter, and she could not bring herself to make 
 any confessions to a man who had such a smile and such eyes, 
 but to a generous proposition of Mr. Humphreys that he should 
 see August and open the way for any communication between 
 them, she consented, scarcely concealing her eagerness. 
 
 August was not in a mood to receive Humphreys kindly. He 
 hated him by intuition, and a liking for him had not been 
 begotten by Betsey's assurances that he was making headway 
 with Julia. August was riding astride a bag of corn on his 
 way to mill, when Humphreys, taking a walk, met him. 
 
 " A pleasant day, Mr. Wehle 1 " 
 
 " Yes," said August, with a courtesy as mechanical as Hum- 
 phreys's smile. 
 
 The singing-master was rather pleased than otherwise to see 
 that August disliked him. It suited his purpose just now to 
 gall Wehle into saying what he would not otherwise have said. 
 
 " I hear you are in trouble," he proceeded 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " Oh ! I hear that Mrs. Anderson doesn't like Dutchmen." 
 The smile now seemed to have something of a sneer in it. 
 
 " I don't know that that is your affair," said August, all 
 his suspicions, by a sort of " resolution of force," changing into 
 anger. 
 
 " Oh ! I beg pardon," with a tone half-mocking. " I did 
 not know but I might help settle matters. I think I have 
 Mrs. Anderson's confidence, and I know that I have Miss 
 Anderson's confidence in an unusual degree. I think a great
 
 84 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 deal of her. And she thinks me her friend at least. I thought 
 that there might be some little matters yet unsettled between 
 you two, and she suggested that maybe there might be some- 
 thing you would like to say, and that if you would say it to 
 me, it would be all the same as if it were said to her. She 
 considers that in the relation I bear to her and the family, 
 a message delivered to me is the same in effect as if given to 
 her. I told her I did not think you would, as a gentleman, 
 wish to hold her to any promises that might be irksome to her 
 now." 
 
 These words were spoken with a coolness and malicious- 
 ness of good-nature quite devilish, and August's fist involun- 
 tarily doubled itself to strike him, if only to make him cease 
 smiling in that villainous rectangular way. But he checked 
 himself 
 
 " You are a puppy. Tell that to Jule, if you choose. I shall 
 send her a release from all obligations, but not by the hand 
 of a rascal ! " 
 
 Like all desperadoes, Humphreys was a coward. He could 
 shoot, but he could not fight, and just now he was affecting 
 the pious or at least the high moral role, and had left his 
 pistols, brandy-flasks, and the other necessary appurtenances 
 of a gentleman, locked hi his trunk. Besides it would not at 
 all have suited his purpose to shoot. So in lieu of shooting he 
 only smiled, as August rode off, that same old geometric smile, 
 the elements of which were all calculated. He seemed inca- 
 pable of any other facial contortion. It expressed one emo- 
 tion, indeed, about as well as another, and was therefore as 
 convenient as those pocket-knives which affect to contain a chest 
 of tools in one.
 
 85
 
 TWO MISTAKES. 87 
 
 Julia was already stung to jealousy by Betsey Malcolm's 
 mischief-making, and it did not require much more to put her 
 into a frenzy. As they walked home from meeting the next 
 night they had meeting all nights now, the world would 
 soon end and there was so much to be done as they walked 
 home Humphreys contrived to separate Julia from the rest, 
 and to tell her that he had had a conversation with young 
 Wehle. 
 
 "It was painful, very painful," he said, "I think I had 
 better not say any more about it." 
 
 " Why ? " asked Julia in terror. 
 
 " Well, I feel that your grief is mine. I have never felt 
 so much interest in any one before, and I must say that I was 
 grievously disappointed. This young man is not at all worthy 
 of you." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " And there was a trace of indigna- 
 tion in her tone. 
 
 " It does seem to me that the man who has your love 
 should be the happiest in the world; but he refused to send 
 you any message, and says that he will soon send you an entire 
 release from all engagement to him. He showed no tender- 
 ness and made no inquiry." 
 
 The weakest woman and the strongest can faint. It is 
 a woman's last resort. When all else is gone, that remains. 
 Julia drew a sharp quick breath, and was just about to be- 
 come unconscious. Humphreys stretched his arms to catch 
 her, but the sudden recollection that in case she fainted he 
 would carry her into the house, produced a reaction. She 
 released herself from his grasp, and hurried in alone, lock- 
 ing her door, and refusing admittance to her mother. From
 
 88 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Humphreys, who had put himself into a delicate minor key, 
 Mrs. Anderson got such an account of the conversation as he 
 thought best to give. She then opened and read a note placed 
 into her hand by a neighbor as she came out from meeting. 
 It was addressed to Julia, and ran : 
 
 " If all they say is true, you have quickly changed. I do 
 not hold you by any promises you wish to break. 
 
 "AUGUST WEHLE." 
 
 Mrs. Anderson had no pity. She hesitated not an instant. 
 Julia's door was fast. But she went out upon the front 
 upper porch, and pushing up the window of her daughter's 
 room as remorselessly as she had committed the burglary on her 
 private letter, she looked at her a moment, sobbing on the bed, 
 and then threw the letter into the room, saying : " It's good for 
 you. Read that, and see what a fellow your Dutchman is." 
 
 Then Mrs. Anderson sought her couch, and slept with a 
 serene sense of having done Tier duty as a mother, whatever 
 might be the result.
 
 THE SPIDER SPINS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SPIDER SPINS. 
 
 ULIA got up from her bed the moment that 
 her mother had gone. Her first feeling was that her 
 privacy had been shamefully outraged. A true 
 mother should honorably respect the reserve of the 
 little child. But Julia was now a woman, grown, 
 with a woman's spirit. She rose from her bed, and shut her 
 window with a bang that was meant to be a protest. She then 
 put the tenpenny nail sometimes used to fasten the window 
 down, hi its place, as if to say, " Come in, if you can." Then 
 she pulled out the folds of the chintz curtain, hanging on its 
 draw-string half-way up the window. If there had been any 
 other precaution possible, she would have taken it. But there 
 was not. 
 
 She took up the note, and read it. Julia was not a girl of 
 keen penetration. Her training was that of a country life. She 
 did not read between the lines of August's note, and could only 
 understand that she was dismissed. Outraged by her mother's 
 tyranny, spurned by her lover, she stood like a hunted creature, 
 brought to bay, looking for the last desperate chance for escape. 
 Crushed? No. If she had been weaker, if she had been 
 of the quieter, frailer sort, instead of being, as she was, elastic, 
 impulsive, recuperative, she might have been crushed. She was
 
 90 . THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 wounded in her heart of hearts, but all her pride and hardihood, 
 of which she had not a little, had now taken up arms against 
 outrageous fortune. She was stung at every thought of August 
 and his letter, of Betsey Malcolm and her victory, of the fact 
 that her mother had read the letter and knew of her humili- 
 ation. And she paced the floor of her room, and resolved to 
 resist and to be revenged. She would marry anybody, that 
 she might show Betsey and August they had not broken her 
 heart and that her love did not go begging. 
 
 O Julia ! take care. Many another woman has jumped off 
 that precipice! 
 
 And she would escape from her mother. The indications of 
 affection adroitly given by Humphreys were all remembered now. 
 She could have . him, and she would. He would take her to 
 Cincinnati. She would have her revenge all around. I am 
 sorry to show you my heroine in this mood. But the fairest 
 climes are sometimes subject to the fiercest hurricanes, the 
 frightfulest earthquakes ! 
 
 After an hour the room seemed hot. She pulled back the 
 chintz curtain and pushed up the window. The blue-grass in 
 the pasture looked cool as it drank -the heavy dews. She 
 climbed through the window on to the long, old-fashioned upper 
 porch. She sat down upon an old-fashioned settee with rock- 
 ers, and began to rock. The motion relieved her nervous- 
 ness and fanned her hot cheeks. Yes, she would accept the 
 first respectable lover that offered. She would go to the city 
 with Humphreys, if he asked her. It is only fair to say that 
 Julia did not at all consider she was .not in a temper to con- 
 sider what a marriage with Humphreys implied. She only 
 thought of it on two sides the revenge upon August and
 
 THE SPIDER SPINS. 
 
 91 
 
 Betsey, and the escape from a thralldom now grown more bitter 
 than death. True, her conscience was beginning to awaken, 
 and to take up arms against her resolve. But nothing could be 
 plainer. In marrying Mr. Humphreys she should marry a 
 friend, the only friend she had. In marrying him she would 
 
 TEMPTED. 
 
 satisfy her mother, and was it not her duty to sacrifice something 
 to her mother's happiness, perhaps her mother's life? 
 
 Yes, yes, Julia, a false spirit of self-sacrifice is another path 
 over the cliff! la such a mood as this all paths lead into the 
 abyss. 
 
 Her mind was made up. She braced her will against all
 
 92 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the relentings of her heart. She wished that Humphreys, who 
 had indirectly declared his love so often, were there to offer at 
 once. She would accept him immediately, and then the whole 
 neighborhood should not say that she had been deserted by 
 a Dutchman. For in her anger she found her mother's epithets 
 expressive. 
 
 He was there ! Was it the devil that planned it ? Does 
 he plan all those opportunities for wrong that are so sure to 
 offer themselves? Humphreys, having led a life that turned 
 night into day, sat at the farther end of the long upper porch, 
 smoking his cigar, waiting a bed-time nearer to the one to 
 which he was accustomed. 
 
 Did he suspect the struggle in the heart of Julia Anderson ? 
 Did he guess that her pride and defiance had by this time 
 reached high-water mark? Did he divine this from seeing 
 her there ? He rose and started in through the door 
 of the upper hall, the only opening to the porch, except 
 the window. But this was a feint. He turned back and 
 sat himself down upon the farther end of the settee from 
 Julia. He understood human nature perfectly, and had 
 . had long practice in making gradual approaches. He begged 
 her pardon for the bungling manner in which he had com- 
 municated intelligence that must be so terrible to a heart so 
 sensitive ! Julia was just going to declare that she did ot care 
 anything for what August said or thought, but her natural truth- 
 fulness checked the transparent falsehood. She had not gone 
 far enough astray to lie consciously ; she was, as yet, only telling 
 lies to herself. Very gradually and cautiously did he proceed so 
 as not to " flush the bird." Even as I saw, an hour ago, a 
 cat creep upon a sparrow with fascinating eyes, and a waving,
 
 THE SPIDER SPINS. 93 
 
 snake-like motion of the tail, and a treacherous feline smile upon 
 her face, even so, cautiously and by degrees, Humphreys felt 
 Lis way with velvet paws toward his prey. He knew the 
 opportunity, that once gone might not come again; he soon 
 guessed that this was the hour and power of darkness in the 
 soul of Julia, the hour hi which she would seek to flee from 
 her own pride and mortification. And if Humphreys knew 
 how to approach with a soft tread, very slowly and cautiously, 
 he also knew men of his " profession " always know when 
 to spring. He saw the moment, he made the spring, he seized 
 the prey. 
 
 " Will you trust your destiny to me, Miss Anderson ? You 
 seem beset by troubles. I have means. I could not but be 
 wholly devoted to your welfare. Let me help you to flee away 
 from from all this mortification, and this this domestic tyr- 
 anny. Will you intrust yourself to me ? " 
 
 He did not say anything about love. He had an instinctive 
 feeling that it would not be best. She felt herself environed 
 with insurmountable difficulties, threatened with agonies worse 
 than death so they seemed to her. He simply, coolly opened 
 the door, and bade her easily and triumphantly escape. Had he 
 said one word of tenderness the reaction must have set in. 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 " I did hope, by sacrificing all my own hopes, to effect a 
 reconciliation. But when that young man spoke insulting words 
 about you, I determined at once to offer you my devoted pro- 
 tection. I ask no more than you are able to give, your respect. 
 Will you accept my life-long protection as your husband?" 
 
 "Yes!" said the passionate girl in an agony of despair.
 
 0-4 
 
 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE SPIDER'S WEB. 
 
 OW that Humphreys had his prey he did not 
 know just what to do with it. Not know- 
 ing what to say, he said nothing, in which he 
 showed his wisdom. But he felt that saying nothing 
 was almost as bad as saying something. And he 
 was right. For with people of impulsive temperament reac- 
 tions are sudden, and in one minute after Julia had said yes, 
 there came to her memory the vision of August standing in the 
 barn and looking into her eyes so purely and truly and loyally, 
 and vowing such sweet vows of love, and she looked back upon 
 that perfect hour with some such feeling perhaps as Dives 
 felt looking out of torment across the great gulf into paradise. 
 Only that Dives had never known paradise, while she had. For 
 the man or woman that knows a pure, self-sacrificing love, 
 returned in kind, knows that which, of all things in this world, 
 lies nearest to God and heaven. There be those who have ears 
 to hear this, and for them is it written. Julia thought of 
 August's love with a sinking into despair. But then returned
 
 THE SPIDER'S WEB. 95 
 
 the memory of his faithlessness, of all she had been compelled 
 to believe and suffer. Then her agony came back, and she was 
 glad that she had taken a decided step. Any escape was a 
 relief. I suppose it is under some such impulse that people 
 kill themselves. Julia felt as though she had committed suicide 
 and escaped. j: 
 
 Humphreys on his part was not satisfied. I used the 
 wrong figure of speech awhile ago. He was not a cat with 
 paw upon the prey. He was only an angler, and had but 
 hooked his fish. He had not landed it yet. He felt how slender 
 was the thread of committal by which he held Julia. August 
 had her heart. He had only a word. The slender vantage 
 that he had, he meant to use adroitly, craftily. And he 
 knew that the first thing was to close this interview 
 without losing any ground. The longer she remained bound, 
 the better for him. And with his craft against the country 
 girl's simplicity it would have fared badly with Julia had it not 
 been for one defect which always inheres in a bad man's plots 
 in such a case. A man like Humphreys never really understands 
 a pure woman. Certain detached facts he may know, but he can 
 not "put himself in her place." 
 
 Humphreys remarked with tenderness that Julia must not stay 
 in the night air. She was too precious to be exposed. This 
 flattery was comforting to her wounded pride, and she found 
 his words pleasant to her. Had he stopped here he might have 
 left the field victorious. But it was very hard for an affianced 
 lover to stop here. He must part from her in some other way 
 than this if he would leave on her mind the impression that 
 she was irrevocably bound to him. He stooped quickly with a 
 well-affected devotion and lifted her hand to kiss it. That act
 
 96 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 \ 
 
 awakened Julia Anderson. She must have awaked anyhow, 
 sooner or later. But when one is in the toils of such a man, 
 sooner is better. The touch of Humphreys's hand and lips sent 
 a shudder through her frame that Humphreys felt. Instantly 
 there came to her a perception of all that marriage with a repul- 
 sive man signifies. 
 
 Not suicide, but perdition. 
 
 She jerked her hand from his as though he were a snake. 
 
 " Mr. Humphreys, what did I say ? I can't have you. I don't 
 love you. I'm crazy to-night. I must take back what 
 I said." 
 
 " No, Julia. Let me call you my Julia. You must not 
 break my heart." Humphreys had lost his cue, and every 
 word of tenderness he spoke made his case more hopeless. 
 
 "I never can marry you let me go in," she said, brushing 
 past him. Then she remembered that her door was fast on 
 the inside. She had climbed out the window. She turned back, 
 and he saw his advantage. 
 
 " I can not release you. Take time to think before you 
 ask it. Go to sleep now and do not act hastily." He stood 
 between her and the window, wishing to get some word to 
 which he could hold. 
 
 Julia's two black eyes grew brighter. " I see. You took ad- 
 vantage of my trouble, and you want to hold me to my 
 words, and you are bad, and now now I hate you ! " Then 
 Julia felt better. Hate is the only wholesome thing hi such a 
 case. She pushed him aside vigorously, stepped upon the settee, 
 slipped in at the window, and closed it. She drew the curtain, 
 but it seemed thin, and with characteristic impulsiveness she 
 put out her light that she might have the friendly drapery of
 
 THB SPIDEB'S WEB. 99 
 
 darkness about her. She heard the soft for the first time it 
 seemed to her stealthy tread of Humphreys, as he returned to 
 
 | 
 
 his room. Whether she swooned or whether she slept after 
 that she never knew. It was morning without any time inter- 
 vening, she had a headache and could scarcely walk, and there 
 was August's note lying on the floor. She read it again 
 if not with more intelligence, at least with more suspicion. 
 She wondered at her own hastiness. She tried to go about the 
 house, but the excitement of the previous night, added to all 
 she had suffered beside, had given her a headache, blinding 
 and paralyzing, that sent her back to bed. 
 
 And there she lay in that half-asleep, half-awake mood which 
 a nervous headache produces. She seemed to be a fly hi a 
 web, and the spider was trying to fasten her. A very polite spider, 
 with that smile which went half-way up his face but which 
 never seemed able to reach his eyes. He had straps to his 
 pantaloons, and a reddish mustache, and she shuddered as he 
 wound his fine webs about her. She tried to shake off the 
 illusion. But the more absurd an illusion, the more it will not 
 be shaken off. For see ! the spider was kissing her hand ! 
 Then she seemed to have made a great effort and to have 
 broken the web. But her wings were torn, and her feet were 
 shackled by the fine strands that still adhered. She could not 
 get them off. Wouldn't somebody help her, even as she had 
 many a time picked off the webs from a fly's feet out of sheer 
 pity? And all day she would perpetually return into these 
 half-conscious states and feel the spider's web about her feet, 
 and ask over and over again if somebody wouldn't help her to 
 get out of the meshes. 
 
 Toward evening her mother brought her a cup of tea and a
 
 100 THE END OP THE WORLD. 
 
 piece of toast, and for the first time in the remembered life 
 of the daughter made an endeavor to show a little tenderness for 
 her. It was a clumsy endeavor, for when the great gulf is once 
 fixed between mother and child it is with difficulty bridged. And 
 finding herself awkward in the new role, Mrs. Anderson dropped it 
 and resumed her old gait, remarking, as she closed the door, 
 that she was glad to know that Julia was coming to her senses, 
 and "had took the right road." For Mrs. Abigail was more 
 vigorous than grammatical. 
 
 Julia did not see anything significant in this remark at first. 
 But after a while it came to her that Humphreys must have told 
 her mother of something that had passed during the preceding 
 night, something on which this commendation was founded. 
 Then she fell into the same torpor and was in the same old 
 spider's web, and there was the same spider with the limited 
 smile and the mustache and the watch-seals and the straps ! 
 And he was trying to fasten her, and she said "yes." And 
 she could see the little word. The spider caught it and spun 
 it into a web and fastened her with it. And she could break 
 all the other webs but those woven out of that one little word 
 from her own lips. That clung to her, and she could neither 
 fly nor walk. August could not help her he would not come. 
 Her mother was helping the spider. Just then Cynthy Ann came 
 along with her broom. Would she see her and sweep her free ? 
 She tried to call her, but alas ! she was a fly. She tried to buzz, 
 but her wings were fast bound with the webs. She was being 
 smothered. The spider had seized her. She could not move. 
 He was smiling at her ! 
 
 Then she woke shuddering. It was after midnight.
 
 THE WEB BROKEN. 101 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 THE WEB BROKEN. 
 
 'OVERTY," says Beranger, " is always super- 
 stitious." So indeed is human extremity of 
 any sort. Julia's healthy constitution had resisted 
 the threatened illness, the feverishness had gone 
 with the headache. She felt now only one thing : 
 she must have a friend. But the hard piousness of Cynthy 
 Ann's face had never attracted her sympathy. It had always 
 seemed to her that Cynthy disapproved of her affection quite as 
 much as her mother did. Cynthy's face had indeed a chronic 
 air of disapproval. A nervous young minister said that he 
 never had any "liberty" when sister Cynthy Ann was in his 
 congregation. She seemed averse to all he said. 
 
 But now Julia felt that there was just one chance of getting 
 advice and help. Had she not in her dream seen Cynthy Ann 
 with a broom ? She would ask help from Cynthy Ann. 
 There must be a heart under her rind. 
 
 But to get to her. Her mother's affectionate vigilance never
 
 102 
 
 iTHE END OP THE WORLD. 
 
 left her alone with. Cynthy. Perhaps it was this very precau- 
 tion that had suggested Cynthy Ann to her as a possible ally. 
 She must contrive to have a talk with her somehow. But how? 
 There was one way. Black-eyed people do not delay. Right or 
 wrong, Julia acted with sharp decision. Before she had any 
 
 AT CTNTHY'S DOOR. 
 
 very definite view of her plan, she had arisen and slipped on a 
 calico dress. But there was one obstacle. Mr. Humphreys kept 
 late hours, and he might be on the front-porch. She might 
 meet him in the hall, and this seemed worse to her than
 
 THE WEB BKOKEN. 103 
 
 would the chance of meeting a tribe of Indians. She lis- 
 tened and looked out of her window ; but she could not be 
 sure ; she would run the risk. "With silent feet and loud- beating 
 heart she went down the hall to the back upper porch, for in 
 that day porches were built at the back and front of houses, 
 above and below. Once on the back-porch she turned to the 
 right and stood by Cynthy Ann's door. But a new fear took 
 possession of her. If Cynthy Ann should be frightened and 
 scream ! 
 
 " Cynthy ! Cynthy Ann ! " she said, standing by the bed hi 
 the little bare room which Cynthy Ann had occupied for five 
 years, but into which she had made no endeavor to bring one 
 ray of sentiment or one trace of beauty. 
 
 "Cynthy! Cynthy Ann!" 
 
 Had Cynthy Ann slept anywhere but in the L of the house, 
 her shriek what woman could have helped shrieking a little 
 when startled ? her shriek must have alarmed the family. But 
 it did not. " Why, child ! what are you doing here ? You are 
 out of your head, and you must go back to your room at 
 once." And Cynthv had arisen and was already tugging at 
 Julia's arm. 
 
 " I a'n't out of my head, Cynthy Ann, and I won't go back to 
 my room not until I have had a talk with you." 
 
 "What is the matter, Jule?" said Cynthy, sitting on the 
 bed and preparing to begin again her old fight between 
 duty and inclination. Cynthy always expected temptation. She 
 had often said in class-meeting that temptations abounded on 
 every hand, and as soon as Julia told her she had a communi- 
 cation to make, Cynthy Ann was sure that she would find in it 
 some temptation of the devil to do something she " hadn't orter
 
 104 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 do," according to the Bible or the Discipline, strictly construed. 
 And Cynthy was a " strict constructionist." 
 
 Julia did not find it so easy to say anything now that she 
 had announced herself as determined to have a conversation and 
 now that her auditor was waiting. It is the worst beginning in 
 the world for a conversation, saying that you intend to con- 
 verse. When an Indian has announced his intention of 
 Laving a "big talk," he immediately lights his pipe and relapses 
 into silence until the big talk shall break out accidentally and 
 naturally. But Julia, having neither the pipe nor the Indian's 
 stolidity, found herself under the necessity of beginning abruptly. 
 Every minute of delay made her position worse. For every 
 minute increased her doubt of Cynthy Ann's sympathy. 
 
 " O Cynthy Ann ! I'm so miserable ! " 
 
 " Yes, I told your ma this morning that you was looking 
 mis'able, and that you had orter have sassafras to purify the 
 blood, but your ma is so took up with steam-docterin' that she 
 don't believe in nothin' but corn-sweats and such like." 
 
 " Oh ! but, Cynthy, it a'n't that. I'm miserable in my 
 mind. I wish I knew what to do." 
 
 " I thought you'd made up your mind. Your ma told me 
 you was engaged to Mr. Humphreys." 
 
 Julia was appalled. How fast the spider spins his web! 
 
 " I a'n't engaged to him, and I hate him. He got me to 
 say yes when I was crazy, and I believe he brought about the 
 things that make me feel so nigh crazy. Do you think he's a 
 good man, Cynthy Ann ? " 
 
 "Well, no, though I don't want to set in nojedgment on 
 nobody ; but I don't see as how as he kin be good and wear all 
 of them costly apparels that's so forbid in the Bible, to say
 
 THE WEB BROKEN. 
 
 105 
 
 nothing of the Discipline. The Bible says you must know a 
 tree by its fruits, and I 'low his'n is mostly watch-seals. I think 
 a good sound conversion at the mourners' bench would make 
 him strip off some of them things, and put them into the mis- 
 sionary collection. Though maybe he a'n't so bad arter all, fer 
 Jonas says that liker'n not the things a'n't gold, but pewter 
 
 CYNTHY ANN HAD OFTEN SAID IN CLASS-MEETING THAT TEMPTATIONS 
 ABOUNDED ON EVERY HAND. 
 
 washed over. But I'm afeard he's wor'ly-minded. But I don't 
 want to be too hard on a feller-creatur'." 
 
 " Cynthy, I drempt just now I was a fly and he was a 
 spicier, and that he had me all wrapped up in his web, and that 
 just then you came along with a broom." 
 
 " That must be a sign," said Cynthy Ann. " It's good you 
 didn't dream after daylight. Then 'twould a come true. But
 
 106 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 what about him f I thought you loved Gus Wehle, and though 
 I'm afeard you're makin' a idol out o' him, and though I'm afeard 
 he's a onbeliever, and I don't noways like marryin' with onbe- 
 lievers, yet I did want to help you, and I brought a note from 
 him wunst and put it under the head of your bed. I was afeard 
 then I was doin' what Timothy forbids, when he says not 
 to be pertakers in other folks's sins, but, you see, how could I 
 help doin' it, when you was lookin' so woebegone like, and 
 Jonas, he axed me to do it. It's awful hard to say you won't 
 to Jonas, you know. So I put the letter there, and I don't 
 doubt your ma mistrusted it, and got a holt on it." 
 
 " Did he write to me ? A'n't he going with that Betsey 
 Malcolm ? " 
 
 " Can't be, I 'low. On'y this evenin' Jonas said to me, says he, 
 when I tole him you was engaged to Mr. Humphreys, says he, 
 in his way, ' The hawk's lit, has he ? That'll be the death of 
 two,' says he, ' fer she'll ctie on it, an' so'll poor Gus,' says he. 
 And then he went on to tell as how as Gus is all ready to leave, 
 and had axed him to tell him of any news ; but he said he 
 wouldn't tell him that. He'd leave him some hope. Fer he 
 says Gus was mighty nigh distracted to-day, that is yisterday, fer 
 its most mornin' I 'low." 
 
 Now this speech did Julia a world of good. It showed her 
 that Gus was not faithless, that she might count on Cynthy, 
 and that Jonas was her friend, and that he did not like Hum- 
 phreys. Jonas called him a hawk. That agreed with her dream. 
 He was a hawk and a spider. 
 
 " But, Cynthy Ann, I got a letter night before last; ma threw 
 it in the window. In it Gus said he released me. I hadn't asked 
 any release. What did he mean ? "
 
 THE WEB BROKEN. 107 
 
 " Honey, I wish I could help you. It's that hawk, as Jonas 
 calls hiai, that's at the bottom of all this trouble. I don't 
 believe but what he's told some lies or 'nother. I don't believe 
 but what he's a bad man. I allers said I didn't 'low no good 
 could come of a man that puts on costly apparel and wears 
 straps. I'm afeard you're making a idol of Gus Wehle. Don't 
 do it. Ef you do, God'll take him. Misses Pearsons made a 
 idol of her baby, a kissin' it and huggin' it every minute, and 
 I said, says I, Misses Pearsons, you hadn't better make a idol 
 of a perishin' creature. And sure enough, God tuck it. He's 
 jealous of our idols. But I can't help helpin' you. You're a 
 onbeliever yet yourself, and I 'low taint no sin fer you to marry 
 Gus. It's yokin' like with like. I wish you was both Chris- 
 tians. I'll speak to Jonas. I don't know what I ought to do, 
 but I'll speak to, Jonas. He's mighty peart about sech things, ia 
 Jonas, and got as good a heart as you ever see. And " 
 
 " Cynth-ee A-ann ! " It was the energetic voice of Mrs. An- 
 derson rousing the house betimes. For the first time Julia and 
 Cynthy Ann noticed the early light creeping in at the window. 
 They sat still, paralyzed. 
 
 " Cynth-ee ! " The voice was now at the top of the stairs, 
 for Mrs. Anderson always carried the war into Africa if Cynthy 
 did not wake at once. 
 
 "Answer quick, Cynthy Ann, or she'll be in here!" said 
 Julia, sliding behind the bed. 
 
 "Ma'am!" said Cynthy Ann, starting toward the door, 
 where she met Mrs. Abigail. " I'm up," said Cynthy. 
 
 " Well, what makes you so long a-answerin' then ? You make 
 me climb the steps, and you know I may drop down dead of 
 heart-disease any day. I'll go and wake Jule."
 
 108 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " Better let her lay awhile," said Cynthy, reproaching herself 
 instantly for the deception. 
 
 Mrs. Anderson hesitated at the top of the stairs. 
 
 " Jul-yee ! " she called. Poor Jule shook from head to foot. 
 " I guess I'll let her lay awhile ; but I'm afraid I've already 
 spoiled the child by indulgence," said the mother, descending 
 the stairs. She relented only because she believed Julia was 
 conquered. 
 
 " I declare, child, it's a shame I should be helping you to 
 disobey your mother. I'm afeard the Lord'll bring some jedg- 
 ment on us yet." For Cynthy Ann had tied her conscience to 
 her rather infirm logic. Better to have married it to her 
 generous heart. But before she had finished the half-penitent 
 lamentation, Jule was flying with swift and silent feet down 
 the 'hall. Arrived in her own room, she was so much 
 relieved as to be almost happy; and she was none too soon, 
 for her industrious mother had quickly repented her criminal 
 leniency, and was again climbing the stairs at the imminent 
 risk of her precarious life, and calling "Jul-yee !"
 
 JONAS EXPOUNDS T1JE SUBJECT. 109 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 JONAS EXPOUNDS THE SUBJECT. 
 
 661 i'Mr/cfevs 'LOWED I'd ketch you here, my venerable 
 and reliable feller-citizen ! " said Jonas as he en- 
 ' tered the lower story of Andrew Anderson's castle 
 and greeted August, sitting by Andrew's loom. 
 It was the next evening after Julia's interview 
 with Cynthy Ann. " When do you 'low to leave this terry- 
 firmy and climb a ash-saplin' ? To-night, hey ? Goin' to the 
 Queen City to take to steamboat life in hopes of havin' your 
 sperrits raised by bein' blowed up? Take my advice and 
 don't make haste in the downward road to destruction, nor the 
 up-hill one nuther. A game a'n't never through tell it's played 
 out, an' the American eagle's a chicken with steel spurs. 
 That air sweet singer of Israel that is so hifalugeon he has 
 to anchor hisself to his boots, knows all the tricks, and is inti- 
 mately acquainted with the kyards, whether it's faro, poker, 
 euchre, or French monte. But blamed ef Providence a'n't 
 dealed you a better hand'n you think. Never desperandum, as 
 the Congressmen say, fer while the lamp holds out to burn you
 
 110 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 may beat the blackleg all to flinders and sing and shout forever. 
 Last night I went to bed thinkin' 'Umphreys had the stakes all 
 in his pocket. This mornin' I found he was hi a far way to 
 be beat outen his boots ef you stood yer ground like a man 
 and a gineological descendant of Plymouth Rock!" 
 
 Andrew stopped his loom, and, looking at August, said : 
 " Our friend Jonas speaks somewhat periphrastically and 
 euphuistically, and he'll pardon me but he speaks a little 
 ambiguously." 
 
 "My love, I gin it up, as the fish-hawk said to the bald 
 eagle one day. I kin rattle off odd sayings and big words 
 picked up at Fourth-of-Julys and barbecues and big meetins, 
 but when you begin to fire off your forty-pound bomb-shell book- 
 words, I climb down as suddent as Davy Crockett's coon. 
 Maybe I do speak unbiguously, as you say, but I was givin' you 
 the biggest talkin' I had in the basket. And as fer my good 
 news, a feller don't like to eat up all his country sugar to 
 wunst, I 'low. But I says to our young and promisin' friend 
 of German extraction, beloved, says I, hold onto that air limb 
 a little longer and you're saved." 
 
 "But, Jonas," said August, spinning Andrew's winding- 
 blade round and speaking slowly and bitterly, " a man don't 
 like to be trifled with, if he is a Dutchman ! " 
 
 " But sposin' a man hain't been trifled with, Dutchman or 
 no Dutchman ? Sposin' it's all a optical delusion of the yeers ? 
 There's a word fer you, Andrew, that a'n't nuther unbiguous 
 nor peri-what-you-may-call-it." 
 
 "But," said August, "Betsey Malcolm " 
 
 " Betsey Malcolm ! " said Jonas. " Betsey Malcolm to thun- 
 der ! " and then he whistled. " Set a dog to mind a basket
 
 JONAS EXPOUNDS THE SUBJECT. Ill 
 
 of meat when his chops is a-waterin' fer it! Set a kingfisher 
 to take keer of a fish-pond! Set a cat to raisin' your orphan 
 chickens on the bottle! Set a spider to nuss a fly sick with 
 dyspepsy from eatin' too much molasses! I'd ruther trust a 
 hen-hawk with a flock of patridges than to trust Betsey Mal- 
 colm with your affairs. I ha'n't walked behind you from 
 meetin' and seed her head a bobbin' like a bluebird's and her 
 eyes a blazin' an' all that, fer nothin'. Like as not, Betsey 
 Malcolm's more nor half your trouble in that quarter." 
 
 "But she said " 
 
 " It don't matter three quarters of a rotten rye-straw what 
 she said, my inexper'enced friend. She don't keer what she 
 says, so long as it's fur enough away from the truth to sarve 
 her turn. An' she's told pay-tent double-back-action lies that 
 worked both ways. What do you 'low Jule Anderson tho't 
 when she hearn tell of your courtin' Betsey, as Betsey told it, 
 with all her nods an' little crowin' ? Now looky here, Gus, 
 I'm your friend, as the Irishman said to the bar that hugged 
 him, an' I want to say about all that air that Betsey told you, 
 spit on the slate an' wipe that all off. They's lie in her soap an' 
 right smart chance of saft-soap in her lie, I 'low." 
 
 These rough words of Jonas brought a strange intelligence 
 into the mind of August. He saw so many things in a moment 
 that had lain under his eyes unnoticed. 
 
 " There is much rough wisdom in your speech, Jonas," said 
 Andrew. 
 
 " That's a fact. You and me used to go to school to old 
 Benefield together when I was little and you was growed up. 
 You allers beat everybody all holler in books and spellin'- 
 matches, Andy. But I 'low I cut my eye-teeth 'bout as airly as
 
 112 
 
 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 some of you that's got more larnin' under your skelp. Now, I 
 say to our young friend and feller-citizen, don't go 'way tell 
 you've spoke a consolin' word to a girl as'll stick to you tell 
 
 the hour and article of death, and then remains yours truly for- 
 ever, amen." 
 
 " How do you know that, Jonas ? " said August, smiling in 
 spite of himself. 
 
 " How do I know it ? Why, by the testimony of a uncor- 
 rupted and disinterested witness, gentlemen of the jury, if the 
 honorable court pleases. What did that Jule Anderson do, poor
 
 JONAS EXPOUNDS THE SUBJECT. 113 
 
 thing, but spend some time making a most onseasonable visit to 
 Cynthy Ann last night ? And I 'low ef there's a ole gal in this 
 sublunary spear as tells the truth in a bee-line and no nonsense, 
 it's that there same, individooal, identical Cynthy Ann. She's 
 most afeard to drink cold water or breathe fresh air fer fear 
 she'll commit a unpard'nable sin. And that persecuted young 
 pigeon that thought herself forsooken, jest skeeted into Cynthy 
 Ann's budwoir afore daybreak this mornin' and told her all 
 her sorrows, and how your letter and your goin' with that Betsey 
 Malcolm " here August winced " had well nigh druv her to 
 run off with the straps and watch-seals to get rid of you and 
 Betsey and her precious and mighty affectionate ma." 
 
 "But she won't look at me in meeting, and she sent Hum- 
 phreys to me with an insulting message." 
 
 " Which text divides itself into two parts, my brethren and 
 feller- travelers to etarnity. To treat the last head first, beloved, 
 I admonish you not to believe a blackleg, unless it's under sar- 
 cumstances when he's got onusual and airresistible temptations 
 to tell the truth. I don't advise yer to spit on the slate and rub 
 it out in this case. Break the slate and throw it away. To 
 come to the second pertikeler, which is the first in the order 
 of my text, my attentive congregation. She didn't look at you 
 hi meetin'. Now, I 'spose you don't know nothin' of her moth- 
 er's heart-disease. Heart-disease is trumps with Abigail Ander- 
 son. She plays that every turn. Just think of a young gal who 
 thinks that ef she looks at her beau when her mother's by, 
 she might kill her invalooable parient of heart-disease. Fer my 
 part, I don't take no stock in Mrs. Abby Anderson's dyin' of 
 heart-disease, no ways. Might as well talk about a whale dyin' 
 of footrot."
 
 114 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " Well, Jonas, what counsel do you give our young friend ? 
 Your sagacity is to be depended on." 
 
 " "Why, I advise him to speak face to face with the angel of 
 his life. Let him climb into my room to-night. Leave meetin' 
 jest afore the benediction he kin do without that wunst and 
 go double-quick acrost the fields, and git safe into my stoodio. 
 Ferther pertikelers when the time arrives,"
 
 THE WBONG PEW. 
 
 115 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE WKONG PEW. 
 
 UGUST'S own good sense told Mm that the 
 advice of Jonas was not good. But he had made 
 many mistakes of late, and was just now inclined 
 to take anybody's judgment in place of his own. 
 All that was proud and gentlemanly in him rebelled 
 at the thought of creeping into another man's house in the 
 night. Modesty is doubtless a virtue, but it is a virtue respon- 
 sible for many offenses. Had August not felt so distrustful 
 of his own wisdom, nothing could have persuaded him to make 
 his love for Julia Anderson seem criminal by an action so want- 
 ing in dignity. But back of Jonas's judgment was that of 
 Andrew, whose weakness was Quixotism. He wanted to live 
 and to have others live on the concert-pitch of romantic action. 
 There was something of chivalry in the proposal of Jonas, a 
 spice of adventure that made him approve it on purely senti- 
 mental grounds. 
 
 The more August thought of it, and the nearer he was to 
 its execution, the more did he dislike it. But I have often
 
 116 THE END OP THE WORLD. 
 
 noticed that people of a rather quiet temperament, such as 
 young Wehle's, show vis inertim in both ways not very easily 
 moved, they are not easily checked when once in motion. 
 August's velocity was not usually great, his momentum was 
 tremendous, and now that he had committed himself to the 
 hands of Jonas Harrison and set out upon this enterprise, he 
 was determined, in his quiet way, to go through to the end. 
 
 Of course he understood the house, and having left the 
 family in meeting, he had nothing to do but to scale one of the 
 pillars of the front-porch. In those Arcadian days upper win- 
 dows were hardly ever fastened, except when the house was 
 deserted by all its inmates for days. Half-way up the post he 
 was seized with a violent trembling. His position brought to 
 him a confused memory of a text of Scripture : " He that entereth 
 not by the door . . . but climbeth up some other way, the 
 same is a thief and a robber." Bred under Moravian influence, 
 he half-believed the text to be supernaturally suggested to him. 
 For a moment his purpose wavered, but the habit of going 
 through with an undertaking took the place of his will, and he 
 went on blindly, as Baker the Nile explorer did, "more like a 
 donkey than like a man." Once on the upper porch he hesitated 
 again. To break into a man's house in this way was unlawful. 
 His conscience troubled him. In vain he reasoned that Mrs. 
 Anderson's despotism was morally wrong, and that this action 
 was right as an offset to it. He knew that it was not right. 
 
 I want to remark here that there are many situations in life 
 in which a conscience is dreadfully in the way. There are 
 people who go straight ahead to success such as it is with no 
 embarrassments, no fire hi the rear from any scruples. Some of 
 these days I mean to write an essay on " The Inconvenience of
 
 THE WEONG PEW. 117 
 
 having a Conscience," in which I shall proceed to show that it 
 costs more in the course of a year or two, than it would to keep 
 a stableful of fast horses. Many a man could afford to drive 
 Dexters and Flora Temples who would be ruined by a con- 
 science. But I must not write the essay here, for I am keep- 
 ing August out hi the night air and his perplexity all this time. 
 
 August "Wehle had the habit, I think I have said, of going 
 through with an enterprise. He had another habit, a very in- 
 convenient habit doubtless, but a very manly one, of listening 
 for the voice of his conscience. And I think that this habit 
 would have even yet turned him back, as he had his hand on 
 the window-sash, had it not been that while he stood there trying 
 to find out just what was the decision of his conscience, he heard 
 the voices of the returning family. There was no time to lose, 
 there was no shelter on the porch, in a minute more they 
 would be in sight. He must go ahead now, for retreat was cut 
 off. He lifted the window and climbed into the room, lower- 
 ing the sash gently behind him. As no one ever came into this 
 room but Jonas, he felt safe enough. Jonas would plan a meet- 
 ing after midnight in Cynthy Ann's room, and in Cynthy Ann's 
 presence. 
 
 In groping for a chair, August drew aside the curtain of the 
 gable-window, hoping to get some light. Had Jonas taken to 
 cultivating flowers in pots ? Here was a " monthly" rose on the 
 window-seat ! Surely this was the room. He had occupied it 
 during his stay in the house. But he did not know that Mrs. 
 Anderson had changed the arrangement between his leaving and 
 the coming of Jonas. He noticed that the curtains were not the 
 same. He trembled from head to foot. He felt for the bureau, 
 and recognized by various little articles, a pincushion, a tuck-
 
 118 THE END OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 comb, and the sun-bonnet hanging against the window-frame, 
 that he was in Julia's room. His first emotion was not alarm. It 
 was awe, as pure and solemn as the high-priest may have felt in 
 the holy place. Everything pertaining to Julia had a curious 
 sacredness, and this room was a temple into which it was sacri- 
 lege to intrude. But a more practical question took his attention 
 soon. The family had come in below, except Jonas and Cynthy 
 Ann who had walked slowly, planning a meeting for August 
 and Mr. Samuel Anderson, who stood at the front-gate with 
 a neighbor. August could hear his shrill voice discussing the 
 seventh trumpet and the thousand three hundred and thirty and 
 five days. It would not do to be discovered where he was. 
 Beside the fright he would give to Julia, he shuddered at the 
 thought of compromising her in such a way. To go back was 
 to insure his exposure, for Samuel Anderson had not yet half- 
 settled the question of the trumpets. Indeed it seemed to August 
 that the world might come to an end before that conversation 
 would. He heard Humphreys enter his room. He was now 
 persuaded that the room formerly occupied by Julia must be 
 Jonas's, and he determined to get to it if he could. He felt 
 like a villain already. He would have cheerfully gone to State's- 
 prison in preference to compromising Julia. At any rate, he 
 started out of Julia's room toward the one that was occupied by 
 Jonas. It was the only road open, and but for an unexpected 
 encounter he would have reached his hiding-place in safety, for 
 the door was but fifteen feet away. 
 
 In order to explain the events that follow, I must ask the 
 reader to go back to Julia, and to events that had occurred two 
 hours before. Hitherto she had walked to and from meeting 
 and " singing " with Humphreys, as a matter of courtesy. On
 
 THE WRONG PEW. 119 
 
 the evening in question she had absolutely refused to walk with 
 him. Her mother found that threats were as vain as coaxing. 
 Even her threat of dying with heart-disease, then and there, 
 killed by her daughter's disobedience, could not move Julia, 
 who would not even speak with the " spider." Her mother 
 took her into the sitting-room alone, and talked with her. 
 
 " So this is the way you trifle with gentlemen, is it ? Night 
 before last you engaged yourself to Mr. Humphreys, now you 
 won't speak to him. To think that my daughter should prove 
 a heartless flirt ! " 
 
 I am afraid that the unfilial thought came into Julia's mind 
 that nothing could have -been more in the usual order of things 
 than that the daughter of a coquette should be a flirt. 
 
 " You'll kill me on the spot ; you certainly will." Julia felt 
 anxious, for her mother showed signs of going into hysterics. 
 But she put her foot out and shook her head in a way that said 
 that all her friends might die and all the world might go to 
 pieces before she would yield. Mrs. Anderson had one forlorn 
 hope. She determined to order that forward. Leaving Julia 
 alone, she went to her husband. 
 
 " Samuel, if you value my life go and speak to your daugh- 
 ter. She's got your own stubbornness of will in her. She is just 
 like you; she will have her own way. I shall die." And Mrs. 
 Abigail Anderson sank into a chair with unmistakable symptoms 
 of a hysterical attack. 
 
 I am aware that I have so far let the reader hear not one 
 word of Samuel Anderson's conversation. He has played a 
 rather insignificant part in the story. Nothing could be more 
 comme il faut. Insignificance was his characteristic. It was not 
 so much that he was small. It is not so bad a thing to be a
 
 120 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 little man. But to be little and insignificant also is bad. There 
 is only one thing worse, which is to be big and insignificant. If 
 one is little and insignificant, one may be overlooked, insignifi- 
 cance and all. But if one is big and insignificant, it is to be an 
 obtrusive cipher, a great lubber, not easily kept out of sight. 
 
 Appealed to by his wife, Samuel Anderson prepared to assert 
 his authority as the head of the family. He almost strutted into 
 Julia's presence. Julia had a real affection for her father, and 
 nothing mortified her more than to see him acting as a puppet, 
 moved by her mother, and yet vain enough to believe himself 
 independent and supreme. She would have yielded almost any 
 other point to have saved herself the mortification of seeing her 
 father act the fool; but now she had determined that she 
 would die and let everybody else die rather than walk with 
 a man whose nature seemed to her corrupt, and whose touch 
 was pollution. I do not mean that she was able to make a dis- 
 tinct inventoiy of her reasons for disliking him, or to analyze 
 her feelings. She could not have told just why she had so 
 deep and utter a repugnance to walking a quarter of a mile to 
 the school-house in company with this man. She followed that 
 strong instinct of truth and purity which is the surest guide. 
 
 " Julia, my daughter," said Samuel Anderson, " really you 
 must yield to me as head of the house, and treat this gentleman 
 politely. I thought you respected him, or loved him, and he told 
 me that you had given consent to marry him, and had told him 
 to ask my consent." 
 
 In saying this, the " head of the house " was seesawing him- 
 self backward and forward in his squeaky boots, speaking in 
 n pompous manner, and with an effort to swell an effeminate 
 voice to a bass key, resulting in something between a croak
 
 TUB WKONG PEW. 
 
 121 
 
 and a squeal. Julia sat down and cried in mortification and 
 disgust. Mr. Anderson understood this to be acquiescence, and 
 turned and went into the next room. 
 
 JULIA SAT DOWN IN MORTIFICATION. 
 
 "Mr. Humphreys, my daughter will be glad to ask your 
 pardon. She is over her little pet ; lovers always have pets.
 
 122 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Even my wife and I have had our disagreements in our 
 time. Julia will be glad to see you in the sitting-room." 
 
 Humphreys drew the draw-strings and set his face into 
 its broadest and most parallelogrammatic smile, bowed to Mr. 
 Anderson, and stepped into the hall. But when he reached the 
 sitting-room door he wished he had staid away. Julia had heard 
 his tread, and was standing again with her foot advanced. Her 
 eyes were very black, and were drawn to a sharp focus. She 
 had some of her mother's fire, though happily none of her 
 mother's meanness. It is hard to say whether she spoke or hissed. 
 
 " Go away, you spider ! I hate you ! I told you I hated 
 you, and you told people I loved you and was engaged to you. 
 Go away! You detestable spider, you! I'll die right here, but 
 I will not go with you." 
 
 But the smirking Humphreys moved toward her, speaking 
 soothingly, and assuring her that there was some mistake. Julia 
 dashed past him into the parlor and laid hold of her father's arm. 
 
 " Father, protect me from that that spider ! I hate him ! " 
 Mr. Anderson stood irresolute a moment and looked appeal- 
 ingly to his wife for a signal. She solved the difficulty herself. 
 On the whole she had concluded not to die of heart-disease 
 until she saw Julia married to suit her taste, and having found 
 a hill she could not go through, she went round. Seizing Julia's 
 arm with more of energy than affection, she walked off with her, 
 or rather walked her off, in a sulky silence, while Mr. Anderson 
 kept Humphreys company. 
 
 I thought best to keep August standing in the door of Julia's 
 room all this time while I explained these things to you, so 
 that you might understand what follows. In reality August did 
 not stop at all, but walked out into the hall and into difficulty.
 
 TIJE ENCOUNTER. 
 
 123 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE ENCOUNTER. 
 
 UST before August came out of the door of 
 Julia's room he had heard Humphreys enter his 
 room on the opposite side of the hall. Humphreys 
 had lighted his cigar and was on hia way to the 
 porch to smoke off his discomfiture when he met Au- 
 gust coming out of Julia's door on the opposite side of the hall. 
 The candle in Hurpphreys's room threw its light full on August's 
 face, there was no escape from recognition, and Wehle was too 
 proud to retreat. He shut the door of Julia's room and stood 
 with back against the wall staring at Humphreys, who did not 
 forget to smile in his most aggravating way. 
 " Thief ! thief ! " called Humphreys. 
 
 In a moment Mrs. Anderson and Julia ran up the stairs, fol- 
 lowed by Mr. Anderson, who hearing the outcry had left the 
 matter of the Apocalypse unsettled, and by Jonas and Cynthy 
 Ann, who had just arrived. 
 
 " I knew it," cried Mrs. Anderson, turning on the mortified 
 Julia, " I never knew a Dutchman nor a foreigner of any sort
 
 124 THE END OP THE WORLD. 
 
 that wouldn't steal. Now you see what you get by taking a 
 fancy to a Dutchman. And now you see" to her husband 
 " what you get by taking a Dutchman into your house. I al- 
 ways wanted you to hire white men and not Dutchmen nor 
 thieves ! " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mrs. Anderson," said August, with very 
 white lips, " I am not a thief." 
 
 " Not a thief, eh? "What was he doing, Mr. Humphreys, when 
 you first detected him?" 
 
 " Coming out of Miss Anderson's room," said Humphreys, 
 Smiling politely. 
 
 " Do you invite gentlemen to your room ? " said the frantic 
 woman to Julia, meaning by one blow to revenge herself and 
 crush the stubbornness of her daughter forever. But Julia was 
 too anxious about August to notice the shameless insult. 
 
 "Mrs. Anderson, this visit is without any invitation from 
 Julia. I did wrong to enter your house in this way, but I only 
 am responsible, and I meant to enter Jonas's room. I did not 
 know that Julia occupied this room. I am to blame, she is not." 
 
 " And what did you break in for if you didn't mean to steal? 
 It is all off between you and Jule, for I saw your letter. I shall 
 have you arrested to-morrow for burglary. And I think you 
 ought to be searched. Mr. Humphreys, won't you put him out?" 
 
 Humphreys stepped forward toward August, but he noticed 
 that the latter had a hard look in his eyes, and had two stout 
 German fists shut very tight. He turned back. 
 
 " These thieves are nearly always armed. I think I had best 
 get a pistol out of my trunk." 
 
 " I have no arms, and you know it, coward," said August. 
 " I will not be put out by anybody, but I will go out whenever
 
 " GOOD-BY ! "
 
 TUB ENCOUNTER. 127 
 
 the master of this house asks me to go out, and the rest of you 
 open a free path." 
 
 " Jonas, put him out ! " screamed Mrs. Anderson. 
 
 " Couldn't do it," said Jonas, " couldn't do it ef I tried. 
 They's too much bone and sinnoo in them arms of his'n, and 
 moreover he's a gentleman. I axed him to come and see me 
 sometime, and he come. He come ruther late it's true, but I 
 s'pose he thought that sence we got sech a dee-splay of watch- 
 seals and straps we had all got so stuck up, we wouldn't receive 
 calls afore fashionable hours. Any way, I 'low he didn't mean 
 no harm, and he's my visitor, seein' he meant to come into my 
 winder, knowin' the door was closed agin him. And he won't 
 let no man put him out, 'thout he's a man with more'n half a 
 dozen watch-seals onto him, to give him weight and influence." 
 
 " Samuel, will you see me insulted in this way ? Will you put 
 this burglar out of the house ? " 
 
 The " head of the house," thus appealed to, tried to look im- 
 portant ; he tried to swell up his size and his courage. But he 
 did not dare touch August. 
 
 " Mr. Anderson, I beg your pardon. I had no right to come 
 hi as I did. I had no right so to enter a gentleman's house. If 
 I had not known that this cowardly fop I don't know what 
 else he may be was injuring me by his lies I should not have 
 come in. If it is a crime to love a young lady, then I have 
 committed a crime. You have only to exercise your authority 
 as master of this house and ask me to go." 
 
 "I do ask you to go, Mr. Wehle." 
 
 It was the first time that Samuel Anderson had ever called 
 him Mr. Wehle. It was an involuntary tribute to the dignity of 
 the young man, as he stood at bay.
 
 128 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 "Mr. Wehle, indeed!" said Mrs. Anderson. 
 
 August had hoped Julia would say a word in his behalf. But 
 she was too much cowed by her mother's fierce passion. So like 
 a criminal going to prison, like a man going to his own funeral, 
 August Wehle went down the hall toward the stairs, which 
 were at the back of it. Humphreys instinctively retreated into 
 his room. Mrs. Anderson glared on the young man as he went 
 by, but he did not turn his head even when he passed Julia. 
 His heart and hope were all gone ; in his mortification and 
 defeat there seemed to him nothing left but his unbroken 
 pride to sustain him. He had descended two or three steps, 
 when Julia suddenly glided forward and said with a tremulous 
 voice : " You aren't going without telling me good-by, August ? " 
 
 " Jule Anderson ! what do you mean ? " cried her mother. 
 But the hall was narrow by the stairway, and Jonas, by standing 
 close to Cynthy Ann, in an unconscious sort of a way managed 
 to keep Mrs. Anderson back; else she would have laid violent 
 hands on her daughter. 
 
 When August lifted his eyes and saw her face full of tender- 
 ness and her hand reached over the balusters to him, he seemed 
 to have been suddenly lifted from perdition to bliss. The tears 
 ran unrestrained upon his cheeks, he reached up and took her 
 hand. 
 
 " Good-by, Jule ! God bless you ! " he said huskily, and went 
 out into the night, happy in spite of all.
 
 THK MOTHKB. 129 
 
 OPT AFTER XIX. 
 
 THE MOTHER. 
 
 'UT of the door he went, happy in spite of all 
 the mistakes he had made and of all the contre- 
 temps of his provoking misadventure; happy hi 
 spite of the threat of arrest for burglary. For 
 nearly a minute August Wehle was happy in that 
 perfect way in which people of quiet tempers are happy happy 
 without fluster. But before he had passed the gate, he heard 
 a scream and a wild hysterical laugh ; he heard a hurrying of 
 feet and saw a moving of lights. He would fain have turned 
 back to find out what the matter was, he had so much of inter- 
 est in that house, but he remembered that he had been turned 
 out and that he could not go back. The feeling of outlawry 
 mingled its bitterness with the feeling of anxiety. He feared 
 that something had happened to Julia ; he lingered and listened. 
 Humphreys came out upon the upper porch and looked sharply 
 up and down the road. August felt instinctively that he was the 
 object of search and slunk into a fence-corner, remembering 
 that he was now a burglar and at the mercy of the man whose 
 face was enough to show him* unrelenting.
 
 130 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Presently Humphreys turned and went in, and then August 
 came out of the shadow and hurried away. When he had gone a 
 mile, he heard the hoofs of horses, and again he concealed himself 
 with a cowardly feeling he had never known before. But when 
 he found that it was Jonas, riding one horse and leading another, 
 on his way to bring Dr. Ketchup, the steam-doctor, he ran out. 
 
 "Jonas! Jonas! what's 'the matter? Who's sick? Is it 
 Julia?" 
 
 " I'll be bound you ax fer Jule first, my much-respected 
 comrade. But it's only one of the ole woman's conniption fits, 
 and you know she's got nineteen lives. People of the catamount 
 sort always has. You'd better gin a thought to yourself now. 
 I got you into this scrape, and I mean to see you out, as the dog 
 said to the 'possum in its hole. Git up onto this four-legged 
 quadruped and go as fur as I go on the road to peace and safety. 
 
 i 
 
 Now, I tell you what, the hawk's got a mighty good purchase 
 onto you, my chicken, and he's jest about to light, and when he 
 lights, look out fer feathers ! Don't sleep under the paternal 
 shingles, as they say. Go to Andrew's castle, and he'll help you 
 git acrost the river into the glorious State of ole Kaintuck afore 
 any warrant can be got out fer takin' you up. . Never once thought 
 of your bein' took up. But don't delay, as the preachers say. 
 The time is short, and the human heart is desperately wicked and 
 mighty deceitful and onsartain." 
 
 As far as Jonas traveled his way, he carried August upon the 
 gray horse. Then the latter hurried across the fields to his 
 father's cabin. Little Wilhelinina sat with face against the 
 window waiting his return. 
 
 " Where did you go, August ? Did you see the pretty girl 
 at Anderson's?"
 
 THE MOTHER. 
 
 He stooped and kissed her, but, without speaking a word to 
 her, he went over to where his mother sat darning the last of 
 
 THE MOTHER'S BLESSING. 
 
 her basket of stockings. All the rest were asleep, and having 
 assured himself of this, he drew up a low chair and leaned his
 
 132 THE END OP THE WORLD. 
 
 elbow on his knee and his head on his hand, and told the whole 
 adventure of the evening to his mother, and then dropped his 
 head on her lap and wept in a still way. And the sweet- 
 eyed, weary Moravian mother laid her two hands upon his head 
 and prayed. And Wilhelmina knelt instinctively by the side 
 of her brother. 
 
 Perhaps there is no God. Or perhaps He is so great that 
 our praying has no effect. Perhaps this strong crying of our 
 hearts to Him in our extremity is no witness of his readiness 
 to hear. Let him live in doubt who can. Let. me believe that 
 the tender mother-heart and the loving sister-heart in that little 
 cabin did reach up to the great Heart that is over us all in 
 Fatherly love, did find a real comfort for themselves, and did 
 bring a strength-giving and sanctifying something upon the head 
 of the young man, who straightway rose up refreshed, and 
 departed out into the night, leaving behind him mother and 
 sister straining their eyes after him in the blackness, and car- 
 rying with him thoughts and memories, and who shall doubt? 
 a genuine heavenly inspiration that saved him in the trials in 
 which we shall next meet him. 
 
 At two o'clock that night August Wehle stood upon the shore 
 of the Ohio in company with Andrew Anderson, the Backwoods 
 Philosopher. Andrew waved a fire-brand at the steamboat 
 "Isaac Shelby," which was coming round the bend. And the 
 captain tapped his bell three times and stopped his engines. 
 Then the yawl took the two men aboard, and two days after- 
 ward Andrew came back alone.
 
 THE STKA.M-DOCTOB. 133 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE STEAM-DOCTOR. 
 
 O return to the house of Samuel Anderson. 
 
 Scarcely had August passed out the door when 
 Mrs. Anderson fell into a fit of hysterics, and de- 
 clared that she was dying of heart-disease. Her time 
 had come at last ! She was murdered ! Murdered 
 by her own daughter's ingratitude and disobedience ! Struck 
 down in her own house ! And what grieved her most was that 
 she should never live, to see the end of the world ! 
 
 And indeed she seemed to be dying. Nothing is more fright- 
 ful than a good solid fit of hysterics. Cynthy Ann, inwardly 
 condemning herself as she always did, lifted the convulsed pa- 
 tient, who seemed to be anywhere in her last ten breaths, and 
 carried her, with Mr. Anderson's aid, down to her room, and 
 while Jonas saddled the horse, Mr. Anderson put on his hat and 
 prepared to go for the doctor. 
 
 "Samuel! O Sam-u-el! Oh-h-hi-h!" cried Mrs. Anderson, 
 with rising and falling inflections that even patient Dr. Rush 
 could never have analyzed, laughing insanely and weeping pite- 
 ously in the same breath, in the same word ; running it up and
 
 134 
 
 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 down the gamut in an uncontrolled and uncontrollable way ; now 
 whooping like a savage, and now sobbing like the last breath 
 of a broken-hearted. " Samuel ! Sam-u-el ! O Samuel ! Ha ! 
 
 "CORN-SWEATS AND CALAMUS." 
 
 < 
 
 ha ! ha ! h-a-a ! Oh-h-h-h-h-h-h ! You won't leave me to die 
 alone ! After the wife I've been to you, you won't leave me to 
 die alone ! No-o-o-o-o ! Hoo-HOO-oo-OO ! You musn't. You 
 shan't. Send Jonas, and you stay by me ! Think " here
 
 THE STEAM-DOCTOR. 135 
 
 her breath died away, and for a moment she seemed really to 
 he dying. " Think," she gasped, and then sank away again. 
 After a minute she opened her eyes, and, with characteristic 
 pertinacity, took up the sentence just where she had left off. 
 She had carefully kept her place throughout the period, of un- 
 consciousness. But now she spoke, not with a gasp, but in that 
 shrill, unnatural falsetto so characteristic of hysteria ; that voice 
 half yell that makes every nerve of the listener jangle with 
 the discord. " Think, oh-h-h Samuel ! why won't you think 
 what a wife I've been to you ? Here I've drudged and scrubbed 
 and scrubbed and drudged all these years like a faithful and 
 industrious wife, never neglecting my duty. And now oh-h-h-h 
 
 now to be left alone in my " Here she ceased to breathe 
 
 again for a while. " In my last hours to die, to die ! to die with- 
 out without Oh-h-h!" What Mrs. Anderson was left to die 
 
 < 
 
 without she never stated. Mr. Anderson had beckoned to Jonas 
 when he came in, and that worthy had gone off in a leisurely 
 trot to get the "steam-doctor." 
 
 Dr. Ketchup had been a blacksmith, but hard work disagreed 
 with his constitution. He felt that he was made for something 
 better than shoeing horses. This ambitious thought was first 
 suggested to him by the increasing portliness of his person, 
 which, while it made stooping over a horse's hoof inconvenient, 
 also impressed him with the fact that his alderrnanic figure would 
 really adorn a learned profession. So he bought one of those 
 little hand-books which the founder of the Thomsonian system 
 sold dirt-cheap at twenty dollars apiece, and which told how 
 to cure or kill in every case. The owners of these important 
 treasures of invaluable information were under bonds not to 
 disclose the profound secrets therein contained, the fathomless
 
 136 THE END OF THE WOELD. 
 
 wisdom which taught them how to decide in any given case 
 whether ginseng or a corn-sweat was the required remedy. 
 And the invested twenty dollars had brought the shrewd 
 blacksmith a handsome return. 
 
 " Hello ! " said Jonas in true Western style, as he reined up 
 in front of Dr. Ketchup's house in the outskirts of Brayville. 
 " Hello the house ! " But Dr. Ketchup was already asleep. 
 " Takes a mighty long time to wake up a fat man," soliloquized 
 Jonas. " He gits so used to hearin' hisself snore that he can't 
 tell the difference 'twixt snorin' and thunder. Hello ! Hello the 
 house! I say, hello the blacksmith-shop! Dr. Ketchup, why 
 don't you git up? Hello! Corn-sweats and calamus! Hello! 
 Whoop ! Hurrah for Jackson and Dr. Ketchup ! Hello ! 
 Thunderation ! Stop thief ! Fire ! Fire ! Fire ! Murder ! Mur- 
 der ! Help ! Help ! Hurrah ! Treed the coon at last ! " 
 
 This last exclamation greeted the appearance of Dr. Ketch- 
 up's head at the window. 
 
 " Are you drunk, Jonas Harrison ? Go 'way with your 
 hollering, or I'll have you took up," said Ketchup. 
 
 " You'll find that tougher work than making horseshoes any 
 day, my respectable friend and feller-citizen. I'll have you took 
 up fer sleeping so sound and snorin' so loud as to disturb all 
 creation and the rest of your neighbors. I've heard you ever 
 sence I left Anderson's, and thought 'twas a steamboat. Come, 
 my friend, git on your clothes and accouterments, fer Mrs. An- 
 derson is a-dyin' or a-lettin' on to be a-dyin' fer a drink of gin- 
 seng-tea or a corn-sweat or some other decoction of the healin' 
 art. Come, I fetch two hosses, so you shouldn't lose no time a 
 saddlin' your'n, though I don't doubt the ole woman'd git well 
 ef you never gin her the light of your cheerful count'nance.
 
 "FIBE! MUBDEB!! HELP!!!" 
 
 137
 
 THE STEAM-DOCTOR. 139 
 
 , I 
 
 She'd git well fer spite, and hire a calomel-doctor jist to make 
 you mad. I'd jest as soon and a little sooner expect a female 
 wasp to die of heart-disease as her.". 
 
 The head of Dr. Ketchup had disappeared from the window 
 about the middle of this speech, and the remainder of it came by 
 sheer force of internal pressure, like the flowing of an artesian well. 
 Dr. Ketchup walked out, with ruffled dignity, carefully 
 dressed. His immaculate clothes and his solemn face were 
 the two halves of his stock in trade. Under the clothes lay 
 buried Ketchup the blacksmith ; under the wiseacre face was 
 Ketchup the ignoramus. Ignoramus he was, but not a fool. As 
 he rode along back with Jonas, he plied the latter with ques- 
 tions. If he could get the facts of the case out of Jonas, he 
 would pretend to have inferred them from the symptoms and 
 thus add to his credit. 
 
 " What caused this attack, Jonas ? " 
 
 " I 'low she caused it herself. Generally does, my friend," 
 said Jonas. 
 
 " Had anything occurred to excite her ? " 
 "Well, yes, I 'low they had; consid'able, if not more." 
 " What was it ? " 
 
 " Well, you see she'd been to Hankins's preachin 1 . Now, I 
 'low, my medical friend, the day of jedgment a'n't a pleasin' 
 prospeck to anybody that's jilted one brother to marry another, 
 and then cheated the jilted one outen his sheer of his lamented 
 father's estate. Do you think it is, my learned friend?" 
 
 But Dr. Ketchup could not be sure whether Jonas was making 
 game of him or not. So he changed the subject. 
 " Nice boss, this bay," said the " doctor." 
 " Well, yes," said Jonas, " I don't 'low you ever put shoes on
 
 140 THE END OP THE WOBIJ). 
 
 no better boss than this 'ere in all your days as a blacksmith. 
 Did you now, my medical friend?" 
 
 " No, I think not," said Ketchup testily, and was silent. ' 
 
 Mrs. Anderson had grown impatient at the doctor's delay. 
 " Samuel ! Oo ! oo ! oo ! Samuel ! My dear, I'm dying. Jonas 
 don't care. He wouldn't hurry. I wonder you trusted him ! 
 If you had been dying, I should have gone myself for the doctor. 
 Oo ! oo ! oo ! oh ! If I should die, nobody would be sorry." 
 
 Abigail Anderson was not to blame for telling the truth so 
 exactly in this last sentence. It was an accident. She might 
 have recalled it but that Dr. Ketchup walked in at that moment. 
 
 He felt her pulse ; looked at her tongue ; said that it was 
 heart-disease, caused by excitement. He thought it must be 
 religious excitement. She should have a corn-sweat and some 
 wafer-ash tea. The corn-sweat would act as a tonic and strength- 
 en the pericardium. The wafer-ash would cause a tendency of 
 blood to the head, and thus relieve the pressure on the juggler- 
 vein. Cynthy Ann listened admiringly to Dr. Ketchup's incom- 
 prehensible, oracular utterances, and then speedily put a bushel 
 of ear-corn in the great wash-boiler, which was already full of 
 hot water in expectation of such a prescription, and set the 
 wafer-ash to draw. 
 
 Julia had, up to this time, stood outside her mother's door 
 trembling with fear, and not daring to enter. She longed to do 
 something, but did not know how it would be received. Now, 
 while the deep, sonorous voice of Ketchup occupied the attention 
 of all, she crept in and stood at the foot of Mrs. Anderson's bed. 
 The mother, recovering from her twentieth dying spell, saw her. 
 
 " Take her away ! She has killed me ! She wants me to 
 die ! / know ! Take her away ! "
 
 THE STEAM-DOCTOR. 141 
 
 And Julia went to her own room and shut herself up in dark- 
 ness and hi wretchedness, but in all that miserable night there 
 came to her not one regret that she had reached her hand to the 
 departing August. 
 
 The neighbor-women came in and pretended to do some- 
 thing for the invalid, but really they sat by the kitchen-stove 
 and pumped Cynthy Ann and the doctor, and managed in some 
 way to connect Julia with her mother's illness, and shook their 
 heads. So that when Julia crept down-stairs at midnight, in hope 
 of being useful, she found herself looked at inquisitively, and felt 
 herself to be such an object of attention that she was glad to 
 take the advice of Cynthy Ann and find refuge in her own 
 room. On the stairs she met Jonas, who said as she passed: 
 
 " Don't fret yourself, little turtle-dove. Don't pay no 'ten- 
 tion to ole Ketchup. Your ma won't die, not even with his corn- 
 sweats to waft her on to glory. ' You done your duty to-night 
 like one of Fox's martyrs, and like George Washi'ton with his 
 little cherry-tree and hatchet. And you'll git your reward, if 
 not in the next world, you'll have it in this." 
 
 Julia lay down awhile, and then sat up, looking out into the 
 darkness. Perhaps God was angry with her for loving August ; 
 perhaps she was making an idol of him. When Julia came to 
 think that her love for August was in antagonism to the love 
 of God, she did not hesitate which she would choose. All the best 
 of her nature was loyal to August, whom she " had seen," as 
 the Apostle John has it. She could not reason it out, but a 
 God who seemed to be in opposition to the purest and best emo- 
 tion of her heart was a God she could not love. August and 
 the love of August were known quantities. God and the love of 
 God were unknown, and the God of whom Cynthy spoke (and
 
 142 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of whom many a mistaken preacher has spoken), that was jeal- 
 ous of Mrs. Pearson's love for her baby, and that killed it be- 
 cause it was his rival, was not a God that she could love with- 
 out being a traitor to all the good that God had put in her heart. 
 The God that was keeping August away from her because he 
 was jealous of the one beautiful thing in her life was a Mo- 
 loch, and she deliberately determined that she would not wor- 
 ship or love him. The True God, who is a Father, and who is 
 not Supreme Selfishness, doing all for His own glory, as men 
 falsely declare ; the True God who does all things for the good 
 of others loved her, I doubt not, for refusing to worship the 
 Conventional Deity thus presented to her mind. Even as He has 
 pitied many a mother that rebelled against the Governor of the 
 Universe, because she was told the Governor of the Universe, in 
 a petty seeking for his own glory, had taken away her " idols." 
 
 But Julia looked up at the depths between the stars, and felt 
 how great God must be, and her rebellion against Him seemed 
 a war at fearful odds. And then the sense of God's omnipres- 
 ence, of His being there alone with her, so startled her and awak- 
 ened such a Seeling of her fearful loneliness, orphanage, antago- 
 nism to God, that she could bear it no longer, and at two o'clock 
 she went down again ; but Mrs. Brown looked over at Mrs. Or- 
 cutt in a way that said : " Told you so ! Guilty conscience ! 
 Can't sleep ! " And so Julia thought God, even as she con- 
 ceived Him, better company than men, or rather than women, 
 
 for well, I won't make the ungallant remark ; each sex has its 
 
 besetting faults. 
 
 Julia took back with her a candle, thinking that this awful 
 God would not seem so close if she had a light. There lay on 
 her bureau a Testament, one of those old editions of the Amer-
 
 THE STEAM-DOCTOR. 143 
 
 ican Bible Society, printed on indifferent paper, and bound in 
 a red muslin that was given to fading, the like whereof in book- 
 making has never been seen since. She felt angry with God, 
 who, she was sure, was persecuting her, as Cynthy Ann had 
 said, out of jealousy of her love for August, and she was deter- 
 mined that she would not look into that red-cloth Testament, 
 which seemed to her full of condemnation. But there was a 
 fascination about it she could not resist. The discordant hys- 
 terical laughter of her mother, which reached her ears from 
 below, harrowed her sorely, and her grief and despair at her 
 own situation were so great that she was at last fain to read 
 the only book in the room in order that she might occupy 
 her mind. There is a strange superstition among certain pietists 
 which leads them to pray for a text to guide them, and then take 
 any chance passage as a divine direction. I do not mean to 
 say that Julia had any supernatural leading in her reading. 
 The New Testament is so full of comfort that one could hardly 
 manage to miss it. She read the seventh chapter of Luke : 
 how the Lord healed the centurion's servant that was " dear 
 unto him," and noted that He did not rebuke the man for loving 
 his slave ; how the Lord took pity on that poor widow who 
 wept at the bier of her only sou, and brought him back to life 
 again, and "restored him to his mother." This did not seem to 
 be just the Christ that Cynthy Ann thought of as the foe of 
 every human affection. She read more that she did not under- 
 stand so well, and then at the end of the chapter she read about 
 the woman that was a sinner, that washed His feet with grate- 
 ful tears and wiped them with her hair. And she would have 
 taken the woman's guilt to have had the woman's opportunity 
 and her benediction.
 
 144 THE END OF THE WOELD. 
 
 At last, turning over the leaves without any definite purpose, 
 she lighted on a place in Matthew, where three verses at the 
 end of a chapter happened to stand at the head of a column. I 
 suppose she read them because the beginning of the page and 
 the end of the chapter made them seem a short detached piece. 
 And they melted into her mood so that she seemed to know 
 Christ and God for the first time. " Come unto me all ye that 
 labor and are heavy laden," she read, and stopped. That means 
 me, she thought with a heart ready to burst. And that saying is 
 the gateway of life. When the promises and injunctions mean 
 me, I am saved. Julia read on, "And I will give you rest." 
 And so she drank in the passage, clause by clause, until she 
 came to the end about an easy yoke and a light burden, and 
 then God seemed to her so different. She prayed for August, 
 for now the two loves, the love for August and the love for 
 Christ, seemed not in any way inconsistent. She lay down 
 saying over and over, with tears in her eyes, ' ' rest for your 
 souls," and " weary and heavy laden," and " come unto me," and 
 "meek and lowly of heart," and then she settled on one word 
 and repeated it over and over, "rest, rest, rest." The old feel- 
 ing was gone. She was no more a rebel nor an orphan. The 
 presence of God was not a terror but a benediction. She had 
 found rest for her soul, and He gave His beloved sleep. For 
 when she awoke from what seemed a short slumber, the red 
 light of a glorious dawn came in at the window, and her candle 
 was flickering its last in the bottom of the socket. The Testa- 
 ment lay open as she had left it, and for days she kept it open 
 there, and did not dare read anything but these three verses, lest 
 she should lose the rest for her soul that she found here.
 
 THK HAWK IN A NEW PART. 
 
 145 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE HAWK IN A NEW PART. 
 
 S UMPHREYS was now in the last weeks of his 
 singing-school. He had become a devout Miller- 
 ite, and was paying attentions to the not unwill- 
 ing Betsey Malcolm, though pretending at Ander- 
 son's to be absolutely heart-broken at the conduct of 
 Julia in jilting him after she had given him every assurance of 
 affection. And then to be jilted for a Dutchman, you know ! 
 In this last regard his feeling was not all affectation. In his 
 soul, cupidity, vanity, and vindictiveness divided the narrow 
 territory between them. He inwardly swore that he'd get satis- 
 faction somehow. Debts which were due to his pride should 
 be collected by his revenge. 
 
 Did you ever reflect on the uselessness of a landscape when 
 one has no eyes to see it with, or, what is worse, no soul to look 
 through one's eyes ? Humphreys was going down to the castle 
 to call on the Philosopher, and " Shady Hollow," as Andrew 
 called it, had surely never been more glorious than on the morn- 
 ing which he chose for his walk. The black-haw bushes hung 
 over the roadside, the maples lifted up their great trunk-pillars
 
 146 THE END OF THE WORLD* 
 
 toward the sky, and the grape-vines, some of them four and even 
 six inches in diameter, reached up to the high boughs, fifty or a 
 hundred feet, without touching the trunk. They had been car- 
 ried up by the growth of the tree, tree and vine having always 
 lived in each other's embrace. Out through the opening in the 
 hollow, Humphreys saw the green sea of six-feet-high Indian 
 corn in the fertile bottoms, the two rows of sycamores on the 
 sandy edges of the river, and the hazy hills on the Kentucky side. 
 But not one touch of sentiment, not a perception of beauty, entered 
 the soul of the singing-master as he daintily chose his steps so as 
 to avoid soiling his glossy boots, and as he knocked the leaves off 
 the low-hanging beech boughs with his delicate cane. He had 
 his purpose in visiting Andrew, and his mind was bent on 
 his game. 
 
 Charon, the guardian of the castle, bayed his great hoarse 
 bark at the Hawk, and with that keen insight into human nature 
 for which dogs are so remarkable, he absolutely forbade the 
 dandy's entrance, until Andrew appeared at the door and called 
 the dog away. 
 
 " I am delighted at having the opportunity of meeting a great 
 light in literature like yourself, Mr. Anderson. Here you sit 
 weaving, earning your bread with a manly simplicity that is 
 truly admirable. You are like Cincinnatus at his plow. I also 
 am a literary man." 
 
 He really was a college graduate, though doubtless he was as 
 much of a humbug hi recitations and examinations as he had 
 always been since. Andrew's only reply to his assertion that 
 he was a literary man was a rather severe and prolonged scrutiny 
 of his oily locks, his dainty mustache, his breast-pin, his watch- 
 seals, and finally his straps and his boots. For Andrew firmly
 
 THE HAWK IN A NEW fART. 14? 
 
 believed that neglected hair, Byron collars, and unblackened 
 boots were the first signs of literary taste. 
 
 "You think I dress too well," said Humphreys with his 
 ghastly smirk. " You think that I care too much for appear- 
 ances. I do. It is a weakness of mine which comes from a 
 residence abroad." 
 
 These words touched the Philosopher a little. To have been 
 abroad was the next best thing to having been a foreigner oi 
 origine. But still he felt a little suspicious. He was superior 
 to the popular prejudice against the mustache, but he could not 
 endure hair-oil. " Nature," he maintained, " made the whole 
 beard to be worn, and Nature provides an oil for the hair. Let 
 Nature have her way." He was suspicious of Humphreys, not 
 because he .wore a mustache, but because he shaved the rest of 
 his face and greased his hah-. He had, besides, a little intui- 
 tive perception of the fact that a smile which breaks against the 
 rock-bound coast of cold cheek-bones and immovable eyes is a 
 mask. And so he determined to test the literary man. I have 
 heard that Masonic lodges have been deceived by impostors. I 
 have never heard that a literary man was made to believe in 
 the genuineness of the attainments of a charlatan. 
 
 And yet Humphreys held his own well. He could talk glibly 
 and superficially about books ; he simulated considerable enthu- 
 siasm for the books which Andrew admired. His mistake and 
 his consequent overthrow came, as always in such cases, from 
 a desire to overdo. It was after half an hour of talking without 
 tripping that Andrew suddenly asked : " Do you like the ever- 
 to-be-admired Xenophanes?" 
 
 It certainly is no disgrace to any literary man not to know 
 anything of so remote a philosopher as Xenophanes. The first
 
 148 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 characteristic of a genuine literary man is the frankness with 
 which he confesses his ignorance. But Humphreys did not really 
 know but that Xenophanes was part of the daily reading of a 
 man of letters. 
 
 " Oh ! yes," said he. " I have his works in turkey morocco." 
 
 " What do you think of his opinion that God is a sphere ? " 
 asked the Philosopher, smiling. 
 
 " Oh ! yes ahem ; let me see which God is it that he speaks 
 of, Jupiter or well, you know he was a Greek." 
 
 " But he only believed in one God," said Andrew sternly. 
 
 " Oh ! ah ! I forgot that he was a Christian." 
 
 So from blunder to blunder Andrew pushed him, Humphreys 
 stumbling more and more in his blind attempts to right himself, 
 and leaving, at last, with much internal confusion but.with an un- 
 ruffled smile. He dared not broach his errand by asking the 
 address of August. For Andrew did not conceal his disgust, 
 having resumed work at his loom, suffering the bowing impostor 
 to find his own way out without so much as a courteous adieu.
 
 JONAS EXPRESSES HIS OPINION ON DUTCHMEN. 149 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 JONAS EXPRESSES HIS OPINION t)N DUTCHMEN. 
 
 OMETIMES the virus of a family is all drawn off 
 in one vial. I think it is Emerson who makes 
 this remark. We have all seen the vials. 
 
 Such an one was Norman Anderson. The curious 
 law of hereditary descent had somehow worked him 
 only evil. " Nater," observed Jonas to Cynthy, when the latter 
 had announced to him that Norman, on account of some dis- 
 grace at school, had returned home, " nater ha'n't done him 
 half jestice, I 'low. It went through Sam'el Anderson and 
 Abig'il, and picked out the leetle- weak pompous things in 
 the illustrious father, and then hunted out all the spiteful and 
 hateful things in the lovin' and much-esteemed mother, and 
 somehow stuck 'em together, to make as ornery a chap as ever 
 bit a hoe-cake in two." 
 
 "I'm afeard her brother's scrape and comin' home won't 
 make Jule none the peacefuller at the present time," said Cynthy 
 Ann. 
 
 " Wai," returned Jonas, " I don't think she keers much fer 
 him. She couldn't, you know. Love him? Now, Cynthy 
 Ann, my dear" here Cynthy Ann began to reproach herself
 
 150 THE END OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 for listening to anything so pleasant as these two last words 
 " Now, Cynthy Ann, my dear, you see you might maybe love 
 a cuckle-burr and nuss it ; but I don't think you would be 
 likely to. I never heern tell of nobody carryin' jimson-weed 
 pods in their bosoms. You see they a'n't no place about Nor- 
 man Anderson that love could take a holt of 'thout gittin' 
 scratched." 
 
 " But his mother loves him, I reckon," said Cynthy Ann. 
 
 " Wai, yes ; so she do. Loves her shadder in the lookin'-glass, 
 maybe, and kinder loves Norman bekase he's got so much of 
 her devil into him. It's like lovin' like, I reckon. But I 'low 
 they's a right smart difference with Jule. Sence she was born, 
 that Norman has took more delight in tormentin' Jule than a 
 yaller dog with a white tail does in worryin' a brindle tom-cat up 
 a peach-tree. And comin' home at this junction he'll gin her a 
 all-fired lot of trials and tribulation." 
 
 At the time this conversation took place, two weeks had 
 elapsed since Mrs. Anderson's "attack." Julia had heard noth- 
 ing from August yet. The " Hawk " still made his head-quar- 
 ters in the house, but was now watching another quarry. Mrs. 
 Anderson was able to scold as vigorously as ever, if, indeed, that 
 function had ever been suspended. And just now she was en- 
 gaged in scolding the teacher who had expelled Norman. The 
 habit of fighting teachers was as chronic as her heart-disease. 
 Norman had always been abused by the whole race of peda- 
 gogues. There was from the first a conspiracy against him, and 
 now he was cheated out of his last chance of getting an educa- 
 tion. All this Norman steadfastly believed. 
 
 Of course Norman sided with his mother as against the 
 Dutchman, The more contemptible a man is, the more he con-
 
 JONAS EXPRESSES HIS OPINION ON DUTCHMEN. 151 
 
 tetnns a man for not belonging to his race or nation. And Nor- 
 man felt that he would be eternally disgraced by any alliance 
 with a German. He threw himself into the fight with a great 
 deal of vigor. It helped him to forget other things. 
 
 " Jule," said he, walking up to her as she sat alone on the 
 porch, " I'm ashamed of you. To go and fall in love with a 
 Dutchman like Gus Wehle, and disgrace us all ! " 
 
 " I wonder you didn't think about disgrace before," retorted 
 
 NOBMAN ANDERSON. 
 
 Julia " I am ashamed to have August Wehle hear what you've 
 been doing." 
 
 Dogs that have the most practice in cat-worrying are liable 
 to get their noses scratched sometimes. N">rrmn took care never 
 to attack Julia again except under the gur. i of his mother's power- 
 ful battery. And he revenged himself en her by appealing to
 
 152 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 his mother with a complaint that " Jule had throwed up to him 
 that he had been dismissed from school." And of course Julia 
 received a solemn lecture on her way of driving poor Norman to 
 destruction. She was determined to disgrace the family. If she 
 could not do it by marrying a Dutchman, she would do it by slan- 
 dering her brother. 
 
 Norman thought to find an ally in Jonas. 
 
 " Jonas, don't you think it's awful that Jule is in love with 
 a Dutchman like Gus Wehle ? " 
 
 " I do, my love," responded Jonas. " I think a Dutchman 
 is a Dutchman. I don't keer how much he larns by burnin' 
 the midnight ile by day and night. My time-honored friend, 
 he's a Dutchman arter all. The Dutch is bred in the bone. It 
 won't fade. A Dutchman may be a gentleman in his way of 
 doin' things, may be honest and industrious, and keep all the 
 commandments hi the catalogue, but I say he is Dutch, and 
 that's enough to keep him out of the kingdom of heaven and 
 out of this free and enlightened republic. And an American 
 may be a good-fer-nothin', ornery little pertater-ball, wuthless 
 alike to man and beast ; he mayn't be good fer nothin 1 , nuther fer 
 work nur study ; he may git drunk and git turned outen school 
 and do any pertikeler number of disgraceful and oncreditable 
 things, he may be a reg'ler milksop and nincompoop, a fool 
 and a blackguard and a coward all rolled up into one piece of 
 brown paper, ef he wants to. And what's to hender ? A'n't he a 
 free-born an' enlightened citizen of this glorious and civilized 
 and Christian land of Hail Columby ? What business has a 
 Dutchman, ef he's ever so smart and honest and larned, got 
 in our broad domains, resarved for civil and religious liberty? 
 What business has he got breathin' our atmosphere or takin'
 
 JONAS EXPRESSES HIS OPINION ON DUTCHMEN. 153 
 
 refuge under the feathers of our American turkey-buzzard ? No, 
 my beloved and respected feller-citizen of native birth, it's as 
 plain to me as the wheels of 'Zek'el and the year 1843. I say, 
 Hip, hip, hoo-ray fer liberty or death, and down with the 
 Dutch ! " 
 
 Norman Anderson scratched his head. 
 
 What did Jonas mean ? 
 
 He couldn't exactly divine ; but it is safe to say that on the 
 whole he was not entirely satisfied with this boomerang speech. 
 He rather thought that he had better not depend on Jonas. 
 
 But he was not long in finding allies enough hi his war 
 against Germany.
 
 154 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 SOMETHIN' LUDIKEROUS. 
 
 was an egg-supper fh the country store at 
 Brayville. Mr. Mandluff, the tall and rawboned 
 Hoosier who kept the store, was not unwilling to 
 have the boys get up an egg supper now and then in 
 his store after he had closed the front-door at night. 
 For you must know that an egg-supper is a peculiar Western 
 institution. Sometimes it is a most enjoyable institution when 
 it has its place hi a store where there is no Kentucky whisky 
 to be had. But in Brayville, in the rather miscellaneous estab- 
 lishment of the not very handsome and not very graceful Mr. 
 Mandluff, an egg-supper was not a great moral institution. It 
 was otherwise, and profanely called by its votaries a camp- 
 meeting ; it would be hard to tell why, unless it was that some of 
 the insiders grew very happy before it was over. For an egg- 
 supper at Mandluff 's store was to Brayville what an oyster- 
 supper at Delrnonico's is to New York. It was one tenth hard 
 eggs and nine tenths that beverage which bears the name of an 
 old royal house of France. 
 
 How were the eggs cooked? I knew somebody would ask 
 that impertinent question. Well, they were not fried, they were
 
 SOMETHIN' LUDIKEROTJS. 155 
 
 not boiled, they were not poached, they were not scrambled, they 
 were not omeletted, they were not roasted on the half-shell, 
 they were not stuffed with garlic and served with cranberries, 
 they were not boiled and served with anchovy sauce, they were 
 not " en salmi." I think I had better stop there, lest I betray 
 my knowledge of cookery. It is sufficient to say that they were 
 not cooked in any of the above-named fashions, nor in any other 
 way mentioned in Catharine Beecher's or Marion Harland's cook- 
 books. They were baked d la mode backwoods. It is. hardly 
 proper for me to give a recipe in this place, that belongs more 
 properly to the " Household Departments " of the newspapers. 
 But to satisfy curiosity, and to tell something about cooking, 
 which Prof. Blot does not know, I may say that they were broken 
 and dropped on a piece of brown paper laid on the top of the old 
 box-stove. By the tune the egg was cooked hard the paper was 
 burned to ashes, but the egg came off clean and nice from the 
 stove, and made as palatable and indigestible an article for a late 
 supper as one could wish. It only wanted the addition of Mand- 
 luffs peculiar whisky to make it dissipation of the choicest 
 kind. For the more a dissipation costs in life and health, the 
 more fascinating it is. 
 
 There was an egg-supper, as I said, at Mandluff s store. There 
 was to be a "camp-meeting" in honor of Norman Anderson's 
 successful return to his liberty and his cronies. It gave Norman 
 the greatest pleasure to return to a society where it was rather 
 to his credit than otherwise that he had gone on a big old time, 
 got caught, and been sent adrift by the old hunk that had tried 
 to make him study Latin. 
 
 The eggs were baked in the true " camp-meeting " style, the 
 whisky was drunk, and so was the company. Bill Day's rather
 
 156 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 red eyes grew redder, and his nose shone with delight as he 
 shuffled the greasy pack of " kyerds." The maudlin smile crossed 
 the habitually melancholy lines of his face in a way that split 
 and splintered his visage into a curious contradiction of emotions. 
 
 " H a oo p ! " he shouted, throwing away the cards over 
 the heads of his companions. " Ha oop ! boys, thish is big 
 hoo ! hoo ! ha oop ! I say is big. Let's do somethin' ! " 
 
 Here there was a confused cry that " it was big, and that they 
 had better do somethin' or 'nother." 
 
 " Let's blow up the ole school-house," said Bill Day, who was 
 not friendly to education. 
 
 " I tell you what," said Bob Short, who was dealing the cards 
 in another set "I tell you what," and Bob winked his eyes vig- 
 orously, and looked more solemn and wise than he could have 
 looked if it had not been for the hard eggs and the whisky 
 " I tell you what," said Bob a third time, and halted, for his 
 mind's activity was a little choked by the fervor of his emotions 
 " I tell you what, boys " 
 
 "Wai," 'piped Jim West in a cracked voice, " you've told us 
 what four times, I 'low ; now s'pose you tell us somethin' else. " 
 
 " I tell you what, boys," said Bob Short, suddenly remember- 
 ing his sentence, " don't let's do nothin' that'll git us into no 
 trouble arterwards. Ef we blow up the school-house we'll be 
 'rested fer bigamy or or what d'ye call it ? " 
 
 "For larson," said Bill Day, hardly able to restrain another 
 whoop. 
 
 " No, 'taint larson," said Bob Short, looking wiser than a 
 chief-justice, " it's arsony. Now I say, don't let's go to peniten- 
 tiary for no no larson no arsony, I mean." 
 
 " Ha oop ! " said Bill. " Let's do somethin' ludikerous.
 
 SOMETHIN LUDIKEROUS. 
 
 157 
 
 Hurrah for arsony and larson! Dog-on the penitentiary! 
 Ha oop ! " 
 
 " Let's go fer the Dutchman," said Norman Anderson, just 
 drunk enough to be good-naturedly murderous and to speak in dia- 
 
 SOMETHTN' LUDIKEBOUS. 
 
 lect. " Gus is turned out to committin' larson by breakin' into peo- 
 ple's houses an' has run off. Now let's tar and feather the ole 
 one. Of course, he's a thief. Dutchmen always is, I 'low. Clark
 
 158 THE END OF THE WORLD- 
 
 township don't want none of 'em, I'll be dog-oned if it do," 
 and Norman got up and struck his fist on the counter. 
 
 " An' they won't nobody hurt you ; you see, he's on'y a 
 Dutchman," said Bob Short. " Larson on a Dutchman don't 
 hold." 
 
 "I say, let's hang him," said Bill Day. "Ha oop! Let's 
 hang 'him, or do somethin' else ludikerous ! " 
 
 " I wouldn't mind," grinned Norman Anderson, delighted at 
 the turn things had taken. "I'd just like to see him hung." 
 
 " So would I," said Bill Day, leaning over to Norman. " Ef 
 a Dutchman wash to court my sishter, I'd " 
 
 " He'd be a fool ef he did," piped Jim West. For Bill Day's 
 sister was a " maid not vendible," as Shakespeare has it. 
 
 " See yer," said Bill, trying in vain to draw his coat. " Looky 
 yer, Jeems ; ef you say anythin' agin Ann Marier, I'll commit 
 the wust larson on you you ever seed." 
 
 "I didn't say nothin' agin Ann Marier," squeaked Jim. "I 
 was talkin' agin the Dutch." 
 
 " Well, that'sh all right. Ha oop ! Boys, let's do somethin', 
 larson or arsony or somethin'." 
 
 A bucket of tar and some feathers were bought, for which 
 young Anderson was made to pay, and Bill Day insisted on 
 buying fifteen feet of rope. "Bekase," as he said, "arter you git 
 the feathers on the bird, you may you may want to help him to 
 go to roosht you know, on a hickory limb. Ha oop ! Come 
 along, boys ; I say let's do somethin' ludikerous, ef it's nothin' 
 but a little larson." 
 
 And so they went galloping down the road, nine drunken 
 fools. For it is one of the beauties of lynch law, that, however 
 justifiable it may seem in some instances, it always opens the
 
 SOMETHIN' LtTDtKEROtrs. 159 
 
 way to villainous outrages. Some of my readers will protest 
 that a man was never lynched for the crime of being a Dutch- 
 man. Which only shows how little they know of the intense 
 prejudice and lawless violence of the early West. Some day 
 people will not believe that men have been killed in California 
 for being Chinamen. 
 
 Of the nine who started, one, the drunkest, fell off and broke 
 his arm; the rest rode up in front of the cabin of Gottlieb "Wehle. 
 I do not want to tell how they alarmed the mother at her 
 late sewing and dragged Gottlieb out of his bed. I shudder 
 now when I recall one such outrage to which I was an unwill- 
 ing witness. Norman threw the rope round Gottlieb's neck and 
 declared for hanging. Bill Day agreed. It would be so ludik- 
 erous, you know ! 
 
 " Vot hash I tun ? Hey ? Vot vor you dries doo hanks me 
 already, hey ? " cried the honest German, who was willing enough 
 to have the end of the world come, but who did not like the idea 
 of ascending alone, and in this fashion. 
 
 Mrs. Wehle pushed her way into the mob and threw the rope 
 off her husband's neck, and began to talk with vehemence in 
 German. For a moment the drunken fellows hung back out of 
 respect for a woman. Then Bill Day was suddenly impressed 
 with the fact that the duty of persuading Mrs. Wehle to consent 
 to her husband's execution devolved upon him. 
 
 " Take keer, boys ; let me talk to the ole woman. I'll argy 
 the case." 
 
 " You can't speak Dutch no more nor a hoss can," squeaked 
 Jeems West. 
 
 " Blam'd ef I can't, though. Hyer, ole woman, firshta 
 Dutch?"
 
 160 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " Ya." 
 
 " Now," said Bill, turning to the others in triumph, " what 
 did I tell you ? Well, you see, your boy August is a thief." 
 
 " He's not a teef ! " said the old man. 
 
 " Shet up your jaw. I say he is. Now, your ole man's got 
 to be hung." 
 
 " Vot vor ? " broke in Gottlieb. 
 
 " Bekase it's all your own fault. You hadn't orter be a 
 Dutchman." 
 
 Here the crowd fell into a wrangle. It was not so easy to 
 hang a man when such a woman stood there pleading for him. 
 Besides, Bob Short insisted that hanging was arsony in the first 
 degree, and they better not do it. To this Bill Day assented. 
 He said he 'sposed tar and feathers was only larson in the 
 second degree. And then it would be rale ludikerous. And 
 now confused cries of " Bring on the tar ! " " Where's the fea- 
 thers ? " " Take off his clothes ! " began to be raised. Norman 
 stood out for hanging. Drink always intensified his meanness. 
 But the tar couldn't be found. The man whom they had left 
 lying by the roadside with a broken arm had carried the tar, 
 and had been well coated with it himself in his fall. 
 
 " Ha-oop ! " shouted Bill Day. " Let's do somethin'. Dog-on 
 the arsony ! Let's hang him as high as Dan'el." 
 
 And with that the rope was thrown over Gottlieb's neck and 
 he was hurried off to the nearest tree. The rope'was then put 
 over a limb, and a drunken half-dozen got ready to pull, while 
 Norman Anderson adjusted the noose and valiant Bill Day un- 
 dertook to keep off Mrs. Wehle. 
 
 "All ready! Pull up! Ha-oop !" shouted Bill Day, and the 
 crowd pulled, but Mrs. Wehle had slipped off the noose again,
 
 SOMETHIN' LUDIKEROUS. 161 
 
 and the volunteer executioners fell over one another in such a 
 way as to excite the derisive laughter of Bill Day, who thought 
 it perfectly ludikerous. But before the laugh had finished, 
 the iudignaut Gottlieb had knocked Bill Day over and sent 
 Norman after him. The blow sobered them a little, and sud- 
 denly destroyed Bill's ambition to commit " arsony," or do any- 
 thing else ludikerous. But Norman was furious, and under 
 his lead Wehle's arms were now bound with the rope and a con- 
 sultation was held, during which little Wilhelmina pleaded for 
 her father effectively* and more by her tears and cries and the 
 wringing of her chubby hands than by any words. Bill Day said 
 he be blamed ef that little Dutch gal's takin' on so didn't kinder 
 make him feel sorter scrimpshous you know. But the mob could 
 not quit without doing something. So it was resolved to give 
 Gottlieb a good ducking in the river and send him into Kentucky 
 with a warning not to come back. They went down the ravine 
 past Andrew's castle to the river. Mrs. Wehle followed, believ- 
 ing that her husband would be drowned, and little Wilhelmina 
 ran and pulled the alarm and awakened the Backwoods Phi- 
 losopher, who soon threw himself among them, but too late to 
 dissuade them from their purpose, for Andrew's own skiff, the 
 " Grisilde " by name, with three of the soberest of the party, 
 had already set out to convey Wehle, after one hasty immersion, 
 to the other shore, while the rest stood round hallooing like mad- 
 men to prevent any alarm that Wehle might raise attracting at- 
 tention on the other side.
 
 162 
 
 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE GIANT GREAT-HEAKT. 
 
 S soon as Andrew's skiff,' the " Grisilde," was 
 brought back and the ruffians had gone off up the 
 ravine, Andrew left Mrs. Wehle sitting by the fire 
 in the loom-room of the castle, while he crossed 
 the river to look after Gottlieb. Little "Wilhelmina 
 insisted on going with him, and as she handled a steering-oar 
 well he took her along. They found Gottlieb with his arms 
 cruelly pinioned sitting on a log in a state of utter dejection, 
 and dripping with water from his ducking. 
 
 "Ich zay, Antroo, ish dish vat dey galls a vree goontry, 
 already ? A blace vare troonk shcounders dosh vot ever dey 
 hadn't ort ! Dat is vree koontry. Mein knabe ish roon off ver 
 liebin a Yangee; unt a vool he ish, doo. Tint ich ish hoong 
 unt troundt unt darrdt unt vedderd unt drakt out indoo de rib- 
 ber, unt dolt if I ko back do mein vrau unt kinder I zhall pe kilt 
 vunst more already. Unt I shpose if ich shtays here der Gain- 
 duckee beobles vill hang me unt dar me unt trown me all over 
 in der ribber, doo, already, pekoz I ish Deutsch. Ich zay de voorld 
 ish all pad, unt it aud doo pe vinished vunst already, I ton't gare 
 how quick, so ash clem droonk vools kit vot pelongs doo 'em 
 venever Gabrel ploes his drumbet."
 
 THE GIANT GREAT-HEART. 165 
 
 " They'll get that in due tune, my friend," said Andrew, un- 
 tying the rope with which Gottlieb had been pinioned. " Come, 
 let us go back to our own shore." 
 
 " Bud daint my zhore no more. Dey said I'd god doo hang 
 again vunst more if I ever grossed de Ohio Ribber vunst again al- 
 ready, but I ton't vants doo hang no more vor noddin already." 
 
 " But I'll take care of that," said Andrew. " Before to-morrow 
 night I'll make your house the safest place hi Clark township. 
 I've got the rascals by the throat now. Trust me." 
 
 It took much entreaty on the part of -Andrew and much 
 weeping and kissing on the part of Wilhelmina to move the heart 
 of the terrified Gottlieb. At last he got into the skiff and allowed 
 himself to be rowed back again, declaring all the way that he 
 nebber zee no zich a vree koontry ash dish voz already. 
 
 When Bill Day and his comrades got up the next morning 
 and began to think of the transactions of the night, they did not 
 seem nearly so ludikerous as they had at the tune. And when 
 Norman Anderson and Bill Day and Bob Short read the notice 
 on the door of MandlufPs store they felt that " arsony " might 
 have a serious as well as a ludikerous side. 
 
 Andrew at first intended to institute proceedings against the 
 rioters, but he knew that the law was very uncertain against 
 the influences which the eight or nine young men might bring to 
 bear, and the prejudices of the people against the Dutch. To 
 prosecute would be to provoke another riot. So he contented 
 himself with this 
 
 14 PROCLAMATION ! 
 
 " To WHOM IT MAT CONCEBN : I have a list of eight men connected 
 with the riotous mob which broke into the house of Gottlieb Wehle, a 
 peaceable and unoffending citizen of the United States. The said eight
 
 166 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 men proceeded to commit an assault and battery on the person of the 
 said Gottlieb Wehle, and even endeavored at one time to take his life. 
 And the said riotous conduct was the result of a conspiracy, and the 
 said assault with intent to kill was with malice aforethought. The said 
 eight men, aftei having, committed grievous outrages upon him by 
 dipping him in the water and by other means, warned the said Wehle 
 not to return to the State. Now, therefore, I give notice to all 
 and several of those concerned in these criminal proceedings that 
 the said Wehle has returned by my advice ; and that if so much as a 
 hair of his head or a splinter of his property is touched I will appear 
 against said parties and will prosecute them until I secure the inflic- 
 tion of the severest penalties made and provided for the punishment 
 of such infamous crimes. I hope I am well enough known here to 
 render it certain that if I once begin proceedings nothing but success 
 or my death or the end of the world can stop them. 
 
 " ANDRBW ANDERSON, 
 " Backwoods Philosopher. 
 "AT THE CASTLE, May 19th, 1843." 
 
 " It don't look so ludikerous as it did, does it, Bill ? " squeaked 
 Jim West, as he read the notice over Bill's shoulder. 
 
 " Shet your mouth, you fool ! " said Bill. " Don't you never 
 peep. Ef I'd a been sober I might a knowed ole Grizzly would 
 interfere. He always does." 
 
 In truth, Andrew was a sort of Perpetual Champion of the 
 Oppressed, and those who did not like him feared him, which is 
 the next best thing.
 
 A CHAPTER OF BKTWEEN8. 
 
 167 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF BETWEEN8. 
 
 o 
 
 ID you ever move ? And, in moving, did you 
 ever happen to notice how many little things there 
 are to be picked up ? Now that I am about to 
 shift the scene of my story from Clark township, 
 the narrow stage upon which it has progressed 
 through two dozen chapters, I find a great number of little 
 things to be picked up. 
 
 One of the little things to be picked up is Norman Ander- 
 son. Very little, if measured soul-wise. When his father had 
 read the proclamation of Andrew and divined that Norman 
 was interested in the riot, he became thoroughly indignant ; the 
 more so, that he felt his own lack of power to do anything 
 in the premises against his wife. But when Mrs. Abigail 
 heard of the case she was in genuine distress. It showed 
 Andrew's vindictiveness. He would follow her forever with his 
 resentments, just because she could not love him. It was not her 
 fault that she did not love him. Poor Norman had to suffer all 
 the persecutions that usually fall to such innocent creatures. 
 She must send him away from home, though it broke her
 
 168 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 mother's heart to do it ; for if Andrew didn't have him took up, 
 the old Dutchman would, just because his son had turned out a 
 burglar. She said burglar rather emphatically, with a look at 
 Julia. 
 
 And so Samuel Anderson took his son to Louisville, and got 
 him a place in a commission and produce house on the levee, 
 with which Mr. Anderson had business influence. And Samuel 
 warned him that he must do his best, for he could not come 
 back home now without danger of arrest, and Norman made 
 many promises of amendment ; so many, that his future seemed 
 to him barren of all delight. And, by way of encouraging him- 
 self in the austere life upon which he had resolved to enter, he 
 attended the least reputable place of amusement in the city, the 
 first night after his father's departure. 
 
 In Clark township the Millerite excitement was at white heat. 
 Some of the preachers in other parts of the country had set one 
 day, some another. I believe that Mr. Miller, the founder, never 
 had the temerity to set a day. But his followers figured the 
 thing more closely, and Elder Hankins had put a fine point 
 on the matter. He was certain, for his part, that the time was 
 at midnight on the eleventh of August. His followers became 
 very zealous, and such is the nature of an infection that scarcely 
 anybody was able to resist it. Mrs. Anderson, true to her exci- 
 table temper, became fanatic dreaming dreams, seeing visions, 
 hearing voices, praying twenty times a day,* wearing a sourly 
 pious face, and making all around her more unhappy than ever. 
 
 * Mrs. Anderson was less devout than some of her co-religionists; the 
 wife of a well-known steamboat-clerk was accustomed to pray in private fifty 
 times a day, hoping by means of this praying without ceasing to be found ready 
 when the trumpet should sound.
 
 A CHAPTER OP BETWBENS. 169 
 
 Jonas declared thai ef the noo airth and the noo heaven was 
 to be chockful of sech as she, 'most any other place in the 
 univarse would be better, akordin' to his way of thinkin'. He 
 said she repented more of other folkses' sins than anybody he 
 ever seed. 
 
 As summer came on, Samuel Anderson, borne away on the 
 tide of his own and his wife's fanatical fever of sublimated 
 devotion, discharged Jonas and all his other employes, threw up 
 business, and gave his whole attention to the straightening of 
 his accounts for the coming day of judgment. Before Jonas 
 left to seek a new place he told Cynthy Ann as how as ef he'd 
 a met her airlier 'twould a-settled his coffee fer life. He was git- 
 tin' along into the middle of the week now, but he'd come to 
 feel like a boy sence he'd been a livin' where he could have a 
 few sweet and pleasant words ahem ! he thought December'd 
 be as pleasant as May all the year round ef he could live in the 
 aurora borealis of her countenance. And Cynthy Ann enjoyed 
 his words so much that she prayed for forgiveness for the next 
 week and confessed in class-meeting that she had yielded to 
 temptation and sot her heart on the things of this perishin' 
 world. She was afeared she hadn't always remembered as how 
 as she was a poor unworthy dyin' worm of the dust, and that 
 all the beautiful things in this world perished with the usin'. 
 
 And Brother Goshorn, the class-leader at Harden's Cross- 
 Roads, exhorted her to tear every idol from her heart. And 
 still the sweet woman's nature, God's divine law revealed in her 
 heart, did assert itself a little. She planted some pretty-by-nights 
 in an old cracked blue-and- white tea-pot and set it on her win- 
 dow-sill. Somehow the pretty-by-nights would remind her of 
 Jonas, and while she tried to forget him with one half of her
 
 170 THE END OF THE 
 
 nature, the other and better part (the depraved part, she would 
 \iave told you) cherished the memory of his smallest act and 
 A^ord. In fact, the flowers had no association with Jonas except 
 that along with the awakening of her love came this little sen- 
 timent for flowers into the dry desert of her life. But one day 
 Mrs. Anderson discovered the old blue broken tea-pot with its 
 young plants. 
 
 " Why, Cynthy Ann ! " she cried, " a body'd think you'd have 
 more sense than to do such a soft thing as to be raisin' posies at 
 your time of life ! And that when the world is drawing to a 
 close, too ! You'll be one of the foolish virgins with no oil to 
 your lamp, as sure as you see that day." 
 
 As for Julia's flowers, Mrs. Anderson had 1'udely thrown 
 them into the road by way of removing temptation from her and 
 turning her thoughts toward the awful realities of the close of 
 time. 
 
 But Cynthy Ann blushed and repented, and kept her broken 
 tea-pot, with a fearful sense of sin in doing so. She never wa- 
 tered the pretty-by-nights without the feeling that she was offer- 
 ing sacrifice to an idol.
 
 A NICK LITTLE GAME. 171 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 A NICE LITTLE GAME 
 
 ; T was natural enough that the " mud-clerk " on 
 the old steamboat latan should take a fancy to 
 the " striker," as the engineer's apprentice was called. 
 Especially since the striker knew so much more than 
 the mud-clerk, and was able to advise him about many 
 things. A striker with so much general information was rather 
 a novelty, and all the officers fancied him, except Sam Munson, 
 the second engineer, who had a natural jealousy of a striker that 
 knew more than he did. 
 
 The striker had learned rapidly, and was trusted to stand a 
 regular watch. The first engineer and the third were together, 
 and the second engineer and the striker took the other watch. 
 The boat in this way got the services of a competent engineer 
 while paying him only a striker's wage. 
 
 About the time the heavily-laden latan turned out of the 
 Mississippi into the Ohio at Cairo at six in the evening, the striker 
 went off watch, and he ought to have gone to bed to prepare him- 
 self for the second watch of the night, especially as he would 
 only have the dog-watch between that and the forenoon. But 
 a passenger had got aboard at Cairo, whose face was familiar.
 
 172 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The sight of it had aroused a throng of old associations, pleasant 
 and unpleasant, and a throng of-emotions the most tender and 
 the most wrathful the striker had ever felt. Sleep he could 
 not, and so, knowing that the mud-clerk was on watch, he sought 
 the office after nine o'clock, and stood outside the bar talking 
 to his friend, who had little to do, since most of the freight had 
 been shipped through, and his bills for Paducah were all ready. 
 The striker talked with the mud-clerk, but watched the throng of 
 passengers who drank with each other at the bar, smoked in the 
 " social hall," read and wrote at the tables in the gentlemen's 
 cabin, or sat with doffed hats and chatted gallantly in the ladies' 
 cabin, which was visible as a distant background, seen over a 
 long row of tables with green covers and under a long row of 
 gilded wooden stalactites, which were intended to be ornamental. 
 The little pendent prisms beneath the chandeliers rattled gayly 
 as the boat trembled at each stroke of her wheels, and gaping 
 backwoodsmen, abroad for the first tune, looked at all the rusty 
 gingerbread-work, and wondered if kings were able to afford any- 
 thing half so fine as the cabin of the " palatial steamer latan," 
 as she was described on the bills. The confused murmur of 
 many voices, mixed with the merry tinkling of the glass pen- 
 dants, gave the whole an air of excitement. 
 
 But the striker did not see the man he was looking for. 
 
 " Who got on at Cairo ? I think I saw a man from our part 
 of the country," he said. 
 
 " I declare, I don't know," said the mud-clerk, who drawled 
 his words in a cold-blooded way. " Let me look. Here's A. Rob- 
 ertson, and T. Le Fevre, and L. B. Sykes, and N. Anderson." 
 
 " Where is Anderson going ? " 
 
 "Paid through to Louisville. Do you know him?"
 
 A 2HCE LITTLE GAME. 173 
 
 But just then Norman Anderson himself walked in, and 
 went up to the bar with a new acquaintance. They did not 
 smoke the pipe of peace, like red Americans, but, like white 
 Americans, they had a mysterious liquid carefully compounded, 
 and by swallowing this they solemnly sealed their new-made 
 friendship after the curious and unexplained rite in use among 
 their people. 
 
 Norman had been dispatched on a collecting trip, and having 
 nine hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket, he felt as much 
 elated as if it had been his own money. The gentleman with 
 whom he drank, had a band of crape around his white hat. 
 He seemed very near-sighted. 
 
 " If that greeny is a friend of yours, Gus, I declare you'd 
 better tell him not to tie to the serious-looking young fellow in 
 the white hat and gold specs, unless he means to part with all 
 his loose change before bed-time." 
 
 That is what the mud-clerk drawled to August the striker, 
 but the striker seemed to hear the words as something spoken 
 afar off. For just then he was seeing a vision of a drunken mob, 
 and a rope, and a pleading woman, and a brave old man 
 threatened with death. Just then he heard harsh and mud- 
 dled voices, rude oaths, and jeering laughter, and above it all 
 the sweet pleading of a little girl begging for a father's life. 
 And the quick blood came into his fair German face, and he 
 felt that he could not save this Norman Anderson from the 
 toils of the gambler, though he might, if provoked, pitch him 
 over the guard of the boat. For was not Andrew's letter, which 
 described the mob, in his pocket, and burning a hole in his 
 pocket as it had been ever since he received it? 
 
 But then this was Julia's brother, and there was nothing he
 
 174 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 would not do for Julia. So, sometime after the mud-clerk had 
 ceased to speak, the striker gave utterance to both impulses by 
 replying, " He's no friend of mine," a little crisply, and then 
 softly adding, " Though I shouldn't like to see him fleeced." 
 
 By this time a new actor had appeared on the scene in the 
 person of a man with a black mustache and side- whiskers, who 
 took a seat behind a card-table near the bar. 
 
 " H'llo ! " said the mud-clerk in a low and lazy voice, " Par- 
 kins is back again. After his scrape at Paducah last February, 
 he disappeared, and he's been shady ever since. He's growed 
 whiskers since, so's not to be recognized. But he'll be skeerce 
 enough when we get to Paducah. Now, see how quick he'll 
 catch the greenies, won't you ? " The prospect was so charming 
 as almost to stimulate the mud-clerk to speak with some ani- 
 mation. 
 
 But August Wehle, the striker on the latan, had an uncom- 
 fortable feeling that he had seen that face before, and that the 
 long mustache and side-whiskers had grown in a remark- 
 ably short space of tune. Could it be that there were two men 
 who could spread a smile over the lower half of their faces in 
 that automatic way, while the spider-eyes had no sort of sym- 
 pathy with it ? Surely, this man with black whiskers and mus- 
 tache was not just like the singing-master at Sugar-Grove school- 
 house, who had " red-top hay on to his upper lip," and yet and 
 yet . 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Parkins his Dickensian name would be 
 Smirkins " I want to play a little game just for the fuii of the 
 thing. It is a trick with three cards. I put down three cards, 
 face up. Here is six of diamonds, eight of spades, and the ace 
 of hearts. Now, I will turn them over so quickly that I will
 
 A NICE LITTLE GAMK. 177 
 
 defy any of you to tell which is the ace. Do you see ? Now, I 
 would like to bet the wine for the company that no gentleman 
 here can turn up the ace. All I want is a little sport. Something 
 to pass away the evening and amuse the company. Who will 
 bet the wine ? The Scripture says that the hand is quicker than 
 the eye, and I warn you that if you bet, you will probably lose." 
 And here he turned the cards back, with their faces up, and the 
 card which everybody felt sure was the ace proved apparently 
 to be that card. Most of the on-lookers regretted that they had 
 not bet, seeing that they would certainly have won. Again the 
 cards were put face down, and the company was bantered to 
 bet the wine. Nobody would bet. 
 
 After a good deal of fluent talk, and much dexterous hand- 
 ling of the cards, in a way that seemed clear enough to 
 everybody, and that showed that everybody's guess was right as 
 to the place of the ace, the near-sighted gentleman, who had 
 drunk with Norman, offered to bet five dollars. 
 
 " Five dollars ! " returned Parkins, laughing in derision, " five 
 dollars ! Do you think I'm a gambler ? I don't want any gen- 
 tleman's money. I've got all the money I need. However, 
 if you would like to bet the wine with me, I am agreed." 
 
 The near-sighted gentleman declined to wager anything but 
 just the five dollars, and Parkins spurned his proposition with 
 the scorn of a gentleman who would on no account bet a cent of 
 money. But he grew excited, and bantered the whole crowd. 
 "Was there no gentleman in the crowd who would lay a wager 
 of wine for the company on this interesting little trick ? It was 
 strange to him that no gentleman had spirit enough to make the 
 bet. But no gentleman had spirit enough to bet the wine. Evi- 
 dently there were no gentlemen in the company.
 
 178 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 However, the near-sighted man with the white hat adorned 
 with crape now proposed in a crusty tone to bet ten dollars that 
 he could lift the ace. He even took out a ten-dollar bill, and, 
 after examining it, in holding it close to his nose as a penurious 
 man might, extended his hand with, " If you're in earnest, let's 
 know it. I'll bet you ten." 
 
 At this Parkins grew furious. He had never been so persist- 
 ently badgered in all his life. He'd have the gentleman know 
 that he was not a gambler. He had all the money he wanted, 
 and as for betting ten dollars, he shouldn't think of it. But now 
 that the gentleman he said gentleman with an emphasis now 
 that the gentleman seemed determined to bet money, he would 
 show him that he was not to be backed down. If the young 
 man would like to wager a hundred dollars, he would cheerfully 
 bet with him. If the gentleman did not feel able to bet a hun- 
 dred dollars, he hoped he would not say any more about it. He 
 hadn't intended to bet money at all. But he wouldn't bet less 
 than a hundred dollars with anybody. A man who couldn't 
 afford to lose a hundred dollars, ought not to bet. 
 
 " Who is this fellow in the white hat with spectacles ? " 
 August asked of the mud-clerk. 
 
 " That is Smith, Parkins's partner. He is only splurging 
 round to start up the greenies." And the mud-clerk spoke with 
 an indifference and yet a sort of dilettante interest in the game 
 that shocked his friend, the striker. 
 
 " Why don't they set these blacklegs ashore ? " said August, 
 whose love of justice was strong. 
 
 " Tow tell," drawled the mud-clerk. " The first clerk's tried it, 
 but the old man protects 1 e.m, and" (in a whisper) "get's his 
 share, I guess. He can set them off whenever he wants to." (I
 
 A KICK UTTMC GAME. 179 
 
 must explain that there is only one " old man " on a steamboat 
 that is, the captain.) 
 
 By this time Parkins had turned and thrown his cards so that 
 everybody knew or thought he knew where the ace was. Smith, 
 the man with the white hat, now rose five dollars more and 
 offered to bet fifteen. But Parkins was more indignant than ever. 
 He told Smith to go away. He thrust his hand into his pocket 
 and drew out a handful of twenty-dollar gold-pieces. " If any 
 gentleman wants to bet a hundred dollars, let him come on. 
 A man who couldn't lose a hundred would better keep still." 
 
 Smith now made a big jump. He'd go fifty. Parkins 
 wouldn't listen to fifty. He had said that he wouldn't bet less 
 than a hundred, and he wouldn't. He now pulled out handful 
 after handful of gold, and piled the double-eagles up like a forti- 
 fication in front of him, while the crowd surged with excitement. 
 
 At last Mr. Smith, the near-sighted gentleman in spectacles, 
 the gentleman who wore black crape on a white hat, con- 
 cluded to bet a hundred dollars. He took out his little porte- 
 monnaie and lifted thence a hundred-dollar bill. 
 
 " Well," said he angrily, " I'll bet you a hundred." And he 
 laid down the bill. Parkins piled five twenty-dollar gold-pieces 
 atop it. Each man felt that he could lift the ace in a moment. 
 That card at the dealer's right was certainly the ace. Norman was 
 sure of it. He wished it had been his wager instead of Smith's. 
 But Parkins stopped Smith a moment. 
 
 " Now, young man," he said, " if you don't feel perfectly able 
 to lose that hundred dollars, you'd better take it back." 
 
 " I am just as able to lose it as you are," said Smith snap- 
 pishly, and to everybody's disappointment he lifted not the card 
 everybody had fixed on, but the middle one, and so lost his money.
 
 180 THE END or THE WORLD. 
 
 " Why didn't you take the other ? " said Norman boastfully. 
 " I knew it was the ace." 
 
 " Why didn't you het, then ? " said Smith, grinning a little. 
 Norman wished he had. But he had not a hundred dollars of 
 his own, and he had scruples faint, and yet scruples, or rather 
 alarms at the thought of risking his employer's money on a 
 wager. While he was weighing motive against motive, Smith 
 bet again, and. again, to Norman's vexation, selected a card that 
 was so obviously wrong that Norman thought it a pity that so 
 near-sighted a man should bet and lose. He wished he had 
 a hundred dollars of his own and There, Smith was bet- 
 ting again. This time he consulted Norman before making his 
 selection, and of course turned up the right card, remarking that 
 he wished his eyes were so keen ! He would win a thousand 
 dollars before bed-time if his eyes were so good ! Then he took 
 Norman into partnership, and Norman found himself suddenly in 
 possession of fifty dollars, gotten without trouble. This turned 
 his brain. Nothing is so intoxicating to a weak man as money 
 acquired without toil. So Norman continued to bet, sometimes 
 independently, sometimes in partnership with the gentlemanly 
 Smith. He was borne on by the excitement of varying fortune, 
 a varying fortune absolutely under control of the dealer, whose 
 sleight-of-hand was perfect. And the varying fortune had an un- 
 varying tendency in the long run to put three stakes out of five 
 into the pockets of the gamblers, who found the little game very 
 interesting amusement for gentlemen.
 
 THE RESULT OF AN EVENING WITH GENTLEMEN,. 181 
 
 CHAPTER XXVTI. 
 
 THE RESULT OF AN EVENING WITH GENTLEMEN. 
 
 -kk *ke time that these smiling villains were by 
 consummate art drawing their weak-headed victim 
 into their toils, what was August doing? Where 
 were his prompt decision of character, his quick 
 intelligence, his fine German perseverance, that 
 should have saved the brother of Julia Anderson from harpies ? 
 Could our blue-eyed young countryman, who knew how to cher- 
 ish noble aspirations walking in a plowman's furrow could he 
 stand there satisfying his revenge by witnessing the rum of a 
 young man who, like many others, was wicked only because he 
 was weak ? 
 
 In truth, August was a man whose feelings were persistent. 
 His resentment was like his love constant. But his love of 
 justice was higher and more persistent, and he could not have 
 seen any one fleeced in this merciless way without taking sides 
 strongly with the victim. Much less could he see the brother 
 of Julia tempted on to the rocks by the false lights of villainous 
 wreckers without a great desire to save him. For the letter of 
 Andrew had ceased - now to burn in his pocket. That other let- 
 ter the only one that Julia had been able to send through Cyn-
 
 182 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 thy Ann and Jonas that other letter, written all over with such 
 tender extravagances as love feeds on ; the thought of that other 
 letter, which told how beautiful and precious were the invita- 
 tions to the weary and heavy-laden, had stilled resentment, and 
 there came instead a keen desire to save Norman for the sake 
 of Julia and justice. But how to do it was an embarrassing ques- 
 tion a question that was more than August could solve. There 
 was a difficulty in the weakness and wrong-headedness of Nor- 
 man ; a difficulty in Norman's prejudice against Dutchmen in 
 general and August in particular; a difficulty in the fact that 
 August was a sort of a fugitive, if not from justice, certainly from 
 injustice. 
 
 But when nearly a third of Norman's employer's money 
 had gone into the gamblers' heap, and when August began to 
 understand that it was another man's money that Norman was 
 losing, and that the victim was threatened by no half-way ruin, 
 he determined to do something, even at the risk of making 
 himself known to Norman and to Parkins was he Hum- 
 phreys in disguise ? and at the risk of arrest for house-break- 
 ing. August acted with his eyes open to all the perils from gam- 
 blers' pistols and gamblers' malice ; and after he had started to 
 interfere, the mud-clerk called him back, and said, in his half-in- 
 different way: 
 
 " Looky here, Gus, don't be a blamed fool. That's a purty 
 little game. That greeny's got to learn to let blacklegs alone, 
 and he don't look like one that'll take advice. Let him scorch 
 a little ; it'll do him good. It's healthy for young men. That's 
 the reason the old man don't forbid it, I s'pose. And these fel- 
 lows carry good shooting-irons with hair-triggers, and I declare I 
 don't want to be bothered writing home to your mbther, and
 
 THE RESULT OF AN EVENING WITH GENTLEMEN. 
 
 explaining to her that you got killed in a fight with blacklegs. 
 I declare I don't, you see. And then you'll get the ' old man ' 
 down on you, if you let a bird out of the trap in which he goes 
 snucks ; you will, I declare. And you'll get walking-papers at 
 Louisville. Let the game alone. You haven't got any hand to 
 play against Parkins, nohow ; and I reckon the greenhorns are 
 
 his lawful prey. Cats couldn't live without mice. You'll lose 
 your place, I declare you will, if you say a word." 
 
 August stopped long enough to take in the full measure of 
 his sacrifice. So far from being deterred by it, he was more 
 than ever determined to act. Not the love of Julia, so much, 
 now, but the farewell prayer and benediction and the whole life 
 and spirit of the sweet Moravian mother in her child-full house 
 at home were in his mind at this moment. Things which 
 a man will not do for the love of woman he may do for
 
 184 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the love of God and it was with a sense of moral exaltation 
 that August entered into the lofty spirit of self-sacrifice he had 
 seen in his mother, and caught himself saying, in his heart, as he 
 had heard her say, " Let us do anything for the Father's sake ! " 
 Some will call this cant. So much the worse for them. This 
 motive, too little felt in our day too little felt in any day is 
 the great impulse that has enabled men to do the bravest things 
 that have been done. The sublimest self-sacrifice is only possible 
 to a man by the aid of some strong moral tonic. God's love 
 is the chief support of the strongest spirits. 
 
 August touched Norman on the arm. The face of the latter 
 expressed anything but pleasure at meeting him, now that he 
 felt guilty. But this was not the uppermost feeling with 
 Norman. He noticed that August's clothes were spotted with 
 engine-grease, and his first fear was of compromising his 
 respectability. 
 
 In a hurried way August began to explain to him that he was 
 betting with gamblers, but Smith stood close to them, looking 
 at August in such a contemptuous way as to make Norman feel 
 very uncomfortable, and Parkins seeing the crowd attracted by 
 August's explanations which he made in some detail, by way 
 of adapting himself to Norman of the trick by which the 
 upper card is thrown out first, Parkins said, " I see you un- 
 derstand the game, young man. If you do, why don't you bet ? " 
 
 At this the crowd laughed, and Norman drew away from 
 the striker's greasy clothes, and said that he didn't want to speak 
 any further to a burglar, he believed. But August followed, deter- 
 mined to warn him against Smith. Smith was ahead of him, 
 however, saying to Norman, " Look out for your pockets 
 that greasy fellow will rob you."
 
 THE RESULT OP AN EVENING WITH GENTLEMEN. 185 
 
 And Norman, who was nothing if not highly respectable, 
 resolved to shake off the troublesome " Dutchman " at once. " I 
 don't know what you are up to now, but at home you are known 
 as a thief. So please let me alone, will you ? " This Norman 
 tried to say in an annihilating way. 
 
 The crowd looked for a fight. August said loud enough to be 
 heard, " You know very well that you lie. I wanted to save you 
 from being a thief, but you are betting money now that is not 
 yours." 
 
 The company, of course, sympathized with the gentleman and 
 against the machine-oil on the striker's clothes, so that there 
 arose quickly a murmur, started by Smith, " Put the bully out," 
 and August was " hustled." It is well that he was not shot. 
 
 It was quite time for him to go on watch now ; for the loud- 
 ticking marine-clock over the window of the clerk's office pointed 
 to three minutes past twelve, and the striker hurried to his post 
 at the starboard engine, with the bitterness of defeat and the 
 shame of insult in his heart. He had sacrificed his place, doubt- 
 less, and risked much beside, and all for nothing. The third 
 engineer complained of his tardiness in not having relieved 
 him three minutes before, and August went to his duties with a 
 bitter heart. To a man who is persistent, as August was, 
 defeat of any sort is humiliating. 
 
 As for Norman, he bet after this just to show his indepen- 
 dence and to show that the money was his own, as well as in the 
 vain hope of winning back what he had lost. He bet every cent. 
 Then he lost his watch, and at half -past one o'clock he went to 
 his state-room, stripped of all loose valuables, and sweating great 
 drops. And the mud-clerk, who was still in the office, remarked 
 to himself, with a pleasant chuckle, that it was good for him ; he
 
 186 THE END OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 declared it was ; teach the fellow to let monte alone, and keep his 
 eyes peeled when he traveled. It would so ! 
 
 The idea was a good one, and he went down to the star- 
 board engine and told the result of the nice little game to his 
 friend the striker, drawling it out in a relishful way, how the 
 blamed idiot never stopped till they'd got his watch, and then 
 looked like as if he'd a notion to jump into the " drink." But 
 'twould cure him of meddlin' with monte. It would so ! 
 
 He walked away, and August was just reflecting on the heart- 
 lessness of his friend, when the mud-clerk came back again, and 
 began drawling his words out as before, just as though each dis- 
 tinct word were of a delightful flavor and he regretted that he 
 must part with it. 
 
 " I've got you even with Parkins, old fellow. He'll be strung 
 up on a lamp-post at Paducah, I reckon. I saw a Paducah man 
 aboard, and I put a flea in his ear. We've got to lay there an 
 hour or two to put off a hundred barrels of molasses and two 
 hundred -sacks of coffee and two lots of plunder. There'll be 
 a hot time for Parkins. He let on to marry a girl and fooled her. 
 They'll teach him a lesson. You'll be off watch, and we'll have 
 some fun looking on." And the mud-clerk evidently thought 
 that it would be even funnier to see Parkins hanged than it had 
 been to see him fleece Norman. Gus the striker did not see how 
 either scene could be very entertaining. But he was sick at heart, 
 and one could not expect him to show much interest in manly 
 sports.
 
 WAKING UP AN UGLY CUSTOMEK. 
 
 187 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 WAKING UP AN UGLY CUSTOMER. 
 
 'HE steady beat of the wheels and the incessant 
 clank of the engines went on as usual. The boat 
 was loaded almost to her guards, and did not make 
 much speed. The wheels kept their persistent beat 
 upon the water, and the engines kept their rhythmical 
 clangor going, until August found himself getting drowsy. 
 Trouble, with forced inaction, nearly always has a soporific 
 tendency, and a continuous noise is favorable to sleep. Once or 
 twice August roused himself to a sense of his responsibility and 
 battled with his heaviness. It was nearing the end of his 
 watch, for the dog-watch of two hours set in at four o'clock. 
 But it seemed to him that four o'clock would never come. 
 
 An incident occurred just at this moment that helped him to 
 keep his eyes open: A man went aft through the engine-room 
 with a red handkerchief tied round his forehead. In spite of 
 this partial disguise August perceived that it was Parkins. He 
 passed through to the place where the steerage or deck passen- 
 gers are, and then disappeared from August's sight. He had. 
 meant to disembark at a wood-yard just below Paducah, but for
 
 188 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 some reason the boat did not stop, and now, as August guessed, he 
 was hiding himself from Paducah eyes. He was not much too 
 soon, for the great bell on the hurricane-deck was already ringing 
 for Paducah, and the summer dawn was showing itself faintly 
 through the river fog. 
 
 The alarm-bell rang in the engine-room, and Wehle stood by 
 his engine. Then the bell rang to stop the starboard engine, 
 and August obeyed it. The pilot of a Western steamboat de- 
 pends much upon his engines for steerage in making a landing, 
 and the larboard engine was kept running a while longer in order 
 to bring the deeply-loaded boat round to her landing at the prim- 
 itive wharf-boat of that day. There is something fine in the 
 faith with which an engineer obeys the bell of the pilot, not 
 knowing what may be ahead, not inquiring what may be the 
 effect of the order, but only doing exactly what he is bid when 
 he is bid. August had stopped his engine, and stood trying to 
 keep his mind off Parkins and the events of the night, that he 
 might be ready to obey the next signal for his engine. But the 
 bell rang next to stop the other engine, at which the second 
 engineer stood, and August was so free from responsibility in re- 
 gard to that that he hardly noticed the sound of the bell, until it 
 rang a second time more violently. Then he observed that the 
 larboard engine still ran. "Was Munson dead or asleep ? Clearly 
 it was August's duty to stand by his own engine. But then he 
 was startled to think what damage to property or life might take 
 place from the failure of the second engineer to stop his engine. 
 While he hesitated, and all these considerations flashed through 
 his mind, the pilot's bell rang again long and loud, and August 
 then, obeying an impulse rather than a conviction, ran over to 
 the other engine, stopped it, and then, considering that it had
 
 WAKING UP AN UGLY CUSTOMEB. 189 
 
 run so long against orders, he reversed it and set it to back- 
 ing without waiting instructions. Then he seized Munson and 
 woke him, and hurried back to his post. But the larboard engine 
 had not made three revolutions backward before the boat, hope- 
 lessly thrown from her course by the previous neglect, 
 struck the old wharf-boat and sunk it. But for the prompt- 
 ness and presence of mind with which Wehle acted, the steam- 
 boat itself would have suffered severely. The mate and then 
 the captain came rushing into the engine-room. Munson was 
 discharged at once, and the striker was premised engineer's 
 wages. 
 
 Gus went off watch at this moment, and the mud-clerk said 
 to him, in his characteristically indifferent voice, " Such luck, I 
 declare ! I was sure you would be dismissed for meddling with 
 Parkins, and here you are promoted, I declare ! " 
 
 The mishap occasioned much delay to the boat, as it was very 
 inconvenient to deliver freight at that day and at that stage of 
 water without the intervention of the wharf-boat. A full hour 
 was consumed in finding a landing, and hi rigging the double- 
 staging and temporary planks necessary to get the molasses and 
 coffee and household "plunder" ashore. Some hint that Par- 
 kins was on the river had already reached Paducah, and the sher- 
 iff and two deputies and a small crowd were at the landing 
 looking for him. A search of the boat failed to discover him, 
 and the crowd would have left the landing but for occasional 
 hints slyly thrown out by the mud-clerk as he went about over 
 the levee collecting freight-bills. These hints, given in a non- 
 committal way. kept the crowd alive with expectation, and when 
 the rumors thus started spread abroad, the levee was soon filled 
 with an excited and angry multitude.
 
 190 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 If it had been a question of delivering a criminal to justice, 
 August would not have hesitated to tell the sheriff where to look. 
 But he very well knew that the sheriff could not convey the man 
 through the mob alive, and to deliver even such a scoundrel to 
 the summary vengeance of a mob was something that he could 
 not find it in his heart to do. 
 
 In truth, the sheriff and his officers did not seek very zeal- 
 ously for their man. Under the circumstances, it was probable 
 he would not surrender himself without a fight, in which some- 
 body would be killed, and besides there must ensue a battle with 
 the mob. It was what they called an ugly job, and they were 
 not loth to accept the captain's assurance that the gambler had 
 gone ashore. 
 
 While August was unwilling to deliver the hunted vil- 
 lain to a savage death, he began to ask himself why he might 
 not in some way use his terror in the interest of justice. 
 For he had just then seen the wretched and bewildered face of 
 Norman looking ghastly enough in the fog of the morning. 
 
 At last, full of this notion, and possessed, too, by his habit of 
 accomplishing at all hazards what he had begun, August strolled 
 back through the now quiet engine-room to the deck-passengers' 
 quarter. It was about half an hour before six o'clock, when the 
 dog-watch would expire and he must go on duty again. 
 In one of the uppermost of the filthy bunks, in the darkest 
 corner, near the wheel, he discovered what he thought to be his 
 man. The deck-passengers were still asleep, lying around stu- 
 pidly. August paused a moment, checked by a sense of the dan- 
 gerousness of his undertaking. Then he picked up a stick of 
 wood and touched the gambler, who could not have been very 
 sound asleep, lying in hearing of the curses of the mob on the
 
 WAKING UP AN U(iLY CUSTOMER. 
 
 191 
 
 shore. At first Parkins did not move, but August gave him a 
 still more vigorous thrust. Then he peered out between the 
 blanket and the handkerchief over his forehead. 
 
 " I will take that money you won last night from that young 
 man, if you please." 
 
 TVAKING UP AN UGLY CUBTOMEK. 
 
 Do 
 
 Parkins saw that it was useless to deny his identity, 
 you want to be shot ? " he asked fiercely. 
 
 " Not any more than you want to be hung," said August. 
 ' ' The one would follow the other in five minutes. Give back 
 that money and I will go away."
 
 192 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The gambler trembled a minute. He was fairly at bay. He 
 took out a roll of bills and handed it to August. There was but 
 five hundred. Smith had the other four hundred and fifty, he 
 said. But August had a quiet German steadiness of nerve. He 
 said that unless the other four hundred and fifty were paid at 
 once he should call in the sheriff or the crowd. Parkins knew 
 that every minute August stood there increased his peril, 
 and human nature is now very much like human nature in the 
 days of Job. The devil understood the subject very well when 
 he said that all that a man hath will he give for his life. Parkins 
 paid the four hundred and fifty in gold-pieces. He would have 
 paid twice that if August had demanded it.
 
 AUGUST AND NORMAN. 193 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 AUGUST AND NORMAN. 
 
 s ^ , 
 
 a story such as I meant this to be, the devel- 
 opment of character stands for more than the evo- 
 lution of the plot, and herein is the true significance 
 of this contact of "Wehle with the gamblers, and, in- 
 deed, of this whole steamboat life. It is not enough 
 for one to be good in a country neighborhood ; the sharp con- 
 tests and severe ordeals of more exciting life are needed to give 
 temper to the character. August Wehle was hardly the same 
 man on this morning at Paducah, with the nine hundred and 
 fifty dollars in his pocket, that he had been the evening before, 
 when he first felt the sharp resentment against the man who 
 had outraged his father. In acting on a high plane, one is un- 
 consciously lifted to that plane. Men become Christians some- 
 times from the effect of sudden demands made upon their higher 
 moral nature, demands which compel them to choose between 
 a life higher than their present living, or a moral degradation. 
 Such had been August's experience. He had been drawn up- 
 ward toward God by the opportunity and necessity for heroic 
 action. I have no doubt the good Samaritan got more out of his 
 own kindness than the robbed Jew did.
 
 194 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Before he had a chance to restore the money to its rightful 
 owner, the two hours of dog-watch had expired, and he was 
 obliged to go on watch again, much to his annoyance. He had 
 been nearly twenty-four hours without sleep, and after a night 
 of such excitement it was unpleasant as well as perilous to 
 have to hold this money, which did not belong to him, for six 
 hours longer, liable at any minute to get into difficulty through 
 any scheme of the gamblers and their allies, by which his recovery 
 of the money might be misinterpreted. The morning seemed to 
 wear away so slowly. All the possibilities of Parkins's attacking 
 him, of young Anderson's committing suicide, and of the miscon- 
 struction that might be put upon his motives the making of his 
 disinterested action seem robbery haunted his excitable imagin- 
 ation. At last, while the engines were shoving their monotonous 
 shafts backward and forward, and the " palatial steamer " latan 
 was slowly pushing her way up the stream, August grew so 
 nervous over his money that he resolved to relieve himself of 
 part of it. So he sent for the mud-clerk by a passing deck-hand. 
 
 " I want you to keep this money for me until I get off 
 watch," said August. " I made Parkins stand and deliver this 
 morning while we were at Paducah." 
 
 " You did ? " said the mud-clerk, not offering to touch the 
 money. " You risked your life, I declare, for that fool that called 
 you a thief. You are a fool, Gus, and nothing but your blamed 
 good luck can save you from getting salivated, bright and early, 
 some morning. Not a great deal I won't take that money. I 
 don't relish lead, and I've got to live among these fellows all my 
 days, and I don't hold that money for anybody. The old man 
 would ship me at Louisville, seeing I never stopped anybody's 
 engine and backed it in a hurry, as you did. If I'd known where
 
 AUGUST AND NOKMAN. 195 
 
 Parkins was, I'd a dropped a gentle word in the ear of the crowd 
 outside, but I wouldn't a pulled that greeny's coflee-nuts out of 
 the fire, and I won't hold the hot things for yoq. I declare 
 I won't. Saltpeter wouldn't save me if I did." 
 
 So Gus had to content himself in his nervousness, not allayed 
 by this speech, and keep the money hi his pocket until noon. 
 And, after all the presentiment he had had, noon came round. 
 Presentiments generally come from the nerves, and signify 
 nothing ; but nobody keeps a tally of the presentiments and 
 auguries that fail. When the first-engineer and a new man 
 took the engines at noon, Gus was advised by the former to get 
 some sleep, but there was no sleep for him until he had found 
 Norman, who trembled at the sight of him. 
 
 " Where is your state-room ? " said August sternly, for he 
 couldn't bring himself to speak kindly to the poor fellow, even 
 in his misery. 
 
 Norman turned pale. He had been thinking of suicide all the 
 morning, but he was a coward, and now he evidently felt sure 
 that he was to be killed by August. He did not dare disobey, 
 but led the way, stopping to try to apologize two or three times, 
 but never getting any further than "I I " 
 
 Once in the state-room, he sat down on the berth and gasped, 
 "I I " 
 
 " Here is your money," said August, handing it to him. " I 
 made the gambler give it up." 
 
 " I I " said the astonished and bewildered Norman. 
 
 " You needn't say a word. You are a cowardly scoundrel, 
 and if you say anything, I'll knock you down for treating my 
 father as you did. Only for for well, I didn't want to see you 
 fleeced. '
 
 196 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Norman was ashamed for once, and hung his head. It 
 touched the heart of August a little, but the remembrance of the 
 attack of the mob on his father made him feel hard again, and 
 so his generous act was performed ungraciously.
 
 AGROUND. 197 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 AGROUND. 
 
 ' OT the boat. The boat ran on safely enough 
 t^^L" * Louisville, and tied up at the levee, and dis- 
 
 charged her sugar and molasses, and took on a new 
 cargo of baled hay and corn and flour, and went 
 back again, and made I know not how many trips, 
 and ended her existence I can not tell how or when. What 
 does become of the old steamboats ? The latan ran for years 
 after she tied up at Louisville that summer morning, and then 
 perhaps she was blown up or burned up ; perchance some cruel 
 sawyer transfixed her ; perchance she was sunk by ice, or maybe 
 she was robbed of her engines and did duty as barge, or, what 
 is more probable, she wore out like the one-hoss shay, and just 
 tumbled to pieces simultaneously. 
 
 It was not the gambler who got aground that morning. He 
 had yet other nice little games, with three cards or more or 
 none, to play. 
 
 It was not the mud-clerk who ran aground good, non-com- 
 mittal soul, who never took sides where it would do him any 
 harm, and who never worried himself about anything. Dear, 
 drawling, optimist philosopher, who could see how other people's
 
 198 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 mishaps were best for them, and who took good care not to have 
 any himself! It was not he that ran aground. 
 
 It was not Norman Anderson who ran aground. He walked 
 into the store with the proud and manly consciousness of having 
 done his duty, he made his returns of every cent of money that 
 had come into his hands, and, like all other faithful stewards, 
 received the cordial commendation of his master. 
 
 But August Wehle the striker, just when he was to be 
 made an engineer, when he thought he had smooth sailing, sud- 
 denly and provokingly found himself fast aground, with no 
 spar or capstan by which he might help himself off, with no 
 friendly craft alongside to throw him a hawser and pull him off. 
 
 It seems that when the captain promised him promotion, he 
 did not know anything of August's interference with the gam- 
 blers. But when Parkins filed his complaint, it touched the 
 captain. It was generally believed among the employes of the 
 boat that a percentage of gamblers' gains was one of the " old 
 man's " perquisites, and he was not the only steamboat captain 
 who profited by the nice little games in the cabin upon which 
 he closed both eyes. And this retrieved nine hundred and fifty 
 
 dollars was a dead loss of well, it does not matter how much, 
 
 to the virtuous and highly honorable captain. His proportion 
 would have been large enough at least to pay his wife's pew- 
 rent in St. James's Church, with a little something over for char- 
 itable purposes. For the captain did not mind giving a disinter- 
 ested twenty-five dollars occasionally to those charities that were 
 willing to show their gratitude by posting his name as director, 
 or his wife's as " Lady Manageress." In this case his right hand 
 never knew what his left hand did how it got the money, for 
 instance.
 
 AGROUND. 199 
 
 So when August drew his pay he was informed that he was 
 discharged. No reason was given. He tried to see the captain. 
 But the captain was in the bosom of his family, kissing his own 
 well-dressed little boys, and enjoying the respect which only 
 exemplary and provident fathers enjoy. And never asking down 
 in his heart if these boys might become gamblers' victims, or * 
 gamblers, indeed. The captain could not see August the striker, 
 for he was at home, and must not be interfered with by any of 
 his subordinates. Besides, it was Sunday, and he could not be 
 intruded upon the rector of St. James's was dining with him 
 on his wife's invitation, and it behooved him to walk circum- 
 spectly, not with eye-service as a man-pleaser, but serving the 
 Lord. 
 
 So he refused to see the anxious striker, and turned to com- 
 pliment the rector on his admirable sermon on the sin of Judas, 
 who sold his master for thirty pieces of silver. 
 
 And August "Wehle had nothing left to do. The river was 
 falling fast, the large boats above the Falls were, in steamboat- 
 man's phrase, " laying up " in the mouths of the tributaries and 
 other convenient harbors, there were plenty of engineers unem- 
 ployed, and there were no vacancies.
 
 THE END OF THE WOliLI>. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 CYNTHY ANN'S SACRIFICE. 
 
 ONAS had been all his life, as he expressed it 
 in his mixed rhetoric, " a wanderin' sand-hill crane, 
 makin' many crooked paths, and, like the cards in 
 French monte, a-turnin' up suddently in mighty on- 
 expected places." He had been in every queer place 
 from Halifax to Texas, and then had come back to his home 
 again. Naturally cautious, and especially suspicious of the 
 female sex, it is not strange that he had not married. Only when 
 he " tied up to the same w'arf-boat alongside of Cynthy Ann, he 
 thought he'd found somebody as was to be depended on in a fog 
 or a harricane." This he told to Cynthy Ann as a reason why 
 she should accept his offer of marriage. 
 
 " Jonas," said Cynthy Ann, " don't flatter. My heart is 
 dreadful weak, and prone to the vanities of this world. It makes 
 me abhor myself in dust and sackcloth fer you to say such 
 things about poor unworthy me." 
 
 " Ef I think 'em, why shouldn't I say 'em ? I don't know 
 no law agin tellin' the truth ef you git into a place where you * 
 can't no ways help it. I don't call you angel, fer you a'n'fr; you 
 ha'nt got no wings nor feathers. I don't say as how as you're
 
 CYNTHY ANN'S SACRIFICE. 201 
 
 pertikeler knock-down handsome. I don't pertend that you're a 
 spring chicken. I don't lie nor flatter. I a'n't goin' it blind, 
 like young men in love. I u I do say, with my eyes open and 
 in my right senses, and feelin' solemn, like a man a-makin' his 
 last will and testament, that they a'n't no sech another woman to 
 be found outside the leds of the Bible betwixt the Bay of Fundy 
 and the Rio Grande. I've ' sought round this burdened airth,' as 
 the hymn says, and they a'n't but jest one. Ef that one'll jest 
 make me happy, I'll fold my weary pinions and settle down in a 
 rustic log-cabin and raise corn and potaters till death do us part." 
 
 Cynthy trembled. Cynthy was a saint, a martyr to religious 
 feeling, a medieval nun in her ascetic eschewing of the pleasures 
 of life. But Cynthy Ann was also a woman. And a woman 
 whose spring-time had passed. "When love buds out thus late, 
 when the opportunity for the woman's nature to blossom comes 
 unexpectedly upon one at her age, the temptation is not easily 
 resisted. Cynthy trembled, but did not quite yield up her Chris- 
 tian constancy. 
 
 " Jonas, I don't know whether I'd orto or not. I don't deny 
 I think I'd better ax brother Goshorn, you know, sence what 
 would it profit ef I gained you or any joy in this world, and then 
 come short by settin' you up fer a idol in my heart ? I don't 
 know whether a New Light is a onbeliever or not, and whether 
 I'd be onequally yoked or not. I must ax them as knows bet- 
 ter nor I do." 
 
 ." Well, ef I'm a onbeliever, they's nobody as could teach me 
 to believe quicker'n you could. I never did believe much in 
 women folks till I believed in you." 
 
 " BuJ; that's the sin of it, Jonas. I'd believe in you, and you'd 
 believe in me, and we'd be^puttiii' our trust in the creatur' hist id
 
 202 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of the Creator, and the Creator is mighty jealous of our idols, 
 and He would take us away fer idolatry." 
 
 " No, but I wouldn't worship you, though I'd rather worship 
 you than anybody else ef I was goin' into the worshipin' business. 
 But you see I a'n't, honey. I wouldn't sacrifice to you no lambs 
 nor sheep, I wouldn't pray to you, nor I wouldn't kiss your shoes, 
 like people does the Pope's. An' I know you wouldn't make 
 no idol of me like them Greek gods that Andrew's got picters of. 
 I a'n't handsome enough by a long shot fer a Jupiter or a 'Polio. 
 An' I tell you, Cynthy, 'tain't no sin to love. Love is the fillfull- 
 ing of the law." 
 
 But Cynthy Ann persisted that she must consult Brother Go- 
 shorn, the antiquated class-leader at the cross-roads. Brother 
 Goshorn was a good man, but Jonas had a great contempt for 
 him. He was a strainer out of gnats, though I do not think he 
 swallowed camels. He always stood at the door of the love-feast 
 and kept out every woman with jewelry, every girl who had a'n 
 " artificial " in her bonnet, every one who wore curls, every man 
 whose hair was beyond what he considered the regulation length 
 of Scripture, and every woman who wore a veil. In support of 
 this last prohibition he quoted Isaiah iii, 23 : " The glasses and the 
 fine linen and the hoods and the veils." 
 
 To him Cynthy Ann presented the case with much trepida- 
 tion. All her hopes for this world hung upon it. But this 
 consideration did not greatly affect Brother Goshorn. Hopes and 
 joys were as nothing to him where the strictness of discipline 
 was involved. The Discipline meant more to a mind of his cast 
 than the Decalogue or the Beatitudes. He shook his head. He 
 did not know. He must consult Brother Hall. Now, Brother 
 Hall was the young preacher traveling his second year, very
 
 CYNTHY ANN'S SACRIFICE. 
 
 young and very callow. Ten years of the sharp attritions of 
 a Methodist itinerant's life would take his unworldliness out of 
 him and develop his practical sense as no other school in the 
 world could develop it. But as yet Brother Hall had not rubbed 
 off any of his sanctimoniousness, had not lost any of his belief 
 that the universe should be governed on high general princi- 
 ples with no exceptions. 
 
 So when Brother Qoshorn informed him that one of his mem- 
 bers, Sister Cynthy Ann Dyke, wished to marry, and to marry 
 a man that was a New Light, and had asked his opinion, and 
 that he did not certainly know whether New Lights were believ- 
 ers or not, Brother Hall did not stop to inquire what Jonas 
 might be personally. He looked and felt very solemn, and said 
 that it was a pity for a Christian to marry a New Light. It 
 was clearly a sin, for a New Light was an Arian. And an Arian 
 was just as good as an infidel. An Arian robbed Christ of His 
 supreme deity, and since he did not worship the Trinity in the 
 orthodox sense he must worship a false god. He was an idol- 
 ater therefore, and it was a sin to be yoked together with such 
 an one. 
 
 Many men more learned than the callow but pious and sin- 
 cere Brother Hall have left us in print just such deductions. 
 
 When this decision was communicated to the scrupu- 
 lous Cynthy Ann, she folded her hopes as one lays away 
 the garment of a dead friend ; she went to her little room 
 and prayed ; she offered a sacrifice to God not less costly 
 than Abraham's, and hi a like sublime spirit. She watered 
 the plant in the old cracked blue-and-white tea-pot, she noticed 
 that it was just about to bloom, and then she dropped one 
 tear upon it, and because it suggested Jonas in some way.
 
 204 
 
 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 she threw it away, resolved not to have any idols in her heart. 
 And, doubtless, God received the sacrifice, mistaken and needless 
 
 \ 
 
 CYNTHY ANN'S SACRIFICE. 
 
 as it was, a token of the faithfulness of her heart to her duty as 
 she understood it.
 
 CYNTHY ANN'S SACRIFICE. 205 
 
 Cynthy Ann explained it all to Jonas in a severe and irrevoc- 
 able way. Jonas looked at her a moment, stunned. 
 
 " Did Brother Goshorn venture to send me any of his wisdom 1 , 
 in the way of advice, layin' round loose, like counterfeit small 
 change, cheap as dirt ? " 
 
 " Wall, yes," said Cynthy Ann, hesitating. 
 
 " I'll bet the heft of my fortin', to be paid on receipt of the 
 amount, that I kin tell to a T what the good Christian wanted me 
 to do." 
 
 "Don't be oncharitable, Jonas. Brother Goshorn is a mighty 
 sincere man." 
 
 " So he is, but his bein' sincere don't do me no good. He 
 wanted you to advise me to jine the Methodist class as a way of 
 gittin' out of the difficulty. And you was too good a Christian 
 to ask me to change fer any sech reason, knowin' I wouldn't be 
 fit for you ef I did." 
 
 Cynthy Ann was silent. She would have liked to have Jonas 
 join the church with her, but if he had done it now she herself 
 would have doubted his sincerity. 
 
 " Now, looky here, Cynthy, ef you'll say you don't love me, 
 and never can, I'll leave you to wnnst, and fly away and mourn 
 like a turtle-dove. But so long as it's nobody but Goshorn, I'm 
 goin' to stay and litigate the question till the Millerite millennium 
 comes. I appeal to Caesar or somebody else. Neither Brother 
 Goshorn nor Brother Hall knows enough to settle this question. 
 I'm agoin' to the persidin' elder. And you can't try a man and 
 hang him and then send him to the penitentiary fer the rest of 
 his born days without givin' him one chance to speak fer his- 
 self agin the world and everybody else. I'm goin' to see the per- 
 sidin' elder myself and plead my own cause, and ef he goes agin
 
 206 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 me, I'll cany it up to the bishop or the archbishop or the nex' 
 highest man in the heap, till I git plum to the top, and ef they 
 all go agin me, I'll begin over agin at the bottom with Brother 
 Ooshorn, and keep on till I find a man that's got common-sense 
 enough to salt his religion with."
 
 JULIA'S ENTEBPEISE. 207 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII, 
 
 JULIA'S ENTERPRISE. 
 
 TJGUST was very sick at the castle. 
 This was the first news of his return that 
 reached Julia through Jonas and Cynthy Ann. 
 
 But in my interest in Jonas and Cynthy Ann, 
 of whom I think a great deal, I forgot to say that 
 long before the events mentioned hi the last chapter, Humphreys 
 had been suddenly called away from his peaceful retreat in 
 the hill country of Clark township. In fact, the " important busi- 
 ness," or " the illness of a friend," whichever it was, occurred 
 the very next day after Norman Anderson's father returned from 
 Louisville, and reported that he had secured for his son an " out- 
 side situation," that is to say, a place as a collector. 
 
 When he had gone, Jonas remarked to Cynthy Ann, " Where 
 the carcass is, there the turkey-buzzards is gethered. That shinin' 
 example of early piety never plays but one game. That is, fox- 
 and-geese. He's gone after a green goslin' now, and he'll find 
 him when he's fattest." 
 
 But the gentle singing-master had come back from his excur- 
 sion, and was taking a profound interest in the coming end of
 
 208 THE END OF THE WOULD. 
 
 the world. Jonas observed that it " seemed like as ef he lied 
 charge of the whole performance, and meant to shet up the 
 sky like a blue cotton umbrell. He's got a single eye, and it's 
 the same ole game. Fox and geese :ilways, and he's the fox." 
 
 Humphreys still lived at Samuel Anderson's, still devoted 
 himself to pleasing Mrs. Abigail, still bowed regretfully to Julia, 
 and spoke caressingly to Betsey Malcolm at every opportunity. 
 
 But August was sick at tho castle. He was very sick. Every 
 morning Dr. Dibrell, a "calomel-doctor" not a steam-doctor 
 rode by the house on his way to Andrew's, and every morning 
 Mrs. Anderson wondered afresh who was sick down that way. 
 But the doctor staid so long that Mrs. Abigail made up her mind 
 it must be somebody four or five miles away, and so dismissed the 
 matter from her mind. For August's return had been kept secret. 
 
 But Julia noticed, in her heart of hearts, and with ever-in- 
 creasing affliction, that the doctor staid longer each day than on 
 the day before, and she thought she noticed also an increasing 
 anxiety on his face as he rode home again. Her desire to know 
 the real truth, and to see August, to do for him, to give her 
 life for him, were wearing her away. It is hard to see a friend 
 go from you when you have done everything. But to have a 
 friend die within your reach, while you are yet unable to help 
 him, is the saddest of all. All this anxiety Julia suffered with- 
 out even the blessed privilege of showing it. The pent-up fire 
 consumed her, and she was at times almost distract. Every morn- 
 ing she managed to be on the upper porch when the doctor 
 went by, and from the same watch-tower she studied his face 
 when he went back. 
 
 Then came a morning when there were two doctors. A phy- 
 sician from the county-seat village went by, in company with Dr.
 
 JULIA'S ENTERPRISE. 209 
 
 Dibrell. So there must be a consultation at the castle. Julia 
 knew then that the worst had to be looked in the face. And she 
 longed to get away from under the searching black eyes of her 
 mother and utter the long-pent cry of anguish. Another day 
 of such unuttered pain would drive her clean mad. 
 
 That evening Jonas came over and sought an interview with 
 Cynthy Ann. He had not been to see her 'since his unsuc- 
 cessful courtship. Julia felt that he was the bearer of a mes- 
 sage. But Mrs. Anderson was in one of her most exacting hu- 
 mors, and it gave her not a little pleasure to keep Cynthy Ann, on 
 one pretext and another, all the evening at her side. Had Cyn- 
 thy Ann been less submissive and scrupulous, she might have 
 broken away from this restraint, but in truth she was censuring 
 herself for having any backsliding, rebellious wish to talk with 
 Jonas after she had imagined the idol cast out of her heart 
 entirely. Her conscience was a task-master not less grievous 
 than Mrs. Anderson, and, between the two, Jonas had to go away 
 without leaving his message. And Julia had to keep her break- 
 ing heart in suspense a while longer. 
 
 Why did she not elope long ago and. get rid of her mother ? 
 Because she was Julia, and being Julia, conscientious, true, and 
 filial in spite of her unhappy life, her own character built a wall 
 against such a disobedience. Nearly all limitations are inside. 
 You could do almost anything if you could give yourself up to 
 it. To go in the teeth of one's family is the one thing that a per- 
 son of Julia's character and habits finds next to impossible. A be- 
 neficent limitation of nature ; for the cases in which the judgment 
 of a girl of eighteen is better than that of her parents are very few. 
 Besides, the inevitable " heart-disease " was a specter that guarded 
 the gates of Julia's prison. Night after night she sat looking
 
 210 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 out over the hills sleeping in hazy darkness, toward the hollow in 
 which stood the castle ; night after night she had half- formed 
 the purpose of visiting August, and then the life-long habit of 
 obedience and a certain sense of delicacy held her back. But 
 on this night, after the consultation, she felt that she would see 
 him if her seeing him brought down the heavens. 
 
 It was a very dark night. She sat waiting for hours very 
 long hours they seemed to her and then, at midnight, she began 
 to get ready to start. 
 
 Only those who have taken such a step can understand the 
 pain of deciding, the agony of misgivings in the execution, the 
 trembling that Julia felt when she turned the brass knob on the 
 front door and lifted the latch lifted the latch slowly and cau- 
 tiously, for it was near the door of her mother's room and then 
 crept out like a guilty thing into the dark dampness of the night, 
 groping her way to the gate, and stumbling along down the road. 
 It had been raining, and there was not one star-twinkle in the 
 sky ; the only light was that of glow-worms illuminating here 
 and there two or three blades of grass by feeble shining. Now 
 and then a fire-fly made a spot of light in the blackness, only to 
 leave a deeper spot of blackness when he shut off his intermittent 
 ray. And when at last Julia found herself at the place where 
 the path entered the woods, the blackness ahead seemed still 
 more frightful. She had to grope, recognizing every deviation 
 from the well-beaten path by the rustle of the dead leaves which 
 lay, even in summer, half a foot deep upon the ground. The 
 " fox-fire," rotting logs glowing with a faint luminosity, startled 
 her several times, and the hooting-owl's shuddering bass hoo! 
 hoo ! hoo-oo-ah-h ! (like the awful keys of the organ which 
 "touch the spinal cord of the universe") sent all her blood
 
 JULIA'S ENTERPRISE. 211 
 
 to her heart. Under ordinary circumstances, she surely would 
 not have started at the rustling made by the timid hare in the 
 thicket near by. There was no reason why she should shiver 
 so when a misstep caused her to scratch her face with the thorny 
 twigs of a wild plum-tree. But the effort necessary to the under- 
 taking and the agony of the long waiting had exhausted her ner- 
 vous force, and she had none left for fortitude. So that when she 
 arrived at Andrew's fence and felt her way along to the gate, and 
 heard the hoarse, thunderous baying of his great St. Bernard dog, 
 she was ready to faint. But a true instinct makes such a dog 
 gallant. It is a vile cur that will harm a lady. Julia walked 
 trembling up to the front-door of the castle, growled at by the 
 huge black beast, and when the Philosopher admitted her, some 
 time after she had knocked, she sank down fainting into a chair.
 
 THE END OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIIT. 
 
 THE SECRET STAIRWAY. 
 
 [OD bless you!" said Andrew as he handed 
 her a gourd of water to revive her. "You are 
 as faithful as Hero. You are another Heloise. 
 You are as brave as the Maid of Orleans. I will 
 never say that women are unfaithful again. God 
 bless you, my daughter ! You have given me faith in your sex. 
 I have been a lonely man ; a boughless, leafless trunk, shaken by 
 the winter winds. But you are my niece. Ton know how to 
 be faithful. I am proud of you ! Henceforth I call you my 
 daughter. If you were my daughter, you would be to me all 
 that Margaret Roper was to Sir Thomas More." And the shaggy 
 man of egotistic and pedantic speech, but of womanly sensi- 
 bilities, was weeping. 
 
 The reviving Julia begged to know how August was. 
 " Ah, constant heart ! And he is constant as you are. Noble 
 fellow ! I will not deceive you. The doctors think that he will 
 not live more than twenty-four hours. But he is only dying to 
 see you, now. Your coming may revive him. We sent for 
 you this morning by Jonas, hoping you might escape and come
 
 THE SECRET STAIRWAY. 213 
 
 in some way. But Jonas could not get his message to you. 
 Some angel must have brought you. It is an augury of good." 
 
 The hopefulness of Andrew sprang out of his faith in an 
 ideal, right outcome. Julia could not conceal from herself the 
 fact that his opinion had no ground. But in such a strait as 
 hers, she could not help clinging even to this support. 
 
 Andrew was a little perplexed. How to take Julia up-stairs ? 
 Mrs. Wehle and Wilhelmina and the doctor went in regularly, 
 not by the rope-ladder, but by a more secure wooden one which 
 he had planted against the outside of the house. But Andrew 
 had suddenly conceived so exalted an opinion of his niece's 
 virtues that he was unwilling to lead her into the upper story in 
 that fashion. His imagination had invested her with all the glo- 
 ries of all the heroines, from Penelope to Beatrice, and from 
 Beatrice to Scott's Rebecca. At last a sudden impulse seized 
 him. 
 
 " My dear daughter, they say that genius is to madness close 
 allied. When I built this house I was in a state bordering on 
 insanity, I suppose. I pleased my whims my whims were my 
 only company I pleased my whims in building an American 
 castle. These whims begin to seem childish to me now. I put 
 hi a secret stairway. No human foot but my own has ever trod- 
 den it. August, whom I love more than any other, and who 
 is one of the few admitted to my library, has always ascended 
 by the rope-ladder. But you are my niece ; I would you were 
 my daughter. I will signalize my reverence for you by .showing 
 up the stairway the woman who knows how to love and be faith- 
 ful, the feet that would be worthy of golden steps if I had them. 
 Come." 
 
 Spite of her grief and anxiety, Julia was impressed and op-
 
 214 THE END OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 pressed with the reverence shown her by her uncle. She had a 
 veneration almost superstitious for the Philosopher's learning. 
 She was not accustomed to even respectful treatment, and to be 
 worshiped in this awful way by such a man was something 
 almost as painful as it was pleasant. 
 
 The entrance to the stairway, if that could be called a stairway 
 which was as difficult of ascent as a ladder, was through a closet 
 by the side of the donjon chimney, and the logs had been so ar- 
 ranged without and within that the space occupied by the nar- 
 row and zigzag stairs was not apparent. Up these stairs he took 
 Julia, leaving her in a closet above. As this closet was situated 
 alongside the chimney, it opened, of course, into the small corner 
 room which I have before described, and in which August was 
 now lying. Andrew descended the stairs and entered the upper 
 story again by the outside ladder. He thought best to prepare 
 August for the coming of Julia, lest joy should destroy a life 
 that was so far wasted.
 
 THE INTERVIEW. 
 
 215 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE INTERVIEW. 
 
 E left August on that summer day on the 
 levee at Louisville without employment. He 
 was not exactly disheartened, but he was home- 
 sick. That he was forbidden to go back by 
 threats of prosecution for his burglarious mariner 
 of entering Samuel Anderson's house was reason enough for 
 wanting to go ; that his father's family were not yet free from 
 danger was a stronger reason ; but strongest of all, though he 
 blushed to own it to himself, was the longing to be where he 
 might perchance sometimes see the face he had seen that spring 
 morning m the bottom of a sun-bonnet. Right manfully did he 
 fight against his discouragement and his homesickness, and his 
 longing to see Julia. It was better to stay where he was. It was 
 better not to go back beaten. If he surrendered so easily, he 
 would never put himself into a situation where he could claim 
 Julia with self-respect. He would stay and make his way in 
 the world somehow. But making his way hi the world did not 
 seem half so easy now as it had on that other morning in March 
 when he stood in the barn talking to Julia. Making your for- 
 tune always seems so easy until you've tried it. It seems rather
 
 216 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 easy in a novel, and still easier in a biography. But no Samuel 
 Smiles ever writes the history of those who fail ; the vessels that 
 never came back from their venturous voyages left us no 
 log-books. Many have written the History of Success. What 
 melancholy Plutarch shall arise to record, with a pen dipped in 
 wormwood, the History of Failure ? 
 
 No! he would not go back defeated. August said this over 
 bravely, but a little too often, and with a less resolute tone at 
 each repetition. He contemned himself for his weakness, and 
 tried, but tried in vain, to form other plans. Had he known 
 how much one's physical state has to do with one's force of 
 character, he might have guessed that he did not deserve the 
 blame he meted out to himself. He might have remembered 
 what Shakespeare's Portia says to Brutus, that " humour hath 
 his hour with every man." But with a dull and unaccountable 
 aching in his head and back he compromised with himself. He 
 would go to the castle and pass a day or two. Then he would 
 return and fight it out. 
 
 So he got on the packet Isaac Shelby, and was soon shaking 
 with a chill that showed how thoroughly malaria had pervaded 
 his system. His very bones seemed frozen. But if you ever 
 shook with such a chill, or rather if you were ever shaken by 
 such a chill, taking hold of you like a demoniacal possession ; 
 if you ever felt your brain congealing, your icy bones breaking, 
 your frosty heart becoming paralyzed, with a cold no fire could 
 reach, you know what it is ; and if you have not felt it, no 
 words of mine can make you understand the sensations. After 
 the chill came the period when August felt himself between two 
 parts of Milton's hell, between a sea of ice and a sea of fire; 
 sometimes the hot wave scorched him, then it retired again before
 
 THE INTERVIEW. 217 
 
 the icy one. At last it was all hot, and the boiling blood scalded 
 his palms and steamed to his brain, bewildering his thoughts 
 and almost blinding his eyes. He had determined when he 
 started to get off at a wood-yard three miles below Andrew's 
 castle, to avoid observation and the chance of arrest ; and now 
 in his delirium the purpose as he had planned it remained fixed. 
 He got up at two o'clock, crazed with fever, dressed himself, and 
 went out into the rainy night. He went ashore in the mud 
 and bushes, and, guided more by instinct than by any conscious 
 thought, he started up the wagon-track along the river bank. 
 His furious fever drove him on, talking to himself, and splashing 
 recklessly into the pools of ram-water standing in the road. 
 He never remembered his debarkation. He must have fallen once 
 or twice, for he was covered with mud when he rang the alarm 
 at the castle. In answer to Andrew's "Who's there?" he 
 answered, " You'll have to send a harder rain than that if you 
 want to put this fire out!" 
 
 And so, what with the original disease, the mental discourage- 
 ment, and the exposure to the rain, the fever had well-nigh con- 
 sumed the life, and now that the waves of the hot sea after days 
 of fire and nights of delirium had gone back, there was hardly 
 any life left in the body, and the doctors said there was no 
 hope. One consuming desire remained. He wanted to see Julia 
 once before he went away ; and that one desire it seemed impos- 
 sible to gratify. When he learned of the failure of Jonas to get 
 any message to Julia through Cynthy, he had felt the keenest 
 disappointment, and had evidently been sinking since the hope 
 that kept him up had been taken away. 
 
 The mother sat by his bed, Gottlieb sat stupefied at the foot, 
 with Jonas by his side, and Wilhelmina was crying in a still
 
 218 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 fashion in one corner of the room. August lay breathing 
 feebly, and with his life evidently ebbing. 
 
 " August ! " said Andrew, as he stood over his bed, having 
 come to announce the arrival of Julia. " August ! " Andrew 
 tried to speak quietly, but there was a something of hope in the 
 inflection, a tremor of eagerness in the utterance, that made the 
 mother look up quickly and inquiringly 
 
 August opened his eyes slowly and looked into the face of the 
 Philosopher. Then he slowly closed his eyes again, and a some- 
 thing, not a smile he was too weak for that but a look of 
 infinite content, spread over his wan face. 
 " I know," he whisperd. 
 
 "Know what?" asked Andrew, leaning down to catch his 
 words. 
 
 "Julia." And a single tear crept out from under the closed 
 lid. The tender mother wiped it away. 
 
 After resting a moment, August looked up at Andrew's face 
 inquiringly. 
 
 " She is coming," said the Philosopher. 
 
 August smiled very faintly, but Andrew was sure he smiled, 
 and again leaned down his ear. 
 
 " She is here," whispered August ; " I heard Charon bark, and 
 I saw your face.' ' 
 
 Andrew now stepped to the closet-door and opened it, and 
 Julia came out. * 
 
 " Blamed ef he a'n't a witch ! " whispered Jonas. " Cunjures 
 a angel out of his cupboard ! " 
 
 Julia did not see anybody or anything but the white and 
 wasted face upon the pillow. The eyes were now closed again, 
 and she quickly crossed the floor, and not without a faint
 
 THE INTERVIEW. 219 
 
 maidenly blush stooped and kissed the parched lips, from which 
 the life seemed already to have fled. 
 
 And August with difficulty disengaged his wasted hand from 
 the cover, and laid his nerveless fingers alas! like a skeleton's 
 now in the warm hand of Julia, and said she leaned down to 
 listen, as he whispered feebly through his dry lips out of a full 
 heart" Thank God ! " 
 
 And the Philosopher, catching the words, said audibly, 
 Amen ! " 
 
 And the mother only wept.
 
 220 
 
 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 GETTING READY FOR THE END. 
 
 OW Julia spent two hours of blessed sadness 
 at the castle; how August slept peacefully for 
 five minutes at a time with his hand in hers, and 
 then awoke and looked at her, and then slum- 
 bered again; how she moistened his parched lips 
 for him, and gave him wine ; how at last she had to bid him 
 a painful farewell ; how the mother gave her a benediction 
 in German and a kiss ; how Wilhelmina clung to her with 
 tears; how Jonas called her a turtle-dove angel; how Brother 
 Hall, the preacher who had been sent for at the mother's request, 
 to converse with the dying man, spoke a few consoling words to 
 her ; how Gottlieb confided to Jonas his intention never to 
 " sprach nodin 'pout Tangee kirls no more ; " and how at last 
 Uncle Andrew walked home with her, I have not time to tell. 
 When the Philosopher bade her adieu, he called her names 
 which she did not understand. But she turned back to him, 
 and after a minute's hesitation, spoke huskily. " Uncle Andrew 
 if he if he should get worse I want "
 
 GETTING READY FOB THE END. 221 
 
 " I know, my daughter ; you want him to die your husband ? " 
 
 " Yes, if he wishes it. Send for me day or night, and I'll 
 come in spite of everybody." 
 
 " God bless you, my daughter ! " said Andrew. And he 
 watched until she got safely into the house without discovery, and 
 then he went back satisfied and proud. 
 
 Of course August died, and Julia devoted herself to philan- 
 thropic labors. It is the fashion now for novels to end thus 
 sadly, and you would not have me be out of the fashion. 
 
 But August did not die. Joy is a better stimulant than wine. 
 Love is the best tonic in the pharmacopeia. And from the hour 
 in which August Wehle looked into the eyes of Julia, the tide of 
 life set back again. Not perceptibly at first. For two days he 
 was neither better nor worse. But this was a gain. Then slowly 
 he came back to life. But at Andrew's instance he kept in- 
 doors while Humphreys staid. 
 
 Humphreys, on his part, like Ananias, pretended to have 
 disposed of all his property, paid his debts, reserved enough to 
 live on until the approaching day of doom, and given the 
 rest to the poor of the household of faith, and there were several 
 others who were sincere enough to do what he only pretended. 
 Among the leading Adventists was "Dr." Ketchup, who still 
 dealt out corn-sweats and ginseng-tea, but who refused to sell 
 his property. He excused himself by quoting the injunction, 
 " Occupy till I come." But others sold their estates for trifles, 
 and gave themselves up to proclaiming the millennium. 
 
 Mrs. Abigail Anderson was a woman who did nothing by 
 halves. She was vixenish, she was selfish, she was dishonest and 
 grasping ; but she was religious. If any man think this paradox 
 impossible, he has observed character superficially. There are
 
 222 THE END OF THE WOULD. 
 
 criminals in State's-prison who have been very devout all their 
 lives. Religious questions took hold of Mrs. Anderson's whole 
 nature. She was superstitious, narrow, and intense. She was 
 as sure that the day of judgment would be proclaimed on the 
 eleventh of August, 1843, as she was of her life. No considera- 
 tion in opposition to any belief of hers weighed a feather with 
 her. Her will mastered her judgment and conscience. 
 
 And so she determined that Samuel must sell his property 
 for a trifle. How far she was influenced in this by a sincere 
 desire to square all outstanding debts before the final settlement, 
 how far by a longing to be considered the foremost and most 
 pious of all, and how far by business shrewdness based on that 
 feeling which still lurks in the most protestant people, that such 
 sacrifices do improve their state in a future world, I can not 
 tell. Doubtless fanaticism, hypocrisy, and a self-interest that 
 looked sordidly even at heaven, mingled in bringing about the 
 decision. At any rate, the property was to be sold for a few 
 hundred dollars. 
 
 Getting wind of this decision, Andrew promptly appeared 
 at his brother's house and offered to buy it. But Mrs. Abigail 
 couldn't think of it. Andrew had always been her enemy, and 
 though she forgave him, she would not on any account sell 
 him an inch of the land. It would not be right. He had claimed 
 that part of it belonged to him, and to let him have it would be 
 to admit his claim. 
 
 i "Andrew," she said, "you do not believe in the millennium, 
 and people say that you are a skeptic. You want to cheat us out 
 of what you think a valuable piece of property. And you'll find 
 yourself at the last judgment with the weight of this sin on 
 your heart. You will, indeed ! "
 
 GETTING READY FOR THE END. 223 
 
 " How clearly you reason about other people's duty 1 " said 
 the Philosopher. " If you had seen your own duty half so 
 clearly, some of us would have been better off, and your account 
 would have been straighter." 
 
 Here Mrs. Anderson grew very angry, and vented her spleen 
 in a solemn exhortation to Andrew to get ready for the coming 
 of the Master, not three weeks off at the farthest, and she warned 
 him that the archangel might blow his trumpet at any moment. 
 Then where would he be? she asked in exultation. Human 
 meanness is never so pitiful as when it tries to seize on God's 
 judgments as weapons with which to gratify its own spites. I 
 trust this remark will not be considered as applying only to Mrs. 
 Anderson. 
 
 But Mrs. Anderson fired off all the heavenly small-shot she 
 could find in the teeth and eyes of Andrew, and then, to prevent 
 a rejoinder, she told him it was time for her to go to secret 
 prayer, and she only stopped upon the threshold to send back 
 one Parthian arrow in the shape of a warning to " watch and 
 be ready." 
 
 I wonder if a certain class of religious people have ever 
 thought how much their exclusiveness and Pharisaism have to do 
 with the unhappy fruitlessness of all their appeals ! Had Mrs. 
 Anderson been as blameless as an angel, such exhortations would 
 have driven a weaker than Andrew to hate the name of religion. 
 
 But I must not moralize, for Mr. Humphreys has already 
 divulged his plan of disposing of the property. He has a 
 friend, one Thomas A. Parkins, who has money, and who will 
 buy the farm at two hundred dollars. He could procure the 
 money in advance any day by going to the village of Bethany, 
 the county-seat, and drawing on Mr. Parkins, and cashing the
 
 224 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 draft. It was a matter of indifference to him, he said, only 
 that he would like to oblige so good a friend. 
 
 This arrangement, by which the Anderson farm was to be sold 
 for a song to some distant stranger, pleased Mrs. Abigail. Shg 
 could not bear that one of her unbelieving neighbors should even 
 for a fortnight rejoice in a supposed good bargain at her expense. 
 To sell to Mr. Humphreys's friend in Louisville was just the 
 thing. When pressed by some of her neighbors who had not re- 
 ceived the Adventist gospel, to tell on what principle she could 
 justify her sale of the farm at all, she answered that if the farm 
 would not be of any account after the end of the world, neither 
 would the money. 
 
 Mr. Humphreys went down to the town of Bethany and came 
 back, affecting to have cashed a draft on his friend for two hun- 
 dred dollars. The deeds were drawn, and a justice of the peace 
 was to come the next morning and take the acknowledgment of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Anderson. 
 
 This was what Jonas learned as he sat in the kitchen talking 
 to Cynthy Ann. He had come to bring some message from the 
 convalescent August, and had been detained by the attraction 
 of adhesion. 
 
 " I told you it was fox-and-geese. Didn't I ? And so Thomas 
 A. Parkins is his name. Gus Wehle said he'd bet the two was 
 one. "Well, I must drive this varmint off afore he gits his 
 chickens."
 
 THE SIN OP SANCTIMONY. 225 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVL 
 
 THE SIN OF SANCTIMONY. 
 
 'UST at this point arrived Mr. Hall, whom I have 
 before described as the good but callow Meth- 
 odist preacher on the circuit. Some people think that 
 a minister of the gospel should be exempt from criti- 
 cism, ridicule, and military duty. But the manly min- 
 ister takes his lot with the rest. Nothing could be more pernicious 
 than making the foibles of a minister sacred. Doubtless Mr. 
 Hall has long since come to laugh at his own early follies, his 
 official sanctimoniousness, and all that ; and why should not I, 
 who have been a callow circuit-preacher myself in my day, 
 laugh at my Brother Hall, for the good of his kind ? 
 
 He had come to visit Sister Cynthy Ann, whose name had 
 long stood on the class-book at Harden 's Cross-Roads as a good 
 and acceptable member of the church in full connection. He. was 
 visiting formally and officially each family in which there was a 
 member. Had he visited informally and unofficially, and like a 
 man instead of like a minister, he would have done more good. 
 But he came to Samuel Anderson's, and informed Mrs. Anderson 
 that he was visiting his members, and that as one of her house-
 
 226 THE EXD OF THE WOULD. 
 
 hold was a member, he would like to have a little religious con- 
 versation and grayer with the family. Would she please gather 
 them together? 
 
 So Julia was called down-stairs, and Jonas was invited in 
 from the kitchen. The sight of him distressed Brother Hall. 
 For was not this New Light sent here by Satan to lead astray 
 one of his flock ? But, at least, he would labor faithfully with 
 him. 
 
 He began with Mr. Samuel Anderson. But that worthy, after 
 looking at his wife in vain for a cue, darted off about the trum- 
 pets of the Apocalypse. 
 
 " Mr. Anderson, as head of this family, your responsibility 
 is very great. Do you feel the full assurance, my brother?" 
 asked Mr. Hall. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Anderson, " I am standing with my lamp 
 trimmed and ready. I am listening for the midnight shout. To- 
 night the trumpet may sound. I am afraid you don't do your 
 duty, or you would lift up your voice. The tune and times and 
 a half are almost out." 
 
 Mr. Hall was a little dashed at this. A man whose religious 
 conversation is of a set and conventional type, is always shocked 
 and jostled when he is thrown from the track. And he him- 
 self, like everybody else, had felt the Adventist infection, and 
 did not want to commit himself. So he turned to Mrs. Ander- 
 son. She answered like a seraph every question put to her the 
 conventional questions never pierce the armor of a hypocrite or 
 startle the conscience of a self-deceiver. Mr. Hall congratu- 
 lated her in his most official tone (a compound of authority, 
 awfulness, and sanctity) on her deep experience of the things that 
 made for her everlasting peace. He told her that people of her
 
 THE SIN OF SANCTIMONY. 229 
 
 high attainments must beware of spiritual pride. And Mrs. An- 
 derson took the warning with beautiful meekness, sinking into 
 forty fathoms of undisguised and rather ostentatious humility, 
 heaving solemn sighs in token of self-reproach a self-reproach 
 that did not penetrate the cuticle. 
 
 " And you, Sister Cynthy Ann," he said, fighting shy of Jonas 
 for the present, " I trust you are trying to let your light shine. 
 Do you feel that you are pressing on?" 
 
 Poor Cynthy Ann sank into a despondency deeper than usual. 
 She was afeard not. Seemed like as ef her heart was cold 
 and dead to God. Seemed like as ef she couldn't no ways gin 
 up the world. It weighed her down like a rock, and many was 
 the fight she had with the enemy. No, she wuzn't getting on. 
 
 " My dear sister," said Mr. Hall, " let me warn you. Here is 
 Mrs. Anderson, who has given up the world entirely. I hope 
 you'll follow so good an example. Do not be led astray by 
 worldly affections ; they are sure to entrap you. I am afraid you 
 have not maintained your steadfastness as you should." Here 
 Mr. Hall's eye wandered doubtfully to Jonas, of whom he felt 
 a little afraid. Jonas, on his part, had no reason to like Mr. 
 Hall for his advice in Cynthy's love affair, and now the minister's 
 praises of Mrs. Anderson and condemnation of Cynthy Ann 
 had not put him in any mood to listen to exhortation. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Harrison," said the young minister solemnly, 
 approaching Jonas much as a dog does a hedgehog, "how do 
 you feel to-day ? " 
 
 " Middlin' peart, I thank you ; how's yourself ? " 
 
 This upset the good man not a little, and convinced him that 
 Jonas was in a state of extreme wickedness. 
 "Are you a Christian?"
 
 230 THE END OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 " Wai, I 'low I am. How about yourself, Mr. Hall ? " 
 " I believe you are a New Light. Now, do you believe in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ?" asked the minister in an annihilating tone. 
 " Yes, I do, my aged friend, a heap sight more'n I do in some 
 of them that purtends to hev a paytent right on all his blessins, 
 and that put on solemn airs and call other denominations hard 
 names. My friend, I don't believe in no religion that's made up 
 of sighs and groans and high temper" (with a glance at Mrs. An- 
 derson), " and that thinks a good deal more of its bein' sound in 
 doctrine than of the danger of bein' rotten in life. They's lots o' 
 bad eggs got slick and shiny shells ! " 
 
 Mr. Hall happened to think just here of the injunction against 
 throwing pearls before swine, and so turned to Humphreys, who 
 made his heart glad by witnessing a good confession, in soft 
 and unctuous tones, and couched in the regulation phrases which 
 have worn smooth in long use. 
 
 Julia had slunk away in a corner. But now he appealed to 
 her also. 
 
 "Blest with a praying mother, you, Miss Anderson, ought to 
 repent of your sins and flee from the wrath to come. You know 
 the right way. You have been pointed to it by the life of your 
 parents from childhood. Reared in the bosom of a Christian 
 household, let me entreat you to seek salvation immediately." 
 
 I do not like to repeat this talk here. But it is an unfor- 
 tunate fact that goodness and self-sacrificing piety do not always 
 go with practical wisdom. The novelist, like the historian, must 
 set down things as he finds them. A man who talks in conse- 
 crated phrases is yet in the poll-parrot state of mental development. 
 " Do you feel a desire to flee from the wrath to come ? " 
 he asked
 
 THE SIX OF SANCTIMONY. 231 
 
 Julia gave some sort of inaudible assent. 
 
 " My dear young sister, you have, great reason to be thankful 
 very great reason for gratitude to Almighty God." (Like many 
 other pious young men, Mr. Hall said Oawd.) " I met you the 
 other night at your uncle's. The young man whose life we then 
 despaired of has recovered." And with more of this, Mr. Hall 
 told Julia's secret, while Mrs. Anderson, between her anger and 
 her rapt condition of uihid, seemed to be petrifying. 
 
 I trust the reader does not expect me to describe the feelings 
 of Julia while Mr. Hall read a chapter and prayed. Nor the 
 emotions of Mrs. Anderson." I think if Mr. Hall could have 
 heard her grind her teeth while he in his prayer gave thanks for 
 the recovery of August, he would not have thought so highly 
 of her piety. But she managed to control her emotions until 
 the minister was fairly out of the house. In bidding good-by, 
 Mr. Hall saw how pale and tremulous Julia was, and with his 
 characteristic lack of sagacity, he took her emotion to be a sign 
 of religious feeling, and told her he was pleased to see that she 
 was awakened to a sense of her condition. 
 
 And then he left. And then came the deluge.
 
 232 THE END OF THE WOBLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVH. 
 
 THE DELUGE. 
 
 ; HE indescribable deluge ! But, after all, the worst 
 of anything of that sort is the moment before it 
 begins. A plunge-bath, a tooth-pulling, an amputa- 
 tion, and a dress-party are all worse in anticipation 
 than in the moment of infliction. Julia, as she stood 
 busily sticking a pin in the window-sash, waiting for her mother 
 to begin, wished that the storm might burst, and be done with it. 
 But Mrs. Anderson understood her business too well for that. 
 She knew the value of the awful moments of silence before be- 
 ginning. She bad not practiced all her life without learning the 
 fine art of torture in its exquisite details. I doubt not the black- 
 robed fathers of the Holy Office were leisurely gentlemen, giv- 
 ing their victims plenty of time for anticipatory meditation, 
 laying out their utensils quietly, inspecting the thumb-screw 
 affectionately to make sure that it would work smoothly, dis- 
 cussing the rack and wheel with much tender forethought, as 
 though torture were a sweet thing, to be reserved like a little 
 girl's candy lamb, and only resorted to when the appetite has
 
 THE DELUGE. 233 
 
 been duly whetted by contemplation. I never had the pleasure 
 of knowing an inquisitor, and I can not certify that they were of 
 this deliberate fashion. But it " stands to nature" that they were. 
 For the vixens who are vixens of the highest quality, are always 
 deliberate. 
 
 Mrs. Anderson felt that the piece of invective which she 
 was about to undertake, was not to be taken in hand unad- 
 visedly, " but reverently, discreetly, and in the fear of God." 
 And so she paused, and Julia fumbled the tassel of the win- 
 dow-curtain, and trembled with the chill of expectation. And 
 Mrs. Abigail continued to debate how she might make this, 
 which would doubtless be her last outburst before the day of 
 judgment, her masterpiece worthy song of the dying swan. 
 And then she hoped, she sincerely hoped, to be able by this 
 awful coup de main to awaken Julia to a sense of her smfulness. 
 For there was such a jumble of mixed motives in her mind, that 
 one could never distinguish her sincerity from her hypocrisy. 
 
 Mrs. Anderson's conscience was quite an objective one. As 
 Jonas often remarked, " she had a feelin' sense of other folkses 
 unworthiness." And the sins which she appreciated were gener- 
 ally sins against herself. Julia's disobedience to herself was 
 darker in her mind than murder committed on anybody else 
 would have been. And now she sat deliberating, not on the 
 limit of the verbal punishment she meant to inflict that gave 
 her no concern but on her ability to do the matter justice. 
 Even as a tyrannical backwoods school-master straightens his long 
 beech-rod relishfully before applying it. 
 
 Not that Mrs. Anderson was silent all this time. She was 
 sighing and groaning in a spasmodic devotion. She was " seek- 
 ing strength from above to do her whole duty," she would have
 
 234 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 told you. She was "agonizing" in prayer for her daughter, 
 and she contrived that her stage-whisper praying should now and 
 then reach the ears of its devoted object. Humphreys remained 
 seated, pretending to read the copy of " Josephus," but watching 
 the coming storm with the interest of a connoisseur. And while 
 he remained Jonas determined to stay, to keep Julia in coun- 
 tenance, and he beckoned to Cynthy to stay also. And Samuel 
 Anderson, who loved his daughter and feared his wife, fled 
 like a coward from the coming scene. Everybody expected Mrs. 
 Anderson to break out like a fury. 
 
 But she knew a better plan than that. She felt a new de- 
 vice come like an inspiration. And perhaps it was. It really 
 seemed to Jonas that the devil helped her. For instead of break- 
 ing out into commonplace scolding, the resources of which she 
 had long since exhausted, she dropped upon her knees, and 
 began to pray for Julia. 
 
 No swearer ever curses like the priest who veils his personal 
 spites in official and pious denunciations, and Mrs. Anderson had 
 never dealt out abuse so roundly and terribly and crush ingly, as 
 she did under the guise of praying for the salvation of Julia's 
 soul from well-deserved perdition. But Abigail did not say per- 
 dition. She left that to weak spirits. She thought it a virtue 
 to say "hell" with unction and emphasis, by way of alarming 
 the consciences of sinners. Mrs. Anderson's prayer is not re- 
 portable. That sort of profanity is too bad to write. She 
 capped her climax even as I have heard a revivalist pray for a 
 scoffer that had vexed his righteous soul by asking God to con- 
 vert her daughter, or if she could not be converted to take her 
 away, that she might not heap up wrath against the day of wrath. 
 For that sort of religious excitement which does not quiet the
 
 THE DELUGE. 235 
 
 evil passions, seems to inflame them, and Mrs. Anderson was not 
 in any right sense sane. And the prayer was addressed more to 
 the frightened Julia than to God. She would have been terribly 
 afflicted had her petition been granted. 
 
 Julia would have run away from the admonition which fol- 
 lowed the prayer, had it not been that Mrs. Anderson adroitly 
 put it under cover of a religious exhortation. She besought 
 Julia to repent, and then, affecting to show her her sinful- 
 ness, she proceeded to abuse her. 
 
 Had Julia no temper ? Yes, she had doubtless a spice of her 
 mother's anger without her meanness. She would have resisted, 
 but that from childhood she had felt paralyzed by the utter use- 
 lessness of all resistance. The bravest of the villagers at the foot 
 of Vesuvius never dreamed of stopping the crater's mouth. 
 
 But, happily, at last Mrs. Anderson's insane wrath went a little 
 too far. 
 
 " You poor lost sinner," she said, " to think you should go to 
 destruction under my very eyes, disgracing us all, by running 
 over the country at night with bad men ! But there's mercy 
 even for such as you." 
 
 Julia would not have understood the full meaning of this as- 
 persion of her purity, had she not caught Humphreys's eye. His 
 expression, half sneer, half leer, seemed to give her mother's say- 
 ing its full interpretation. She put out her hand. She turned 
 white, and said : " Say one word more, and I will go away from 
 you and never come back ! Never ! " And then she sat down and 
 cried, and then Mrs. Anderson's maternal love, her "unloving 
 love," revived. To have her daughter leave her, too, would be a 
 sort of defeat. She hushed, and sat down in her splint-bottomed 
 rocking-chair, which snapped when she rocked, and which seemed
 
 236 THE END OP THE WORLD. 
 
 to speak for her after she had shut her mouth. Her face settled 
 into a martyr-like appeal to Heaven in proof of the justice of her 
 cause. And then she fell back on her forlorn hope. She wept 
 hysterically, in sincere self-pity, to think that an affectionate 
 mother should have such a daughter! 
 
 Julia, finding that her mother had desisted, went to her room. 
 She did not exactly pray, but she talked to herself as she paced 
 the floor. It was a monologue, and yet there was a conscious 
 appeal to an invisible Presence, who could not misjudge her, and 
 so she passed from talking to herself to talking to God, and that 
 without any of the formality of prayer. Her mother had made 
 God seem to be against her. Now she, like David, protested her 
 innocence to God. She recited half to herself, and yet also to 
 God for is not every appeal to one's conscience in some sense 
 an appeal to God ? she recited all the struggles of that night 
 when she went to August at the castle. People talk of the con- 
 solation there is in God's mercy. But Julia found comfort in 
 God's justice. He amid not judge her wrongly 
 
 Then she opened the Testament at the old place, and -read 
 the words long since fixed in her memory. And then she 
 weary and heavy laden came again to Him who invites, and 
 found rest. And then she found, as many another has found, 
 that coming to God is not, as theorists will have it, a coming once 
 for a lifetime, but a coming oft and ever repeated. 
 
 Jonas and Cynthy Ann retired to the kitchen, and the former 
 said in his irreverent way, " Blamed ef Abigail ha'nt got more 
 devils into her'n Mary Magdalene had the purtiest day she ever 
 seed ! I should think, arter a life with her fer a mother, the bad 
 place would be a healthy and delightful clime. The devil a'n't 
 a patchin' to her."
 
 THE DELUGE. 237 
 
 " Don't, Jonas ; you talk so cur'us, like as ef you was kinder 
 sorter wicked." 
 
 " That's jest what I am, my dear, but Abigail Anderson's 
 wicked without the kinder sorter. She cusses when she's a- 
 prayin 1 . She cusses that poar gal right in the Lord's face. 
 Good by, I must go. Smells so all-fired like brimstone about 
 here." This last was spoken in an undertone of indignant 
 soliloquy, as he crossed the threshold of Cynthy's clean kitchen.
 
 238 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 SCARING A HAWK. 
 
 'ON AS was thoroughly alarmed. He exagger- 
 ated the harm that Humphreys might do to 
 August, now that he knew where he was. Au- 
 gust, on his part, felt sure that Humphreys would 
 not do anything against him ; certainly not in the 
 way of legal proceedings. And as for the sale of Samuel 
 Anderson's farms, that did not disturb him. Like almost 
 everybody else at that time, August Wehle was strongly im- 
 pressed by the assertions of the Millerites, and if the world 
 should be finished in the next month, the farms were of 
 no consequence. And if Millerism proved a delusion, the loss 
 of Samuel Anderson's property would only leave Julia on his 
 level, so far as worldly goods went. The happiness this last 
 thought brought him made him ashamed. Why should he 
 rejoice in Mr. Anderson's misfortune? Why should he wish
 
 SCARING A HAWK. 239 
 
 to pull Julia down to him? But still the thought re- 
 mained a pleasant one. 
 
 Jonas would not have it so. He had his plan. He went 
 home from the Adventist meeting that very night with Cynthy 
 Ann, and then stood talking to her at the corner of the 
 porch, feeling very sure that Humphreys would listen from 
 above. He heard his stealthy tread, after a while, disturb a 
 loose board on the upper porch. Then he began to talk to 
 Cynthy Ann in this strain : 
 
 " You see, I can't tell no secrets, Cynthy Ann, even to 
 your Royal Goodness, as I might say, seein' as how as you 
 a'n't my wife, and a'n't likely to be, if Brother Goshorn can 
 have his way. But you're the Queen of Hearts, anyhow. 
 But s'pose I was to hint a secret?" 
 
 " Sh sh h-h-h ! " said Cynthy Ann, partly because she felt 
 a sinful pleasure in the flattery, and partly because she felt 
 sure that Humphreys was above. But Jonas paid no attention 
 to the caution. 
 
 " I'll gin you a hint as strong as a Irishman's, which they 
 do say'll knock you down. Let's s'pose a case. They a'n't 
 no harm in s'posin' a case, you know. I've knowed boys 
 who'd throw a rock at a fence-rail and hit a stump, and then 
 say, ' S'posin' they was a woodpecker on that air stump, 
 wouldn't I a keeled him over?' You can s'pose a case and 
 make a woodpecker wherever you want to. Well, s'posin' 
 they was a inquisition or somethin' of the kind from the 
 guv'nor of the State of ole Kaintuck to the guv'nor of the 
 State of Injeanny? And s'posin' that the dokyment got lodged 
 in this 'ere identical county ? And s'posin' it called fer the 
 body of one Thomas A. Parkins, afo'as J. "W. 'Umphreys?
 
 240 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 And s'posin' it speecified as to sartain and sundry crimes com- 
 mitted in Paduky and all along the shore, fer all I know? 
 Now, s'posin' all of them air things, what would Clark town- 
 ship do to console itself when that toonful v'ice and them air 
 blazin' watch-seals had set in ignominy for ever and ever? 
 Selah ! Good-night, and don't you breathe a word to a livin' 
 soul, nur a dead one, 'bout what I been a-sayin'. You'll know 
 more by daylight to-morry 'n you know now." 
 
 And the last part of the speech was true, for by midnight 
 the Hawk had fled. And the sale of the Anderson farm to 
 Humphreys was never completed. For three days the end of 
 the world was forgotten in the interest which Clark township 
 felt in the flight of its favorite. And by degrees the story 
 of Norman's encounter with the gamblers and of August's re- 
 covery of the money became spread abroad through the con- 
 fidential hints of Jonas. And by degrees another story became 
 known; it could not long be concealed. It was the story of 
 Betsey Malcolm, who averred that she had been privately 
 married to Humphreys on the occasion of a certain trip they 
 had made to Kentucky together, to attend a " big meeting." 
 The story was probably true, but uncharitable gossips shook 
 their heads. 
 
 It was only a few evenings after the flight of Humphreys 
 that Jonas had another talk with Cynthy Ann, in which he 
 confessed that all his supposed case about a requisition from 
 the governor of Kentucky for Humphreys's arrest was pure 
 fiction. 
 
 " But, Jonas, is is that air right ? I'm afeard it a'n't right 
 to tell an ontruth." 
 
 " So 'ta'n't ; but I only s'posed a case, you know."
 
 SCARING A HAWK. 241 
 
 "But Brother Hall said last Sunday two weeks, that any- 
 thing that gin a false impression was was lying. Now, I 
 don't think you meant it, but then I thought I orto speak to 
 you about it." 
 
 " Well, maybe you're right. I see you last summer a-puttin' 
 up a skeercrow to keep the poor, hungry little birds of the 
 air from gittin' the peas that they needed to sustain life. An' 
 I said, "What a pity that the best woman I ever seed should 
 tell lies to the poor little birds that can't defend theirselves 
 from her wicked wiles ! But I see that same day a skeer- 
 crow, a mean, holler, high-percritical purtense of a ole hat 
 and coat, a-hanging in Brother Goshorn's garden down to the 
 cross-roads. An' I wondered ef it was j^our Methodis' trainin' 
 that taught you sech-like cheatin' of the little sparrys and 
 blackbirds." 
 
 " Yes ; but Jonas " said Cynthy, bewildered. 
 
 "And I see a few days arterwards a Englishman with a 
 humbug-fly onto his line, a foolin' the poor, simple-hearted 
 little fishes into swallerin' a hook that hadn't nary sign of a 
 ginowine bait onto it. An' I says, says I, What a deceitful 
 thing the human heart is ! " 
 
 " Why, Jonas, you'd make a preacher ! " said Cynthy Ann, 
 touched with the fervor of his utterance, and inly resolved 
 never to set up another scarecrow. 
 
 " Not much, my dear. But then, you see, I make distinc- 
 tions. Ef I was to see a wolf a-goin' to eat a lamb, what 
 would I do ? Why, I'd skeer or fool him with the very fust 
 thing I could find. Wouldn' you, honey ? " 
 
 "In course," said Cynthy Ann. 
 
 " And so, when I seed a wolf or a tiger or a painter, like
 
 242 THE END OF THE WORLD- 
 
 that air 'Umphreys, about to gobble up fortins, and to do some 
 harm to Gus, maybe, I jest rigged up a skeercrow of words, 
 like a ole hat and coat stuck onto a stick, and run him off. 
 Any harm done, my dear ? " 
 
 " Well, no, Jonas ; I ruther 'low not." 
 
 Whether Jonas's defense was good or not, I can not say, for 
 I do not know. But he is entitled to the benefit of it.
 
 JONAS TAKES AN APPEAL. 
 
 243 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 JONAS TAKES AN APPEAL 
 
 'ONAS had waited for the coming of the 
 quarterly meeting to carry his appeal to the 
 presiding elder. The quarterly meeting for the cir- 
 cuit was held at the village of Brayville, and beds 
 were made upon the floor for the guests who crowded 
 the town. Every visiting Methodist had a right to entertain- 
 ment, and every resident Methodist opened his doors very wide, 
 for Western people are hospitable in a fashion and with a boun- 
 tifulness unknown on the eastern side of the mountains. Who 
 that has not known it, can ever understand the delightfulness of 
 a quarterly meeting? The meeting of old friends the social 
 life is all but heavenly. And then the singing of the old Meth- 
 odist hymns, such as 
 
 " Oh 1 that will be joyful ! 
 
 Joyful ! joyful ! 
 Oh 1 that will be joyful, 
 To meet to part no more." 
 
 And that other solemnly-sweet refrain: 
 
 "The reaping-time will surely come, 
 And angels shout the harvest home 1 "
 
 244 THE END OF THE WOBLD. 
 
 And who shall describe the joy of a Christian mother, when her 
 scapegrace son " laid down the arms of his rebellion " and was 
 " soundly converted " ? Let those sneer who will, but such moral 
 miracles as are wrought in Methodist revivals are more won- 
 derful than any healing of the blind or raising of the dead 
 could be. 
 
 Jonas turned up, faithful to his promise, and called on the 
 "elder" at the place where he was staying, and asked for a pri- 
 vate interview. He found the old gentleman exercising his 
 sweet voice in singing, 
 
 " Come, let us anew 
 
 Our journey pursue, 
 Roll round with the year. 
 And never stand still till the Master appear. 
 His adorable will 
 Let us gladly fulfill, 
 And our talents improve 
 By the patience of hope and the labor of love." 
 
 When he concluded the verse he raised his half-closed eyes 
 and saw Jonas "standing in the door. 
 
 "Mr. Persidin' Elder," said Jonas, trying in vain to speak 
 with some seriousness and veneration, " I come to ax your 
 consent to marry one of your flock the best lamb you've 
 got in the whole fold." 
 
 "Bless you, Mr. Harrison," said Father Williams, the old 
 elder, laughing, "bless you, I haven't any right to consent or 
 forbid. Ask the lady herself ! " 
 
 " Ax the lady ! " said Jonas. " Didn't I though ! And didn't 
 Mr. Goshorn forbid the lady to marry me, under the pains and 
 penalties pervided ; and didn't Mr. Hall set his seal to the for- 
 biddin' of Goshorn ! An' I says to her, ' I won't take nothin' lesi
 
 JONAS TAKES AN APPEAL. 245 
 
 than a elder or a bishop on this 'ere vital question.' When I 
 want a sheep, I don't go to the underlin,' but to the boss ; and 
 so I brought this appeal up to you on a writ of habeas corpus, or 
 whatever you may call it." 
 
 The presiding elder laughed v again, and looked closely at 
 Jonas. Then he stepped to the door and called in the circuit 
 preacher, Mr. Hall, and the class leader, Mr. Goshorn, both of 
 whom happened to be in the next room engaged in an excited 
 discussion with a brother who was a little touched with Mil- 
 ler ism. 
 
 " What's this Mr. Harrison tells me about your forbidding the 
 banns in his case ? " 
 
 " He's a New Light," said Brother Hall, showing his abhor- 
 rence in his face, " and it seemed to me that for a Methodist to 
 marry a New Light was a sin a being yoked together unequally 
 with an unbeliever. You know, Father Williams, that New 
 Lights are Arians." 
 
 The old man seemed more amused than ever. Turning to 
 Jonas, he asked him if he was an Arian. 
 
 "Not as I knows on, my venerable friend. I may have 
 caught the disease when I had the measles, or I may have been a 
 Arian in infancy, or I may be a Arian on my mother's side, 
 you know ; but as I don't know who or what it may be, I a'u't in 
 no way accountable fer it no more'n Brother Goshorn is to blame 
 fer his face bein' so humbly. But I take it Arian is one of them 
 air pleasant names you and the New Light preachers uses in 
 your Christian intercourse together to make one another mad. 
 I'm one of them as goes to heaven straight never stoppin' to 
 throw no donicks at the Methodists, Presbyterians, nor no other 
 misguided children of men. They may ride in the packet, or go
 
 246 THE END OP THE WORLD. 
 
 by flat-boat or keel-boat, ef they chooses. I go by the swift- 
 sailin' and palatial mail-boat New Light, and I don't run no 
 opposition line, nor bust my bilers tryin' to beat my neighbors 
 into the heavenly port." 
 
 Brother Goshorn looked vexed. Brother Hall was scan- 
 dalized at the lightness of Jonas's conversation. But the old 
 presiding elder, with keen common-sense and an equally keen 
 
 J\ .- -^ 
 
 BROTHER GOSHORN. 
 
 sense of the ludicrous, could not look grave with all his effort 
 to keep from laughing. 
 
 "Are you an unbeliever?" he asked. 
 
 "I don't know what you call onbeliever. I believe in God 
 ar.d Christ, and keep Sunday and the Fourth of July ; but I don't 
 believe in all of Brother Goshorn's nonsense about wearing veils 
 and artificials." 
 
 " Well," said Brother Hall, " would you endeavor to induce 
 your wife to dress in a manner unbecoming a Methodist ? "
 
 JONAS TAKES AN APPEAL. 249 
 
 " I wouldn't fer the world. If I git the article I want, I don't 
 keer what it's tied up in, calico or bombazine." 
 
 " Couldn't you join the Methodist Church yourself, and keep 
 your wife company ? " It was Brother Goshorn who spoke. 
 
 " Couldn't I ? I suppose I could ef I didn't think no more 
 of religion than some other folks. I could jine the Methodist 
 Church, and have everybody say I jined to git my wife. That 
 maybe serving God; but I can't see how. And then how long 
 would you keep me ? The very fust tune I fired off my blunder- 
 buss hi class-meetin', and you heerd the buckshot and the 
 squirrel-shot and the slugs and all sorts of things a-rattlin' 
 around, you'd say I was makin' fun of the Gospel. I 'low they 
 a'n't no Methodist in me. I was cut out cur'us, you know, and 
 made up crooked." 
 
 " Is there anything against Mr. Harrison, Brother Goshorn ? " 
 asked the elder. 
 
 " He's a New Light," said Mr. Goshorn, in a tone that signi- 
 fied his belief that to be a New Light was enough. 
 
 "Is he honest and steady?" 
 
 "Never heard anything against him as a moralist." 
 
 " "Well, then, it's my opinion that any member of your class 
 would do better to marry a good, faithful, honest New Light 
 than to marry a hickory Methodist." 
 
 Jonas got up like one demented, and ran out of the door and 
 across the street. In a moment he came back, bringing Cynthy 
 Ann in triumph. 
 
 " Now, say them words over again," he said to the presiding 
 elder. 
 
 " Sister Cynthy Ann," said the presiding elder, "you really 
 love Brother Harrison ? "
 
 250 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " I I don't know whether it's right to set our sinful hearts on 
 the things of this perishin' world. But I think more of him, 
 I'm afeard, than I had ort to. He's got as good a heart as I ever 
 seed. But Brother Goshorn thought I hadn't orter marry him, 
 seein' he is a onbeliever." 
 
 " But I a'n't," said Jonas ; " I believe in the Bible, and in every- 
 thing in it, and in Cynthy Ann and her good Methodist religion 
 besides." 
 
 "I think you can give up all your scruples and marry Mr. 
 Harrison, and love him and be happy," said the presiding elder. 
 "Don't be afraid to be happy, my sister. You'll be happy in 
 good company in heaven, and you'd just as well get used to it 
 here." 
 
 "I told you I'd find a man that had salt enough to keep 
 his religion sweet. And, Father Williams, you've got to marry 
 us, whenever Cynthy Ann's ready," said Jonas with enthusiasm. 
 
 And for a moment the look of overstrained scrupulosity on 
 Cynthy Ann's face relaxed and a strange look of happiness came 
 into her eyes. 
 
 And the tune was fixed then and there. 
 
 Brother Hall was astonished. 
 
 And Brother Goshorn drew down his face, and said that he 
 didn't know what was to become of good, old-fashioned Method- 
 ism and the rules of the Discipline, if the presiding elders talked 
 in that sort of a way. The church was going to the dogs.
 
 SELLING OUT. 251 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 SELLING OUT. 
 
 'HE flight of the Hawk did not long dampen the 
 ardor of those who were looking for signs in the 
 heaven above and the earth beneath. I Ijave known 
 a school-master to stand, switch in hand, and give a 
 stubborn boy a definite number of minutes to yield. 
 The boy who would not have submitted on account of any 
 amount of punishment, was subdued by the awful waiting. "We 
 have all read the old school-book story of the prison-warden who 
 brought a mob of criminals to subjection by the same process. 
 Millerism produced some such effect as this. The assured belief 
 of the believers had a great effect on others ; the dreadful draw- 
 ing on of the set time day by day produced an effect in some 
 regions absolutely awful. An eminent divine, at that time a pas- 
 tor in Boston, has told me that the leaven of Adventism per- 
 meated all religious bodies, and that he himself could not avoid 
 the fearful sense of waiting for some catastrophe the impres- 
 sion that all this expectation of people must have some signifi- 
 cance. If this was the effect in Boston, imagine the effect 
 in a country neighborhood like Clark township. Andrew, skep-
 
 g52 THE END OP THE WOBLD. 
 
 tical as he was visionary, was almost the only man that escaped 
 the infection. Jonas would have been as frankly irreverent if 
 the day of doom had come as he was at all times; but even 
 Jonas had come to the conclusion that ' ' somethin' would hap- 
 pen, or else somethin' else." August, with a young man's 
 impressibility, was awe-stricken with thoughts of the nearing 
 end of the world, and Julia accepted it as settled. 
 
 It is a good thing that the invisible world is so thoroughly 
 shut out from this. The effect of too vivid a conception of it 
 is never wholesome. It was pernicious in the middle age, and 
 clairvoyance and spirit-rapping would be great evils to the world, 
 if it were not that the spirits, even of the ablest men, in losing 
 their bodies seem to lose their wits. It is well that it is so, for 
 if Washington Irving dictated to a medium accounts of the other 
 world in a style such as that of his " Little Britain," for instance, 
 we should lose all interest in the affairs of this sphere, and nobody 
 would buy our novels. 
 
 This fever of excitement kept alive Samuel Anderson's deter- 
 mination to sell his farms for a trifle as a testimony to unbe- 
 lievers. He found that fifty dollars would meet his expenses 
 until the eleventh of August, and so the price was set at that. 
 
 As soon as Andrew heard of this, he privately arranged with 
 Jonas to buy it; but Mrs. Anderson utterly refused. She said 
 she could see through it all. Jonas was one of Andrew's fingers. 
 Andrew had got to be a sort of a king in Clark township, and 
 Jonas was was the king's fool. She did not mean that any of 
 her property should go into the hands of the clique that were try- 
 ing to rob her of her property and her daughter. Even for two 
 weeks they should not own her house ! 
 
 Before this speech was ended, Bob Walker entered the door.
 
 SELLING OUT. 
 
 253 
 
 Bob was tall, stooped, good-natured, and desperately poor. With 
 ten children under twelve years of age, with an incorrigible fond- 
 ness for loafing and telling funny stories, Bob saw no chance to 
 improve his condition. A man may be either honest or lazy and 
 
 "I WANT TO BUT TOUE PLACE." 
 
 get rich ; but a man who is both honest and indolent is doomed. 
 Bob lived in a cabin on the Anderson farm, and when not 
 hired by Samuel Anderson he did days' work here and there, 
 riding to and from his labor on a raw-boned mare, taat was the 
 laughing-stock of the county. Bob pathetically called her Splin-
 
 254 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ter-shin, and he always rode bareback, for the very good reason 
 that he had neither saddle nor sheepskin. 
 
 " Mr. Anderson," said Bob, standing in the door and trying to 
 straighten the chronic stoop out of his shoulders, "I want to 
 buy your place." 
 
 If Bob had said that he wanted to be elected president, 
 Samuel Anderson could not have been more surprised. 
 
 " You look astonished ; but folks don't know everything. I 
 'low I know how to lay by a little. But I never could git enough 
 to buy a decent kind of a tater-patch. So I says to my ole 
 woman this inornin', ' Jane,' says I, ' let's git some ground. Let's 
 buy out Mr. Anderson, and see how it'll feel to be rich fer a few 
 days. *If she all burns up, let her burn, I say. We've had a pla- 
 guey hard time of it, let's see how it goes to own two farms fer 
 awhile.' And so we thought we'd ruther hev the farms fer two 
 weeks than a little money in a ole stocking. What d'ye say ? " 
 
 Jonas here put in that he didn't see why they mightn't sell 
 to him as well as to Bob Walker. Cynthy Ann had worked fer 
 Mrs. Anderson fer years, and him and Cynthy was a-goin' to 
 be one man soon. Why not sell to them ? 
 
 "Because selling to you is selling to Andrew," said Mrs. 
 Abigail, in a conclusive way. 
 
 And so Bob got the farms, possession to be given after the 
 fourteenth of August, thus giving the day of doom three days 
 of grace. And Bob rode round the county boasting that he was 
 as rich a man as there was in Clark Township. And Jonas de- 
 clared that ef the eend did come in the month of August, 
 Abigail would find some onsettled bills agin her fer cheatin' 
 the brother outen the inheritance. And Clark Township agreed 
 with him.
 
 SELLING OUT. 25$ 
 
 August was secretly pleased that one obstacle to his mar- 
 riage was gone. If Andrew should prove right, and the world 
 should outlast the middle of August, there would be nothing 
 dishonorable in his marrying a girl that would have nothing to 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Andrew, for his part, gave vent to his feelings, as usual, by 
 two or three bitter remarks leveled at the whole human race, 
 though nowadays he was inclined to make exceptions in favor 
 of several people, of whom Julia stood first. She was a 
 woman of the old-fashioned kind, he said, fit to go alongside 
 Heloise or Chaucer's Grisilde.
 
 256 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 THE LAST DAT AND WHAT HAPPENED IN IT. 
 
 E religious excitement reached its culmination 
 as the tenth and eleventh of August came on. 
 Some made ascension-robes. "Work was suspended 
 everywhere. The more abandoned, unwilling to 
 yield to the panic, showed its effects on them by 
 deeper potations, and by a recklessness of wickedness meant 
 to conceal their fears. With tin horns they blasphemously 
 affected to be angels blowing trumpets. They imitated the 
 Millerite meetings in their drunken sprees, and learned Mr. 
 Hankins's arguments by heart. 
 
 The sun of the eleventh of August rose gloriously. People 
 pointed to it with trembling, and said that it would rise no 
 more. Soon after sunrise there were crimson clouds stretching 
 above and below it, and popular terror seized upon this as a 
 sign. But the sun mounted with a scorching heat, which- 
 showed that at least his shining power was not impaired. Then 
 men said, " Behold the beginning of the fervent heat that is to 
 melt the elements ! " Night drew on, and every " shooting-star" 
 was a new sign of the end. The meteors, as usual at this time
 
 THE LAST DAY AND WHAT HAPPENED IN IT. 257 
 
 of the year, were plentiful, and the simple-hearted country- 
 folk were convinced that the stars were falling out of the sky. 
 A large bald hill overlooking the Ohio was to be the mount 
 of ascension. Here gathered Elder Hankins's flock with that 
 comfortable assurance of being the elect that only a narrow 
 bigotry can give. And here came others of all denominations, 
 consoling themselves that they were just as well off if they were 
 Christians as if they had made all this fuss about the millennium. 
 Here was August, too, now almost well, joining with the rest in 
 singing those sweet and inspiring Adventist hymns. His German 
 heart could not keep still where there was singing, and now, in 
 gratefulness at new-found health, he was more inclined to music 
 than ever. So he joined heartily and sincerely in the song that 
 begins : 
 
 " Shall Simon bear his cross alone, 
 
 And all the world go free? 
 No, there's a cross for every one, 
 
 And there's a cross for me. 
 I'll bear the consecrated cross 
 Till from the cross I'm free, 
 And then go home to wear the crown, 
 
 For there's a crown for me! 
 Yes, there's a crown in heaven above, 
 The purchase of a Saviour's love. 
 Oh 1 that's the crown for me ! " 
 
 When the concourse reached the lines, 
 
 "The saints have heard the midnight cry, 
 Go meet him in the air!" 
 
 neither August nor any one else could well resist the infection 
 of the profound and awful belief hi the immediate coming of the 
 end which pervaded the throng. Strong men and women wept 
 and shouted with the excitement.
 
 258 THE EISTD OP THE WORM). 
 
 Then Elder Hankins exhorted a little. He said that the time 
 was short. But men's hearts were hard. As in the days of the 
 flood, they were marrying and giving in marriage. Not half a 
 mile away a wedding was at that time taking place, and a man 
 who called himself a minister could not discern the signs of the 
 times, but was solemnizing a marriage. 
 
 This allusion was to the marriage of Jonas, which was to take 
 place that very evening at the castle. Mrs. Anderson had refused 
 to have " such wicked nonsense " at her house, and as Cynthy 
 had no home, Andrew had appointed it at the castle, partly to 
 oblige Jonas, partly from habitual opposition to Abigail, but 
 chiefly to express his contempt for Adventism. 
 
 Mrs. Anderson herself was in a state of complete sublima- 
 tion. She had sent for Norman, that she might get him ready for 
 the final judgment, and Norman, without the slightest inclination 
 to be genuinely religious, was yet a coward, and made a provi- 
 sional repentance, not meant to hold good if Elder Hankins's 
 figures should fail ; just such a repentance as many a man has 
 made on what he supposed to be his death-bed. Do not I 
 remember a panic-stricken man, converted by typhoid fever and 
 myself, who laughed as soon as he began to eat gruel, to think 
 that he had been " such a fool as to send for the preacher " ? 
 
 Now, between Mrs. Anderson's joy at Norman's conversion, 
 and her delight that the world would soon be at an end and 
 she on the winning side, and her anticipation of the pleasure 
 she would feel even in heaven in saying, " I told you so ! " to 
 her unbelieving friends, she quite forgot Julia. In fact she 
 went from one fit of religious catalepsy to another, falling into 
 trances, or being struck down with what was mysteriously 
 called " the power." She had relaxed her vigilance about Julia,
 
 THE LAST DAY AND WHAT HAPPENED IN IT. 259 
 
 for there were but three more hours of time, and she felt that 
 the goal was already gained, and she had carried her point to 
 the very last. A satisfaction for a saint ! 
 
 The neglected Julia naturally floated toward the outer edge 
 of the surging crowd, and she and August inevitably drifted 
 together. 
 
 "Let us go and see Jonas married," said August. "It is no 
 harm. God can take us to heaven from one place as well as 
 another, if we are His children." 
 
 In truth, Julia was wearied and bewildered, not to say dis- 
 gusted, with her mother's peculiar religious exercises, and she 
 gladly escaped with August to the castle and the wedding of 
 her faithful friends. 
 
 Andrew, in a spirit of skeptical defiance, had made his castle 
 look as flowery and festive as possible. The wedding took place 
 in the lower story, but the library was illuminated, and the 
 Adventists who had occasion to pass by Andrew's on their way to 
 the rendezvous accepted this as a new fulfillment of prophecy to 
 the very letter. They nodded one to another, and said, " Seel 
 marrying and giving in marriage, as in the days of Noah ! " 
 
 August and Julia were too much awe-stricken to say much 
 on their way to the castle. But in these last hours of a world 
 grown old and ready for its doom, they cleaved closer together. 
 There could be neither heaven nor millennium for one of them 
 without the other ! Loving one another made them love God 
 the more, and love cast out all fear. If this was the Last, they 
 would face it together, and if it proved the Beginning, they 
 would rejoice together. At sight of every shooting meteor, 
 Julia clung almost convulsively to August. 
 
 When they entered the casfte, Jonas and Cynthy were, already
 
 260 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 standing up before the presiding elder, and he was about to begin. 
 Cynthy's face showed her sense of the awful ness of marrying at a 
 moment of such fearful expectation, or perhaps she was troub- 
 ling herself for fear that so much happiness out of heaven was 
 to be had only in the commission of a capital sin. But, like 
 most people whose consciences are stronger than their intellects, 
 she found great consolation in taking refuge under the wing of 
 ecclesiastical authority. To be married by a presiding elder 
 was the best thing in the world next to being married by a 
 bishop. 
 
 Whatever fear of the swift-coming judgment others might 
 have felt, the benignant old elder was at peace. Common- 
 sense, a clean conscience, and a child-like faith enlightened his 
 countenance, and since he tried to be always ready, and since 
 his meditations made the things of the other life ever present, 
 his pulse would scarcely have quickened if he had felt sure that 
 the archangel's trump would sound in an hour. He neither felt 
 the subdued fear shown on the countenance of Cynthy Ann, nor 
 the strong skeptical opposition of Andrew, whose face of late had 
 grown almost into a sneer. 
 
 "Do you take this woman to be your lawful and wedded 
 wife " 
 
 And before the elder could finish it, Jonas blurted out, " You'd 
 better believe I do, my friend." 
 
 And then when the old man smiled and finished his ques- 
 tion down to, " so long as ye both shall live," Jonas responded 
 eagerly, " Tell death er the jedgment-day, long or short" 
 
 And Cynthy Ann answered demurely out of her frightened 
 but too happy heart, and the old man gave them his benediction 
 in an apostolic fashion that removed Cynthy Ann's scruples, and
 
 THE LAST DAY AND W1IAT HAPPENED IN IT. 261 
 
 smoothed a little of the primness out of her face, so that she 
 almost smiled when Jonas said, " Well ! it's done now, and 
 it can't be undone fer all the Goshorns in Christendom er 
 creation ! " 
 
 And then the old gentleman for he was a gentleman, though 
 he had always been a backwoodsman spoke of the excite- 
 ment, and said that it was best always to be ready to be ready 
 to live, and then you would be ready for death or the judgment. 
 That very night the end might come, but it was not best to 
 trouble one's self about it. And he smiled, and said that it was 
 none of his business, God could manage the universe ; it was for 
 him to be found doing his duty as a faithful servant. And then it 
 would be just like stepping out of one door into another, 
 whenever death or the judgment should come. 
 
 While the old man was getting ready to leave, Julia and Au- 
 gust slipped away, fearing lest their absence should be discov- 
 ered. But the peacefulness of the old elder's face had entered 
 into their souls, and they wished that they too were solemnly 
 pronounced man and wife, with so sweet a benediction upon 
 their union. 
 
 " I do not feel much anxious about the day of judgment 
 or the millennium," said August, whose idiom was sometimes 
 a little broken. "When I was so near dying I felt satisfied 
 to die after you had kissed my lips. But now that it seems we 
 have come upon the world's last days, I wish I were married to 
 you. I do not know how things will be in the new heaven and 
 the new earth. But I should like you to be my wife there, 
 or at least to have been my wife on earth, if only for one hour.' r 
 
 And then he proposed that they should be made man and wife 
 now in the world's last hour. It was not wrong. It could not
 
 262 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 give her mother heart-disease, for she would not know of it till 
 she should hear it in the land where there are neither marriages 
 nor sickness. Julia could not see any sin in her disobedience 
 under such circumstances. She did so much want to go into the 
 New Jerusalem as the wedded wife of August " the grand," 
 as she fondly called him. 
 
 And so in the stillness of that awful night they walked back 
 to Andrew's castle, and found the venerable preacher, with sad- 
 dle-bags on his arm, ready to mount his horse, for the presiding 
 elder of that day had no leisure time. Jonas and Cynthy stood 
 bidding him good-by. And the old man was saying again that if 
 we were always ready it would be like stepping from one door 
 into another. But he thought it as wrong to waste time gazing 
 up into heaven to see Christ come, as it had been to gaze after 
 Him when He went away. Even Jonas's voice was a little soft- 
 ened by the fearful thought ever present of the coming on of 
 that awful midnight of the eleventh of August. All were sur- 
 prised to see the two young people come back. 
 
 " Father "Williams," said August, " we thought we should 
 like to go into the New Jerusalem man and wife. Will you 
 marry us?" 
 
 " Sensible to the last ! " cried Jonas. 
 
 " According to the laws of this State," said Mr. Williams, " you 
 can not be married without a license from the clerk of the county. 
 Have you a license ? " 
 
 " No," said August, his heart sinking. 
 
 Just then Andrew came up and inquired what the conversa- 
 tion was about. 
 
 " Why, Uncle Andrew," said Julia eagerly, " August and I 
 don't want the end of the world to come without being man and
 
 THE LAST DAT AND WHAT HAPPENED IN IT. 263 
 
 wife. And we have no license, and August could not go seven 
 miles and back to get a license before midnight. It is too bad, 
 isn't it? If it wasn't that we think the end of the world is so 
 near, I should be ashamed to say how much I want to be mar- 
 ried. But I shall be proud to have been August's wife, when I 
 am among the angels." 
 
 " You are a noble woman," said Andrew. " Come in, let us 
 see if anything can be done," And he led the way, smiling.
 
 264 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 FOR EVER- AND EVER. 
 
 they had all re-entered the castle, An- 
 drew made them sit down. The old minister 
 did not see any escape from the fatal obstacle 
 of a lack of license, but Andrew was very mys- 
 terious. 
 
 "Virtue is its own reward," said the Philosopher, "but it 
 often finds an incidental reward besides. Now, Julia, you are 
 the noblest woman in these degenerate times, according to my 
 way of thinking." 
 
 " That's true as preachin', ef you'll except one," chirped Jonas, . 
 with a significant look at his Cynthy Ann. Julia blushed, and 
 the old minister looked inquiringly at Andrew and at Julia. 
 This exaggerated praise from a man so misanthropic as Andrew 
 excited his curiosity. 
 
 " Without exception," said Andrew emphatically, looking first 
 at Jonas, then at Mr. Williams, " my niece is the noblest woman 
 I ever knew." 
 
 " Please don't, Uncle Andrew ! " begged Julia, almost speech- 
 less with shame. Praise was something she could not bear. She 
 was inured to censure.
 
 FOR EVER AND EVER. 265 
 
 " Do you remember that dark night of course you do when 
 you braved everything and came here to see August, who would 
 have died but for your coming ? " Andrew was now looking at 
 Julia, who answered him almost inaudibly. 
 
 "And do you remember when we got to your gate, on your 
 return, what you said to me ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Julia. 
 
 " To be sure you do, and " (turning to August) " I shall never 
 forget her words ; she said, ' If he should get worse, I should 
 like him to die my husband, if he wishes it. Send for me, day or 
 night, and I will come in spite of everything.' " 
 
 " Did you say that ? " asked August, looking at her eagerly. 
 
 And Julia nodded her head, and lifted her eyes, glistening 
 with brimming tears, to his. 
 
 " You do not know," said Andrew to the preacher, " how 
 much her proposal meant, for you do not know through what 
 she would have had to pass. But I say that God does sometimes 
 reward virtue in this world a world not quite worn out yet 
 and she is worthy of the reward in store foj her." 
 
 Saying this, Andrew went into the closet leading to his se- 
 cret stairway secret no longer, since Julia had ascended by that 
 way and soon came down from his library with a paper in his 
 hand. 
 
 " When you, my noble-hearted niece, proposed to make any 
 sacrifice to marry this studious, honest, true-hearted German 
 gentleman, who is worthy of you, if any man can be, I thought 
 best to be ready for any emergency, and so I went the next day 
 and procured the license, the clerk promising to keep my secret. 
 A marriage-license is good for thirty days. You will see, Mr. 
 Williams, that this has not quite expired."
 
 266 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The minister looked at it and then said, " I depend on your 
 judgment, Mr. Anderson. There seems to be something peculiar 
 about the circumstances of this marriage." 
 
 " Very peculiar," said Andrew. 
 
 " You give me your word, then, that it is a marriage I ought 
 to solemnize ? " 
 
 " The lady is my niece," said Andrew. " The marriage, 
 taking place in this castle, will shed more glory upon it than its 
 whole history beside ; and you, sir, have never performed a mar- 
 riage ceremony in a case where the marriage was so excellent as 
 this." 
 
 "Except the last one," put in Jonas. 
 
 I suppose Mr. Williams made the proper reductions for An- 
 drew's enthusiasm. But he was satisfied, and perhaps he was 
 rather inclined ^to be satisfied, for gentle-hearted old men are 
 quite susceptible to a romantic situation. 
 
 When he asked August if he would live with this woman 
 in holy matrimony " so long as ye both shall live," August, 
 thinking the two hours of time left to him too short for the 
 earnestness of his vows, looked the old minister in the eyes, 
 and said solemnly : " For ever and ever ! " 
 
 " No, my son," said the old man, smiling and almost weep- 
 ing, " that is not the right answer. I like your whole-hearted 
 love. But it is far easier to say ' for ever and ever,' standing as 
 you think you do now on the brink of eternity, than to say 
 ' till death do us part,' looking down a long and weary road of 
 toil and sickness and poverty and change and little vexations. 
 You do not only take this woman, young and blooming, but 
 old and sick and withered and wearied, perhaps. Do you take 
 her for any lot?"
 
 FOE EVEB AND EVER. 267 
 
 " For any lot," said August solemnly and humbly. 
 
 And Julia, on her part, could only bow her head in reply to 
 the questions, for the tears chased one another down her cheeks. 
 And then came the benediction. The inspired old man, full of 
 hearty sympathy, stretched his trembling hands with apostolic 
 solemnity over the heads of the two, and said slowly, with sol- 
 emn pauses, as the words welled up out of his soul : " The peace 
 
 of God that passeth all understanding " (here his voice melted 
 
 with emotion) " keep your hearts and minds in the 
 
 knowledge and love of God. And now, may grace mercy 
 
 and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus 
 
 Christ be with you evermore Amen ! " And to the 
 
 imagination of Julia the Spirit of God descended like a dove 
 into her heart, and t" e great mystery of wifely love and the other 
 greater mystery of love to God seemed to flow together in her 
 soul. And the quieter spirit of August was suffused with a great 
 peace. 
 
 They soon left the castle to return to the mount of ascension, 
 but they walked slowly, and at first silently, over the intervening 
 hill, which gave them a view of the Ohio River, sleeping in its 
 indescribable beauty and stillness in the moonlight. 
 
 Presently they heard the melodious voice of the old presiding 
 elder, riding up the road a little way off, singing the hopeful 
 hymns in which he so much delighted. The rich and earnest 
 voice made the woods ring with one verse of 
 
 " Oh 1 how happy are they 
 
 Who the Saviour obey, 
 And have laid up their treasure above! 
 
 Tongue can never express 
 
 The sweet comfort and peace 
 Of a soul in its earliest love."
 
 268 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 And then he broke into Watts's 
 
 " When I can read my title clear 
 
 To mansions in the skies, 
 I'll bid farewell to every fear 
 And wipe my weeping eyes 1 " 
 
 There seemed to be some accord between the singing of the 
 brave old man and the peacefulness of the landscape. Soon he 
 had reached the last stanza, and hi tones of subdued but ecstatic 
 triumph he sang : 
 
 "There I shall bathe my weary soul 
 
 In seas of heavenly rest, 
 And not a wave of trouble roll 
 Across my peaceful breast." 
 
 And with these words he passed round the hill and out of 
 the hearing of the young people. 
 
 " August," said Julia slowly, as if afraid to break a silence 
 so blessed, " August, it seems to me that the sky and the river 
 and the hazy hills and my own soul are all alike, just as full of 
 happiness and peace as they can be." 
 
 " Yes," said August, smiling, " but the sky is clear, and your 
 eyes are raining, Julia. But can it be possible that God, who 
 made this world so beautiful, will burn it up to-night? It used 
 to seem a hard world to me when I was away from you, and 
 I didn't care how quickly it burned up. But now " 
 
 Somehow August forgot to finish that sentence. Words are 
 of so little use under such circumstances. A little pressure on 
 Julia's arm which was in his, told all that he meant. When love 
 makes earth a heaven, it is enough. 
 
 " But how beautiful the new earth will be," said Julia, still 
 looking at the sleeping river, " the river of life will be clear as 
 crystal ! "
 
 FOB EVER AND EVER. 
 
 " Yes," said August, " the Spanish version says, ' Most resplen- 
 dent, like unto crystal.'" 
 
 " I think," said Julia, " that it must be something like this 
 river. The trees of life will stand on either side, like those 
 great sycamores that lean over the water so gracefully." 
 
 Any landscape would have seemed heavenly to Julia on this 
 night. A venerable friend of mine, a true Christian philanthro- 
 pist, whose praise is hi all the churches, wants me to under- 
 take to reform fictitious literature by leaving out the love. And 
 so I may when God reforms His universe by leaving out the love. 
 Love is the best thing hi novels ; not until love is turned out of 
 heaven will I help turn it out of literature. It is only the mis- 
 representation of love hi literature that is bad, as the poison- 
 ing of love in life is bad. It was the love of August that had 
 opened Julia's heart to the influences of heaven, and Julia was to 
 August a mediator of God's grace. 
 
 By eleven o'clock August Wehle and his wife it gives me 
 nearly as much pleasure as it did August to use that locution 
 were standing not far away from the surging crowd of those 
 who, in singing hymns and in excited prayer, were waiting 
 for the judgment. Jonas and Cynthy and Andrew were with 
 them. August, though not a recognized Millerite, almost blamed 
 himself that he should have been away these two hours from the 
 services. But why should he ? The most sacramental of all the 
 sacraments is marriage. Is it not an arbitrary distinction of the- 
 ologians, that which makes two rites to be sacraments and others 
 not ? But if the distinction is to be made at all, I should apply 
 the solemn word to the solemnest rite and the holiest ordinance 
 of God's, even if I left out the sacred washing in the name of the 
 Trinity and the broken emblematic bread and the wine. These
 
 270 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 are sacramental in their solemn symbolism, that in the solem- 
 nest symbolism and the holiest reality. 
 
 August's whole attention was now turned toward the com- 
 ing judgment; and as he stood thinking of the awfulness of 
 this critical moment, the exercises of the Adventists grated 
 on the deep peacefulness of his spirit, for from singing their 
 more beautiful hymns, they had passed to an excited shouting of 
 the old camp-meeting ditty whose refrain is : 
 
 "I hope to shout glory when this world's all on fire 1 Hallelujah!" 
 
 He and Julia hung back a moment, but Mrs. Abigail, who 
 had recovered from her tenth trance, and had been for some time 
 engaged in an active search for Julia, now pounced upon her, 
 and bore her off, before she had time to think, to the place of 
 the hottest excitement.
 
 THE MIDNIGHT ALA11M. 271 
 
 CHAPTER XLm. 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT ALARM. 
 
 T last the time drew on toward midnight, the 
 hour upon which all expectation was concentrated. 
 For did not the Parable of the Ten Virgins speak 
 of the coming of the bridegroom at midnight ? 
 
 "My friends and brethren," said Elder Han- 
 kins, his voice shaking with emotion, as he held his watch up 
 in the moonlight, " My friends and brethren, ef the Word is true, 
 they is but five minutes more before the comin' in of the new 
 dispensation. Let us spend the last moments of time in silent 
 devotion." 
 
 " I wonder ef he thinks the world runs down by his pay- 
 ten t-leever watch ? " said Jonas, who could not resist the im- 
 pulse to make the remark, even with the expectation of the im- 
 mediate coming of the day of judgment in his mind. 
 
 " I wonder for what longitude he calculates prophecy ? " said 
 Andrew. " It can not be midnight all round the world at the 
 same moment." 
 
 But Elder Hankins's flock did not take any astronomical diffi- 
 culty into consideration. And no spectator could look upon them, 
 bowing silently hi prayer, awed by the expectation of the sud-
 
 272 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 den coming of the Lord, without feeling that, however much 
 the expectation might be illusory, the emotion was a fact abso- 
 lutely awful. Events are only sublime as they move the human 
 soul, and the swift-coming end of tune was subjectively a great 
 reality to these waiting people. Even Andrew was awe-stricken 
 from sympathy ; as Coleridge, when he stood godfather for 
 Keble's child, was overwhelmed with a sense of the significance 
 of the sacrament from Keble's stand-point. As for Cynthy Ann, 
 she trembled with fear as she held fast to the arm of Jonas. 
 And Jonas felt as much seriousness as was possible to him, until 
 he heard Norman Anderson's voice crying with terror and excite- 
 ment, and felt Cynthy shudder on his arm. 
 
 " Fer my part," said Jonas, turning to Andrew, " it don't seem 
 like as ef it was much use to holler and make a f urss about the 
 corn crap when October's fairly sot in, and the frost has nipped 
 the blades. All the plowin' and hoein' and weedin' and thinnin' 
 out the suckers won't better the yield then. An' when wheat's 
 ripe, they's nothin' to be done fer it. It's got to be rep jest as 
 it Stan's. I'm rale sorry, to-night, as my life a'n't no better, but 
 what's the use of cryin' over it? They's nothin' to do now 
 but let it be gethered and shelled out, and measured up in 
 the standard half -bushel of the sanctuary. And I'm afeard they'll 
 be a heap of nubbins not wuth the shuckin'. But ef it don't 
 come to six bushels the acre, I can't help it now by takin' on." 
 ! At twelve o'clock, even the scoffers were silent. But as the 
 sultry night drew on toward one o'clock, Bill Day and his party 
 felt their spirits revive a little. The calculation had failed in 
 one part, and it might in all. Bill resumed his burlesque exhorta- 
 tions to the rough-looking " brethren " about him. He tried to 
 lead them in singing some ribald parody of Adventist hymns,
 
 THE MIDNIGHT ALARM. 273 
 
 but his terror and theirs was too genuine, and their voices died 
 down into husky whispers, and they were more alarmed than 
 ever at discovering the extent of their own demoralization. The 
 bottle, one of those small-necked, big-bodied quart-bottles that 
 Western topers carry in yellow-cotton handkerchiefs, was passed 
 round. But even the whisky seemed powerless to neutralize 
 their terror, rather increasing the panic by fuddling their faculties. 
 
 " Boys ! " said Bob Short, trembling, and sitting down on a 
 stump, " this this ere thing is a gittin' serious. Ef well, ef 
 it was to happen you know you don't s'pose ahem you don't 
 think God A'mighty would be too heavy on a feller. Do ye ? Ef 
 it was to come to-night, it would be blamed short notice." 
 
 At one o'clock the moon was just about dipping behind the 
 hills, and the great sycamores, standing like giant sentinels on 
 the river's marge, cast long unearthly shadows across the water, 
 which grew blacker every minute. The deepening gloom gave 
 all objects in the river valley a weird, distorted look. This op- 
 pressed August. The landscape seemed an enchanted one, a 
 something seen hi a dream or a delirium. It was as though the 
 change had already come, and the real tangible world had passed 
 away. He was the more susceptible from the depression caused 
 by the hot sultriness of the night, and his separation from Julia. 
 
 He thought he would try to penetrate the crowd to the point 
 where his mother was ; then he would be near her, and nearer 
 to Julia if anything happened. A curious infatuation had taken 
 hold of August. He knew that it was an infatuation, but 
 he could not shake it off. He had resolved that in case the trum- 
 pet should be heard hi the heavens, he would seize Julia and 
 claim her in the very moment of universal dissolution. He 
 reached his mother, and as he looked into her calm face, ready
 
 274 THE END OF THE WOBLD. 
 
 for the millennium or for anything else "the Father" should 
 decree, he thought she had never seemed more glorious than 
 she did now, sitting with her children about her, almost unmoved 
 by the excitement. For Mrs. Wehle had come to take every- 
 thing as from the Heavenly Father. She had even received 
 Jionest but thick-headed Gottlieb in this spirit, when he had 
 fallen to her by the Moravian lot, a husband chosen for her 
 by the Lord, whose will was not to be questioned. 
 
 August was just about to speak to his mother, when he 
 was forced to hang his head in shame, for there was his father 
 rising to exhort. 
 
 " O mine freunde ! pe shust immediadely all of de dime retty. 
 Ton't led your vait vail already, and ton't let de debil git no 
 unter holts on ye. Vatch and pe retty ! " 
 
 And August could hear the derisive shouts of Bill Day's party, 
 who had recovered their courage, crying out, " Go it, ole Dutch- 
 man ! I'll bet on you!" He clenched his fist hi anger, but 
 his mother's eyes, looking at him with quiet rebuke, pacified him 
 in a moment. Yet he could not help wondering whether blun- 
 dering kinsfolk made people blush in the next world. 
 
 " Holt on doo de last ent ! " continued Gottlieb. " It's pout 
 goom ! Kood pye, ole moon ! You koes town, you nebber 
 gooms pack no more already." 
 
 This exhortation might have proceeded in this strain indefi- 
 nitely, to the mortification of August and the amusement of the 
 profane, had there not just at that moment broken upon the 
 sultry stillness of the night one of those crescendo thunder-bursts, 
 beginning in a distant rumble, and swelling out louder and still 
 louder, until it ended with a tremendous detonation. In the 
 strange light of the setting moon, while everybody's attention
 
 THE MIDNIGHT ALARM. 275" 
 
 was engrossed by the excitement, the swift oncoming of a thun- 
 der-cloud had not been observed by any but Andrew, and it 
 had already climbed half-way to the zenith, blotting out a third 
 of the firmament. This inverted thunder-bolt produced a start- 
 ling effect upon the over-strained nerves of the crowd. Some 
 cried out with terror, some sobbed with hysterical agony, some 
 shouted in triumph, and it was generally believed that Virginia 
 "Waters, who died a maniac many years afterward, lost her reason 
 at that moment. Bill Day ceased his mocking, and shook till his 
 teeth chattered. And none of his party dared laugh at him. 
 The moon had now gone, and the vivid lightning followed the 
 thunder, and yet louder and more fearful thunder succeeded 
 the lightning. The people ran about as if demented, and Julia 
 was left alone. August had only one thought in all this con- 
 fusion, and that was to find Julia. Having found her, they 
 clasped hands, and stood upon the brow of the hill calmly 
 watching the coming tempest, believing it to be the coming of 
 the end. Between the claps of thunder they could hear the 
 broken sentences of Elder Hankins, saying something about the 
 lightning that shineth from one part of heaven to the other, and 
 about the promised coming in the clouds. But they did not 
 much heed the words. They were looking the blinding light- 
 ning in the face, and in their courageous trust they thought 
 themselves ready to look into the flaming countenance of the 
 Almighty, if they should be called before Him. Every fresh 
 burst of thunder seemed to August to be the rocking of the 
 world, trembling in the throes of dissolution. But the world 
 might crumble or melt ; there is something more enduring than 
 the world. August felt the everlastingness of love ; as many 
 another man in a supreme crisis has felt it.
 
 276 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 But the swift cloud had already covered half the sky, and 
 the bursts of thunder followed one another now in quicker suc- 
 cession. And as suddenly as the thunder had come, came the 
 wind. A solitary old sycamore, leaning over the water on the 
 Kentucky shore, a mile away, was first to fall. In the lurid dark- 
 ness, August and Julia saw it meet its fate. Then the rail fences 
 on the nearer bank were scattered like kindling-wood, and some 
 of the sturdy old apple-trees of the orchard in the river-bottom 
 were uprooted, while others were stripped of their boughs. 
 Julia clung to August and said something, but he could only see 
 her lips move ; her voice was drowned by the incessant roar of 
 the thunder. And then the hurricane struck them, and they 
 half-ran and were half-carried down the rear slope of the 
 hill. Now they saw for the first time that the people were 
 gone. The instinct of self-preservation had proven stronger 
 than their fanaticism, and a contagious panic had carried them 
 into a hay-barn near by. 
 
 Not knowing where the rest had gone, August and Julia 
 only thought of regaining the castle. They found the path 
 blocked by fallen trees, and it was slow and dangerous work, 
 waiting for flashes of lightning to show them their road. In 
 making a long detour they lost the path. After some minutes, 
 in a lull in the thunder, August heard a shout, which he an- 
 swered, and presently Philosopher Andrew appeared with a lan- 
 tern, his grizzled hair and beard flying in the wind. 
 
 " What ho, my friends ! " he cried. " This is the way you go 
 to heaven together ! You'll live through many a storm yet ! " 
 
 Guided by his thorough knowledge of the ground, they had 
 almost reached the castle, when they were startled by piteous 
 cries. Leaving August with Julia, Andrew climbed a fence, and
 
 THE MIDNIGHT ALARM. 277 
 
 went down into a ravine to find poor Bill Day in an agony of 
 terror, crying out in despair, believing that the day of doom 
 had already come, and that he was about to be sent into well- 
 deserved perdition. Andrew stooped over him with his lantern, 
 but the poor fellow, giving one look at the shaggy face, shrieked 
 madly, and rushed away into the woods. 
 
 " I believe," said the Philosopher, when he got back to August, 
 " I believe he took me for the devil."
 
 278 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 SQUAEING ACCOUNTS. 
 
 HE summer storm had spent itself by daylight, 
 and the sun rose on that morning after the world's 
 end much as it had risen on other mornings, but it 
 looked down upon prostrate trees and scattered fences 
 and roofless barns. And the minds of the people were 
 in much the same disheveled state as the landscape. One simple- 
 minded girl was a maniac. Some declared that the world had 
 ended, and that this was the new earth, if people only had faith 
 to receive it ; some still waited for the end, and with some the 
 reaction from credulity had already set in, a reaction that carried 
 them into the blankest atheism and boldest immorality. People 
 who had spent the summer in looking for a change that would 
 relieve them from all responsibility, now turned reluctantly 
 toward the commonplace drudgery of life. It is the evil of all 
 day-dreaming day-dreaming about the other world included 
 that it unfits us for duty in this world of tangible and inevitable 
 facts. 
 
 It was nearly daylight when Andrew and August and Julia 
 reached the castle. The Philosopher advised Julia to go home,
 
 SQUARING ACCOUNTS. 279 
 
 and for the present to let the marriage be as though it were 
 not. August dreaded to see Julia returned to her mother's 
 tyranny, but Andrew was urgent in his advice, and Julia said that 
 she must not leave her mother in her trouble. Julia reached 
 home a little after daylight, and a little before Mrs. Anderson 
 was brought home in a fit of hysterics. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Abigail still hoped that the end of the world for 
 which she had so fondly prepared would come, but as the days 
 wore on she sank into a numb despondency. When she thought 
 of the loss of her property, she groaned and turned her face to 
 the wall. And Samuel Anderson sat about the house hi a 
 dumb and shiftless attitude, as do most men upon whom finan- 
 cial rum comes hi middle life. The disappointment of his faith 
 and the overthrow of his fortune had completely paralyzed him. 
 He was waiting for something, he hardly knew what. He had 
 not even his wife's driving voice to stimulate him to exertion. 
 
 There was no one now to care for Mrs. Anderson but Julia, 
 for Cynthy had taken up her abode hi the log-cabin which Jonas 
 had bought, and a happier housekeeper never lived. She watched 
 Jonas till he disappeared when he went to work in the morning, 
 she carried him a " snack " at ten o'clock, and he always found her 
 standing " like a picter " at the gate, when he came home to din- 
 ner. But Cynthy Ann generally spent her afternoons at An- 
 derson's, helping " that young thing " to bear her responsibili- 
 ties, though Mrs. Anderson would receive no personal attentions 
 now from any one but her daughter. She did not scold; her 
 querulous restlessness was but a reminiscence of her scolding. 
 She lay, disheartened, watching Julia, and exacting everything 
 from Julia, and the weary feet and weary heart of the girl almost 
 sank under her burdens. Mrs. Anderson had suddenly fallen
 
 280 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 from her position of an exacting tyrant to that of an exacting and 
 helpless infant. She followed Julia with her eyes in a broken- 
 spirited fashion, as if fearing that she would leave her. Julia 
 could read the fear in her mother's countenance ; she understood 
 what her mother meant when she said querulously, " You'll get 
 married and leave me." If Mrs. Anderson had assumed her old 
 high-handed manner, it would have been easy for Julia to have 
 declared her secret. But how could she tell her now ? It would 
 be a blow, it might be a fatal blow. And at the same time how 
 could she satisfy August? He thought she had bowed to the 
 same old tyranny again for an indefinite time. But she could 
 not forsake her parents in their poverty and afflictions. 
 
 The fourteenth of August, the day on which possession was to 
 have been given to Bob Walker, came and went, but no Bob 
 Walker appeared. A week more passed, in which Samuel An- 
 derson could not muster enough courage to go to see Walker, in 
 which Samuel Anderson and his wife waited in a vague hope 
 that something might happen. And every day of that week 
 Julia had a letter from August, which did not say one word of the 
 trial that it was for him to wait, but which said much of the 
 wrong Julia was doing to herself to submit so long. And Julia, 
 like her father and mother, was waiting for she knew not what. 
 
 At last the suspense became to her unendurable. 
 
 " Father," she said, " why don't you go to see Bob Walker? 
 You might buy the farm back again." 
 
 " I don't know why he don't come and take it," said Mr. 
 Anderson dejectedly. 
 
 This conversation roused Mrs. Abigail. There was some hope. 
 She got up in bed, and told Samuel to go to the county-seat and 
 see if the deeds had ever been recorded. And while her husband
 
 SQUARING ACCOUNTS. 281 
 
 was gone she sat up and looked better, and even scolded a little, 
 so that Julia felt encouraged. But she dreaded to see her father 
 come back. 
 
 Samuel Anderson entered the house on his return with a blank 
 countenance. Sitting down, he put his face between his hands 
 a minute in utter dejection. 
 
 " Why don't you speak ? " said Mrs. Anderson in a broken 
 voice. 
 
 " The land was all transferred to Andrew immediately, and he 
 owns every foot of it. He must tave sent Bob Walker here 
 to buy it." 
 
 " Oh ! I'm so glad ! " cried Julia. 
 
 But her mother only gave her oue reproachful look and went 
 off into hysterical sobbing and crying over the wrong that 
 Andrew had done her. And all that night Julia watched by 
 her mother, while Samuel Anderson sat in dejection by the bed. 
 As for Norman, he had quickly relapsed into his old habits, and 
 his former cronies had generously forgiven, him his temporary 
 piety, considering the peculiar circumstances of the case some 
 extenuation. Now that there was trouble hi the house he staid 
 away, which was a good thing so far as it went. 
 
 The next afternoon Mrs. Anderson rallied a little, and, looking 
 at Julia, she said in her querulous way, " Why don't you go and 
 see him ? " 
 
 t; Who ? " said Julia with a shiver, afraid that her mother was 
 insane. 
 
 " Andrew." 
 
 Julia did not need any second hint. Leaving her mother 
 with Cynthy, she soon presented herself at the door of the castle. 
 
 " Did she send you? " asked Andrew dryly.
 
 282 THE END OP THE WORLD. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " I've been expecting you for a long time. I'll go back with 
 you. But August must go along. He'll be glad of an excuse 
 to see your face again. You look thin, my poor girl." 
 
 They went past Wehle's, and August was only too glad to join 
 them, rejoicing that some sort of a crisis had come, though how 
 it was to help him he did not know. With the restlessness of a 
 man looking for some indefinable thing to turn up, Samuel was 
 out on the porch waiting the return of his daughter. Jonas had 
 come for Cynthy Ann, and was sitting on a " shuck-bottom " 
 chair in front of the house. 
 
 Andrew reached out his hand and greeted his brother cor- 
 dially, and spoke civilly to Abigail. Then there was a pause, 
 and Mrs. Anderson turned her head to the wall and groaned. 
 After a while she looked round and saw August. A little of her 
 old indignation came into her eyes as she whimpered, " What 
 did Tie come for ? " 
 
 " I brought him," said Andrew. 
 
 " Well, it's your house, do as you please. I suppose you'll 
 turn us out of our own home now." 
 
 "As you did me," said the Philosopher, smiling. "Let me 
 remind you that I was living on the river farm. My father had 
 promised it to me, and given me possession. A week before his 
 death you got the will changed, by what means you know. 
 You turned me off the farm which had virtually been mine for 
 two years. If I turn you off now, it will be no more than fair." 
 
 There was a look of pained surprise on Julia's face. She had 
 not known that the wrong her uncle had suffered was so great. 
 She had not thought that he would be so severe as to turn 
 her father out.
 
 SQUARING ACCOUNTS. 283 
 
 "I don't want to talk of these things," Andrew went on. 
 " I ought to have broken the will, but I was not a believer in 
 the law. I tell this story now because I must justify myself 
 to these young people for what I am going to do. You have 
 had the use of that part of the estate which was rightfully 
 mine for twenty years. I suppose I may claim it all now." 
 
 Julia's eyes looked at him pleadingly. 
 
 " Why don't you send us off and be done with it then ? " said 
 Mrs. Abigail, rising up and resuming her old vehemence. " You 
 set out to ruin us, and now you've done it. A nice brother you 
 are ! Ruining us by a conspiracy with Bob Walker, and then 
 sitting here and trying to make my own daughter think you did 
 right, and bringing that hateful fellow here to hear it!" Her 
 finger was leveled at August. 
 
 " I am glad to see you are better, Abigail. I wanted to be 
 sure you were strong enough to bear all I have to say." 
 
 " Say your worst and do your worst, you cruel, cruel man ! I 
 have borne enough from you in these years, and now you can say 
 and do what you please ; you, can't do me any more harm. I 
 suppose I must leave my old home that I've lived in so long." 
 
 "You need not worry yourself about leaving; that's what I 
 came over to say." 
 
 "As if I'd stay in your house an hour! I'll not take any 
 favors at your hand." 
 
 "Don't be rash, Abigail. I have deeded this hill farm to 
 Samuel, and here is the deed. I have given you back the best 
 half of the property, just what my father meant you to have. 
 I have only kept the river land, that should have been mine 
 twenty years ago. I hope you will not stick to your resolution 
 not to receive anything at my hand."
 
 284 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 And Julia said : " Oh ! I'm so ". 
 
 But Mrs. Anderson had a convenient fit of hysterics, crying 
 piteously. Meantime Samuel gladly accepted the deed. 
 
 " The deed is already recorded. I sent it down yesterday as 
 soon as I saw Samuel come back, and I got it back this morn- 
 ing. The farm is yours without condition." 
 
 This relieved Abigail, and she soon ceased her sobbing. 
 Andrew could not take it back then, whatever she might 
 say. 
 
 " Now," said Andrew, " I have only divided the farms with- 
 out claiming any damages. I want to ask a favor. Let Julia 
 marry the man of her choice in peace." 
 
 "You have taken one farm, and therefore I must let my 
 daughter marry a man with nothing but his two hands," sobbed 
 Mrs. Anderson. 
 
 " Two hands and a good head and a noble heart," said 
 Andrew. 
 
 " Well, I won't consent," said she. " If Julia marries him" 
 pointing to August, "she will marry without my consent, and 
 he will not get a cent of the money he's after. Not a red cent ! " 
 
 " I don't want your money. I did not know you'd get your 
 farm back, for I did not know but that Walker owned it, and 
 I wanted Julia all the same." August had almost told that 
 he had married Julia. 
 
 "Wanted her and married her," said Andrew. "And I have 
 not kept a corn-stalk of the property I got from you. I have 
 given Bob Walker a ten-acre patch for his services, and all the 
 rest I have deeded to the two best people I know. This August 
 Wehle married Julia Anderson when they thought the world 
 might be near its end, and believing that, at any rate, she would
 
 SQUARING ACCOUNTS. 285 
 
 not have a penny in the world. I have deeded the river farm to 
 August Wehle and his wife." 
 
 " Married, eh ? Come and ask my consent afterwards ? 
 That's a fine way ! " And Abigail grew white and grew silent 
 with passion. 
 
 " Come, August, I want to show you and Julia something," 
 said Andrew. He really wanted to give Abigail time to look the 
 matter in the face quietly before she committed herself too far. 
 But he told the two young people that they might make their 
 home with him while then* house was in building. He had 
 already had part of the material drawn, and from the brow 
 of the hill they looked down upon the site he had chosen near 
 the old tumble-down tenant's house. But Andrew saw that 
 Julia looked disappointed. 
 
 "You are not satisfied, my brave girl. What is the matter?" 
 
 " Oh ! yes, I am very happy, and very thankful to you ; and 
 next to August I love you more than anybody except my 
 parents." 
 
 " But something is different to what you wished it. Doesn't 
 the site suit you ? You can look off on to the river from the rise 
 on which the house will stand, and I do not know how it could 
 be better." 
 
 "It couldn't be better," said Julia, "but ' 
 
 " But what ? You must tell me." 
 
 " I thought maybe you'd let us live at the castle and take the 
 burden of things off you. I should like to keep your house for 
 you, just to show you how much I love my dear, good uncle." 
 
 Even an anchorite could not help feeling a pleasure at such a 
 speech from such a young woman, and this shaggy, solitary, mis- 
 anthropic but tender-hearted man felt a sudden rush of pleasure.
 
 286 THE END OP THE WOULD. 
 
 August saw it, and was delighted. What one's nearest friend 
 thinks of one's wife is a vital question, and August was happier 
 at this moment than he had ever been. Andrew's pleasure at 
 Julia's loving speech was the climax. 
 
 " Yes ! " said the Philosopher, a little huskily. " You want to 
 sacrifice your pleasure by living in my gloomy old castle, and 
 civilizing an old heathen like me. You mustn't tempt me too 
 far." 
 
 " I don't see why you call it gloomy. It wasn't only for your 
 sake that I said it. I think it is the nicest old house I ever saw. 
 And then the books, and and you." Julia stumbled a little, she 
 was not accustomed to make speeches of this sort. 
 
 "You flatterer!" burst out Andrew. "But no, you must 
 have your own house." 
 
 Mrs. Anderson, on her part, had concluded to make the best 
 of it. Julia already married and the mistress of the Anderson 
 river farm was quite a different thing from Julia under her 
 thumb. She was to be conciliated. Besides, Mrs. Anderson did 
 not want Julia's prosperity to be a lifelong source of humiliation 
 to her. She must take some stock in it at the start. 
 
 " Jule," she said, as her daughter re-entered the door, " I can 
 let you have two feather-beds and four pillows, and a good 
 stock of linen and blankets. And you can have the two heifers 
 and the sorrel colt." 
 
 The two " heifers " were six, and the sorrel " colt " was seven 
 years of age ; but descriptive names often outlive the qualities 
 to which they owed their origin. Just as a judge is even yet 
 addressed as "your honor," and many a governor without any- 
 thing to recommend him hears himself called " your excellency." 
 
 When Abigail surrendered in this graceful fashion, Julia was
 
 SQUARING ACCOUNTS. 287 
 
 touched, and was on the point of putting her arms around her 
 mother and kissing her. But Mrs. Anderson was not a person 
 easily caressed, and Julia did not yield to her impulse. 
 
 " Cynthy Ann, my dear," said Jonas, as they walked home 
 that evening, " do you know what Abig'il Anderson reminds 
 me of?" 
 
 No ; Cynthy Ann didn't exactly know. In fact, it would have 
 been difficult for anybody to have told what anything was likely 
 to remind Jonas of. There was no knowing what a thing 
 might not suggest to him. 
 
 " Well, Cynthy, my Imperial Sweetness, when I see Abig'il 
 come down so beautiful, it reminded me of a little fice-t dog I 
 had when I was a leetle codger. I called him Pick. His name 
 was Picayune. Purty good name, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes, it was." 
 
 " Well, now, that air little Pick wouldn't never own up as 
 he was driv outen the house. When he was whipped out, he 
 wouldn't never tuck his tail down, but curl it up over his back, 
 and run acrost the yard and through the fence and down the 
 road a-barkin' fit to kill. Wanted to let on like as ef he'd run 
 out of his own accord, with malice aforethought, you know. 
 Thafa Abig'il."
 
 288 THE END OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 NEW PLANS. 
 
 XCEPT Abigail Anderson and one other person, 
 everybody in the little world of Clark town- 
 
 ship approved mightily the justice and disinterest- 
 edness of Andrew. He had righted himself and 
 Julia at a stroke, and people dearly love to have 
 justice dealt out when it is not at their own expense. Samuel, 
 who cherished in secret a great love for his daughter, was 
 more than pleased that affairs had turned out hi this way. But 
 there was one beside Abigail who was not wholly satisfied. 
 August spent half the night in protesting in vain against 
 Andrew's transfer of the river-farm to him. But Andrew said 
 he had a right to give away his own if he chose. And there 
 was no turning him. For if August refused a share in it, he 
 would give it to Julia, and if she refused it, he would find 
 somebody who would accept it. 
 
 The next day after the settlement at Samuel Anderson's, 
 August came to claim his wife. Mrs. Abigail had now em- 
 ployed a "help" in Cynthy Ann's place, and Julia could be 
 spared. August had refused all invitations to take up his 
 temporary residence with Julia's parents. The house had un-
 
 NKAV PLANS. 289 
 
 pleasant associations in his mind, and he wanted to relieve 
 Julia at once and forever from a despotism to which she 
 coulJ not offer any effectual resistance. Mrs. Anderson had 
 eagerly loaded the wagon with feather-beds and other bridal 
 property, and sent it over to the castle, that Julia might ap- 
 pear to leave with her blessing. She kissed Julia tenderly, and 
 hoped she'd have a happy life, and told her that if her hus- 
 band should ever lose his property or treat her badly such 
 things may happen, you know then she would always find 
 a home with her mother. Julia thanked her for the offer of 
 a refuge to which she never meant to flee under any circum- 
 stances. And yet one never turns away from one's home 
 without regret, and Julia looked back with tears in her eyes at 
 the chattering swifts whose nests were in the parlor chimney, 
 and at the pee-wee chirping on the gate-post. The place had 
 entered into her life. It looked lonesome now, but within a 
 year afterward Norman suddenly married Betsey Malcolm. 
 Betsey's child had died soon after its birth, and Mrs. Anderson 
 set herself to manage both Norman and his wife, who took up 
 their abode with her. Nothing but a reign of terror could 
 have made either of them of any account, but Mrs. Anderson 
 furnished them this in any desirable quantity. They were 
 never of much worth, even under her management, but she kept 
 them in bounds, so that Norman ceased to get drunk more 
 than five or six times a year, and Betsey flirted but little and 
 at her peril. 
 
 Once the old house was out of sight, there were no shad- 
 ows on Julia's face as she looked forward toward the new 
 life. She walked in a still happiness by August as they went 
 down through Shady Hollow. August had intended to show
 
 290 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 her a letter that he had from the mud-clerk, describing the 
 bringing of Humphreys back to Paducah and his execution 
 by a mob. But there was something so repelling in the gusto 
 with which the story was told, and the story was so awful 
 in itself, that he could not bear to interrupt the peaceful hap- 
 piness of this hour by saying anything about it. 
 
 August proposed to Julia that they should take a path 
 through the meadow of the river-farm their own farm now 
 and see the foundation of the little cottage Andrew had be- 
 gun for them. And so hi happiness they walked on through 
 the meadow-path to the place on which their home was to 
 stand. But, alas ! there was not a stick of timber left. Every 
 particle of the material had been removed. It seemed that 
 some great disappointment threatened them at the moment of 
 their happiness. They hurried on in silent foreboding to the 
 castle, but there the mystery was explained. 
 
 "I told you not to tempt me too far," said Andrew. 
 *'See! I have concluded to build an addition to the castle and 
 let you civilize me. We will live together and I will reform. 
 This lonely life is not healthy, and now that I have children, 
 why should I not let them live here with me ? " 
 
 Julia looked happy. I have no authentic information in 
 regard to the exact words which she made use of to express 
 her joy, but from what is known of girls of her age in gen- 
 eral, it is safe to infer that she exclajpaed, " Oh ! I'm so glad ! '* 
 
 While Andrew stood there smiling, with Julia near him, 
 August having gone to the assistance of the carpenters in a. 
 matter demanding a little more ingenuity than they possessed, 
 Jonas came up and drew the Philosopher aside. Julia could 
 not hoar what was said, but she saw Andrew's brow contract.
 
 NEW PLANS. 291 
 
 " I'll shoot as sure as they come ! " he said with passion. 
 " I won't have my niece or August insulted in my house by 
 a parcel of vagabonds." 
 
 " O Uncle Andrew ! is it a shiveree ? " asked Julia. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, don't shoot. It'll be so funny to have a shiveree." 
 
 " But it is an insult to you and to August 'and to me. This 
 is meant especially to be an expression of their feeling toward 
 August as a German, though really their envy of his good for- 
 tune has much to do with it. It is a second edition of the 
 riot of last spring, in which Gottlieb came so near to being 
 killed. Now, I mean to do my country service by leaving one 
 or two less of them alive if they come here to-night." For 
 Andrew was full of that destructive energy so characteristic of 
 the Western and Southern people. 
 
 "Oh! no, don't shoot. Can't you think of some other 
 way?" pleaded Julia. 
 
 " Well, yes, I could get the sheriff to come and bag a few 
 of them." 
 
 "And that will make trouble for many years. Let me see. 
 Can't we do this ? " And Julia rapidly unfolded to Andrew 
 and Jonas her plan of operations against the enemy. 
 
 " Number one ! " said Jonas. " They'll fall into that air 
 amby-scade as sure as shootin'. That plan is military and 
 Christian and civilized and human and angelical and tancy- 
 crumptious. It ort to meet the 'proval of the American Fish- 
 hawk with all his pinions and talents. I'll help to execute it, 
 and beat the rascals or lay my bones a-bleachin' on the desert 
 sands of Shady Holler." 
 
 "Well," said Andrew to Julia, "I knew, if I took you un-
 
 292 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 der my roof, you'd make a Christian of me in spite of myself. 
 And I am a sort of savage, that's a fact." 
 
 Jonas hurried home and sent Cynthy over to the castle, and 
 there was much work going on that afternoon. Andrew said 
 that the castle was being made ready for its first siege. As 
 night came on", Julia was in a perfect glee. Reddened by 
 standing over the' stove, with sleeves above her elbows and her 
 black hair falling down upon her shoulders, she was such a 
 picture that August stopped and stood in the door a minute to 
 look at her as he came in to supper. 
 
 " Why, Jule, how glorious you look ! " he said. " I've a 
 great mind to fall in love with you, mein Liebchen ! " 
 
 " And I have fallen in love with you, Caesar Augustus ! " 
 And well she might, for surely, as he stood in the door with 
 his well-knit frame, his fine German forehead, his pure, refined 
 mouth, and his clear, honest, amiable blue eyes, he was a man 
 to fall in love with.
 
 THE SHIVEREE. 293 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 THE SHIVEREE. 
 
 'F Webster's "American Dictionary of the Eng- 
 lish Language " had not been made wholly in 
 New England, it would not have lacked so many 
 words that do duty as native-born or naturalized 
 citizens in large sections of the United States, and 
 among these words is the one that stands at the head of the 
 present chapter. I know that some disdainful prig will assure 
 me that it is but a corruption of the French "charivari" and 
 so it is ; but then " charivari " is a corruption of the low Latin 
 " charivarium" and that is a corruption of something else, and, 
 indeed, almost every word is a corruption of some other word. 
 So that there is no good reason why " shiveree," which lives 
 in entire unconsciousness of its French parentage and its Latin 
 grand-parentage, should not find its place in an "American 
 Dictionary." 
 
 But while I am writing a disquisition on the etymology of 
 the word, the- " shiveree" is mustering at MandlufFs store. 
 Bill Day has concluded that he is hi no immediate danger of 
 perdition, and that a man is a "blamed fool to git skeered 
 about his soul." Bob Short is sure the Almighty will not be 
 too hard on a feller, and so thinks he will go on having "a
 
 294 THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 little fun" now and then. And among the manly recreations 
 which they have proposed to themselves is that of shivereeing 
 
 " that Dutchman, Gus Wehle." It is the solemn opinion of 
 
 * 
 
 the whole crowd that "no Dutchman hadn't orter be so lucky 
 as to git sech a beauty of a gal and a hundred acres of bot- 
 tom lands to boot." 
 
 The members of the party were all disguised, some in one 
 way and some in another, though most of them had their 
 coats inside out. They thought it necessary to be disguised, 
 " bekase, you know, " as Bill Day expressed it, " ole Grizzly is 
 apt to prosecute ef he gits evidence agin you." And many 
 were the conjectures as' to whether he would shoot or not. 
 
 The instruments provided by this orchestra were as various 
 as then: musical tastes. It is likely that even Mr. Jubilee Gil- 
 more never saw such an outfit. Bob Short had a dumb-bull, 
 a keg with a strip of raw-hide stretched across one end like 
 a drum-head, while the other remained open. A waxed cord 
 inserted in the middle of the drum-head, and reaching down 
 through the keg, completed the instrument. The pulling of 
 the hand over this cord made a hideous bellowing, hence 
 its name. Bill Day had a gigantic watchman's rattle, a 
 hickory spring on a cog-wheel. It is called in the West a 
 horse-fiddle, because it is so unlike either a horse or a fiddle. 
 Then there were melodious tin pans and conch-shells and tin 
 horns. But the most deadly noise was made by Jim West, who 
 had two iron skillet-lids ("leds" he called them) which, when 
 placed face to face, and rubbed, as you have seen children 
 rub tumblers, made a sound discordant and deafening enough 
 to have suggested Milton's expression about the hinges which 
 "grated harsh thunder."
 
 THE SHIVEREK. 295 
 
 One of this party was a tallish man, so dressed as to look 
 like a hunchback, and a hunchback so tall was a most singu- 
 lar figure. He had joined them in the dark, and the rest 
 were unable to guess who it could be, and he, for his part, 
 would not tell. They thumped him and pushed him, but at 
 each attack he only leaped from the ground like a circus 
 clown, and made his tin horn utter so doleful a complaint as 
 set the party in an uproar of laughter. They could not be 
 sure who he was, but he was a funny fellow to have along 
 with them at any rate. 
 
 He was not only funny, but he was evidently fearless. For 
 when they came to the castle it was all dark and still. Bill 
 Day said that it looked " powerful juberous to him. Ole Andy 
 meant to use shootin'-ir'ns, and didn't want to be pestered with 
 no lights blazin' in his eyes." But the tall hunchback cleared 
 the fence at a bound, and told them to come on " ef they had 
 the sperrit of a two-weeks-old goslin into 'em." So the bottle 
 was passed round, and for very shame they followed their un- 
 gainly leader. 
 
 " Looky here, boys," said the hunchback, " they's one way 
 that we can fix it so's ole Grizzly can't shoot. They's a little 
 shop-place, a sort of a shed, agin the house, on the side next 
 to the branch. Let's git in thar afore we begin, and he can't 
 shoot." 
 
 The orchestra were a little stupefied with drink, and they 
 took the idea quickly, never stopping to ask how they could 
 retreat if Andrew chose to shoot. Jim West thought things 
 looked scaly, but he warn't agoin' to backslide arter he'd got 
 so fur. 
 
 When they got into Andrew's shop, where he had a new
 
 296 THE E3O) OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and beautiful skiff in building, the tall hunchback shut the door, 
 and the rest did not notice that he put the key in his pocket. 
 
 That serenade ! Such a medley of discordant sounds, such 
 a clatter and clangor, such a rattle of horse-fiddle, such a bel- 
 lowing of dumb-bull, such a snorting of tin horns, such a ring- 
 ing of tin pans, such a grinding of skillet-lids ! But the house 
 remained quiet. Once Bill Day thought that he heard a laugh 
 within. Julia may have lost her self-control. She was so 
 happy, and a little unrestrained fun was so strange a luxury ! 
 
 At last the door between the house and shop was suddenly 
 opened, and Julia, radiant as she could be, stood on the thresh- 
 old with a candle in her hand. 
 
 " Come in, gentlemen." 
 
 But the gentlemen essayed to go out. 
 
 " Locked in, by thunder ! " said Jim West, trying the out- 
 side door of the shop. 
 
 " We heard you were coming, gentlemen, and provided a 
 little entertainment. Come in !" 
 
 " Come in, boys," said the hunchback, " don't be afeard of 
 nobody." ''< 
 
 Mechanically they followed the hunchback into the room, 
 for there was nothing else to be done. A smell of hot coffee 
 and the sight of a well-spread table greeted their senses. 
 
 "Welcome, my friends, thrice welcome!" said Andrew. 
 "Put down your instruments and have some supper." 
 
 "Let me relieve you," said Julia, and she took the dumb- 
 bull from Bob Short and the " horse-fiddle " from Day, the tin 
 horns and tin pans from others, and the two skillet-lids from 
 Jim West, who looked as sheepish as possible. August es- 
 corted each of them to the table, though his face did not look
 
 THE SHIVEUEE. 297 
 
 altogether cordial. Some old resentment for the treatment of 
 his father interfered with the heartiness of his hospitality. The 
 hunchback in this light proved to be Jonas; of course; and 
 Bill Day whispered to the one next to him that they had 
 been " tuck in and done fer that time." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Andrew, " we are much obliged for your 
 music." And Cynthy would certainly have laughed out if she 
 had not been so perplexed in her mind to know whether An- 
 drew was speaking the truth. 
 
 Such a motley set of wedding guests as they were, with 
 their coats inside out and their other disguises ! Such a race 
 of pied pipers ! And looking at their hangdog faces you would 
 have said, "Such a lot of sheep- thieves !" Though why a 
 sheep-thief is considered to be a more guilty-looking man than 
 any other criminal, I do not know. Jonas looked bright 
 enough and ridiculous enough with his hunch. They all ate 
 rather heartily, for how could they resist the attentions of 
 Cynthy Ann and the persuasions of Julia, who poured them 
 coffee and handed them biscuit, and waited upon them as 
 though they were royal guests ! And, moreover, the act of 
 eating served to cover their confusion. 
 
 As the meal drew to a close, Bill Day felt that he, being in 
 some sense the leader of the party, ought to speak. He was 
 not quite sober, though he could stand without much staggering. 
 He had been trying for some time to frame a little speech, but 
 his faculties did not work smoothly. 
 
 " Mr. President I mean Mr. Anderson permit me to offer 
 you our pardon. I mean to beg your apologies to ahem 
 hope that our *that your our thousand thanks your you 
 know what I mean." And he sat down in foolish confusion.
 
 298 THE END OP THE WORLD. 
 
 " Oh 1 yes. All right; much obliged, my friend," said the 
 Philosopher, who had not felt so much boyish animal life hi 
 twenty-five years. 
 
 And Jim West whispered to Bill : " You expressed my 
 sentiments exactly." 
 
 "Mr. Anderson," said Jonas, rising, and thus lifting up his 
 hunched shoulders and looking the picture of a long-legged 
 heron standing in the water, " Mr. Anderson, you and our 
 young and happy friend, Mr. "Wehle, will accept our thanks. 
 "We thought that music was all you wanted to gin a delight- 
 ful kinder sorter well, top-dressin', to this interestin' occa- 
 sion. Now they's nothin' sweeter' n a tin horn, 'thout 'tis a 
 melodious conch-shell utterin' its voice like a turkle-dove. 
 Then we've got the paytent double whirlymagig hoss-violeen, 
 and the tin pannyforte, and, better nor all, the grindin' skellet- 
 led cymbals. We've laid ourselves out and done our purtiest 
 hain't we, feller-musicians? to prove that we was the best'* 
 band on the Ohio River. An' all out of affection and respect 
 for this ere happy pair. And we're all happy to be here. 
 Hain't we ? " (Here they all nodded assent, though they 
 looked as though they wished themselves far enough.) " Our 
 enstruments is a leetle out of toon, owin' to the dampness of 
 the night air, and so I trust you'll excuse us playin' a fare- 
 well piece." 
 
 Jim West was so anxious to get away that he took ad- 
 vantage of this turn to say good-evening, and though the mis- 
 chievous Julia insisted that he should select his instrument, he 
 had not the face to confess to the skillet-lids, and got out of 
 it by assuring her that he hadn't brought nothing, "only come 
 along to see the fun." And each member of the party re-
 
 THE SHIVEREE. 299 
 
 peated the transparent lie, so that Julia found herself supplied 
 with more musical instruments than any young housekeeper 
 need want, and Andrew hung them, horns, pans, conch-shell, 
 dumb-bull, horse-fiddle, skillet-lids, and all, hi his library, as 
 trophies captured from the enemy. 
 
 Much as I should like to tell you of the later events of 
 the Philosopher's life, and about Julia and August, and their 
 oldest son, whose name is Andrew, and all that, I do not know 
 that I can do better than to bow myself out with the abashed 
 serenaders, letting this musical epilogue harmoniously close 
 the book ; writing just here, 
 
 THE END.
 
 THE 
 
 Hoosier School-Master. 
 
 By EDWARD EGG-LESTON. 
 
 Finely Illustrated, wltli 12 full-page Engravings on 
 Tinted Paper, and Numerous other Cuts. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
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 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII, 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 I, 
 II, 
 
 ra, 
 
 IV. 
 V. 
 VI. 
 
 vn, 
 
 VIII, 
 IX. 
 
 x. 
 
 XI, 
 XII, 
 XIII. 
 XIV. 
 XV, 
 XVI. 
 XVII. 
 XVIII. 
 XIX. 
 XX. 
 XXI. 
 XXII. 
 XXIII, 
 XXIV, 
 XXV. 
 XXVI, 
 XXVII. 
 
 A Private Lesson from a Bull-dog. 
 
 A Spell Coming. 
 
 Mirandy, Hank, and Shocky. 
 Spelling down the Master. 
 
 -The Walk Home. 
 
 A Night at Pete Jones's. 
 
 -Ominous Remarks of Mr. Jones. 
 
 -The Struggle in the Dark. 
 
 Has God Forgotten Shocky ? 
 
 -The Devil of Silence. 
 
 -Miss Martha Hawkins. 
 
 -The Hardshell Preacher. 
 
 -A Struggle for the Mastery. 
 
 -A Crisis with Bud. 
 
 -The Church of the Best Licka. 
 
 -The Church Militant. 
 
 -A Council of War. 
 Odds and Ends. 
 
 -Face to Face. 
 
 God Remembers Shocky. 
 Miss Nancy Sawyer. 
 
 Pancakes. 
 
 A Charitable Institution. 
 
 The Good Samaritan. 
 
 Bud Wooing. 
 
 A Letter and its Consequences. 
 
 -A Loss and a Gain. 
 
 The Flight. 
 
 The TriaL 
 
 " Brother Sodom." 
 
 The Trial Concluded. 
 
 After the Battle. 
 
 Into the Light. 
 
 " How it Came Out." 
 
 Ixlcc, post-paid., $1.35. 
 
 JTJI3D &> COMPANY. 
 
 H 4, 5 J*KOAI>WA.Y, NEW-YORK.
 
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