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 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN
 
 Books by the Same Author 
 
 THE IDYL or TWIN FIRES 
 
 THE AMERICAN STAGE or TO-DAT 
 
 AT THE NEW THEATRE AND OTHERS 
 
 BARN DOORS AND BYWAYS 
 
 BOY Scours OF BERKSHIRE 
 
 BOY Scours IN THE DISMAL SWAMP 
 
 BOY Scours IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 
 
 BOY Scours or THE WILD CAT PATROL 
 
 THE RUNAWAY PLACE (With Elise Under kiti) 
 
 THE MAN WHO FOUND CHRISTMAS
 
 "The Bird House Man looked into the blue eyes raised to 
 his and blinked behind his glasses, 'None of your nonsense !' 
 he cried, 'With whom did you go to that dance ?' "
 
 THE 
 BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 BY 
 WALTER PRICHARD EATON 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 BY 
 THOMAS FOGAETY 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YOBJC 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1916
 
 Copyright, 1916, by 
 WALTER PRICHARD EATON 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
 corruoHT, 1915, 1916, a* TBI reiLUM FOBUSHWO cewPAinr
 
 To 
 MEREDITH NICHOLSON 
 
 2135262
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PACE 
 
 I. THE SONG SPARROW S 
 
 II. THE WREN . 89 
 
 HI. THE LITTLE GRAY GOOSE 68 
 
 IV, THE HERMIT 81 
 
 V. THE JACKDAW - . , 110 
 
 VI. THE WILD DUCK 141 
 
 VII. THE MEADOW LARKS 175 
 
 VIII. THE CHICKADEE . . - 197 
 
 IX. THE GOLDFINCH 226 
 
 X. THE PAMPERED FLEDGLING 263 
 
 XI. THE WHIP-POOR-WILL. . . . **. . . .298 
 
 XII. THE HOMING PIGEON . S27 
 
 vii
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " The Bird House Man looked into the blue 
 eyes raised to his and blinked behind his 
 glasses. * None of your nonsense!' he cried. 
 * With whom did you go to that dance ? ' " 
 
 (Se page 8) Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PACB 
 
 ' Yes, she went on . . . ' You must go 
 with me, because if it hadn't been for you 
 he would never have met me. You were 
 to blame in the first place.' " 78 
 
 " ' I can't help looking at you, because I love 
 you. Yes, I do, I love you!'" .... 170
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SONG SPARROW 
 
 THE garden of the Bird House Man was the 
 oddest garden in Southmead. Some visitors de- 
 clared they had never seen its like anywhere. It 
 lay behind a little rambling white house on the edge 
 of the village, and was quite invisible from the road, 
 because the lot was narrow and that part of the 
 frontage not occupied by the house was nearly filled 
 by the shop, a pleasant little building also painted 
 white with bright green shutters. In front of this 
 shop, on weathered poles, were samples of bird 
 houses, and on the foremost pole, beneath a little 
 martin house, swung out a wooden sign which creaked 
 in the wind, and bore in gilt letters this legend: 
 
 FARNUM'S FAMOUS BIRD HOUSES 
 
 But when you passed between the shop and the 
 house you found that the lot ran back several acres, 
 bounded on either side by a thick hemlock hedge 
 twenty feet high which completely shut it off from 
 the world. At first the garden was a riot of little 
 
 8
 
 flower beds separated by sanded paths, with two 
 big maples on either side, and in the centre two 
 elaborate bird baths which flanked a sundial, baths 
 made of white cement and marble dust in the shape 
 of large toadstools inverted on their stems. A num- 
 ber of weathered gray bird boxes and feeding tables 
 were nailed to the trees or stood on poles amid the 
 beds, one or two swinging from the trees like lan- 
 terns; one, on a very tall pole, was a perfect repro- 
 duction, even to the shutters, of Alec Farnum's 
 dwelling. If you followed the central path of this 
 garden and passed the sundial, across a bit of green 
 lawn and through a neat vegetable area, you came 
 to a downward slope leading to a little pond sur- 
 rounded by great masses of iris, riotous in June; 
 beyond the pond stood a little grove of tamaracks, 
 and then a quarter-acre of shrubby cinquefoil. This 
 cinquefoil thicket was surrounded by a high wire 
 fence, with a barbed line all along the top of it, and 
 half hidden hi the tamaracks was what appeared to 
 be a chicken house, painted green. It was reached 
 by a rustic bridge over the dam at the left side of the 
 garden, for the pond had been artificially enlarged. 
 
 The real charm of this garden end, however, came 
 from the occupants. On the grassy slope between 
 you and the irised rim of the pond, a slope where two 
 or three gnarled old apple trees sprawled in Japanese
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 5 
 
 picturesqueness, a cock pheasant was usually walk- 
 ing with his wives behind him, the sun shining on 
 his iridescent neck feathers, his long tail sweeping 
 like the rudder of an aeroplane. Sometimes a pheas- 
 ant or two would be perched in the apple trees, un- 
 seen, and astonish you by fluttering down at your 
 feet. Beyond the slope, on the surface of the pond, 
 ducks were swimming, not the heavy domestic sort, 
 but beautiful wild mallards. You became con- 
 scious, too, in the June sunlight, in this quiet garden, 
 of a wealth of bird song not to be explained by your 
 close proximity to the wooded hills which pressed 
 close in about Southmead. Song sparrows were 
 singing all about you one swayed in the top of a 
 hemlock in the hedge, sharp against the sky, so that 
 you could see his little throat flutter. An oriole 
 flashed in the apple tree, swallowed a caterpillar, 
 and poured out a blessing on the feast. The robins 
 were busy. A catbird mewed in the tamarack 
 thicket. There was even the indescribable sweet 
 call of a wood thrush. 
 
 But on the June morning which particularly con- 
 cerns us there was another song besides. It came 
 from the throat of a girl who was standing amid the 
 iris clumps at the edge of the pool, watching the 
 ducks. She stopped singing long enough to call, 
 "Good morning, Bert," at the figure of a man mov-
 
 C THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 ing about in the pen of the bird house across the 
 pond, and then she began again, turning slowly and 
 passing up the slope toward the house. A cock 
 pheasant stepped out of the path just far enough to 
 avoid contact, and watched her go by. She paused 
 in her song once more and said, "Good morning, 
 Sir Rupert." 
 
 When she reached the flower garden, two chipping 
 sparrows and a robin were contending for the pos- 
 session of one of the bird baths; the other, twenty 
 feet away, was unoccupied. She had to stop sing- 
 ing a third time to point out to them that their 
 strife was quite childish and unnecessary; then she 
 moved along a side path bordered with foxglove, 
 and selected a stem of white bells flecked with pink, 
 which she picked and pinned across her breast. 
 
 "He won't mind," she said, hah* aloud. 
 
 After that she walked to the back door of the little 
 white shop, and entered. 
 
 The owner of the garden and the maker of Far- 
 num's Famous Bird Houses looked up from his work- 
 bench in feigned surprise. 
 
 "Oh, it's only you, is it?" he said, with an air of 
 great disappointment. " I thought a nightingale had 
 somehow strayed into my garden." 
 
 "You don't seem very glad that it's me," said the 
 girl.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 7 
 
 "Well, why should I be?" said the Bird House 
 Man, laying down the saw he held in his hand. 
 "In the first place, you say 'It's me'; and, in the 
 second place, last night was your night to come to 
 the Bird House and sing; and you go traipsing off 
 to a dance instead with some young fellow not half 
 so interesting nor so handsome as I am." 
 
 The girl laughed. 
 
 "And you've been stealing one of my foxgloves, 
 into the bargain," he added. 
 
 "But doesn't it look pretty where it is?" she asked. 
 
 The man surveyed her gravely as she stood in the 
 open doorway with the June sunlight behind her. 
 She was slender and rather tall than short, with blue 
 eyes and delicate features, with a mouth that smiled, 
 but could, you felt, be very wistful. For all her 
 plain white dress, you would have turned a second 
 time to gaze upon her when she passed, for she was 
 virginal and lovely, and her little bare throat curved 
 to her hidden shoulders adorably. Now she was 
 smiling and awaiting the man's reply. 
 
 He didn't answer at once, but seemed to be pon- 
 dering the question. He was a big man, not at all 
 the gentle, mild old fellow you might have inferred 
 from his garden and his occupation. His hair was 
 gray and there was gray in his small, pointed beard; 
 but he was hard and brown, with eyes bright behind
 
 8 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 his gold spectacles, and he carried himself like a man 
 of forty. He wore his trousers with a belt, like a 
 youngster, and had the air, indeed, less of a workman 
 than a well-preserved professor pottering with a 
 hobby. 
 
 "Well!" she said finally, assuming a pout, "doesn't 
 it look nice?" 
 
 "With whom did you go to that dance?" he de- 
 manded. 
 
 "I won't tell you when you ask me that way. Be- 
 sides, it's none of your business," she laughed. 
 
 "Ho, isn't it! You think you can play the tyrant 
 over me, do you? Well, maybe you can, up to a 
 certain point. But there is always a limit. You've 
 made me go to church, I admit, but you shan't 
 dictate how I shall ask questions!" 
 
 "7 made you go to church?" 
 
 "Yes, you! Do you think I'd ever set foot in 
 that stuffy mausoleum of dead creeds and hear that 
 young, soft-faced rector admire his own platitudes, 
 when I might be out watching a mother partridge 
 play broken wing, if you didn't sing in the choir?" 
 
 The girl came close to him, raising her face to his. 
 "Who was the good fairy that had me taught to 
 sing? " she asked. " It's his fault." 
 
 The man looked into the blue eyes raised to his 
 and blinked behind his glasses. "None of your
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 9 
 
 nonsense!" he cried. "With whom did you go to 
 that dance?" 
 
 Then they smiled at one another, and the girl 
 answered quite simply: "With Tom Cook." 
 
 "H'm!" said the creator of Farnum's Famous 
 Bird Houses. "Tom Cook! Why'd you go with 
 him? All right, I know because he asked you." 
 
 "I suppose that was the reason," she smiled. 
 "Why, don't you like Tom?" 
 
 "Who said I didn't like Tom?" 
 
 "You did all over." 
 
 "Did I, now? Well, you tell me first why you 
 <fc like Tom?" 
 
 "Who said I liked Tom?" 
 
 "Do girls go to dances with boys they don't like?" 
 
 "Of course they do, you silly old thing, when they 
 would have to stay at home otherwise." 
 
 "Would you have had to stay at home other- 
 wise?" he demanded, with a fine air of incredulity. 
 
 "Other people don't think me as nice as you do," 
 the girl answered, looking at him fondly. "I I 
 gues"s I'm rather quiet." 
 
 "Hello!" cried Alec Farnum, pushing his half- 
 finished bird house to the back of the bench. " Come 
 out and see what I've got in the garden." 
 
 She looked surprised at this abrupt transition, 
 but followed him as he led her to an old cigar box
 
 10 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 tacked under the low eave of the woodshed, with a 
 round hole the size of a quarter cut in the side. A 
 wren flew out as they approached and inside she saw 
 the nest and the little eggs. 
 
 " Ungrateful female ! " the man exclaimed. " Here 
 I put up my fine apartments, and lower the rent 
 ridiculously and nothing doing. Along comes that 
 eight-year-old whipper-snapper, Georgie French, takes 
 an old cigar box, and gets a tenant right away! 
 Fool bird! It's like riding in a day-coach smoker 
 when you might have a Pullman. They were only 
 five-cent cigars in that box, too." 
 
 "But think how pleased Georgie will be," said 
 the girl. 
 
 The man turned his face away, and his eyes 
 twinkled with pleasure as if the answer delighted 
 him. But he said, "H'm, he's forgotten all about 
 his box by now, the young pup. Come, let's sit 
 by the sundial. Hear that song sparrow! He sings 
 like you, Ruth. That's what you are a song 
 sparrow. All people are like some sort of a bird, 
 all nice people." 
 
 Ruth sat beside him on a garden bench and seemed 
 waiting for him to continue. He listened to the 
 bird song for a long moment in silence and then he 
 said, in a grave, quiet voice: "My little girl is grow- 
 ing up ! I call you my little girl still, Ruth, because
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 11 
 
 you have no daddy and I have no daughter. You 
 don't mind?" 
 
 For answer Ruth slipped her hand into his. 
 
 "That's it!" he said, patting her fingers. "Now 
 you are really a little girl. I was never a little 
 girl myself, and I don't pretend to know much about 
 'em, which proves I'm the wisest man in the world. 
 But isn't it true that little girls dream about brave 
 knights who will some day come riding by, brave and 
 good knights, who'll sing serenades and quote poetry 
 and make you feel like a song by Schubert or Schu- 
 mann?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I suppose girls do dream such things 
 sometimes," she answered, "and then they wake 
 up. I suppose every girl dreams of a man who 
 who well, who's Sir Launcelot for her. But why 
 do you ask? Surely you don't think that I Tom 
 Cook 1" 
 
 "Dear me, no! Tom Cook singing a serenade? 
 Perish the thought! But my little girl is growing 
 up, just the same, and she will be dreaming like all 
 the rest. No, I don't ask if she has. I never peep 
 into secret gardens. But I do want to know why 
 you say, 'and then they wake up.' That sounds 
 cynical. It interests me." 
 
 "Girls in Southmead, maybe I should have 
 said," she answered. "Knights don't come riding
 
 12 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 by for Southmead girls, you must know that, Uncle 
 Alec." 
 
 "I know nothing of the kind. Why not for 
 Southmead girls?" 
 
 "You know why," she said. "Oh, you might 
 have come to somebody with romance blazoned in 
 gold on your purple banner, you selfish old thing! 
 But now our boys well, if they are smart they go 
 to Boston or New York. If they stay here, it means 
 they have no romance in their souls." 
 
 "My dear child," said the man gravely, "you 
 don't need to be a successful New York stock broker 
 to have romance in your soul!" 
 
 "Of course not," she said. "But oh, dear, how 
 shall I put it? I can't talk the way you can you've 
 got to have a heart that feels beauty in things, and 
 a mind that, that strikes sparks" 
 
 "Ruth, you abominable child, you are growing 
 up!" said the man. "Shall I take you to Boston 
 with me on my lecture trip? No, you'd distract 
 attention from the lecture. You come to see me 
 when I get back. I'm going to bring you some new 
 songs. Go home now and tell your mother to put 
 you in pinafores to retard your growth. Go out 
 through the house, will you, and gather up the pile 
 of manuscript on my desk before it blows all over 
 the place. It's another chapter of the new "Bird
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 13 
 
 Book." You can be typing it while I'm gone. Un- 
 grateful chit, you! Growing up! A cynic! No 
 romance in Southmead! And you a song sparrow!" 
 
 "Aren't you funny to-day?" said she, as she got 
 up to go. "Don't stay away too long." 
 
 "Only long enough to find somebody who doesn't 
 believe romance is dead," he sniffed. "I have to 
 go to town to renew my faith, you see." 
 
 He went back to his shop when she had departed 
 and finished the bluebird box he was at work upon, 
 then he crossed the drive into his house. Mrs. 
 
 
 
 Plumb, his housekeeper, was already setting the 
 table. 
 
 "You ain't got none too much time to pack," she 
 said, in her sharp tones. "You know you said I 
 was to remind you to take the train for Boston this 
 afternoon, 'cause you'd got to lecture to the Milton 
 Bird Club to-morrow. You'd better get a shirt or 
 two in Boston, too. That heathen Chinese where 
 you insist on taking your laundry ain't content ter 
 spit tobacco juice on the bosoms now he's made saw 
 teeth of the cuffs." 
 
 "No shirt will live forever, Mrs. Plumb," said 
 Alec Farnum philosophically. 
 
 "Well, there's no great need of killin' 'em off in 
 childhood, ez I can see," she retorted. 
 
 The man sat down to his luncheon, which Mrs.
 
 14 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Plumb served him. As he ate, he talked, raising his 
 voice to reach her when she went into the kitchen. 
 
 "Did you ever reflect," he said, "that the birds 
 never make a mistake in mating? Robins mate 
 with robins, hermits with hermits. Who ever heard 
 of a song sparrow mated with a grackle? It's only 
 we poor blundering humans who get all mixed up in 
 our mating." 
 
 "Yes, there's that Sally Fisher, she's married a 
 Jew!" said Mrs. Plumb. "Can't no happiness 
 come of marryin' a Jew, / say." 
 
 "I'd go farther than that," smiled the man. "It 
 isn't so much Jew or Chinese or Slav that makes the 
 difference in us humans; it's our souls. Some of 
 us are wild ducks, and some of us are hermits, and 
 some of us are domestic robins, or merry chickadees, 
 or cantankerous crows. There are nightingales and 
 song sparrows, as well as hawks and grackles. But 
 we don't find our own kind at mating time. Do 
 you know why we don't, Mrs. Plumb?" 
 
 "No. Will you have some more peas?" said she. 
 
 "I will, they are delicious," he answered. "The 
 first early peas are always delicious. The answer 
 to my question is that the circulation among souls 
 is not free enough. It is too constricted. Love, 
 Mrs. Plumb, is with us a matter of proximity. We 
 have to love, it's our nature. If we are a song
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 15 
 
 sparrow, and there is no other song sparrow in sight, 
 we foolishly fall in love with the grackle next door. 
 That's the whole trouble with humanity!" 
 
 "Lord, if it only was!" said Mrs. Plumb. "Now, 
 you hurry and pack your bag, and don't forget your 
 pajamas this time. You've had to buy six more 
 pairs than you need in the past four months." 
 
 "Very well," said he, lighting his cigar and rising 
 from the table, "and don't you forget to keep the 
 bird baths filled." 
 
 "I ain't the forgettin' kind," she retorted. 
 
 The man departed presently, with the end of a 
 necktie sticking out from under the cover of his suit- 
 case and a small leather case of lantern slides carried 
 tenderly in his right hand. Five days later he re- 
 turned in the evening accompanied by a young man 
 who was laden down with a painter's field kit in 
 addition to his other luggage. He had a boyish 
 face, which nobody would have called handsome 
 but anybody would have called honest and pleasant, 
 and when he spoke his voice was music a rare thing. 
 His "Good evening" quite took the wind out of 
 Mrs. Plumb's sails as she started to bear down upon 
 poor Alec Farnum hi anger at his bringing home an 
 unexpected guest, and after supper she left the 
 kitchen door open to hear the sounds which this 
 guest was evoking from the piano, while Mr. Alec
 
 16 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 sat huddled contentedly in his big chair, puffing at 
 his pipe. Once she peeped through the door, and 
 was amazed to see that the young man had no lights 
 on the piano at all he seemed to be making up what 
 he played out of his own head, as she put it to her- 
 self. 
 
 "Now, Rob," said his host the next morning, 
 "you can roam where you like after to-day. But 
 this morning, first of all, you've got to make me a 
 sketch of my duck pond while the Japanese irises 
 are out. You come with me." 
 
 He led the painter down through the garden, 
 across the dam, and into the tamaracks at the farther 
 side. There he found a spot where an opening made 
 a little vista of the pond with the green slope rising 
 beyond, and in this spot he made the young man 
 set up his easel. 
 
 " This is exactly the view I want," said he, "only 
 there should be a human figure over there in the 
 irises, to show how tall they are. You'd like a model, 
 wouldn't you?" 
 
 "I don't think it's necessary," laughed Rob. "I 
 ought to be able to scale the irises by the apple 
 trees beyond, or even by the ducks." 
 
 "No, I want a human in the sketch," his host 
 declared. "You be sketching in the scene, and I'll 
 go find a model."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 17 
 
 " Get a little girl in a white dress if you can," the 
 other said. 
 
 "A good idea!" cried Alec Farnum with a smile. 
 
 He crossed the dam, looked back, and saw that 
 the painter was almost concealed to casual observa- 
 tion from this side, smiled again, and went up to the 
 house and telephoned to Ruth. 
 
 "Hello, I'm back!" he said. "Mrs. Plumb is 
 happy because I didn't have to add to my collection 
 of pajamas. But I've something new to show you; 
 something quite wonderful. Please come right over, 
 and, by the way, wear a white dress. . . . What? 
 . . . Oh, why? Because I like to see you in 
 white. . . . Not at all, I always notice." 
 
 Five minutes later Ruth, flushed with running, 
 came into the workshop and found him with coat 
 off busily sawing. 
 
 "Now, what is the surprise?" she cried. "Show 
 it to me, quick!" 
 
 "Oh, no! You've got to find it for yourself," 
 said he. "You go down to the pond and stand on 
 our wishing stone amid the iris, and look hard. 
 Then if you are not surprised, I'll be!" 
 
 "You funny old fairy, what are you up to now?" 
 she asked, looking at him with eyes full of affection 
 and curiosity, and an odd doubt she could not have 
 explained. "I hope it isn't another wife for Sir
 
 18 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Rupert," she added, "because he's got quite too 
 many as it is." 
 
 "Go and see!" he commanded. 
 
 She went skipping down the slope, her eyes 
 searching the lawn and the surface of the pond to 
 see if any new pheasants or ducks were in sight, 
 pushed her way through the tall iris stalks, and 
 reached a flat stone on the margin of the pool, with 
 yellow and purple iris blossoms on either side of 
 her. There she stood poised, gazing at the stone, 
 at the water, at the flowers and saw nothing un- 
 usual. She was about to turn and look behind her 
 when a peremptory voice came over the water: 
 " Don't move ! That's fine. Hold that pose, please ! " 
 
 Ruth was too astonished to do anything for a 
 second but hold the pose. Then she slowly raised 
 her eyes toward the other side of the little pond and 
 searched out the spot where the artist was seated, 
 only his head and shoulders and the top of his 
 canvas visible over the undergrowth. She could 
 see only enough to distinguish that he was young. 
 As he looked at her fixedly and turned quickly to 
 dab at his canvas, she flushed a hot red all over and 
 felt an irresistible impulse to turn and flee. She 
 did, in fact, turn, but again his voice called to her: 
 
 "Oh, please! Just as you were, I won't keep you 
 there long. I told Mr. Farnum to send a little girl,
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 19 
 
 but this is much better, a little girl would have been 
 no taller than those purple irises." 
 
 So this was the surprise! Ruth was angry. 
 Uncle Alec had no right to submit her to this with- 
 out warning her making her an artist's model 
 for a total stranger. She hadn't even put on a 
 good dress, only her old white muslin. And her 
 hair was every which way. She wouldn't stay! 
 Then a new thought struck her, and she turned rosy 
 red again. She suddenly recalled their conver- 
 sation before he went away, about Tom Cook and 
 romance and knights who came riding by. So Uncle 
 Alec had brought him here for for that! Oh, how 
 could men be so clumsy! Of course, he was an old 
 dear but that! What would this artist think if he 
 ever guessed? And of course he would guess, Uncle 
 Alec was so transparent. She would never come 
 near the garden till the stranger had gone away. 
 She was too kind-hearted to spoil the picture now, 
 but she would run the minute it was over. She was 
 angry, mortified, and a little frightened. But she 
 stood quite still till the artist again sang out, "There! 
 I've sketched you in. Don't you want to see the 
 result?" 
 
 "Thank you, I I " Ruth began. 
 
 "Oh, excuse me, it is a tangle getting in here. 
 Wait, I'll bring it."
 
 20 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 He arose, picked up his canvas, and came quickly 
 across the bridge toward her. Ruth had stepped 
 back to the grassy slope, and awaited him with a 
 flushed face and beating heart. His voice was 
 pleasant, she had to admit. His face, too, as he 
 drew near, was pleasant. He was a nice man but 
 of course Uncle Alec would have invited only a 
 nice man, and that made it worse. She sunk her 
 head, embarrassed, as he came up-, and looked but 
 sideways at the sketch he held, which smelled pun- 
 gently of the fresh oils. It didn't seem to her much 
 more than daubs of colour. She could hardly find 
 what was meant for her figure at first. 
 
 "You're not very used to looking at pictures in the 
 making, are you? " he laughed frankly. " Or are you, 
 and do you really know what a bad painter I am? " 
 
 "Oh, it isn't that! I'm not used, at all " she 
 
 stammered, more than ever embarrassed. 
 
 He laughed gayly. "Well, then I'm safe. But I 
 could be a real painter, with you as a model not 
 across an iris pond hi this hard light, but sitting at 
 the window of an old-fashioned house, say Benson 
 stuff, you know. My, you were made to paint!" 
 
 There was no missing the genuine admiration of 
 his tone, and Ruth could feel his eyes on her face. 
 She felt herself growing hot again, but she had to 
 lift her eyes a second to his, and then she dropped
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 21 
 
 them again in an excess of surprise, of embarrass- 
 ment, of strange, subtle pleasure. 
 
 "Will you let me?" he demanded. 
 
 "I I I don't know/' she said. 
 
 Again he laughed. "It's just like that old duck 
 up there to send you down here without coming 
 himself to introduce us, isn't it? He just thinks of 
 everybody as children. My name is Robert Eliot 
 one I and one t and I'm a poor devil of an artist 
 rescued from a big city by our mutual friend. He 
 was kind enough to say he wanted company; and 
 he knew, I guess, that I wanted free board ! " 
 
 The young man again laughed easily as he made 
 this frank revelation. Ruth had heard of struggling 
 artists. Only the other day she had been reading 
 some sketches of Latin Quarter life. In her secret 
 heart she admired them tremendously, for they had 
 the courage to do what she could never do. She 
 sang; Uncle Alec had given her lessons for three 
 years, every summer, with a fine teacher who spent 
 the hot months in Southmead. But it was only in 
 her secret dreams that she could fancy herself leav- 
 ing her home, her mother, and buffeting the big world 
 for a place in the musical spotlight. Yet there was 
 the spark of sympathy and understanding in her. She 
 again looked into Eliot's face. 
 
 " I'm Ruth Barnes," she said. "I call Mr. Farnum
 
 2 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Uncle Alec, because he has always been my best 
 friend. My father died when I was a little girl. 
 He is always doing kind things for people. Now, I 
 I must go." 
 
 "Not till you promise to sit for me, really," he 
 cried. 
 
 "Why do you want me to?" she asked, her voice 
 very low. She could not resist the question. 
 
 "Why? Bless my heart, can it be there haven't 
 been any painters in these parts? Because of your 
 hair and your features and your colour and your 
 neck not madonna-like, that's not the word, but 
 the essence, physical and spiritual, of maidenhood. 
 Only you must sit in an old room, with maybe pink 
 in your dress, and Uncle Alec's (I'm going to call 
 him that, too) stuffed bluebird in the northwest 
 corner of the canvas, on his white mantel!" 
 
 How easily the enthusiasm sprang into this man's 
 voice ! It seemed to Ruth he created the picture as 
 he talked, the picture of her. And where were her 
 fine resolutions? 
 
 "I I can't promise!" she suddenly exclaimed, and 
 almost ran up the slope, leaving Eliot astonished. 
 
 In the flower garden the Bird House Man was 
 waiting for her, his eyes twinkling. He was evi- 
 dently unprepared for what she said. She paused in 
 front of him, her face still flushed, and demanded:
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 23 
 
 "Why did you do it, Uncle Alec? It was horrid of 
 you, really it was. Now I can't come to see you any 
 more!" 
 
 "What do you mean, you ungrateful young bag- 
 gage?" he said. "Can't come to see me any more? 
 Hasn't that rascal made a good picture of you?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know whether it was good or not. 
 What does that matter? What will he think when 
 he knows?" 
 
 " Knows what?" 
 
 "What you've done." 
 
 "I've given him the first chance he has had in 
 three years for a vacation and time to paint, instead 
 of making hack book covers and title pages in a 
 publisher's office, if that's what you mean and 
 sent him what I thought, what I thought, was a good 
 model. He's got no kick coming, I guess." 
 
 "Oh, Uncle Alec, you are incorrigible!" she cried, 
 close to real tears. "I'm going, and I won't come 
 back while he's here." 
 
 "Is that so?" said the man, paying no attention 
 to her gathering tears. "He plays the piano beau- 
 tifully, and we've brought a lot of new songs, and 
 I had thought of having you and your mother and 
 one or two more in to-night. Of course, if " 
 
 "Oh, you are just mean!" she cried, the tears 
 coming at last. And she left him abruptly.
 
 24 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "I'm going to paint a real picture of that girl 
 you sent down," said Eliot at luncheon. "We had 
 to introduce ourselves, by the way. Did you think 
 we were children?" 
 
 "Introductions are unromantic," the elder man 
 chuckled. " Why do you pick her out to paint? " 
 
 "She is so beautifully featured, the nose and chin 
 and lovely girlish throat. The public likes pretty- 
 girl pictures, and I can make one with her, and yet 
 make it the real thing besides. She's an ideal type 
 of Maidenhood, and of the old New England into 
 the bargain." 
 
 "Yes, she's old New England," the other answered. 
 "That's about all we are up here. Never thought 
 of her as so astonishingly pretty, though. She's 
 a quiet little thing, good to her mother, sings well, 
 with maybe a spark of temperament lurking down 
 deep somewhere. Most old New Englanders have 
 one, but they need the very devil of a pair of bellows 
 to blow it to life." 
 
 "You've known her too long as a little girl," 
 said Eliot; "I'm sure you don't do her justice." 
 
 The Bird House Man turned away his face to 
 smile. "Maybe not, maybe not," he said. "Well, 
 you paint her picture if you can. It will keep both 
 of you out of mischief perhaps." 
 
 That night there was a little party in the Bird
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 25 
 
 House, as Alec Farnum's dwelling was generally 
 called, and Mrs. Barnes arrived with her daughter, 
 who had been casually informed by the other guests 
 that afternoon that they were coming to hear her 
 sing. After that she couldn't refuse without ac- 
 knowledging a break with the Bird House Man, but 
 she glared at him when she entered and he laughed. 
 
 There were only two other guests: a nice old 
 gentleman, the president of the village bank and 
 Alec Farnum's life-long friend, and Thomas Trask, 
 a young doctor who had recently come to South- 
 mead and whom Alec Farnum said he liked "be- 
 cause he knows that Horace Greeley doesn't edit 
 the Tribune any more." 
 
 Eliot sat at the piano, evidently delighted that 
 his new model could sing, and Ruth soon forgot to 
 be angry in the pleasure of an accompaniment that 
 was true, resourceful, and alive with feeling. She 
 lost her first embarrassment at performing before 
 this stranger, too, and sang better than she knew 
 how. They still kept on when the rest had gone 
 out on the veranda over the garden, trying a group 
 of songs Eliot produced. Their heads were close 
 together as they read the unfamiliar notes. Phrases 
 had to be retried. A lovely melody had to be re- 
 peated. Sometimes Eliot would linger on a chord, 
 or play it over three or four times, looking up at her
 
 26 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 for confirmation of his delight. Then she would 
 smile back, strangely thrilled. Musical study had 
 never been like this before! 
 
 Suddenly she noticed that the others were not in 
 the room, and flushed. How long had they been 
 gone? It was Uncle Alec's doing, of course. She 
 stopped singing abruptly. 
 
 "What's the matter?" Eliot asked. 
 
 "The rest we've driven them out," she said, a 
 little nervously. 
 
 "So we have," laughed the man. "Well, it's no 
 fun for other folks, listening to songs being tried 
 out. The dear public wants only the finished prod- 
 uct. But what fun it is for us artists! Though 
 I'm only a clumsy amateur at music, to be sure." 
 
 "Us artists!" The words warmed her strangely. 
 "You are the best accompanist I ever had," she 
 replied instinctively. 
 
 "I tell you what we'll try songs every day, after 
 the sitting for the picture, eh?" he cried, with his 
 boyish enthusiasm. "Uncle Alec won't mind." 
 
 "No, I suppose he won't," she said, with a quaint 
 smile in spite of herself. Then she quickly led the 
 way to the veranda. 
 
 "Not a bad little voice, is it?" the host said half 
 an hour later to his young guest, who was puffing a 
 bedtime pipe.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 27 
 
 "She forces the upper register a little, and her 
 attacks are a bit uncertain," Eliot replied; "but, gee 
 whiz, how she wants to sing ! There's so much music 
 she doesn't know, never heard of. Why, it will be 
 like taking a painter to Italy for the first time to 
 lead her into Gluck and Purcell and Debussy!" 
 
 "H'm," said the Bird House Man, "I'm sleepy. 
 The enthusiasm of you youngsters is a bit wearying 
 to us old chaps. Come on to bed with you." 
 
 Two days later Eliot demanded to know where 
 Ruth lived, and set off to find her. She blushed as 
 she greeted him at the door of the little white house 
 where she dwelt with her mother, and ushered him 
 rather ceremoniously into a typical New England 
 "parlour," which was dim and stiff, immaculate in 
 its unloveliness and ungracious with Puritanical 
 hair cloth. Only the corner where the piano stood 
 looked as if it were in familiar use. 
 
 "I came about that picture," he began at once. 
 "I'm all ready, got the canvas all laid, and the 
 lights gauged. I'll have to paint on it from about 
 two-thirty till four or five to have the light right. 
 It's too hard in the morning." 
 
 "Couldn't you paint it here?" asked Ruth. She 
 did want to have it painted, she did so yearn in secret 
 for another session of song trials yet she had her 
 defences up, and her pride was challenged.
 
 28 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 The man shook his head, with difficulty refraining 
 from letting his eyes sweep the room. "How can I 
 explain?" he said. "It's not alone you, but the 
 particular light from the olive-brown walls in the 
 Bird House, and just the corner of the smoky white 
 mantel, and Uncle Alec's stuffed blue jay and that 
 framed Audubon plate that hangs near the window. 
 The scheme is ideal, and it couldn't be reproduced 
 anywhere else." 
 
 "Couldn't you bring the blue jay here?" 
 
 "But hardly the wall paper.'* 
 
 "Some of that is coming down already," Ruth 
 smiled. "Mrs. Plumb has tried three times to glue 
 it, because Uncle Alec won't have the village paper- 
 hanger in the house; he says he knows he snares 
 partridges." 
 
 Mrs. Barnes came into the room just then, and Eliot 
 turned to her with his plea. 
 
 "Why not go, Ruth?" she asked. "If it isn't all 
 right to go to the Bird House, I don't know where 
 you can go. You live there hah* the time as it 
 is!" 
 
 Ruth flushed. She had not been thinking of the 
 proprieties. Nobody but Uncle Alec could know 
 what she had been fighting for, and he would only 
 dimly understand. He was a man, after all. And 
 now her mother had made it necessary that she
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 29 
 
 should either surrender or withdraw; either go or 
 refuse point-blank. 
 
 "Oh, very well," she said briefly. "What kind 
 of a dress shall I wear? " 
 
 "Show me all you have!" cried Eliot enthusi- 
 astically. 
 
 Her mother helped her bring down several dresses, 
 and he made her hold each one to her chin in the 
 light of the window. "That's it!" he said, at a 
 white muslin with tiny pink roses on it. "Wear 
 that, and come this afternoon the light is fine to- 
 day. Good-bye, I shall gobble my lunch!" 
 
 Mrs. Barnes seemed really more excited than her 
 daughter after the artist's departure. Indeed, Ruth 
 went with slow, reluctant feet toward the Bird House 
 that afternoon. She felt oddly shy, and a bit 
 frightened, as if she had made a surrender of some- 
 thing personal and precious, she knew not quite 
 what. She was no longer angry at Uncle Alec. 
 She didn't doubt that Robert Eliot truly wanted to 
 paint her picture, and that he was too honest even 
 to surmise that a scheme had been put upon him. 
 And that made matters worse, because now she was 
 a partner to the scheme. Therefore she couldn't 
 be angry at Uncle Alec, which made her angry at 
 herself. Besides, she wanted to go oh, she wanted 
 to go!
 
 30 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 And she went. Uncle Alec was in the dining- 
 room when she entered. He had been correcting 
 proofs. There was also a fresh batch of manu- 
 script by the typewriter for her to copy. "More 
 work for you," he said. "But now for the picture. 
 I'm getting quite excited about this myself." 
 
 He was puffing at his pipe while Eliot posed her, 
 reset the blue jay a dozen times, spaced the Audubon 
 plate better to suit him on the wall, adjusted and 
 readjusted the shades, and finally, when everything 
 suited him, marked the spot for each object, even 
 Ruth's feet, with chalk, and fell eagerly to work, 
 first throwing his coat into a corner and rolling up 
 his sleeves. 
 
 " You're not very polite to the lady," said the older 
 man. 
 
 "Oh, bother!" cried Eliot. "We are working. 
 Miss Barnes is an artist, too; she understands. 
 You only write books, what do you know about 
 art?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Alec Farnum; "absolutely noth- 
 ing. I merely love birds, such as song sparrows." 
 
 He beamed on Ruth, who coloured and looked 
 straight ahead, in the pose that had been ordered. 
 
 "I think I hear one in the garden now," he added. 
 "Being evidently in the way here, I'll go out where 
 I'm appreciated."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 31 
 
 "Good-bye," said Eliot. 
 
 "Oh, Uncle Alec, don't go!" cried Ruth. "Mr. 
 Eliot is horrid!" 
 
 But he had already gone. 
 
 "I hope you don't really mind my working coat- 
 less this hot day," Eliot said. "I'm afraid I usually 
 forget to be polite when I'm on a job which absorbs 
 me." 
 
 "I don't mind," Ruth answered, "when when 
 you say 'us artists.'" 
 
 "But you don't doubt that you are an artist?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, always! I want to be, but the artists 
 were the men who wrote the songs. I'm a kind of 
 phonograph. But I try to feel what they felt when 
 they made the songs, and to re-create the mood. 
 That's something, isn't it?" 
 
 She spoke eagerly, forgetful of her earlier sensa- 
 tions. Somehow it was natural to talk thus in- 
 timately to this man, who was nearly her own age 
 and who understood. He answered, and kept on 
 painting; and before she realized the flight of time, 
 or even how stiff her body was, he ordered the sitting 
 over. She came around and looked at the sketchy 
 beginnings of her portrait, listening eagerly to his 
 explanations. Then he went out to wash his hands 
 and on his return they tackled Purcell. She had 
 mastered the rhythmic swing of "Come unto these
 
 32 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 yellow sands," and was pouring it out with full- 
 throated abandon, standing close to Eliot and read- 
 ing the words over his shoulder, when Alec Farnum 
 sneaked back to the house and peeped into the 
 room. He withdrew again softly. 
 
 Thereafter the picture grew apace, and Ruth no 
 longer drew near the Bird House with reluctant 
 feet. She began to live for those sittings. Uncle 
 Alec often remained in the room for an hour or 
 more, and the three of them talked a mixture of 
 banter and jest and seriousness. She had never 
 been included in such talks before she had never 
 heard such talks, in fact. Should pictures "tell a 
 story?" She didn't know what this meant at first, 
 and the two men almost swore at each other trying 
 to explain simultaneously. Are all the melodies in 
 the world used up, so that modern music has to 
 adopt tone painting as an ideal? Shall women 
 vote? Is Socialism really inimical to individual- 
 ity, or not? A thousand topics came and went in 
 these talks, and Ruth almost felt that she had just 
 begun to live. Then Uncle Alec would go out to 
 work hi his shop, or his garden, and she would ask 
 Eliot questions about some topic which she had not 
 understood, and he would answer her gravely, and 
 she would find herself almost thinking out aloud 
 to him as she struggled to see things as he did.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 33 
 
 Then, when the sitting was over, she would always 
 come around the easel to see how the picture was 
 growing, standing by his side, and after that they 
 would sing. 
 
 The picture was nearing completion now. It was 
 going to be Robert Eliot's bid for the winter Acad- 
 emy. He had put the best he had into it, and he 
 was pleased with it and dissatisfied. He and Ruth 
 were looking at it, the sitting over. 
 
 "The glass over the print is too realistic," he said. 
 "I want the whole thing detailed and yet decora- 
 tive, too,, but I've got that photographic. And 
 you are not right your face. It's not eager enough. 
 You are too still, too passive. A spark in the eye, 
 
 a little parting of the lips Oh, gee, I'd like to 
 
 do it all over again!" 
 
 "I think it is lovely, only the picture of me isn't 
 good. That girl there is is pretty," said Ruth. 
 
 Eliot looked down at her, and laughed softly. 
 "I suppose you don't know that you are lovely?" 
 he said. 
 
 Ruth coloured and dropped her eyes. "I know 
 I'm not," she answered. 
 
 "Then you are strangely ignorant/' he smiled, 
 and laid his brush on the easel rack before he took 
 up her hand. She shivered at the touch of his 
 fingers, but let her hand lie passive in his while
 
 34 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 he said: "Look! Look at your own hand, and your 
 wrist, and your arm; aren't they lovely?" 
 
 With face averted, she shook her head. He 
 pulled at her hand till she faced the canvas. "Now 
 look at the girl there only the pale, painted echo 
 of you. Isn't she less beautiful than you are? " 
 
 Still Ruth shook her head, and drew her hand 
 away. 
 
 "You have too much cosmos in your ego!" he 
 laughed. "Let us sing." 
 
 Ruth couldn't sing that afternoon. She tried, 
 but some emotion choked her. She failed miser- 
 ably in her first attack, and Eliot ran a glissando 
 over the keyboard and faced around on the bench. 
 "Hello! "he said. 
 
 "I I can't sing to-day. I don't know why." 
 She had averted her face. It seemed as if she were 
 about to weep. 
 
 The man suddenly took both her hands in his, 
 though she tried to snatch them away. "What is 
 it, tell me, Ruth?" he said. "It's been our picture, 
 and our songs you and I working together. Tell 
 me." 
 
 "Please let me go!" she whispered, and suddenly 
 left him. But on the way home she began to sing 
 the song she had attempted in the Bird House, and 
 the attack pealed out quite flawless, to the astonish-
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 35 
 
 ment of Minnie Sanborn who was passing on the 
 road. 
 
 The next day Alec Farnum lingered when the 
 sitting began. 
 
 "By the way, Ruth," he said, "going to the dance 
 to-night? I see there's to be one in the Town Hall." 
 
 Ruth shot a vindictive glance at him. "No," 
 she answered. "Nobody has asked me." 
 
 "What's the matter with Tom Cook?" he in- 
 quired. He watched Eliot, out of the corner of his 
 eye, who rewarded him by pricking up his ears 
 immediately. 
 
 "He's away camping. Isn't it too bad?" Ruth 
 answered sweetly. 
 
 Uncle Alec laughed, and presently went out with 
 a remark that neither of them seemed very enter- 
 taining that afternoon. 
 
 When he had gone, Eliot broke the silence. "Who 
 is Tom Cook?" he said bluntly. 
 
 Ruth felt suddenly and gloriously coquettish. 
 "Oh, just a man," she said. 
 
 "I don't suppose you'd go to the dance with me?" 
 
 "How can I tell till you've asked me?" 
 
 "Well, will you?" 
 
 "Do you dance well?" 
 
 "Oh, fair to middling." 
 
 "No, I won't."
 
 36 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 Ruth laughed, she laughed gayly, and then grew 
 suddenly sober. "Don't you think it would be 
 nicer to sing to Uncle Alec this evening? We've 
 not sung for him since that night of his party, only 
 practised afternoons. He loves music, you know." 
 
 "Much nicer," cried Eliot, and he stopped painting 
 and looked into Ruth's eyes. She returned his 
 gaze for a second and then dropped back into her 
 pose, but the air was electrical. The sitting ceased 
 early. They moved to the piano. "We must get 
 something ready for to-night" she said. 
 
 He put "Mary Grey of Allan Dale" on the rack, 
 and Ruth sung it in her tender, virginal voice. 
 Eliot let the last chord die away slowly, and faced 
 her. 
 
 "Ruth!" he said, and took her hands. "I have 
 painted you into my life, into my heart. Tell me 
 Tom Cook is nobody!" 
 
 She let her hands rest in his. She let him draw her 
 down on the bench beside him, she let her face fall 
 against his shoulder, and with a thrill words could 
 not express she felt his arm encircle her. 
 
 "There was never anybody," she whispered. "Is 
 it real, are you real? Tell me I shan't wake up." 
 
 He kissed her softly on the neck where it curved 
 toward her shoulder. "You have the loveliest little
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 37 
 
 neck in the world," he said irrelevantly. "But 
 won't old Uncle Alec be surprised!" 
 
 Ruth sat suddenly straight up and blurted out, 
 "Oh, no, he won't! Oh, what have I done! You'll 
 hate me! He brought you here because because 
 well, he likes me and he was afraid I'd like Tom 
 Cook or somebody like that. He meant this to 
 happen. I didn't know he was going to bring you. 
 I tried to keep away. I was ashamed. Oh, what 
 shall I do!" 
 
 She tried to struggle out of his arms, but he only 
 held her faster, and laughed in her ear. " The blessed 
 old Fairy Godfather!" he exclaimed. "The blessed 
 old matchmaker hi trousers! But how did he ever 
 know God made us for each other?" 
 
 "You you don't believe / had a hand in it, 
 then?" she whispered. 
 
 "Kiss me!" he commanded. 
 
 She looked up, she raised her face toward his, 
 their lips met and as they parted they were aware 
 of the Bird House Man coming angrily through the 
 door. 
 
 "What are you doing, you ungrateful young 
 hound?" he shouted. "You come into my house as 
 a guest and you violate my hospitality and try to 
 make off with my song sparrow! I've a good mind 
 to thrash you here and now. Explain, both of you
 
 38 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 instantly! You, too, Ruth! What do you mean 
 by such conduct!" 
 
 He was in a towering passion and Eliot rose, pale 
 and angry in his turn, and opened his mouth to 
 speak, putting himself in front of the girl. But 
 Ruth burst out laughing. 
 
 "You old fraud!" she said. "I've told him. He 
 knows. He's forgiven you, too, for which you ought 
 to be thankful." 
 
 "Well, his forgiveness will be worth more ten 
 years hence," said Alec Farnum, bursting into a 
 broad grin. "Now, you go home and bring your 
 mother here to supper, while Rob gets that chromo 
 out of the middle of the room and I get my one bottle 
 of champagne out of the cellar." 
 
 "Don't you call it a chromo!" said Ruth. "It's a 
 masterpiece!" 
 
 "It's a romance!" said Rob. 
 
 "It's a nuisance," said Alec Farnum. "It's a 
 smelly thing, too." 
 
 Ruth went suddenly up to him, flung her arms 
 about his neck, and kissed him. He patted her 
 clumsily on the back, and when she had gone he 
 wiped his glasses.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE WREN 
 
 THE Bird House Man's garden, behind his old- 
 fashioned house and his shop where Farnum's Fa- 
 mous Bird Houses were made, was white with snow. 
 The sundial and the two bird baths were hid- 
 den under protecting boxes. The flower beds were 
 covered with pine boughs, bits of which stuck up 
 above the drifts. But the feed tables for the birds, 
 including one which swung into the wind by means of 
 its weather-vane arms, were standing about stocked 
 with suet and sunflower seeds, and just now Alec 
 Farnum himself stood outside the kitchen door with 
 a sunflower seed between his lips. His head was 
 tipped back, and he held one hand in front of his 
 face, with his forefinger out. There were excited 
 sounds and movements in the big lilac bush by the 
 door, and suddenly a chickadee made a dash forth, 
 lit on Alec's finger and, as the man moved his hand 
 close to his face, took the seed from between his 
 lips and flew quickly back to the bush. The man 
 smiled, and was about to place another seed in his 
 mouth when around the corner came the front end 
 
 SB
 
 40 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 of a dog, followed in time by the rest of him, and in 
 sudden fright the chickadees flew away to a tree in 
 the garden. 
 
 "Confound you, Bologna, what did you come to 
 spoil the fun for?" Alec asked of the intruder. 
 "Get out!" 
 
 He made as if to kick the dachshund, which sidled 
 off with a surprised and pained expression. At the 
 same moment from the street came a faint call, 
 "Friedy,Friedy!" 
 
 The dog pricked up his ears and looked guilty, 
 but did not stir. 
 
 " H'm," said the Bird House Man, "none so deaf 
 
 You want a bone, do you? Well, you can't have one. 
 You've scared my chickadees." 
 
 So saying he left the dog to sniff at the garbage 
 pail, and walked around the corner toward the 
 street. Standing on the sidewalk was a quaint 
 little figure, looking up and down the snowy road. 
 She might have stepped from the pages of "Cran- 
 ford," Alec thought to himself as he looked at her, 
 she was so obviously an "unappropriated blessing." 
 She was small and neat; no, neat wasn't the word, 
 he reflected. Her hat was even stylish. She was 
 trim. Her heavy hair beneath the hat was still a 
 golden chestnut, though a trifle rusty. Once it 
 had hung in two long braids which Alec used to
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 41 
 
 pull in school when she was a little thing and he was 
 one of the big boys, born to torment. Her eyes 
 were very large. Once they must have been a 
 glory, but now that her face had shrunk they gave 
 her an odd, wistful expression, intensified at the 
 present moment, as she turned to meet Alec's gaze, 
 by her worry over the loss of her pet. 
 
 "Oh, Alec, have you seen him?" she exclaimed. 
 
 "What's the matter, Millie, has the sausage man 
 got Bologna at last?" Alec replied. "It's an out- 
 rage, that's what it is!" 
 
 A faint smile crept into Miss Millie Tilton's face. 
 "You are perfectly horrid," she said. "You know 
 his name is Siegfried. But where is he? I shouldn't, 
 have let him off the leash. He always misbehaves 
 on cold days. Here, Friedy, Friedy!" 
 
 Friedy suddenly appeared around the corner of 
 the house, hauling his rear legs behind him, with a 
 suspicious stain of garbage in either corner of his 
 mouth. 
 
 "Oh, you nasty dog!" said Miss Millie. 
 
 "You may break, you may train up the dog as you will, 
 But the scent of the garbage will call to him still," 
 
 said Alec. 
 
 "But he gets such nice food at home," said the 
 woman plaintively. "I go out to Mulready's cart
 
 42 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 myself and select it. I think dogs are very un- 
 grateful so there, Friedy." 
 
 She bent and slapped the dog as she spoke, the dog 
 construing it as a caress and licking his chops. 
 
 "They're only human, after all," said the Bird 
 House Man. "Come in and have some tea, Millie. 
 It's a cold day." 
 
 "Oh, Alec, what an idea!" she exclaimed, look- 
 ing at him with her big eyes. 
 
 "Now, Millie, you've been reading modern dramas 
 again," said he. "I'm sure I don't know where 
 you get 'em. There's nothing modern in our public 
 library. You think it would be a regular third act 
 if you came in and drank tea with me." 
 
 "I should say an irregular act," said Miss Millie, 
 with the ghost of a twinkle. 
 
 The Bird House Man laughed jovially. He al- 
 ways laughed when Miss Millie made a joke, and 
 treasured it to repeat to his friend, Thomas Trask, 
 the new doctor. 
 
 "How long since you've committed an irregular 
 act?" he asked. 
 
 "I never did," the woman retorted. "I never 
 dared, in Southmead." She spoke in a low, con- 
 fidential tone. 
 
 "Well, far be it from me to start an innocent 
 young female on a career of crime," said Alec, "so
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 43 
 
 I'll tell you that Ruth Barnes is inside, typing a new 
 article for me, so you can come in for some tea after 
 all." 
 
 "Oh, is Ruth there? She's going to be married 
 next summer, isn't she? Is he as nice as he looks?" 
 
 "Not nice enough for Ruth nobody is," said 
 Alec, opening the door for her with his air of old- 
 fashioned gallantry. 
 
 They heard the measured click, click of the type- 
 writer keys as they stepped into the house, and 
 went to the library where Ruth was working. But 
 she refused to stop, only rising to kiss Miss Millie 
 on the cheek. "I've got to get this done by day- 
 light, Uncle Alec," she declared. "You haven't 
 had the drop-light fixed yet, you know. Goodness, 
 I don't know what the house will be like after I'm 
 
 gone 
 
 "Like any empty bird's nest," said Alec Farnum 
 fondly, as he escorted Miss Millie into the dining- 
 room, where he always had tea served on his old 
 mahogany table. Siegfried followed, and immedi- 
 ately made a wad of the hearth rug and plumped 
 upon it. 
 
 "Oh, dear, he's the worst dog!" said his mistress. 
 
 "You mean the wienerwurst," laughed Alec, call- 
 ing to Mrs. Plumb for the tea. 
 
 Miss Millie pouted at him with a curious girlish-
 
 44 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 ness that belied her years, but she did not en- 
 deavour to reply. Evidently she felt the task hope- 
 less. 
 
 "And now, Millie," said the big man beside her 
 at the table, when he had seen her wants supplied, 
 "what's on your mind?" 
 
 She seemed undeniably startled, and her big eyes 
 sought his for a second, and then fell. "Why 
 no-nothing. Why do you ask?" 
 
 "Ho, so there is something, eh?" said he. "Well, 
 why shouldn't you tell me? 'Most everybody else 
 in this town does! Carrie Potter came to me this 
 morning to know where she was to get a baby car- 
 riage on runners big enough to hold her twins. I 
 told her she had no business to have twins, on her 
 husband's income 
 
 Miss Millie was blushing, and the Bird House 
 Man broke off. "H'm modern plays again," he 
 smiled. "Well, Millie, what is on your mind? 
 You don't own New Haven shares, do you?" 
 
 "Oh, no, thank goodness!" she replied. "Dear 
 papa did not leave me much, as you may have 
 guessed. The emoluments of teaching and litera- 
 ture are not great, as he used to say so often. But 
 what he did leave was invested in bonds. Dear 
 papa was very conservative." 
 
 "Yes, I recall he was, especially about my marks
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 45 
 
 in school," said Alec Farnum. "How much did he 
 leave you?" 
 
 It was not the sort of a question most people 
 could have asked of Miss Millie Tilton with im- 
 punity, but Alec seemed to await her reply quite 
 confidently. 
 
 "Twelve thousand dollars," she said. 
 
 "And your income is about six hundred dollars 
 a year?" 
 
 "Five hundred and sixty." 
 
 "Well, Millie, that's not so bad," smiled the man. 
 "You can buy an automobile and a portable garage 
 nowadays for that. Is it the make of car that's 
 troubling you?" 
 
 "I don't want a car," she answered, with the 
 utmost solemnity; "I want a home!" 
 
 Alec Farnum looked at her, and saw at once that 
 he had stumbled on the truth. His brow contracted 
 and he stroked his grizzled goatee a long moment 
 in silence, while the brisk click of the typewriter 
 under Ruth's agile young fingers came through the 
 open door from the study. 
 
 "What's the matter with your Cousin Sarah's?" 
 he asked presently. 
 
 Miss Millie took an oatmeal cake daintily between 
 her fingers and bit it before she replied. There was 
 almost an audacious light in her big eyes.
 
 46 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "Cousin Sarah, for one thing," she said. 
 
 Alec Farnum tipped back his head and laughed 
 again, so loudly that the sound of the typewriter 
 ceased and Siegfried got up and walked slowly around 
 the table, looking up into his face. 
 
 "What's the matter with Cousin Sarah?" he 
 asked presently. 
 
 "Well, she's an anti, for one thing," Miss Millie 
 replied. 
 
 The man was too genuinely astonished this time 
 to laugh. "Of course she is," said he. "But you 
 you don't mean to tell me that you " 
 
 "Certainly I am!" retorted Miss Millie with great 
 spirit. "See!" She threw open her jacket and dis- 
 played upon her waist a yellow "Votes for Women" 
 pin. "I consider that I'm quite as capable of vot- 
 ing intelligently as some of the men hi this town!" 
 
 "Certainly you are my Lord, yes!" exclaimed 
 Alec. "But do you want to?" 
 
 "Not particularly," she said, with one of her 
 ghosts of a smile. "But I don't want to be told 
 that I'm not good enough to. Besides, it's lots of 
 fun wearing this button in front of some people we 
 could name." 
 
 Alec smiled. " What first made you a suffragist? *' 
 he asked. 
 
 "Sarah," Miss Millie- replied.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 47 
 
 Again the Bird House Man tipped back his head 
 and laughed. He was having a delightful time ap- 
 parently. "Well, well," he said, "the antis always 
 are the strongest speakers for the cause, they tell 
 me. What else has Sarah done?" 
 
 "She doesn't like Siegfried, she isn't nice to him," 
 said Miss Millie. 
 
 "Not nice to Bologna? The idea! Such a beau- 
 tiful dog, too, with his gazelle-like gait!" 
 
 "Oh, I don't mind what you say," the woman 
 retorted. "You know, when Pitti-Sing, my Jap- 
 anese poodle, died, Sarah wanted me to get a 
 canary. She said it would be better company for 
 me, because its sounds were more musical. What 
 she really meant was that she didn't want me to 
 have a dog at all." 
 
 "Poor Katisha I mean Pitti-Sing," said Alec 
 Farnum. "She was such a sweet, fat thing, too, 
 with her broken nose and that one flea neither she 
 nor you could ever catch. I always did admire the 
 woodcraft of that flea! What else has Sarah done?" 
 
 "Well, I don't like her tea. You have such nice 
 tea, by the way, Alec." 
 
 Alec nodded in acknowledgment. "I'm very 
 particular about it," said he, "since that Doctor 
 Trask person made me give up my Bourbon. I can 
 understand your feelings toward anybody who serves
 
 48 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 the English breakfast variety. Do you suppose the 
 entire British breakfast is as bad as the tea? What 
 else has Sarah done?" 
 
 "Oh, it isn't what she has done" Miss Millie burst 
 out suddenly, as if a dam of silence had given way, 
 behind which a reservoir of feelings had been long 
 pent up. "Sarah just is. She gets on my nerves 
 there, I've said it, and I feel better! She just 
 naturally takes the contrary side, and she always 
 thinks the worst of people she possibly can, and 
 she thinks anybody who doesn't get up at six-thirty 
 who doesn't like to get up at six-thirty is a lost 
 soul, and and and I want a house, a whole house, 
 of my own, where I can do as I please and have 
 what I want to eat when I want it, and not talk 
 for hours, and keep another dog to play with 
 Friedy." 
 
 Little Miss Millie's eyes were very big, and sus- 
 piciously moist, as she half hid her face over her 
 teacup. 
 
 Alec Farnum played a tattoo with his fingertips 
 on the table. "H'm," said he. "You pay Sarah 
 board, I suppose?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 "Six dollars a week. I have a big room of my own, 
 to be sure; but if she wants to talk she just comes
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 49 
 
 right in and begins to dust, and she makes an awful 
 fuss if I sit up after nine o'clock." 
 
 "Six dollars a week," Alec reflected. "Your in- 
 come is a bit over ten dollars a week, isn't it? Doesn't 
 leave you much for cigarettes and champagne. 
 How do you manage always to look so stylish?" 
 
 Miss Millie blushed like a girl. "I have a knack," 
 she said. 
 
 "You have, indeed. Did you ever try to get a 
 house of your own?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I've looked about. But it would have 
 to be a very tiny house that I could take care of 
 myself and that wouldn't cost much to heat, and 
 you know there aren't any such houses in town, 
 which I could live in. The only ones of that sort 
 are are hovels, inhabited by the lowest of the work- 
 ing classes." 
 
 "True," said Alec, "and we have no New York 
 apartments in Southmead, either, like swallows' 
 nests in a cliff. Have you got any furniture to put 
 in a house?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, after dear papa died and I had to go to 
 live with Sarah, I saved some furniture from the 
 sale. Sarah has been glad enough to use it in her 
 house, you may be sure! I shall never part with it. 
 Some day " 
 
 Miss Millie broke off abruptly.
 
 50 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "Millie," said the Bird House Man, "you should 
 have got married no, I've not phrased that right, 
 you should get married." 
 
 The woman turned her big eyes upon him with a 
 strange look of startled shyness. 
 
 "Oh, Alec," she answered, very low, "how can you 
 say that? You " 
 
 "Ruth tells me I should have married, too," he 
 replied. "I think she doesn't know. Some day 
 I shall tell her." 
 
 "About Elsie?" 
 
 "About Elsie. She doesn't know that once I 
 dreamed of bringing Elsie here, to the house of my 
 fathers that that Elsie's presence has peopled these 
 rooms." 
 
 "And yet you say I should have married!" 
 
 "Even if you are a suffragist," said Alec with a 
 little smile, "I'm going to tell you that in a woman*s 
 case it is different. A man has plenty of resources 
 outside of marriage, a woman few, at least a woman 
 like you in Southmead, Millie. Now, if you could 
 take a big house and board all the teachers, that 
 would be a fine thing for you and the teachers both, 
 and " 
 
 "No, it wouldn't," she said. "I should worry 
 myself to death, and probably the teachers would 
 starve."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 51 
 
 "I suppose so," the man smiled; "which proves my 
 point. So you live with Cousin Sarah and take 
 Bologna out for exercise. No, you should have 
 married. What's Bologna? You should have had 
 children " 
 
 "Don't, Alec, don't!" came a low voice. 
 
 Alec put out his big hand and patted hers under 
 the table. "That's all right," he said. "Let's 
 talk about it, both of us. It will make us feel 
 better." 
 
 "I've I've got a whole trunk full of linen up in 
 Sarah's attic," she said. "It's locked. Sarah thinks 
 it is stuff from papa's house. I've never told her. 
 It was linen for for our home. I hemmed all the 
 napkins. They are lovely, too. Albert used to 
 laugh at me he said it would be cheaper to buy them. 
 But that wouldn't be the same, would it?" 
 
 "No, no, of course not." 
 
 " We used to plan to have a house some day like 
 the old Dwight place, with big columns in front. It 
 was such fun! Albert would draw pictures of it. 
 I have one of them now I keep it in a box with his 
 watch and his silver pencil. His mother gave those 
 to me. You and she were the only ones who knew. 
 We were going to tell just when " 
 
 She paused and dabbed at her eyes with her hand- 
 kerchief. Then she added: "The drawing is all
 
 52 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 cracking along the folds. Do you think I could 
 paste it on a piece of cardboard? " 
 
 "I'm sure you could," said Alec Farnum, averting 
 his face. 
 
 "You you have the house you planned for Elsie," 
 Miss Millie went on, "before she she " 
 
 "Before she ran away," the man helped her. "Say 
 it, Millie. There used to be no secrets between us 
 four in those far-off years, when we were young and 
 had dreams and passions. Those far-off years " 
 
 "Oh, Alec, what has become of our youth, of our 
 dreams?" she suddenly said with a little wail. 
 "You think I do nothing but exercise Friedy. I 
 I am housekeeper for a memory!" 
 
 Again he patted her hand under the table, and 
 they were both silent. 
 
 Just then Ruth came breezily into the room. 
 
 'Well, you two are a long while about your tea!" 
 
 she cried cheerfully. "It's getting dark, and no 
 
 lights on, either! I've finished the article, Uncle 
 
 Alec." 
 
 "Good for you, Ruth," said the Bird House Man; 
 "run and get some fresh tea for yourself, will you?" 
 
 "I will that," she laughed, "for your article was 
 awfully technical and dry." She picked up an 
 oatmeal cookie along with the teapot, and stuffed 
 it hungrily into her mouth.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 53 
 
 Miss Millie quickly dried her tears while Ruth was 
 gone, and they were both looking at her when she 
 returned, a tall, straight, girlish figure, healthy and 
 happy and young and they were both thinking the 
 same thoughts. 
 
 That night Alec Farnum sat with Dr. Thomas 
 Trask in the library of the Bird House, before a 
 roaring fire. The two men stretched out in comfort- 
 able male fashion in easy chairs, and both were smok- 
 ing pipes. 
 
 "A wren, that's what she is a poor little wren 
 twittering under alien eaves with no place to build 
 her nest," Alec Farnum was saying. 
 
 "Can't you find her a husband?" asked the doc- 
 tor, who was a youngish man with a lank body, a 
 dark, thin face, and merry eyes. 
 
 "It would be easier to build her a house," the other 
 replied. " Yes, that's what I've decided to do. You 
 know this place next to mine is for sale. There is 
 about a two-hundred-foot frontage with the present 
 dwelling at one side. I'm going to build her a little 
 house all her own on the side toward my place and 
 rent it to her. Of course she can't afford to build 
 one for herself. She can't touch any of that twelve 
 thousand dollar capital. It's all she has to live on." 
 
 "What is it 'the emoluments of teaching and 
 literature?' What did dear papa write?"
 
 54 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "A history of Southmead antiquities," laughed 
 Alec, "and some poems. I actually believe the 
 good man paid to have 'em printed. I've got a 
 copy somewhere. You know the kind in the style 
 of Pope. Shelley and Wordsworth might never have 
 lived for all the influence they had on a certain type 
 of New Englander fifty years ago. He was a good 
 teacher, though, of the old-fashioned school. He 
 got me into Amherst, which was something of a feat. 
 Loved opera, too, especially Wagner, in his last 
 years, which was curious. Once he took Millie to 
 New York for the Christmas holidays, and they heard 
 'Siegfried,' the * Valkyrie,' 'Lucia,' and 'The Mikado,' 
 in one wild debauch. She's named all her dogs after 
 operatic characters ever since. Poor Millie ! " 
 
 "But can she afford to rent a house?" the doctor 
 asked, resuming the original thread. 
 
 "She can of me," smiled Alec. "I can buy the 
 place for eight thousand dollars and build her a house 
 for two thousand dollars. That makes ten thousand 
 dollars. I'll get four hundred or five hundred dollars 
 a year rent out of the house that's now on it, and charge 
 her let me see well, about ten dollars a month, 
 maybe. Oh, I'm a shrewd business man, I won't 
 lose anything!" 
 
 "So I see! I suppose you'll also give her vege- 
 tables out of your garden?"
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 55 
 
 "Yes, surely, and apples and potatoes. Bless you, 
 I have more than I know what to do with, always." 
 
 The doctor smiled. "Pity you haven't got a coal 
 mine on the place," said he. 
 
 "Tommy, you strangely fail to understand the 
 subtleties of life in Southmead," said the Bird House 
 Man. " It would be charity to give her coal." 
 
 The doctor smiled again. " I'm learning," he said. 
 "Does she know of your decision?" 
 
 "Mercy, no! She won't till the house is begun. 
 Then she shall see the plans. Neither do you know 
 it. You've not heard a word. And, especially, you 
 never even guessed the real secret of the little wren 
 that in this dwelling she will housekeep for a 
 memory, for the ghost of a dear fellow who lies up 
 the road there under a white stone surrounded by 
 your patients. He was my best friend in my boy- 
 hood." 
 
 "So that is it?" said the doctor, looking at the 
 older man with undisguised affection. "You can 
 rely on my professional ethics, even if you don't on 
 my professional ability." He laughed quietly and 
 knocked the ashes from his pipe. 
 
 A few days later Alec Farnum bought the prop- 
 erty adjoining his own, and when he returned from 
 his next lecture trip he brought a roll of blue prints 
 and summoned Ruth and Miss Millie to a confer-
 
 56 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 ence. When the prints were spread on the table, 
 the corners weighted with teacups, and the women 
 knew what they meant, Ruth threw her arms about 
 the man's neck and kissed him. Then she told 
 Miss Millie she ought to do the same, much to that 
 lady's evident embarrassment. 
 
 "I I do feel as if I ought to, really," she said, and 
 her faded cheeks blushed rosy. 
 
 "Don't hesitate at all, Millie," laughed the Bird 
 House Man. "Ruth will never tell." 
 
 It was an excited conference which followed. 
 Miss Millie timidly, but with flushed, eager face, 
 made suggestions about closets, and Ruth insisted 
 on a larger bathroom at the expense of the guest- 
 chamber. "Because Miss Millie will take a bath 
 oftener than she'll have guests," she said, to Miss 
 Millie's embarrassment, and the conference pres- 
 ently broke up, all three plotters pledged to secrecy. 
 
 "I don't know what Sarah will say when slie 
 hears!" poor Miss Millie declared, the joy going out 
 of her eyes. 
 
 "You leave Sarah to me," said Alec Farnum. 
 
 Work on the Wren's Nest, as Alec always called 
 it thereafter, began as soon as the frost was out of 
 the ground, and it wasn't long before Miss Millie's 
 Cousin Sarah and all the town as well knew what the 
 operations meant. It was never discovered who
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 57 
 
 told. Doctor Trask swore he never did. Ruth 
 swore she never did. The Bird House Man swore 
 he never did. Miss Millie was quite positive that 
 she had never given the slightest intimation. 
 
 "It must have been Bologna," Alec declared. 
 
 Cousin Sarah descended upon Alec almost im- 
 mediately, finding him busy in his shop filling a rush 
 order for martins' houses, from a city park. 
 
 "What do you mean, Alec Farnum," she cried, 
 storming through the door, "by putting this silly 
 notion into Millie's head that she's going to keep 
 house by herself?" 
 
 "What do you mean, Sarah, by laying it off on 
 me?" he answered, still busy with his saw. "Millie's 
 old enough to have a few ideas of her own." 
 
 "She's old enough, Lord knows! But she's never 
 had 'em. You know perfectly well that she never 
 had an idea of her own in her life." 
 
 Alec laid down his saw and regarded the plain, 
 square- jawed woman in front of him, whose habitual 
 expression might best be described as one of aggres- 
 sive discontent. 
 
 "Well, now, I wouldn't go so far as to say that," 
 he replied. "She showed a good bit of initiative in 
 getting a dachshund instead of a canary." 
 
 "Humph," said Miss Sarah, "I always suspected 
 you put her up to that ! "
 
 58 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "Perish the thought!" he cried. "I should have 
 suggested a Great Dane. Little Millie being tugged 
 along the street by a Great Dane would be a sight 
 worth seeing. It would be like a sloop yacht towed 
 by the Mauretania." 
 
 "Humph!" said Miss Sarah again. "We are 
 getting away from the point, which is that Millie 
 isn't going into this foolish scheme." 
 
 "Oh, is that the point? Well, then, it's between 
 you and her. Why drag me in? She's signed the 
 lease for five years, and I agree to have the house 
 ready for occupancy on July first. It's purely busi- 
 ness on my part, I assure you. Of course, if she 
 or you wants to pay the forfeit to get out of the 
 lease, why " 
 
 "Don't be a fool, Alec," said the woman. 
 
 " Well, I should be one if I put up a special house for a 
 special tenant, and then let 'em back out, now wouldn't 
 I be? " He began to hammer a nail energetically. 
 
 "Yes, you would, if she'd asked you to put it 
 up. But she didn't. You needn't try to bamboozle 
 me. Millie ain't fit to take care of a house by her- 
 self, and live all alone. Besides, it ain't safe or 
 proper. She's my kith and kin, not yours, and I 
 feel responsible for her." 
 
 Alec was tempted to say, "For six dollars per," 
 but he refrained.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 59 
 
 "No, she's not my kith and kin," he answered; 
 "but the fact that she's yours doesn't give you any 
 right to deny her the freedom to live her life as she 
 chooses. She chooses to have a house of her own, 
 for reasons best known to herself, and I'm going to 
 help her have it. That's flat, Sarah." 
 
 Alec's jaw could set as squarely as Miss Sarah's, 
 and she evidently realized it as she looked at 
 him. 
 
 "Well, it's a mighty high-handed, interferin' pro- 
 ceeding, that's all I can say!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "You'll have no trouble getting another boarder," 
 Alec added with a smile. 
 
 "It's one thing to make a home for your cousin; 
 it's quite another to take boarders," she replied. 
 
 "Well, that's true, too," said he, laying down his 
 hammer thoughtfully. "Still, Sarah, I don't hon- 
 estly think a little humility will hurt you a bit." 
 
 "Don't you? Well, I don't think a few manners 
 would hurt you a bit. Good morning!" 
 
 She flounced with stiff dignity from the shop, and 
 Alec resumed his work, with a frown between his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Oh, this pride!" he said to Ruth when she came 
 in presently to tell him that Rob Eliot had sold an- 
 other picture and was coming up to spend Sunday. 
 "This pride! Of course, poor Millie could no more
 
 60 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 earn her living than a child. But that Sarah person 
 why shouldn't she work like the rest of us?" 
 
 "There's not much money in one boarder," said 
 Ruth. "I know her; she doesn't want to lose Miss 
 Millie's furniture. Hah* the best things in her house 
 belong to Miss Millie. And she doesn't want to 
 lose that twelve thousand dollars. She thinks if 
 Miss Millie goes away she wouldn't get the money 
 if her cousin should die." 
 
 "It takes a woman to think of a thing like that!" 
 exclaimed Alec. "Do you know, it had never oc- 
 curred to me?" 
 
 "It wouldn't to you r " Ruth laughed. "Are you 
 going to stop building?" 
 
 "Are you going to be sorry to see Rob again?" 
 he answered, and smiled at the gladness he saw in her 
 eyes. 
 
 The Wren's Nest went up apace, and Miss Millie 
 and Bologna watched every stage of the process. 
 There was no house in Southmead quite like it 
 so small yet so pretty. It was two stories and a half 
 high, and stood beneath a great elm tree. Down- 
 stairs there was a tiny hall, a sitting-room with a 
 tiny fireplace, a dining-room big enough to get a 
 table in, a kitchen big enough to get a range in, and 
 a tiny rear hall where the ice box was to be kept, 
 together with a tiny pantry. Upstairs the plans
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 61 
 
 called for two chambers, a bathroom, and a huge 
 closet relatively huge, at least. The stairs to the 
 attic went up out of this closet, and there was a 
 window in it. It was Miss Millie's own idea. As 
 soon as the carpenters had built the frame of the 
 stairs from the lower hall, she ascended, with Ruth 
 to steady her, over the loose boards, Siegfried wad- 
 dling on behind, and gazed lovingly at that 
 closet. 
 
 "It's almost a room!" she breathed ecstatically. 
 "And think how light it will be! You can see every 
 moth!" 
 
 "You won't have any moths in a new house," 
 said Ruth. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, we have moths always with us, 
 like the poor," said Miss Millie. 
 
 The Wren's .Nest was completed spot on time, 
 and spot on time Miss Millie arrived, bag and 
 baggage, preceded several days, however, by the 
 bulk of her furniture (it didn't take much to furnish 
 the Wren's Nest) and all her new curtains, which 
 she had been busily engaged upon for weeks before. 
 Her Cousin Sarah had relented somewhat, and had 
 helped her hang these curtains and do the cleaning, 
 which Alec thought very handsome under the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 "You know, Ruth," he said, "Sarah can hardly
 
 fl THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 construe it as a compliment that Millie doesn't want 
 to live with her." 
 
 "Handsome!" sniffed the girl. "She's afraid not 
 to keep some string on that twelve thousand dollars! 
 I hope Miss Millie lives years and years longer than 
 she does!" 
 
 "A very unchristian thought, and I'm ashamed of 
 you," said Alec Farnum with great severity. 
 
 On the evening of July first he and Ruth and Rob 
 Eliot (who had arrived for the summer, and who 
 hoped with the proceeds of his summer painting to 
 marry Ruth in the autumn, for the poor fellow had 
 not done so well that winter as he expected) went 
 ceremoniously up the steps of the Wren's Nest and 
 pushed the bell, being greeted by the yips of Siegfried 
 behind the screen door. 
 
 "Now, Rob, you must be very nice to her," Ruth 
 whispered. "Never mind if I did get most of her 
 supper and you did stack all her kindlings an hour 
 ago, we come ceremoniously now, as if we'd never 
 seen the house." 
 
 Miss Millie was heard coming to the door. 
 
 "Good evening," said the Bird House Man. "Is 
 this the home of Miss Tilton? " 
 
 Miss Millie laughed. 
 
 "Is she at home?" 
 
 Miss Millie giggled.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN OS 
 
 "Ah, you are she? May I present my young 
 friends, Paul and Virginia. We have come to view 
 your palatial abode, and pay our compliments to its 
 charming mistress." 
 
 They all came in and inspected the house with the 
 utmost gravity, Miss Millie running ahead, apologiz- 
 ing for the clutter "You know, it takes such a while 
 to get settled, even in a small house" and Siegfried 
 getting under everybody's feet, till finally he had 
 to be deposited by force upon his little cushion on 
 the end of the parlour sofa. 
 
 The house was voted an unqualified success, and 
 then Miss Millie produced two bottles of ginger ale 
 from her tiny ice box, and fluttered in with them 
 upon a tray. She got Alec aside presently. "I 
 want to give a dinner party to-morrow night," she 
 whispered. "You and me, and those two. They 
 
 are young, they are so in love I want to have 
 
 my my napkins on the table. Do you think they 
 will come? Al Albert would have liked me to do 
 it, don't you think?" 
 
 The Bird House Man patted her hand. "He 
 would, Millie, I know," said he softly. "We'll be 
 here." 
 
 They all were. Ruth was there early and helped 
 Miss Millie get the dinner. When Alec and Rob 
 came from the Bird House at seven o'clock there
 
 64 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 were candles on the table in the tiny dining-room 
 and linen which Alec sniffed, detecting the faint 
 odour of lavender, while Ruth and Miss Millie were 
 still talking excitedly in the kitchen. 
 
 "Thirty years," he whispered; "thirty years!" 
 
 "What's that?" asked the young man. 
 
 "Nothing. I was just rumbling," the other 
 replied. "Do you suppose we'll really get anything 
 to eat?" 
 
 "Ruth is a very good cook," said Rob solemnly, 
 and then grinned when the Bird House Man burst 
 into a roar. 
 
 Little Miss Millie sat at the head of her tiny board 
 and beamed nervously upon her guests at first; but 
 as the meal progressed and nothing went wrong, 
 and Alec produced a bottle of port from a basket 
 he had smuggled in and they drank to her health 
 and the health of her house and the talk waxed 
 merry, Alec Farnum expanding in his mellowest 
 mood, her big eyes grew bright with happiness, her 
 cheeks grew flushed, and suddenly Alec, looking at 
 her, exclaimed: 
 
 "Hello, Millie! I vow you look just like that 
 picture Sammy took of you when you went to New 
 York for the opera!" 
 
 "Oh, Alec, that was twenty-five years ago!" she 
 said. "I was just Ruth's age or a little older,"
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 65 
 
 she added honestly. But she blushed rosy in her 
 
 joy- 
 Ruth wouldn't let her clear the table. "No, you 
 sit with Uncle Alec in the parlour," she declared, 
 "and Rob and I will do the dishes." 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't! In my house, at my party? 
 The idea!" 
 
 "Take her away, Uncle Alec," cried Ruth; and 
 Alec took her, his big arm about her waist, and 
 swung her like a feather into the parlour. There 
 they sat and heard the gay laughter of the lovers out 
 in the kitchen, and spoke little. Only once she 
 sighed. "Oh, it's a home at last, all my own, thanks 
 to you, dear Alec. If if no, I won't think of 
 that!" 
 
 "Yes, think of it to-night," said Alec Farnum, 
 patting her hand. "Think of it. It will do you 
 good." 
 
 She bowed her head and wept softly, while the 
 man pulled the dog's long ears. Presently she 
 looked up and smiled upon her friend wistfully, as 
 much as to say, "There, I've put the Presence away 
 for now!" and he smiled back, not needing any 
 words. The lovers returned, laughing, from the 
 kitchen, and before the party broke up Ruth stood 
 by the tiny mantel, fingering a mahogany clock 
 that had belonged to dear papa, and sang "Home,
 
 66 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Sweet Home." She sang it softly in her fresh, clear, 
 tender voice, and Rob watched her face, enthralled, 
 with the gaze of a lover upon his adored, while Alec 
 looked at the carpet and clasped his fingers together 
 and Miss Millie cried softly without restraint. 
 
 Ruth's voice died away, and there was a long 
 silence in the room. Then Alec Farnum rose, like 
 a big Newfoundland rousing from sleep, looked about 
 him, and cried: "Well, well, here we've all had a 
 perfectly delightful time weeping. Let's go home 
 before Ruth sings something cheerful and spoils the 
 evening!" 
 
 His hearty voice broke the spell. Ruth looked 
 at the clock her hand had been resting upon and 
 pretended to be scandalized. Miss Millie protested 
 that it was probably fast. 
 
 "If it was your papa's, it is!" said Alec. "His 
 clocks were always ahead of time, just to make me 
 tardy." 
 
 "You were always stopping to hunt for birds' 
 nests on the way to school, that was the trouble with 
 you," said Miss Millie. 
 
 She came to the door with them, giving each her 
 hand with great ceremony. To Alec she spoke 
 softly. "How can I ever thank you?" she said. 
 
 "I'll tell you," he declared. "By keeping that 
 animated sausage of yours out of my garden. He
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 07 
 
 was in there to-day, right across my pansy bed! 
 I warn you, if it happens again, I'll I'll I'll have 
 Mrs. Plumb fry him!" 
 
 Miss Millie's eyes sparkled. "Friedy never walks 
 in flower beds," she said. 
 
 "Well, he'll never walk in mine again, that's 
 sure ! " said Alec Farnum with great ferocity. " Good- 
 night, madam." 
 
 "Isn't she a dear!" Ruth exclaimed as the lovers 
 left the older man in front of the Bird House. 
 
 "A toy lady in a toy house, all alone," said Rob. 
 "I think she's a bit pathetic." And his hand sought 
 Ruth's in the darkness. 
 
 "Yes, all alone!" said the Bird House Man, so 
 soberly that they watched him, surprised, as he 
 entered the door of his own lonely dwelling.
 
 CHAPTER HE 
 
 THE LITTLE GRAY GOOSE 
 
 " GOOD morning, Mr. Farnum," said a girl in gray, 
 as Alec Farnum came around the corner of a house 
 on the outskirts of Southmead, into the backyard. 
 
 She was standing in the kitchen door, with a white 
 apron over her gown, and smiled at him prettily. 
 She was an extremely pretty girl, in fact, with large 
 eyes of a colour usually described as baby blue, and 
 hair so light it was almost golden. She was generally 
 reported to be something of a coquette, and Alec 
 didn't much wonder at it. 
 
 "Are you hunting birds' nests?" she added. 
 
 "Yes," said he, "and if you don't mind, I'm going 
 to cut through your yard up the brook. I suspect 
 a swamp sparrow up farther, in the alders." 
 
 "Not at all, only please don't take all the eggs," 
 said she. 
 
 "Nary an egg," he answered, and went on, think- 
 ing how very pretty Marjory Damon was. It was a 
 fine morning in early June and Alec Farnum pushed 
 up the brook bed and into the alder swamp, as much 
 occupied with the air and sunshine as with his search
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 69 
 
 for birds. He didn't find the nest he was seeking, 
 and after a time he put his glasses back into the 
 case, patted his pocket to see if his lunch was prop- 
 erly stowed, and pushed on into the upland woods. 
 After three or four miles of leisurely tramping, broken 
 by several pauses to watch a hermit thrush or a 
 partridge, he crested the ridge and came down 
 rapidly to a back road so little used that two parallel 
 rows of grass were growing between the wheel ruts 
 and the central path made by the horse. It was a 
 pretty road winding over the upland, with glimpses 
 of a valley here and there between the timber and a 
 wealth of wild flowers on either side. Alec Farnum 
 strolled along it till he should come to a brook, 
 where he proposed to eat his lunch. He came to 
 the brook presently, which tinkled down from the 
 hill in a series of mossy waterfalls, passed under the 
 road, and made off into the valley below. The man 
 turned aside a few feet into the shade upstream, got 
 out his tin cup and his pocketful of sandwiches and 
 raisins, and lying luxuriously down close to the 
 stream began to munch. 
 
 He had finished only one sandwich when he heard 
 steps on the road, and in a moment a man appeared, 
 spied the brook, cast a pack from his shoulders, and 
 produced a folding cup from his pocket. As he 
 stooped to dip Alec Farnum spoke.
 
 70 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "It's good water," he said, "and a long, dry way 
 up the slope to reach it." 
 
 The man looked up, startled, seeing Alec for the 
 first time. 
 
 "Hello!" said he. "Are you a son of the road, 
 too?" 
 
 "No," said Alec, "I hate roads, except forgotten 
 ones like this." 
 
 He looked at the newcomer narrowly a young, 
 spare man, with a smooth-shaven face so newly 
 tanned that the skin was yet peeling on his forehead. 
 He wore knickerbockers, and even Alec could tell 
 by the look of it that his shirt was expensive. His 
 khaki pack, however, which now lay by the brook, 
 was old and well worn. 
 
 "I hate 'em, too," said he, "when they're full of 
 motors. I tramp by the government survey maps, 
 and take the roads where the contour intervals are 
 thickest. This one looked good to me. Where does 
 it lead to?" 
 
 "You're no son of the road, you're a fraud," 
 said Alec. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because, if you were the real thing you'd not 
 care where the road leads to. You'd like it better 
 if you didn't know, in fact." 
 
 The young man laughed. "You're right," he
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 71 
 
 said. "I'm not yet emancipated from shirts clean 
 shirts. I've been on the road a week, and I want 
 to get to my laundry. I had it expressed to a town 
 called Southmead. Am I on the way to that metrop- 
 olis?" 
 
 "As I've come from there since breakfast and I'm 
 old enough to be your father, you might reach it by 
 supper," Alec replied. "Have you some lunch?" 
 
 The other, for answer, unpacked his kit, produced 
 a small fry pan from an oilcloth covering, and a jar of 
 bacon and hah* a loaf of bread. Then he proceeded 
 to make a small fire. Alec watched him in silence. 
 
 "That's a lot of trouble for a noon meal when 
 you're on the road," he said. 
 
 "Not when you don't know what you're going to 
 get at night," the other laughed. "Some of your 
 Yankee hotels have horrible cold suppers a small 
 piece of cold corned beef, mostly gristle, on an oblong 
 platter, soggy bread, and a piece of pale, discouraged 
 custard pie ! Besides, I like to make a little fire and 
 hear the bacon sizzle, and then put it out when I 
 depart and cast a backward glance at the embers. 
 There's a pleasant little sadness in leaving a camp- 
 fire, even where you've stopped but an hour. Do 
 you know what I mean?" 
 
 "I have a vague idea," the older man smiled. 
 "You live in a city, I take it?"
 
 72 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "Why do you take it?" 
 
 "Your clothes and your speech and your pardon 
 my saying so somewhat naive method of making 
 a fire," Alec answered. 
 
 "What's the matter with my fire?" the other 
 demanded good-naturedly. 
 
 "You've been feeding it with dead willow, that's 
 all. Last winter we had a city chap in our town who 
 wanted some 'good, hard wood,' so Pat Sweeny sold 
 him three cords of 'good, hard wilier.' " 
 
 Alec got up, took the other's sheath hatchet, and 
 returned presently with, a few split faggots of cherry. 
 "Now you'll get some coals fit to cook with," he 
 laughed. "Tell me about yourself. I like your 
 face." 
 
 "Oh, there's nothing to tell." 
 
 "Everybody has something to tell," said the older 
 man. 
 
 "I haven't. School, college, business, just the 
 usual thing. I'm better at business than I was at 
 school, but no great shakes at that. I can stand it 
 only so long at a stretch, and then I have to dash off 
 for a week or two, and tramp. New York gets on my 
 nerves. A real business man would stay on the job." 
 
 "I suppose he would. What is your business?" 
 
 "Selling bonds. I have a partner. He's the real 
 thing. Golf on Saturdays and Sundays satisfies
 
 THE BIKD HOUSE MAN 73 
 
 him. I had the capital to start the business; he has 
 the brains to run it. Good combination, eh? " 
 
 "Does it take brains to sell bonds?" asked Alec. 
 
 The young man was not annoyed. He grinned 
 amiably in fact. "Not so much as we on Wall 
 Street think," he admitted. 
 
 Alec Farnum smiled also. "Well, there's no hotel 
 in Southmead," he remarked, "so you'll have to stay 
 with me. Perhaps I should tell you who I am." 
 
 "It's not necessary, I can see you're a regular 
 feller," the other answered. 
 
 Alec bowed. "And you probably would know no 
 better if I told you," said he. But he did tell. 
 "That explains the field glasses," he added. 
 
 The young man laughed frankly. "No, I never 
 heard of you," he admitted, "but I'm going to order 
 all your books when I get back to town." 
 
 "Then you are my friend forever!" Alec cried. 
 
 "And you ought to like me, too," the other added, 
 "because my name is Thomas Bird." 
 
 The two of them started out presently through the 
 woods toward Southmead, chatting as they strolled. 
 They talked about birds, not bonds, about camping 
 and cooking, about the pleasures of the open. And 
 presently they came down through the alder swamp 
 and emerged into Marjory Damon's backyard. 
 
 It chanced that Marjory was again on the back
 
 74 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 steps. She still had a big apron over her gray dress, 
 and a pan of fudge in her hand. 
 
 "Hello again, Marjory!" cried Alec Farnum. "I 
 caught a live bird, you see." 
 
 The girl coloured, and so did the young man. 
 
 "He's a Thomas Bird, Marjory," said Alec. 
 "And, Thomas Bird, Marjory is a little gray goose. 
 I know, because a girl who isn't half so pretty as she 
 is told me so." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Alec!" said Marjory, dropping the lashes 
 over her large blue eyes. 
 
 "That might be almost any other girl," said 
 Thomas Bird gallantly, looking at the figure on the 
 steps. 
 
 "You ought to give him some fudge for that," 
 said Alec. 
 
 Marjory laughed through her blushes, ran into 
 the house for a knife, and proffered each of them a 
 huge chunk on the end of the blade. They ate it 
 slowly, with relish, and Alec watched the eyes of the 
 young people playing the age-old game he always 
 loved to see. Then he took his new friend home with 
 him. 
 
 "A pretty girl, eh?" he asked when they reached 
 the road. 
 
 "Do you always introduce pretty girls by their 
 first names only?" asked Thomas Bird.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 75 
 
 "Yes, if at all," laughed Alec. "Her last name is 
 Damon, if that matters." 
 
 "Why do they call her a little gray goose?" 
 
 "They don't," said Alec. "They don't use the 
 adjectives. Those are an addition of my own. I'll 
 have to let my neighbour, Miss Millie Miss Millie 
 Tilton explain that." 
 
 When they reached the Bird House, Mrs. Plumb, 
 his housekeeper, in high indignation sent Alec off 
 to purchase more provisions. " Do you think you're 
 runnin' a hotel?" she demanded. Tom went along, 
 too, after his laundry and his mail, and he sat down 
 to supper in a clean shirt, with the contenting in- 
 formation that business was dull and he could stay 
 away another week if he wished. 
 
 "Stay here and see Southmead," said Alec. 
 
 "Perhaps a day, if it isn't imposing," he answered. 
 "I love your house, and your garden, and you. It's 
 not much like Wall Street! " 
 
 "Not much," said Alec, "that's a fact." 
 
 After supper the Bird House Man disappeared a 
 moment and brought Miss Millie Tilton back with 
 him into the garden, where the young man was 
 smoking his cigar. 
 
 " He wants to know why you call Marjory Damon 
 a goose," said Alec. 
 
 Miss Millie (who was closely pursued by Sieg-
 
 76 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 fried) coloured, and her large eyes grew pained. 
 "Why, Alec, the idea!" she answered. "I'm sure 
 I never called her any such thing." 
 
 "Still, why do you think she is one?" Alec per- 
 sisted. 
 
 "Well, who wouldn't?" said Miss Millie suddenly. 
 "A girl of her age wearing nothing but gray all the 
 time gray suits, gray dresses, gray furs just be- 
 cause somebody told her once that was her colour! 
 And the way she carries on with the boys! A flirt, 
 that's what she is! If it hadn't been for her we 
 wouldn't have had all those modern dances in South- 
 mead. She went to Springfield for a week, just to 
 learn 'em." 
 
 "Why, Millie, how you talk!" said Alec. "She 
 can't help it if the boys run after her." 
 
 "No woman is run after who doesn't want to be," 
 Miss Millie replied with great decision. 
 
 "Don't they all want to be? " Thomas Bird inquired. 
 
 Miss Millie froze him with a look, and followed by 
 Siegfried returned through the fence to her own little 
 dwelling. 
 
 "Now you know," said Alec, "perhaps. My per- 
 sonal belief is that Marjory wears gray because she 
 looks like Edna May." 
 
 "Edna May was before my time," said Thomas 
 Bird, naively, and wondered why his host chuckled.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 77 
 
 He stayed a day in Southmead, he stayed two 
 days, at the end of a week he was still there. The 
 Bird House Man was very busy on an unexpected 
 order for feed boxes and another for a magazine 
 article, which came at the same time and forced him 
 to leave his guest pretty much to his own devices. 
 What those devices were became known to Alec 
 before the week was up, and he wrote several letters 
 to New York, chewing the end of a dead cigar in his 
 study after his guest had gone to bed. The guest 
 was still there when the answers came; it was ten 
 days now. Alec read them one by one and seemed 
 satisfied. "Besides," he thought to himself, "I 
 don't believe the little gray goose is such a 
 goose, anyway. She will give as good as she 
 takes." 
 
 On the evening of the eleventh day Thomas Bird 
 came suddenly into the study not long after nine. 
 He had been calling on Marjory. His face wore 
 a curious, grave look, and his lip line was straight 
 and hard. 
 
 "Well, you are back early," said Alec cheerily. 
 
 "Yes, I must go in the morning," he said, and his 
 voice was hard, too. 
 
 "Well, I am sorry," cried Alec. "It's been pleas- 
 ant to have you here, even if I have been too busy to 
 entertain you, so you had to fall back on well, let
 
 78 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 us say on your own resources. But why this sudden 
 decision to leave? No bad news, I hope?" 
 
 The young man drew in his breath and expelled 
 a cloud of smoke, for he had lighted a cigarette 
 with fingers that made the match shake, Alec noted. 
 He looked down at the floor, then he looked quickly 
 at the kind, quizzical face of his host. 
 
 "Miss Tilton was right," he said briefly. "Now I 
 must go pack." 
 
 "Oh, come," cried Alec, "let's talk that over a 
 bit! I've known Millie to be wrong before now." 
 
 But Tom Bird only shook his head. "I'm sorry, 
 but, if you don't mind, I'd I'd rather not talk about 
 it. Good-night, sir." 
 
 The odd, boyish address at the end struck Alec 
 silent, and he let his guest depart upstairs. 
 
 "The poor beggar's really hard hit!" he exclaimed 
 to himself. "I wonder if Millie is right." 
 
 He did not try to resume the discussion in the 
 morning, but bade his new friend a hearty good-bye 
 and shipped him off to the station. Then he sawed 
 and nailed and painted energetically all day, but he 
 did not whistle as he worked. 
 
 That evening as he sat in his study the doorbell 
 rang, and Mrs. Plumb showed Marjory in. She 
 wore a gray muslin that was almost white and her 
 eyes looked unusually large.
 
 " 'Yes,' she went on ... 'You must go with me, be- 
 cause if it hadn't been for you he would never have met me. 
 You were to blame in the first place.' '
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 79 
 
 "He's gone, hasn't he?" she said briefly and at 
 once. 
 
 "Sit down," Alec commanded, pushing a chair 
 where the light would fall on her face. "Yes, he's 
 gone." 
 
 "I am going after him, and you are going with 
 me," she continued with curious decision. 
 
 The Bird House Man removed his pipe from his 
 lips and whistled. "Is that so?" said he. "I wish 
 you wouldn't be so sudden with your news." 
 
 "Yes," she went on, without the trace of a smile on 
 her face, "you must go with me, because if it hadn't 
 been for you he would never have met me. You 
 were to blame in the first place." 
 
 "To blame for what?" asked the man, watching 
 her narrowly. 
 
 She did not blush nor try to avoid his eyes. " To 
 blame for my loving him," she said. 
 
 "And did he go away because you love him?" 
 
 "He went away, I think, because he believes that 
 I don't love him," she answered. "I am going to 
 tell him that he is wrong. If you will not go with 
 me, I shall go alone." 
 
 "Have you been reading 'Man and Superman?" 
 
 "I don't know what you mean; I never heard of 
 it," she said. 
 
 "Well, let that pass," Alec smiled. "But before
 
 80 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 I take a trip to New York with the most attractive 
 young girl in town I want to know a little more 
 about the causes for such a momentous proceed- 
 ing." 
 
 A frown gathered between the girl's eyes. She 
 seemed to be struggling to master her ideas. Fi- 
 nally she spoke. "Mr. Alec," she said, "you know my 
 mother and my father both, of course. I can tell 
 you something you will understand, though I couldn't 
 tell it to anybody else. They wouldn't understand. 
 They'd think I was wicked to mention it. It's this : 
 my mother didn't love my father much when she 
 married him; I know that, though mother never 
 told me. He was never good enough for mother 
 I don't mean he was ever bad, you know that, but 
 he was just contented to live here and go to the 
 lodge meetings every Wednesday and be a carpenter 
 and just just well, just that kind of a man. But 
 mother was different. I know she was, because I 
 know how I feel, how I am. Mother dreamed, I 
 know, of getting away, of loving some man who 
 would make life full of of interest and emotion for 
 her. Mother could have loved such a man, too! 
 In her day there was no chance of a girl's getting 
 away except by marriage. You may think it's 
 easier now, but it isn't for most girls. Unless you've 
 been to college or you run away with a theatre troupe,
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 81 
 
 there is precious little chance of escaping. Oh, the 
 boys have so much the better of it!" 
 
 She paused for a moment, and Alec, in silence, 
 watched her flushed face. 
 
 "Well, mother had her chance. I know she did. 
 She never told me not really but I just know she 
 did. At least, she loved a man, the kind of a man 
 who could have understood her dreams, and taken 
 her with him into a richer life. But something 
 happened I don't know what mother never told 
 me, never spoke of it I've just pieced this all 
 together from unconscious hints and mother lost 
 him. But, Mr. Alec, I know that mother loves him 
 yet, whoever and wherever he is." 
 
 Again she paused, and her big eyes were staring 
 straight ahead with a look almost of horror in them. 
 
 The man put out his hand and patted hers, and 
 she turned her face and gave him a tiny, grateful 
 smile. 
 
 "Yes," she continued, "mother loves him yet, 
 way down deep in the back of her heart, and once I 
 saw her when she was sewing, and she had dropped 
 her work and was looking hard into a tiny locket I 
 discovered when I was a girl that she kept hidden at 
 the bottom of her Martha Washington table, and 
 there's a picture in it, not of father. She didn't 
 see me looking at her I was in the next room. She
 
 82 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 was crying just softly, to herself. But suddenly 
 father called from downstairs, and I shall never 
 forget the look that came over mother's face! Oh, 
 Mr. Alec, I can't tell you!" 
 
 The girl was once more silent, and the Bird House 
 Man was silent, too. His pipe had gone out. But 
 he was the first to speak. 
 
 "They say no woman ever quite forgets her first 
 love," said he, "and cynics add that no woman ever 
 marries him. You, I take it, do not want to lose 
 your chance if there is a chance for a happiness 
 with Tom Bird richer and fuller than anything South- 
 mead promises for you. Is that it? " 
 
 She nodded her head. "I don't want mother's 
 secret in my life," she whispered. 
 
 "But there are some things yet to be explained 
 to me," he went on gravely. "How, in the space of 
 ten days, can you be so sure that you really love 
 him? The little birds have whispered to me that 
 you and Bobbie Noble were going to hit it off some 
 day. The world suspects affections too easily trans- 
 ferred. And why should he have left so suddenly?" 
 
 He spoke kindly to her, but he spoke with a stern 
 kindness. 
 
 "I never loved Bobbie Noble," she answered. 
 "The little birds in this town do a lot of talking. 
 You ought to know that. I've flirted with Bobbie,
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 83 
 
 I'm free to admit. I've flirted with a lot of boys. 
 People call me a flirt, and I've been one. I like men 
 better than girls, I like to have them admire me. 
 I've let them make love to me what they call love- 
 making. I've let Bobbie do it more than the others 
 because he was the most decent and and presumed 
 least or I thought he did. But I've always known 
 just where I stood, Mr. Alec. I've always known 
 what love, real love, would be like when it came, 
 and not ten days but ten hours would be enough to 
 show me. Mr. Bird came to flirt with me I knew 
 that. I guess perhaps you told him I was a flirt.'" 
 
 "On my honour, no," said Alec. 
 
 "Well, somebody did, anyway. But I didn't 
 flirt with him. I couldn't. He was real to me, he 
 was what I'd dreamed of. He made me shy and 
 silent. We went walking down by the river, and he 
 talked of New York, and books, and his tramps, 
 and he didn't flirt with me, either. And then he 
 came again, and again, and and we fell in love. 
 I'm sure he fell in love, too! He never said so, but 
 he talked of love, and he told me about his hopes, 
 and how he loved dogs on a hearth by a fire, and he 
 made me feel I was to be in the room he was dream- 
 ing about, and my heart got so big I thought he 
 could hear it beating against my side, and his voice 
 was thrilling!"
 
 84 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 She abruptly stopped again, and a sudden gush 
 of tears came from her eyes. The Bird House Man 
 passed her his great silk handkerchief when he saw 
 her vainly fumbling for hers. 
 
 "But why did Tom leave?" said he gently, when 
 she had ceased weeping. 
 
 Marjory resumed her story. "He came last night 
 about eight, I guess, or later. I knew he was com- 
 ing. But when he- arrived, Bobbie was there. I 
 had gone out to the hammock to wait we'd agreed 
 on it and father saw me there, and that's how 
 Bobbie knew where I was. He was making a scene 
 I never knew him to act so. I was trying to get 
 rid of him; but he said we'd been keeping Wednesday 
 nights for each other for a long time, and he refused 
 to go. He said he'd stay around and spoil every- 
 body's evening. He meant it, too. He's awful 
 mulish sometimes. Well, finally he got the idea in 
 his head that he wanted to kiss me, and he said he'd 
 go if I'd let him. Of course, I wouldn't let him 
 not at first. But then I thought how short a time 
 Mr. Bird would be here, and how much it meant to 
 me perhaps to both of us that we should be to- 
 gether; and Bobbie had insisted on sitting in the 
 hammock, and he was fighting so you know, the 
 way boys do, country boys, anyhow that finally in 
 desperation I let him kiss me. And and of course
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 85 
 
 that was the moment when Mr. Bird was coming 
 through the shadow over the lawn ! " 
 
 "Just like a play," said Alec. 
 
 "Just like a play," she agreed. "Well, I knew the 
 second I laid eyes on his face that he'd seen. I 
 introduced Bobbie, and then I pushed him out. 
 If I'd been a man, I'd have kicked him out! I tried 
 to explain to Mr. Bird, but how can you explain a 
 thing like that, all suddenly? I I guess I made a 
 mess of it!" 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "He said something about taking another man's 
 girl, and shook hands good-bye and went out of 
 the yard and I just stood there and let him go 
 and that's why you are going to New York with 
 me." 
 
 "What time did this happen?" asked Alec. 
 
 "About eight-fifteen, I guess. Why?" 
 
 "H'm. He didn't come home till nine-thirty." 
 
 "Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Marjory, her face grow- 
 ing happy for the first time. 
 
 "Yes, it does look hopeful," Alec smiled. "But 
 why the New York trip? Why not write? " 
 
 "Write!" she said scornfully. "Would you write 
 when you had so much at stake? Would you trust 
 all your happiness to a piece of paper?" 
 
 "Not if my looks were so much more eloquent
 
 86 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 than language, that's a fact," the man grinned, 
 patting her hand once more. "But what will you 
 say to him?" 
 
 "Just what I've said to you or almost. I'm not 
 afraid to! I'll say, 'Don't give me any answer now. 
 But if you can some time answer me, come back to 
 visit Mr. Alec, and I'll be waiting without any 
 Bobbie!' Oh, Mr. Alec, there'll never be any more 
 Bobbies!" 
 
 "Well, well, Bobbies aren't such a crime, except 
 when you're very young and very much in love," 
 he smiled. "Will your parents consent to your 
 going to New York?" 
 
 "That makes no difference," she said simply. 
 "I earn my own living. I make candy for three 
 different women's exchanges. Perhaps you didn't 
 know that? And I do enough housework to pay 
 my board." 
 
 "H'm," said the Bird House Man, "I always sus- 
 pected they were wrong!" 
 
 " Who were wrong? " 
 
 "The people who called you a goose," he smiled. 
 "When do we start?" 
 
 "To-morrow morning!" cried Marjory. "Oh, 
 I'd like to kiss you ! " 
 
 "Don't," said Alec; "Tom might find out." 
 
 The next morning they met at the train with a
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 87 
 
 studied air of accident, which amused them, and 
 shortly after lunch they were in New York. 
 
 "Now, we will ride in a taxi, and I shall pay for 
 it ! " she cried. " What hotel are we going to? " 
 
 "I think you will go to the Martha Washington," 
 said Alec grimly. 
 
 "Oh, no!" 
 
 "Oh, yes! Do you think I want to be branded in 
 Southmead as an abductor? You go there and wait! 
 At five o'clock I'll try to have Tom on hand. It'll 
 depend on you whether we all dine together. I'll 
 return, say, at six-thirty. Has it occurred to you 
 that Tom mayn't be in New York?" 
 
 Marjory went white. "Oh, but he is, he is! 99 
 she cried. 
 
 "Yes, he is. I telegraphed last evening after 
 you went home," Alec smiled. 
 
 Then he went downtown. Alec Farnum down- 
 town in New York was something of an anomaly. 
 He was wearing an uncomfortable stiff collar, to be 
 sure, but he carried his unaccustomed hat in his 
 hand, showing his bronzed forehead, and he stared 
 up at the high buildings with his keen, blue eyes, 
 the eyes of a woodsman, like a boy. They never 
 ceased to fascinate him, those mortared mountains. 
 In the office of Ellman and Bird the door-boy rec- 
 ognized him instantly for a "rube," and took his
 
 88 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 own time with the card. But when the card did 
 reach Tom Bird, it brought that young man bound- 
 ing out of his private office to drag the older man 
 back with him by both hands. They talked a long 
 time, and once when the switchboard operator put 
 somebody on Mr. Bird's wire he ordered her brusquely 
 to say he was out. But when the man with the 
 big shoulders and the grizzled beard and bronzed 
 forehead did emerge again, he was grinning, and 
 Thomas Bird looked like a very happy schoolboy. 
 
 At six-thirty Alec called at the Martha Washing- 
 ton. A couple rose from a window-seat in the par- 
 lour. The girl was in gray, but she had a bunch of 
 exquisite pink roses on her breast that were no pinker 
 than her cheeks. 
 
 "Mr. Bird is going to take us to dinner and to a 
 roof garden," she said, giving Alec's hand a secret 
 squeeze. 
 
 They had a merry and magnificent dinner, and 
 at the roof garden the Bird House Man found pleas- 
 ure enough in the little drama of whisperings and 
 shoulder leanings and accidental hand touchings 
 (which he watched out of a corner of his eye) to 
 make him forget the inanities on the stage. After 
 the show was over they walked through the warm 
 night, across Bryant Park and down the deserted 
 Avenue to the Martha Washington, with Marjory
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 89 
 
 between the two men, an arm given to each, silent, 
 happy, listening to their talk. At her door she 
 turned and smiled up at both of them. "I've had 
 such a good time ! " she said. 
 
 "It was a good dinner, but a pretty punk show," 
 Alec replied, with a plaintive note in his voice. 
 
 "I'm sorry, but all the good theatres are closed," 
 Tom apologized seriously. "And I'm going to 
 rub it in by coming to visit you again soon, if I 
 may." 
 
 "Oh, I suppose you may," said the Bird House 
 Man. "Everybody seems to regard my house as a 
 summer hotel, when it gets too hot in town." 
 
 Tom looked surprised. "Well, if " he began. 
 
 But Marjory laughed. "Oh, Mr. Bird Tom," 
 she cried, "you won't mind if I kiss him, will you?" 
 
 And before anybody could reply she rose on tiptoe 
 and kissed Alec Farnum. Then she suddenly wept 
 through her laughter, and ran hastily into the 
 hotel. 
 
 "There's nothing left for you and me to do, my 
 boy, but to go and get a drink," said Alec. 
 
 Quite by accident again, the next afternoon the 
 Bird House Man and Marjory Damon alighted from 
 the same train at Southmead. 
 
 "I've got way behind on my bird houses/' he 
 complained.
 
 90 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "And I've got twenty pounds of nut bar to make," 
 said she. 
 
 He watched her tripping energetically up the 
 street, her bag ; n one hand, her roses, carefully tied 
 up, in the other, her head poised, erect, happy. 
 
 "A little gray goose," he mused. "How little 
 any of us know about the rest of us!"
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE HERMIT 
 
 "THE longer I live in Southmead," said Dr. 
 Thomas Trask, "the more I feel as if I were going to 
 step into the last chapter of a novel every time I 
 enter a house.'* 
 
 Alec Farnum stroked his grizzled goatee with 
 his big, powerful hand. "You talk as if we were a 
 public library," said he. 
 
 "Public? My Lord, no!" the doctor answered, 
 as he twined one long leg around the other, after 
 his fashion when he was talking earnestly. "If 
 anything could be more private than some of these 
 novels, I don't want to meet up with it. You New 
 Englanders are funny folks you're as reticent 
 about yourselves as you are outspoken about your 
 neighbours." 
 
 The Bird House Man laughed. "Not bad, 
 Tommy," said he. "Almost an epigram. Fill 
 up your pipe and tell me what last chapter you've 
 stumbled into now. Perhaps I can tell you what 
 went before." 
 
 The doctor, a tall, thin, youngish man, filled 
 
 91
 
 92 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 his pipe from Alec Farnum's jar, and twined his 
 legs together again. 
 
 "The sad part of it is," said he, "that it should 
 seem like a last chapter. It ought to be a first or 
 second chapter. Sometimes I feel as if the life 
 story of a woman in one of your New England vil- 
 lages had only two chapters: first, childhood; second, 
 marriage or, more often, spinsterhood prolonged 
 indefinitely." 
 
 "Stop calling it my New England," cried Alec. 
 "7 had nothing to do with it. Go on with your 
 story." 
 
 "Well, hi this case, there's one of those last 
 chapters consisting of six hundred pages of ditto 
 marks yet to be put down," said the doctor. "Only 
 I feel sure some strange chapters went before. You 
 know the Weir house up on the flats?" 
 
 "Oh," said Alec. "The misty mid-regions of 
 Wen*, eh? And have you been giving pills to Mar- 
 garet Weir?" 
 
 "Not pills. She doesn't need pills. What she 
 needs, as far as I can make out, is to forget the first 
 chapters, and especially to forget the endless pros- 
 pect of ditto marks stretching out ahead of her. 
 She lives there alone, with one old servant, in that 
 strange house it would give anybody neurasthenia. 
 It's the misty mid-region of Weir, all right! The
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 93 
 
 other night I could see the mist creeping up from the 
 river. Brrr, it makes me shiver!" 
 
 "Has Margaret got neurasthenia?" asked Alec. 
 "I didn't know her father left her money enough for 
 that." 
 
 The doctor smiled in spite of himself. "I don't 
 know if I'd call it by that name," he said. "It 
 was stomach trouble when I first called but purely 
 a nervous disorganization. I've been afraid of 
 something worse." 
 
 "So you've been going often?" asked Alec. 
 
 "Oh, every now and then," said the young doctor 
 carelessly. 
 
 Alec smiled and stroked his beard. 
 
 "Margaret is a nice girl," he remarked. "She 
 plays the violin very well." 
 
 "Doesn't she!" cried Tommy Trask with enthu- 
 siasm. "I've encouraged her to keep that up." 
 
 Again Alec smiled. "So you've heard her? I 
 believe the man she was engaged to was also a 
 musician. We never saw him here. She met him 
 in Paris the winter she studied there." 
 
 A frown had gathered on the young doctor's brow. 
 "How long ago was it?" he demanded. 
 
 "Oh, seven or eight years, I guess. Margaret 
 must be thirty now. Her father died some years 
 ago, and it was before he died that she came home
 
 94 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 from Paris with a solitaire on her finger and black 
 on the rest of her." 
 
 "Eight years!'* the doctor exclaimed. "Eight 
 years wearing black, black, black, nothing but black, 
 in a lonely house full of black walnut, with a black 
 row of Norway spruces all around it, and a garden 
 full of weeds, and the mists of the river creeping up ! 
 Why wouldn't she have neurasthenia! I told her 
 so, frankly." 
 
 "What did she say?" demanded Alec with aroused 
 curiosity. 
 
 "She didn't say anything. She looked at me as if 
 I'd struck her forgot I was a doctor, I guess left 
 me suddenly alone in that damnable library of her 
 father's, which looks like a cross between a second- 
 hand bookstore and the morgue. I wish you'd see 
 what you can do. People in this town seem to stand 
 for anything from you!" 
 
 "No, sir!" roared Alec. "I'll make a sled car- 
 riage for Carrie Potter's twins; I'll build a house for 
 Millie Tilton; I'll catch a beau for Ruth but I'm 
 damned if I'll treat Doctor Trask's neurasthenic 
 females for him ! There are limits ! " 
 
 The doctor smiled even as he frowned. "Well, 
 tell me what her father was like, anyhow," he said. 
 
 "Like? Heavens! What was he like? I can't 
 describe him. He was more Balzacian than New
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 95 
 
 Englandish. He always wore an old frock coat 
 rubbed shiny bottle green on the tails, and talked 
 about his poverty when he wasn't spouting Virgil. 
 I've met him out for a walk spouting Virgil many a 
 time, with his pockets bulging with apples he'd 
 picked up under a tree close to the road by raking 
 them to the wall with his cane when the owner 
 wasn't looking. He had been a schoolmaster some- 
 where in his earlier days, and had written a Latin 
 text-book which was largely used. He was a very 
 learned man used to write essays on classical sub- 
 jects for the big bow-wow reviews, and reviewed 
 books by the score for several papers. But a miser, 
 oh, my! In his day that garden around the house 
 was worked. Margaret and her poor mother lived 
 off vegetables. The butcher didn't trouble to turn 
 in at their gate. The only thing he spent any money 
 for was Margaret's music. He had a teacher come 
 here to town once a week, and he made the child 
 practise hours on a stretch. He said if she was going 
 to play she'd got to play well. I suppose you'd 
 call that the artistic conscience in him. I doubt 
 if he had any other kind. When she was twenty- 
 two or thereabouts he let her go to Paris for a winter. 
 She had a relative over there to live with, so it didn't 
 cost him much, but he got tired of paying a house- 
 keeper (Mrs. Weir was dead, killed by work, the
 
 96 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 town said), so he made Margaret come back. There 
 were those who declared he'd torn his coat and was 
 too stingy to take it to a tailor, so he made the girl 
 come home from Paris to darn it! A couple of 
 years or so later he died, and left behind him how 
 it must have hurt him! the house and consider- 
 able money. Nobody but Margaret knows how 
 much, but I notice the butcher goes in there every 
 day. There you have the story.'* 
 
 "I don't know whether I have or not," said 
 Tommy Trask, still frowning. "It doesn't explain 
 a lot of things." 
 
 "Well, it's all I can give you," said the Bird 
 House Man kindly. "You'll have to get the rest 
 from the patient." 
 
 "It's like getting the answer to her riddle from the 
 Sphinx," said the doctor in a tone that made Alec 
 pause in the operation of cleaning his pipe, and look 
 at his young friend sharply. 
 
 "Why are you so interested in Margaret's story?" 
 he demanded. "You're not in love with her by 
 any chance, are you you long, lean, lank crane, 
 you!" 
 
 "I have asked her to marry me," said Thomas 
 Trask. 
 
 Alec Farnum nearly dropped his pipe. He looked 
 at the other man a full moment in astonished si-
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 97 
 
 lence, and then he burst into a roar of laughter. 
 "The crane went wooing a hermit thrush!" he cried. 
 "And she won't have you?" 
 
 "I'm afraid it isn't quite so amusing to me," said 
 the doctor. 
 
 Alec sobered down. "Don't lose your sense of 
 humour, my boy," said he, "at least, not for a wo- 
 man. It's a bad sign when people take my laughter 
 seriously. Well, well, don't tell me any more now. 
 I couldn't digest it. You've given me enough to 
 think over. Go home and sleep. We'll get that 
 story read backward yet yes, and alter the ending, 
 too!" 
 
 He smote the doctor mightily on the back, and 
 sent him off down the deserted street of Southmead 
 it always was deserted when Tommy Trask left the 
 Bird House with no light in any window save that 
 of the library behind him. 
 
 The Bird House Man went back into that library, 
 knocked the ashes from his pipe, blew through the 
 stem into the fireplace, put back the pipe on the 
 mantel, and said slowly, aloud, "Well, I'll be 
 damned!" 
 
 People in Southmead were never surprised when 
 Alec Farnum appeared in their backyards with his 
 field glasses slung over his shoulder. He had the
 
 98 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 run of the town as much as the birds themselves, 
 and was always as welcome. Probably, too, he 
 preferred that way to call. Hating any sort of 
 formality, he caught people off their guard. The 
 afternoon following his talk with Tommy Trask he 
 might have been seen, or so much of him as appeared 
 above the long, rank meadow grasses and weeds, 
 striding along by the river where it curved and 
 twisted through a swampy region known as the 
 Flats. A mile from the village he turned away 
 from the bank and crossed a piece of pasture full 
 of invading hardhack and thorn trees, and alive 
 with bobolinks, and stepped through a broken 
 fence into what had once been a garden. It was 
 choked now with weeds and rank grass. A grape- 
 vine grew in picturesque abandon over a half -fallen 
 trellis. Several hills of rhubarb thrust their great 
 leaves up above the weeds. The currant bushes 
 had not been trimmed in a long while. Alec shook 
 his head sadly. A neglected garden always hurt 
 him. Beyond the garden stood a house, a strange 
 dwelling with one corner rising into a tower as bare 
 and plain as a wooden block-house of Colonial 
 times. The house was painted a mournful brown, 
 and behind it, screening it from the highway, rose 
 a great double row of spired Norway spruces, in- 
 credibly melancholy. The only spot of warm colour
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 99 
 
 in the whole scene was furnished by yellow butter- 
 cups growing in the neglected garden, and by a few 
 plants of various sorts close to the door of the 
 dwelling in the single bed which was kept cultivated. 
 
 Again Alec shook his head. "Bleak House!" 
 he exclaimed to himself. "What a life for a girl of 
 thirty!" 
 
 As he started to walk toward the French door 
 which let out from the hall on this side, he heard 
 sounds coming from within, and paused to listen. 
 Margaret Weir was playing her violin. She was 
 playing something he did not recognize, with a 
 curious, wailing note in it. The sounds came forth 
 from the sad brown dwelling, over the garden of 
 weeds, laden with a luscious beauty and laden, 
 too, with sadness. The Bird House Man walked 
 slowly up the remnants of a path, and pounded on 
 the door. The playing stopped abruptly. 
 
 He heard steps in the hall. The door was opened, 
 slowly and cautiously, and he saw before him a tall 
 woman dressed entirely in black, though the day 
 was warm, with a face oddly like a flower on a slender 
 stalk, but a flower battered and cast down by the 
 rain. She should have been a beautiful woman, 
 Alec reflected. Then, as he continued to look at 
 her, he saw that she still was a beautiful woman. 
 All she needed was a light-green dress to set off her
 
 100 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 gold hair and gray eyes, and a smile to illuminate 
 her flower-like face. 
 
 "Oh, it's you, Mr. Alec!" she was saying. "You 
 gave me such a start." 
 
 "If you weren't such a hermit, I wouldn't have," 
 he retorted. "Here you are, singing away to the 
 weeds hi your garden, when you ought to be per- 
 forming at my entertainment to raise funds for the 
 Audubon Society. I've come to ask you why you 
 don't play at that worthy charity, and why you don't 
 trim those currant bushes." 
 
 "I I always refuse to play in public, and I I I 
 hate the garden!" she answered. 
 
 "Well, Margaret, you shouldn't do either," said 
 the Bird House Man, stepping into the dim hall. 
 "And you should get a thirsty old man a cup of tea. 
 Will you?" 
 
 "Certainly," she said. "You sit in the library 
 and I'll get it right away." 
 
 Alec went into the library. It was a large room, 
 lined to the ceiling with open pine bookstacks 
 painted brown like the house, and filled with musty 
 books, shelf after shelf of calf-bound classics being 
 most prominent. Instead of a fireplace there was 
 an old black Franklin grate thrusting out into the 
 room. On the floor were old-fashioned rag rugs, 
 their colours faded. There was a haircloth sofa, a
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 101 
 
 worn leather armchair, and a huge black-walnut 
 library desk, on which stood a student's lamp. 
 By the windows was a smaller table bearing a vase 
 of fresh wild flowers the one bright spot in the 
 room. On a small chair beside it lay Margaret's 
 violin, in its case. Her music was piled two feet 
 high on the big desk. 
 
 The man walked over and picked up the instru- 
 ment, plucking the strings. As the girl came back 
 into the room bearing a tray with tea things on it, 
 he turned toward her. "What a sleeping beauty of 
 music there is in this little box of maple," he said, 
 "only waiting the kiss of the right beau! I guess 
 that's a pretty bad little pun!" 
 
 "It is pretty bad," said the girl, with a smile, as 
 she set down the tray on the desk. 
 
 Alec saw the smile, and smiled himself. The 
 end justifies the means, he thought, and smiled 
 again. But he was not sure of his ground. He 
 did not know her so well as he wished he did. He 
 had never known her well, for her father, despite his 
 learning, had repelled him, and since the father's 
 death Margaret had lived almost like a hermit. 
 Yet, as he looked at her now, with her odd, flower- 
 like face above the sombre black of her dress, in 
 this strange, dingy old room, and thought of his 
 friend Tommy Trask in love with that face, strug-
 
 102 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 gling vainly to win her from her gloomy retreat, to 
 read the closed chapters in her life history which 
 forbade him, Alec was filled with determination. 
 Here was a more interesting human problem than he 
 had guessed. 
 
 "What was that you were playing as I came 
 through the garden?" he asked. 
 
 "A Russian thing," she answered. "I adapted it 
 myself from a folk song. It somehow fits the view 
 from that window." 
 
 "It does!" said Alec, with conviction. "Your 
 fiance was Russian, wasn't he?" 
 
 The girl's cup, he noticed, trembled in her hand. 
 "Yes," she answered in a low tone. 
 
 "He was a musician, too?" 
 
 "Yes" still lower "he he was studying the 
 'cello." 
 
 "Do you think," said Alec abruptly, "that he 
 would want you to hide your light forever under a 
 bushel? Don't you think you are rather selfish, 
 too, in this life you live? An artist especially has a 
 duty to others at any rate, a good artist has." 
 
 The hand that held the cup trembled so now that 
 she set the cup down on the desk with a little clatter. 
 
 "I I can't play in public," she said. "I I 
 never could." 
 
 Alec ignored this. "There's a tablet down in
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 103 
 
 the church which you may recall," he said. "It 
 reads, 'In loving memory of Sarah Rollins, for many 
 years a member of this church and a teacher in the 
 Sunday-school.* I used to think that poor Sarah's 
 life history was meagre enough; but you don't even 
 teach in the Sunday-school. Why, Sarah was a 
 riotous agitator and mighty philanthropist com- 
 pared to you! And you only twenty-nine, with a 
 face like a flower and the gift of God in your fingers ! " 
 
 "You you are very brutal," said the girl, avert- 
 ing her face, and evidently near to tears. 
 
 "Yes sir-ee, and I meant to be!" the Bird Man 
 exclaimed. "You, only twenty-nine " 
 
 "I'm thirty!" she half whispered, but with sur- 
 prising vehemence. "I'll be thirty-one in a few 
 months!" 
 
 "Thirty! what's that? I'm fifty-four, and mak- 
 ing trouble all the time! See here, I want you to 
 play at my Audubon show week after next. Any- 
 body that can play in private as you play, can per- 
 form in public. Ruth you know Ruth Barnes, 
 who just married a young painter named Eliot, fine 
 chap, too is going to sing. You might at least 
 play an obbligato for her. Come, will you? " 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't I couldn't," she answered. "I 
 never played in public not since I was little, I 
 mean, and couldn't help it."
 
 104 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "Never?" he asked. 
 
 She looked at him in spite of herself, for his kindly 
 eyes were upon her face, and suddenly exclaimed: 
 "It's a lie! I did play in public hi Paris not once, 
 often, night after night hi a cafe. I shall never 
 forget it! I can see them the people the men- 
 staring at me yet! I won't, / won't, do it again!" 
 
 Alec veiled his surprise by setting down his tea- 
 cup. "Tell me about it," he said gently. "Did 
 you have to raise money? Wasn't your father 
 sending you enough?" 
 
 The girl was sitting on the black haircloth sofa, 
 her black gown almost indistinguishable against it, 
 twisting and untwisting a white handkerchief with 
 nervous fingers. Her hands and the bit of linen 
 were startling distinct. She did not look up, but 
 nodded her head affirmatively. 
 
 "That was hard," said the Bird .House Man. 
 "But it was, also, a long time ago, in Paris. This 
 is hi Southmead, among all your friends." 
 
 " Friends ! " she cried. " What friends have I? " 
 
 "Well," he replied, "there's at least an eccentric 
 old chap who chases birds with field glasses, and a 
 youngish doctor who's much concerned over the 
 state of your stomach " 
 
 Alec saw the slip of handkerchief wrapped sud- 
 denly and convulsively about her fingers.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 105 
 
 "He he's been talking to you?" she cried out, 
 like one hurt. 
 
 "A little," said Alec. "He wanted to know how 
 to get the hermit out of her solitariness, for solitari- 
 ness is bad for the nerves, and the nerves are bad 
 for the stomach." 
 
 " Stomach ! " said Margaret, almost bitterly. 
 
 "The stomach is not to be scorned," the man re- 
 torted. "A cup of coffee at the right moment, as 
 William James said, can alter a man's whole philos- 
 ophy of life. Also, it can alter his wife's." 
 
 "The trouble with my stomach is, I didn't have 
 meat enough when I was little," Margaret answered. 
 "You can tell Doctor Trask that, if he really wants 
 to know!" 
 
 "You are a little unfair to both of us," said the 
 Bird House Man gently. "I don't matter; but 
 Tommy is in love with you, and you ought to think 
 of that." 
 
 The woman on the couch raised her eyes to his 
 face and yanked her handkerchief loose. "Don't 
 you believe I think of it?" she cried. "Don't you 
 believe I think of it night and day? Oh, if there 
 were some way some way I think I shall go 
 mad!" 
 
 "No, you won't go mad," the man answered, 
 leaning forward and taking the wisp of white from
 
 106 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 her fingers. He laid it on the seat beside her and 
 patted her hand lightly. "You'll tell me, instead. 
 You remember how, when you were a little girl, 
 you came once and tossed bread to my swans, and 
 fell in the pond, and had to have your clothes dried 
 in my kitchen, and I told you stories? Come, you 
 tell me a story now your story. That will help, 
 won't it?" 
 
 She raised her tortured face to his and met his 
 kindly gaze. For a long moment she hesitated, 
 and then she cried out sharply: "I lied again to 
 you, just now! I didn't play in the cafe because 
 father didn't send me enough allowance! I played 
 to get money to buy this!" 
 
 She held out her hand, where the diamond glistened 
 on the third finger. "This, this, this!" she reiter- 
 ated, suddenly tearing off the ring and letting it 
 fall on the floor. Then she turned abruptly away, 
 and her head sank down against the couch, as if 
 what she had done had taken all her strength. 
 
 Alec Farnum was too astounded at first to make 
 any reply. He saw the ring glistening on the faded 
 rag rug at her feet, he saw her bowed, heaving, black- 
 clad shoulders. An irrelevant song sparrow was sing- 
 ing just outside the window, gayly, full-throated. 
 Somewhere off in the house a big clock was sleepily 
 ticking the seconds. So he let her sob for a long
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 107 
 
 moment, dry and soundless sobs; and then he touched 
 her shoulder. 
 
 "But I do not understand," he said. "You 
 bought the ring? Your lover, was he so poor?" 
 
 "Poor? " She raised her head. " You don't under- 
 stand? There was no lover! I was never engaged. 
 It was all a lie, a lie, a lie! I've been living a lie for 
 eight years! I've been living a lie till sometimes I 
 almost thought it was the truth. And now it*s 
 caught me, caught me in a trap, like a rat, like a 
 prisoner behind bars for life, life, life! Oh, why 
 did he come? " 
 
 Alec moved to her side on the couch, and took 
 her hand. "Margaret," he said firmly, "I am your 
 friend, and Tommy Trask's friend. I want you to 
 fix that firmly in your mind. Then I want you to 
 fix this firmly in your mind: You are not in a prison. 
 Nobody is ever in a prison who has the will to 
 escape, and good friends on the outside. Now, you 
 are going to be calm, very calm, and tell me all about 
 it. Begin quite at the beginning. That will be 
 easiest. Tell me everything. Then you'll feel 
 better, and we'll see the way out." 
 
 She sat up and clasped his fingers shyly, timidly, 
 like a child unused to kindness. 
 
 "It's so hard to tell," she said. "I've never told 
 things. I've never had anybody to tell them to."
 
 108 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "You have now," said Alec. "You will always 
 have now!" 
 
 Margaret raised wet eyes to his, and seemed to 
 find comfort. "You remember father," she began, 
 "you knew everybody knew how strange he was. 
 But you can't know what my life, and mother's 
 life, was like. I can't tell you. We were afraid of 
 him, I think, and yet he had some power to hold us. 
 He was so full of contradictions! I've seen him 
 weep when I played to him, and then let mother or 
 me shovel coal on the furnace five minutes later. 
 Poor, poor mother! Yet she never seemed to ques- 
 tion, and I didn't learn to, either. It just seemed 
 inevitable we had to do what father said. It was 
 our duty, our fate." 
 
 "Votes for women!" Alec exclaimed, with a hah* 
 laugh that hid the savagery of his tone. 
 
 The girl did not smile. "Mother died when I 
 was eighteen, you may remember. I had to stay 
 then, to keep house for father. He had nobody 
 else, and besides, I thought he was as poor as he 
 said. I did so want to go to college! But father 
 didn't believe in educating women only men. He 
 wouldn't hear of it. He said if I played the violin 
 that was enough. Then I asked him to let me go 
 somewhere and study to be a concert player, so I 
 could earn money; but he wouldn't let me do that,
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 109 
 
 either. He he oh, he just kept me a prisoner 
 here for three years ! 
 
 "But that wasn't the worst. One day he looked 
 at me funnily, and said I can hear them yet, his 
 words, and feel how they sank down my cold spine! 
 'Well, daughter, you are grown up now. We must 
 find a husband for you! Then you can take your 
 poor old father to live with you in comfort.' I knew, 
 somehow, I can't tell you how, that he had selected 
 somebody. He had. It was a man in Southmead 
 never mind who I won't tell you but when father 
 brought him home to dinner that night I thought I 
 should die of rage and shame and and horror. 
 He he tried to " 
 
 She paused, with a shiver, and Alec patted her 
 hand in silence. 
 
 "I had a flare up, for once," she went on. "I 
 told father I'd run away before I'd marry that man. 
 I said if he'd let me go away and study for the con- 
 cert stage, I'd promise to support him, to give him 
 half my earnings. My teacher told him I could 
 probably make a success. He let me go to Paris. 
 That was eight years ago. Paris! Dear, gay, 
 beautiful Paris ! It was all a new world to me. I 
 lived with some distant cousins of mother's, the 
 Thompsons. Mr. Thompson was French agent for 
 an American sewing machine. I studied hard, oh,
 
 110 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 so hard, and I heard operas and concerts and plays. 
 That heaven lasted four months. Then father be- 
 gan to write for me to come back. He said his 
 work wasn't selling well, and he couldn't afford to 
 pay the housekeeper. He talked of my duty to him, 
 said he was sick oh, you can guess. I I felt I 
 had to go. I don't know whether I should feel so 
 now. All I thought of then was the fact that he was 
 my father. But I knew what would happen after 
 I got home again, and one day the idea came to me 
 the idea of the lie! There was a Russian student 
 who had just died. He and I had been to some con- 
 certs together. Poor fellow, he had no lungs, and 
 his whole soul was always shining out of his great 
 eyes above his hollow cheeks. He had given me his 
 picture. He had been, even, to my cousins' house 
 to see me. If he had any relatives of his own they 
 were far away in Russia. I wrote to father that I 
 was engaged to him! I told my cousins so, too. I 
 borrowed from another student enough money to 
 buy the ring, and then I played in a cafe to pay it 
 back. My cousin helped me get my mourning outfit. 
 Nobody ever knew, ever guessed, the truth. When 
 I'd paid the money back I came home in mourning, 
 with that poor, lying ring on my finger!" 
 
 She looked down to the floor, and kicked the dia- 
 mond farther away from her.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 111 
 
 "Well," she went on presently, "father respected 
 my black for a while, and life went on as before. I 
 hadn't progressed far enough to try concert work, 
 even if I could have broken into the field and lived 
 in Southmead at the same time. Besides, every 
 time I thought of my only public appearances, my 
 whole soul was filled with rage and a kind of hatred 
 of life and fate. I wouldn't have played, I believe, 
 if we had been starving. After two or three years, 
 though, father began to talk about marriage again, 
 just by hints at first, and then more and more openly. 
 Finally I began to dread to come down to the table 
 for breakfast. He said I should respect his gray 
 hairs, he said I should be making a home for him, 
 he said I shouldn't let his line perish from the earth 
 oh, I don't know what he said! Finally he began 
 to reproach me for still wearing black, and he began 
 to invite men to the house again, and made me play, 
 and talked about my cooking, and and it was as 
 if I were being offered to them! Sometimes I could 
 have killed them, and killed myself! And, don't 
 you see, all this time, my ring and my black 
 were my only protection? But if any man had 
 come who wasn't wasn't repellent, who could 
 have taken me away, I'd have gone with him 
 then, I believe. Only there were none like that to 
 come. You know, that kind doesn't stay in South-
 
 112 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 mead. They go away to college and never come 
 back." 
 
 "Poor child!" said Alec Farmim. "Poor child! 
 This grim old bogey again of our 'duty' to our 
 parents! But now the right man has come, hasn't 
 he?" 
 
 The woman put her hands before her face. " Yes," 
 she whispered. "Yes! That is the terrible part of 
 it. Perhaps if I'd dropped my mourning after 
 father died, it would be easier now. But I didn't. 
 I'd got used to it. It was still a protection, too. 
 The rumour got about that father had left a lot of 
 money, and these same men came, like vultures, 
 still. I had to show them the door somehow. 
 They don't come now! But mostly I'd got used to 
 it. I I was broken. I was too old to begin a 
 life of my own then. There wasn't much money, 
 really not enough to travel with very far, even if 
 I'd wanted to travel. I just wanted to rest awhile, 
 in peace. So I stayed here, and wore my ring and 
 my black, and rested, and pretended it was true 
 yes, I did. I pretended I'd been in love and had 
 that much of the life that comes to happy women!" 
 
 "The sooner you get the silly old New England 
 notion out of your head that a woman who isn't 
 married when she's twenty-five has no love life 
 left, the better off you'll be," said Alec briskly.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 113 
 
 "Come, come, Margaret, brace up! What you need 
 is a big dose of modern feminism, and a bright green 
 dress, and Tommy Trask's society!" 
 
 He laughed with his big bass chuckle. But she 
 only raised her eyes to him in wonder, saying: 
 "What do you mean? What life have I now but 
 just to go on?" 
 
 "What life have you, you poor, silly female? 
 Why, the merry, carefree, luxurious life of a strug- 
 gling country general practitioner's helpmate, to be 
 sure!" said the Bird House Man. 
 
 Still she regarded him without comprehension. 
 "But the lie," she said. "I couldn't go to him after 
 the lie. He would never forgive me. He is so 
 honest, so direct, so intolerant of weakness, too. 
 He would hate me if he knew, and I couldn't go to 
 him if he didn't know." 
 
 "I understand exactly how you feel," the man 
 answered gently. "Of course, you would feel that 
 way. If you didn't, I'd be ashamed of you. But 
 just remember this: Tommy fell in love with you 
 before he knew. So now, when you tell him, you 
 can never reproach yourself with the fact that it was 
 pity made him love you." 
 
 "What do you mean?" she asked, still groping. 
 "Pity me? He'll hate me, despise me!" 
 
 "I guess you don't know Tommy Trask very well
 
 114 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 yet," Alec replied. "Do I hate you? Not much! 
 I pity you from the bottom of my heart, and, if 
 you want to know the full truth, I also rather ad- 
 mire you for putting over a pretty clever bluff for 
 eight years! Do you think Tommy won't pity you, 
 too, and just hold out his arms to you? No he 
 won't he'll grab you, willy-nilly.'* 
 
 "If if I tell him, he'll forgive me, he won't despise 
 me?" she whispered, incredulous. 
 
 "Child, child, there's nothing to forgive, I tell 
 you!" Alec cried. "There's only a state of con- 
 science imposed on the world by Calvinism and con- 
 vention, to grind one's teeth at. The only thing he, 
 or I, couldn't forgive in you would be the failure of 
 your will to meet this chance. You've taken off 
 that ring, your lie is on the floor there, in the dust. 
 The unforgivable thing in this life is the lack of will 
 to tread down our weaknesses and sins and disasters 
 and mount from them to happiness or a fuller life. 
 Come, tell me to pick up the ring, and pawn it, and 
 give the money to to what shall we say? The 
 visiting nurse fund?" 
 
 "No," said Margaret. "Give it to the birds, 
 your birds, for their protection." 
 
 "Thank you," said the Bird House Man. He 
 stooped, picked up the diamond, and dropped it into 
 his pocket. "There!" he cried. "The symbol of
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 115 
 
 your lie has already gone to brighten the world with 
 bird song and wing flash! Now, one promise more. 
 Will you put on a coloured dress to-morrow, before 
 Tommy comes to see you?" 
 
 "I I haven't got one," she said, "or only old 
 things in a trunk." 
 
 "Just as good he'll never know," said Alec. 
 "Sit up all night and sew 'em into new styles, if 
 you have to. When you get on a green dress you'll 
 tell him easier." 
 
 "Tell him!" she gasped. "Oh, I can't do that! 
 No, no, I can't! You you tell him." 
 
 Alec shook his head. "You know better than 
 that," he said. "Don't you?" 
 
 "I can't," she whispered. 
 
 "Don't you? Don't you know that you must 
 tell him just what you've told me? That you'll 
 never be happy till you have told him? That life 
 will never be right? That all the joyous future you 
 thought was denied you depends on it? " 
 
 " But I dread it so ! Will he feel the way you say? 
 
 "Never mind how he feels! You owe it to him. 
 He loves you. The only sin you can commit now 
 is the sin of silence. Put that in your conscience 
 and smoke it," Alec cried. 
 
 "It's my duty to tell him yes I see that now," 
 she said slowly.
 
 116 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 " Your duty, put it that way," he answered. " But 
 some joyous day we'll abolish the damn word from 
 the dictionary." 
 
 "You shouldn't swear," said Margaret, with the 
 faint hint of a smile. 
 
 The Bird House Man clapped his hands merrily 
 on his knees, and rose to his feet, a big, burly figure 
 above the black figure on the couch. "Swear?" 
 he said. "I'm going out now and curse the weeds 
 in your garden till they wither at the roots! But 
 day after to-morrow I return with Ruth to practise 
 that duet and don't you forget it, either!" 
 
 "Day after to-morrow I shall be ready either for 
 the duet or or death," said Margaret Weir, with a 
 sob in her voice. 
 
 Alec took both her ice-cold hands and held them a 
 second. "Nonsense!" said he. "You'll be ready 
 for the dressmaker." 
 
 He strode out of the door, and through the garden, 
 waist high in the goldenrod and hardback and milk- 
 weed by the river bank, whistling as he went, and 
 pounded fifteen minutes later on Doctor Trask's 
 door. 
 
 "Thomas," said he, "I've read the book, from the 
 first chapter to the present. It's not half through 
 yet!" 
 
 The doctor's face sobered, and then grew strangely
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 117 
 
 joyous as he saw the elation in his friend's counte- 
 nance. 
 
 "Tell me, tell me!" he cried. 
 
 "No, you go there to-morrow afternoon and read 
 it for yourself. Mind you, not till to-morrow after- 
 noon! If Mrs. King thinks she's going to die, let 
 her. If all the town takes sick, let 'em perish. You 
 go to Bleak House and read that book. It's a strange, 
 strange story, Tommy, stranger than I knew. You 
 may weep before you come to the present chapter 
 but the ending is up to you." 
 
 He went out abruptly, striding down the street. 
 
 The Bird House Man did not see Dr. Thomas 
 Trask the following evening. He called him up, 
 but a voice answered that the doctor had gone out 
 that afternoon and had not returned. Alec Farnum 
 grinned as he hung up the receiver. On the next 
 afternoon he and Ruth Eliot tramped up the road, 
 through the dark spruces, and pounded the knocker 
 on the door of that gloomy dwelling. The ancient 
 maid admitted them. They went into the library. 
 There were four vases of flowers in the room! It 
 was almost ten minutes before Margaret Weir en- 
 tered, and Ruth stared at her in amazement, for 
 she was wearing a white dress with a bright green 
 ash of ancient pattern at her waist, and a bright
 
 118 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 green ribbon at her throat. Her colour was high, 
 her face like a freshened flower on a tall, slender 
 stalk. 
 
 "Excuse me for keeping you waiting," she said, 
 "but I was having a dress tried on." 
 
 Alec whispered to her while Ruth was unpacking 
 the music. 
 
 "You had a supper party in this house last night!'* 
 he said. "Highly improper, I call it!" 
 
 "I hope it was!" she whispered back. "Oh, dear 
 Mr. Alec, we had so much to say! And after it all 
 we spoke of you, again and again!" 
 
 "Nonsense!" said the Bird House Man. "You 
 talked about the last chapter." 
 
 "The last chapter? I don't understand." 
 
 "Good, you don't need to. Come, Ruth, are you 
 ready?" 
 
 Five minutes later Ruth's clear, fresh, girlish 
 soprano was floating out over the weed-tangled 
 garden, buoyed up on the deep-voiced melody of the 
 violin, and the Bird House Man sat on the haircloth 
 sofa and smiled. The aria was from Mozart.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE JACKDAW 
 
 ALEC FARNUM was hurrying down the Bush 
 Hill Road in the gathering night of late September. 
 He had been caught by twilight far afield, up at 
 Loon Pond, where he was on the watch for migrating 
 wild duck, and already he was anticipating Mrs. 
 Plumb's rage, for he knew his housekeeper had 
 planned an omelette souffle for supper that evening. 
 He came to a break in the fence presently, and 
 climbed through the bars, taking a short cut over a 
 pasture which would bring him down through Aunt 
 Sally Jane's yard, past her little mouse-gray dwelling 
 with its lean-to roof behind a relic of the eighteenth 
 century to the main road into Southmead. He 
 strode rapidly over the uneven ground, finding the 
 track by the woodsman's instinct in his feet. But 
 as he crested the low ridge behind Aunt Sally 
 Jane's dwelling and came into her old orchard 
 (which smelled of ripe apples), he paused sud- 
 denly, arrested by the sight of a lantern gleam- 
 ing on the ground under one of the trees nearest 
 the house, and the little black, bent figure of Aunt 
 
 no
 
 120 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Sally Jane herself beside it, digging laboriously with 
 a huge spade. 
 
 Alec stopped still and watched. He wondered if 
 one of her cats were dead, and this were its funeral. 
 "Its name should have been Sir John Moore," he 
 smiled to himself. 
 
 But a moment later Aunt Sally Jane stooped and 
 picked up a small box, laid it in the hole carefully, 
 and began to put back the earth. The box was too 
 small to have held anything but a kitten, and Aunt 
 Sally Jane's cats were never kittens. They were 
 always large, old, lazy creatures, who lay purring on 
 an oval rag rug before the kitchen fire. Alec Far- 
 num stepped down quickly through the orchard, and 
 said: 
 
 "What ho, avast there, Cap'n Kidd! Are you 
 burying Spanish doubloons in yon chest?" 
 
 Aunt Sally Jane dropped the spade with a startled 
 cry, and it knocked over the lantern. "Oh, my 
 Lord! Oh, my Lord! Oh, my Lord !" she cried. 
 
 Alec came close and picked up the lantern, which 
 had not gone out, the flame merely smoking up one 
 side of the chimney. 
 
 "I didn't mean to scare you, Aunt Sally Jane," 
 said he. 
 
 "Well, you mayn't hev meant to, but you done 
 it, jest the same," said she. "Oh, my Lord!"
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 121 
 
 "There, there," he laughed. "I was taking a 
 short cut home, and it surprised me to find you bury- 
 ing your Spanish gold." 
 
 "Spanish fiddlesticks!" said Aunt Sally Jane. 
 "I might ez well tell you what's in thet box. You're 
 the only person I would tell, though. It's my 
 bond." 
 
 "Your what?" 
 
 "My bond. Land's sake, you ain't forgot, hev 
 you? You bo'ght it for me five year ago, with thet 
 thousand dollars I got fer my north pasture I sold 
 to them summer folks fer their *cottage.' Cottage! 
 They got ten bedrooms in it an* six bath tubs an' 
 a kitchen range ez big ez a steamboat. Cottage! 
 Little pungkins and sour cucumbers! You told me 
 thet bond wa'n't registered, so's I'd hev to keep it 
 careful. Here's where I keep it. It's all right 
 diggin' it up now fer the October coopon, but some- 
 times in March the frost ain't out, and it's powerful 
 hard work." 
 
 "Why, Aunt Sally Jane, you foolish old thing, 
 you! I told you to keep it at the bank, in a safe 
 deposit box!" Alec laughed. 
 
 "Safe deposit box, fiddlesticks!" answered the 
 old lady. "Why would I be payin' five dollars out 
 o' my fifty fer a swaller's nest in a bank thet may be 
 busted open by burglars any time? I don't trust no
 
 122 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 banks ! A burglar's more likely to be huntin* 'round 
 a bank then lie is my backyard, I calc'late." 
 
 "Well, maybe there's something in that," Alec 
 laughed. "Here, let me help you finish the job. 
 Why do you do it at night?" 
 
 "I don't wanter be seen, do I?" she answered. 
 
 "Then why the lantern?" 
 
 "I got to see, myself, ain't I?" 
 
 There was surely no reply to this, and Alec started 
 to pick up the spade, but she took it from him. "I 
 know how ter do this better'n you," she declared. 
 
 She finished filling back the earth, then she re- 
 placed the square of sod and hammered it down with 
 the flat of the spade. Then, with a rake, she care- 
 fully spread over the spot a pile of leaves which 
 Alec had not noticed before. To the casual eye, all 
 traces of the digging were hidden. 
 
 "There!" she said, "I calc'late nobody'd guess 
 there wuz a thousand dollars lyin' there waitin* 
 fer spring ter sprout a nice twenty-five-dollar coopon 
 again! Don't you never let on, Alec Farnum! I 
 trust you. Oh, my Lord, ef it hed been anybody 
 else!" 
 
 "I'll never let on, hope to die," said Alec, carry- 
 ing the old lady's spade, rake, and lantern back to 
 her woodshed for her, and handing her gallantly hi 
 at her kitchen door.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 123 
 
 Then he hurried on down the road to his supper, 
 chuckling to himself, and thinking how much her 
 little black form, as she dug away, resembled a pic- 
 ture he had seen somewhere, long ago, of a jackdaw 
 burying a stolen ring. 
 
 It was a whole year later that Alec again came 
 down through Aunt Sally Jane's orchard, but this 
 time it was while the daylight still showed the gather- 
 ing gold and scarlet on the hills. He had been to 
 see her in the interim, of course, for he made it a 
 point whenever he passed to look in on the little 
 old lady to see if she were in any need. Aunt Sally 
 Jane, living on ancestral acres whence all but she 
 of the old Flint line had fled, was a relic of another 
 generation, almost of another order, and Alec loved 
 her if only for her picturesqueness and for the sense 
 she brought him of other and vanished days. But it 
 was not till the wild duck were once more starting 
 southward that he had occasion to come down 
 through the orchard into the more intimate life 
 of the backyard, where the chickens strolled about 
 and a pot cheese usually hung in a white bag by the 
 kitchen door. 
 
 Alec was thinking of the bond as he crested the 
 low ridge behind the orchard, wondering if Aunt 
 Sally Jane had dug it up yet. When he came in 
 sight of the house, however, he was unprepared for
 
 124 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 the spectacle which greeted him. Aunt Sally Jane, 
 wrapped in a rusty woollen shawl, with her feet 
 propped up on a low three-legged stool, was sitting 
 in a rocking chair beside the kitchen door, while on 
 a piece of clothes-line stretched from the door to 
 the nearest apple tree, suspended by two clothes- 
 pins was a sheet of paper which bore unmistakable 
 evidences of that peculiar green engraving char- 
 acteristic of such commercial art works as bonds 
 and stock certificates. Alec drew near rapidly, 
 reassuring the old lady from afar as to his identity, 
 for he saw her scrambling hastily to her feet. 
 
 "Oh, my Lord! it's only you again, Alec!" she 
 cried, in breathless gratitude. 
 
 Alec looked closer at the paper on the line. It 
 was the bond. "Are you washing your bond to 
 make it more valuable, Aunt Sally Jane?" he asked. 
 
 "I ain't washin' it, no; I'm a-dryin' it," she said. 
 "I couldn't leave it flappin' hi this wind, with tramps 
 about, too, so I jest plunked down here an' hev been 
 settin' guard, ez yer might say." 
 
 "What's the matter with it?" the man asked. 
 "It looks as if it needed washing, anyhow." 
 
 "What's the matter with it! What's the matter 
 with thet fool Barney Killam, you'd better ask!" 
 she sniffed. "Do you know what thet man done? 
 He come here to rake up my windfalls fer the cider
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 125 
 
 mill I get ten cents a bushel fer 'em this year, 
 which yer might say is tainted money, I s'pose, 
 seein's how hard cider's the curse o' this region, 
 but it ain't worryin' me p'raps ez much ez it ought 
 and what do you think he done? He raked up the 
 whole pile o' them easy-rottin' greenin's plum right 
 over where thet bond wuz buried. 'Course, I 
 couldn't say nothin', or move 'em, so I jest hoped 
 the team would come an' cart 'em off 'fore I needed 
 ter dig up the bond, but they wa'n't in no hurry, 
 fer once, an' them greenin's all did rot, or a lot of 
 'em did, afore the team come, an' when I dug up the 
 bond this noon yes, I dug it up by daylight this 
 time, 'cause somebody seen me with the lantern last 
 spring, like you did a year ago, only they come in 
 from the road an' I jest had time to go be takin' 
 clothes in what do you think?" 
 
 "I think you ought to have buried it in a tin 
 box," said Alec. 
 
 "Well, I calc'late you're right," the old lady 
 went on. "Thet pesky box hed rotted a hole right 
 through the cover, an' the rotten apple juice hed 
 gone down through the ground an' wetted the bond 
 all nasty. Smelled more like cider then it did like a 
 thousand dollars." 
 
 Alec felt of it. "It's all dry now," he said, "and 
 I guess it's still good for fifty dollars a year."
 
 126 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "Give it ter me," the old lady demanded. "I'm 
 goin' ter take it in an' iron it now, an' then put it in 
 a new place. You come along. I'll show you. I 
 was goin' to tell you, anyhow. I got somethin' 
 to ask you, somethin' I want you should do fer me, 
 if I were took off sudden." 
 
 "Why, Aunt Sally Jane, you'll weep at my fu- 
 neral," said Alec, "or I hope you'll weep." 
 
 "I would fer sure, if I went to it," said she. 
 "You're a good boy, Alec, if you be a little queer, 
 and your father wuz a good man afore yer. But 
 I'm gettin' far on beyond the Scripture span, an' 
 the old man with the scythe may be droppin' down 
 through the orchard any day, an' callin' old Aunt 
 Sally Jane." 
 
 She grasped the bond in her thin, aged hand, and 
 entered the kitchen door. Alec followed, bringing 
 her chair and stool. She deposited the precious 
 soiled paper on an ironing board, weighting it with a 
 cold flatiron, and then led the way back into a 
 small shed behind the kitchen, which served as an 
 intermediary storeroom between the house and the 
 woodshed. Here she pointed to an old, battered 
 two-quart milk can, with a wooden stopper, which 
 hung suspended from a nail on a ceiling beam in the 
 corner. 
 
 "You see thet can?" she said. "It ain't much
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 127 
 
 good. It leaks. But in about half an hour it'll be 
 worth one thousand dollars ! Nobody but you knows 
 it. I don't want you ter fergit it. Take a good 
 look, an' come back with me." 
 
 "But, Aunt Sally Jane, don't do that!" Alec pro- 
 tested. "You'd much better let me keep the bond 
 for you, with power of attorney to collect, or some- 
 thing of the sort. I'd give you a cast-iron receipt. 
 What if your house should burn down?" 
 
 "This house ain't burned down since 1764," she 
 answered, "an' it's safer then rotten apples, I guess. 
 Thet bond ain't goin' ter leave my lovin' care while 
 I know it. Not thet I don't trust you, Alec Farnum. 
 I calc'late I've shown thet." 
 
 She licked her finger as she spoke, tested an iron 
 on the stove, which sizzled satisfactorily, and laying 
 a cloth over the bond she began to iron it energeti- 
 cally. Alec watched her in helpless amusement. 
 
 "Now, there's somethin' else I want you should 
 do fer me, though," she said. "This bond ain't 
 never to go to none o' my relatives, blood or in-law! 
 I can't very well keep the old farm away from 'em, 
 'tain't natural-like ter do it, seein' it's belonged to a 
 Flint since the house wuz built in 1764, though 
 it's precious little my nephies an' nieces care 
 about it, or their old aunt, either, fer the matter o' 
 that!"
 
 128 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Here she ironed the last corner of the bond with 
 vicious energy. 
 
 ' 'Course, yer might say this bond was really the 
 farm, too, seein' ez how it come from sellin' the north 
 pasture, but it seems different ter me, somehow. 
 Besides, it's all I got ter give ter Lucy Snow, an' 
 she's been better ter me than my own kith an' kin 
 ever hev, so Lucy is goin' ter git it, an' if I die afore 
 I've screwed up my courage ter make a will, nobody 
 in the world will know whar the bond is but you, 
 Alec, an' you'll go git it an' give it ter Lucy, an' tell 
 her whar it come from, an' how old Aunt S.ally Jane 
 Flint's blessin' goes along with it." 
 
 "But Aunt Sally Jane " Alec began. 
 
 "Don't Aunt Sally Jane me promise!" said the 
 old lady, taking the bond out from under the ironing 
 cloth and inspecting it. 
 
 "But you must make a will," Alec urged. "It 
 would be illegal for me to touch the bond. If you 
 want Lucy to have it, you must make a will." 
 
 "Illegal, your grandmother's great horned spoon!" 
 cried Aunt Sally Jane. "A lot thet would trouble 
 one o' you men! I guess there's nothin' illegal in 
 me givin' what's my own whar I please! An' I 
 won't make a will not now. Ef I made a will, 
 I'd jest feel I wuz invitin' the old reaper right in at 
 the door, an* I'd lay me down in my bed an' wait fer 
 
 -
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 129 
 
 him. I got a kick or two in me yet. 'Sides, I 
 want ter see Lucy Snow ketch the right young man 
 afore I go." 
 
 She bustled to a table drawer and brought forth a 
 pair of shears. With these she cut off the October 
 coupon from the bond, put that carefully under a 
 cold flatiron, and beckoning Alec went once more 
 into the shed. There she ordered Alec to take down 
 the battered old milk can. Carefully folding the 
 bond, she put it inside, and pounded back the wooden 
 stopper. Then Alec hung the can once more on its 
 nail. 
 
 "Now, thet's the most valuable milk can in South- 
 mead," the old lady chuckled, "an* nobody knows 
 but you and me. Remember, thet bond's fer Lucy 
 Snow. Ef she don't git it, I'll come back an* put a 
 curse on every bird's nest in your garden, Alec Far- 
 num, ez sure ez God made little apples!" 
 
 *'I believe you would," said he. "Still, you're 
 going to make your will, just the same. Do you 
 want me to get this coupon cashed for you at the 
 bank to-morrow?" 
 
 "I do my own bankin', young man," said she, 
 drawing herself up. "Lucy is comin' fer me with 
 her father's hoss an' buggy ter-morrer. It ain't so- 
 stylish as an autymobile, but I'm gettin' conserva- 
 tive in my declinin' years."
 
 130 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Alec helped her set her ironing board in the corner, 
 brought her a fresh pail of water from the well, 
 patted her hands affectionately, and departed, smil- 
 ing as he went. 
 
 The next morning he saw her driving past with 
 Lucy Snow, a young farmer's girl of seventeen, 
 with very round pink cheeks, who was invariably 
 singing when you met her on the Bush Hill Road. 
 Alec ran out from his shop and waved to them, and 
 watched them disappear down the street a girl 
 just entering on life, a woman about to leave it. 
 He had a warm spot in his heart for Lucy Snow. 
 
 The winter passed without his seeing very much of 
 Aunt Sally Jane. He was away on lecture tours a 
 considerable part of the time and busy with work 
 while at home. But he found occasion to drop in 
 on her now and then, bringing her little gifts of 
 better tea and coffee than she could have purchased 
 for herself, and at Christmas tune presenting her 
 with a pretty gray Angora wool sweater jacket, 
 which Aunt Sally Jane immediately donned and 
 admired like a child. 
 
 Lucy Snow was there at the time. "I guess 
 you ain't got nothin' so fine ez this!" said the old 
 lady to her. "But you ain't got no young feller 
 like Alec Farnum comin' 'round ter see yer. I tell 
 you, it pays ter be attractive ter the young men!"
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 131 
 
 Aunt Sally Jane laughed, and paraded feebly up 
 and down the kitchen. She was growing percep- 
 tibly feebler, Alec thought, and he called Lucy out- 
 side with him. 
 
 "Don't you think she should have somebody with 
 her?" he asked. "I'll gladly pay for a companion 
 if it could be arranged without her knowing it. It 
 isn't right for an old lady like that to be all alone 
 in a house, without even a telephone." 
 
 "I know it," said Lucy. "It worries me, too. 
 But I don't believe you could induce her to have 
 anybody. She won't admit she needs it. I come 
 as often as I can. You see, it's only a little way 
 over from our house by the short cut. I've made 
 her a red flag to hang out of the window for a signal 
 if she's sick or anything." 
 
 "You're a good girl, Lucy," said the Bird House 
 Man. "There'll be some treasures laid up for you 
 in Heaven ! Well, you let me know if anything does 
 happen, and if there's any need for a nurse or a 
 doctor." 
 
 Lucy promised, and Alec went his way. 
 
 It was in early April that his telephone rang and 
 the startled, tearful voice of Lucy Snow told him 
 to come at once to Aunt Sally Jane's. He had been 
 away the greater part of March, and so busy start- 
 ing his hotbeds on his return that he had not even
 
 132 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 thought to ask about her. Now he set off at once 
 for the old gray house on the hill. It was nearly 
 two miles up there, but he made it in twenty minutes. 
 As he drew near, he saw Dr. Tommy Trask's little 
 runabout standing in the yard. He entered with- 
 out knocking. Lucy was alone in the kitchen, 
 weeping softly. She looked up as Alec entered, 
 met the inquiry hi his eyes, and nodded. 
 
 "Dead," she said. "Mother's in there with the 
 doctor. She just came out and told me. When I 
 got here this morning she wasn't up. I ran into 
 her room. She just lay on the bed and didn't speak. 
 But she knew me. She she kissed my hand!" 
 
 Lucy wept again, softly, and Alec went across the 
 kitchen and into the front room of the house which 
 Aunt Sally Jane had used for a chamber. It was a 
 poor, meagre room, but scrupulously neat. On an 
 old yellow wooden bed, under a patchwork quilt, 
 her eyelids folded down as if in sleep, lay Aunt Sally 
 Jane. Mrs. Snow, a buxom, pink-cheeked, motherly 
 female, was combing back her wisps of white hair. 
 The face looked very peaceful. 
 
 Alec paused in the doorway, regarding the scene. 
 
 "Hello," said the doctor in a low voice. "The 
 last of the old order, Uncle Alec! She died ten 
 minutes ago, without any pain. The works just 
 ran down. Your name was on her lips at the end.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 133 
 
 I think she was trying to say something about your 
 not forgetting a promise. But I couldn't be sure. 
 She was already crossing the border." 
 
 "How sweet she looks, the dear old thing," said 
 Mrs. Snow. "Now somebody must notify those no 
 good nephews of hers in Brooklyn." 
 
 Alec went back to the kitchen. Lucy was ex- 
 cited. "Look," she said, "what I just found 
 put into an old cake box in the butt'ry!" 
 
 She handed Alec a piece of paper. It was care- 
 fully dated the day before, and was headed, in a 
 trembling hand, "My last will and testament." 
 Alec read it: 
 
 "One: To my" nephews and nieces, John, 
 Thomas, and Abigail Flint, and Alice Flint Pratt, 
 I give and bequeath this house and " 
 
 Then the writing ceased abruptly. 
 
 "She she started to make her will last night," 
 said Lucy. "Do you suppose she got too sick to 
 finish? Oh, why didn't I come back here after 
 supper! I was going to, but but " 
 
 "But what?" asked Alec, still staring at the piece 
 of paper a curious paper, one of those old sheets 
 ruled with blue lines, with the dome of the capitol 
 embossed in the upper left-hand corner. He was 
 thinking of Aunt Sally Jane's prophetic words about 
 the old man with the scythe.
 
 134 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Lucy coloured and looked at her feet. "Well, 
 Tom Sawyer wanted me to go for a ride," she stam- 
 mered. 
 
 "Did Aunt Sally Jane know that?" asked Alec 
 quickly. 
 
 "Yes. I told her." 
 
 "Did she like him?" 
 
 "I I think so," Lucy answered, blushing again. 
 
 "H'm," said he. "Poor Aunt Sally Jane! She 
 had a superstition that the reaper would come the 
 night she made her will. A queer coincidence! 
 And she couldn't finish it after all. She couldn't 
 defy her premonition." 
 
 When he was unobserved, Alec went into the shed 
 and looked into the milk can. The bond was still 
 there. He put it back hastily. 
 
 Three days later one of Aunt Sally Jane's nephews 
 and her married niece and the husband arrived for 
 the funeral. They looked oddly out of place in the 
 old eighteenth-century house, which otherwise was 
 filled with farmer folk from the Bush Hill district, 
 Lucy sitting close to Tom Sawyer, her eyes swollen 
 with weeping. The relatives wore rather exagger- 
 atedly fashionable "store clothes," as Aunt Sally 
 Jane would have called them. They seemed least 
 of any people in the room to belong there. Alec 
 resented their presence. He had taken a violent
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 135 
 
 dislike to them. He disliked them still more after 
 the body had been followed to the grave, and they 
 returned with him to the old house, where he and the 
 village lawyer whom he had called in delivered to 
 them the unfinished will of their aunt, which was, of 
 course, of no legal value, but showed at least that 
 her intention evidently was for them to inherit the 
 farm, something they would now do automatically. 
 
 "What's it worth?" asked the nephew-in-law. 
 "Of course, this old shack isn't worth anything. 
 We might remodel it, Alice, and make a summer 
 place." 
 
 "Remodel it! Tear it down, you mean. I guess 
 it would fall down anyhow if you started to remodel 
 it." 
 
 "Well, don't you begin to remodel too soon!" 
 cried the nephew to his sister. "You'll please re- 
 member that I and Tom and Abigail have a share in 
 this, too! Do you want to buy out our share?" 
 
 "See here," Alice exclaimed suddenly. "Didn't 
 Aunt Sally sell part of the farm once? Seems as if 
 she wrote about it to father before he died. Where's 
 the money she got for that?" 
 
 "I presume she employed some of it to live on," 
 said Alec Farnum, as quietly as he could. "I would 
 suggest, however, that you make the proper legal 
 arrangements at once for handling the estate, and
 
 136 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 institute a search of the house for bank books and 
 other buried treasure." 
 
 "A very sensible idea," said the nephew, "and the 
 sooner the better. I've got to get back to little 
 old New York." 
 
 Alec went out in the yard presently, to escape their 
 presence, and found Lucy and Tom sitting in the 
 orchard. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Alec," she cried, running to him, "I've 
 been waiting to see you. You know that lovely 
 sweater coat you gave Aunt Sally Jane? She said 
 she wanted me to have it. She made me promise 
 I'd wear it after she was gone. She loved it so, I 
 think because you gave it to her. I I just can't 
 bear to think of of that Pratt woman having 
 it!" 
 
 "Neither can I, Lucy," the Bird House Man re- 
 plied. "But it belongs by law to the Pratt woman, 
 nonetheless. Do you know where it is?" 
 
 "Yes," said she. "It's in her chamber, in the 
 top drawer of the bureau." 
 
 "Go in the front door, on tiptoe " Alec began. 
 
 "No!" he interrupted himself gruffly. "That won't 
 do at all. I'll explain the circumstances to the Pratt 
 woman, and leave it to her decency. She must have 
 some. I've always maintained that everybody has, 
 at any rate. Besides, I don't believe the coat is
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 137 
 
 bright coloured enough for her. She looks more like 
 the strawberry pink kind the summer girls wear." 
 
 Tom grinned at this. "Gee, Lucy don't need no 
 bright clo'es ter make her look young!" he said, while 
 Lucy blushed. 
 
 Alec looked at the pair affectionately. They were 
 so young, so healthy, so simple! 
 
 "Tom," he asked suddenly, "do you love Lucy?" 
 
 The young man turned fiery red, stammered, and 
 replied, "Y yes, sir!" with surprising vehemence. 
 
 "And you, Lucy?" 
 
 Lucy answered by taking Tom's big hand and 
 twining her fingers through his. 
 
 "Good," said the Bird House Man. "That 
 would have pleased Aunt Sally Jane." 
 
 He strode back through the orchard, pulling at his 
 beard as he went, a frown between his eyes. Outside 
 the shed he paused, and the frown deepened. 
 
 "To whom is my duty?" he said to himself, the 
 words actually forming in his brain. "Pshaw, here 
 I am using that abominable word duty ! By all 
 the laws of the land the bond belongs to those atro- 
 cious heirs; by all the laws of right and justice it 
 belongs to Lucy Snow. Am I to be the instrument 
 of the laws of the land, or the laws of of the Al- 
 mighty?" 
 
 He smiled a little wryly at his predicament, and
 
 138 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 put one foot undecidedly on the step of the inner 
 shed. 
 
 Aunt Sally Jane's own words came back to him, 
 came back with the fond memory of her quaint 
 figure, her yellowed, shrewd face, her pathos of 
 loneliness. "Remember, thet bond's fer Lucy Snow. 
 Ef she don't git it, I'll come back and put a curse on 
 every bird's nest in your garden, Alec Farnum, ez 
 sure ez God made little apples!" 
 
 Do the souls of the dead come back? Would the 
 soul of that little old woman who had known but 
 few to love or to love her, but who had loved those 
 few devotedly, and Lucy most of all, come back to 
 this abode and know that he, Alec Farnum, whom 
 she had trusted, had out of respect for a law in which 
 there was no justice been faithless to her trust? 
 Would she, who had known so little of this world's 
 store of happiness, be unhappy hereafter? Of course, 
 she should have made a will; of course, he had told 
 her so. The premonition was silly, her death a 
 coincidence. Perhaps who could say? Admit all 
 that, but she was a superstitious old lady, of a naive, 
 bygone generation, and her premonitions were also 
 her reality. The out tanding fact was that she 
 passionately desired the bond to go to Lucy Snow, 
 and she expected Alec to see that it went to Lucy 
 Snow. The law took no cognizance of wishes now
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 139 
 
 that she was dead, and the Pratt woman would take 
 no cognizance of wishes, either, where one thou- 
 sand dollars was concerned: he knew that instinc- 
 tively. 
 
 Was the soul of that bent little old figure whom he 
 had discovered burying her bond, like a jackdaw, 
 under the apple trees, whom he had but just seen 
 lying on her ancient bed with the peace of death on 
 her wizened face, watching him now, made miser- 
 able by his failure, mutely miserable without power 
 to protest across the gulf? 
 
 In this so busy world Alec Farnum had thought 
 but little about another. The rector said he had 
 no religion which is often said of those who do not 
 care to be bored on Sunday morning. But at this 
 moment, with one foot on the step to the inner shed, 
 one foot in the chips from the kindling pile, the next 
 world was very real to Alec. He looked into the 
 dimness in front of him with eyes that peered across 
 the border, and he seemed to wait the accusation of 
 Aunt Sally Jane's disembodied voice. 
 
 Instead, he heard from behind the closed door to 
 the kitchen the voice of her niece. 
 
 "There ain't been an improvement made in this 
 awful old shack for a hundred years," she was say- 
 ing. "It's funny to think of our folks living like 
 this. My, we might have been born here, if pa
 
 140 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 hadn't gone to Brooklyn when he was young ! We've 
 come some way in two generations!" 
 
 The frown vanished from Alec's brow. "The 
 law be damned!" he muttered. 
 
 Then he stole on tiptoe into the next shed, took 
 down the milk can with the utmost care, keeping one 
 eye on the kitchen door, slipped the bond hastily 
 into his inner pocket, hung the can up again, buttoned 
 his coat, and returned, still on tiptoe, to the wood- 
 shed. 
 
 There he paused, drew a long breath, wiped his 
 brow, and then walked noisily toward the kitchen, 
 opened the door, and entered.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE WILD DUCK 
 
 "OH, UNCLE ALEC, did you know that Tom 
 Eames was back?" cried Ruth Eliot, running into 
 the Bird House Man's shop one summer morning. 
 
 "No!" cried the Bird House Man. "When did 
 he arrive, and where's he been?" 
 
 "Last night. I met him in front of the post- 
 office, smoking a cigar about six feet long. He's 
 thin and burned brown, and has a funny moustache, 
 and says he's been in China." 
 
 " Then he probably has," Alec smiled. " Tom was 
 an honest boy." 
 
 "He may have been honest, but he wasn't reli- 
 able," said Ruth. "He's the kind of man who 
 who takes what he wants for his own pleasure or 
 convenience, and then departs without any sense of 
 obligation." 
 
 "How do you know so much about Tom Eames?" 
 laughed Alec. "It must have been five years ago 
 that he went away, and you weren't out of pinafores 
 then." 
 
 "I was eighteen, you old silly, and I have a wo- 
 
 141
 
 142 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 man's intuition! Besides, I know Hazel Ban- 
 croft." 
 
 "What on earth has Hazel Bancroft got to do 
 with it?" Alec Farnum asked. 
 
 "She has a good deal," Ruth answered soberly. 
 "She was eighteen, too, when he went away. I some- 
 times think a girl of eighteen is older than a boy of 
 twenty-one." 
 
 "You mean she was in love with him?" 
 
 "I mean he made her be in love with him he 
 liked having a pretty girl in love with him," said 
 Ruth. 
 
 "Most men do," Alec smiled. 
 
 "But most men expect to do a little loving in 
 return," Ruth replied. 
 
 "H'm I'm not so sure," said the Bird House Man. 
 
 "Yes you are don't try to be cynical! Tom 
 just went away when he felt like it, and left Hazel 
 flat." 
 
 "I can't regard being left flat at eighteen as an 
 unmitigated tragedy," Alec responded. "I can 
 even conceive of it as a blessing. Besides, Hazel 
 seems to have done pretty well since. I don't 
 notice her sitting out many dances. For dancing, 
 indeed, she seems to be a regular grasshopper. 
 Dances pretty well, too! By the way, we must re- 
 peat that little performance we gave in my garden
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 143 
 
 last year, with Hazel doing a butterfly dance in 
 the costume your Rob designed for her, and you 
 hidden out behind the syringa, singing. Now 
 Tommy Trask has rescued Margaret Weir, she can 
 fiddle for us. That's the final touch we need." 
 
 But Ruth was not to be put off. "Sometimes 
 you are dreadfully dense, Uncle Alec," she said. "I 
 don't believe you realize at all the sort of a girl 
 Hazel is. She's the kind that never really forgets. 
 Being treated that way having her heart wrenched 
 would just change her whole life, down deep. 
 I I don't know what's going to happen now Tom 
 Eames has come back." 
 
 "Perhaps we'll have a performance of * All's Well 
 That Ends Well/ instead of the dance," said the 
 Bird House Man. 
 
 Ruth shook her head. "I don't trust Tom," she 
 said. 
 
 "You have a suspicious nature get out of my 
 shop!" the man laughed. But when she had gone, 
 he idled, looking thoughtfully out across the masses 
 of colour in his garden. 
 
 It was not long after that Tom Eames himself 
 appeared a young man of twenty-six, with a lean, 
 bronzed face (it was more than mere tan), and a 
 smiling, easy manner not without a certain sugges- 
 tion of swagger. He came into the shop with this
 
 144 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 swagger rather accentuated. Evidently he regarded 
 his return as of considerable importance. Alec 
 looked up from his work, put out his hand, shook 
 Tom's, and then resumed his occupation. 
 
 "Nice morning," he said. "I'm glad for the sake 
 of the team. Last week it rained for the game with 
 Boxford." * 
 
 Tom Eames was undoubtedly taken aback by 
 this greeting. "Y-yes," he stammered. "Who's 
 on the team now?" 
 
 "Never mind the team now!" Alec laughed. 
 "Tell me where you've been these five years 
 only don't try to impress me, because I've been 
 around the world myself. I've heard the clarinos 
 sing in the Mexican ranges, and the nightingales by 
 the Danube." 
 
 "You've not changed much," said Tom, with a 
 sheepish grin. 
 
 "I'm too old to change. What have you learned 
 in your travels?" 
 
 "I've been to China," said Tom. "After dad 
 died, and left me enough to see the world with, I 
 just lit out, as you know. I went through Europe 
 and the Suez Canal, and India, and got to Canton 
 before I'd used up my pile. It got pretty low there, 
 though, and I joined up with a plant expedition into 
 far western China. Was two years with that it
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 145 
 
 was heaps of fun, and hard work, too. Then I got 
 on a newspaper at Manila, and worked there six 
 months or more, and then I went to Japan for 
 a bit, with an importing firm. Then I got homesick 
 and headed for 'Frisco, and got stuck at Honolulu 
 for nearly a year, working on a pineapple plantation, 
 for a man I met on the steamer. Learned a lot 
 about pineapples and saved up a bit of money, and 
 here I am!" 
 
 "Going to stay?" Alec asked impassively. 
 
 "Sure. I'm tired of kicking around the world. 
 I'm twenty-six now getting old! Guess I've seen 
 my share. I'm going to look around for the right 
 farm, buy it in, and start a nursery going to breed 
 native wild flowers and shrubs for the market. I've 
 decided that our own native flowers are pretty good. 
 'Course, I'll handle a few China plants, to use my 
 advertising drag, seeing as how I've been to China 
 myself." 
 
 "That's a fine idea, Tom!" cried Alec. "You 
 didn't find anything in China lovelier than a fringed 
 gentian, did you?" 
 
 "No," said the youth. "No, I didn't. Well, I 
 must be on my way. When I get the farm, I can 
 rely on your help, can't I? You'll be about the 
 only person in this old berg who won't think I've 
 gone dippy."
 
 146 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "To the limit," said the Bird House Man. 
 
 Alec watched him go whistling out, and on the 
 street resume his swagger as he met a passerby. 
 
 "Travel is one way of not getting an education," 
 the Bird House Man muttered to himself. 
 
 In the next few days the town was full of rumours 
 of Tom Eames' search for a farm. He was boarding 
 at Carrie Ashton's, and received callers every day, 
 to consider their offers. It was reported that he 
 had come back home worth fifty thousand dollars, 
 which gradually swelled to half a million. His 
 swagger grew in direct proportion to this increase in 
 the size of his fortune. But, after a week or more 
 he hadn't bought a farm. He said he couldn't find 
 one yet which answered his needs. 
 
 But he had begun to be seen again with Hazel 
 Bancroft. He took her to a dance, where she taught 
 him the new steps which had come in since his de- 
 parture. Ruth reported to the Bird House Man that 
 he and Hazel danced twelve out of fourteen dances 
 together, which in Bentford was always considered a 
 serious sign. He went often to her house. Gradu- 
 ally he began to stay there for most of his dinners. 
 After dinner he and Hazel walked out along the 
 river bank or drifted down under the willows in a 
 canoe. The other young men who had been de- 
 voted to Hazel dropped away. Southmead ac-
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 147 
 
 knowledged the rights of priority in such matters. 
 It was a recognized thing that Tom Eames had 
 come back to his old home and his old sweetheart. 
 
 "If I were Hazel, I wouldn't have taken him back 
 so easily," said Ruth. 
 
 "Oh, yes, you would," Alec smiled. "He was 
 only a boy, after all, when he went away to see the 
 world. He's come back a man." 
 
 "He's come back just what he went away only 
 more so!" Ruth retorted. "Rob thinks so, too." 
 
 "Well, of course, if Rob thinks so, that settles it." 
 
 "Why doesn't he give her a ring, and let her an- 
 nounce their engagement, if he's grown up? And 
 why doesn't he really start that nursery he's talking 
 about?" 
 
 The Bird House Man put up his hands. "Don't 
 ask me ! " he cried. " You talk as if I were to blame." 
 
 "Oh, nobody's to blame, I suppose," Ruth an- 
 swered. "But this time he'll break Hazel's heart." 
 
 It wasn't long after when Tom Eames again ap- 
 peared at the Bird House, this time rather late in the 
 evening. Alec Farnum was smoking a bedtime 
 pipe. Rob Eliot and Ruth had just gone. They 
 had been singing and playing for him, and Rob, shy 
 as a schoolboy, had whispered a secret in his ear. 
 He had kissed Ruth good-night, and chuckled at 
 her blushes when she guessed his reason, and now he
 
 148 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 was smoking happily, thinking of his song sparrow, 
 of the girl who was as dear to him as the daughter he 
 had never had. 
 
 Tom's knock aroused him. 
 
 He looked at his caller sharply, as he made him 
 welcome. 
 
 "It's rather late to be dropping in, but I saw a 
 light in your window," said Tom apologetically. 
 
 "Late? Don't you remember that I'm an owl? 
 Well, Tom, have you found the right farm yet?" 
 
 The young man shook his head. "That's what 
 I've come to talk to you about," he answered. " You 
 can understand, if anybody in this old berg can. I 
 don't want to buy a farm any more. That's the 
 flat truth." 
 
 Alec looked at him sharply again. "What do 
 you want to do?" he asked. 
 
 "I want to go back into China." 
 
 The older man took the stem out of his pipe and 
 blew it clean before he answered. "You mean to 
 say that you have an attack of wanderlust, after 
 you've been home only a month, eh?" 
 
 "That's about it, I guess." 
 
 "Why China?" 
 
 "I couldn't explain that to anybody who'd not 
 been into the interior but once you've been there, 
 it calls you. The miles and miles of country with-
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 149 
 
 out a town and without a forest just little house 
 and garden after little house and garden! The 
 yellow people! The great yellow rivers! The old- 
 ness of it! And then, finally, the white mountains 
 on the far horizon, and the wildness where they say 
 all history began, and the dirty monks and and 
 oh, I can't tell you, but I dream of it, and it kind of 
 says, 'Come!'" 
 
 Alec slowly nodded his head. 
 
 "Something like that calls to the wild duck on a 
 day in autumn, I suppose," he said. "Why did you 
 come home at all?" 
 
 "Well, gee, a fellow gets homesick! I wanted to 
 see the folks white folks." 
 
 "And have them see you, eh?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked Tom. 
 
 "Well, you rather wanted us back here to know 
 you'd been globe-trotting, didn't you?" 
 
 Tom Eames was not angry. He laughed. "I'm 
 afraid you're a bit right," he answered. "A chap 
 does want his home folks to know what he's up 
 to." 
 
 "I don't believe the wild duck does that," said 
 Alec shortly. " What about Hazel? " 
 
 Tom grew grave. "That's what I really want to 
 ask you about," said he. "There's nobody else 
 I can ask, and besides, Hazel sets great store by you.
 
 150 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 I know you think I'm a bit of a rotter, and Ruth 
 what's her name now, Eliot? thinks I'm more'n 
 that. But, honest to God, Mr. Farnum, I'm fond 
 of Hazel, awful fond I guess as fond as I can be of 
 anybody. I want to do what's right by her." 
 
 "Why not marry her then, and take her to China 
 with you?" 
 
 "You wouldn't say that if you knew interior 
 China. Besides, it ain't China alone it's this 
 cursed longing in me to knock around the world. 
 I got some money now a couple of thousand 
 dollars. That ain't going to last long. I may get 
 a good job when it's gone. I may have to punch 
 steers hi Argentine or heave tea bales with a gang of 
 coolies, 'somewhere east of Suez.' Can't ask a 
 woman to share that, you know." 
 
 "If Hazel loves you " 
 
 "Oh, she loves me all right!" said Tom. 
 
 The Bird House Man smothered an instinctive 
 exclamation of anger, and continued: "If Hazel loves 
 you, has it occurred to you that perhaps you owe it 
 to her happiness to settle down here, or at least in 
 some civilized land where you can take her and sup- 
 port her?" 
 
 "That's just it!" Tom cried. "Sure it's occurred 
 to me. I tell you I'm not such a rotter as you all 
 think. I want to be on the square with Hazel.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 151 
 
 But I've been trying for two weeks to make myself 
 ask her to set a day, and always, before I can do it, 
 up hops a vision of China, or I hear a little geisha 
 that I I knew once, singing in her funny voice, 
 and this old berg seems all of a sudden tame, and 
 Hazel looks oh, how can I explain it? sort of 
 homely, no, not homely, of course sort of unin- 
 teresting, and and I just can't do it. If I do ask 
 her, what's going to prevent my feeling this way after- 
 ward? Won't I make her more unhappy later? 
 Gee, what shall I do? " 
 
 "So you've come here to get me to make up your 
 mind for you, eh?" snorted Alec Farnum. "Well, 
 Hazel is about seven thousand times too good for 
 you, that's my belief. You can't help what you are, 
 though. You're a wild duck with an enlarged ego. 
 You are planning already to fly away. Have you 
 booked yet?" 
 
 "I I sort of half reserved passage on a Pacific 
 mail next month, from Vancouver," Tom admitted, 
 caught off his guard. 
 
 "Oh, you did? Well, use it, by all means. I guess 
 we can mend Hazel's heart better now than later." 
 
 "I I hate to do it," said Tom. "I hate to think 
 of Hazel with any other man." 
 
 Alec Farnum rose. "Good-night," he said, so 
 brusquely that the youth started. "Before you go,
 
 152 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 leave me the name of your steamer, though. I wish 
 to know it." 
 
 His manner precluded further speech, and Tom 
 Eames went out, rather abashed and hastily. 
 
 The next day he left town, to all but Alec as un- 
 expectedly as he had come. It was Kib Turner, 
 driver of the local "deepot carriage," who told the 
 Bird House Man. Alec was in front of his shop, 
 edging the path to the curb, when Kib drove by. 
 
 "Took that young feller Tom Eames to the 
 deepot this mornin'," he said. "Reckon some few 
 farmers who was lookin' ter sting him is kinder 
 smartin' themselves neow. I arst him whar he was 
 goin', an' he allowed he was migratin' like a wild 
 duck. I told him ter look out fer decoys. I ain't 
 never travelled much myself, not ez you'd really 
 say, though I bin ter Washington. I calc'late it 
 makes yer kind o' restless." 
 
 "Sometimes," Alec answered, so briefly and al- 
 most curtly that the old fellow on the battered hack 
 looked surprised, and clucked instinctively to his 
 dejected horse. 
 
 That evening the doorbell of the Bird House was 
 once more pulled, and Mrs. Plumb admitted a girl. 
 Alec rose to greet her without a word, his eyes 
 searching her face anxiously. It was a pretty face, 
 an extraordinarily pretty face, a little thin and
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 153 
 
 pointed, and set on an equally pretty throat. Her 
 figure was youthful and slim, and she carried her- 
 self with unconscious grace, though all her move- 
 ments were alert and rapid, comporting with the 
 vividness of her dark-blue eyes. Those eyes were 
 now looking into Alec's with a snap of challenge. 
 
 He put out his hand and took hers. "Sit down, 
 Hazel," he said gently, leading her to a big easy chair. 
 
 She sat down, and folded one trim ankle over the 
 other. "So you sent Tom away!" she began ab- 
 ruptly. 
 
 "Was that what Tom said?" 
 
 "He said you advised him to go." 
 
 "I won't deny it," the man answered, "though I 
 think it's only fair to tell you that he had already 
 booked his passage before he came to me. Did he 
 tell you that?" 
 
 The girl shook her head. 
 
 "No, he wouldn't," Alec said, half to himself. 
 "Hazel, I advised him to go because if it wasn't 
 now, it would be later, because he's not good enough 
 for you " 
 
 "Don't you think I might be permitted to be the 
 judge of that?" she said, so quietly that Alec shot 
 another look at her face. 
 
 "Presumably you are," he replied. "But, un- 
 fortunately, my judgment also was asked, and I
 
 154 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 rendered it. I'd rather see you unhappy and free, 
 than unhappy and bound." 
 
 "Unhappy!" she shot the word out. "Unhappy! 
 I suppose everybody thinks I'm at home now, cry- 
 ing my eyes out! Well, I'm not, and I never shall 
 be ! If I do cry my eyes out, nobody in this town will 
 ever know it! Oh, you men! If you feel like seeing 
 the world, why, you just go see it, no matter who 
 suffers!" 
 
 "Not all of us, Hazel," said Alec Farnum gently. 
 "Not all of us. But there are some men who are 
 born wanderers, who, when the call comes, have to 
 rise and follow, like a wild duck from his northern 
 marshes. It is better to let them go, and find another 
 mate among the " 
 
 "Mate! I don't want any mate!" the girl broke 
 out passionately. "I I cared for Tom five years 
 ago, more than I ever can or want to care for any- 
 body again. I I thought he had come back to me. 
 I took him back. I knew what he was as well as 
 you do. I I hadn't many delusions after those 
 five years. But it seemed as if my early dream was 
 somehow coming true after all, and and " 
 
 She stopped abruptly, and fidgeted with her wisp 
 of a handkerchief in her fingers. Alec said nothing. 
 He hoped that she would weep, but she was quite 
 dry eyed.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 155 
 
 "Now he's gone," she resumed, "and I'll never 
 take him back, not if he crawls to me over fields of 
 splintered glass! But don't you think I'm going to 
 stay here and look pathetic and wait for some 'nice* 
 man to heal my broken heart! I've come to you for 
 a little advice, too. You said Tom was a wild duck, 
 and advised him to fly away. Well, what's sauce 
 for the drake is sauce for the other sex, too. Have 
 you got any reason why 7 shouldn't fly away? Just 
 because I wear petticoats, can't I see the world when 
 I want to, just as well as he? Do you suppose a 
 girl doesn't hear any of those calls you talk about? " 
 
 Her eyes were challenging him, and Alec waited a 
 moment before he responded. 
 
 "I can think of several reasons why you shouldn't 
 fly away," he said presently, "but I'm not sure that 
 you are any more ready to listen to them than Tom 
 was." 
 
 "I'll listen," she said. 
 
 "Well, for one thing, you do wear petticoats 
 metaphorically speaking, at least; I can't vouch for 
 the present styles. What is easy for a man is difficult 
 and dangerous for a girl. In the second place, you 
 are not that kind of a person." 
 
 "It's little you know what kind of a person I 
 am!" she retorted. "I didn't know myself till 
 to-day. I'm only just finding out now. I may not
 
 156 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 'hear the East a-callin',' as he was always quoting, 
 but I do hear something calling which bids me get 
 out of Southmead. I'm not going to wait for the 
 world to come to my door, in the form of one man 
 who talks through his nose, like everybody here. 
 I'm going to go to the world, and see it all! I'm 
 going to leave my 'broken heart' behind. I'm not 
 going to take any heart with me. I'm sjoing to do a 
 little wild ducking!" 
 
 "You're not going to do anything of the kind!" 
 Alec answered. "You are going to stay here and 
 go about your business as usual, and think of your 
 father and mother and sister." 
 
 "My business! Perhaps you'll tell me what my 
 business is? Waiting for a man, I suppose, and 
 singing in the Episcopal choir, and helping wash 
 dishes! Not much! The choir won't be any worse 
 if I leave it it couldn't and father can afford to 
 hire a maid if I go. Besides, you don't really be- 
 lieve that a child owes it to its parents to sacrifice 
 its life to them, now do you? " 
 
 "No," the man admitted, "not when it knows 
 what its life should be, and doesn't merely chase a 
 whim." 
 
 "Call it what you please, it says 'Come* it's my 
 equivalent for China," she retorted. "I demand as 
 my right an equivalent for China!"
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 157 
 
 "What do you purpose to do?" the Bird House 
 Man asked. 
 
 "You've told me I can dance," she said. "In 
 fact, you and Ruth and Mr. Eliot have taught me to 
 dance, really. Perhaps I shall dance my way to 
 fame who knows?" 
 
 "Oh, child, child, you don't know what you are 
 saying!" Alec exclaimed. 
 
 The girl rose, and looked him soberly in the face. 
 "Uncle Alec," she answered, "I know exactly what 
 I am saying. I've never been far out of this village 
 more than twice in my life, but I'm a woman now. 
 I know exactly what I'm saying." 
 
 Their eyes met, and the man shook his head. 
 "No, you can't!" he half whispered. "No, no! 
 you wouldn't leave us all, this way me it'll be my 
 fault. I'll I'll wire Tom!" 
 
 "If you dare!" she cried. "I never want to lay 
 eyes on him again!" 
 
 And suddenly, before the man had time even to 
 put out his arm, she reeled against him, and lay 
 sobbing on his bosom. 
 
 He let her sob for a time, stroking her pretty hair 
 like a father, and then, when she was quiet, he 
 searched for his cap to take her home. But she 
 refused his escort. 
 
 "No!" she cried. "I'm not going to be escorted
 
 158 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 around by a man, just because it's dark! I shall 
 find my own way now I insist!" 
 
 "As you like," he answered. "To-morrow after- 
 noon I'm coming to take you for a buggy ride, 
 though." 
 
 She smiled faintly back into his face, but without 
 replying ran quickly out and down the steps. 
 
 "With a white horse, too," he called after her. 
 
 True to his promise, Alec reached her house the 
 next afternoon, seated in a buggy pulled by a white 
 horse. Her mother answered the bell. Alec saw 
 at once that she was greatly perturbed. 
 
 "Hazel Hazel's gone to New York on a little 
 visit," she said. 
 
 "Come out on the porch, Mary," said the Bird 
 House Man, who had gone to school with Hazel's 
 mother. "Now, tell me about it. She's gone away, 
 has she? Did she leave any address?" 
 
 The woman was close to tears. "No," she an- 
 swered. "That's the most terrible part of it to 
 me. Her father'll forgive her in time, but I don't 
 know where she is! She said she'd write. But how 
 do I know what'll happen to her down in that city?" 
 
 "Hazel will look out for herself, never fear. Did 
 she have any money?" 
 
 "She got two hundred dollars of her own out of the 
 savings bank this morning. It's money her grand-
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 159 
 
 father left to her. Her father wouldn't give her any. 
 She wouldn't tell him why she was going or for how 
 long. They had a terrible scene. It's all that Tom 
 Eames' doing. I'd like to lay my hands on him!" 
 
 "Didn't Hazel explain anything to you?" 
 
 "Not that I could understand," the mother hah* 
 sobbed. "She said she wouldn't face the pity of this 
 village I could understand that, and so could her 
 father. But she wouldn't go off for a visit to her 
 cousins' in Maiden. They'd have had her, and glad. 
 She said she was going to see the world herself, and 
 in her own way, and she talked something crazy- 
 sounding about wild ducks. It was awful!" 
 
 "I think / understand," said Alec. "She was at 
 my house last night. I never thought she'd really 
 go away, though. I'm sure she'll write to you soon. 
 You let me have her address as soon as you get it, 
 and I'll go right down to New York." 
 
 The man went home and walked in his garden, 
 back and forth up the paths, stopping now and then 
 to pull up a weed. "I could go after her now," he 
 thought. "Doubtless I could find her. Will any 
 harm come to her if I don't? Will it be better to 
 let her have a fling at this thing, the world, and find 
 out what it is? Will the learning hurt her or 
 will it do her good?" 
 
 It was a problem that he debated long, sure that
 
 160 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 whichever way he acted he would be sorry. At 
 last he made up his mind. "She has character," 
 he told himself. "Character, and two hundred 
 dollars. With those two assets she can last for a 
 while. After all, she's a right to her own life, with- 
 out any of us tagging along to *save* her! If she 
 doesn't find out for herself, nothing will ever per- 
 suade her. It's better so." 
 
 He went back to his shop, took off his coat, and 
 set to work at the bench. 
 
 Mrs. Bancroft received a postal from Hazel the 
 following day, announcing simply her safe arrival in 
 New York. Almost every day thereafter messages 
 came, on picture postcards, but no address. The 
 mother brought them all to Alec. They comforted 
 her a little, but she wanted to write. Her grief was 
 pathetic. "If I could only write to her and tell her 
 that her father isn't so angry now!" she said. "I 
 know he'd send her some money pretty soon, if he 
 only knew where to send it, and ask her to come 
 home. And her kitten she must want to hear 
 about that!" 
 
 "Hazel doesn't want you to know, because she's 
 afraid you'll follow her," said Alec. "That's nat- 
 ural. She'll send you an address as soon as she 
 finds work; you'll see. She wants to be settled first, 
 so she'll have an anchor out against your tugging."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 161 
 
 Two weeks later she did send an address, as the 
 man had predicted, announcing that she was settled 
 there "and earning my living," she added. "Don't 
 worry about me, and tell Uncle Alec I am happy and 
 am going to be happier." 
 
 Alec took this address, and departed for New York. 
 He knew that the mother would have no peace till 
 he had done so. It was the number of a house on a 
 cross street west of the Avenue, above Times Square, 
 a street of small millinery shops, cleansers' agencies, 
 and brownstone dwellings down at the heel. The 
 man knew before he pushed the bell what sort of 
 an establishment he had reached. He was not sur- 
 prised when the dirty servant told him Miss Bancroft 
 wasn't at home, and he'd better try the the-ayter. 
 
 "Which theatre?" he asked. 
 
 The servant retired and bawled a question into 
 the darkness at the rear of the hall. 
 
 The answer came audibly back, and he departed. 
 He waited till evening, and bought a seat, not too 
 near the front. The play was a musical comedy of 
 the conventional type. Hazel was not on the stage 
 at the start, but he had not long to wait for a glimpse 
 of her. She came on with another girl, to attend the 
 comedian in his opening song, with a dance. The 
 two girls wore black and white Pierrette bodices, with 
 skirts that did not reach their knees, and each had
 
 162 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 on one white and one black stocking, with slippers 
 reversed in shade. Alec Farnum felt an instinctive 
 hot revulsion, but he watched the dance, and had to 
 admit to himself that Hazel danced well. So the 
 audience thought, for the two girls at once became 
 favourites. They went off presently, and when they 
 next appeared, to support the tenor in a "military** 
 number, they wore white silk tights, with scarlet 
 short coats covered with gold cord and little white 
 and gold helmets. He took one look at Hazel, her 
 slender, graceful legs revealed to her very hips, one 
 look at her face which was smiling at the audience, 
 and went hot with shame and anger. His impulse 
 was to rush down the aisle and snatch her away. 
 He heard a comment from a man in the seat beside 
 him, and clenched his fist. The two girls had begun 
 to dance, a silly sort of goose-step affair. The audi- 
 ence, a blurred sea of faces, were intent on the 
 spectacle. Alec got up and almost ran out of the 
 theatre. 
 
 Outside, he paced up and down in the glare of 
 Broadway. "I'm a fool," he told himself, "I'm 
 an old-fashioned fool. But if I were her father, 
 how would I feel? The same way the same way! 
 All those thoughts beating up upon her from the 
 Yahoos in the audience! It shan't be! It can't 
 be!"
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 163 
 
 He began looking for a telegraph office, and sent a 
 long message to Tom Eames, whose ship was due to 
 sail from Vancouver in two days. Then he went to 
 his hotel and wrote to Hazel's mother. Hazel, he 
 said, had a good engagement dancing in a first-class 
 theatre. He had not yet been able to persuade her 
 to return home, but he had hopes. Perhaps it 
 would be better to wait a little in patience. They 
 would have to, anyway. 
 
 He took his own advice, too. He did not attempt 
 to see her. He waited for a message from Tom. If 
 the youth didn't rise to the occasion well, Alec 
 didn't know what he should do. But he had that 
 much faith in Tom. It might be the thing needed 
 to make a man of him, Alec thought. It might be a 
 case of "All's well that ends well," after all. 
 
 Tom wired that he was coming. Five days later 
 he arrived. His conscience had been working on the 
 trip. He was a soberer person than he was a month 
 before. Alec sent a message to the girl's boarding- 
 house. 
 
 "Tom Eames and I are coming to take you home 
 from the theatre to-night," he wrote. "Tom has 
 something he wants to say to you, and you must 
 hear it." 
 
 Then he took Tom to the performance. He 
 watched his companion's face sharply at Hazel's
 
 164 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 first entrance, and saw it go white and then red. 
 When she again came on in the white tights, Tom 
 uttered a low, inarticulate gasp, and stared first at 
 the girl and then at the faces of the audience, and 
 then back at the girl. He sat glumly in his seat 
 during the intermission, his chin sunk on his breast, 
 and Alec left him to his thoughts. In the second 
 act Hazel again appeared, but this time in a totally 
 different costume a sort of Watteau shepherdess 
 affair, which floated out above her pretty feet and 
 ankles crossed with black ribbons, and she and her 
 partner did a dance by themselves which, in this 
 garish show, was like a sudden thrush song amid a 
 babel of crows. The audience responded to it, as 
 audiences always will respond to effective art, es- 
 pecially to Hazel's share, for she could unconsciously 
 be felt as the favourite. There was the unmistak- 
 able air of freshness and unsophistication about 
 her, and she so evidently danced because she loved 
 it. 
 
 Alec Farnum sat straighter in his seat as he saw 
 her executing steps which she had trod on his garden 
 lawn, and felt the contagion of her dancing catch 
 the house. A dim doubt began to stir in him. He 
 resented, somehow, Tom's mutter, half inarticulate, 
 "She seems to be enjoying herself!" He vaguely 
 wished that he had stayed through the entire per-
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 165 
 
 formance that first night, at any rate. After all, 
 the child was an artist she was getting her effect! 
 
 They went to the stage door after the play was 
 out, and waited a long time for Hazel. Finally 
 she came, a cloak about her, her colour high on her 
 cheeks; she put her hand quickly and impulsively in 
 Alec's, and barely nodded to Tom. 
 
 "I only came because you asked me to," she 
 whispered to the Bird House Man, and the three of 
 them walked in constrained silence out to Broad- 
 way. 
 
 "Come, we are all hungry," Alec cried, as cheer- 
 fully as possible. "Let's go to a nice, quiet place and 
 eat, if there is such a thing in New York." 
 
 He hailed a cab and drove to a hotel on the 
 Avenue, where the dining-room was less than a 
 quarter full at this time of night, and there was no 
 cabaret. Hazel slipped off her cloak, and Tom, 
 looking at her with eyes that seemed to behold a 
 stranger, saw that she had on a dress quite without 
 sleeves, and cut decollete. 
 
 She drew a large pink scarf about her neck and 
 shoulders as the maid took her coat, quickly shroud- 
 ing her upper person in a kind of filmy cloud, and 
 followed the two men into the dining-room. 
 
 Alec gave an order, and then looked from one to 
 the other.
 
 166 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "Well, Hazel," he said, "here is Tom back, and 
 here are you turned wild duck! It's rather quaint 
 when you come to think of it." 
 
 Hazel, who had not spoken a word to her lover 
 since she first greeted him, now looked him squarely 
 in the eyes. 
 
 "What I want to know," she said, "is why Tom 
 came back." 
 
 Alec started to speak, but Hazel raised her hand. 
 "Please!" she said, "from Tom." 
 
 The scarf had fallen away a little from her right 
 shoulder at her gesture, and lay around her upper 
 arm, so that the shoulder was quite bare save for 
 the inch-wide strap of the dress. She saw Tom's 
 eyes upon it, and deliberately drew the scarf back in 
 place, not taking her eyes from his face. Finally 
 he let his own eyes meet hers. 
 
 "Well, I'll not try to bluff it," he answered. "Mr. 
 Farnum wired me just as I was about to sail, and told 
 me what what you were doing, and and that it 
 was my fault." 
 
 "I thought so," she said. 
 
 "But honestly, Hazel, I've been thinking all 
 across the continent what a piker I've been, and 
 what a fool. I guess there's nothing in China or 
 anywhere else as good as you! I I'm different 
 now, I swear to God I am! I want to take you
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 167 
 
 away from here. I'll get a job anywhere you say. 
 I'll I'll marry you to-morrow! You can't stay 
 where you are, on that stage, dressed that way!" 
 
 "Why don't you say undressed that's what you 
 mean," Hazel answered quietly. 
 
 "Yes, that's just what I mean!" cried Tom hotly. 
 
 The girl smiled, as if to herself, and turned toward 
 the Bird House Man. "And you think so, too, 
 Uncle Alec, do you?" she asked. "A month ago 
 you sent Tom away because it was better for me 
 not to marry him, and now, just because I'm wearing 
 tights, it's better for me to marry him. It's better 
 to be unhappy than undressed, is that it?" 
 
 Alec grinned at her phrasing in spite of the gravity 
 of the situation. "You put it somewhat bluntly," 
 he said. 
 
 "I've come to the point where I want to put things 
 the way they are" Hazel replied. "We never did 
 in Southmead. We never do, we New Englanders. 
 I want to get at the real reason why you sent for 
 Tom, and and inflicted this interview on me." 
 
 "Here comes the food," said Alec, "we'll feel better 
 now." 
 
 There was a diversion of silence while the waiter 
 served them. 
 
 "And now? " said the girl. " I can't believe you're 
 such a conventional old Puritan, Uncle Alec."
 
 168 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 The Bird House Man put out his hand along the 
 table and laid it on hers. "I'm very fond of you, 
 Hazel," he said. "I acted on an impulse. I came 
 to New York to see you, because your mother was 
 suffering so, and when I did see you, in your second 
 costume, I fled the theatre and wired to Tom. I'm 
 a man who has lived a good many years in a world 
 full of men and women, and I know some things 
 which praise God you don't. I couldn't bear it, 
 that was all. I have no daughters of my own. Ruth 
 has been my daughter, and I don't know how many 
 more, including a little person with fairy feet who 
 came when you called Hazel. Do you think a 
 father would want to see his child stood up that way 
 in the public gaze? Do you think he'd want to 
 have her in that atmosphere of of managers' offices 
 and Broadway show girls ? Do you think he wouldn't 
 dream for her, rather, the normal home, the normal 
 happiness? Tom, I believe, now " 
 
 Hazel interrupted him. "Never mind Tom," 
 she said. "Let's tackle that word normal first. If 
 most of the world danced instead of watching dancers 
 dancing would be normal, wouldn't it? Normal 
 things are for normal people. Somebody's got to 
 be abnormal to keep life interesting, I guess. If I like 
 to dance, to appear in public, to be a part of all that 
 life behind the scenes which is a pleasant change
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 169 
 
 from Southmead, I assure you! I don't see why 
 you should worry about me, Uncle Alec. It isn't 
 like you to preach a normal, conventional life to 
 somebody who can find more more more satis- 
 faction in another sort." 
 
 "There is some truth in that," Alec replied. He 
 bit his lip thoughtfully. "Come, I'll be brutal, 
 too," he added. "What hurts me is to see you 
 stared at." 
 
 Hazel again interrupted him by withdrawing her 
 hand. "What you mean," she said, in a deadly 
 quiet voice, "is that the men in the theatre look at 
 me the way Tom looked at me when my scarf slipped 
 from my shoulders. Is that it? " 
 
 Alec was too startled to reply. The girl let the 
 scarf slide down to her elbows, deliberately, showing 
 her white bosom and shoulders and all of her arms 
 above her pink, sleeveless bodice. 
 
 "I'm shocking you, Uncle Alec," she continued, 
 in the same level voice. "But I'm telling the real 
 truth. Don't fancy for a minute that any girl with 
 an ounce of brains doesn't know how some men 
 look at her. I've watched Tom since we came 
 into this dining-room. I wouldn't marry him now 
 not for for oh, he wants me now, because 
 I'm not dressed like Southmead but Broadway! 
 Bah!"
 
 170 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 She drew the scarf up close about her bosom with a 
 convulsive movement, and shivered. 
 
 "That isn't so!" Tom blurted out. "I don't 
 deny I never saw you so pretty, Hazel. I never 
 knew you were so pretty. I can't help looking at 
 you, because I love you. Yes, I do, I love you! I 
 can't bear to think of you up on that stage, with every- 
 body staring at you, any more than Mr. Farnum 
 could. I guess that's the way every chap would feel 
 who loves a girl. You ain't fair. Is she, Mr. Far- 
 num?" 
 
 "No, Tom, I don't think she is, not wholly fair," 
 the Bird House Man answered slowly. "Perhaps 
 we are not wholly fan*, either." 
 
 "Oh, that has occurred to you, has it?" cried the 
 girl. "I'm glad of that! Perhaps you think it was 
 easy to put on tights for the first time, and parade 
 before a dirty little stage manager as if you were a 
 heifer at the cattle show, and then to go out into the 
 awful glare of those footlights, with all the faces 
 beyond them!" 
 
 Hazel's voice broke, and for an instant she lost 
 control of herself. But the tears did not come. 
 She forced them back, and went on rapidly: "Why 
 do you suppose I did it? Why do you suppose I 
 begged, almost on my knees, for a chance to show the 
 stage manager that I could dance? It was for the
 
 " 'I can't help looking at you, because I love you. Yes, I 
 do, I love you!' 5:
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 171 
 
 chance really to dance. Do you know who suggested 
 our costumes in the second act? I did. We didn't 
 get that dance till almost the last rehearsal, and 
 then only because something else didn't pan out. 
 And you, Uncle Alec, didn't stay to see it before you 
 telegraphed to Tom! Do you think I'm wearing 
 tights because I like it? It's a way up the only 
 way that's all. People like my dancing. The 
 manager is going to have me take lessons. I love 
 to dance. I can dance. It's a beautiful art. It's 
 an art as much as as anything else. I'm not going 
 to break my heart for you, nor anybody else, Tom 
 Eames. Neither are you going to spoil my life. 
 I've found what I can do, and I'm going to do it! 
 And I won't have you talking as if everybody on the 
 stage was a a bad woman!" 
 
 She paused, breathless, and Alec looked at her 
 keenly. "Yes, you can dance," he said. "You can 
 dance very beautifully. Will you never be home- 
 sick?" 
 
 "How do I know?" she answered. "Perhaps I 
 shall be, the way Tom was, and come back to South- 
 mead to show myself." She spoke bitterly. "The 
 tights would make quite a hit at a church social, 
 wouldn't they?" she added. 
 
 She began to draw on her long gloves. "I'm 
 very tired, Uncle Alec, I wish you'd take me home,"
 
 172 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 she said, beginning to rise. The dining-room was 
 by now deserted save for a sleepy waiter or two in a 
 far corner. 
 
 "Oh, but I must see you again!" Tom cried. "I 
 can't, I won't let you go like this! Hazel, dearie, 
 I want you now more than I ever thought I could 
 want anything. On my word of honour, I'll never 
 leave you again!" 
 
 "You'll never see me again, Tom," she answered 
 quietly, "unless you pay for a ticket at the box office. 
 I can't prevent that. You chose your life once 
 I've chosen mine now. I prefer dancing to domes- 
 ticity. I can hear the applause of the audience, and 
 it calls to me, as China called to you. Good-bye, 
 Tom. I don't need to be angry at you any more." 
 
 She put out her hand as they reached the ante- 
 room by the cloak racks. Her eyes were sparkling 
 strangely. She let the scarf slide once more from 
 her shoulders as she made ready to put on her 
 wrap. 
 
 Alec turned away to let them say their good-byes 
 alone. He looked for the cloak girl, who had dis- 
 appeared, but he could not help hearing Tom say, 
 in a low, passionate voice: "Hazel, I want you! 
 For God's sake, kiss me once, for old time's sake. 
 Remember all our kisses that were so sweet!" 
 
 He heard Hazel give a low, odd laugh, that some-
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 173 
 
 how made him shiver, before she called sharply: 
 "Uncle Alec, please help me with my wrap." 
 
 He turned and saw Tom's glum, hungry, tortured 
 face, and caught a strange glint in the girl's eyes as 
 she was snatching her cloak away from her lover. 
 Without another word she walked out and entered 
 a cab. Alec took his seat beside her. She did not 
 look back to see Tom standing in the doorway. 
 
 They rattled on a block or two in silence, and then 
 suddenly Hazel said: "You'll tell mother I'm all 
 right, won't you, and I'll come to see her as soon as 
 the show closes, and and please kiss my kitten for 
 me. If if I'd never loved him so I shouldn't be 
 here, should I? I shouldn't be really doing some- 
 thing in the world. I I'm going to be famous. 
 I got notices in all the papers ! I'll succeed, won't I? " 
 
 Alec patted her hand. "Not a doubt of it," he 
 said. 
 
 "It's it's better so, isn't it? You really believe 
 it's better, don't you? I I tortured him at the 
 end. I meant to. I was wicked. Oh, I wish I 
 didn't have any sex! Sometimes it's terrible, it's 
 horrible! I hate myself and the whole world! I'm 
 just going to dance, and dance, and create beauty 
 and be famous! Oh, how I'm going to work!" 
 
 "Some day," the man began softly. "Some 
 day "
 
 174 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 But she put her hand over his lips. "You're a 
 dear old sentimentalist," she said, "and if you don't 
 come to see me every time you come to New York, 
 and if you don't come to New York very often, I 
 shall never forgive you. May I give you the kiss 
 I didn't give Tom? Oh, I think you understand, 
 really, down deep. You can never make mother 
 understand, though. I I wish I had my kitten 
 here." 
 
 In the dark cab she kissed him, and he felt her 
 cheek wet as it brushed his own. 
 
 Then the shoddy old brownstone swallowed her 
 from his view. He dismissed the cab, and walked 
 through deserted, echoing cross-streets to his hotel, 
 vaguely aware of a pale star overhead, and the 
 sleeping myriads in the miles of houses, all with their 
 dreams, their passions, their ambitions and life 
 seemed to him very difficult. 
 
 "I'm a stupid old meddler," he said aloud. "All 
 I've succeeded in doing is to make an artist out of a 
 little country chit!" 
 
 But in his secret heart he was rather glad.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE MEADOW LARKS 
 
 THE Bird House Man, walking in the river mead- 
 ows as the afternoon shadows were lengthening and 
 the willows were turning a dusky silver in the low 
 light, focussed his field glasses on a distant spot on 
 the river bank, and then smiled. He put the glasses 
 back in their case and walked quietly in that direc- 
 tion. As he drew near, a meadow lark was sing- 
 ing in a tall elm a reedlike, piercingly sweet song 
 tossed out on the afternoon breeze. The couple on 
 the bank, whose backs were turned, did not hear 
 him approaching. They sat close together, lover- 
 like, their shoulders touching, their voices low. 
 
 Alec suddenly imitated the song of the lark di- 
 rectly behind them, and with a startled exclamation 
 they looked around, the girl snatching her hand from 
 her lover's clasp. 
 
 "Oh, it's you!" she said, her face flushed with the 
 surprise of being discovered. 
 
 "Yes, it's I," Alec laughed, "and I don't want to 
 hear any reproaches, either. If you choose to sit 
 in the open meadows, with your backs to the uni- 
 
 175
 
 176 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 verse, thinking you are in a world apart just because 
 you happen to feel that nobody else counts why, 
 you must expect to be caught at it." 
 
 "Oh, I don't mind you catching us!" the girl 
 laughed, blushing still rosier, and slipped her hand 
 back into the boy's. 
 
 "Now you are trying to make me jealous," Alec 
 replied, "so just to spite you I'm going to sit right 
 down here myself, and make a crowd." 
 
 The boy couldn't help looking a little glum, though 
 he tried hard not to, but the girl laughed happily 
 again. "I'm glad you've come," she said. "Jack 
 has been telling me what he's going to do." 
 
 "He has!" cried the Bird House Man. "Well, 
 that's more than he's told me yet. As soon as he 
 gets through college, he comes running to you, and 
 never looks me up at all. I can't imagine why." 
 
 "I was coming to see you soon," Jack Cooper 
 answered solemnly. "Honestly, I was. But but 
 I hadn't seen Alma since Christmas vacation. 
 She couldn't get to my Class Day, you know, 'cause 
 her mother was sick." 
 
 Alec winked at Alma. "Well, maybe I'll forgive 
 you," he replied, "though I can't really understand 
 your choice. Now let me also hear what you're 
 going to do with your life, as the baccalaureate 
 sermonizers say. I had a hard enough job persuad-
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 177 
 
 ing your dad to let you go to college you've got 
 to have some pretty big plans to pay me back!" 
 
 "Oh, he has wonderful plans!" cried Alma, her 
 eyes resting fondly on her lover's face. "He's going 
 to make you proud of him, Uncle Alec!" 
 
 "He has already, by his choice of a helper," the 
 man answered. 
 
 It was Alma's turn to grow sober. "Oh, I'll try 
 so hard ! " she said. " But I'm so so unfitted. I've 
 never been educated the way Jack has. I I don't 
 know why he hasn't forgotten me for some smarter 
 girl somewhere. I I shouldn't blame you, Jack." 
 
 Alec saw her eyes still on her lover's, and tears 
 were very close to them. He turned away. "Jack," 
 he said, "I see a loose-strife on the bank which I'm 
 going to pick." 
 
 He returned with the flower a moment or two 
 later. "Now, let's hear the plans," he said. 
 
 "Well, I don't know whether you can call 'em 
 plans, exactly," Jack began. "Of course, they are 
 kind of vague yet, all except what I'm going to do 
 right away." 
 
 "And that is?" said the man. 
 
 "Well, I'm going on the New York Tribune the 
 first of September." 
 
 " Fine ! How did you land it ? " 
 
 "I did correspondent work in college football
 
 178 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 games, and stuff like that, and they said they'd give 
 me a job on the regular staff after I graduated. 
 Guess they try out a bunch of college men every 
 year or so, maybe. 'Course, I don't know if I'll 
 make good " 
 
 Alma gave his hand a little protesting squeeze, 
 and their eyes met for a second. 
 
 "If I do make good," he added, as if her look had 
 changed his line of thought, "Alma and I are going 
 to announce our engagement." 
 
 "Well, well," Alec cried, "that will be a surprise 
 to everybody! Do hurry up and make good. I 
 want to see the consternation among all Alma's 
 other beaux." 
 
 The girl laughed softly through her blushes. 
 "Silly," she said, "you know I never had any beau 
 but Jack. Nobody but Jack would love a stupid 
 little mouse like me." 
 
 It was the boy's turn to protest. He did it by 
 laying his fingers quickly over her lips. 
 
 They both fell silent, looking at each other, and 
 Alec waited, a smile on his face. 
 
 "Now tell Uncle Alec your real plans!" Alma said, 
 suddenly realizing the silence. 
 
 The boy looked a trifle uncomfortable. "Oh, 
 he'll think I'm foolish, I guess." 
 
 " Probably," Alec answered, " but try me, anyhow."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 179 
 
 "Well, I'm I'm not going to be a newspaper man 
 always. I'm I'm going to write!" 
 
 "Don't newspaper men write?" 
 
 "You know what I mean I mean really write 
 stories, essays, books, and and things." 
 
 "He means poems" said Alma. 
 
 "Poems, eh?" Alec exclaimed. "That's fine! I 
 didn't know you were a poet." 
 
 "He's written some beautiful poems to me!" 
 the girl said. 
 
 "Oh, those were nothing," the boy cut in. 
 
 "Nothing! I like that! Why, Jack " 
 
 "I mean, dear, they weren't half so good as I 
 shall do some day," he added quickly. "They 
 were just undergraduate verse." 
 
 "They were very beautiful," Alma maintained 
 stoutly. 
 
 "Of course they were," the Bird House Man inter- 
 jected. "Don't you believe what Jack says about 
 'em. Artists are never good critics of their own 
 work. When did you first feel this power, Jack?" 
 
 The boy looked at him sharply, as if he detected 
 a certain laughter in the man's words, but Alec's 
 face was beaming with kindly interest. 
 
 "Well," he said. "I never was much for poetry 
 till I took a course in English lit. The stuff we had 
 to learn in Southmead High School used to bore me.
 
 180 
 
 But all of a sudden, in the ' Golden Treasury' I be- 
 gan to find things that sort of made me choke up, 
 and I got to liking poetry better and better, till along 
 one rainy afternoon, when I'd I'd well, I guess 
 I'd been thinking of Alma all day, and wishing I 
 was home seeing her, I got to reading Shelley in the 
 college library, and I just read and read till it was 
 dinner-time, and I went back after dinner and read 
 till closing time. Then the next day I got to going 
 in Keats gee, the 'Eve of St. Agnes' is some poem! 
 and I followed it up with a lot of Wordsworth. 
 And after that I just moved around in poetry most 
 of the time. Then, one day, I was so full up with it 
 that I just had to get out and take a long walk. I 
 hiked up to a hill above Lexington, and I was stand- 
 ing there while the sun was setting over the rolling 
 fields and meadows, and in the west a great Him- 
 alayan range of cumuli was piled up, and the sun 
 dropped down behind the peaks and turned 'em 
 all gold and pink and salmon, and it seemed as 
 though I could climb to the top and look over into 
 a wonderful Promised Land, and and find Alma 
 there, waiting; and I just felt as if it was my job in 
 life to write poetry that would make people realize 
 how beautiful the old world is, and how full of love 
 and longing! I I felt as if I'd had a call, the way 
 ministers do, I guess."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 181 
 
 Jack paused, out of breath. 
 
 "Hope you don't think I'm foolish," he added, 
 with an embarrassed laugh. 
 
 The girl had reached over and taken his hand 
 again. Alec was gazing out at the slow current of 
 the river below their feet. 
 
 "By how many names it is known!" he said softly, 
 as if to himself. "It is the Divine Unrest, it is the 
 Blue Flower of Romance, it is the Gleam. It is 
 Youth and Love. Jack, may you ever steer your 
 bark for the land beyond the sunset, and the baths 
 of all the western stars! Think you foolish? It is 
 we who are foolish, we old fellows under the shade 
 of the prison house, we who see in the sunset only a 
 signal for supper. Follow the Gleam, boy, follow the 
 Gleam!" 
 
 "I'm going to!" Jack replied, his eyes sparkling 
 once more with enthusiasm. He was looking away 
 from Alma now, out across the meadows. She 
 gazed into his face, and seemed to realize that his 
 thoughts were not upon her. "I'm going on a 
 newspaper to earn money, and to see life. Of course, 
 a fellow can't make a living just writing, at first. 
 And a fellow can't write till he's seen life. I'm going 
 to write American poetry not Longfellow stuff, 
 but real American poetry of our day and our new 
 conditions. The world is different now. Our whole
 
 182 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 economic structure is different, and we've got to 
 have a new, a different poetry to give men a beauty 
 and a faith that meets their needs. That's going 
 to be my task!" 
 
 His eyes were transfixed as with a vision. The 
 girl once more laid her hand on his, but timidly this 
 time. Alec watched them both a moment in silence, 
 and then he rose. 
 
 "Jack," he said, "come to see me soon, and bring 
 some of your work. Let's thrash it over together. 
 I used to write poetry, too, once on a time. If Alma 
 only loved me, I might again, by Jinks!" 
 
 The girl turned her face up to him softly. "I 
 do love you, Uncle Alec," she said. "You know 
 it." 
 
 He shook his head most mournfully, and gestured 
 to the surrounding meadows. 
 
 "A cloudless sky, where Jack and I 
 Are twenty -two forever," 
 
 rhe paraphrased. "That's how you feel. I feel 
 'chilly and grown old.' Good-bye, my children, 
 and God bless you for a pair of meadow larks whis- 
 
 ring secrets to the river as it runs." 
 
 He moved away quickly. Turning once, a long 
 way off, he saw the lovers still sitting on the bank. 
 Beyond them, on the river bend, the willows were a
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 183 
 
 smoky blue now, and in the west a great cumulus 
 lay like Mount Everest against the sunset, and from 
 its peak one might gaze into the ultimate Thibet of 
 the ideal. He raised his glasses, and looked at 
 the pair half hidden by the river shrubs. But he 
 took the glasses quickly down, and laughed a soft, 
 deep, tender chuckle. 
 
 Out on the road he met Dr. Tommy Trask strid- 
 ing along on his lank legs. 
 
 "Whoa, Tommy!" he cried, blocking his path. 
 "Did you ever have a Keatsy feeling?" 
 
 "A what ?" said the astonished doctor. "I don't 
 believe I ever heard of that. Is it due to a germ? " 
 
 "Alas, if it only were!" sighed Alec. "I'd start 
 a culture right away. Tommy, you are an ex- 
 cellent man of science. Go home and kiss your 
 wife." 
 
 He left the astonished doctor gaping after him, 
 and went whistling on toward the Bird House. 
 That evening he took down his Keats, spanked 
 the dust off, and read in it for a long while, finally 
 closing the volume with a sigh. 
 
 "Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird," 
 he quoted aloud, lingering on the long-drawn ca- 
 dence. Then he rose, and put the book back on the 
 shelf. "Our hermit thrush sings a far lovelier song 
 than the nightingale," he added. "Once I dreamed
 
 184 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 of making him immortal with an ode! Go to bed, 
 you old fool." 
 
 Some days later Jack brought what he described 
 as a "batch of masterpieces" to the Bird House, 
 and he and Alec read them, discussed them, fought 
 about them, hurling quotations at each other, and 
 babbling about octets and sestets and trochees and 
 dactyls and vers libre, till poor Alma, who sat si- 
 lently in a corner, was quite bewildered. The next 
 afternoon she came softly into the shop where Alec 
 was working, and stood twisting her handkerchief. 
 
 "Uncle Alec," she finally said, "will will you 
 lend me some of those books you and Jack were, 
 talking about?" 
 
 The man's keen gray eyes bent kindly upon her. 
 "What do you want 'em for, young lady? " he asked. 
 
 "You you know," she replied. "I want them 
 to read, so I'll not be so terribly ignorant of what 
 Jack is doing, and and and such a drag on him." 
 
 "No, I won't lend 'em to you for any such pur- 
 pose!" he cried, bringing down his hammer with 
 tremendous force on an unsuspecting nail. 
 
 "You you won't?" 
 
 "No, marm! Not when you talk that way! 
 You can have 'em to get pleasure and profit out of; 
 you can have 'em to equip yourself better to pick 
 Jack's efforts to pieces. He's not hah* such a good
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 185 
 
 poet as he thinks he is, you know or, rather, you 
 don't know, because you're in love with him. But 
 don't you ever say in my presence again that you're 
 a drag on him. If Jack's a poet at all, it's because of 
 you. Every man owes what sensitiveness of soul 
 he may possess to his first love. So no more of 
 that talk, young lady!" 
 
 Alec laid down his tools, and led the way into his 
 garden, where he picked a dozen sprays of his choicest 
 sweet peas Wedgwoods and Earl Spencers and 
 fixed them on the bosom of Alma's plain white frock. 
 Then he laughed, and ushered her into the house. 
 
 They sat a long time together, looking at books, 
 while he told her what to read. When she left, her 
 colour was high with excitement, and under her arm 
 she carried four green Globe editions, the little blue 
 " Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics," and a criti- 
 cal history of English literature. Alec watched her 
 trudging down the street with her load, and chuckled 
 to himself. 
 
 Alma came every week after that for her "lesson," 
 as she called it; and every week she grew graver 
 at the magnitude of the task before her. 
 
 "There is so much to learn!" she said one day, her 
 low, smooth forehead puckered with a frown. "I 
 never knew how much. Oh, what a joke our silly 
 high school is! Don't tell Jack I'm trying, will you?
 
 186 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 I know I shall never succeed. All I manage to do is 
 to feel myself growing older and older with the great 
 mountain of knowledge still ahead." 
 
 Alec laughed. "That mountain is still ahead of 
 all of us," he said. "All we can hope to win is some 
 little foothill crag from which we can see the valley 
 of our ignorance behind, and the real contours of 
 some of the range ahead. Call it a vantage point of 
 taste, if you like. Most people don't get that far, 
 even in art. They still like motion pictures." 
 
 The frown deepened on Alma's brow. "I I 
 want to learn about newspapers, now," she said. 
 "That's Jack's immediate problem, isn't it? How 
 can I learn about newspapers?" 
 
 "Whew!" said Alec. "Now you've set me a 
 poser. What I don't know about newspapers would 
 get out the whole Sunday edition. I guess you 
 have to learn about them by being on 'em. It's an 
 awful idea! I once heard an editor say, though, 
 that the only indispensable man on his force was the 
 telephone switch girl." 
 
 "Votes for women," Alma laughed. "But you 
 see I don't even know how to run a switchboard." 
 
 "I hardly think the knowledge essential to marital 
 happiness," Alec replied. "Better stick to Keats." 
 
 "But I want to understand all Jack does," she 
 said.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 187 
 
 "That's more than he'll do himself, for a while," 
 Alec laughed. 
 
 It was a week later, in August, when Alma once 
 more came to the Bird House. Her face was drawn 
 and white. It was evident that she had been weep- 
 ing and that she was still suffering miserably. Alec 
 Farnum took one look at her, cried "Hello! what's 
 the matter, child?" and led her into a shady nook in 
 the garden. 
 
 "Jack," she said, "he's he's gone away!" 
 
 "Gone away? What on earth do you mean? I 
 saw him this morning at the post-office." 
 
 "He's gone away. He he got a letter from some 
 girl, and he's gone to see her." 
 
 "Gone where to see her?" 
 
 "I don't know some beach place Watch Hill, 
 I guess. She she's from the West. He says he 
 met her last winter in Boston. He never told me 
 about her before. She just wrote and said that she 
 was at Watch Hill, and he packed right up and 
 went!" 
 
 Alma's white face was pathetically miserable, and 
 the man looked at her pityingly. 
 
 "The young scalawag," he cried, "to make you 
 unhappy this way! He ought to have lied about it." 
 
 Alma looked at the man with great, surprised eyes. 
 "Why, Uncle Alec, what do you mean? I never
 
 188 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 heard you say anything like that before!" she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 "I mean just what I say," he replied. "When a 
 young fellow of twenty-two, with a temperament, 
 develops a momentary Mormon impulse, he oughtn't 
 to let the girl he loves know anything about it. 
 That may sound immoral, but it's very sensible." 
 
 "No, no, no! that would be terrible! A girl 
 would always find out, and she could never forgive 
 being deceived, though she might forgive the the 
 other. I'm glad Jack told me where he was going." 
 
 "You are, eh? Just what did he tell you? " 
 
 "He told me he met this girl in Boston she was 
 studying there. He said they had a lot of ideas in 
 common, especially about poetry. They wrote some 
 poetry together, or something, I guess. Anyhow, 
 she made him promise that if she came East this 
 summer he'd come to see her." 
 
 "She made him promise, eh?" said Alec, with a 
 chuckle. "Our young Shelley is like all of the breed. 
 Didn't he assure you that he didn't really care any- 
 thing about her not that way?" 
 
 Alma nodded affirmatively, not trusting to speech. 
 
 "Well, the joke of it is that he really doesn't 
 the young idiot." 
 
 "He's not an idiot!" cried the girl. She was very 
 close to tears now. "It's I who am the idiot. I'm
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 189 
 
 just ignorant. When he meets somebody who can 
 really talk poetry and things with him, he leaves me. 
 I he it isn't right for me to try to keep him." 
 
 "Nonsense, likewise piffle, not to mention rub- 
 bish!" cried the man. "I know your Jack better 
 than you do, because I was Jack once. All Jacks, 
 at a certain age, have a superficial susceptibility 
 to the allurements of anything in petticoats. The 
 prettier the object in petticoats is, the more Jack 
 thinks he's swapping intellectual and spiritual ideas 
 the more he 'has in common.' It's something he 
 has to get over, like the mumps. Your Jack loves 
 you just as much as he ever did, and he can't under- 
 stand why you can't understand that he does." 
 
 Alma shook her head. "I certainly can't under- 
 stand it," she said. "Do you think I'd go away 
 like this, to see another man, only two or three weeks 
 before Jack and I had to separate? I guess not!" 
 
 "Of course you wouldn't, my dear girl. You are 
 a grown woman, and Jack is a temperamental boy 
 who thinks he's seeing life for the good of his art, 
 when he's really working off his Mormon tendencies 
 before he settles down to manhood. What you want 
 to do is to spank him good and proper when he re- 
 turns." 
 
 "I shan't be here when he returns," she said very 
 quietly. "I'm going away to visit in Boston. I
 
 190 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 I won't see him when he comes back for anything 
 I couldn't. I I I won't stand hi his light. If 
 he has more in common with somebody else than 
 with me, he can have her. He he ought to have 
 her," she added bravely. 
 
 Alec looked at her a moment in silence. "That's 
 a good idea," he said presently, with a tender smile. 
 " You go away, and see what Jack does when he gets 
 back." 
 
 "Oh, I'm going, soon," she said. "I I don't 
 care what Jack does when he gets back. "May 
 may I take some of the poetry books with me? 
 I'll be awfully careful of them." 
 
 "You may, the whole library," Alec replied. 
 "When is Jack coming back?" 
 
 "I I don't know. If he came back right away 
 it wouldn't be so bad. But he said, just as if it 
 wasn't almost killing me, 'I'll only be gone a week 
 or so' a week or so, and we parting at the end of 
 this month! Oh, how could he how could he?" 
 
 Her tears could no longer be restrained, and she 
 buried her face in her hands and sobbed. It was a 
 long time before Alec led her out of the garden. 
 
 When Jack returned a week later she had gone. 
 He tore around to the Bird House. 
 
 "What does Alma mean?" he cried. "Here I 
 get home and find a note from her saying she's
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 191 
 
 gone away for the rest of the summer, and she never 
 wrote to me once while I was at Watch Hill, and 
 she says you know why she went. Is she jealous, 
 or what? Why are girls so silly? I told her I didn't 
 care anything about Elsie Barnes, not that way. I'd 
 promised to go see her if she came East, 'promised 
 to like a house party, you know." 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Alec gravely. "But you 
 should be careful how you make rash promises." 
 
 "But it wasn't a rash promise. Good Lord, a 
 fellow can have friends, can't he, girl friends, I 
 mean?" 
 
 "Not always with safety, at certain times of life, 
 not when it means wrenching the heart strings of the 
 girl who really loves him," said Alec. 
 
 "Good gracious, didn't Alma believe me? Does 
 she think that ' 
 
 "I think those are questions you'd better ask 
 Alma," the man interrupted. "All I know is that 
 poor Alma believes you like the other girl better be- 
 cause she's had more education in poetry, and so 
 Alma thinks it's her duty to give you up, for your own 
 good." 
 
 The man was looking at his young friend keenly, 
 and Jack grew red. 
 
 "Oh, it's preposterous!" he cried. "Why, I 
 never loved anybody but Alma! I I liked Elsie.
 
 192 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 She and I had a lot of fun doing sonnets together. 
 She she interested me. A fellow's got to know all 
 kinds of people. A fellow's got to see life. But I 
 never loved her. Where is Alma? I'll go find her 
 right off." 
 
 "I think she's somewhere in Boston/' 
 
 "Boston, whew! And I used up 'most all the 
 money I had getting to Watch Hill and back! Oh, 
 gee, what shall I do?" 
 
 "That is an economic problem," the man smiled. 
 " The older you grow, the more you realize that an eco- 
 nomic problem is at the bottom of everything. How 
 much do you need?" 
 
 "I I couldn't take it from you." 
 
 "No, because I wouldn't give it to you. But I'll 
 lend it. Will fifteen dollars be enough?" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 Alec gravely handed over the money, and then 
 wrote an I. O. U. which the boy signed. 
 
 "Now you can pay me out of your munificent 
 salary, as soon as you get to work," said Alec. 
 "You're lucky I don't charge you interest. Run 
 along and find Alma's address from her mother, and 
 go bring her home. No more co-educational sonnets 
 on the way, either!" 
 
 Two days later Jack was back, and Alma with 
 him. They came all the way from Boston together,
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 193 
 
 on the train, and Millie Tilton, hearing about it, 
 ran into the garden of the Bird House to tell Alec. 
 
 "It's scandalous, I think," she said. "In our 
 day young men and girls were not allowed to do 
 such things." 
 
 "In our day, Millie?" Alec laughed. "Why, 
 this is my day I don't know about you. I consider 
 the present always mine. Try it you'll find it 
 saves you a lot of fret." 
 
 "Well, if you think it's all right for " Miss 
 
 Millie began. 
 
 "I think they probably had a fine time," Alec 
 interrupted. "There wasn't a soul to bother 'em 
 for six mortal hours, and they probably played honey- 
 moon." 
 
 Miss Millie retired, convinced of the uselessness 
 of argument, and late the same evening Jack ap- 
 peared at the Bird House. 
 
 He was very sober. He came into Alec's study, 
 filled his pipe, and stared at his feet thoughtfully. 
 The man let him stare, and waited. 
 
 "I I guess I'm older than when I went away," 
 he said presently. 
 
 "Yes? I guessed as much, too," the man said 
 kindly. "But you brought Alma back, didn't 
 you?" 
 
 "Oh, yes! And she'll never have another such
 
 194 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 occasion to go away. Do you know what I found her 
 doing?" 
 
 "No, what did you find her doing?" 
 
 "She was staying at a cousin's in Newton, and had 
 got a job as telephone operator!" 
 
 "A telephone operator? Why that?" 
 
 "Well, she wouldn't tell me at first, but finally 
 she did. It was because you said to her a switch- 
 board girl in a newspaper office learned a lot about 
 newspaper work, and she was fitting herself to apply 
 for a job on a Boston newspaper." 
 
 Alec drew in his breath hi a long whistle. "You 
 have to be careful what you tell a woman!" he ex- 
 claimed. "They're so apt to believe you." 
 
 "Yes," Jack went on, "she was really planning to 
 stay in Boston and work on a newspaper that way. 
 And just because she thought that maybe some day 
 I might get tired of the other girl, and come back to 
 her, and then she could help me better in my work! 
 Why, when I got the confession out of her, I I I 
 just blubbered like a kid. I I guess I'm not worth 
 that kind of love." 
 
 " I guess you're not. None of us polygamous male 
 bipeds is," said Alec. "Still, you're the best she has 
 to give such love to, and now you've got it I advise 
 you to keep it as the most precious possession you'll 
 ever have."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 195 
 
 "Oh, I will, I will!" the boy exclaimed. "It's 
 it's made me feel older and and sort of grown up, 
 though. I never knew folks' feelings could be so 
 so deep. Why, she never even reproached me. 
 When I came to her and she believed finally that I 
 loved her, and only her, she just said, 'That's all 
 right, Jack,' and and cried." 
 
 Alec smiled softly to himself. "There's more than 
 one way to learn about life, isn't there?" he said. 
 
 "I guess there is," Jack answered. "I guess this 
 was the real thing!" 
 
 "Will you tell me something, and not think I'm 
 an impertinent old meddler?" the man continued. 
 
 "Ask it." 
 
 "Did you play honeymoon on the way home in 
 the train?" 
 
 Jack blushed like a schoolboy, and nodded his 
 head. "We we pretended we were on our wedding 
 trip," he answered. "Gee, but I'm going to work 
 hard, and pull off that trip really, as soon as I can! 
 I never knew how much I loved Alma till till this. 
 Is is it wrong to want her so, you you know what 
 I mean?" 
 
 "It is very right and good," the man answered 
 gravely, "if you don't forget there is another side to 
 love. Never forget that Alma wants to know about 
 the things you do. Talk poetry with her. Keep
 
 196 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 her in all phases of your life. Have everything in 
 common with her that was the phrase, I believe?" 
 The boy coloured. "Don't rub it in,'* he said. 
 " Well, good-night, Uncle Alec. I'm going home now 
 to write a sonnet. Gee, I've got a corking idea for 
 one! The last line's been singing in my head ever 
 since we got on the train to come home. It's this: 
 
 1 "Forgiveness came like daybreak on her face! 
 
 I'm going to work all night on it!" 
 
 The man walked with him to the door and 
 patted his shoulder affectionately. Then he went back 
 to his study, and knocked the ashes from his pipe. 
 
 "To sit up all night for a sonnet!" he mused. 
 "Oh, youth, youth!" 
 
 Then he went to bed. 
 
 The next afternoon, walking again in the river 
 meadows, he saw from afar two figures on the bank, 
 and put up his glasses. Two heads were bent over 
 a sheet of paper. The boy's lips were moving. 
 The girl had her two arms clasped around his elbow, 
 and her cheek brushed his shoulder. Once, for a 
 second, Alec thought he saw her lips caress his sleeve. 
 
 The man put down his glasses and turned off in the 
 opposite direction. Over his head, in a great vast 
 elm, high aloft, a meadow lark was singing toward 
 the west, a piercingly sweet melody.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CHICKADEE 
 
 MISS MILLIE TILTON, closely followed by 
 Siegfried, her dachshund, came past the path to her 
 own door, and turned up the path to Alec Farnum's 
 shop, where the Bird House Man was at work. 
 
 "Have you heard the news?" she said. 
 
 "No, but I expect to," he smiled. 
 
 Miss Millie made a little face at him. Then the 
 solemnity of her announcement overcame her again, 
 and she said in a duly subdued voice, "Mrs. Roberts 
 is dead." 
 
 Alec laid down his plane. "Well, well," he re- 
 plied. " Clara can have a life of her own now ! " 
 
 "Why, Alec Farnum, what a heartless, wicked 
 thing to say!" cried the little spinster. 
 
 "Nonsense, Millie," said he. "You know as well 
 as I do that Mrs. Roberts was a mollusc of the worst 
 type- -" 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 "A mollusc. No, I suppose you never saw that 
 play. Well, a woman who just stuck to one piece 
 of rock and played helpless, and so got waited on till 
 
 197
 
 198 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 the day of her death. She was no more an invalid 
 than you or I, in my not-too-humble opinion. I 
 don't suppose Dr. Tommy Trask would express his 
 in public, anyhow. And poor Clara just gave up 
 her life to that woman gave up her life and her 
 lover, too." 
 
 "But what else could she do?" demanded Miss 
 Millie. "She was all her mother had." 
 
 "Let her mother cook her own dinners or die of 
 starvation!" said Alec, giving a nail a sudden terrific 
 whack which caused Siegfried and Miss Millie both 
 to jump. 
 
 "Oh, Alec, why do you talk so?" the woman de- 
 manded. "You know you don't mean it." 
 
 "Mean it? Well, it's only half what I mean, to 
 be sure! Millie, if I should say all I mean, you'd 
 die of shock right there in my doorway and poor 
 Bologna would be without a parent's tender care. 
 You know perfectly well that Clara Roberts is 
 twenty-eight years old and unwed, because her 
 mother wouldn't move from Southmead when Don 
 Barker wanted to marry the poor girl, and Clara, 
 with the abominable conscience of you New England 
 women, couldn't leave her behind. Can't you hear 
 the old lady weeping and telling Clara how she'd 
 die if she was left alone?" 
 
 "Well, it's my belief that Don Barker didn't try
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 199 
 
 so very hard to induce her to come away with him 
 and Clara," said Miss 'Millie. 
 
 "My God, can you blame him?" cried Alec. 
 
 Miss Millie drew herself up. "If you are going to 
 curse, it is time I went," said she. 
 
 "Yes, you go right along to Clara's house, and 
 tell her I'm here to do anything I can if she needs 
 me," he smiled. "I'll be up there presently my- 
 self." 
 
 All Southmead agreed that Clara didn't seem to 
 take her mother's death as hard as some girls would 
 have done, but then, as all Southmead said in ex- 
 tenuation, Clara was such a cheery little body that 
 you could never tell how she really was taking a 
 thing, anyhow. A week after the funeral the Bird 
 House Man saw her hurrying along the street in 
 front of his shop, with a basket on her arm, and she 
 actually appeared to be singing under her breath. 
 She was just the type that is perfectly described by 
 the old Yankee phrase, "a cheery little body." She 
 was a trifle below the normal height, and a trifle 
 above the normal weight "a plump and pleasing 
 person." Once, as a young girl, she must have been 
 unusually pretty, and she was attractive still, but 
 her type seems to settle down sooner than others into 
 a comfortable acceptance of maturity. She had 
 large, round, merry brown eyes, and an infectious
 
 200 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 laugh. Her chief avocation during the life of her 
 mother (who supplied vocation enough for anybody) 
 was the instruction of new mothers in the care of 
 their offspring. She had a passion for babies, and 
 since Southmead had not yet reached a point of 
 progressiveness where a visiting nurse was considered 
 a necessity, Clara Roberts found plenty to do. She 
 went trotting about in all weathers, cheerful and 
 helpful, ministering in the trail of Dr. Tommy Trask. 
 Alec Farnum called to her out of the door of his 
 shop, by whistling the chickadees' love song: 
 
 
 
 She stopped, and looked up. 
 
 "So you recognize the call?" he said. 
 
 "No, but I do the caller," she answered. "What 
 was it?" 
 
 " That's the chickadees' call," he said. " You are a 
 chickadee sort of person, you know, always brave 
 and cheerful and friendly and pleasantly rotund." 
 
 "At least I thank you for the 'pleasantly,'" she 
 laughed. 
 
 "What have you got in that basket?" he asked. 
 "May I see?" 
 
 "Oh, I'd love to show you!" She ran up the path
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 201 
 
 and put the basket down on a bench beside a half- 
 finished martin house, quickly lifting the lid. In- 
 side was a collection of baby clothes, which she took 
 out one by one, and held them up for Alec's inspec- 
 tion two little dresses, a cap, and socks which 
 Alec said looked like thumb protectors. 
 
 "Aren't they sweet?" she fairly chirped. "They're 
 for Minnie O'Brien's little baby, which I hope won't 
 be a boy, because he'll probably drink and break her 
 heart." 
 
 "Probably," Alec answered. "Minnie has no 
 right to have babies under the circumstances." 
 
 "Oh, no right?" 
 
 "Never mind that now," the man said quickly. 
 "We won't talk eugenics. Did you make all these 
 since " 
 
 "Since mother died?" she helped him. "Yes, 
 every one. You see, there was so little to do in the 
 house after mother went that I just had to do some- 
 thing to fill up the hole. I I don't know what 
 would become of me if I should just sit down and 
 fold my hands." 
 
 "I suppose not," said Alec, shaking his head. "I 
 suppose not. I never saw a chickadee sit still. 
 They have to be hopping or pecking or dee-deeing 
 all the time. Are you going to live right on there in 
 the old house? You ought to have somebody with
 
 202 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 you some healthy person who'll let you be sick 
 now and then." 
 
 Clara met his kindly eyes without reproach. 
 "Poor mother!" she said. "You never understood 
 her I know that. I'm going to take two of the 
 school teachers to board. They come next week. 
 Poor things, they live around anywhere now, and 
 hah* starve. You need good, nourishing food when 
 you're teaching school." 
 
 "Why the missionaries didn't get you, I don't 
 know!" laughed the Bird House Man. "You'd 
 have so enjoyed teaching hitherto perfectly con- 
 tented Orientals that hot rice is bad for the stomach." 
 
 "Now you are laughing at me, and I'm going to 
 Minnie's," she smiled. 
 
 "Oh, child, child, it's for your ain bairn ye should 
 be makin' the wee clothes," Alec said softly, touching 
 his big hand affectionately to her shoulder. 
 
 He felt her shiver under the touch, and she hastily 
 averted her face. He said no more, but let her 
 depart. It seemed to him she walked more slowly, 
 as he watched her from the door, and certainly she 
 was no longer singing under her breath. 
 
 Yet he was more surprised than anybody else in 
 Southmead to hear, a few months later, when the 
 snow was on the ground and Clara went about in a 
 gray and black fur coat through the storms, looking
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 203 
 
 more than ever like a dauntless chickadee, that she 
 was going to be married. She was going to marry 
 Billie Chapman, but just now come into the pro- 
 prietorship of J. C. Chapman's grocery and feed 
 store, a local institution established by his grand- 
 father and now passed on to him by his father, who 
 was getting old. Billie was nearly forty. That he 
 had long admired Clara was no secret. That he 
 had been somewhat backward as a wooer in the 
 past, due to the prospect of Mrs. Roberts as a 
 possible mother-in-law, was no secret, either. Those 
 who knew him best had sometimes taunted him with 
 it, whereat his round face, behind the counter where 
 the Blackstones and the cut plug reposed, would 
 grow very red, and he would stammer in his wrath. 
 Billie Chapman was a good soul, who accepted his 
 politics and his religion from his father as readily 
 as he accepted the store. He had always been shy 
 with women, and he loved to go fishing it was his 
 one pastime. The conjunction of those two traits is 
 deliberately made, and indicates to the wise reader 
 something the kind of a man he was. He was a 
 man destined to be a bachelor unless the right wo- 
 man came along with the motherly instinct and the 
 tact to convert him into a lover first and a good 
 husband and kind father later. 
 
 Now, Clara undoubtedly had tact, and she bubbled
 
 204, THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 over with motherly instincts. Alec understood that. 
 But she had once loved Don Barker, and instinc- 
 tively the Bird House Man felt that hers was not a 
 nature to forget. Under her cheery, buoyant ex- 
 terior, he knew fires smouldered. And he wondered 
 at the news, while all the rest declared how fine a 
 match it was for both of them. 
 
 Even Miss Millie rejoiced. 
 
 "There, you see," she declared. "Clara didn't 
 break her heart over that Don Barker, and I'm glad 
 of it, too. He had no business to go away and leave 
 her. She's got a better man, 7 say, who'll make her 
 a good home, and she can she can " 
 
 "She can make baby things for home consump- 
 tion," Alec prompted, his eyes twinkling into Millie's, 
 who hastily replied, "Exactly." 
 
 "Well, perhaps you are right," he added. "Who 
 can say? At any rate, she deserves a home of her 
 own, with a good, sound, healthy male in it, to 
 fetch and carry and put a hassock under her feet. 
 But she won't let him, alas! She'll go running after 
 that big loony's carpet slippers the minute he sets 
 foot in the house." 
 
 "And quite right, too," said Miss Millie, with spirit. 
 
 "Far be it from me to dispute you," Alec laughed, 
 "though that's a funny speech from a feminist." 
 
 "I'm not a feminist," Miss Millie declared. "I
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 205 
 
 only believe in votes for women, not not cigarettes 
 and latch-keys and and things." 
 
 She called to Siegfried and departed, pursued by 
 Alec's laughter. 
 
 The next time Clara Roberts passed the Bird 
 House Alec ran out and invited her in for tea. It 
 was a cold winter afternoon, and a huge fire was 
 wallowing up the chimney of his study. Out be- 
 yond the dining-room, in his little aviary, the clarino 
 was singing, flooding the house at intervals with his 
 rich notes. In one of the study windows a glass 
 box was so adjusted that the birds could come from 
 outside far enough into the room to permit you to 
 sit in an easy chair and observe them. The box 
 held just now a steady procession of chickadees and 
 nuthatches, with now and then a sparrow and a 
 golden-crowned kinglet, coming after the suet and 
 sunflower seeds which the box contained. Alec 
 took the woman's fur coat, sat her down in a big 
 chair, hung his old black kettle on the crane and 
 swung it in over the flames. 
 
 "None of your dirty alcohol lamps for me," he 
 said. "Tea should always have a taste of smoke in 
 it. Well, Clara, so you're going to be married? 
 Tell me all about it." 
 
 "But there's nothing to tell," she answered. "I'm 
 going to be married, and and there you are!"
 
 206 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "How frightfully unromantic!" Alec groaned. 
 "Were there at least no circumstances attendant 
 to the proposal the narration of which would gladden 
 my dull afternoon?" 
 
 Clara's face, lit by the glow of the fire, was soft 
 with a smile. "Poor Billie," she said, "poor Billie! 
 He was a a little clumsy, Uncle Alec. He didn't 
 know how to excuse himself for not asking me before 
 mother died, and he didn't know enough not to 
 try. I felt so sorry for him." 
 
 "Was that why you took him?" 
 
 The girl met his gaze quite frankly for a second, 
 and then looked back at the fire. "Partly, per- 
 haps," she replied, after a pause. "Billie Chapman 
 is a good man. I have known that he loved me for 
 many years. He asked me to marry him when I 
 was twenty, before father died. He he asked me 
 that time at a Sunday-school picnic. He had just 
 eaten a doughnut, and there was a crumb on his 
 chin. I remember how big it looked! It was all I 
 could see. I I was astonished and scared by his 
 asking me. Nobody had ever asked me such a 
 question before." 
 
 She broke off, still looking into the fire. 
 
 "That was eight years ago," she went on, after a 
 moment. "He has been kind and faithful ever 
 since. He has been very kind." She smiled again
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 207 
 
 to herself. "I think he might even have asked me 
 once more while mother was alive, if I'd I'd given 
 him the proper encouragement," she added. 
 
 "You gave him no encouragement?" 
 
 "My first duty was to mother," she answered. 
 "A wife's first duty is to her husband." 
 
 Alec refrained heroically from saying that a 
 mother's first duty is to her child. What he did say 
 was quite different. In fact, he had not intended 
 to say it at all, but found that his lips had spoken 
 as if independent of his will. 
 
 "Does Don know that your mother is dead?" 
 was what he said. 
 
 He saw Clara's face go white as death, in spite 
 of the firelight, and her hand go to her bosom. She 
 turned startled, pleading eyes upon him for a second, 
 as if begging for mercy, before she could control 
 herself. She did not speak for a long moment, and 
 the man wished that he had not asked the question. 
 
 "I don't know," she finally said, in a low voice. 
 " What difference does it make? That is all over." 
 
 Alec laid his hand on hers an instant. "I didn't 
 mean to ask," he said. "The words popped out 
 before I could catch them. They popped out be- 
 cause my heart was asking the question, I suppose. 
 Forgive me." 
 
 She gave his fingers a little squeeze. "That's all
 
 208 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 right," she said. Then she rose quickly, took off 
 the kettle, and began to make tea. When she again 
 faced Alec, with his cup in her hand, her face was 
 smiling once more. 
 
 "There are three lumps in it," she laughed, "which 
 is all that is good for you, you old sweet tooth." 
 
 The next day Alec Farnum went to New York. 
 
 Don Barker was an engineer for a big construction 
 company. He had left Southmead as a youth, to 
 earn his way through the Massachusetts Institute 
 of Technology, and at twenty-three had been em- 
 ployed in Peru. After two years in the Andes he 
 had come back to Southmead for a vacation before 
 going with the New York firm. It was then he had 
 asked Clara Roberts to marry him. They had been 
 boy-and-girl sweethearts, however. Don Barker 
 was the type of man who would not forget his first 
 love, just as he did not forget his boyhood purpose 
 to be an engineer, which had filled his mind even 
 when he was but thirteen and built a ram in the 
 brook to pump water into his father's barn. Yet he 
 had forsaken Clara four years ago, upon her refusal 
 to leave her mother, and the Bird House Man knew 
 that the girl had not heard from him since. He 
 wondered what had happened between them, more 
 than appeared on the surface. 
 
 He did not find Don in his office. They told him
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 209 
 
 Mr. Barker was out on some subway work. It was 
 not till the second day that the two met at dinner. 
 
 "Well, well, this is nice!" said the older man. "I 
 began to think I was never going to see you again, 
 since you won't come back to your old home. In 
 fact, there's a strong suspicion in Southmead that 
 you've done something you're ashamed of em- 
 bezzled, or raised a family or a beard." 
 
 The young man, who was lean and hard still, 
 with his Yankee origin stamped on his face, laughed. 
 "Nothing so bad as any of those things, Mr. Far- 
 num," he said. "But I've been working pretty hard, 
 and spending what vacations I've had out West, 
 looking over some of the big new reclamation dams. 
 I'd like to see Southmead again, too but the the 
 chance doesn't seem to come. How is everybody 
 there?" 
 
 "Oh, we're all pretty well. Ruth Barnes is 
 married, and Millie Tilton's got a house of her own 
 right next to mine, and has joined the suffragettes, 
 and they've got a new set of hymn books in the 
 Congregational Church, and our new sawbones, 
 Tommy Trask (I guess you didn't know him, did you ?) , 
 has rescued Margaret Weir from that Bleak House 
 where she lived like a hermit, and by the way, are 
 you married?" 
 
 "I?" The young man looked at him quickly and
 
 210 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 turned away. "No, none of that for me!" he added, 
 a trifle brusquely. 
 
 Alec's eyes were watching his companion sharply, 
 but he continued speaking in the same jovial bass. 
 " Well, it's astonishing how we are all getting married 
 off in Southmead," he went on. "Lack of any other 
 occupation, I suppose. I'm even getting rather 
 shaky myself. I don't know when it's going to 
 hit me. Who do you think is the latest to get 
 engaged?" 
 
 "You tell me," said Don. 
 
 "William Chapman!" cried Alec. "Yes, sir, 
 bashful Bill!" 
 
 He watched the effect of his words, suspecting 
 that Don knew of the shy grocer's attachment for 
 Clara. The young man's face betrayed the thought 
 which startled him. "Who whom is Bill going to 
 marry?" he asked, in a voice controlled with some 
 effort. 
 
 Alec's own voice changed to a tone of gentleness. 
 "The date has not been set yet," he said. "It will 
 not be till summer, I suspect. Since her mother died 
 last August, his fiancee has been taking some teachers 
 to board, and her conscience would compel her to 
 keep 'em the full year." 
 
 "You mean it's it's " 
 
 "Yes, Don, it's Clara," said the Bird House Man.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 211 
 
 The other turned away his head. "Bill Chap- 
 man!" he half whispered. 
 
 Alec lit a cigar. "Let's go up into a corner of 
 the club library where it's quiet," he said. 
 
 "I I've got an engagement," Don mumbled. 
 
 "Yes, with me, upstairs. Come along." 
 
 The young man followed him in silence. 
 
 "Now, I'm going to tell you something," Alec 
 continued, when they were seated again. "Clara 
 loves you still. I stumbled on the truth without 
 meaning to. I know nothing of what has hap- 
 pened between you two in the past. I only know 
 she loves you still. I came to New York to give you 
 this bit of information, if you were still free to re- 
 ceive it, as I gather you are. What you do with it, 
 of course, is another matter." 
 
 The young engineer blew a nervous cloud of smoke. 
 "You'll pardon me if I say your words sound like a 
 curious contradiction," he said. "Clara is going 
 to marry Bill Chapman, and Clara loves me I 
 don't get it, that's all." 
 
 "My dear boy, it wouldn't be the first time hi 
 the history of the human heart such a thing has 
 happened. During all these years four, is it, or 
 five since you left her, Clara has nursed that selfish 
 old mother like a slave of conscience, and filled the 
 void in her heart by also nursing all the other women's
 
 212 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 babies in town. Now her mother has died. She is 
 free and the freedom hurts her more than the 
 slavery. Something in her cries out for babies of her 
 own. She's that kind of a woman, God bless her! 
 Bill has loved her for a long time with his stupid, 
 shy devotion. She pities him, she oh, but can't 
 you understand? It's a complex of many emotions. 
 / can understand it plain enough. She's going to 
 brick up a certain corner of her heart, and try to 
 get some joy out of what is left." 
 
 Don was staring straight ahead with unwinking 
 eyes. "I I think I could see the tragedy of it, 
 if I if well, I'm rather concerned hi it myself," 
 he said. "You see, I I still love her, too!" 
 
 He blurted this last out, as if it choked him. 
 
 "I thought as much," said Alec quietly. "Tell 
 me what happened five years ago." 
 
 The young man paused for some time before 
 replying. "It's a hard thing to explain," he said 
 finally. "If Clara had demanded that I stay in 
 Southmead because her mother wouldn't leave it, 
 if she'd said, 'You must choose between me and your 
 career,' like a character in a magazine story, it would 
 be easy enough to explain. Of course a man does 
 always choose his career, unless he's a fool. But 
 she didn't say anything like that." 
 
 "She wouldn't," Alec put in.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 213 
 
 "No, she just looked at me with a kind of crooked 
 smile or I can see now it was crooked, I thought 
 she was damn cheerful that day! and said, 'I've 
 talked it over with mother, all over again and again, 
 and she can't leave her old home here. It would 
 kill her. So we must say good-bye. You have 
 your work in the world, I have mine.' That's 
 word for word what she said. I can hear her still. 
 Now, I'm no idol smasher as a rule, but I just reared 
 up then and said a few things about parents and 
 children and the New England conscience, and I 
 don't know what all, and I ended by saying that if 
 she loved me her first duty was to me and herself, 
 to us, I said, and if she didn't see it that way, why, 
 she didn't really love me and I'd get out and not 
 bother her again. She just smiled some more when 
 I said that, and told me I didn't mean what I said, 
 and I said, 'Don't I?' and walked out, and I never 
 went back when I heard her call my name, and I've 
 never seen her nor Southmead since. Now, call me a 
 stubborn, pig-headed Yankee if you want to, but 
 those are the facts." 
 
 "You are a stubborn, pig-headed Yankee," said 
 Alec. "Moreover, you are cruel into the bargain." 
 
 "Stubborn people always are," said Don. "I 
 know that. What do you want me to do about 
 it?"
 
 214 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "That is entirely for you to say. I don't want you 
 to do anything that your heart doesn't dictate. 
 I'm merely telling you that Clara is trying to wall 
 up a corner of her heart, and when she thinks she 
 has the memories all buried, she'll set a day to marry 
 Bill Chapman. Incidentally, I have a spare room 
 in my house, and the train to Southmead leaves the 
 Grand Central at three twenty-five." 
 
 The young engineer rose from his chair, and threw 
 his cigar into the fireplace. "Good-night," he said, 
 putting out his hand. "Forgive me, but I've got 
 to get out in the streets and walk. I'll I'll wire 
 you something when I know." 
 
 "Good-night, my boy," said Alec, laying a great 
 hand on his shoulder. "Remember, it's the heart 
 that makes for happiness in this world." 
 
 The Bird House Man went back to Southmead the 
 next morning. 
 
 He heard nothing from Don for three days, and 
 then a laconic wire arrived, which read: 
 
 "Coming on 3:25 to-morrow. 
 
 "D. B." 
 
 Alec promptly called up Clara Roberts on the 
 'phone and invited her to his house the next even- 
 ing. "Maybe a little music, or something," he 
 said. 
 
 Don arrived in time for a late dinner. He was
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 215 
 
 almost silent during the meal, and curiously ner- 
 vous. 
 
 "I'll I'll go right over there now," he finally 
 said, when Mrs. Plumb had carried the coffee into 
 the study. "I I can't wait. If what you say is 
 true but I can't believe it I must find out for 
 myself. If it is " 
 
 He broke off, his face tense. Alec could sense the 
 struggle he had been through, the longing tugging at 
 his heart, the wounded pride goading his stubborn 
 will, the Yankee aversion to giving in even when 
 in the wrong, perhaps especially when in the wrong. 
 
 "There is no need," the Bird House Man said 
 quietly. "She will be here in a few moments." 
 
 "Does she know?" Don cried. 
 
 "Not a hint. She thinks it's a musicale," Alec 
 chuckled. 
 
 They finished their coffee, again in silence, and 
 then the Bird House Man led his guest into the next 
 room. A moment later the bell rang. He an- 
 swered it himself, and ushered Clara into the study. 
 She warmed her hands before the blaze. 
 
 "You always have the nicest fires," she exclaimed. 
 "But where are the rest? Who's going to make the 
 music? You don't expect me to? " 
 
 "Part of it," the Bird House Man smiled. "It's 
 to be a duet."
 
 216 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 He had moved toward the door of the back room 
 as he spoke, and now he crossed the threshold. 
 Clara, her hands still toward the blaze, waited for 
 him to return. A second later she heard the door 
 shut, and looked up to smile once more at her 
 host. 
 
 Instead of smiling, her face went deathly white, 
 her two hands went up to her bosom convulsively, 
 and she stood as if transfixed. 
 
 Don Barker was standing there by the door, 
 which had been closed behind him, his eyes upon 
 her, his lips apparently trying to form words which 
 did not come. Then he took a sudden step toward 
 her. 
 
 "Don!" she whispered, drawing back. "Don! 
 Is it you?" 
 
 Still he did not speak, but drawing still nearer he 
 held out his arms. 
 
 She put forth one hand to repel him. "No, no!" 
 she said, again in a whisper. 
 
 "Clara" the words were broken, as if forced out 
 of him "Clara, forgive me! I can say nothing 
 now but I love you!" 
 
 "No, no, no, no!" she whispered, over and over. 
 
 She had retreated against Alec's desk, and could 
 go no farther. The arms yearned toward her very 
 close now. She looked into the face she knew so
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 217 
 
 well, and saw lines there she did not know, lines that 
 had come with the years and she saw longing there 
 and love. Her hand was now against his breast, 
 still pushing him away, but he seized it with one of 
 his and put it to his lips, and then she resisted no 
 more. With a low cry she let herself fall forward 
 into his embrace, and gave her mouth to his. 
 
 Thus they stood, they knew not how long, their 
 eyes closed, in the ecstasy of their reunion. But 
 presently the woman put up her hands again and 
 pushed him gently from her, taking his face between 
 her palms and looking long into his eyes. Then she 
 suddenly sank down in a chair and buried her own 
 face in her hands, her body shaking. 
 
 He dropped on the floor beside her. 
 
 "What is it, what is it?" he whispered. 
 
 "Oh, Don, you have come too late!" she moaned. 
 "You have broken your pride too late! It was 
 easier to break my heart and yours than to break 
 your pride, wasn't it? Oh, why have you come at 
 all, now?" 
 
 "I have come in time!" he cried. "Thank God, 
 I have come in time! You love me still, and I 
 love you. Don't reproach me for my stubbornness, 
 my foolishness, till to-morrow. Kiss me to-night." 
 
 She shook her head, and tried to take his arm from 
 about her waist. "You have come too late," she
 
 218 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 said again. "Hasn't Mr. Alec told you? I'm en- 
 gaged to be married." 
 
 "He told me, yes and to whom/' said Don. 
 "But you can't marry him now. You love me. I 
 don't care whether you forgive me for how I've 
 acted, so long as you marry me. Dearest, I've got 
 to have you!" 
 
 He laid his lips on her neck, for her face was 
 turned from him. 
 
 "No, no, no! You mustn't, you shan't!" she 
 cried again, trying to draw away. "I am engaged 
 to another man. I am honour bound to another 
 man. You have come too late ! ' ' 
 
 Don rose to his feet, and stood in front of her. 
 "Do you love me?" he demanded. "Never mind 
 what I've done, and the reasons you have for think- 
 ing all manner of ill of me. But do you love me? " 
 
 Her only answer was a moan. 
 
 "Do you love the other man? Really love him, 
 in in in the way we kissed just now?" 
 
 She shrank down into the chair. "Don't, don't!" 
 she cried. 
 
 "Then, by God, you shan't marry him, and you 
 shall marry me ! " Don exclaimed. " Your conscience 
 may have made a slave of you, but it shan't make 
 something worse! Look at me!" 
 
 As if she could not help it, she raised her eyes to his.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 219 
 
 "I've given up my stubbornness," he said, "or 
 my pride, or whatever it is. Raw egotism, perhaps. 
 I've come to you because I love and long for you 
 still, and I'll do any penance you ask. We've spoiled 
 our lives enough, you and I. We start in now living 
 for ourselves, do you hear, just our two selves !" 
 
 "^s^eople cari't .live just for themselves," the girl 
 replied. "Oh, Don, they can't. They'd never 
 really be happy if they did. I've given my word! 
 He he loves me. He'd suffer so. And I've given 
 my word!" 
 
 The man bit his lip a second. "Will you leave it 
 to Mr. Farnum to judge?" he said. "I've told 
 him my story. You told him yours, whether you 
 meant to or not. He came to New York just to 
 let me know you still loved me. Will you let him 
 decide?" 
 
 "He went to New York to tell you?" she whis- 
 pered. "Mr. Alec did that, when he knew about 
 Billie?" 
 
 "Yes, just that," said Don. "You trust him. 
 Will you let him judge? " 
 
 He dropped again on his knees before her and 
 suddenly kissed her eyes as he had done long years 
 before. Her lips parted as her eyes closed, her 
 bosom heaved, and her hands clasped his shoulders 
 instinctively.
 
 220 THE BIKD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "I I oh, Don, you mustn't tempt me, you 
 mustn't kiss me that way, you mustn't!" 
 
 "May I call him?" he asked, again kissing her 
 lips. 
 
 She tried to say no, but she couldn't. She could 
 only nod yes with her head. Don sprang to the 
 door and called. 
 
 The Bird House Man had evidently been in the 
 kitchen, talking to Mrs. Plumb. He came quickly 
 at the call, and stood near the door, looking silent 
 inquiry at the pair before him. The young man 
 spoke first. 
 
 "We love each other still, Clara and I," he said. 
 " Clara does not love the man she is engaged to, but 
 me. But there seems to be another there seems 
 to be a case of conscience involved. We wish you 
 to be the judge. Clara has given her word to marry 
 this other man, and says she cannot break it. My 
 point is that the sin of a loveless marriage is greater 
 still that it is better to break her word than my 
 heart, and hers, too for she will break her heart. 
 She will think of me all her lif e now in in the night 
 watches." 
 
 There came a little moan from the girl. 
 
 Alec moved closer to her, and laid his fingers 
 lightly on her shoulder. 
 
 "Look up at me," he said.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 221 
 
 She looked up into his face, her eyes filled with a 
 great unhappiness. 
 
 "Clara," he continued, "a promise of marriage is 
 a pledge not lightly to be broken. Only a light 
 woman would do so, and you are not that. But a 
 promise of marriage given when the heart cannot be 
 given with it can be a wicked thing. The only way 
 to atone for that sin is to undo the evil, to break 
 the pledge, before it is too late." 
 
 "You mean you mean, that I was wicked, to 
 promise to marry poor Billie?" she whispered, in- 
 credulous. 
 
 "I leave it to your conscience to answer," Alec 
 declared. "You know best whether you loved him 
 when you promised. You know best whether you 
 had forgotten Don, whether it was Billie your soul 
 hungered for as the father of your children." 
 
 He spoke slowly, quietly, solemnly, his hand still 
 resting lightly on her shoulder. He felt her shiver 
 under his touch, as she buried her face once more in 
 her hands. 
 
 "But Billie," she said, in a smothered voice, "it 
 will break his heart, perhaps, and it is so wicked not 
 to keep a promise. That is telling a lie!" 
 
 "One heart has got to be broken, anyway so far 
 as hearts ever are broken," the Bird House Man re- 
 plied. "Yours will not be, should you give Don up
 
 222 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 again, Clara, for you take a kind of Calvinistic joy 
 in sacrifice, which is a strange form of virtuous sin, 
 or sinful virtue, possibly peculiar to New England. 
 But I say it is wicked to keep a promise when it is 
 the promise of something the man by every right 
 expects, and you cannot really give." 
 
 "Oh, this is so " Don began, but the Bird 
 
 House Man raised his hand in a command for si- 
 lence, and bent his face again toward the girl. 
 
 She looked up at him once more, by an evident 
 effort refraining from looking toward her lover. 
 
 "But if I I break my word to Billie," she said, 
 "how will I ever be sure it was not really for my sel- 
 fish happiness? It's what I want to do. Oh, Mr. 
 Alec, you can never know, nobody can ever know, 
 how terribly I want to do it! When we want to do 
 things so badly, they are usually selfish and and 
 wrong.'* 
 
 Don almost writhed in his effort to keep from 
 speech, but the older man still spoke quietly and 
 gently. 
 
 "True happiness comes from wanting very hard 
 to do the things which are right," he said, "and some- 
 times being able to do them. One of the things which 
 is eternally right hi this world is to mate with some 
 one whom your heart and soul desire, and be the mother 
 of his children. If it is right to love babies and
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 223 
 
 you think it is, don't you, Clara? it is right to 
 want the father your heart desires for your own 
 babies, and a sin, yes, a grave and bitter sin, to 
 take any other father for them. Poor little wisps of 
 helplessness, to be moulded into minds and souls 
 by every breath of environment, can they who are 
 born of a reluctant marriage bed be the same as 
 those who are born of perfect love? Clara, my dear, 
 don't let a split hair of conscience stand in the way 
 of one of the great verities of life!" 
 
 The girl had sat with her head in her hands while 
 he spoke, and so she remained for a long moment 
 after. Then she uncovered her face and raised it, 
 her cheeks flushed, and looked first at Alec, and then 
 slowly, almost timidly, at her lover, who stood 
 silent and pleading before her, as if holding his 
 breath, with arms just lifting to stretch toward 
 her. 
 
 "Don," she breathed. "Don, I cannot let it be 
 any one but you ! " 
 
 Then she buried her face in her hands once more, 
 and her lover fell on his knees before her, took the 
 hands gently down, and laid her cheek to his, while 
 Alec smiled upon them both. 
 
 "I think that duet has been sung after all," he 
 said presently. "Or is it just begun?" 
 
 Clara Roberts smiled for the first time since she
 
 224 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 had looked up from the fire, and seen her lover in 
 the room. She smiled her old, cheerful, brave smile. 
 "It has just begun," she answered. 
 
 "That's my chickadee again!" cried Alec. "All 
 the song you need is in three notes. *I love you,' 
 is what it says." 
 
 He whistled softly the bird's call. 
 
 fi**r 
 
 "You must teach it to him, too," said Clara. 
 "It shall always be our signal, Don, yours and mine 
 and Mr. Alec's." 
 
 "Whatever we have shall be Mr. Alec's, too, you 
 bet!" cried her lover, springing up and catching the 
 Bird House Man by the hand. 
 
 "No, sir," cried Alec, "I won't have Clara's con- 
 science!" 
 
 "God bless her for it, I say," Don answered ten- 
 derly and humbly, going again to her side and put- 
 ting an arm around her shoulder. "It means depths 
 of loyalty we men know very little about." 
 
 "You are on the road to wisdom, young man," 
 laughed Alec, rubbing his hands delightedly. "Isn't 
 he, Clara?" 
 
 Her eyes were sparkling now, her face almost
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 225 
 
 transformed by happiness. She took Don's hand 
 in hers and patted it. "There are lots of things you 
 men know very little about," she said. "That's 
 why we women have such a hard time."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE GOLDFINCH 
 
 WHEN Southmead heard that the Smith house 
 had been rented for the summer to a teacher of 
 eurhythmic dancing there wa3 great excitement 
 and much rushing to the public library for informa- 
 tion as to the significance of "eurhythmic." To be 
 sure, little was learned at the library. Alec Far- 
 num suggested that the word probably came from 
 Plato, but Miss Millie Tilton said she was sure Plato 
 never danced. The teacher's name was Flora Dale 
 Johnson, which Alec said was almost as fine an 
 anticlimax as "For God, for country, and for Yale." 
 She had hit upon Southmead, it seemed, because the 
 place was so quiet and not yet invaded by summer 
 boarders. Joe Toms, the real estate man who had 
 conducted the transaction, confessed as much when 
 the fact of her coming was known. He also con- 
 fessed that Flora Dale Johnson herself was "some 
 swell dame" (Joe wasn't a native of Southmead, 
 and used vulgar expressions). The Smith house, 
 which stood in a grove a quarter of a mile out of the 
 village, was a big square house with a cupola, once 
 
 226
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 227 
 
 the residence of a well-to-do family who had all died 
 out or moved away. In recent years somebody had 
 altered it over for a summer boarding-house, but 
 the venture had failed. 
 
 "The dame gave it the once over, and then made 
 for the grove," said Joe. "She seemed more inter- 
 ested in that. Said it was an ideal spot for a daffy 
 dance " 
 
 "A what? " asked Alec, who was listening. 
 
 "Well, something like that," said Joe. "Guess it 
 will be daffy, all right. She said the ground was 
 nice and smooth, and wouldn't hurt her girls' bare 
 feet." 
 
 With this parting bomb shell he left the post office, 
 while all of his auditors gasped, except Alec Farnum 
 who was chuckling. It had just occurred to him 
 that "daffy" was Daphne. 
 
 Coincident with Joe's disclosure that the pupils 
 were to dance barefoot, came Mrs. Alvin Sanborn's 
 discovery in a magazine of a picture showing 
 eurhythmic dancers in action. To be sure, the 
 picture was taken in Germany, but there was the 
 word eurhythmic, large as life. Mrs. Sanborn took 
 one horrified look at the picture, and then another, 
 and then a third and then she showed it to Miss 
 Jones, the librarian. After that, the fat was in the 
 fire. Everybody expected the worst. Dr. Tommy
 
 228 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Trask, after listening to various conversations, con- 
 fided to his friend, the Bird House Man, that in his 
 opinion most of the male inhabitants hoped for the 
 worst, which Alec had to confess was probably true. 
 There was much talk of preventing the scandal to 
 the fair name of Southmead, and the matter was 
 agitatedly taken up at a meeting of the First Parish 
 Mothers' Club. But, after all, as several shop- 
 keepers pointed out, two-score or more additional 
 people for the summer was a boon not lightly to be 
 cast aside, and the lease was signed, and the house 
 was a quarter of a mile from the village, and nobody 
 really knew what Miss Flora Dale Johnson's school 
 was like, and women were dancing barefoot every- 
 where nowadays, as you might see from the Sunday 
 papers, and why not wait? As the entire village 
 really wanted to wait, they waited. 
 
 Presently Flora Dale Johnson and several of her 
 pupils arrived, with trunks that filled two wagons, 
 and with half a dozen maids and a Japanese cook. 
 
 "Looks ter me ez if they wuz contemplatin' 
 wearin* some clo'es," remarked Kib Turner who 
 drove the depot hack, as he viewed the pile of 
 baggage. "I git twenty -five cents apiece fer haulin* 
 them trunks. On with the dance, is my motter." 
 
 In a day or two more all the pupils had arrived, 
 nearly two-score of them, "Of assorted shapes and
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 229 
 
 colours,'* as Tommy Trask put it to the Bird House 
 Man, "and ages," he added. There were young 
 girls of seventeen or eighteen laughing and lithe and 
 fashionably clad, there were somewhat soberer girls 
 in the twenties, somewhat less slender, and there 
 were even one or two women perilously close to Pier 
 40, who, as Tommy said he had no reverence cer- 
 tainly needed all outdoors to dance in. The Smith 
 house was overrun with them all. There were six or 
 eight servants to attend to their needs. Delivery 
 wagons from the village were kept busy. Two pianos 
 and a huge phonograph arrived. Music began to issue 
 from the open windows . Laughter resounded through 
 the grove. Groups of girls, arm in arm across the side- 
 walk, came down to the drug-store for picture post- 
 cards and candy, and Southmead lined up in front of 
 the post office and stared. 
 
 Then the lessons began, and Southmead knew the 
 worst. 
 
 "I happened to be going by this morning," said 
 Miss Jones, the librarian, to her friend Mrs. San- 
 born, "and I heard music in the grove, so I just 
 climbed up the bank and looked over the fence, 
 and what do you think I saw?" 
 
 "Barefoot, I suppose." 
 
 "Barefoot! My dear, it didn't stop at their feet! 
 They had on nothing, absolutely nothing, but Swiss
 
 230 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 ribbed combinations as as abbreviated as a man's 
 bathing suit, and over them white chiffon gowns, 
 Greek, I suppose they call 'em, caught up above 
 their knees with an elastic band. Their arms and 
 shoulders were bare, and when they hopped about 
 you could see oh, my dear, you have no idea of it!" 
 
 "But what were they doing?" asked Mrs. San- 
 born, her eyes reflecting her determination to have 
 an idea of it at the earliest possible moment. 
 
 "I could hardly make out what they were doing," 
 said Miss Jones. "There was a phonograph play- 
 ing away under a tree, and they were all going 
 through motions together, with their arms and legs, 
 in time to the music. It looked very silly to me. 
 There was that Flora Dale Johnson female among 
 'em, without any clothes on either, and I could hear 
 her saying something about rhythm. I must say 
 she has pretty arms." 
 
 For the next few weeks in Southmead woman's 
 place was most assuredly not the home. There 
 was a farm just up the road beyond the Smith place 
 which did a sudden and unprecedented business in 
 eggs. All the women in town suddenly wanted 
 eggs. The men of the village found excuses more 
 difficult (or perhaps one had better say explanations), 
 but most of them contrived to get up the Smith 
 place way at least once in the daylight. In the
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 231 
 
 evening the road thither became lovers' lane, though 
 the pupils never performed out of doors after night- 
 fall. By day, however, they danced or sat around 
 in the grove in their chiffon slips, apparently quite 
 indifferent to the line of spectators over the fence, 
 not betraying the slightest consciousness that they 
 were immodestly clad. Their legs soon became red 
 with mosquito bites, and their necks and arms tanned 
 with the sun. One of the pianos was placed on the 
 side veranda, and all day long they danced on the 
 lawn and under the trees as if it were the most nat- 
 ural proceeding in the world. Some of them went 
 to church on Sunday. All of them were polite to 
 the townsfolk, behaved with perfect decorum on the 
 streets, and the youngest and prettiest of the pupils, 
 when some of the village youths attempted to ad- 
 dress them, put a stop to such advances in the way 
 that only nice girls can. The boys left them alone 
 after that. All of which was faintly disappointing 
 to Mrs. Sanborn. 
 
 The director of the school presently invited Alec 
 and Ruth and Rob Eliot and one or two more who, 
 acquaintance had shown her would be interested, to 
 a nearer view of the dancing. Alec was quizzically 
 curious, Ruth still inclined to be a little shocked, 
 and Rob frankly enthusiastic. By this time some 
 of the advanced pupils had reached the stage called
 
 232 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 plastic expression. They "realized" a piece of 
 music, and expressed by their dancing the mood it 
 evoked in them. One young girl, after listening to 
 MacdowelPs "To a Wild Rose," announced that it 
 made her think of clouds. 
 
 "Then express clouds," cried an assistant teacher. 
 "A cloud is a little boat that floats and floats and 
 floats and FLOATS, till it meets a little wind that blows 
 it higher and higher and higher, until it is nearly 
 wrecked, and then finally it reaches a safe harbour 
 on the sunset horizon. Now express that, dearie." 
 
 Alec smiled, but Dearie set her teeth and with a 
 look of painful determination proceeded to fall in 
 with the music, and floated and floated and floated 
 and FLOATED, and met the wicked little wind, and 
 endeavoured to be blown higher and higher and 
 higher, till the shipwreck was almost a painful 
 actuality. Dearie was not over and above graceful, 
 and the spectacle was a little ludicrous. But a 
 moment later a different dance was staged. A tall, 
 slender girl, her hah* done up tightly, her gown 
 abbreviated like a man's tunic, sprang out as Apollo, 
 and pursued a girl with streaming hair as Daphne. 
 Daphne for some time eluded her pursuer, and when 
 she was panting and almost captured, suddenly 
 slipped behind a tree, as if she had been changed in 
 form. Then Apollo looked about bewildered, and
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 233 
 
 from every tree appeared the form of a maiden 
 with streaming hair. They danced about him, and 
 ever, as he tried to seize one, she eluded his grasp 
 and vanished behind the trunk. In the grove of 
 big oaks and chestnuts, under the dappled shadows, 
 with the music lilting (a compilation from Gluck), 
 these white figures moving in rhythm, with their 
 tossing bare arms and then* white legs and streaming 
 hair, made a picture of great loveliness. Alec waxed 
 enthusiastic and declared that he would never be 
 happy till a water dance had been staged by his pond, 
 and even Ruth applauded. 
 
 But Ruth had noticed, during the dance, the 
 face of a spectator over the fence, and now called 
 Alec's attention to her. It was Susan Hall. Susan 
 was a smallish, rather colourless young woman of 
 indefinite age indefinite because she had not been 
 born in Southmead, and so could keep her secret. 
 She had corn-coloured hair and made periodic at- 
 tempts to dress in the latest fashion which always 
 appeared slightly ludicrous as she walked to church 
 beside her sober husband, Tom Hall, who was prob- 
 ably ten years older than she, dressed in black, and 
 six days in the week served as cashier in the bank. 
 On the seventh day he was the superintendent of the 
 Sabbath School. The Halls had no children. 
 
 Flora Dale Johnson followed the direction of her
 
 234 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 guests* glances. "Oh, that woman," she said. 
 "It's a funny thing about her. She appeared the 
 second week we were here, and I don't believe she's 
 missed a day since. She doesn't seem to come out of 
 idle curiosity like the rest. I think she really loves 
 the dancing. Yesterday she came timidly in and 
 begged me to let her see how the costumes are 
 made." 
 
 " How curious," said Ruth. " That little mouse ! " 
 
 "Couldn't we have her in now?" asked Alec. 
 "Do you mind?" 
 
 "Certainly not; ask her," the teacher replied. 
 
 Alec went out to the fence with the message, and 
 Susan Hall's face grew rosy and then radiant. "Oh, 
 I'd love to!" she cried. 
 
 She greeted the director timidly, and when she 
 was introduced to one or two of the dancers she 
 drew near them and studied their robes, plucking 
 at a fastening here and there and asking questions. 
 When another dance started, she sat down abruptly, 
 and gave her whole attention to it. 
 
 A pupil had "realized" some piece of music as the 
 pursuit of the ideal, and was trying to express the 
 pursuit by going on and on and on and on and ON, 
 while the ideal fluttered away and away and away 
 amid the trees of the grove. Alec, watching the 
 newcomer keenly, saw her hands imitating with al-
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 235 
 
 most imperceptible motions the beat of the dancer's 
 hands, and her whole body tense with strain, as if 
 she herself were doing the dance mentally. 
 
 When the exhibition was over he walked back 
 toward the village beside her, while Rob and Ruth 
 Eliot walked on ahead. 
 
 "Wasn't it wonderful!" she exclaimed, almost as 
 if to herself. 
 
 "I didn't know you were so interested in dancing," 
 said Alec. 
 
 "Neither did I," she answered. "When they 
 first came here Mr. Hall Tom said I wasn't to 
 go near them. He thinks they are very immodest 
 and horrid. But I went finally everybody's been, 
 I guess. I don't think they are immodest, do you?" 
 
 Alec smiled. "Millie Tilton still thinks they 
 are," he said. 
 
 "But you don't, and Ruth and Mr. Eliot don't," 
 she went on eagerly. "Why, they've just opened a 
 kind of new world to me, or rather reopened it." 
 
 She paused as if she didn't know how to continue. 
 
 "Reopened?" Alec prompted. 
 
 There was a frown between the woman's brows. 
 "I don't know how to talk and express things," she 
 said. "We we don't talk much in my house. 
 Sometimes Mr. Hall Tom sits through an entire 
 meal without saying a word."
 
 236 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Alec shot a keen glance at her. He scented sudden 
 unexpected dramatic possibilities. " But it isn't hard 
 when you've broken the first ice," he said kindly. 
 
 "I I know. Well, when I was a girl, over in 
 Bentford, I began to take piano lessons. I guess 
 I wasn't really musical, or I'd have kept on after I 
 got married. Only we didn't have a piano we 
 couldn't afford one at first, and Mr. Hall Tom 
 has never thought one was necessary. He did give 
 me a phonograph for Christmas, but that's not 
 the same thing, is it? " 
 
 "Not quite," said Alec. "You mean you don't 
 make the music yourself, with the phonograph?" 
 
 "That's it!" she cried. "That's just it! When 
 I was beginning to get so I could play a little I'd 
 hear the teacher get the rhythm out of a tune, and 
 then I'd see the notes in front of me at home, and 
 know the rhythm was in them, and I'd I'd just feel 
 good all over when I could make it come out! And 
 chords, too. Some chords would make me feel sad, 
 and some would make me shut my eyes and see 
 pictures." 
 
 "And you mean these dances have made you see 
 pictures and want to get the rhythm out of yourself 
 again, eh?" 
 
 She nodded her head. "They've sort of given 
 life a meaning again," she answered.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 237 
 
 It was Alec's turn to frown. "How old are you?'* 
 he asked. 
 
 "I'm thirty -two," she answered. "I ought to be 
 a middle-aged wife, and not talking such nonsense, 
 oughtn't I?" 
 
 "Some people would say so," he replied. "Per- 
 sonally, I think you ought to be back there taking 
 lessons." 
 
 "Oh, if I only could ! But Mr. Hall would divorce 
 me on the spot. It's made trouble enough as it is." 
 
 "You mean?" 
 
 Rob and Ruth at that moment turned around to 
 address some remark to the two behind, and the 
 woman muttered quickly: "Never mind what I 
 mean. Let's not talk about it any more." 
 
 At the first branch street she turned off rapidly 
 toward her house. "I mustn't be late with Mr. 
 Hall's lunch," she said. 
 
 Alec shook his head. "How very stupid some 
 good people are," he remarked. "No, I don't 
 mean you, Ruth. You're no better than you ought 
 to be." 
 
 He thought a good deal in the next day or two of 
 this chance glimpse into the domestic life of the 
 Halls. Tom Hall he had known from boyhood, and 
 two or three times a week passed a pleasant word 
 with him over the till of the bank, or met him on the
 
 238 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 village street. That Tom would ever be deliberately 
 unkind to anybody was incredible. He was slow 
 and solid and conservative, but he was a just man 
 with an almost painfully acute conscience in his 
 daily dealings, and he held many positions of trust 
 in the town. That he had married a colourless and 
 uninteresting girl had never surprised Alec. What 
 did surprise him was to find that she was neither 
 colourless nor uninteresting, and that the domestic 
 life of Tom Hall, which he had always fancied went 
 jogging placidly along, was evidently bumping on the 
 rocks of misunderstanding. 
 
 He went into the bank and looked at Tom sharply. 
 The man's face actually did look troubled. 
 
 Alec cashed a check. "Seen these new dancers 
 yet, Tom?" he asked innocently, as he took the bills. 
 "They're well worth it. I saw one of the prettiest 
 dances I ever saw in my life up there the other day." 
 
 The cashier's hand jingled the pile of loose change 
 it rested on. "I've not," he answered briefly. 
 "What's more, I don't want to." 
 
 "Oh, come, that's unfair and illiberal," said Alec. 
 "Look at everything before you judge it." 
 
 "I've seen enough of that dancing!" 
 
 "But if you've not been up there " Alec began. 
 
 Tom bit his lip. Then he seemed suddenly to 
 come to a decision. Leaning over the till and speak-
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 239 
 
 ing in a low voice so that the bookkeeper could not 
 hear him, he said, "Alec, will you come home with 
 me? It's after eleven. Dan can handle things till 
 lunch." 
 
 "Why, certainly, if you wish," the elder man an- 
 swered, surprised. 
 
 Tom jammed his hat on his head, and set out at 
 a rapid pace, explaining nothing. His house was 
 on a pleasant little side street, with a backyard 
 running down to the river. The yard was screened 
 by a hedge of Japanese willow on one side; on the 
 other was a bit of wood, for it was the last house on 
 the street. There were no flowers in the door- 
 yard, though the small lawn was neatly clipped. 
 The two men walked up the path. From some- 
 where in the rear they could hear a phonograph, 
 playing Grieg's "Slumber Song." On the step 
 Tom paused a moment, as if the sound hurt him. 
 
 "I've I've got to tell somebody," he stammered. 
 "You you understand things women you've al- 
 ways been a good friend to me, Alec. Maybe you 
 don't remember it was you got me the job in the 
 bank. I go in, please." 
 
 He held open the door, and Alec entered. Then 
 hejed the way through a bare, stiff parlour, through 
 the dining-room where the table was set for lunch, 
 and the kitchen, and out on the back porch. He had
 
 240 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 opened the back door quietly, and stood pointing 
 into the rear yard. Alec needed no beckoning finger, 
 however. Susan Hall, clad in a chiffon gown like 
 those of the eurhythmic dancers, except that it was 
 bright yellow and had two side pieces caught to her 
 wrists with ribbons so that they waved like wings 
 when she raised her arms, was dancing barefoot to 
 the strains of Grieg's lullaby. 
 
 The yard was carpeted only with sparse grass, for 
 Tom thriftily kept chickens which now and then 
 were allowed out of the coop. There were some 
 vegetables on one side, but only a straggling handful 
 of flowers here and there, and a tall weed or two. 
 The strange, bare-legged apparition in yellow was 
 gyrating from one flower or weed to the next, swoop- 
 ing up and dipping down to the peculiar lift and 
 scoop of the music. 
 
 "That is what it's come to mywife!" said Tom, 
 under his breath. Then he started to call to her, 
 when Alec laid a quick hand on his arm. 
 
 "Don't!" the Bird House Man exclaimed. "Be 
 a gentleman, and let me withdraw. What is she 
 dancing?" 
 
 "She t-h"ik she's a goldfinch, I believe," Tom 
 muttered. "She says that tune reminds her of the 
 way they fly." 
 
 "By Jove, she's right!" exclaimed Alec.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 241 
 
 "Are you crazy, too?" Tom almost sneered. "All 
 right, go back in the house. I'm going to stop her." 
 
 Alec stepped back into the kitchen. Instantly 
 he heard the man call out, "Stop that dancing and 
 come in and dress yourself properly!" 
 
 There was no reply from the woman, but the 
 phonograph ceased. 
 
 "You'd better be quick, too," the man added. 
 "Mr. Farnum's in the house." 
 
 Alec heard the woman's voice now, close to the 
 porch, and he slipped to the shelter of the dining- 
 room door. 
 
 "I don't believe Mr. Farnum will mind seeing 
 me," she was saying. "He was watching forty girls 
 dressed tHs way the other day, and said he liked 
 it." Her tone was irritably sarcastic. 
 
 "So you've been up there again, have you?" 
 Tom answered. "Well, whether you want Mr. 
 Farnum to see you without any clothes on or not, 
 I don't! What's more, I won't have it. Go into 
 the house and dress!" 
 
 There was a long pause. Then Alec heard the 
 woman's voice, like the voice of a stranger: 
 
 "You have told me for the last time what I shall 
 or what I shall not do," she said. "That may be 
 your idea of marriage. It isn't mine. Hereafter 
 you'll speak to me as little as possible, and that to
 
 242 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 tell me what you want for meals. I am going in 
 now because it is time to get your luncheon. I trust 
 you haven't invited Mr. Farnum to stay. That 
 would be a merry party!" 
 
 Alec slipped into the front room, and heard 
 her bare feet go pattering into the hall and up the 
 stairs. 
 
 Tom came into the parlour behind her. He was 
 wiping the sweat from his brow, and his face was 
 drawn with perplexed agony. 
 
 "You heard?" he said. 
 
 Alec nodded. 
 
 "Now you know what I have to contend with 
 what my life is," he added. 
 
 "I know now that you are a fool, Tom," was all 
 Alec replied, and walked out of the house. 
 
 He thought it best to allow his parting shot to 
 sink in, but the next morning, when he knew that 
 Tom would be busy at the bank with the town 
 payrolls, he went to the house. Susan, looking as 
 if she had spent a sleepless night, let him in. 
 
 "I heard what took place yesterday," he said at 
 once. "I also saw a bit of your dance. The gold- 
 finches do fly with the swoop of that music, that's a 
 fact." 
 
 She did not brighten at his praise. "Where is it 
 all going to end?" she said wearily.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 243 
 
 "I hope in a better understanding from both of 
 you," he answered cheerfully. 
 
 "Both of us?" 
 
 "Yes, both of you. It takes two to make a kiss 
 or a quarrel. I can't say I much blame you, but I 
 can't wholly blame Tom, either." 
 
 "But you said you saw no harm in that dancing, 
 you said " 
 
 "That's not quite what I mean," Alec interrupted 
 gently. "If it were only Tom's old-fashioned, 
 granite-headed Puritan objection to bare legs in his 
 backyard, the case wouldn't be so difficult. Old- 
 fashioned notions always have to give way sooner or 
 later. What you've got to fight is Tom's total lack 
 of comprehension of the human soul's need, your 
 need, for some form of creative, esthetic expression. 
 Don't let those big words trouble you. You'll get my 
 drift. And that he hasn't the ghost or the glimmer of 
 such comprehension is partly your fault, my dear." 
 
 "My fault?" 
 
 "Yes, yours." Alec swept his arm around the 
 bare, stiff parlour. "You've been married almost a 
 dozen years, haven't you, and look at this room! 
 You don't think it's pretty, now do you? Anybody 
 who could love those dances we saw couldn't find 
 any joy in this room. Where are your pictures 
 good, bright pictures? Where are your cut flowers?
 
 244 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Where are the flowers out in your yard? Where are 
 the books that ought to be on your table? A 
 Sunday-school weekly and yesterday's Springfield 
 Republican! Where is your piano? You ought to 
 have made him get you a piano years ago. If he 
 wouldn't, you ought to have skimped his food till 
 you saved up for it. You ought to have been play- 
 ing at him these dozen years every evening. In- 
 stead of that what happened? You gave in to 
 this haircloth horror of a parlour on the day he 
 brought you here, and now, when you revolt and 
 kick off your shoes and stockings and go dancing 
 half-naked defiance in the backyard, you wonder 
 that he doesn't understand!" 
 
 The woman was silent, looking at the floor. She 
 suddenly flung up her head. "Yes, this room is 
 ugly, ugly, ugly!" she cried. "I do hate it. I've 
 always hated it! I wanted to make it bright years 
 and years ago. I took down that awful shepherd 
 hugging a lamb, and put up a coloured picture. We 
 had a scene then. I've never tried again." 
 
 Alec shook his head. "You should have shifted 
 the shepherd to a pasture on the side wall first," 
 he smiled. "Remember, Tom holds the old things 
 dear, and that engraving is part of his religion to 
 him, in a sense. Maybe you should have begun with 
 flowers. Go get two vases."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 245 
 
 "I don't know if there are any in the house," 
 she said, astonished. 
 
 "Then bring a couple of kitchen bowls blue 
 earthenware if you have 'em." 
 
 The woman obeyed, bewildered, and Alec, step- 
 ping out on the porch, brought in a basket he had 
 deposited there before he rang. It was full of flowers. 
 "Those two bowls are not enough," he declared. 
 "Get something tall and fairly slim. Lord, what a 
 house! Nothing to put flowers in. You ought to 
 be ashamed." 
 
 Susan reappeared a moment later with a tall 
 china chocolate pot. "This is all I can find," she 
 said. 
 
 " It will do," Alec declared. " Now help me." 
 
 They filled the chocolate pot with the straight 
 spikes of larkspur, hiding the lid with leaves, and 
 turning the handle to the wall stood it on the mantel. 
 Then, in the two earthen bowls, they arranged the 
 other blooms, a bowl of sweet peas and a bowl of 
 roses, and stood one on a table, while Alec carried 
 the other to the dining-room and placed it on the 
 centrepiece or, rather, in the spot where there 
 should have been a centrepiece. 
 
 "There," he cried, "don't they lighten up your 
 house a bit?" 
 
 "Of course they do," said the woman mournfully.
 
 246 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "But where am I going to get flowers to use every 
 day?" 
 
 "Where are you going to get them? Out of your 
 own garden, of course! Not this year, but next. 
 This year I presume you're going to come up to my 
 garden and pick 'em.*' 
 
 "But Mr. Hall isn't interested in gardening," she 
 said. "He raises some vegetables in the backyard 
 because he thinks it's economical, that's all. I 
 asked him once to make me a flower bed in front of 
 the house and all he said was it would spoil the 
 lawn." 
 
 "Make it yourself, then," Alec retorted. "The 
 trouble with you is, Susan, that you haven't any 
 strength of character. If at any time you'd shown 
 Tom persistently how pretty a room can look full 
 of flowers and brightness, and how nice his house 
 could look with roses over the porch and foxgloves 
 by the path, he'd have had off his coat working 
 every night. But you didn't have strength of 
 character enough to do that, which means you didn't 
 really care very much about flowers and pretty 
 rooms yourself. Tom is a solid, plodding man, from 
 a solid, plodding stock. He was brought up on 
 cornbread, the Bible, and 'Work for the night is 
 coming.' All the normal esthetic instincts are 
 dormant in him. It was your task as a wife years
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 247 
 
 ago to lay siege to them, to play Prince to the Sleep- 
 ing Beauty. Instead, you let your own go to sleep, 
 too. And now you are suddenly at odds with each 
 other, and rasping each other's nerves. Isn't that 
 true?" 
 
 "I suppose so," she answered. "Yes, it's true, 
 especially the nerves. Oh, that's been coming some 
 time. It wasn't only this dancing. And I will not 
 be told by any man what I must and must not do!" 
 
 **I don't blame you there," said Alec gently. 
 "How did you come to marry Tom, by the way?" 
 
 "Why why " she hesitated, as if surprised 
 
 by the question. "I guess he just made me. He 
 used to come over to Bentford on business, and 
 father'd bring him home to lunch, and and he fell 
 in love with me. He was handsome then " 
 
 "He's handsome now," Alec interrupted. 
 
 "Well, he was younger then, not middle-aged and 
 settled, and I was a girl, and he just took me. But 
 it's different when a handsome man of thirty tells 
 you you must love him, and the same man tells you 
 twelve years later that you must not do what you 
 want to do, just because he doesn't happen to like 
 it!" 
 
 "Yes," said Alec with a little smile, "it's as dif- 
 ferent as marriage from courtship. But you must 
 remember try to remember that Tom loves you,
 
 248 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 and it is because he loves you that he feels so deeply 
 your revolt from what he thinks is the only path to 
 salvation. Now you and I have got a big task ahead 
 of us I include myself, because I'm going to try 
 to help, as an old friend of Tom's. Our task is to 
 show him his isn't the only path. We must have 
 patience and tact. All I'm going to suggest to you 
 now is, that you keep the house full of flowers out 
 of my garden, and that you go up to Flora Dale and 
 have her train you in that dance. I've got her to 
 promise she will." 
 
 "What!" exclaimed Susan. "You suggest that 
 as a way to win Tom?" 
 
 "You will certainly gain nothing if you patch 
 up a truce by backing down," said Alec. "Only 
 don't fight with him about it. I shall tell him my- 
 self that it was my suggestion. Good-bye, little 
 woman. Don't forget fresh flowers every two 
 days! You may keep the basket to fetch 'em in." 
 
 The Bird House Man went down the path, noting 
 as he went the neat little square of lawn, which rep- 
 resented poor Tom's limit of esthetic expression. 
 The path was trimmed with mathematical precision. 
 He could see Tom coming home from the bank and 
 getting out the edger. 
 
 "That's the kind who often make the best gar- 
 deners," he said to himself.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 249 
 
 He went to the bank at three o'clock. "I've 
 come to take you to my house, this time," he said. 
 
 The man walked glum and troubled at his side. 
 "You called me a fool yesterday, Alec," he said. 
 "I guess it makes any man mad to be called a fool, 
 but I've been thinking it over, and wondering why 
 you said it. I can't stay mad at you." 
 
 "Of course not!" the Bird House Man laughed. 
 "Nobody can. I just won't let 'em. I called you a 
 fool, Tom, because you are one. Any man's a fool 
 in this day and generation who tries to tell an in- 
 telligent woman that she must or must not do a 
 thing. Women are people nowadays, Tom, people 
 even before they are wives. Neither you nor Susan 
 read enough, you both ought to be ashamed of your 
 ignorance. But she's got a woman's intuition, and 
 she knows that her sex is on the march. You are a 
 fool for not knowing it, too. You think you are 
 your grandfather, and as I recall old Madame Hall, 
 your grandfather would have been a bit of a fool, 
 also, to give her too many orders." 
 
 Tom managed a crooked smile at the mention of 
 his grandmother, who had been noted in Southmead 
 for her bass voice and "managing" proclivities. 
 "But when my wife was doing something she ought 
 to have been ashamed of " he began. 
 
 "Nonsense," Alec interrupted, leading the way
 
 250 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 into the multicoloured bloom and bird song of his 
 garden. "She was doing nothing of the kind. Now, 
 sit down here, Tom, and listen to me. I'm going 
 to talk to you like a Dutch uncle, and you've got to 
 take it, too. But first, look at my garden. Isn't 
 it pretty?" 
 
 Tom looked about him at the riotous beds, the 
 winding paths, the sundial, the bird baths. "Yes," 
 he said, "of course, it's pretty. You always did have 
 a pretty garden." 
 
 "Why don't you have one? Women like flowers. 
 Every woman ought to have flowers to put in her 
 house. If you look at your wife at dinner across a 
 bowl of roses, that will help to keep the blush on 
 her cheeks." 
 
 "Why, I I I don't know," the man stammered. 
 "I never was much of a hand at flowers." 
 
 "Well, never mind that now," Alec went on. 
 "Only I'm shy of a house where they don't keep 
 flowers on the table. Tom, not being married my- 
 self, I know a lot more about women than you do. 
 I know some things about your wife that you don't 
 know. She's told me to your everlasting shame, 
 because it was you she ought to have told " 
 
 "Me!" cut in Tom bitterly. "She doesn't talk 
 at all to me now! She moved all her things into 
 the spare room last night."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 251 
 
 "Exactly. You violated her sense of independent 
 personality by trying to order her about. I don't 
 blame her. But that's not it. Before you married 
 her she was studying the piano. It wasn't much, 
 maybe, but it was the only way she had of expressing 
 that bit of the artist which is hi her soul which is 
 in the soul of most of us. You never gave her a 
 piano, did you? She choked off that artist in her 
 when she married you, and it's never good for us to 
 choke off our worthy impulse. These dances this 
 summer have evidently come at a time when she had 
 just about choked down her impulses as long as she 
 could, with nothing to take then* place. Something 
 she felt in the dances called to her like a voice of 
 nature, and she just had to respond. All the im- 
 pulses she has been bottling up for twelve years to 
 make her own hands or her own feet express her in- 
 ward love of rhythm, all her instincts to create a bit 
 of beauty herself, just popped right out. She was 
 doing no harm in her yellow gown and her bare 
 feet, prancing about her own backyard. You were 
 mad because she was doing something you didn't 
 approve of, and your vanity was a bit wounded, 
 too, because she was disobeying you. I daresay 
 to you she was ridiculous and immodest. To me 
 she was pathetic. I saw a woman who ought to 
 have had a piano for the past twelve years."
 
 252 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Alec paused, and there was a silence. 
 
 "I couldn't get her a piano at first I was too 
 poor," said Tom. 
 
 " But later, eh? " 
 
 "My mother never had a piano, and she didn't 
 leave my father's bed!" said the man. 
 
 "Your mother had five children," said Alec quietly. 
 
 Again there was silence. Tom Hall averted his 
 face. 
 
 "You love your wife, don't you?" Alec asked. 
 
 "Love her!" the man dug his fingers into his 
 palms. "Of course I love her! Sometimes I've 
 been afraid I loved her more than God, and 
 prayed for help. That's that's what makes it so 
 hard." 
 
 "Yes, you do love her in your way," Alec mused. 
 "But I can fancy it's hard for her to guess it some- 
 times as you sit there silent in your hideous parlour, 
 thinking over the bank's affairs, or the Sunday-school 
 text." 
 
 "Hideous parlour what do you mean?" 
 
 "Just what I say, Tom. Your parlour is hideous. 
 It gives me the creeps. It's barer than your yard, 
 even. You live the barest life of any man I know- 
 no colour, no fun, no flowers, no music, no beauty. 
 You set the stage poorly for a love scene, my friend." 
 
 Again Tom was silent, looking at the ground.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 253 
 
 "I made arrangements this morning for Susan to 
 take lessons of the new dancing teacher," Alec went 
 on. "No, don't interrupt! You are going to sit 
 right there and hear me out. She might as well 
 learn right, while she's about it. In spite of what 
 you think, this dancing combines a great deal of 
 value sense of musical rhythm, grace of body, and 
 imagination. If I had a girl, I'd make her study it. 
 There'd be less horrible onesteps banged out on 
 pianos and whined out on phonographs if everybody 
 learned it, at any rate. The barefoot part is inno- 
 cent and pictorial, but not essential. Susan isn't 
 an idiot, if she did marry you. She's not going to 
 appear barefoot at the next Town Hall dance. But 
 she is, unless I'm mistaken, going to be able to take 
 hold of our high-school girls this winter and give them 
 some wholesome training. Perhaps she can stage a 
 little dancing pageant in their play. We might 
 even have a June dance here in my garden. The 
 girls would love it. It would mean a lot for most of 
 them, who walk like kangaroos and never hear good 
 music and think that dancing means nothing but a 
 chance to flirt on the back steps of the Town Hall. 
 And it would give Susan a chance to do something, 
 to use her imagination, to express herself." 
 
 "She has a Sunday-school class," Tom put in. 
 
 "She needn't dance on Sunday," Alec laughed,
 
 254 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "even if dancing was a part of religious observance 
 in the old days." 
 
 "Besides, I won't have her taking lessons of 
 that " 
 
 "Tut/ tut!" said the Bird House Man. "Don't 
 say you won't. The time has passed between you 
 two when you can say will or won't! Take it from 
 an old meddler who wishes you both well, my 
 boy, go home and woo your wife all over again, if 
 you want to win her back. Now, I'm through with 
 you." 
 
 "But I want to say " 
 
 "I'm through with you. Get out! I want to 
 work," cried Alec. "You've taken up too much 
 time already, talking to me here by the hour!" 
 
 Tom grinned faintly. "May may I take a bunch 
 of these flowers what do you call 'em?" he asked 
 almost timidly. 
 
 "Oh, the larkspur. Take what you like," Alec 
 replied, turning away to repress a smile. 
 
 The next day he met Tom at the post-office. 
 Tom's face was a bit less glum. "She she had 
 three bunches of flowers in the house when I got 
 home yesterday," the man confided. "I guess she 
 had to use the chocolate pot to put one of 'em in. 
 Do you suppose she'd like it if I bought her a vase?" 
 
 " I'm sure she would ! " cried Alec. " I'm motoring
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 255 
 
 over to Bentford in the Doc's jitney to-day. Shall 
 I pick one out for you?" 
 
 "If you'd get two, please," said Tom. "Pretty 
 ones," he added. 
 
 He came for his vases late that afternoon, and 
 gathered some flowers to put in them. Two days 
 later it was Susan who came for flowers. 
 
 "Did you tell him to get the vases?" she asked. 
 
 "That is unworthy of you," Alec answered. "You 
 know that Tom loves you, and you could tell from 
 his manner whether the gift was his own." 
 
 Her face brightened. "Oh, I wanted to believe 
 it!" she cried. "But it seemed so incredible. I'm 
 going to keep those vases full ! " 
 
 From time to time in the next few weeks Alec 
 saw her in his garden, picking flowers, and not in- 
 frequently Tom came, also, after banking hours, to 
 take blossoms home. 
 
 "I've been thinking over what you said about our 
 parlour," he mused one day, "and since it's been lit 
 up with these posies, I can kind of see you were 
 right. Do you suppose I could afford one of those 
 pictures young Eliot paints, some time, as a a sort 
 of present?" 
 
 "I might see Rob about it," Alec admitted. "He 
 might make local rates." 
 
 A day or two later Tom carried home a framed oil
 
 256 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 painting, a Southmead landscape. It was a sketch, 
 to be sure, but the bright colours pleased him, and 
 he recognized the scene, which pleased him more, 
 and he felt a glow of sacrificial extravagance, 
 for he had paid ten dollars. Ruth and Rob 
 smiled with the Bird House Man at his innocence, 
 for the picture would .have been priced at one 
 hundred. 
 
 Meanwhile Susan continued her lessons every 
 other afternoon. Presently Alec went up again to 
 the school, and saw her goldfinch dance, as it had 
 developed under instruction. She had worked hard, 
 and to good purpose. It was now a very pretty, 
 if still a naive dance, a swooping flight from flower 
 to flower, ending in a flutter into the hiding of a 
 distant thicket. He congratulated her, and then 
 made the proposition he had been planning that 
 she should dance it in his garden, together with a 
 dance or two around his pond by the other pupils of 
 the school. A few select souls from the village were 
 to be invited, and Tom "as a part of his education,'* 
 Alec smiled. 
 
 "He'll never come," said Susan. "He he's 
 trying so hard to be different. Sometimes it seems 
 like old days again. But we never mention the 
 dances. He can never forgive those. Or he can 
 never forgive me for dancing them."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 257 
 
 "Well, we'll try it, anyhow," the man said, and 
 went ahead with the arrangements. 
 
 He caught Tom hi his garden to invite him. 
 "Tom," he said, "I'm giving a little entertainment 
 here Saturday afternoon. Two or three of those 
 best dancers are going to dance here, in this setting 
 of flowers and water pool, and Mrs. Tommy Trask 
 is going to play the music on her violin, hidden in 
 the shrubbery. You have no idea of how lovely it 
 will be, so I want you to come and see. You're a 
 fair-minded man at least, you often say you are 
 so I know you'll come and judge for yourself." 
 
 Tom's face grew hard. "Is is my wife going to 
 dance? "he asked. 
 
 "Yes, Tom, and you won't know her now. She's 
 improved so." 
 
 "She's going to dance in that that yellow thing, 
 barefoot?" 
 
 "I believe so. Can't you be fair, can't you be 
 just? Come and see it in its proper setting, with the 
 music and the sympathetic audience. Come, Tom, 
 and try to understand a little what your wife is 
 trying to do. Until you do understand that, you'll 
 go on living with a wall between you." 
 
 The man's brows were contracted. "I'll I'll 
 think it over," he said. "It's it's hard. But I 
 want to be f ah*. I want / want my wife again I "
 
 258 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 There was a rehearsal in the garden later that 
 afternoon. The next day was Friday. Alec was 
 hard at work in the morning when Susan came 
 into the shop. Her face looked bright and cheerful. 
 "I'm not going to dance Saturday," she announced. 
 
 "You're not what ?" cried Alec. 
 
 "I'm not going to dance Saturday. Tom came 
 home last night late. He'd been walking around in 
 the fields across the river. I saw him out of the 
 kitchen window. He said at supper he 'withdrew 
 his objections' to my dancing, and was coming to 
 see me. Poor man, I could see how hard it had 
 been for him to say that, and how hard it would be 
 for him to watch me! It's me that he objects to in 
 that costume, really. He's he's so old-fashioned. 
 It's really because he loves me. I'm going to in- 
 vent a new dance, and a new costume, and do it for 
 him later." 
 
 Her words rushed on, and Alec watched her face. 
 "But you wanted to give your dance to-morrow 
 didn't you?" he asked. 
 
 "Of course I did, dreadfully," she replied, a little 
 wistfully. "But if he backed down, I ought to 
 back down a little, too, oughtn't I?" 
 
 "You have spoiled my entertainment, but you're 
 a good child, and I love you," said the Bird House 
 Man. "Bring your stupid old Tom to-morrow,
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 259 
 
 and sit among the spectators, then. We'll show hirT> 
 the best that remains." 
 
 Tom came, and sat with his wife. He found the 
 Eliots there, and Dr. Tommy Trask and the presi- 
 dent of his bank, and to his great surprise both his 
 own pastor and the Episcopal rector. Little Miss 
 Millie Tilton was also present, looking as if she was 
 about to be shocked and was bracing for it. 
 
 But nobody was shocked. They all sat in the 
 orchard, and from a source unseen came the lilt of a 
 violin, and against the mirror of the pond, where 
 the ducks and swans were floating, suddenly appeared 
 three dancers like the figures on a Greek vase, and 
 wove a living frieze on the grassy margin. In one 
 dance they ran laughing into the shallow water, 
 scattering the birds in terror. In another they 
 sank at the end like tired lilies over the brim. It 
 was really very lovely, in the low light of a summer 
 afternoon, and when the little audience broke up and 
 moved back through the flower garden to the veranda 
 for tea, they were chattering enthusiastically. Only 
 Tom was silent. At tea the dancers, conventionally 
 clad, joined them. The youngest, a pretty, slender, 
 enthusiastic miss of eighteen, cried: "Oh, Mr. Hall, 
 what a pity your wife couldn't dance to-day, and 
 she had it all rehearsed, too ! She's learned quicker 
 than any of us. You ought to be proud of her."
 
 260 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "I I am," Tom stammered. "She she's going 
 to coach the high-school girls next winter, I believe." 
 
 Tom and Susan lingered after the rest had gone. 
 
 "She she just didn't dance because she thought 
 I didn't want her to, Alec," the man said, "after 
 I'd told her I withdrew my objections. I try to be 
 a fair man, and I guess she was trying to be fair, 
 too. Marriage is a kind of a compromise, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 "So they say,'* Alec replied. "But what did you 
 think of the dances? That's what I want to hear." 
 
 "Well, they kind of made me think of a picture I 
 saw somewhere once of Greek girls, I guess it was. 
 I guess maybe I wasn't fair to them. I try to be 
 fair." 
 
 "Don't try to be fair," said Alec, "try to be child- 
 like. Try to see all the new and lovely things in 
 the world you can. Now, go get your wife and 
 tell her all the way home how much you liked the 
 dances." 
 
 A week later Susan summoned Alec to her house. 
 The parlour was full of flowers. Over Tom's vases 
 on the mantel hung Rob Eliot's landscape, in vivid 
 greens and blues. But that was the least of the 
 transformation. Against the wall, beneath the old 
 engraving of the Good Shepherd, stood a brand- 
 new piano.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 261 
 
 "Mine!" cried the woman. "It came yesterday 
 afternoon. He'd never said a word to anybody. 
 It was a complete surprise. And do you know what 
 yesterday was?" 
 
 Alec shook his head. 
 
 "Our wedding anniversary," she answered. "He'd 
 remembered that, too! I I well, I guess I 
 cried." 
 
 "I hope you did," said the Bird House Man, "on 
 his shoulder. That's the way to thank a man. It 
 makes him feel fine and oaky. You owe him that 
 concession to the old-fashioned male." 
 
 "I owe him many things," she said, turning away 
 and touching a chord softly. 
 
 Tom appeared at the Bird House that afternoon. 
 "I came to see when you start larkspurs and things 
 for next year," he said. 
 
 "You seem to have started something already," 
 said Alec. "I noticed a new piece of furniture in 
 your house." 
 
 "Yes, and I got a good one!" cried Tom, turning 
 red. "Alec, she she's come back upstairs, I mean! 
 Oh, life has got right again!'* 
 
 "Yes," said Alec, "because there's no cage now. 
 Think of her always as a goldfinch, Tom. Every 
 woman's soul has wings that long to beat against 
 the blue. You can build 'em a nice little bird
 
 262 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 house and invite 'em in, but don't put wires on the 
 door." 
 
 "I I think I'd like to begin with larkspu-." 
 Tom answered. "That's the first one I learned the 
 name of."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PAMPERED FLEDGLING 
 
 ALEC FARNUM was walking in the Southmead 
 cemetery, observing the grackles which bred in the 
 numerous thick, aged pines and Norway spruces 
 and made the otherwise peaceful spot noisy with their 
 harsh calls, like the grate of an unoiled hinge. Alec 
 liked the Southmead cemetery. It recalled to him 
 the historic retort made by old Doctor Parker who 
 lived in the white house at the edge, when somebody 
 asked him if he wasn't afraid to take the short cut 
 home through the graveyard at night. "Oh, no," 
 said he, "everybody there owes me money." Alec 
 liked especially the older corner, where the pines 
 were the largest and the grackles the most numerous. 
 He liked it not only for the quaint, mossy stones 
 and still quainter inscriptions, but for the prim 
 arrangement of the graves, each one laid east and 
 west to a compass line, with the footstone toward the 
 rising sun, in strict obedience to a literal faith in 
 the resurrection of the body, so that when Gabriel's 
 trumpet sounded on Resurrection morning every 
 sleeper could awake and find himself faced properly 
 
 263
 
 264 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 without confusion. It was easy to see, from the 
 arrangement of later graves and the date of their 
 inscriptions, when the decline in strict Calvinistic 
 faith set in. Nor, as he paused by many a green 
 mound and read the names on the stones, did Alec 
 Farnum need any Spoon River anthologist to tell 
 him the true stories. We carry fewer secrets to 
 our graves, perhaps, than we think. At any rate, 
 Alec had reached the years when the memory loves to 
 play with the past, and a walk through the cemetery 
 was, to him, like turning the pages of a comedie humaine. 
 On this particular June afternoon he smiled when 
 he came upon two little girls having a dolls' tea 
 party on the large table-stone which marked the 
 last resting-place of Theophilus Weston, B 1741 
 D 1801. This stone was in the centre of a large 
 lot, screened by a hemlock hedge and entered by 
 a wrought-iron gate. The Westons had been the 
 squires of the region, and they maintained a certain 
 aloofness from the vulgar herd, enjoyed a decent 
 privacy, even in death. But the two little girls 
 felt nothing of this. They saw the stone only as a 
 convenient table, and entering through the gate had 
 set out their mimic china and more genuine cookies 
 directly over the recumbent dignity of the original 
 Theophilus, founder of the line. Alec passed the 
 time of day with them, and walked on.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 265 
 
 The Weston family was still in his mind when he 
 spied, to his surprise, a present bearer of the name, 
 Eunice Weston, walking down a path, with a young 
 man beside her. They were engaged in earnest 
 conversation, or at least the man seemed to be talk- 
 ing earnestly while the girl listened, and they walked 
 slowly, their bodies close together. They walked, 
 indeed, like two people in love. That in itself 
 surprised Alec, and he was more surprised when he 
 made out that the man was Will Stone, whose father 
 ran the drug store and held the office of town clerk. 
 Will, always an ambitious boy, had gone away to a 
 technical college, earning most of his way through, 
 and was now working for the telephone company hi 
 Pittsburgh. That much Alec knew. He also recalled 
 that the father had told him Will was coming home 
 soon for his annual vacation. But to find Will walk- 
 ing with Eunice Weston, and in the village cemetery, 
 caused Alec to pucker his lips in an amused whistle. 
 
 "However," he said to himself, "far be it from me 
 to spoil poor Eunice's fun. I guess she has little 
 enough." And he turned back toward another part 
 of the burial ground. 
 
 Meanwhile, the couple walked slowly on. 
 
 "I've got forty men under me, in my department," 
 Will was saying. "Keeps me busy, all right, but 
 it's great, too!"
 
 266 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "It must be great," said the girl, looking up at 
 him with an admiration she could not quite conceal. 
 
 "Yes, it's great to have a department of your own, 
 and it means more money, too. Say, if anybody'd 
 told me when I was ladling out nut sundaes in dad's 
 drug store summer vacations that in five years I'd 
 be making enough to to to get married on, I'd 
 have called him a liar!" 
 
 Will finished the sentence bravely, but then his 
 courage seemed to ooze. He relapsed into silence, 
 and the slender girl beside him, her pale cheeks 
 flushed, was silent, too. They walked on thus to 
 the end of the path, where they turned and began to 
 retrace their steps. 
 
 "But but doesn't it seem pleasant to get back 
 to Southmead?" she asked presently, to break the 
 pause. 
 
 "Yes," he said slowly. "Yes, it does, I guess. 
 But I don't know if I can make you understand; 
 you've never been away from here to work, you 
 know. Somehow all my past life here doesn't 
 seem quite real now it's like a dream. My life 
 now is down there in that 'city of beautiful smoke,' 
 as somebody called it. It really is beautiful some- 
 times, at night, especially, from the hills. I kind of 
 feel this is just a long breath, and soon I'll be back 
 again."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 267 
 
 "How soon?" she asked in a low tone. 
 
 "A month," said he. "I wrote you that." 
 
 "Yes, you said you were to have a month's vaca- 
 tion, but I didn't know whether you'd spend it all 
 here." 
 
 "Yes, you did," said he, facing her. "Say you 
 did!" 
 
 She coloured, and averted her face with a happy 
 smile, shaking her head. 
 
 "No," she answered. "How could I tell?" 
 
 His fingers sought hers, to press her hand, but 
 she wouldn't let him touch her. 
 
 "I I must be going home now," she declared. 
 Then, after a moment's hesitation, she added bravely: 
 "Come with me and have some tea. I I don't 
 like walking this way in the cemetery." 
 
 "It's a custom hallowed by village tradition," 
 said he. 
 
 "I'm afraid mother wouldn't think so," she an- 
 swered. And the man's brow clouded. 
 
 They walked together up the street, and turned 
 in at the gate of a large, gloomy house which stood 
 back from the roadway, under several mournful 
 and lofty hemlocks which cast a kind of green sha- 
 dow on the ancient dwelling or so it seemed. 
 There was a flagstone walk from the gate to the 
 porch, with grass in the cracks, and on either side
 
 268 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 day lilies run wild. Close about the house the hem- 
 lock needles and the shade had killed all grass. As 
 the young man advanced up the path, he felt a 
 strange uneasiness settling on his spirit. 
 
 "This is the first time you've ever been in my 
 house, isn't it?" Eunice asked, sensing his silence. 
 
 "No," he answered. "I've brought prescriptions 
 here from the store." 
 
 He spoke sharply, perhaps, and the girl reproached 
 him gently. "That's not quite fair of you, Will." 
 
 "I know it forgive me!" he answered. "But 
 you Westons are awfully uppish, you know." 
 
 "Yes I know!" she said, and her own tone was 
 bitter. 
 
 They entered a gloomy living-room which did not 
 belie the promise or the threat of the exterior. 
 Will, who was far from ignorant, noted that while 
 some of the furniture was excellent old mahogany, 
 more of it was mid- Victorian walnut. A large oil 
 portrait of Theophilus the First occupied the place 
 of honour over the mantel a thin, hard face, he 
 had, a Tory face Will thought. But perhaps that 
 was imagination. He had no time to determine, 
 for Mrs. Weston entered the room at the sound of 
 voices, and stood looking in undisguised surprise 
 at Will. 
 
 "You you remember Will Stone, mother," said
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 269 
 
 Eunice. "He's home from Pittsburgh on his vaca- 
 tion. I thought we'd have some tea." 
 
 Mrs. Weston barely inclined her head. She was 
 a large woman, of the sort who must inevitably lose 
 seventy-five per cent, of their dignity when they 
 remove their corsets. And she belonged to that 
 class of New England female aristocrats who appear 
 to be perpetually expecting a bad odour to assail 
 their nostrils. Her dress, however, was in the latest 
 mode, and she undeniably was handsome, in her way. 
 
 "Pittsburgh?" she said. "Are you in Pitts- 
 burgh? It must be a very dirty place." 
 
 "The industries there are rather more extensive 
 than in Southmead," said Will. 
 
 "I dare say. The charm of Southmead is its 
 lack of industrialism," the woman replied. "Did 
 you say tea, Eunice? You know this is Lizzie's 
 afternoon out." 
 
 "But I can get it, mamma," said the girl. "I 
 won't be a jiffy. Excuse me, Will." 
 
 She hurried out of the room, not noticing her 
 mother's glance at the "Will," though she might 
 have felt it burning her back. Left alone with 
 Mrs. Weston, the young man shifted uneasily in his 
 chair 
 
 "I I'm sorry Eunice is going to all this trouble," 
 he said.
 
 270 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 The glance was fixed on him this time. "My 
 daughter doubtless does not so regard it," said the 
 woman. "Neither, probably, does she know where 
 the tea is." 
 
 Whereupon Mrs. Weston followed Eunice from 
 the room. Will, his face hot, heard the sound of 
 low but excited conversation from a distant room, 
 and a moment or two later Eunice entered with a 
 tea tray, her own face flushed. She was biting her 
 lower lip to keep back the tears. Will sprang to 
 meet her, and took the tray to a table. He tried to 
 look into her face, but she would not let him. "How 
 many lumps ? ' ' she said . 
 
 He had scarcely begun to drink his tea when the 
 outer door opened, and a lurching step was heard hi 
 the hall. The girl half rose and put one hand to her 
 bosom. "It's Theo," she whispered, as if to her- 
 self. " What's he doing home so soon ? " 
 
 Will rose, too. "I shouldn't have come," he said. 
 "I'd better be going now." 
 
 The girl listened to the steps, which were going 
 up the stairs now. "No!" she cried. "You shan't 
 go ! You finish your tea ! ' ' 
 
 Will obediently sat down again, and timidly 
 touched Eunice's fingers, patting them tenderly. 
 She suddenly averted her face and the tears came. 
 "Don't ! " she whispered. "Please ! "
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 271 
 
 She had hardly regained her composure when the 
 steps once more lurched heavily on the stairs, de- 
 scending this time, and a young man burst into the 
 room. He was not much over thirty, but his face 
 was older with dissipation, and he looked strangely 
 like the portrait of Theophilus over the mantel 
 a Theophilus the worse for liquor. His mother 
 was close behind him, laying a detaining hand on 
 his arm. But he shook her off, and glared at his 
 sister and Will. 
 
 "Hello, Theo," said Will, as pleasantly as he could. 
 
 The drunken young man ignored the greeting, 
 and continued to stare insolently. 
 
 "Tea party, eh?" he presently said. "Why don' 
 you have him serve soda water, Eunice?" With a 
 chuckle at his wit, he lurched toward a chair, and 
 steadied himself by the back. 
 
 Eunice's face grew red and then deadly white. 
 She walked over to her brother and faced him. 
 "You go upstairs to your room, Theo," she cried, 
 "and don't you dare to interfere in my affairs ! " 
 
 "Hello, li'le shishter's tellin' me whatter do, is 
 she?" he shouted. "Well, I won' go upstairs, and 
 I won' " 
 
 His mother broke in sharply but coaxingly. 
 "Come, Theo," she said. "He's going now. Come 
 with mother, that's a good boy. Come, dear."
 
 272 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 She put an arm about him, forcing him from the 
 chair toward the door. 
 
 "Well, I damn well wan' to see him go!" cried 
 Theo. 
 
 Will, who had been white and silent, took his hat. 
 
 "I share your sentiments, if not your profanity," 
 he said. He turned to say good-bye to Eunice, but 
 she was a heap in her chair, her face buried in her 
 hands. Will walked past the mother and son and 
 out of the door. 
 
 And just as he reached the sidewalk, his face still 
 white, his hands clenched, his body trembling, he 
 almost ran into Alec, strolling home from the ceme- 
 tery. 
 
 "Hello!" cried the Bird House Man, putting out 
 a hand. "Well, how's the Alexander Graham Bell 
 of the twentieth century?" 
 
 Then he saw Will's face. "What's the trouble?" 
 he added. 
 
 "I I no, I can't tell." 
 
 "Come," said Alec, linking an arm through his, 
 "walk home with me and talk it out. You'll feel 
 better than bottling it up. Perhaps I can help you. 
 I've known Lucy Weston all my life. Did she treat 
 you like a bad smell?" 
 
 "You you're in her class. You can't under- 
 stand," said Will.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 273 
 
 "My boy, nobody's in her class, except perhaps 
 God and the Prince of Wales. Don't let a little 
 thing like that worry you, you've got such a majority 
 on your side." 
 
 "Oh, it isn't that!" cried Will. 
 
 "I knew it wasn't. Come, wait till we get a 
 pitcher of lemonade on my veranda, and our pipes 
 going, and then you'll tell me." 
 
 Will, still burning from the insult, did tell him; 
 but he added, "Poor Eunice!" 
 
 Alec took a long pull at his pipe before he spoke. 
 "Poor Eunice, indeed," he finally said. "The rest 
 of your story, while interesting, is unimportant, 
 if you'll excuse my saying so. One can't seriously 
 resent insults from a drunken puppy. And as for 
 Lucy Weston, she's been exhibiting her bad manners 
 till they're notorious. That's how a lot of people 
 know she's an aristocrat. I'm sorry for her, though. 
 She was Eliot Weston's cousin, and cousins have no 
 business to marry, especially when they already 
 think their precious family is so important. I've 
 never known such a union that didn't produce at 
 least one mealy-faced, anaemic snob. But of course 
 Lucy's absurd petting of that pup of hers spoiled 
 him. He's a pampered fledgling. She didn't even 
 make him go through college after he got in trouble 
 his freshman year at Harvard sided with him
 
 274 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 against the faculty. I believe now he pretends to 
 go down to the mills in North Benton which his 
 uncle runs, but he spends all his time at the Riley 
 House he just a plain bum, headed for cirrhosis 
 of the liver and a hot grill in Hell. You saw the 
 merry little dinner companion who conies home to 
 cheer up mother and sister every night. Pleasant 
 thought, isn't it? Of course, his foolish mother 
 always was a snob, but she's acquired considerable 
 of her uppishness in self-defence it's a kind of 
 pathetic armour against the sneers of the world. 
 I'm a bit sorry for her, Will. But I'm sorriest for 
 poor Eunice a nice, sweet girl, Eunice, who's never 
 had half a chance. It was always Theo first, and 
 mother second in that house, and Eunice running 
 a bad third. There are the facts, in good, middle- 
 class English lower middle at that!" 
 
 Alec paused and looked sharply at his companion, 
 as if waiting for him to speak. 
 
 "It it's horrible!" Will answered. 
 
 Alec's eyes were still on him. "Do you know 
 Eunice well?" he asked. 
 
 "N not very. Of course, I knew her when we 
 were kids Sunday-school and all. But I always 
 thought of her as kind of belonging to another world 
 from mine. You know how it is with us village 
 people. Last summer, though, when I was home on
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 275 
 
 vacation, I met her out walking one day, and we 
 went quite a ways, and got on pretty well, and went 
 walking some more, and she and I wrote to each 
 other this winter some, and " 
 
 He broke off abruptly. 
 
 "And now your little adventure in her house has 
 jarred your pride, eh, and made you hot against 
 against all of 'em?" 
 
 "Something like that, I suppose," Will admitted 
 lamely. 
 
 "I repeat, poor Eunice!" said Alec. "My boy, 
 I was never noted for my ability to mind my own 
 business. I'm giving a dinner party to-morrow 
 night. You are invited. Seven o'clock. Go along 
 home now and see if you can't write a note to Eunice 
 that will make her feel better. Send it round by 
 messenger this evening. You rather owe it to her, 
 you know." 
 
 He patted the young man on the shoulder and 
 went into the house to break the news of his party to 
 Mrs. Plumb. 
 
 The guests were to be Ruth and Rob Eliot, who 
 had arrived for the summer, and Dr. Thomas Trask 
 and his wife who was instructed to bring her violin, 
 and Miss Millie Til ton. Alec had no trouble 
 rounding them up early that evening. Then he 
 walked to the gloomy house at the end of the flag-
 
 276 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 stone path, and rang the bell. There was a light in 
 the living-room. Mrs. Weston was seated there, 
 with a book, alone. She had on an embroidered 
 black silk tea gown, and a heavy gold bracelet 
 jangled on her bare arm as she put out her hand to 
 the caller. 
 
 "Don't you find Galsworthy's style fascinating?" 
 she asked, tapping the book in her lap. 
 
 "I might if I'd read him," Alec admitted judici- 
 ally. "Is Eunice at home? I wanted to invite her 
 to a little young folks' party I'm giving to-morrow." 
 
 "She's in her room with a headache," Mrs. Weston 
 replied. "I dare say she'd see you, though, if you'd 
 be good enough to pull the bell cord." 
 
 Alec tweaked the long, tasselled cord which hung 
 beside the marble mantel, as in a stage set for a 
 French drama, and far off somewhere a bell tinkled 
 faintly. 
 
 "Lizzie, tell Miss Eunice Mr. Farnum would like 
 to see her," said the mother. "Rap quietly on her 
 door." 
 
 "Theo retired early to-night," she added to Alec, 
 who made no reply. 
 
 When Eunice came into the room, he saw at once 
 that she had been suffering, and he put both his 
 hands over hers, looking her steadily in the eyes. 
 
 " Come to invite you to a little dinner party at my
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 277 
 
 shack to-morrow," he said. "Sort of a celebration 
 of Ruth and Rob's return for the summer. There'll 
 be some music songs and things. Margaret Trask 
 is going to bring her violin. Seven o'clock." 
 
 "I I " Eunice hesitated, not wishing to hurt 
 
 his feelings. 
 
 He still had her hand in his, and gave it a little 
 squeeze, meanwhile, with his back to Mrs. Weston, 
 winking solemnly at her. 
 
 She dropped her eyes and coloured. "I I you 
 won't need me, will you, mother?" she said. 
 
 "Not if you're such a help to me as you've been 
 this evening," her mother answered petulantly. 
 "I've had to read to myself, and it hurts my eyes 
 dreadfully." 
 
 "But think of the style!" said Alec maliciously, 
 as he slipped out. 
 
 There was no formality at Alec Farnum's dinners. 
 When he and Dr. Tommy Trask weren't teasing 
 little Miss Millie across the table, or Alec wasn't 
 telling a story, or Rob Eliot wasn't riding one of his 
 hobbies with his ingratiating enthusiasm, the host 
 led Will to talk of Pittsburgh, to bring him into the 
 circle, or told Eunice with great gusto how he'd 
 seen two little girls having a tea party above the 
 aristocratic remains of Theophilus the First. 
 
 "Isn't he committing Use majestS, Miss Weston?"
 
 278 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Doctor Trask inquired slyly. "Shall I throw some- 
 thing at him?" 
 
 "What's the use?" she laughed. "He has no 
 reverence for the great traditions. As long as he 
 likes me, I don't care what he says about my an- 
 cestors. I'd like to forget my ancestors, anyhow," 
 she added, more seriously. 
 
 Alec saw Will dart a covert look at her, and he 
 hoped he put out a hand beneath the tablecloth. 
 
 So the dinner went gayly on, and afterward Ruth 
 sang, to her husband's accompaniment, while the 
 rest had their coffee on the veranda the other side 
 of the glass doors, and after that Margaret took her 
 violin and went down into the garden, followed by 
 the others. There was no moon, and the light 
 from the house did not penetrate far. But, under 
 the stars, the sanded paths were visible, and the 
 white flowers. 
 
 " Go lose yourselves, you boob," Alec laughed into 
 Will's ear. "Come, Millie," he said, aloud, "let's 
 you and I go off into a corner and get sentimental 
 while Margaret plays." 
 
 "Alec, I'll slap you in a minute," the little woman 
 giggled. 
 
 Will and Eunice had slipped away before the wail 
 and throb of the violin rose out of the scented dark- 
 ness. Margaret loved to play in the dark, and for
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 279 
 
 nearly half an hour she kept on, invisible, while the 
 guests, invisible, too, whispered softly or thought 
 their own thoughts. It was music as Alec loved it 
 best, and he smiled happily when, at the close, he 
 saw Will and Eunice drawing near the veranda light, 
 their faces strangely happy. 
 
 "Stay behind I want to see you two," he whis- 
 pered as the rest were going. 
 
 He went across the yard with Miss Millie, to her 
 door, and returned to stand smiling down at the pair 
 who sat together in the swing seat on his porch. 
 
 Will rose. "Mr. Farnum," he said, "I've asked 
 Eunice to marry me." 
 
 "Hooray!" cried Alec. 
 
 "But but she " 
 
 "What's the matter, Eunice? Don't you love 
 him? Pittsburgh's not such a bad place after you 
 get used to it," said Alec. 
 
 The girl looked up, first at one man and then at the 
 other. She seemed curiously frail in the half light, 
 and Alec noted again how much less elegantly dressed 
 she was than her mother. Her face was working 
 miserably. "I I love him," she said simply. "I 
 think he's splendid. But but how can I leave 
 mother all alone here? And and how can I go 
 through what I'd have to go through? Oh, you don't 
 know you can't know!"
 
 280 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Alec drew a chair over close to them, and sat 
 down. "I knew your family before you were born, 
 Eunice," he said. "I used to play with your father 
 directly under the portrait of Theophilus the Great. 
 But that's hardly to the point. The first point is 
 that Will loves you, and you love Will, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes," they both agreed. 
 
 "Well," he continued, "that, after all, is the great 
 thing, the greatest thing in the world. If you don't 
 know what to do under the circumstances, my dear, 
 I'd be inclined to doubt if you really love him." 
 
 "Oh, no!" she cried, close to tears. "I do, I 
 do!" 
 
 "Then your first duty is to go to him, to go with 
 him. To have any doubts about that is to question 
 your love for him." 
 
 "You make it sound so simple," she said. 
 
 "It is simple. It is as simple as a bird's flight in 
 the spring. 'I am my beloved's and he is mine.' 
 It is the law of lif e. Far be it from me to decry the 
 beauties or the duties of sacrifice. But I've seen 
 sacrifice carried to a point where it becomes a vice, 
 only too often, in our corner of the land. Your 
 mother, after all, can afford to get somebody else 
 to read Galsworthy to her. I doubt if you read very 
 well, anyhow!" 
 
 "I don't," said Eunice, with a weak little laugh.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 281 
 
 "She does, too!" cried Will. 
 
 Alec smiled. "Come, what is your real reason?'* 
 he demanded. 
 
 "I I don't dare tell mother. She she'll tell 
 Theo," the girl muttered miserably. "He he's 
 getting worse all the time. Oh, it's awful to have 
 to confess such things about one's own family! 
 But he and mother both will say I can't marry Will, 
 and Theo'll make a dreadful scene, and if we tried to 
 have a wedding, he'd break it up somehow. Oh, 
 he's capable of it when he's not not himself! I 
 couldn't stand that. Oh, why was I ever born! 
 An hour ago when Will said he loved me, I was so 
 happy, so happy! I didn't think of what it meant 
 till we came back to the lights." 
 
 She buried her face in her hands and her shoulders 
 shook. Will put his arm about her, his own face 
 working. 
 
 But Alec merely rubbed his hands. "A great 
 idea!" he said. "You shall be married in my gar- 
 den, with Ruth as your bridesmaid and Margaret 
 to play the wedding march, and at the last moment 
 we'll invite your mother to give you away. If 
 she won't, I will. How soon can you get ready?" 
 
 Eunice looked up, startled. "Oh, I couldn't do 
 that!" she cried. "A girl ought to be married from 
 her own house, or her church. And and all the
 
 282 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Westons have been married in that front room under 
 the portrait." 
 
 "Oh, damn the portrait, and all the Westons!" 
 Alec exclaimed, sharply. "Eunice, I'm losing pa- 
 tience with you. If you don't love Will enough to 
 marry him in the middle of the Bronx Zoo, you don't 
 love him at all. You're just a trifler, and you de- 
 serve to go back to your precious portrait, and Will 
 deserves a better girl, a real, energetic, look-things- 
 in-the-face, middle-class girl, and not an aristocrat 
 with what Howdy Parker calls lemonade for 
 blood." 
 
 He watched the effect of his words, and saw 
 Eunice stiffen up. 
 
 "I I'll do it!" she said. "I'll show you whether 
 I love Will or not!" 
 
 "You darling!" cried Will, and kissed her. 
 
 "But how can we be sure Theo won't break up the 
 wedding, even here?" she added, with a return of 
 trouble. "Mother'll tell him as soon as she knows." 
 
 "I will guarantee protection," said Alec grimly. 
 
 No one but Ruth and Rob Eliot were let into the 
 secret. There was little time to prepare, for the 
 wedding was set for the following week, but Ruth 
 took Eunice in hand, and helped her with her clothes. 
 Rob drove them in his little car to Hampton, a small 
 city twenty miles away, where they shopped madly
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 283 
 
 one afternoon, and in the next days Eunice spent 
 all the time she could in Ruth's room, where the 
 manufacturing process was going on. 
 
 "It's pathetic," Ruth told Alec one evening. 
 "Of course, I always knew Mother Weston wore all 
 the clothes and demanded all the admiration in that 
 house but I never knew how much of the money 
 that worthless Theo got, and how little was ever 
 done for poor Eunice. Oh, it's so New England! 
 Everything for the boy! Why, after I'd got her 
 dress pinned to-day, I just thought I'd try her hair a 
 different way, so I fixed it up more becoming, and 
 stuck in one of my combs, and led her to the glass 
 and she just broke down and cried. She said no- 
 body 'd ever done that for her in her life! I pretty 
 nearly cried, too. If Will Stone isn't good to her, 
 he deserves to be shot." 
 
 "He'll be good to her, never fear," said Alec. 
 "By the way, tell Rob I want him at the house two 
 hours before the wedding, without fail, before that 
 noon train from North Benton gets in." 
 
 That Mrs. Weston did not guess something unto- 
 ward was afoot during those days of preparation 
 either shows conclusively her self-absorption, or 
 proves that Eunice developed sudden unexpected 
 powers of defensive deception perhaps it proves a 
 little of both. Theo was rather worse than usual
 
 284 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 that week, demanding much of his unfortunate 
 mother's attention. That may have aided, too. 
 Eunice avoided him all she could, shrinking from 
 his sneering allusions to her "soda clerk beau," 
 and looking to her mother for a protection she did 
 not receive. 
 
 But on the fateful morning, after Theo had de- 
 parted on the train for North Benton, she stole 
 into her mother's room, hesitating, fearful, wist- 
 fully yearning for love and sympathy, and stammered 
 out her confession that she was to be married that 
 afternoon in Alec Farnum*s garden. 
 
 "And, oh, mother, you will give me away, won't 
 you? " she cried. " You must, mother, you must ! " 
 
 She sank at her mother's knees, and laid entreat- 
 ing arms across them. 
 
 The woman lifted the sewing she was engaged 
 upon out from under her daughter's arms and testily 
 smoothed it, before she replied. 
 
 "You are not going to be married to that Stone 
 person in Alec Farnum's garden, or anywhere else!" 
 she said. "I'd thank Alec Farnum to mind his own 
 business! It's just like him. Eunice, you won't 
 leave this house to-day ! I forbid it ! " 
 
 Suddenly she rose, flinging off the girl's arm from 
 her lap, and started toward the door. 
 
 But the girl was quicker than she. Her pale face
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 285 
 
 had gone paler, and the entreaty left her eyes. They 
 were flashing now as she blocked the way. 
 
 "I'm afraid, mother, that I've passed the age 
 when you can forbid me," she said. "I hoped 
 you'll never know how I hoped that you'd come to 
 my wedding you, my own mother! But at least 
 I expect to be there myself." 
 
 With a darting motion she reached the door, 
 snatched the key, slammed the door behind her, 
 and forcing it to stay shut with all her strength 
 against her mother's weight, turned the lock on the 
 outside. Then, panting, she ran to her own room, 
 where her bag was packed (most of her things she 
 had contrived to smuggle over to Ruth's during the 
 week), put on her hat, slipped the key of her mother's 
 room into her water pitcher, seized the bag, and fled 
 down the stairs. Her mother was pounding the 
 door now, and Lizzie was hurrying from the kitchen. 
 
 "Mother is locked in," she said. "You'll find the 
 key somewhere in the house." And, leaving the 
 astonished domestic gaping after her, she ran down 
 the path and hurried up the road to Ruth's. 
 
 But her mother did not follow her. Doubtless 
 it took Lizzie some time to find the key! In Ruth's 
 chamber, the other girl's arms about her, Ruth's 
 baby chattering in the garden below as he dug in a 
 sand pile, she regained some composure, and was
 
 286 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 even tempted to drink a cup of tea before she was 
 dressed in her pretty new travelling frock, the 
 choicest frock she had ever possessed. It was all of 
 Ruth's designing, and seemed to take five years off 
 her age. But, even in her bridal clothes, she sat 
 during the hour before the wedding, while Ruth 
 dressed, anything but the happy bride-to-be. 
 
 Meanwhile Rob Eliot had followed instructions 
 and gone to the Bird House two hours in advance. 
 
 "This silence is ominous. Something is going to 
 happen," said Alec. "Do you see that coil of rope 
 in the corner? There's a free noose on the end. 
 Also a large bandanna beside it. Note their position 
 well, please. We may need 'em." 
 
 Rob grinned. "I get you," he answered. 
 
 They sat at the window, and waited. 
 
 "Here he comes now!" Rob suddenly exclaimed. 
 
 "And sober, too!" said Alec. "Watch out for 
 squalls." 
 
 Theo Weston did not even knock on the door, 
 he opened it and strode into the room. 
 
 "You " he began. 
 
 "People usually knock when they come to my 
 house," said Alec quietly. 
 
 "Damn you, I'll knock in a way you'll not like 
 before I'm through! Look here, my mother tells 
 me you've butted into our family affairs and my
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 287 
 
 sister's going to be married here this afternoon. 
 Well, she's not, see? You're going to send home 
 your damn parson, and I'm going to take home my 
 sister." 
 
 "Ami? And are you?" said Alec. "That would 
 be interesting, if true." 
 
 "You'll find out whether it's true. Do you think 
 I'm going to let my sister marry that damn soda 
 clerk? Do you think I'm going to have him for a 
 brother-in-law? " 
 
 "An alliance with soda would be strange for you, 
 wouldn't it?" Alec suggested. 
 
 The young man seemed about to spring at him, 
 and Rob intervened. But Alec waved Rob aside. 
 
 "He won't hit me till he's told us what he's going 
 to do if we don't send home the parson," Alec smiled. 
 
 "I'll I'll by God, I'll " 
 
 His voice rose almost to a yell, and a man passing 
 in a wagon looked quickly toward the house. At 
 the same time, his hand went toward his pocket. 
 
 Alec, with the quickness of a cat, a quickness his 
 big frame did not suggest, grabbed the youth's 
 wrist with an iron grip. "Time now, Rob," he said, 
 as Theo swung at him with his free arm. Alec 
 warded off the blow, and before another could come, 
 the noose was around both his arms, and an instant 
 later the coils were wrapping him to his feet. He
 
 288 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 started to shout, and Alec, with a smile, yanked the 
 gag around his face. 
 
 "Now, let's see what he's got," he said. 
 
 Bob felt in the suspicious pocket and drew out 
 an automatic. 
 
 The Bird House Man shook his head sadly. 
 "Drunk, after all," he said. "Drunk and crazy. 
 Poor fellow!" 
 
 He tossed the pistol into a drawer, and then he 
 and Rob, picking up the rope-wound figure, carried 
 it into the cellar, tied it into an old broken chair for 
 further precaution, made sure the gag couldn't work 
 loose, and returned to the library. 
 
 Alec was shaking his head still. "A pistol!" 
 he repeated. "I never thought it would come to 
 that. Poor, poor fellow!" 
 
 "He'll have to be sent somewhere for treatment," 
 Rob exclaimed. " Why, he's not safe at large." 
 
 "He'll have to be watched, surely. Whew! 
 That was more than I bargained for. But we've 
 got to get Eunice out of this, anyhow. Come, 
 come, let's wash up and straighten our ties! They 
 say everything's fair in love and war." 
 
 "Which is this?" Rob laughed. 
 
 "Hanged if I know!" said Alec. 
 
 There was no one at the wedding but the minister, 
 Margaret Trask, Will's father, Alec, Rob, and Ruth.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 289 
 
 Ruth walked over with Eunice. The rest had ar- 
 rived casually, and no suspicion had been aroused. 
 
 "Did did mother come?" Eunice whispered to 
 the Bird House Man. 
 
 He shook his head. "No, but probably Theo 
 wouldn't let her. Never mind, dear. Remember, 
 it's Will that counts now." 
 
 ' 'And Theo ? ' ' She glanced about like a frightened 
 animal. 
 
 "I can give you my solemn oath he'll not disturb 
 us." 
 
 So Eunice, very pale, leaned on Alec Farnum's 
 arm and walked up the path to the hidden throb of 
 Margaret's violin, to meet Will Stone who stood 
 with Rob and the minister beneath a trellis riotous 
 with Dorothy Perkins roses. It was a hushed and 
 solemn wedding, but when the last words were 
 spoken and Eunice put her lips to Will's, a song 
 sparrow in a tree close by suddenly pealed out a 
 cascade of notes, and Alec smiled. 
 
 A moment later a car came up the drive, and Will 
 laughed gayly. 
 
 "From Hampton!" he cried. "We're going out 
 in style. We'll catch a train somewhere, some time 
 but not at Southmead station!" 
 
 Alec kissed Eunice, and she clung to him like a 
 child. She clung longer to Ruth, running back
 
 290 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 twice to kiss her, and then, while Mrs. Plumb sud- 
 denly appeared and hurled an old shoe from the 
 kitchen door, the motor moved out of the yard and 
 disappeared up the road, away from the village. 
 The guests departed, all but Ruth and Rob. 
 
 "Rob and I have one job left," said Alec to Ruth. 
 "You run along, too." 
 
 The two men descended to the cellar and brought 
 Theo up again. They stood him in the hall, removed 
 the gag, and cut the rope. Then, as he stood free 
 and wheeled on them, Alec said quietly: "Theo, 
 you'd better go before you speak. You did a very 
 foolish, a very rash, a very dangerous thing here this 
 afternoon. Your father and I were old friends. 
 I don't want to be any more ashamed of his son than 
 I am now!" 
 
 The young man opened his lips, but no word passed 
 them. He suddenly strode out and down the steps. 
 
 "Now you can go, too, Rob," said Alec. 
 
 "I don't like to, Uncle Alec. He might come 
 back." 
 
 "No," the Bird House Man smiled. "He won't. 
 But his mother will. That's more terrifying but 
 less dangerous." 
 
 She did not come till evening, when the darkness 
 made her visit less conspicuous. Her mouth was 
 set in a thin, straight line, and her eyes were blazing.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 291 
 
 "I've come to settle a few scores with you, Alec 
 Farnum!" she said, in a taut voice that sounded 
 like a wire stretched almost to the snapping point. 
 
 Alec motioned her to a seat, but she scorned 
 it. 
 
 "First, can you give me any reason why I shouldn't 
 have you arrested for locking my son up in your dirty 
 cellar? Assault and battery, I believe they call 
 it." 
 
 "Yes, Lucy, I can give you several reasons," the 
 man replied. "But please sit down." 
 
 She stamped her foot angrily. "Go on, give 
 them!" she cried. "But I tell you now, I'm going 
 to have you arrested, anyway. First my own 
 daughter locks me for an hour in my chamber, while 
 she elopes with a village nobody, and then you kid- 
 nap my son! A pretty state of affairs! And it's 
 all your doing." 
 
 Alec couldn't repress a chuckle. "Eunice did 
 that? " he exclaimed. " Delicious ! " 
 
 "Don't add to your insults, please," the woman 
 said. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," Alec apologized. "I 
 couldn't help a certain amusement at the changes 
 love wrought in meek little Eunice. Lucy, I want 
 to talk with you. You make it very difficult, stand- 
 ing up that way."
 
 292 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "Oh, very well,'* she snapped, sitting abruptly 
 on the edge of the stiff est chair. "Now say your 
 say." 
 
 "I played mud pies and marbles with Theo's 
 father," Alec went on. "I went to college in the 
 same class with him. I tramped through Switzer- 
 land with him. Perhaps I may be pardoned a nat- 
 ural interest in his family." 
 
 "If I hadn't thought so, I'd hardly be here now," 
 said Mrs. Weston. 
 
 "Exactly. Well, Lucy, I plead guilty to all you 
 charge me with. I meddled in your affairs. I gave 
 my dinner party to let Will Stone have a chance to 
 ask Eunice to marry him, a chance he couldn't get 
 in her own mother's house you know best why. 
 People like Will Stone have their pride, too, Lucy, 
 strange as it may seem. Having no ancestors, they 
 take pride in themselves and their ambitions and 
 accomplishments. Not a bad substitute, really." 
 
 The woman sniffed. "We won't discuss him" 
 
 "But he's rather necessary to the plot," Alec 
 smiled. "More than giving him the chance to 
 propose, and furnishing a violin obbligato, I screwed 
 Eunice's resolution up to the point of accepting 
 him, and when she didn't dare tell you and ask to 
 have the wedding in her own mother's house, I 
 offered her mine. I thought my garden was a better
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 293 
 
 place than the city clerk's office in Hampton Don't 
 you, Lucy?" 
 
 The woman made no reply. 
 
 "I did all this because I wanted to see Eliot 
 Weston's little girl happy. Will Stone's a fine, 
 ambitious, honourable fellow, and Eunice loved 
 him. She hasn't your acute sense of Weston su- 
 periority, Lucy. I'm afraid you took so much time 
 imparting that to Theo that you rather neglected 
 the girl child." 
 
 "Aren't you wandering from the subject, Alec?" 
 the woman asked icily. 
 
 "Wandering toward it," he smiled. "Now we 
 come to Theo. I won't mince matters with you. 
 You must have telegraphed him to come home by 
 the noon train when you heard of the wedding. You 
 wanted him to stop it, because you didn't want to 
 make a public scene yourself." 
 
 "I wanted him to stop it because he's my son 
 he's the male Weston of our line," the woman an- 
 swered, with a touch of pathetic dignity. "It was 
 his place to stop it." 
 
 Alec looked at her keenly, and pityingly, too. 
 
 "Lucy," he said, "I've got to hurt you. We've 
 come to serious matters. It isn't serious that Eunice 
 has married the man she loves. You'll get one of 
 those trained-nurse companions, and never miss her
 
 294 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 in a month. It would only have been serious if 
 she hadn't married, but broken her heart, instead. 
 But Theo we have with us still. When you sent 
 him here to stop the wedding, did you tell him how to 
 do it? And was ke sober? " 
 
 "He went straight from the train," she answered 
 weakly. "J got him on the telephone in the morn- 
 ing, as soon as I could get out of my room, and he 
 promised me to to behave. I I trusted his being 
 a Weston would tell him what to do." 
 
 Obviously she was worried to hear what he had done, 
 and Alec paused thoughtfully before he spoke again. 
 
 "No, it's no use blinking facts," he said after a 
 moment. Opening the drawer, he took out the 
 automatic and let it fall with a metallic thud on the 
 desk. "Your son came into my house with that in 
 his pocket," he continued, as the mother shrank 
 back with a horrified exclamation. 
 
 "Oh, it was just bluff!" she cried. "He wouldn't 
 have used it, he wouldn't have used it!" 
 
 "Hardly a safe thing to bluff with for people 
 whose fingers habitually tremble from liquor," said 
 Alec grimly. "Your son had been drinking before 
 he came here. I thought we'd all feel a little more 
 comfortable if he were put in a secluded spot till 
 the ceremony was over. Are you still angry with me 
 for doing it? "
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 295 
 
 He looked at the woman, who had shrunk back 
 into the chair, the look of horror still on her face. 
 He realized that Eunice had gone completely from 
 her mind. Her thoughts now were all on her son. 
 
 "Oh, Alec," she moaned, "he never meant to 
 use it ! What shall I do? What can I do for him? " 
 
 "I can tell you what you could have done, more 
 easily," the Bird House Man replied. " You brought 
 him up a pampered fledgling. You condoned his 
 weaknesses and you put no iron into him. You never 
 trained his will. But to-day, Lucy, he's sick, he's 
 sick of body and of soul. You need a wiser doctor 
 than I." 
 
 "But for his father's sake you'll help me," the 
 woman said. "He's my son. He's all I've got!" 
 Her wrath was gone, and all her haughtiness. She 
 sat before him in pleading misery. 
 
 "I don't know what to say," Alec answered hon- 
 estly. "A terrific attack of repentance, a Salvation 
 Army conversion, is what he really needs. Howdy 
 Parker says no man can be reformed who doesn't 
 want to reform." 
 
 "You are not comparing my son with Howdy 
 Parker?" the woman demanded, with a touch of her 
 habitual manner. 
 
 "Only with apologies to Howdy," it was on Alec's 
 lips to answer but he refrained. "Psychology
 
 296 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 knows no class distinctions, Lucy," he replied. "You 
 must get Theo's poor, weak will on the right side 
 first, for it's that alone which can win the fight. 
 And the liquor has got to be boiled out of him some- 
 how, by a doctor who knows about such matters. 
 He needs work, too, real physical work, and the 
 right companions. Perhaps on a ranch out West, 
 or an Arctic expedition " 
 
 "You mean, send him away from me?" she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " From the Riley House, and this bluff at working 
 he now goes through, at any rate," said Alec. " Lucy, 
 you don't really love even Theo. You love your- 
 self." 
 
 "You shan't talk to me that way!" 
 
 "As you like." He shrugged his shoulders. "I 
 think I've meddled enough with the house of Wes- 
 ton." 
 
 He let the automatic drop noisily back into the 
 drawer, and slammed the drawer shut again with an 
 air of finality. 
 
 The woman rose at the noise, with a shudder. 
 "Pardon me, Alec," she said humbly. "I do love 
 my son. Will will you help me to find the right 
 doctor? I'll I'll do whatever he says, if it breaks 
 my heart." 
 
 Alec took her hand. "Of course," he answered
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 297 
 
 gently. "I'll begin the search to-morrow. And let 
 us hope it mends Theo's heart instead of breaking 
 yours." 
 
 Then he saw her to the door. 
 
 He came back into his study, sighed wearily, and 
 lit his pipe. 
 
 "Thank God," he said aloud, "Eunice married 
 into the middle classes!"
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE WHIP-POOR-WILL 
 
 "HOWDY, Alec." 
 
 "Howdy Howdy," answered Alec Farnum, glancing 
 up from his work-bench to the figure that stood in 
 the shop door. " Come in out of the rain, Howdy," 
 he added, "if you know enough to!" 
 
 The man gesticulated toward the garden. " * Thou 
 waterest the ridges thereof abundantly; Thou set- 
 tlest the furrows thereof, Thou makest it soft with 
 showers,'" he quoted, with unction. "Fine month, 
 April." 
 
 As he stepped into the shop, his dirty old brown 
 leather coat and still older corduroy trousers drip- 
 ping, Alec caught the stinging smell of whiskey, 
 but he gave no sign. "Been fishing yet, Howdy?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Well, it's April the second, ain't it?" the man 
 replied, removing a battered felt hat and shaking the 
 water from the brim. His hair was thin and shot 
 with gray, and the stubble of beard on his thin cheeks 
 was gray, too, and his nose betrayed his proclivities. 
 But with his hat off, if you looked at him carefully, 
 
 298
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 299 
 
 you saw that his forehead was fine, and that his 
 pale-blue eyes were clear and far-seeing, the eyes 
 of a woodsman. 
 
 "The ice went out early this year. There ought 
 to be some good trout," Alec hazarded. 
 
 "You might think so," answered the man. "Still, 
 every brook's fished to death these days. Fishing 
 ain't what it was when you 'n' I were kids, Alec, 
 'n' hooked trout off the railroad bridge." 
 
 "We aren't what we were then, either, Howdy," 
 Alec said, giving the other a keen look. 
 
 "'Wilt Thou break a leaf driven to and fro? 
 And wilt Thou pursue the dry stubble?'" the man 
 answered dryly. 
 
 He put his hat down on a bench, slowly plunged 
 a hand into one of the capacious pockets of his 
 leather coat, and brought it forth grasping the shin- 
 ing, speckled body of a twelve-inch trout. He laid 
 the fish on the bench, and plunged into the pocket 
 again, bringing out another trout. A third followed, 
 and then as many from the other outer pocket, 
 and finally half a dozen more from some mysterious 
 space between the lining and the leather. 
 
 "There's a few'll make you a mess or two," said 
 he. "I kinder thought you might have a hankering 
 for a taste o' trout, now the streams are runnin'. 
 If you were half the man you once was you wouldn't
 
 300 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 be in here makin' dinky houses for the little birdies. 
 You'd be up Roaring Brook with a rod." 
 
 Alec laughed as he picked up one of the cool, 
 glistening fish from the bench and held it lovingly in 
 his hand. "I don't seem to need to while you're 
 on the job, Howdy," he replied. 
 
 "Hell," said Howdy, "a man don't ketch 'em to 
 eat! You're one of those * whose end is destruction, 
 whose God is their belly.' " 
 
 "Maybe so." Alec laughed again. "Still, are 
 you going to help get my garden started this month? 
 I'm needing some extra help." 
 
 "I'm needing a bit o' coin," said Howdy. "The 
 old keg's pretty near empty." 
 
 "To-morrow?" 
 
 "O.K So long, Alec." 
 
 "So long, Howdy." 
 
 The tall, lank figure slouched out into the spring 
 shower again, and Alec presently took the fish in to 
 Mrs. Plumb, his housekeeper, reserving four nice 
 ones, however, which he put on a plate and carried 
 over to Miss Millie Tilton, his approach being 
 heralded by the excited barking of Siegfried. 
 
 Miss Millie received them in a fluster of delight, 
 which was somewhat dashed when she learned who 
 had caught them. 
 
 "That that drunk /" she exclaimed.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 301 
 
 "Oh, not a drunk, Millie," said Alec. "You 
 must learn to make nicer distinctions. I don't 
 think I ever saw Howdy Parker drunk." 
 
 "Well, I never saw him sober." 
 
 "That may be, but you never saw him drunk, 
 either. He's merely perpetually mellowed." 
 
 "He's a disgrace to the name he bears," Miss 
 Millie sniffed. "Think who his father was the 
 most respected doctor in this county! Howard 
 might have gone to college as you did, Alec; I guess 
 the old doctor left enough for that. And, instead, 
 he just drank it all up, and lives in that that hovel 
 out there on the Muddy Brook Road, and just works 
 enough to buy himself rum! It makes me so mad 
 whenever I think of him!" 
 
 "He reads his Bible," Alec smiled. 
 
 "Humph!" the little spinster sniffed. "Reads 
 his Bible, yes, and swears when he's quoting it, and 
 never sets foot in a church!" 
 
 "He has a real reverence for it, though," Alec 
 replied, "if not an orthodox reverence. He rever- 
 ences its beauty, and he quotes the Psalms some- 
 times with the same expression I've seen on his face 
 when he was listening to the wind in the pines, or the 
 falls of Roaring Brook. Life is a funny thing, Millie, 
 as many people have observed. Soberness and 
 industry, while they are most estimable qualities,
 
 802 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 do not always make for charm. Take the case of 
 no, we'll mention no names. On the other hand, 
 poor old Howdy, in his hermit's shack out there by 
 Muddy Brook, pleasantly pickled, with a pocket full 
 of fish, sitting by the door in the twilight and play- 
 ing his piccolo, always reminds me of a whip-poor- 
 will on the village edge, a brown, homely, wistful 
 whip-poor-will. And I've a soft spot in my heart 
 for whip-poor-wills." 
 
 "You've too many soft spots in your heart, Alec," 
 said Miss Millie sagely. 
 
 "But none for your abominable Bologna!" Alec 
 suddenly roared. "That beast was scratching up 
 my early peas this morning. If it happens again, 
 into the sausage machine he goes!" 
 
 And he slammed out of the house, leaving the 
 little woman grinning behind him 
 
 But he thought more than once of Howdy in the 
 next few days, as the lank, brown form worked in his 
 garden. Alec was busy with some bird-box orders, 
 and could not work in the garden himself, greatly 
 to his regret, but he went out frequently to give di- 
 rections. Howdy, he could not help noticing, was 
 visibly aging. Alec and he had been boys together, 
 but he looked the older man now by at least ten 
 years. 
 
 "Whiskey and loneliness," thought Alec, and
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 303 
 
 wondered again, as he had wondered so many times 
 in the past, if there were nothing he could do to alter 
 Howdy's mode of life. Certainly he could if any- 
 body. In fact, he alone of the Southmead people 
 with whom Howdy should normally have associated 
 still treated him as if he were old "Doc" Parker's 
 son. And it was to Alec alone that Howdy ever 
 spoke in terms of intellectual intercourse. He had a 
 certain rough comradeship of the woods with the 
 boys and men who hunted or fished, and with the 
 poachers; but even with them he was reserved. 
 And in his intercourse with the village people he 
 had developed a certain ironic and defiant scorn- 
 fulness which irritated everybody, as he probably 
 meant it should. He particularly enjoyed quoting 
 Scripture to the pious. Once more Alec shook his 
 head at the hopelessness of the task. The man was 
 a born solitary, an anarchist like Thoreau without 
 Thoreau's genius. And yet Alec could not help 
 being vaguely troubled by the recollection that when 
 he left Southmead as a youth, to go to college and 
 then to study and travel abroad for three or four 
 years, he had left Howdy, the companion of his 
 boyhood expeditions in the woods, a high-hearted, 
 romantic youngster and had returned to find him, 
 as Miss Millie would say, a drunk. He had often 
 speculated on the transition process which must have
 
 304 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 taken place, and for which the village could assign 
 no reason but natural cussedness and the money his 
 father left him. But Alec's few attempts to draw 
 a revelation from Howdy himself had met with such 
 a reception that he had long ago abandoned them. 
 Yet the man was so evidently aging now! He so 
 evidently needed to knock off on the whiskey, and 
 probably to have better food, and at more regular 
 hours! Alec was troubled by him, and let his work 
 stand still while he watched, from the door of his 
 shop, the spare brown figure cultivating the rose 
 beds, his dirty old felt hat pushed back from his 
 fine forehead which had begun to show the hollows 
 in the temples. 
 
 Alec went out into the fields and woods a day or 
 two later, to look for myrtle warblers, the first of the 
 large and intricate warbler family to migrate. He 
 was proposing that spring to carry on his study of 
 warblers, especially of their migration habits, and if 
 possible to enlarge his list of varieties which passed 
 through Southmead and its vicinity. But he had 
 not forgotten Howdy, and toward twilight he bent 
 his steps around the hill beyond Muddy Brook, and 
 came down into the flats near Howdy's cabin. 
 Muddy Brook flowed sluggishly through alders and 
 open patches of meadow grass, and the redwing 
 blackbirds were darting about. The road which
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 305 
 
 bordered the swamp was little used, leading only 
 to one or two outlying farms. Howdy's cabin, a 
 small, two-room affair which he had built himself 
 long years ago, was gray against the hillside birches, 
 for it was perched a hundred feet from the road, on 
 the upper side. A thin column of smoke was ascend- 
 ing straight up from the fieldstone chimney for a 
 long distance, and then feathering out like the ghost 
 of a capital T. This smoke was tinged faintly 
 salmon with sunset. As Alec drew near he heard the 
 reedy notes of Howdy's piccolo, quaintly appro- 
 priate to this lonesome spot and the sad, quiet end 
 of day. 
 
 A dog suddenly barked, the music stopped, and 
 both Howdy and the dog appeared in the door. 
 
 "Howdy, Howdy," Alec called, "and howdy, Spot." 
 
 "Howdy, Alec," said the man, with no sign of 
 surprise. 
 
 The dog, an ancient setter, recognizing the visitor, 
 stopped barking and began to wag his tail. 
 
 "Just getting supper," said Howdy. "Come in 
 and hev some?" 
 
 "Believe I will. You don't happen to have a 
 telephone, so I can square myself with Mrs. Plumb, 
 do you?" 
 
 "I ain't got a telephone, and I ain't got a million 
 dollars, nor a butler in buttons, either," Howdy re-
 
 306 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 plied. "Let Mrs. Plumb wait. 'They also serve 
 who only stand and wait.'" 
 
 "That's not from the Bible," Alec laughed, step- 
 ping into the cabin. 
 
 "It's not so far from it, at that," said Howdy. 
 "Old Milton was soaked in Scripture. I'm that 
 much like Milton." 
 
 The room which Alec had entered was a quaint 
 place. The walls, neither plastered nor papered, 
 were of well-fitted but rough, unpainted boards. 
 Upon them hung half a dozen old steel engravings, 
 The Marriage of Pocahontas, The First Prayer in 
 Congress, and others which Alec remembered had 
 once hung in old Doctor Parker's house. Against 
 one wall was a beautiful mahogany clawfoot settle 
 with frayed, moth-eaten, green upholstery. The 
 centre table, beneath a cheap brass lamp suspended 
 from the ceiling, was also mahogany. There were 
 two battered Chippendale chairs. In the centre 
 of the end wall was a huge fireplace, and at one side 
 of it a rusty sink with pails of water on a rough board 
 bench, and a few cooking dishes hung on pegs. On 
 the other side was a small battered range, which 
 communicated with the chimney by a crooked 
 stovepipe A corner cupboard, also of mahogany, 
 with several broken panes in the doors, contained a 
 quaint array of old blue china, cheap white ware,
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 307 
 
 whiskey bottles, and fishing tackle. A small book- 
 case full of books completed the furniture. There 
 was a door into Howdy 's sleeping-room. He went 
 through this door and came back with three eggs 
 and hah* a loaf of bread. 
 
 "That's my pantry," he said. "Cooler hi there. 
 Sit down, Alec. 'Tain't often my humble abode is 
 honoured by the rich and great." 
 
 Alec sat down, and the dog came and laid his 
 muzzle on the visitor's knee, looking up into his 
 face with wistful setter eyes. Howdy bustled about 
 in silence. From a drawer beneath the cupboard he 
 produced a quaint old leather box, plush lined, and 
 from it he extracted silver spoons and a knife and 
 fork. These he carried to the sink, with an old blue 
 china plate, cup, and saucer, and carefully washed 
 them all, bringing them back to the table. Then he 
 began the making of an omelette and the frying of 
 bacon, two operations he carried on simultaneously 
 with great deftness. The loaf of baker's bread he 
 put on a blue platter in the centre of the table, took 
 the iron kettle from the coals in the fireplace and 
 filled the teapot, and then, with an angular gesture 
 meant to be magnificent, invited Alec to the groan- 
 ing board. 
 
 "'Ye may eat and drink at my table, in my king- 
 dom,' " said he.
 
 308 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "I consider it an honour," said Alec. 
 
 "At least, it's something few do," Howdy replied 
 dryly. "If I hadn't been grubbing all the week in 
 your silly garden, I'd have had some nice fried trout 
 for you." 
 
 "But this omelette is delicious. Where'd you get 
 the eggs? 
 
 "You didn't know I kept hens, did you?" 
 
 "No," said Alec. 
 
 "Well, I don't." 
 
 "Why do you try to fool me?" Alec laughed at 
 him. "You know you never stole anything in your 
 life except apples and fish. You're probably buying 
 'em of some old woman at twice the market price, 
 to help keep her off the town." 
 
 Howdy looked up sharply, suddenly sobered. 
 "How'd you know that?" he demanded. 
 
 "I know you, old chap," Alec smiled. "Who is it, 
 Mrs. Snyder, up on Bear Mountain?" 
 
 Howdy gave a grudging and shamefaced nod, 
 and went quickly over to the stove for more bacon. 
 
 "Do you always live as well as this?" Alec asked, 
 changing the subject. "As an omelette maker 
 you're a wonder." 
 
 Howdy shrugged his shoulders. ' ' Pends on how 
 I feel," he answered. "Latterly, sometimes, I'm 
 too too well, I guess too damn lazy to get much
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 309 
 
 supper. I'm not so spry as I used to be. Come 
 nightfall, and I'm sorter tired. Whiskey's easier, 
 and 'bout as cheap." 
 
 "I never lectured you, and I'm not going to now," 
 Alec said. "But you know yourself whiskey's not 
 the proper fuel for the human engine. You need 
 three square meals a day, that you don't have to 
 fuss to cook yourself. Why don't you cut out the 
 Thoreau act, Howdy, for a while, and get back a 
 few of the years you've lost on me. Ten years ago 
 you could walk me off my feet. To-day I can leave 
 you by three o'clock in the afternoon maybe 
 earlier." 
 
 "Can you now!" said Howdy, bristling up. Then 
 he slumped again into his chair. "Yes, you can, 
 for a fact," he added. "Howsomever, 'one dieth 
 in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. 
 His breasts are full of milk and his bones are mois- 
 tened with marrow. And another dieth in the 
 bitterness of his soul, and never eateth with pleas- 
 ure. They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the 
 worms shall cover them.' >; 
 
 He lapsed suddenly into gloomy silence, his chin 
 on his breast, and Alec, silent also, watched him. 
 
 Then he suddenly raised his head with a laugh. 
 "I'd be a star boarder at Sarah Chandler's, wouldn't 
 I, among those damn pious hypocrites? And she'd
 
 310 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 be likely to take me, wouldn't she? Well, well, this 
 ain't washing the dishes!" 
 
 He got up, took a bottle from the cupboard, 
 poured himself out a drink, and then began to clear 
 the table. Alec helped him. After the dishes were 
 washed, the two men, with the dog between them, 
 went out in front of the cabin and looked at the 
 evening star hanging in the west above the dim alders 
 and the far line of hills. The world was very still save 
 for a lone song sparrow singing a good-night song 
 and the shrill chorus of the hylas from the swamp, a 
 bell-like chorus which beat in regular waves of sound. 
 
 "So you want me to leave my cabin, and be a re- 
 formed character?" said Howdy slowly. "You 
 know's well as I do, Alec, that I don't wanter re- 
 form. And you oughter know better'n I do that 
 nobody who don't wanter reform can reform. It 
 ain't reform unless you want it. I know what the 
 town goodies think o' me most of 'em being a lot 
 o' conventions on spindle legs that never dared 
 follow a natural impulse in their lemonade-coloured 
 lives! They think I've disgraced my family name, 
 for one thing. Well, maybe I have, though there's 
 something they don't know. My precious daddy 
 kept more than medicine in his old walnut cabinet. 
 However, that's neither here nor there. I don't 
 have to invoke Darwin to justify my thirst, though
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 311 
 
 they do say the gin of the father shall be, visited on 
 the children." 
 
 Howdy laughed dryly at his joke. "I'd like to 
 tell that one to Tom Hall in the bank," he chuckled. 
 "I sure love to put a nice stick of scriptural dynamite 
 under his piety." 
 
 Then he grew sober again. "Listen!" he said. 
 "Do you hear those hylas in the swamp? Do you 
 feel the stillness, the hush o' the world? Of course 
 you do you've got senses. Damn few people have 
 they only pretend. Well, that's why I came out 
 here and put up this shack. I got this land on a 
 swap for some of my precious inheritance. Nobody 
 bothers me here. The fishing used to be good in 
 Muddy Brook, though it's not any more. There 
 are still showy orchids down there in the swamp. 
 Many an evening like this one I've sat here while the 
 darkness crept over the world, and a fox came sneak- 
 ing across the clearing, or a deer cracked in the 
 bushes, and I've thought o' what the Psalmist said: 
 
 " ' Thou makest darkness, and it is night; 
 
 Wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth; 
 The young lions roar after their prey 
 And seek their meat from God.' 
 
 Maybe it's only a fox after a pheasant in the swamp, 
 but he's seeking his meat from God, at that. Look 
 at Venus up there in the west, like a lamp !
 
 312 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 " ' Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and the evening 
 to rejoice.' 
 
 No, Alec, you mean well by me, and you're the only 
 soul on this goodly frame who does, I guess. But it 
 won't work. I don't wanter change. I got a little 
 bit o' good in life to hang on to 'spite o' what folks 
 say and it's this, whiskey and all." 
 
 He stooped down, stroking his dog's head, and fell 
 silent. 
 
 Alec was silent, too. After all, he thought, what 
 was there he could say? Barring the whiskey, of 
 course, this man was but doing what made Thoreau 
 famous, when you came to think of it. A mute, 
 inglorious Thoreau, with a vast empirical knowledge 
 of beasts and birds and fishes never committed to 
 paper, that perhaps described him. In his heart 
 Alec could not withhold a certain admiration, the 
 admiration every true-born Yankee has for the 
 thorough-going individualist, nor even deny him a 
 quaint charm. 
 
 "Well, Howdy, I'm afraid you're right," he said 
 presently. "I don't even blame you, I guess I 
 sympathize with you except for the rum. That's 
 bad for the liver, and I want to go fishing with you 
 for many a year yet. I must be on my way now. 
 I've got to square myself with Mrs. Plumb, and 
 answer about forty letters."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 313 
 
 "That's what comes of having a housekeeper 
 and a business," answered Howdy scornfully. "If 
 there was a letter for me in the post-office, Joe Smith 
 would throw a fit." He moved toward the door of 
 his shack. "Come in here a minute before you go," 
 he added. 
 
 Alec followed him to the hearth, where he stooped 
 down, and with the iron bar which served as a poker 
 pried up a large stone at the outer corner. Below 
 was a hollow, and in it a tin box. 
 
 "I want you should remember that, Alec," he 
 said slowly. "It's my will inside. Funny, my mak- 
 ing a will, ain't it? But but well, there's certain 
 things to be done. You're all I've got to rely on 
 to do 'em." 
 
 "Certain things? Of course I'll " 
 
 "I knew you would," said Howdy, letting the 
 stone fall back like an interruption. "Drop in 
 again and we'll have a mess o' trout." 
 
 Alec shot a look at him, and turned toward the 
 door without further questioning. 
 
 " 'Night, Howdy," said he. 
 
 * 'Night, Alec," the other answered, as he took 
 his Bible from the shelf. 
 
 Three days later Howdy did not appear in the 
 Bird House Man's garden; but as that was a way he 
 had, Alec didn't worry. He had earned all he
 
 314 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 wanted, evidently, or the temptation to go fishing 
 had become too strong. It was mid-May before 
 Alec Farnum saw him again. 
 
 Still on his quest for rare warblers, Alec had 
 wandered one beautiful clear day far afield. He had 
 left home early, with his field glasses and a pocket of 
 lunch, and striking at once up over Bear Mountain 
 had reached the high plateau over the crest, which 
 had been a famous grazing country a century ago, 
 but was now almost uninhabited, crossed only by a 
 single road where the grass grew between the wheel 
 ruts. Much of the land had gone back to forest, 
 and even the scattered clearings were hah* overgrown 
 with berry vines. This plateau was some ten miles 
 across, the mountain wall dropping down on the 
 other side to the sleepy, forgotten hamlet of Mercer, 
 isolated from all railroads and so far removed from 
 Southmead by the Bear Mountain barrier that it 
 might have been in another world. Even the one 
 road which crossed the plateau did not lead to 
 Mercer, but turned off southward to connect with an 
 ancient turnpike in the far valley near the mill town 
 of North Benton. 
 
 Alec had tramped till nearly noon, now through 
 fields and along the forest edge, now in the road, 
 till he had reached the point where the road came 
 nearest to the eastern rim of the plateau, and swung
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 315 
 
 south. If he kept on to the east, he reflected, he 
 would reach Mercer, and hence another north-and- 
 south valley that might serve as a migration route. 
 Besides, the day was fine and the way unknown to 
 him. It would have the excitement of exploration. 
 He had been to Mercer but four or five times 
 in his life, and then by the long road around the 
 mountain. 
 
 He looked about him now for some path or wood 
 road leading east, and presently came on an opening 
 in the roadside bramble hedge which evidently 
 marked an ancient lumber track. He struck down it 
 at once, intent on reaching water somewhere down 
 the slope for his lunch. There was little water on 
 the plateau, so that he had not crossed a brook for 
 the past three or four miles, and he was getting 
 thirsty. The logging road was still passably dis- 
 tinct for a mile or more, until the edge of the plateau 
 was reached. Then it seemed suddenly to lose 
 itself, to die away into the mystery of the forest. 
 Alec, peering about for the best, way down through 
 the tangle of rocks and fallen hemlocks which littered 
 the crest of the ridge, suddenly spied a blaze on a 
 tree. He went over to it, and looked on the other 
 side. There, sure enough, was a corresponding 
 blaze for the eye of a man ascending the slope. 
 
 "Well, somebody evidently goes somewhere," he
 
 316 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 thought, and plunged down. Several more blazes, 
 some of them fairly fresh, some almost healed by 
 time, took him down through the bad stuff and the 
 rocks by what he realized was about the only prac- 
 tical passage. Below, as the slope grew gentler, 
 the blazes ceased, but by the woodsman's instinct 
 in his feet Alec felt he was on a trail, and knew when 
 he got off it. To the eye it was practically invisible, 
 however, except now and then for a broken branch 
 or the footmark where a piece of rotten wood had 
 been crushed. He walked rapidly, wondering who 
 could use this trail, and why; some hunter, probably, 
 he thought, or trapper, who ascended thus to the 
 wild plateau. Presently he heard the sound of 
 falling water and increased his speed, the sound 
 suddenly augmenting his thirst to a torture. Evi- 
 dently there was a brook not far ahead. 
 
 There was, and a man sitting by it, the noise 
 deadening his ears to the sound of Alec's approach. 
 
 "Howdy, Howdy!" Alec cried, when he was almost 
 upon the seated figure. 
 
 Howdy started as if some one had struck him, 
 and turned a startled face. But he kept command 
 of his voice. 
 
 "Howdy, Alec," he answered, completing their 
 habitual salutation. 
 
 "Well, I didn't expect to find you here," Alec
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 317 
 
 laughed. "I expected to eat my lunch alone. Had 
 yours yet?" 
 
 Howdy slapped his hip pocket with a shrug. 
 
 "Won't do," the other cried. "Here, have one 
 of my sandwiches. And let me at that water!" 
 
 He leaned over and plunged his face in the brook, 
 drinking deep. 
 
 "This brook's a new one on me," he said as he 
 rose. "I've never been down this slope of the 
 mountain. Looks as if there might be fish in it. 
 Are there? I'm sure there are, you've kept so al- 
 mighty quiet about it these thirty years." 
 
 But Howdy didn't grin. He looked sober and 
 troubled. Alec, however, appeared too cheerful to 
 notice. "Did you spot that trail coming down?" 
 he asked. "I wonder who blazed it." Then he 
 paused, and looked sharply at Howdy. "You did, 
 you sly fox, you!" he cried. "It leads straight to 
 the best trout pool in the county, I'll bet a hat! 
 Come, you've got to let me see you land one." 
 
 Howdy's face expressed relief, which Alec did not 
 fail to note, though he still gave no sign of attention. 
 
 "All right," said the fisherman. "Finish your 
 grub first." 
 
 Alec passed him a handful of raisins, and they 
 munched in silence. Then Howdy rose and started 
 down the brook bed, with steps a little uncertain.
 
 318 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Once Alec thought he was going to fall. Presently 
 he stopped by a deep brown pool under a boulder, 
 jointed his rod, examined his fly, and with hands 
 that trembled made a perfect cast under the low- 
 hanging hemlock boughs. There was an almost 
 instantaneous strike, and he brought out a ten-inch 
 beauty. He cast again, and brought out another, 
 which followed the first into the pocket of his old 
 leather jacket. 
 
 "The old he-grandfather's in there yet let him 
 stay," said he. "I I got to be goin' on, Alec." 
 
 "You mean home? Maybe it's time I turned 
 back, too anyhow, I will for the company." 
 
 "Yes, you'd better. It's a long pull home for lame 
 walkers," Howdy answered, with a hint of his old 
 dryness. " But I got to be pushin* on the other way." 
 
 "You're hiding the best pool from me, eh?" said 
 Alec. "I didn't think you'd do that to me, Howdy." 
 He put as much reproach as he could into his voice. 
 
 The other man looked troubled and miserable. 
 " No no it ain't that, Alec, honest. I I wouldn't 
 do that to you. I I I just got to be pushin' on." 
 
 "Well, I'll push on then, too. I really wanted to 
 get to Mercer. How far is it?" 
 
 "Three mile, at the least. You can't make it 
 and get back in time for grub. Think what Mrs. 
 Plumb'll do to you."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 319 
 
 "Oh, bother Mrs. Plumb. You can't scare me so 
 easy as that. If you can walk it, I can." 
 
 Howdy drew his thin form erect, as if with the 
 sudden stiffening of resolution. "Come on, then," 
 he said, with strange gruff ness. "I never meant you 
 should know till I was dead and you opened that tin 
 box. But maybe it's best you should know now. 
 I I my God, Alec, it is not good for man to be 
 alone!" 
 
 His face was working with emotion, and as he 
 stepped off the rock he seemed about to fall, so that 
 Alec put out a hand and caught his arm. But he 
 shook the hand off almost angrily, and strode back, 
 in the lead, to their starting-point at the falls. 
 There he turned into the dim trail again, swinging 
 down the slope without the slightest hesitancy, and 
 at such a pace that Alec was hard put to keep up. 
 He said never a word. 
 
 They broke out of the woods after a mile, into an 
 upland pasture, still silent and in single file, crossed 
 the pasture, broke through a grove of birches at the 
 lower edge, and came down through a second pasture 
 strewn with boulders to an ancient white farmhouse, 
 surrounded by blossoming apple trees, and looking 
 eastward over brown ploughed fields to the distant 
 white spire of the Mercer meeting-house. A thin 
 white road crossed these fields and ended in the
 
 320 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 dooryard. This farm was the valley outpost against 
 the invasion of the mountain forest, a pretty, peaceful 
 spot, so picturesque that Alec unconsciously stopped 
 in his tracks to admire it. 
 
 But Howdy kept on, and Alec hurried after him. 
 
 In the dooryard Howdy also stopped, and gave 
 a low, peculiar whistle, more like a bird song than a 
 tune. A second later the door opened and a strange 
 figure ran out with a little cry of welcome. 
 
 "Oh, here's the fish man!" were her words. 
 
 But they were spoken in a child's voice a child's 
 voice grown old. She was a gray-haired woman, 
 but, like a child's, her hair hung in curls on either 
 side of her face, and it was bound with a large pink 
 bow, and under one arm she carried a doll. 
 
 Alec shuddered. 
 
 She was close to Howdy now, laughing gayly, 
 and feeling for his pockets. To Alec his face was 
 no less terrible than hers, as he brought forth the 
 two trout he had caught and gave them to her, and 
 others besides which evidently had been caught 
 earlier. 
 
 "Margy, Margy!" she called, her voice cracking 
 with excitement. " Bring a plate ! " 
 
 Another woman appeared at the door, with a 
 plate in her hand, nodding to Howdy, and cast a 
 glance of astonishment at Alec.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 321 
 
 "You run and put them in the pantry, sister 
 Jane," said she to the child- woman, who obediently 
 trotted off. 
 
 "Mr. Farnum, from Southmead, my best friend 
 Mrs. Compton," said Howdy, the words barely 
 coming from his throat. 
 
 Alec took off his hat, looking at the woman as he 
 did so. She was of about his own age, a shade 
 grayer, perhaps, and must once have been handsome. 
 But like many another mountain farm woman she 
 bore the hard marks of her life on her face and 
 figure. 
 
 "Where's Joe?" said Howdy. 
 
 The woman shrugged her shoulders. " The village, 
 as usual, I s'pose," she answered. "The new man's 
 good, though. Got the ploughin' done early, and 
 all the corn's in the ground and up, and we got the 
 south field down to pertaters." 
 
 "'Behold, now, Thy servant hath found grace in 
 Thy sight,'" said Howdy, with a wry smile. "Well, 
 I'm glad, and I'm just as pleased Joe ain't here." 
 
 He pulled a greasy, battered old wallet from an 
 inner pocket, while the woman shifted her feet In 
 her embarrassment at Alec's presence, and took 
 from it a number of bills, which Alec could see from 
 where he stood far exceeded any pay he had given 
 to Howdy for garden work. These he gave to the
 
 322 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 woman and she hastily slipped them into the bosom 
 of her gown. 
 
 "Thanks," she muttered. "You well, Howdy?'* 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "'Boast not thyself 
 of the morrow, for thou knowest not what a day 
 may bring forth,' " he said. "And and she?" 
 
 Again his voice choked. 
 
 The woman glanced back into the house. "Just 
 the same," she said, in a low tone. "She'll outlast 
 us all. Grandmother did, you know. Sh! She's 
 coming now." 
 
 Howdy turned hastily and began to stride away 
 toward the mountain again, Alec behind him. They 
 heard the strange, old-young voice call: "Fish man, 
 don't go 'way!" and then a sound as of an old, old 
 child crying with disappointment. 
 
 Howdy clapped both hands to his ears, and almost 
 ran up the slope. He never stopped his furious pace 
 till they were in the woods again, and then he sank, 
 exhausted and panting, on a log, and buried his face 
 in his hands. 
 
 Alec stood above him, a hand on his shoulder. 
 
 "Why do you come at all?" he said. "Why 
 don't you send the money?" 
 
 Howdy looked up, miserable. "I have to," he 
 answered. "I have to see her and it almost kills 
 me."
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 323 
 
 "It happened long ago?" 
 
 "Thirty-odd years. Scarlet fever, they said. 
 But her grandmother went the same way." 
 
 Alec was silent a long moment, his hand moving 
 gently on Howdy's shoulder. 
 
 "Was that her home?" he presently asked. 
 
 The other nodded. "I came down that brook 
 and found her, thirty-one years ago," he cried out, 
 as if glad at last to speak. "The flowers had ap- 
 peared on the earth, the time of the singing of birds 
 had come. And oh, thou wert fair, my beloved! 
 I gave her all my trout before we said a word." 
 
 He lifted his face, and his eyes looked out past 
 Alec toward the valley below. 
 
 "Yes, she lived there," he went on. "She loved 
 that house, that gentle valley. It was going to be 
 our home ours!" 
 
 His eyes fell at the word, and he turned his face 
 away from the valley. 
 
 "Then then that happened. I was camping up 
 the brook to be near while she was sick and one 
 day they they told me. I thought it was a dream 
 that we'd wake up. But we never woke. Then 
 her father died, and her sister, that's the one you 
 met, she lived in Connecticut some place was going 
 to send her away to an asylum! Why, it would 
 have killed her, wouldn't it?"
 
 324 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 He looked up at Alec pleadingly, and Alec nodded, 
 not trusting to speech. 
 
 "Well," he went on, "Joe Compton's no good, 
 and he couldn't run a farm, but there was nobody 
 else 'cept her sister to keep her there, in the place 
 she loved, where nobody could see her and nobody 
 could make fun of her, and where she could smell the 
 apple blossoms in the spring. Maybe I thought 
 some day, if she kept seeing me, her poor, lost mind 
 would come back her poor, lost mind! God, Alec, 
 where does a mind go to when it leaves the body like 
 that leaves the body still young and healthy and 
 active? Where does it go to?" 
 
 "I think God has it, keeping it for her and for 
 you," Alec answered, patting the shoulder below 
 him. 
 
 "And that was why you sold your father's house in 
 Southmead?" he asked after a silence. 
 
 "There was more'n the house," said Howdy. 
 "It's all in bonds, over to the North Benton Bank. 
 I go fishin* every so often for coupons. That 
 keeps the farm going in spite of Joe Compton. She 
 she's never lacked for anything." 
 
 "And back home we thought you'd blown it all 
 in for rum!" said Alec, almost to himself. 
 
 "Yes, and they're still a-goin' to think so,, the 
 Scribes and Pharisees!" Howdy cried, stiffening up.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 325 
 
 "By God, Alec, if you ever let 'em think anything 
 else if you ever let 'em know about her, I'll " 
 
 "There, there!" said Alec, tapping him. "You 
 and I are friends, and you've trusted me. Don't 
 you trust me still?" 
 
 The man on the log put out his thin, hard hand in 
 silence, and Alec grasped it. 
 
 "Alec," he said, "some day I'll go off alone to die, 
 like the beasts of the field. It'll be sooner than 
 anybody thinks, maybe. You know where that tin 
 box is, and you know now what you've got to do for 
 me. If if I go before the old pup, look after him, 
 too." 
 
 "We won't talk of dying just yet," Alec answered. 
 "Where is Spot, by the way?" 
 
 "I lock him up when I hit this trail," said Howdy; 
 "it it's too long for him; he's too old. And sh-she's 
 scared of dogs. Come, you must be starting now. 
 It's a good eighteen mile back." 
 
 "We must be starting, you mean," said Alec 
 gently. 
 
 Howdy shook his head. "For thirty years I've 
 climbed that trail alone," he answered, a solemn 
 dignity in his face. 
 
 Alec paused a moment, irresolute. "Remember, 
 you've got to feed poor Spot," he said. 
 
 There was the vaguest dryness in Howdy's tone as
 
 326 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 he replied. "I shan't depart that way," he said. 
 "You needn't worry. 'By, Alec." 
 
 Alec accepted the inevitable. 
 
 " 'By, Howdy," he answered. 
 
 And he struck up the dim trail through the forest, 
 leaving the bent, brown figure still seated on the log 
 behind. 
 
 It was pitch dark when he came into Southmead, 
 and a whip-poor-will was singing mournfully by the 
 bridge.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE HOMING PIGEON 
 
 FEW of us are above a weakness for memorial 
 trinkets of our dead lives, and Alec Farnum was no 
 exception. Neither, to be sure, was he greatly an 
 offender; but at the back of the bottom drawer of his 
 desk was a little tin box, and in that box lay a faded 
 photograph of a girl, a bit of yellowed lace, a glove, 
 and a score or so of letters, tied together. He had 
 not looked upon these relics for years, howeVer. 
 Long, long since, the memory of that first love- 
 passion of his manhood had changed from an aching 
 sense of loss to a soft and wistful recollection almost 
 as of another's life. He could manage a smile as he 
 thought of his relics there in the tin box, but he 
 hardly cared to look at them. Alas! he was past 
 fifty. What had he to do with gloves and notes and 
 tender love tokens? And they reminded him too 
 painfully of his loveless years. 
 
 He shut the drawer rather hastily on this day when 
 the box had come again to his view, and leaned for- 
 ward over his desk, playing idly with a pencil. Alec 
 bad never married. When he returned from his 
 
 827
 
 328 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "finishing trip" abroad, after his college days were 
 over, and found that Elsie had gone from Southmead 
 and become another's wife, his soul had been plunged 
 in the depths. He could still recall the agony of 
 those days. He recalled, too, his fight with himself 
 to regain poise and happiness, and how he had found 
 both in study and service service to his beloved 
 birds and to his town and neighbours . No, it had been 
 many, many years now since he could call himself an 
 unhappy man he had to confess that. He had to 
 confess, too, that it had been many, many years since 
 he gave up his first hope that she might some day 
 come back to him. He drew the design of a bird 
 house on a sheet of paper, almost mechanically. 
 Yes, he would have to confess that it had been many 
 years since he had greatly desired Elsie to come back 
 to him! 
 
 This last reflection caused the pencil to drop from 
 Alec's fingers. He was not much given to intro- 
 spection, in spite of the fact that he lived alone. This 
 reflection had actually come to him, definitely for- 
 mulated, for the first time, and it surprised him. 
 Why, then, had he lived on alone? Why had he 
 never married? 
 
 He picked up the pencil once more and made sprawl- 
 ing marks. There is a bloom, a wonder, an en- 
 chantment, radiating from the first-love passion
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 329 
 
 which can never be recaptured. Women had at- 
 tracted him since he realized that. But none had 
 stirred in him this holy intensity, none had come with 
 " the aura of enchantment " in her hair. And now he 
 was nearing fifty-five! Passion could never stir in 
 him again, he thought. He would live for Ruth, 
 for little Miss Millie Tilton, for all his flock of de- 
 voted friends and proteges. After all, he was blessed 
 as few men are. He smiled, though it may be a little 
 wistfully, and tossing the pencil aside rose and walked 
 to the veranda overlooking his garden, where the 
 foxgloves were just coming into flower. 
 
 Ruth was in the garden, walking with a woman he 
 had never seen before. Doubtless, he thought, it 
 was her friend Mary Todd about whom she had writ- 
 ten so much to him the past winter, and whom she 
 had induced to come to Southmead for a vacation. 
 Mary Todd belonged, Alec fancied, to the type of 
 "new woman" whatever that is. At any rate, she 
 was a member of the Minimum Wage Commission, 
 she wrote pamphlets and articles, she made speeches 
 for equal suffrage. Still, if Ruth admired her so 
 much, Alec was prepared to like her, too. He smiled 
 as this phrasing crossed his mind. "I am getting to 
 be an old fogy," he thought. 
 
 Then he whistled to attract Ruth's attention. 
 
 "Oh, hello, you're not working," she called. "I
 
 SSO THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 was afraid you would be, so I didn't disturb you. I 
 was showing Miss Todd the garden. Do you mind? " 
 
 "Very much," said Alec, coming down the path to 
 meet them. 
 
 He shook hands with the stranger, looking into her 
 eyes keenly, eyes that looked back into his with no 
 less frank a curiosity. She was a tall, strong, energetic 
 woman, he judged about forty, though it might be 
 that the decisive lines of character written on her face 
 gave her an added maturity. She had keen gray 
 eyes, not without a twinkle, and a large mouth which 
 parted in a bright smile. Her voice was low pitched, 
 strong, and pleasant. 
 
 "I think your garden is charming," she said. "If 
 I said quaint I presume you'd not forgive me." 
 
 " I'd rather you said queer," Alec replied. " A gar- 
 den should be like its owner." 
 
 "And are you queer?" 
 
 "Ask Ruth," he laughed. 
 
 "I'd rather call it dear sometimes," she answered, 
 leaning on his arm. 
 
 "Ruth has told me so much about you that I really 
 feel as if I knew you," said Miss Todd. 
 
 "And Ruth has told me so much about you that 
 I'm afraid of you," Alec replied. 
 
 " Afraid of me ? Why, Ruth, what have you said ? ' ' 
 
 "She's made me think you are an emancipated
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 331 
 
 female," said Alec, "and I'm always afraid of eman- 
 cipated females. You never know when they are 
 going to have an attack of old-fashionedness." 
 
 Miss Todd laughed, a low, infectious laugh. 
 
 "The only kind of a man I'm afraid of is an old- 
 fashioned man," she said. "You never know when 
 they are going to have an attack of intelligence." 
 
 The two looked at each other again, their eyes 
 twinkling, and the Bird House Man felt deliciously 
 alert and vital. 
 
 "Well, I'm an old-fashioned man look out for 
 me!" he said, and led the way through the flowery 
 paths of his garden. 
 
 His visitor was genuinely interested in flowers and 
 birds; he could tell that by a sixth sense all true 
 gardeners possess. She was particularly enthusiastic 
 in the wild-flower corner, naming several varieties 
 from their leaves. 
 
 "You know the wild flowers, don't you?" he said. 
 
 "I did once," she answered, with sudden wistful- 
 ness. " I was born in the country, in one of those little 
 white houses we used to think all true Americans came 
 from. Oh, it's good to get back into the country!" 
 
 "And where do true Americans come from now?" 
 asked Alec. 
 
 "East Houston Street and Lithuania," she an- 
 swered. "At least, that's my professional opinion.
 
 332 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Oh, you have cardinal flowers! When will they 
 blossom?" 
 
 "Before you leave us, I hope," said Alec gallantly. 
 "Now, Ruth, you run and get the kettle started 
 while Miss Todd and I pick a bouquet." 
 
 He began cutting several of his Siberian irises, 
 while his guest protested. 
 
 "It's a shame to cut them," she said. 
 
 "Of course it is," said Alec. "It hurts me more 
 than it does them, too. But if it was no sacrifice to 
 cut them, it would be no pleasure to give them. So, 
 you see, I'm selfish after all." 
 
 "Ruth has often told me how selfish you are," the 
 woman smiled, as she took the irises from his hands. 
 
 "Ruth is a sentimental little goose," answered the 
 Bird House Man crossly. 
 
 Miss Todd laughed again, her low, infectious laugh. 
 "But isn't that the kind of old-fashioned woman you 
 like?" 
 
 "It used to be; I've been converted to the eman- 
 cipated female recently," he said. 
 
 Miss Todd looked at him quickly, as if she were 
 not quite sure how to take this. Then she smiled. 
 "You still try to flatter like the old-fashioned male," 
 she replied. 
 
 Alec laughed, too. He felt altogether foolish and 
 light headed.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 333 
 
 "But one has so little success with the new 
 woman! You don't even blush. Yet a blush 
 would immensely become you immensely." 
 
 "Blushes, I fear, are for debutantes. I'm a 
 middle-aged woman," she said, rather soberly, 
 though her lips smiled. 
 
 "I am an old man," said Alec. "To me, at least, 
 you seem a girl. And yet you seem not a girl. You 
 seem to pull me back to a point where my old blood 
 races like a contemporary. Upon my word, Miss 
 Todd, I want horribly to flirt with you!" 
 
 He spoke with comic solemnity, and yet he seemed 
 almost naively sincere. The woman dropped her 
 eyes suddenly and turned rosy, making no answer ex- 
 cept to quicken her pace toward the house. 
 
 Alec walked beside her in silence. He had seen the 
 blush, and he felt with a strange thrill that prickle of 
 guilt which comes to the young when they are doubt- 
 ful of the impression they have made on a woman. 
 He wanted to take her hand and ask her pardon. He 
 wanted to turn a somersault of delight. He very 
 nearly ended by calling himself an old fool, out loud. 
 
 Ruth had the tea ready, and the next hour passed 
 merrily. When his guests had gone Alec went 
 back into his garden and contemplated the cut 
 stalks of his Siberian irises, shaking his head in per- 
 plexity.
 
 334 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 Nor did his perplexity decrease as his relations with 
 Miss Todd grew more intimate. They talked some- 
 times for hours of birds and wild flowers, as he led her 
 on tramps through the woods. Again they talked 
 of social problems, she from her standpoint of legisla- 
 tive reform, he from his narrower but more intense 
 groove of individualistic humanitarianism. To Alec, 
 every problem had been a personal one the redemp- 
 tion of a single soul. He knew the unit, she knew the 
 mass. Their minds struggled to meet, to adjust, to 
 correlate. It was fascinating, thrilling to him, and 
 he was not unaware that she, too, enjoyed their long 
 talks as they tramped along. 
 
 But he was equally aware that it was useless to 
 deny her sex attraction for him, or the vague sense 
 she had of its existence, so that there was a defen- 
 sive wall always between them. At times, when he 
 helped her over a fence, touching her hand, he tingled 
 like a boy again, and released her fingers in haste lest 
 she should guess. It was a mystery to him that this 
 fine vibrant woman should still be single. He longed 
 to question her, but somehow the questions never 
 reached his lips. 
 
 Then suddenly, unexpectedly, the memories were 
 released again from that tin box, and Alec's dead life 
 returned to confront him. 
 
 It was Miss Millie Til ton who brought him the news.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 335 
 
 She was pale and flustered when she entered the 
 garden where, late in the afternoon, he was weeding. 
 
 "Alec," she said solemnly, "somebody's come 
 back!" 
 
 The man started to his feet. " You you mean " 
 
 She nodded. "Elsie, yes. She came this noon. 
 She's at Sarah's. She came to see me. She she's a 
 widow now." 
 
 "Is she in trouble?" the man asked quickly. 
 
 "I don't think so. She was awfully well dressed. 
 She always did dress well, you remember. She said 
 she came back because she wanted to see her old 
 home. She said her son was married, and her house 
 was lonesome, so she just packed up and came. She 
 she asked after you, Alec." 
 
 "It's been thirty-two years since I saw her!" Alec 
 said, as if to himself. He wiped the back of his earth- 
 stained hand across his forehead. "Why did she 
 come back now? " 
 
 Miss Millie stole up close to him and laid her finger 
 tips lightly on his sleeve. "She she's very pretty 
 still, Alec," said the little woman. 
 
 Alec looked down upon his friend and smiled into 
 her big brown eyes. 
 
 "Millie," he said, "it's not quite as you think, I'm 
 afraid. You thought that all these lonesome years 
 I'd gone on loving Elsie. I used to think so, too. 

 
 336 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 But it isn't so. We aren't made that way, after all. 
 If it had been so, I should have stagnated. Instead, 
 I've kept alive. Of course, if she were in trouble I'd 
 help her. But I'm afraid I don't want to see her 
 otherwise." 
 
 " Oh, Alec ! " Miss Millie gasped. " And I thought 
 you were so fine and strong and had forgiven her!" 
 
 "I'm afraid you still don't understand," he an- 
 swered. "There was never any question of forgive- 
 ness. The wind of passion bloweth where it listeth. 
 I never had to forgive Elsie for going away. That 
 was her right and her destiny. But much water 
 has run under bridges since then. I'm not the man I 
 was she's not the woman. Never mind, Millie 
 some day I'll try to make it clearer." 
 
 "Well, she's staying at Sarah's," said the little 
 woman, moving away and watching him with a 
 puzzled frown as he stooped again and began to pull 
 weeds. She had never before thought that he could 
 be heartless, she told herself. 
 
 He had not been weeding long after her departure 
 before he was startled by a step on the sanded path, 
 and looking around quickly saw a woman standing be- 
 fore him, with a dash of lavender on her white dress 
 and a lavender bow beneath her hat brim, which 
 touched with a pale reflection a heightened colour into 
 her cheeks and lay prettily against her gray hair. She
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 337 
 
 stood in silence looking at him, as if she were pleading 
 for recognition. 
 
 Alec sprang to his feet. " Elsie ! " he said. " You ! " 
 
 "Yes, Alec," she answered, her voice almost a 
 whisper. "It's me. I don't know why I've come. 
 I I was lonely. I I I never forgot my girlhood 
 days; women don't, I guess. It seemed as if I just 
 had to see the old 'scenes again, the old faces. I 
 I'm old now myself, Alec. Can't you forgive me and 
 shake hands? See, I've put away all my pride and 
 come to you to ask it." 
 
 The Bird House Man wiped his soil-crusted hand 
 as best he could on his corduroy trousers, and took 
 her proffered palm. 
 
 "There's no question of forgiveness, Elsie," he an- 
 swered. "Won't you sit down?" 
 
 He was thinking of those lone night watches years 
 ago when his tortured imagination had pictured her 
 return to him, and he had taken her into his arms 
 with a cry and buried her weeping face on his 
 shoulder. Now the touch of her fingers left him cold 
 like the touch of a stranger. She seemed to him, as 
 she said, an old lady. He noticed a certain dumpi- 
 ness in her walk as he led her to a bench. 
 
 "I I've read your works all these years, Alec," she 
 was saying. "You're quite a famous man, aren't 
 you?"
 
 338 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 "Am I?" said he. "That's a bubble I never 
 thought much about. And you? Have you been 
 happy? Your husband is dead, Millie tells me." 
 
 The woman inclined her head. "He died two 
 years ago. Must must we talk of him? I have a 
 son who is married. He lives in Cleveland. I am 
 quite alone in the world now." 
 
 "You have money?" 
 
 Again she inclined her head. "I have plenty," she 
 answered. "But that that's cold comfort." 
 
 "Cold, perhaps, but somewhat essential, as the 
 world is organized," said Alec. "I'm glad to hear 
 you've been happy, Elsie, indeed I am." 
 
 The woman was looking at the long shadows creep- 
 ing across the garden, lavender shadows from a glow- 
 ing sunset. The birds were singing, the air was 
 fragrant with perfume. 
 
 "Happiness," she said slowly, "is a funny thing. 
 I'm not just sure I know what it is. I thought when 
 I I went away to live in a city I was going to find it 
 there. Now it seems to me it can only be found in 
 in in a place like this, where it's quiet and peace- 
 ful and birds sing." 
 
 "It's in neither place, Elsie. It's in the human 
 heart," said Alec. "You lived in a city, then?" 
 
 "You might have guessed," she answered. "It 
 was because you were going to come back to live here
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 339 
 
 that I I oh, Alec, I was only nineteen, remem- 
 ber!" 
 
 There fell a silence between them. TSlsie had come 
 back to him! She had come back asking for his 
 friendship, perhaps for his love. And he could find 
 no word to say. It hurt him, too, that he should feel 
 a certain resentment toward her for coming back, for 
 not abiding by the decision she had made and seeing 
 it through. "It's only silly wounded pride on my 
 part, because she comes back after her husband is 
 dead and her son married," he told himself. But 
 still the resentment persisted, and he sat uncomfort- 
 ably beside her, with no word of softness on his lips. 
 
 The silence grew painful to both of them, and the 
 woman struggled to speak. "Oh, Alec," she said, 
 "we are both old people now. Can't can't you 
 really forgive me and make me feel that you are glad 
 to see me back again? I've I've lived for this home 
 coming for for two years now." 
 
 She put one hand to her bosom with a quaint ges- 
 ture that Alec remembered out of the past, and the 
 sight of it stabbed him. He paused long before he re- 
 plied. 
 
 "No, Elsie," he finally said slowly. "You are 
 wrong. We are not both old people. You have had 
 your life your husband, your child. The boy, you 
 say, is married. But I have had no son, no daughter.
 
 
 340 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 I've not had my life. I still feel young, foolishly 
 young no doubt, but young just the same. You've 
 made me realize that just now, since you came. Once 
 I was five years older than you. Now I am ten years 
 younger. We aren't the people we once were, Elsie. 
 We never can be again. I tell you again there's no 
 question of forgiveness. But once you were to me 
 the dearest thing in earth or Heaven and I couldn't 
 forget that. If you could have returned to me with 
 the aura in your hair!" 
 
 "I I don't understand," she said. 
 
 The man smiled faintly. "Neither do I quite," 
 he answered. "Oh, Elsie, you ought never to have 
 gone away!" 
 
 " Don't don't ! " she cried. " I've known that al- 
 ways always ! " 
 
 She stared straight ahead, her eyes misty, and the 
 man beside her looked helplessly at his feet. Then 
 she rose. 
 
 "I'm going now," she said. 
 
 Alec rose also. " I I don't know what to say " 
 
 he began. 
 
 She managed a crooked little smile. "Of course 
 not," she answered. "There was only one thing, and 
 you can't say that. I ought never to have come." 
 
 He let her go down through the garden, struggling 
 with himself. His conscience told him to call out to
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 341 
 
 her, to rush and take her hand, to lead her back. Yet, 
 as she walked, with bowed head, a mature figure 
 settling into dumpiness, he saw the tall, erect, lithe 
 figure of Mary Todd, and passion stirred within him. 
 It was not a memory his heart hungered for, but an 
 actuality; not sacrifice, but throbbing life. And 
 passion had its way; he was silent, and let her 
 depart. 
 
 When she had gone, he took the tin box and buried 
 it deep behind the garden. But his conscience was 
 not so easily to be laid. All that night he lay awake, 
 wrestling with his problem. He knew well enough 
 what he would have advised another in his situation, 
 and he smiled grimly at the irony of his predicament. 
 He had counciled so long for others' happiness now 
 that he did not know how to seize his own. Sacrifice 
 had become a habit. 
 
 "I'm a damned New Englander after all," he mut- 
 tered in the dark. 
 
 Then he heard again the woman's words, "I've 
 known that always always!" and saw her bowed 
 head as she departed. She had chosen the worser 
 part she had suffered; and his heart bled for her, she, 
 the girl who had been to him once the Beatrice of his 
 dreams. 
 
 And yet and yet Love had come to him again, 
 come to him with a strong, mature, tender intensity,
 
 342 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 not for a girl to be sure, but for a woman with a mind 
 that stimulated him and a love life still before her. 
 How he loved her! He made no concealment of it 
 to himself any longer. Elsie's coming had shown 
 him too plainly how matters stood. He would ask 
 her for her love in the morning. If it could be 
 his, then he owed a duty to her as well as Elsie, 
 and his path would be easy to choose. If she 
 saw him, however, as the silly old man he probably 
 was, then he would help Elsie to atone for her loneli- 
 ness, he would do his best to recapture for both of 
 them a little of the savour from the lost years. 
 
 Having thus put his problem in the terms of some- 
 body else's happiness rather than his own, he slept 
 at last. 
 
 It was late afternoon the next day before Mary 
 Todd could go to walk with him. Some of her work 
 had pursued her into the country. He led the way 
 back into his garden, by a rear gate, before they had 
 gone far, and sat her down amid his flowers. 
 
 "Mary," he said suddenly, "you think of me as an 
 old man, don't you?" 
 
 "Do I?" she said, glancing up at him out of the 
 corners of her eyes. "Then I must be a very old 
 lady, for you walk me off my feet." 
 
 She was, indeed, panting a little, for his pace had 
 been unconsciously rapid.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 343 
 
 "Oh, I shall be walking at ninety," he smiled. "I 
 even expect to play tennis at eighty. That's not 
 what I mean." 
 
 She grew grave, to meet the gravity of his under- 
 lying mood. 
 
 "Alec," she said "I'm going to call you Alec, 
 without the 'uncle,' as an admission of my own 
 maturity I've never thought a thing about it. 
 Sometimes you've acted to me like a very small 
 boy." 
 
 She laughed, her low, delightful laugh, and looked 
 at him with merry eyes. 
 
 His pulses raced at that look. "Mary," he said, 
 "I don't know why you've never married. It must 
 be that your standards are too high for human 
 nature's daily food. But I love you, I love you as a 
 lad loves his lass, a young man his wife. I love you 
 all heart and brain and body. If you should marry 
 me it would be an act of utter folly on your part, but 
 it would make me the happiest creature alive." 
 
 The smile left the woman's lips, the merriment left 
 her eyes. She looked into his face soberly and ten- 
 derly. 
 
 "Alec," she answered, "you are the best man I 
 have ever known." She took one of his hands in both 
 her own, and held it a second to her cheek, while his 
 heart pounded. " I I have never loved anybody be-
 
 344 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 fore. You think that is strange, but it isn't. All my 
 lif e I've been in the thick of affairs. I haven't lived a 
 woman's life, as women's lives still go for the major- 
 ity. I don't honestly think I've ever felt the need of 
 love. It's the need of it that makes most of us love, 
 you know. But when I came here, to your lovely 
 old town, to your garden, tired with more years of 
 labour than I like to remember yes, I'm forty there 
 were flower smells that came back from my girlhood 
 and smote me, and then you came out of your pretty 
 white house, and and I fell in love with you, dear 
 Alec. I've I've wanted you to love me, not the 
 way you love Ruth." 
 
 She touched her lips to his hand, and then turned 
 her face away. 
 
 The Bird House Man took her fingers, in turn, 
 reverently. 
 
 "You you will marry me?" he whispered. 
 
 She did not answer at once. 
 
 "It is hard to say that," she finally replied. "I 
 don't know if I can make you understand. It it is 
 hard to give up one's own personality and 'take the 
 quiet name of wife." 1 
 
 "But I shouldn't dream of that!" Alec cried. 
 "Please don't take my old-fashionedness quite so 
 seriously. I'll give up my birds before you shall give 
 up your minimum wages!"
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 345 
 
 She smiled, and shook her head. "You don't 
 know much about women after all," she said. "Old- 
 fashioned new-fashioned they mean little. Mar- 
 riage is a surrender. As some woman said, * There is 
 us, but there isn't me* any longer. It wouldn't be a 
 true marriage if that weren't so. I've had my me so 
 long, I've made her stand up and bear her own bur- 
 dens so often, I'm wondering how she'll like it and 
 what unhappiness you would have if she didn't like 
 it." 
 
 "I don't think that question need trouble you," 
 said Alec softly. 
 
 The sun was sinking now. A hush had crept over 
 the garden. Out of the flower beds, with the first 
 hint of twilight, an odour came stealing, and Mary 
 raised her face and drank it in. 
 
 "What is that fragrance?" she exclaimed. "It 
 it takes me back across the years!" 
 
 "Mathiola Bicornis fragrant evening .stock," said 
 Alec. 
 
 "Of course of course! Now I remember! Father 
 always brought some plants home to mother from a 
 nursery, on June second. That was their wedding 
 anniversary. It comes out in the evening and it's a 
 homely plant to look at by day. To think I didn't 
 recall it at once! Oh, it's like coming back home to 
 smell it! I wonder why father always brought that
 
 346 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 
 
 plant? He and mother set them out together. I 
 can see them now, mother with her trowel, father 
 with the little pots. They always laughed when 
 they were doing it, and sometimes they would stand 
 after the plants were in, holding each other's hands." 
 
 She was silent for a long moment, and then sud- 
 denly she turned to the man beside her, taking his 
 hand again. 
 
 "I don't know yet about that independent me," 
 she said, "but I think that I that I I'd like to have 
 it just ILS!" 
 
 Miss Millie Tilton, coming into the garden to tell 
 Alec that Elsie had gone away again on the afternoon 
 train, but not before Millie had persuaded her to 
 leave her address behind, saw the two figures on the 
 bench and stopped dead in her tracks, overcome with 
 surprise and confusion. Hastily, unseen, she beat a 
 retreat. That evening the poor little spinster spent 
 miserably in her tiny parlour. Alec was going to 
 have a wife! She would have to adjust herself to a 
 whole new set of conditions in the house next door. 
 That bond of memories between her and Alec was 
 broken now, nay, violated. It seemed to her as if 
 some hallowed and precious crystal had been shat- 
 tered. She mopped her big eyes occasionally with 
 her little lace handkerchief and let her sewing drop to 
 the floor.
 
 THE BIRD HOUSE MAN 347 
 
 But Alec Farnum, beyond the hedge, was aware 
 only of the scent of evening stock, and a warm, strong 
 hand in his, and tender, half-spoken hopes of life to 
 come. 
 
 THE END
 
 THI COUNTRY LIFE PEES3 
 GARDEN CITY, N. T.
 
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