m m m UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES UNIVERSITY of AT LOS ANGELES LIBRARY ATLANTIC TEXTS TEXTBOOKS IN LIBRARY FORM ATLANTIC CLASSICS, First Series $1 .50 ATLANTIC CLASSICS, Second Series 1 . 50 Both volumes collected and edited by ELLEBY SEDGWICK, Editor of tho Atlantic Monthly. For classes in composition and current literature. ESSAYS AND ESSAY-WRITING 1 .25 Collected and edited by WILLIAM M. TANNER, University of Texas. For literature and composition classes. ATLANTIC NARRATIVES, First Series 1 .25 For college use in classes studying the short story. ATLANTIC NARRATIVES, Second Series 1 .25 For secondary schools. Both volumes collected and edited by CHARLES SWATN THOMAS, Editorial department of the Atlantic Monthly Press, and Lecturer in Harvard University. ATLANTIC PROSE AND POETRY 1 .00 Collected and edited by CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS and HARRY G. PAUL of the University of Illinois. A literary reader for upper grammar grades and j unior high schools. THE PROFESSION OF JOURNALISM 1 .25 Significant Atlantic articles on journalism collected and edited by WILI.ARD G. BLEYER, University of Wisconsin. For use in courses in journalism. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY AND ITS MAKERS 1 .00 By M. A. DEWOLFE HOWE, editorial department of the Atlantic Monthly Press. Biographical and literary matter for the English class. WRITING THROUGH READING .00 By ROBERT M. GAY, Simmons College. A short course in English Composition for colleges and schools. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: The Principle and the Practice. . 2.50 Edited by STEPHEN P. DUGGAN, College of the City of New York. A basic text on international relations. THE LIGHT: An Educational Pageant Co By CATHERINE T. BRYCE, Yale University. Especially suitable for public presentation at Teachers' Con ventions. PATRONS OF DEMOCRACY SO By DALLAS LORE SHARP, Boston University. For classes interested in discussing democracy in our public schools. AMERICANS BY ADOPTION 1.50 By JOSEPH HUSBAND. For Americanization courses. THE VOICE OF SCIENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE , 2.00 An anthology of prose and poetry. Collected and edited by ROBERT E. ROGERS, Assistant Professor of English at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With an Introduction by HENRY G. PEARSON, Head of the English Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS 8 ARLINGTON STREET, BOSTON (17) "WE COME" The Spirit of '17 ATLANTIC PROSE AND POETRY For Junior High Schools and Upper Grammar Grades SELECTED AND EDITED BY CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS, A.M. Lecturer on the Teaching of English, Harvard University Formerly Director of English in the High Schools of Cleveland, Ohio AND H. G. PAUL, Ph.D. Professor of English in the University of Illinois I THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOSTON 1437t).5 Copyright, 1919, by THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, INC. FIRST IMPRESSION, JULY, 1919 SECOND IMPRESSION, AUGUST, 1920 THIRD IMPRESSION, SEPTEMBER, 1920 FOURTH IMPRESSION, SEPTEMBER, 1921 FIFTH IMPRESSION, SEPTEMBER, 1921 SIXTH IMPRESSION, NOVEMBER, 1921 5" 3 k THE grateful acknowledgements of the publishers are due to Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of the works of Mary Antin, Katherine Mayo, John Muir, and Dallas Lore Sharp, for permission to include certain selec tions from the works of those authors, and for their further permission to print a chapter from the Autobiography of Professor Shaler; to Messrs. Harper and Brothers, the Estate > of the late Samuel L. Clemens, and the Mark Twain Company, ^ for permission to reprint selections from the works of Mark Twain; and to Willis Boyd Allen, John Kendrick Bangs, ^ Mrs. William Wilfred Campbell (in respect of the poems of her late husband), Bliss Carman, Sarah N. Cleghorn, Grace Hazard Conkling, Florence Gilmore, M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Laura Spencer Portor Pope, Arthur Ketchum, Lily Long, J^ Elsie Singmaster Lewars, and Mary Herrick Smith. CONTENTS FOREWORD THE SPIRIT OF '17 . A LITERARY NIGHTMARE PERE ANTOINE'S DATE- PALM .... IEC YEATON'S SON A CANADIAN FOLK-SONG THE CHILDREN'S CITIES THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS . THE BLUE AND THE GRAY A DAKOTA BLIZZARD . MY REAL ESTATE . MY CHILDREN . A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE . IPSWICH BAR THE WILD MOTHER AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE ACCORDING TO CODE A LITTLE MOTHER MY BABES IN THE WOOD MIANTOWONA . OLD TIMES ON THE MIS SISSIPPI .... THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN PIXION Mary Herrick Smith . Mark Twain . Xlll 1 5 Thomas Bailey Aldrich . 12 Thomas Bailey Aldrich . 19 William Wilfred Campbell 21 Elizabeth S. Sheppard . 22 John Muir .... 33 Francis Miles Finch . . 45 The Contributors' Club . 47 The Contributors' Club . 51 Josiah Gilbert Holland . 54 Thomas Bailey Aldrich . 57 Esther and Brainard Bates 71 Dallas Lore Sharp . . 75 Alice Gary .... 81 Katherine Mayo ... 85 Florence Gilmore . . 95 The Contributors' Club . 102 Thomas Bailey Aldrich . 108 Mark Twain . . . . 116 The Contributors' Club 134 Vlll CONTENTS THE SAILING OF KING OLAF .... THE ROMANCE OF A ROSE THE AMERICAN MIRACLE How I KILLED A BEAR How GLOOSKAP BROUGHT THE SUMMER . THE BLUE-JAY . A YOUNG DESPERADO . A GROUP OF CHRISTMAS POEMS At the Manger . The Little Christ At Chrystemesse-Tide PARABLES IN MOTORS . SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE. THE DESERTED PASTURE IN THE TRENCHES . THE LAME PRIEST . FIRE OF APPLE-WOOD . SUMMER DIED LAST NIGHT UNAWARES .... SAINT R. L. S. . . . THE YELLOW BOWL OUT OF THE WILDERNESS THE SCHOOLMA'AM OF SQUAW PEAK . A GROUP OF SEASON POEMS Candlemas An April Morning Alice Williams Brotherton 138 Nora Perry .... 142 Mary Antin . . . . 145 Charles Dudley Warner . 153 Frances L. Mace . . . 163 Olive Thorne Miller . . 170 Thomas Bailey Aldrich . 180 John B. Tabb . . . 189 Laura Spencer Portor . 189 Willis Boyd Allen . . 190 The Contributors' Club . 191 Octave Forsant . . .194 Bliss Carman . . . 208 F. Whitmore . . . . 211 S. Carlton .... 213 M. A. DeWolfe Howe . 234 Maude Caldwell Perry . 236 Alice Williams Brotherton 237 Sarah N. Cleghorn . . 238 Lily A. Long .... 240 John Muir .... 241 Laura Tilden Kent 256 Arthur Ketchum Bliss Carman 266 266 CONTENTS IX A GROUP OF SEASON POEMS (continued} April's Return A Day in June Autumn .... JONAS AND MATILDA . THE SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN ' GIRL . CURBSTONE THEATRICALS THE WORD . . PAN THE FALLEN . LOVE is ALWAYS HERE THE CHIMES OF TERMONDE A PUPIL OF AGASSIZ THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING . THE OFFERING ... THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS .... GLOSSARY Grace Richardson . . 267 Alice Choate Perkins . 268 Bliss Carman . . . 268 The Contributors' Club . 269 Zitkala-Sa .... 275 The Contributors' Club . 287 John Kendrick Bangs . 291 William Wilfred Campbell 292 Edmund Clarence Stedman 295 Grace Hazard Conkling . 297 Nathaniel Southgate Shaler 299 Dallas Lore Sharp Olive Cecilia Jacks George W. Puryear 307 321 323 347 377 ILLUSTRATIONS "WE COME" THE SPIRIT OF '17 . . Frontispiece DALLAS LORE SHARP AND A CALIFORNIA MURRE . 79 MIANTOWONA 109 SAM CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN) ON "LOVER'S LEAP," OVERLOOKING THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER . . . 117 THE BEAR . 157 GLOOSKAP 169 BLUE-JAY 179 THE SCHOOLROOM PARTIALLY DESTROYED BY A SHELL 199 SCHOOL CHILDREN WITH GAS-MASKS .... 205 A DESERTED PASTURE . . . . . . 209 KING KALAKAUA AND ROBERT Louis STEVENSON . 239 THE SCHOOLMA'AM AND SOME OF HER CHILDREN . 261 TERMONDE 296 MUSKRAT . 309 THE MUSKRAT'S HOUSE OF His OWN BUILDING 320 FOREWORD DEFTLY to mingle the best and most appropriate of the old with the best and most appropriate of the new what task is really of more cultural significance than this? For a period of sixty-two years the Atlantic Monthly has had as its salient aim the gathering toge ther in each succeeding issue the varied thoughts and emotions of those men and women who have lived through interesting human experiences and processes, and have had the literary power to make those experi ences and processes real to others. After the lapse of so many years of this continuing endeavor on the part of the Atlantic, it is, of course, natural that we should find in the files of the maga zine many selections which make a peculiarly distinct appeal to young readers. Our aim in compiling and edit ing this book is to assemble in an attractive library vol ume such Atlantic prose and poetry as will be of com pelling interest to this younger group of pupils. The best of the old and the best of the modern are here repre sented. Thus are fittingly intermingled old traditions with the new and varied conceptions that are born with the coming of each significant event. We feel confident that one result of this reading will be the realization in the minds of the young people that in each successive issue of the Atlantic Monthly there will be found many messages that will interest and stimulate those who have previously been under the delusion that the magazine existed only for those of ma- turer years. THE EDITORS. THE SPIRIT OF '17 BY MARY HERRICK SMITH EN ROUTE from Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont, to De troit, whither my husband was ordered to join his base hospital, we were delayed in Ithaca, New York. While waiting in the hotel lounge, I chanced to overhear an interesting conversation. I had noticed a fine-looking man near me, reading the morning paper: he was distinctly the very prosperous city business man; his well-kempt appearance bespoke culture, money, and intelligence. While I was occupied with my speculations about him, a young man, just a boy, in fact, came in. He was a well-set-up chap, with the fresh healthy skin and clear-eyed eagerness of a country lad. He had never been far from the up-country farm where they raised the best breeds of livestock. He could n't have given a college yell to save his life, and he was innocent of fraternity decorations and secrets. Just the kind of boy I would like to have call me "mother." His clothes were good, but evidently from the general store of the small town. He carried a good-sized box, which he put across his knees as he seated himself. I knew that it was his luncheon which mother had packed, and that it included fried chicken and cold home-made sausages, cakes, sandwiches, fried cakes, crullers, mince pie and cheese, apples and winter pears; and a few relishes besides. Why, I could smell 2 THE SPIRIT OF '17 the luncheon that my mother had put up for my brother forty years ago. The Boy gazed all around, took in each detail of the room and its furnishings, with all the quiet dignity and interest of a well-born American country youth. You know a real Yankee country boy is n't like any other; there is a balance, an understanding, that is natural. It is inborn to be at home in any surrounding, however new and strange, so long as it is real. After the Boy had surveyed the room, he looked over at the man reading. He sat perfectly still a few minutes, then "Oh, hummed," and waited again, and fidgeted a bit; but nobody spoke. I could see that he was fairly bursting with news of something. Finally, to the man, "Can you tell me how far it is to Syracuse, sir?" "Well," -lowering his paper, "not exactly, but three or four hours, I 'd say. Going to Syracuse? " "Yes, I've enlisted. I passed one examination, but I 'm going to Syracuse for another, and then I 'm going to Spartansburg. Senator Wadsworth says, and it looks that way to me, that it is just as much our fight as theirs, and we ought to have been in it three years ago; they are getting tired over there. I 'd hate to be drafted. I 'd feel mean to think I had to be dragged in ; besides I want to do my part. Every fellow ought to get into it." "What part of the service did you elect?" "The infantry, sir. I'm going to Spartansburg to the training-camp." Silence for some moments; then, show ing that his bridges were burned, "I've sold my clothes; sold 'em for four dollars and I 'm to send 'em right back soon 's I get my uniform. I hope I don't have to wait for the soldier clothes. I think I got a good bargain and THE SPIRIT OF '17 3 so did the fellow I sold 'em to. I thought I would n't need 'em while I was in the army, and when I got back they 'd be all out of style; and then I may never come back." A ripple of seriousness passed over his boyish face. "But it was a good chance and I took it. Have you a son, sir?" "Yes, I have a son just eighteen, at Cornell. He ex pects to go next year if they need him in the aviation." "I'm just nineteen. I thought I'd better enlist. It 's just possible they might draft 'em later, and I just could n't stand it to be drafted. Do you think I '11 be able to go home for Thanksgiving?" he asked eagerly. "I would n't think quite so soon. You'll hardly get there by that time." "Well, I think I can go home for Christmas, don't you?" And a shade of anxiety crept into his tone. "I live up the road here a way, Wellsville, you know, about forty miles. Don't you think I'll get to Syra cuse to-night if I go right on? I'd like to get through so I could be ready for work to-morrow morning. I don't want to waste any time now that I'm all ready." The Boy settled back with a look of forced patience, and the man held up his paper again; but I could see that he was not reading, and there was a look of suf fused sadness on his face. The Boy had taken from his pocket a pair of big, dark-blue, home-knitted mittens; on the palms was sewn red woolen to reinforce them. He carefully drew them on, folded his hands, thumbs up, on his luncheon- box, edged to the front of his chair, and sat thinking, with eyes fixed on the far-away places of his dream. He was going over it all again; there was no haste, no 4 THE SPIRIT OF '17 excitement, no foolish sentiment, but sure determination and the courage of youth suddenly turned to manhood. With a little start he came back to the present, and, rising, said, "I guess I'd better be going. You said I could get a train in about half an hour?" "Before you go, will you tell me, my boy, why you chose the infantry?" " Well, when you read of anything real hard that has to be done, you will notice that it is always the infantry that does it. They have to be strong young fellows they can depend on for the real hard things. So I chose the infantry, sir." There was a silence, which he broke with the quiet words, "I think I'll be going. Good-bye, sir." Springing from his chair, the man grasped the Boy's hand. "God bless you, son, and good luck!" With misty vision we both stood and watched him out of sight; then, with all previous convention of acquaintance forgotten as we looked into each other's eyes, the man said, "It is the spirit of '17 gone to the colors." A LITERARY NIGHTMARE BY MARK TWAIN WILL the reader please to cast his eye over the follow ing verses, and see if he can discover anything harmful in them? Conductor, when you receive a fare, Punch in the presence of the passenjare! A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare, Punch in the presence of the passenjare! CHORUS Punch, brothers! punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare! I came across these jingling rhymes in a newspaper, a little while ago, and read them a couple of times. They took instant and entire possession of me. All through breakfast they went waltzing through my brain; and when, at last, I rolled up my napkin, I could not tell whether I had eaten anything or not. I had carefully laid out my day's work the day before a thrilling tragedy in the novel which I am writing. I went to my den to begin my deed of blood. I took up my pen, but all I could get it to say was, "Punch in the presence of the passenjare." I fought hard for an hour, but it was useless. My head kept humming, "A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, a buff trip slip for a six-cent fare," and so on and so on, without peace or respite. The 6 A LITERARY NIGHTMARE day's work was ruined I could see that plainly enough. I gave up and drifted down town, and presently dis covered that my feet were keeping time to that relent less jingle. When I could stand it no longer, I altered my step. But it did no good; those rhymes accommo dated themselves to the new step and went on harassing me just as before. I returned home, and suffered all the afternoon ; suffered all through an unconscious and unre- freshing dinner; suffered, and cried, and jingled all through the evening; went to bed and rolled, tossed, and jingled right along, the same as ever; got up at midnight, frantic, and tried to read ; but there was nothing visible upon the whirling page except "Punch! punch in the presence of the passenjare." By sunrise I was out of my mind, and everybody marveled and was distressed at the idiotic burden of my ravings: "Punch! oh, punch! punch in the presence of the passenjare!" Two days later, on Saturday morning, I arose, a tot tering wreck, and went forth to fulfill an engagement with a valued friend, the Rev. Mr. - , to walk to the Talcott Tower, ten miles distant. He stared at me, but asked no questions. We started. Mr. - - talked, talked, talked as is his wont. I said nothing; I heard nothing. At the end of a mile, Mr. - - said : "Mark, are you sick? I never saw a man look so hag gard and worn and absent-minded. Say something; do!" Drearily, without enthusiasm, I said: "Punch, brothers, punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare!" A LITERARY NIGHTMARE 7 My friend eyed me blankly, looked perplexed, then said : " I do not think I get your drift, Mark. There does not seem to be any relevancy in what you have said, certainly nothing sad; and yet maybe it was the way you said the words I never heard anything that sounded so pathetic. What is - But I heard no more. I was already far away with my pitiless, heart-breaking "blue trip slip for an eight- cent fare, buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, pink trip slip for a three-cent fare; punch in the presence of thepassen- jare." I do not know what occurred during the other nine miles. However, all of a sudden Mr. - laid his hand on my shoulder and shouted : "Oh, wake up! wake up! wake up! Don't sleep all day ! Here we are at the Tower, man ! I have talked my self deaf and dumb and blind, and never got a response. Just look at this magnificent autumn landscape! Look at it ! look at it ! Feast your eyes on it ! You have trav eled; you have seen boasted landscapes elsewhere. Come, now, deliver an honest opinion. What do you say to this?" I sighed wearily, and murmured: "A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, a pink trip slip for a three-cent fare, punch in the presence of the passen- jare." Rev. Mr. - - stood there, very grave, full of con cern, apparently, and looked long at me; then he said: "Mark, there is something about this that I cannot understand. Those are about the same words you said before; there does not seem to be anything in them, and yet they nearly break my heart when you say them. Punch in the how is it they go?" 8 A LITERARY NIGHTMARE I began at the beginning and repeated all the lines. My friend's face lighted with interest. He said : "Why, what a captivating jingle it is! It is almost music. It flows along so nicely. I have nearly caught the rhymes myself. Say them over just once more, and then I'll have them, sure." I said them over. Then Mr. - - said them. He made one little mistake, which I corrected. The next time and the next he got them right. Now a great bur den seemed to tumble from my shoulders. That tortur ing jingle departed out of my brain, and a grateful sense of rest and peace descended upon me. I was light- hearted enough to sing; and I did sing for half an hour, straight along, as we went jogging homeward. Then my freed tongue found blessed speech again, and the pent talk of many a weary hour began to gush and flow. It flowed on and on, joyously, jubilantly, until the fountain was empty and dry. As I wrung my friend's hand at parting, I said : - "Have n't we had a royal good time? But now I remember, you have n't said a word for two hours. Come, come, out with something!" The Rev. Mr. - - turned a lack-lustre eye upon me, drew a deep sigh, and said, without animation, without apparent consciousness: "Punch, brothers, punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare!" A pang shot through me as I said to myself, "Poor fellow, poor fellow! he has' got it, now." I did not see Mr. for two or three days after that. Then, on Tuesday evening, he staggered into my presence and sank dejectedly into a seat. He was pale, A LITERARY NIGHTMARE 9 worn; he was a wreck. He lifted his faded eyes to my face and said : "Ah, Mark, it was a ruinous investment that I made in those heartless rhymes. They have ridden me like a nightmare, day and night, hour after hour, to this very moment. Since I saw you I have suffered the torments of the lost. Saturday evening I had a sudden call, by telegraph, and took the night train for Boston. The occasion was the death of a valued old friend who had requested that I should preach his funeral sermon. I took my seat in the cars and set myself to framing the discourse. But I never got beyond the opening para graph; for then the train started and the car- wheels began their 'clack-clack-clack-clack! clack-clack-clack- clack ! ' and right away those odious rhymes fitted them selves to that accompaniment. For an hour I sat there and set a syllable of those rhymes to every separate and distinct clack the car-wheels made. Why, I was as fagged out, then, as if I had been chopping wood all day. My skull was splitting with headache. It seemed to me that I must go mad if I sat there any longer; so I un dressed and went to bed. I stretched myself out in my berth, and well, you know what the result was. The thing went right along, just the same. 'Clack-clack- clack, a blue trip slip, clack-clack-clack, for an eight- cent fare; clack-clack-clack, a buff trip slip, clack-clack- clack, for a six-cent fare'; and so on, and so on, and so on - ' 'punch, in the presence of the passenjare ! ' Sleep? Not a single wink ! I was almost a lunatic when I got to Boston. Don't ask me about the funeral. I did the best I could, but every solemn individual sentence was meshed and tangled and woven in and out with ' Punch, 10 A LITERARY NIGHTMARE brothers, punch with care, punch in the presence of the passenjare.' And the most distressing thing was that my delivery dropped into the undulating rhythm of those pulsing rhymes, and I could actually catch absent- minded people nodding time to the swing of it with their stupid heads. And, Mark, you may believe it or not, but before I got through, the entire assemblage were placidly bobbing their heads in solemn unison, mourners, under taker, and all. The moment I had finished, I fled to the anteroom in a state bordering on frenzy. Of course it would be my luck to find a sorrowing and aged maiden aunt of the deceased there, who had arrived from Spring field too late to get into the church. She began to sob, and said: " 'Oh, oh, he is gone, he is gone, and I did n't see him before he died ! ' "'Yes!' I said, 'he is gone, he is gone, he is gone oh, will this suffering never cease?' " ' You loved him, then! Oh, you too loved him!' "'Loved him! Loved who?' '"Why, my poor George! my poor nephew!' " ' Oh - him! Yes oh, yes, yes ! Certainly cer tainly. Punch punch - Oh, this misery will kill me ! ' '"Bless you! bless you, sir, for these sweet words! I, too, suffer in this dear loss. Were you present during his last moments? ' : ' Yes ! I whose last moments? ' '"His. The dear departed's.' "'Yes! .Oh, yes yes yes! I suppose so, I think so, I don't know! Oh, certainly I was there / was there!' '"Oh, what a privilege! what a precious privilege! A LITERARY NIGHTMARE 11 And his last words oh, tell me, tell me his last words ! What did he say?' "He said he said oh, my head, my head, my head ! He said he said he never said anything but Punch, punch, punch in the presence of the passenjare! Oh, leave me, madam ! In the name of all that is gener ous, leave me to my madness, my misery, my despair! a buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, a pink trip slip for a three-cent fare endu-rance can no fur-ther go ! - PUNCH in the presence of the passenjare!" My friend's hopeless eyes rested upon mine a pregnant minute, and then he said impressively: " Mark, you do not say anything. You do not offer me any hope. But, ah me, it is just as well it is just as well. You could not do me any good. The time has long gone by when words could comfort me. Something tells me that my tongue is doomed to wag forever to the jigger of that remorseless jingle. There there it is coming on me again: a blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, a buff trip slip for a Thus murmuring faint and fainter, my friend sank into a peaceful trance and forgot his sufferings in a blessed respite. How did I finally save him from the asylum? I took him to a neighboring university and made him discharge the burden of his persecuting rhymes into the eager ears of the poor, unthinking students. How is it with them, now? The result is too sad to tell. Why did I write this article? It was for a worthy, even a noble, purpose. It was to warn you, reader, if you should come across those merciless rhymes, to avoid them avoid them as you would a pestilence ! PERE ANTOINE'S DATE-PALM A LEGEND OF NEW. ORLEANS BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH NEAR the levee, and not far from the old French Cathe dral, in New Orleans, stands a fine date-palm, some thirty feet high, growing out in the open air as sturdily as if its roots were sucking sap from their native earth. Sir Charles Lyell, in his "Second Visit to the United States," mentions this exotic: "The tree is seventy or eighty years old; for Pere Antoine, a Roman Catholic priest, who died about twenty years ago, told Mr. Bringier that he planted it himself, when he was young. In his will he provided that they who succeeded to this lot of ground should for feit it, if they cut down the palm." Wishing to learn something of Pere Antoine's history, Sir Charles Lyell made inquiries among the ancient Creole inhabitants of the faubourg. That the old priest, in his last days, became very much emaciated, that he walked about the streets like a mummy, that he gradu ally dried up, and finally blew away, was the meagre result of the tourist's investigations. This is all that is generally known of Pere Antoine. Miss Badeau's story clothes these bare facts. When Pere Antoine was a very young man, he had a friend whom he loved as he loved his eyes, fimile Jardin returned his passion, and the two, on account of their PfiRE ANTOINE'S DATE-PALM 13 friendship, became the marvel of the city where they dwelt. One was never seen without the other; for they studied, walked, ate, and slept together. Antoine and fmiile were preparing to enter the Church; indeed, they had taken the preliminary steps, when a circumstance occurred which changed the color of their lives. A foreign lady, from some far-off island in the Pacific, had a few months before moved into their neighbor hood. The lady died suddenly, leaving a girl of sixteen or seventeen entirely friendless and unprovided for. The young men had been kind to the w T oman during her illness, and at her death, melting with pity at the forlorn situation of Anglice, the daughter, swore between them selves to love and watch over her as if she were their sister. Now Anglice had a wild, strange beauty that made other women seem tame beside her ; and in the course of time the young men found themselves regarding their ward not so much like brothers as at first. They strug gled with their destiny manfully, for the holy orders which they were about to assume precluded the idea of love. But every day taught them to be more fond of her. So they drifted on. The weak like to temporize. One night Emile Jardin and Anglice were not to be found. They had flown but whither, nobody knew, and nobody, save Antoine, cared. It was a heavy blow to Antoine for he had half made up his mind to run away with her himself. A strip of paper slipped from a volume on Antoine's desk, and fluttered to his feet. 14 "Do not be angry," said the bit of paper, piteously; "forgive us, for we love." Three years went by. Antoine had entered the Church, and was already looked upon as a rising man; but his face was pale and his heart leaden, for there was no sweetness in life for him. Four years had elapsed, when a letter, covered with outlandish stamps, was brought to the young priest a letter from Anglice. She was dying; would he forgive her? Emile, the year previous, had fallen a victim to the fever that raged on the island; and their child, little Anglice, was likely to follow him. In pitiful terms she begged Antoine to take charge of the child until she was old enough to enter a convent. The epistle was finished by another hand, informing Antoine of Madame Jar- din's death; it also told him that Anglice had been placed on a vessel shortly to leave the island for some Western port. The letter was hardly read and wept over, when little Anglice arrived. On beholding her, Antoine uttered a cry of joy and surprise she was so like the woman he had worshiped. As a man's tears are more pathetic than a woman's, so is his love more intense not more enduring, or half so subtile, but more intense. The passion that had been crowded down in his heart broke out and lavished its richness on this child, who was to him, not only the Anglice of years ago, but his friend Emile Jardin also. Anglice possessed the wild, strange beauty of her mother the bending, willowy form, the rich tint of PfiRE ANTOINE'S DATE-PALM 15 skin, the large tropical eyes, that had almost made Antoine's sacred robes a mockery to him. For a month or two Anglice was wildly unhappy in her new home. She talked continually of the bright country where she was born, the fruits and flowers and blue skies. Antoine could not pacify her. By-and-by she ceased to weep, and went about the cottage with a dreary, disconsolate air that cut Antoine to the heart. Before the year ended, he noticed that the ruddy tinge had fled from her cheek, that her eyes had grown lan guid, and her slight figure more willowy than ever. A physician was called. He could discover nothing wrong with the child, except this fading and drooping. He failed to account for that. It was some vague disease of the mind, he said, beyond his skill. So Anglice faded day after day. She seldom left the room now. Antoine could not shut out the fact that the child was passing away. He had learned to love her so! "Dear heart," he said once, "what is't ails thee?" "Nothing, mon pere" - for so she called him. The winter passed, the balmy spring air had come, and Anglice seemed to revive. In her little bamboo chair, on the porch, she swayed to and fro in the fragrant breeze, with a peculiar undulating motion, like a grace ful tree. At times something seemed to weigh upon her mind. Antoine noticed it, and waited. At length she spoke. "Near our house," said little Anglice, "near our house, on the island, the palm trees are waving under the blue sky. Oh, how beautiful ! I seem to lie beneath them all day long. I am very, very happy. I yearned 16 PfcRE ANTOINE 'S DATE-PALM for them until I grew sick don't you think so, mon pere?" "Mon Dieu, yes!" exclaimed Antoine, suddenly. " Let us hasten to those pleasant islands where the palms are waving." Anglice smiled. "I am going there, mon pere!" Ay, indeed. A week from that evening the wax can dles burned at her feet and forehead, lighting her on the journey. All was over. Now was Antoine's heart empty. He had nothing to do but to lay the blighted flower away. Pere Antoine made a shallow grave in his garden, and heaped the fresh brown mould over his idol. In the genial spring evenings the priest was seen sit ting by the mound, his finger closed in the unread prayer-book. The summer broke on that sunny land; and in the cool morning twilight, and after nightfall, Antoine lin gered by the grave. He could never be with it enough. One morning he observed a delicate stem, with two curiously shaped emerald leaves, springing up from the centre of the mound. At first he merely noticed it casu ally; but at length the plant grew so tall, and was so strangely unlike anything he had ever seen before, that he examined it with care. How straight and graceful and exquisite it was! When it swung to and fro with the summer wind, in the twilight, it seemed to Antoine as if little Anglice were standing there in the garden! The days stole by, and Antoine tended the fragile shoot, wondering what sort of blossom it would unfold, PERE ANTOINE'S DATE-PALM 17 white, or scarlet, or golden. One Sunday, a stranger, with a bronzed, weather-beaten face like a sailor's, leaned over the garden-rail, and said to him : "What a fine young date-palm you have there, sir!" " Mon Dieu ! " cried Pere Antoine, " and is it a palm? " "Yes, indeed," returned the man. " I had no idea the tree would flourish in this climate." " Mon Dieu / " was all the priest could say. If Pere Antoine loved the tree before, he worshiped it now. He watered it, and nurtured it, and could have clasped it in his arms. Here were Emile and Anglice and the child, all in one! The years flew by, and the date-palm and the priest grew together only one became vigorous and the other feeble. Pere Antoine had long passed the meridian of life. The tree was in its youth. It no longer stood in an isolated garden, for homely brick and wooden houses had clustered about Antoine's cottage. They looked down scowling on the humble thatched roof. The city was edging up, trying to crowd him off his land. But he clung to it, and would n't sell. Speculators piled gold on his doorstep, and he laughed at them. Sometimes he was hungry, but he laughed none the less. "Get thee behind me, Satan!" said the old priest's smile. Pere Antoine was very old now, scarcely able to walk; but he could sit under the pliant, caressing loaves of his tree, and there he sat until the grimmest of specu lators came to him. But even in death Pere Antoine was faithful to his trust. The owner of that land loses it, if he harms the date-tree. And there it stands in the narrow, dingy street, a 18 PRE ANTOINE'S DATE-PALM beautiful, dreamy stranger, an exquisite foreign lady whose grace is a joy to the eye, the incense of whose breath makes the air enamored. A precious boon is she to the wretched city; and when loyal men again walk those streets, may the hand wither that touches her ungently ! "Because it grew from the heart of little Anglice," said Miss Badeau, tenderly. ALEC YEATON'S SON GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720 BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE wind it wailed, the wind it moaned, And the white caps flecked the sea; "An' I would to God," the skipper groaned, "I had not my boy with me!" Snug in the stern-sheets, little John Laughed as the scud swept by; But the skipper's sunburnt cheek grew wan As he watched the wicked sky. "Would he were at his mother's side!" And the skipper's eyes were dim. "Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide, What would become of him ! "For me my muscles are as steel, For me let hap what may; I might make shift upon the keel Until the break o' day. " But he, he is so weak and small, So young, scarce learned to stand O pitying Father of us all, I trust him in Thy hand ! 20 ALEC YEATON'S SON " For Thou, who markest from on high A sparrow's fall each one ! Surely, O Lord, thou 'It have an eye On Alec Yeaton's son!" Then, helm hard-port, right straight he sailed Toward the headland light: The wind it moaned, the wind it wailed, And black, black fell the night Then burst a storm to make one quail, Though housed from winds and waves They who could tell about that gale Must rise from watery graves! Sudden it came, as sudden went; Ere half the night was sped, The winds were hushed, the waves were spent, And the stars shone overhead. Now, as the morning mist grew thin, The folk on Gloucester shore Saw a little figure floating in, Secure, on a broken oar! Up rose the cry, "A wreck! a wreck! Pull, mates, and waste no breath!" They knew it, though 't was but a speck Upon the edge of death ! Long did they marvel in the town At God his strange decree, That let the stalwart skipper drown, And the little child go free! A CANADIAN FOLK-SONG BY WILLIAM WILFRID CAMPBELL THE doors are shut, the windows fast; Outside the gust is driving past, Outside the shivering ivy clings, While on the hob the kettle sings. "Margery, Margery, make the tea," Singeth the kettle merrily. The streams are hushed up where they flowed, The ponds are frozen along the road, The cattle are housed in shed and byre, While singe th the kettle on the fire. "Margery, Margery, make the tea," Singeth the kettle merrily. The fisherman on the bay in his boat Shivers and buttons up his coat; The traveler stops at the tavern door, And the kettle answers the chimney's roar. "Margery, Margery, make the tea," Singeth the kettle merrily. The firelight dances upon the wall, Footsteps are heard in the outer hall; A kiss and a welcome that fill the room, And the kettle sings in the glimmer and gloom. "Margery, Margery, make the tea," Singeth the kettle merrily. THE CHILDREN'S CITIES BY ELIZABETH SARA SHEPPARD THERE was a certain king who had three sons, and who, loving them all alike, desired to leave them to reign over his kingdom as brothers, and not one above another. His kingdom consisted of three beautiful cities, di vided by valleys covered with flowers and full of grass; but the cities lay so near each other that from the walls of each you could see the walls of the other two. The first city was called the city of Lessonland, the second the city of Confection, and the third the city of Pastime. The king, feeling himself very old and feeble, sent for the lawyers to write his will for him, that his children might know how he wished them to behave after he was dead. So the lawyers came to the palace and went into the king's bedroom, where he lay in his golden bed, and the will was drawn up as he desired. One day, not long after the will was made, the king's fool was trying to make a boat of a leaf to sail it upon the silver river. And the fool thought the paper on which the will was written would make a better boat for he could not read what was written; so he ran to the palace quickly, and knowing where it was laid, he got the will and made a boat of it and set it sailing upon the river, and away it floated out of sight. And the worst of all was, that the king took such a fright, when the will THE CHILDREN'S CITIES 23 blew away, that he could speak no more when the law yers came back with the golden ink. And he never made another will, but died without telling his sons what he wished them to do. However, the king's sons, though they had little bodies, because they were princes of the Kingdom of Children, were very good little persons, at least, they had not yet been naughty, and had never quarreled, so that the child-people loved them almost as well as they loved each other. The child-people were quite pleased that the princes should rule over them; but they did not know how to arrange, because there was no king's will, and by right the eldest ought to have the whole kingdom. But the eldest, whose name was Gentil, called his brothers to him and said : "I am quite sure, though there is no will, that our royal papa built the three cities that we might each have one to reign over, and not one reign over all. Therefore I will have you both, dear brothers, choose a city to govern over, and I will govern over the city you do not choose." And his brothers danced for joy; and the people too were pleased, for they loved all the three princes. But there were not enough people in the kingdom to fill more than one city quite full. Was not this very odd? Gentil thought so; but, as he could not make out the reason, he said to the child-people: "I will count you, and divide you into three parts, and each part shall go to one city." For, before the king had built the cities, the child- people had lived in the green valleys, and slept on beds of flowers. 24 THE CHILDREN'S CITIES So Joujou, the second prince, chose the city of Pas time; and Bonbon, the youngest prince, chose the city of Confection ; and the city of Lessonland was left for Prince Gentil, who took possession of it directly. First let us see how the good Gentil got on in his city. The city of Lessonland was built of books, all books, and only books. The walls were books, set close like bricks, and the bridges over the rivers (which were very blue) were built of books in arches, and there were books to pave the roads and paths, and the doors of the houses were books with golden letters on the outside. The palace of Prince Gentil was built of the largest books, all bound in scarlet and green and purple and blue and yellow. And inside the palace all the loveliest pictures were hung upon the walls, and the handsomest maps; and in his library were all the lesson-books and all the story-books in the world. Directly Gentil began to reign, he said to himself: - " What are all these books for? They must mean that we are to learn, and to become very clever, in order to be good. I wish to be very clever, and to make my people so; so I must set them a good example." And he called all his child-people together, who would do anything for the love of him, and he said : - "If w r e mean to be of any use in the world, we must learn, learn, learn, and read, read, read, and always be doing lessons." And they said they would, to please him; and they all gathered together in the palace council-chamber, and Gentil set them tasks, the same as he set himself, and they all went home to learn them, while he learned his in the palace. THE CHILDREN'S CITIES 25 Now let us see how Joujou is getting on. He was a good prince, Joujou oh, so fond of fun ! as you may believe, from his choosing the city of Pastime. Oh, that city of Pastime ! how unlike the city of dear, dull Lesson- land! The walls of the city of Pastime were beautiful toy-bricks, painted all the colors of the rainbow; and the streets of the city were filled with carriages just big enough for child-people to drive in, and little gigs, and music-carts, and post-chaises, that ran along by clock work, and such rocking-horses ! And there was not to be found a book in the whole city, but the houses were crammed with toys from the top to the bottom = tops, hoops, balls, battledores, bows and arrows, guns, peep- shows, drums and trumpets, marbles, ninepins, tum blers, kites, and hundreds upon hundreds more, for there you found every toy that ever was made in the world, besides thousands of large wax dolls, all in differ ent court-dresses. And directly Joujou began to reign, he said to himself: "What are all these toys for? They must mean that we are to play always, that we may be always happy. I wish to be very happy, and that my people should be happy, always. Won't I set them an example?" And Joujou blew a penny-trumpet, and got on the back of the largest rocking-horse and rocked with all his might, and cried : " Child-people, you are to play always, for in all the city of Pastime you see nothing else but toys!" The child-people did not wait long: some jumped on rocking-horses, some drove off in carriages, and some in gigs and music-carts. And organs were played, and bells rang, and shuttlecocks and kites flew up the blue 26 THE CHILDREN'S CITIES sky, and there was laughter, laughter, in all the streets of Pastime! And now for little Bonbon, how is he getting on? He was a dear little fat fellow but, oh, so fond of sweets ! as you may believe, from his choosing the city of Con fection. And there were no books in Confection, and no toys; but the walls were built of gingerbread, and the houses were built of gingerbread, and the bridges of barley-sugar, that glittered in the sun. And rivers ran with wine through the streets, sweet wine, such as child- people love; and Christmas-trees grew along the banks of the rivers, with candy and almonds and golden nuts on the branches; and in every house the tables were made of sweet brown chocolate, and there were great plum-cakes on the tables, and little cakes, and all sorts of cakes. And when Bonbon began to reign, he did not think much about it, but began to eat directly, and called out, with his mouth full : - "Child-people, eat always! for in all the city of Con fection there is nothing but cakes and sweets." And did not the child-people fall to, and eat directly, and eat on, and eat always ! Now by this time what has happened to Gentil? for we left him in the city of Lessonland. All the first day he learned the lessons he had set himself, and the people learned theirs too, and they all came to Gentil in the evening to say them to the Prince. But by the time Gentil had heard all the lessons, he was very, very tired so tired that he tumbled asleep on the throne; and when the child-people saw their prince was asleep, they thought they might as well go to sleep too. And when Gentil awoke the next morning, behold ! there were all THE CHILDREN'S CITIES 27 his people asleep on the floor. And he looked at his watch and found it was very late, and he woke up the people, crying, with a very loud voice: - "It is very late, good people!" And the people jumped up, and rubbed their eyes, and cried : - "We have been learning always, and we can no longer see to read; the letters dance before our eyes." And all the child-people groaned, and cried very bit terly behind their books. Then Gentil said : " I will read to you, my people, and that will rest your eyes." And he read them a delightful story about animals; but when he stopped to show them a picture of a lion, the people were all asleep. Then Gentil grew angry, and cried in a loud voice : "Wake up, idle people, and listen!" But when the people woke up, they were stupid, and sat like cats and sulked. So Gentil put the book away, and sent them home, giving them each a long task for their rudeness. The child-people went away; but, as they found only books out of doors, and only books at home, they went to sleep without learning their tasks. And all the fifth day they slept. But on the sixth day Gentil went out to see what they were doing; and they began to throw their books about, and a book knocked Prince Gentil on the head, and hurt him so much that he was obliged to go to bed. And while he was in bed, the people began to fight, and to throw the books at one another. Now as for Joujou and his people, they began to play, 28 THE CHILDREN'S CITIES and went on playing, and did nothing else but play. And would you believe it? they got tired, too. The first day and the second day nobody thought he ever could be tired, among the rocking-horses and whips and marbles and kites and dolls and carriages. But the third day everybody wanted to ride at once, and the carriages were so full that they broke down, and the rocking-horses rocked over, and wounded some little men; and the little women snatched their dolls from one another, and the dolls were broken. And on the fourth day the Prince Joujou cut a hole in the very largest drum, and made the drummer angry; and the drummer threw a drumstick at Joujou, and Prince Jou jou told the drummer he should go to prison. Then the drummer got on the top of the painted wall, and shot arrows at the Prince, which did not hurt him much, because they were toy-arrows, but which made Joujou very much afraid, for he did not wish his people to hate him. "What do you want?" he cried to the drummer. "Tell me what I can do to please you. Shall we play at marbles, or balls, or knock down the golden ninepins? Or shall we have Punch and Judy in the court of the palace?" "Yes! yes!" cried the people, and the drummer jumped down from the wall. "Yes! yes! Punch and Judy! We are tired of marbles, and balls, and ninepins. But we sha'n't be tired of Punch and Judy!" So the people gathered together in the court of the palace, and saw Punch and Judy over and over again, all day long on the fifth day. And they had it so often, that, when the sixth day came, they pulled down the THE CHILDREN'S CITIES 29 stage, and broke Punch to pieces, and burned Judy, and screamed out that they were so hungry they did not know what to do. And the drummer called out: "Let us eat Prince Joujou!" But the people loved him still; so they answered: "No! but we will go out of the city and invade the city of Confection, and fight them, if they won't give us anything to eat!" So out they went, with Joujou at their head; for Jou jou, too, was dreadfully hungry. And they crossed the green valley to the city of Confection, and began to try and eat the gingerbread walls. But the gingerbread was hard, because the walls had been built in ancient days ; and the people tried to get on the top of the walls, and when they had eaten a few holes in the gingerbread, they climbed up by them to the top. And there they saw a dreadful sight. All the people had eaten so much that they were ill, or else so fat that they could not move. And the people were lying about in the streets, and by the side of the rivers of sweet wine, but, oh, so sick, that they could eat no more! And Prince Bonbon, who had got into the largest Christmas-tree, had eaten all the candy upon it, and grown so fat that he could not move, but stuck up there among the branches. When the people of Pastime got upon the walls, however, the people of Confection were very angry; and one or two of those who could eat the most, and who still kept on eating while they were sick, threw apples and cakes at the people of Pastime, and shot Joujou with sugar plums, which he picked up and ate, while his people were eating the plum-cakes, and drinking the wine till they were tipsy. 30 THE CHILDREN'S CITIES As soon as Gentil heard what a dreadful noise his people were making, he got up, though he still felt poorly, and went out into the streets. The people were fighting, alas! worse than ever; and they were trying to pull down the strong book- walls, that they might get out of the city. A good many of them were wounded in the head, as well as Prince Gentil, by the heavy books falling upon them; and Gentil was very sorry for the people. "If you want to go out, good people," he said, "I will open the gates and go with you; but do not pull down the book- walls." And they obeyed Gentil, because they loved him, and Gentil led them out of the city. When they had crossed the first green valley, they found the city of Pastime empty, not a creature in it! and broken toys in the streets. At sight of the toys, the poor book-people cried for joy, and wanted to stop and play. So Gentil left them in the city, and went on alone across the next green valley. But the city of Confection was crammed so full with sick child-people belonging to Bonbon, and with Joujou's hungry ones, that Gentil could not get in at the gate. So he wandered about in the green valleys, very' unhappy, until he came to his old father's palace. There he found the fool, sitting on the banks of the river. "O fool," said Gentil, "I wish I knew what my father meant us to do!" And the fool tried to comfort Gentil; and they walked together by the river where the fool had made the boat of the will, without knowing what it was. They walked a long way, Gentil crying, and the fool trying to com fort him, when suddenly the fool saw the boat he had THE CHILDREN'S CITIES 31 made, lying among some green rushes. And the fool ran to fetch it, and brought it to show Gentil. And Gen- til saw some writing on the boat, and knew it was his father's writing. Then Gentil was glad indeed; he un folded the paper, and thereon he read these words for a good king's words are not washed away by water : "My will and pleasure is, that my dearly beloved sons, Prince Gentil, Prince Joujou, and Prince Bonbon, should all reign together over the three cities which I have built. But there are only enough child-people to fill one city ; for I know that the child-people cannot live always in one city. Therefore let the three princes, with Gentil, the eldest, wearing the crown, lead all the child- people to the city of Lessonland in the morning, that the bright sun may shine upon their lessons and make them pleasant; and Gentil to set the tasks. And in the afternoon let the three princes, with Joujou wearing the crown, lead all the child-people to the city of Pastime, to play until the evening; and Joujou to lead the games. And in the evening let the three princes, with Bonbon wearing the crown, lead all the child-people to the city of Confection, to drink sweet wine and pluck fruit off the Christmas-trees until time for bed; and little Bonbon to cut the cake. And at the time for bed, let the child- people go forth into the green valleys and sleep upon the beds of flowers; for in Child Country it is always spring." This was the king's will, found at last; and Gentil, whose great long lessons had made him wise (though they had tired him too), thought the will the cleverest that was ever made. And he hastened to the city of Confection, and knocked at the gate till they opened it; and he found all the people sick by this time, and very 32 THE CHILDREN'S CITIES pleased to see him, for they thought him very wise. And Gen til read the will in a loud voice; and the people clapped their hands and began to get better directly; and Bonbon called to them to lift him down out of the tree where he had stuck; and Joujou danced for joy. So the king's will was obeyed. And in the morning the people learned their lessons, and afterwards they played, and afterwards they enjoyed their feasts. And at bed-time they slept upon the beds of flowers, in the green valleys: for in Child Country it is always spring. THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS BY JOHN MUIR IN crossing the Atlantic before the days of steamships, or even of the American clippers, the voyages made in old-fashioned sailing vessels were very long. Ours was six weeks and three days. But, because we had no les sons to get, that long voyage had not a dull moment for us boys. There was quite a large number of emigrants aboard, many of them newly married couples, and the advan tages of the different parts of the New World they ex pected to settle in were often discussed. My father started with the intention of going to the backwoods of Upper Canada. Before the end of the voyage, however, he was persuaded that the States offered superior advan tages, especially Wisconsin and Michigan, where the land was said to be as good as in Canada, and far more easily brought under cultivation; for in Canada the woods were so close and heavy that a man might wear out his life in getting a few acres cleared of trees and stumps. So he changed his mind and concluded to go to one of the Western states. On our wavering westward way a grain-dealer in Buffalo told father that most of the wheat he handled came from Wisconsin; and this influential information finally determined my father's choice. At Milwaukee, a farmer who had come in from the country near Fort 34 THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS Winnebago with a load of wheat agreed to haul us and our formidable load of stuff to a little town called Kings ton, for thirty dollars. On that hundred-mile journey, just after the spring thaw, the roads over the prairies were heavy and miry, causing no end of lamentation, for we often got stuck in the mud, and the poor farmer sadly declared that never, never again would he be tempted to try to haul such a cruel, heart-breaking, wagon-breaking, horse-killing load, no, not for a hun dred dollars. On leaving Scotland, father, like many other home- seekers, burdened himself with far too much luggage, as if all America were still a wilderness in which little or nothing could be bought. One of his big iron-bound boxes must have weighed about four hundred pounds, for it contained an old-fashioned beam-scales with a complete set of cast-iron counterweights, two of them fifty-six pounds each, a twenty-eight, and so on, down to a single pound; also a lot of iron wedges, carpenter's tools, etc. And at Buffalo, as if on the very edge of the wilderness, he gladly added to his burden a big cast-iron stove, with pots and pans, provisions enough to stand a long siege, and a scythe and cumbersome cradle for cut ting wheat, all of which he succeeded in landing in the primeval Wisconsin woods. A land agent at Kingston gave father a note to a farmer by the name of Alexander Gray, who lived on the border of the settled part of the country, knew the section-lines, and would probably help him to find a good place for a farm. So father went away to spy out the land, and, in the meantime, left us children in Kings ton in a rented room. THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS 35 It took us less than an hour to get acquainted with some of the boys in the village; we challenged them to wrestle, run races, climb trees, and the like, and in a day or two we felt at home, care-free and happy, not withstanding that our family was so widely divided. When father returned, he told us that he had found fine land for a farm in sunny open woods on the side of a lake, and that a team of three yoke of oxen, with a big wagon, was coming to haul us to Mr. Gray's place. We enjoyed the strange ten-mile ride through the woods very much, wondering how the great oxen could be so strong and wise and tame as to pull so heavy a load with no other harness than a chain and a crooked piece of wood on their necks, and how they could sway so obediently to right and left, past roadside trees and stumps, when the driver said haw and gee. At Mr. Gray's house father again left us for a few days, to build a shanty on the quarter-section he had selected four or five miles to the westward. Meanwhile we enjoyed our freedom as usual, wandering in the fields and mead ows, looking at the trees and flowers, snakes and birds and squirrels. With the help of the nearest neighbors the little shanty was built in less than a day, after the rough bur-oak logs for the walls and the white-oak boards for the floor and roof were got together. Soon after our arrival in the woods, some one added a cat and puppy to the animals father had bought. The pup was a common cur, though very uncommon to us: a black-and-white short-haired mongrel that we named Watch. We always gave him a pan of milk in the even ing just before we knelt in family worship, while daylight still lingered in the shanty; and instead of attending 36 THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS to the prayers, I too often studied the small wild crea tures playing round us. Field-mice scampered about the cabin as if it had been built for them alone, and their performances were very amusing. About dusk, on one of the calm, sultry nights so grateful to moths and bee tles, when the puppy was lapping his milk, and we were on our knees, in through the door came a heavy, broad- shouldered beetle about as big as a mouse; and after droning and booming round the cabin two or three times, the pan of milk, showing white in the gloaming, caught its eyes and, taking good aim, it alighted with a slanting, glinting plash in the middle of the pan, like a duck alighting in a lake. Baby Watch, having never before seen anything like that beetle, started back, gaz ing in dumb astonishment and fear at the black sprawl ing monster trying to swim. Recovering somewhat from his fright, he began to bark at the creature, and ran round and round his milk-pan, wouf-woufing, gurring, growling, like an old dog barking at a wild-cat or a bear. The natural astonishment and curiosity of that boy-dog getting his first entomological lesson in this wonderful world was so immoderately funny, that I had great difficulty in keeping from laughing out loud. Watch never became a first-rate scholar, though he learned more than any stranger would judge him capa ble of, was a bold, faithful watch-dog, and in his prime a grand fighter, able to whip all the other dogs in the neighborhood. Comparing him with ourselves, we soon learned that, although he could not read books, he could read faces, was a good judge of character, always knew what was going on and what we were about to do, and liked to help us. We could run almost as fast as he THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS 37 could, see about as far, and perhaps hear as well, but in the sense of smell his nose was incomparably better than ours. One winter morning when the ground was covered with snow, I noticed that, when he was yawning and stretch ing himself, after leaving his bed, he suddenly caught the scent of something that excited him, went round the corner of the house, and looked intently to the west ward across a tongue of land that we called West Bank, eagerly questioned the air with quivering nostrils, and bristled up as if he felt sure that there was something dangerous in that direction and had actually caught sight of it. Then he ran toward the Bank, and I followed him, curious to see what his nose had discovered. The top of the Bank commanded a view of the north end of our lake and meadow, and when we got there we saw an Indian hunter, armed with a long spear, going about from one muskrat cabin to another, approaching cautiously, careful to make no noise, and then suddenly thrusting his spear down through the house. If well- aimed, the spear went through the poor beaver-rat as it lay cuddled up in the snug nest it had made for itself in the fall with so much far-seeing care; and when the hunter felt the spear quivering, he dug down the mossy hut with his tomahawk and secured his prey the flesh for food, and the skin to sell for a dime or so. This was a clear object lesson on dogs' keenness of scent. That In dian was more than half a mile away across a wooded ridge. Had the hunter been a white man, I suppose Watch would not have noticed him. When he was about six or seven years old he not only became cross, so that he would do only what he liked, 1 4 3 7 15 5 38 THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS but he fell on evil ways, and was accused by the neigh bors who had settled round us of catching and devouring whole broods of chickens, some of them only a day or two out of the shell. We never imagined he would do anything so grossly undoglike. He never did at home. But several of the neighbors declared over and over again that they had caught him in the act, and insisted that he must be shot. At last, in spite of tearful pro tests, he was condemned and executed. Father exam ined the poor fellow's stomach in search of sure evidence, and discovered the heads of eight chickens that he had devoured at his last meal. So poor Watch was killed simply because his taste for chickens was too much like our own. The old Scotch fashion of whipping for every act of disobedience or of simple, playful forgetfulness was still kept up in the wilderness, and of course many of those whippings fell upon me. Most of them were outrage ously severe, and utterly barren of fun. But here is one that was nearly all fun. Father was busy hauling lumber for the frame house that was to be got ready for the arrival of my mother, sisters, and brother, left behind in Scotland. One morn ing, when he was ready to start for another load, his ox- whip was not to be found. He asked me if I knew any thing about it. I told him I did n't know where it was; but a Scotch conscience compelled me to confess that, when I was playing with it, I had tied it to Watch's tail, and that he ran away, dragging it through the grass, and came back without it. "It must have slipped off his tail," I said, and so I did n't know where it was. This honest, straightforward little story made father THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS 39 so angry that he exclaimed with heavy foreboding em phasis, "The very deevil 's in that boy!" David, who had been playing with me, and was perhaps about as responsible for the loss of the whip as I was, said never a word, for he was always prudent enough to hold his tongue when the parental weather was stormy, and so escaped nearly all punishment. And strange to say, this time I also escaped, all except a terrible scolding, though the thrashing weather seemed darker than ever. As if unwilling to let the sun see the shameful job, father took me into the cabin where the storm was to fall, and sent David to the woods for a switch. While he was out selecting the switch, father put in the spare time sketching my play- wickedness in awful colors, and, of course, referred again and again to the place prepared for bad boys. In the midst of this terrible word-storm, dreading most the impending thrashing, I whimpered that I was only playing because I could n't help it; did n't know I was doing wrong; would n't do it again, and so forth. When this miserable dialogue was about exhausted, father became impatient with my brother for taking so much time to find the switch; and I was equally so, for I wanted to have the thing over and done with. At last, in came David, a picture of open-hearted innocence, solemnly dragging a young bur-oak sapling, and handed the end of it to father, saying it was the best switch he could find. It was an awfully heavy one, about two and a half inches thick at the butt and ten feet long, almost big enough for a fence-pole. There was n't room enough in the cabin to swing it, and the moment I saw it I burst out laughing in the midst of my 40 THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS fears. But father failed to see the fun and was very angry at David, heaved the bur-oak outside, and pas sionately demanded his reason for fetching" sic a muckle rail like that instead o' a switch? Do ye ca' that a switch? I have a gude mind to thrash you instead o' John." David, with demure downcast eyes, looked preter- naturally righteous, but as usual prudently answered never a word. It was a hard job in those days to bring up Scotch boys in the way they should go; and poor overworked father was determined to do it if enough of the right kind of switches could be found. But this time, as the sun was getting high, he hitched up Tom and Jerry and made haste to the Kingston lumber-yard, leaving me unscathed and as innocently wicked as ever; for hardly had father got fairly out of sight among the oaks and hickories, ere all our troubles, hell-threatenings, and ex hortations were forgotten in the fun we had lassoing a stubborn old sow and laboriously trying to teach her to go reasonably steady in rope harness. She was the first hog that father bought to stock the farm, and we boys regarded her as a very wonderful beast. In a few weeks she had a lot of pigs, and of all the queer, funny animal children we had yet seen, none amused us more. They were so comic in size and shape, in their gait and ges tures and merry sham fights, and in the false alarms they got up for the fun of scampering back to their mother. After her darling short-snouted babies were about a month old, she took them out to the woods and gradu ally roamed farther and farther from the shanty in search of acorns and roots. One afternoon we heard a THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS 41 rifle-shot, a very noticeable thing, as we had no near neighbors as yet. We thought it must have been fired by an Indian, on the trail that followed the right bank of the Fox River between Portage and Packwaukee Lake and passed our shanty at a distance of about three quar ters of a mile. Just a few minutes after that shot was heard, along came the poor mother, rushing up to the shanty for protection, with her pigs, all out of breath and terror-stricken. One of them was missing and we supposed, of course, that an Indian had shot it for food. Next day, I discovered a blood-puddle where the Indian trail crossed the outlet of our lake. One of father's hired men told us that the Indians thought nothing of levying this sort of blackmail whenever they were hungry. The solemn awe and fear in the eyes of that old mother and little pigs I never can forget; it was as unmistakable and deadly a fear as I ever saw expressed by any human eye, and corroborates in no uncertain way the oneness of all of us. Coming direct from school in Scotland, while we were still hopefully ignorant and far from tame, not withstand ing the unnatural profusion of teaching and thrashing lavished upon us, getting acquainted with the animals about us was a never-failing source of wonder and delight. At first my father, like nearly all the back woods settlers, bought a yoke of oxen to do the farm work; and as field after field was cleared, the number was gradually increased until we had five yoke. These wise, patient, plodding animals did all the ploughing, logging, hauling, and hard work of every sort for the first four or five years; and never having seen oxen be fore, we looked at them with the same eager freshness 42 THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS of conception as at the wild animals. We worked with them, sympathized with them in their rest and toil and play, and thus learned to know them far better than we should have done had we been only trained scientific naturalists. We soon learned that each ox and cow and calf had its own individual character. Old white-faced Buck, one of the second yoke of oxen that we owned, was a notably sagacious fellow. He seemed to reason sometimes almost like ourselves. In the fall we fed the cattle lots of pump- , kins, and had to split them open so that mouthfuls could be'readily broken off. But Buck never waited for us to come to his help. The others, when they were hungry and impatient, tried to break through the hard rind with their teeth, but seldom with success, if the pumpkin was full-grown. Buck never wasted time in this mum bling, slavering way, but crushed them with his head. He went to the pile, picked out a good one, like a boy choosing an orange or apple, rolled it down on to the open ground, deliberately knelt in front of it, placed his broad flat brow on top of it, brought his weight hard down and crushed it, then quietly arose and went on with his meal in comfort. Some would call this "in stinct," as if so-called "blind instinct" must necessarily make an ox stand on its head to break pumpkins when its teeth got sore, or when nobody came with an axe to split them. Another fine ox showed his skill when hun gry by opening all the fences that stood in his way to the corn-fields. When we went to Portage, our nearest town, about ten or. twelve miles from the farm, it would oftentimes be late before we got back; and in the summer-time, in THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS 43 sultry, rainy weather, the clouds were full of sheet- lightning, which every minute or two would suddenly illumine the landscape, revealing all its features, the hills and valleys, meadows and trees, about as fully and clearly as the noonday sunshine; then as suddenly the glorious light would be quenched, making the darkness seem denser than before. On such nights the cattle had to find the way home without any help from us, but they never got off the track, for they followed it by scent, like dogs. Once father, returning late from Port age or Kingston, compelled Tom and Jerry, our first oxen, to leave the dim track, imagining they must be going wrong. At last they stopped and refused to go farther. Then father unhitched them from the wagon, took hold of Tom's tail, and was thus led straight to the shanty. Next morning he set out to seek his wagon, and found it on the brow of a steep hill above an impassable swamp. As I was the eldest boy, I had the care of our first span of work-horses. Their names were Nob and Nell. Nob was very intelligent, and even affectionate, and could learn almost anything. Nell was entirely different, balky and stubborn, though we managed to teach her a good many circus tricks; but she never'seemed to like to play with us in anything like an affectionate way as Nob did. We turned them out one day into the pasture, and an Indian, hiding in the brush that had sprung up after the grass-fires had been put out, managed to catch Nob, tied a rope to her jaw for a bridle, rode her to Green Bay, seventy-five or a hundred miles away, and tried to sell her for fifteen dollars. All our hearts were sore, as if one of the family had been lost. We hunted everywhere, and could not at first imagine what had 44 THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS become of her. We discovered her track where the fence was broken down, and following it for a few miles, made sure the track was Nob's; and a neighbor told us he had seen an Indian riding fast through the woods on a horse that looked like Nob. But we could find no further trace of her, until a month or two after she was lost and we had given up hope of ever seeing her again. Then we learned that she had been taken from an Indian by a farmer at Green Bay, because he saw that she had been shod and had worked in harness. So when the Indian tried to sell her the farmer said, " You are a thief. That is a white man's horse. You stole her." "No," said the Indian, "I brought her from Prairie du Chien, and she has always been mine." The man, pointing to her feet and the marks of the harness, said, "You are lying. I will take that horse away from you and put her in my pasture, and if you come near it I will set the dogs on you." Then he advertised her. One of our neighbors hap pened to see the advertisement and brought us the glad news, and great was our rejoicing when father brought her home. That Indian must have treated her with ter rible cruelty, for when I was riding her through the pas ture several years afterward, looking for another horse that we wanted to catch, as we approached the place where she had been captured, she stood stock-still, gaz ing through the bushes, fearing the Indian might still be hiding there ready to spring; and so excited that she trembled, and her heart-beats were so loud that I could hear them distinctly when I was sitting on her back, boomp, boomp, boomp, like the drumming of a partridge. So vividly had she remembered her terrible experiences. THE BLUE AND THE GRAY BY FRANCIS MILES FINCH BY the flow of the inland river, Whence the fleets of iron have fted, Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, Asleep are the ranks of the dead, Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day, Under the one, the Blue; Under the other, the Gray. These in the robings of glory, Those in the gloom of defeat, All with the battle-blood gory, In the dusk of eternity meet, Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day, Under the laurel, the Blue; Under the willow, the Gray. From the silence of sorrowful hours The desolate mourners go, Lovingly laden with flowers Alike for the friend and the foe, Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day, Under the roses, the Blue; Under the lilies, the Gray. 46 THE BLUE AND THE GRAY So with an equal splendor The morning sun-rays fall, With a touch, impartially tender, On the blossoms blooming for all, Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day, Broidered with gold, the Blue; Mellowed with gold, the Gray. So, when the Summer calleth, On forest and field of grain With an equal murmur falleth The cooling drip of the rain, Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day, - Wet with the rain, the Blue; " Wet with the rain, the Gray. Sadly, but not with upbraiding, The generous deed was done; In the storm of the years that are fading, No braver battle was won. Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day, Under the blossoms, the Blue, Under the garlands, the Gray. No more shall the war-cry sever, Or the winding river be red; They banish our anger forever When they laurel the graves of our dead! Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day, Love and tears for the Blue, Tears and love for the Gray. A DAKOTA BLIZZARD THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB As the time for blizzards comes round again, I pro pose to invite the Club to meet at our camp in Rosebud Agency, southern Dakota. To prepare the minds of the members, let me recall our experience of last January. We knew before we got out of bed, in this little govern ment schoolhouse, that the most awful storm we had ever witnessed was imminent. Lilia drew the curtain back from the window by the bed, to see if it were time to get up, and her exclamation brought me to the win dow at once. The sky was inky. In a few minutes, the storm began, and in half an hour it was at its height. Lilia ventured a few yards out of the front door at its beginning, and was near not getting back. The wind struck her with such violence as to bring her head down to a level with her knees, and take away her breath. She said that she was near falling on her face, and she knew that if she fell she would not get up again. She got to the house, bent at the angle into which the wind had forced her. The storm raged, without one moment's abatement or lull, during the whole day and far into the night, when we fell asleep. At first the little frame building creaked and shivered like a ship at sea, and we won dered how anything constructed by the hand of man could stand against that wind. After the first half hour, 48 A DAKOTA BLIZZARD it was impossible to distinguish the sound of groaning timbers, for the ears were filled with the rush of the ele ments. It was like the roar and surging of a mighty ocean. We were glad that we were not the first inhabitants, for we should have thought that the earth had slipped her orbit and was rushing through space, or that the Last Judgment was about to be ushered in. Being in the house, we could see out a few yards on one side the side from which the storm did not come. On the other three sides, the snow beat and came in (though the house is close and tight), and went half way across the schoolroom. It hung in a beautiful fringe, several inches long, from the drying-rope stretched across the room, and festooned the maps on the walls, and finally blocked up the windows till they were as impenetrable as snow-banks. It was a comfort to us to believe, as we then did, that this greatest of all the blizzards had set in as early in other camps as in ours, and that no human being was exposed to its fury. No sun had risen over our heads on that day, and we had rung no school-bell ; we could not know that bells were ringing from many a prairie school- house, and that the fair promise of the day was luring men, women, and children to their doom. We were gaz ing, awestruck but calm, from our window, and saying that we wished for a photographer to picture forth the arctic interior of a government schoolhouse in a Dakota blizzard, and for an artist, great in portraying Nature's moods, to immortalize on canvas the tempest-tossed prairie without. On the afternoon preceding this destructive day, no A DAKOTA BLIZZARD 49 snow fell, but the force of the wind was so great that it lifted up from the boundless prairie the accumulated drifts of weeks, and carried them along in great waves, so that the whole earth seemed in motion and rising heavenward. The outline of these vast billows and the intervening troughs, as seen against the horizon, was the most impressive sight that had ever met our eyes. On the morning of the 13th, the mercury registered twenty -five degrees below zero, and the wind was blow ing cruelly. The drifts between us and the village were so deep that we thought it unsafe to ring for the children. But they came over the half mile, through drifts waist- deep to large children, and the two faithful policemen, Stiff Arm and Cut Foot, came to see how we had got through the blizzard. (Cut Foot's name was a sore trouble to us when first we came to these Indians. When I called him or spoke to him, Cut Throat seemed invariably to slip off my tongue. Lilia objected seri ously, but it was not till after some very plain words and several private rehearsals, that I finally got the right name fixed in my head.) The schoolroom was not to be thought of on that bitter day, and we brought the children and the police men into our bedroom to thaw out. We ran the mercury up to one hundred and ten degrees within two feet of the stove ; at a distance of eight feet, it was ninety-five degrees lower. Not one of the children uttered a sound of complaint; but the big tears rolled silently down the swollen cheeks of one of the little girls when the genial warmth of the room began to make her comfortable. Presently the third policeman, One Feather, rode up from the Agency, fifteen miles distant. His nose was 50 A DAKOTA BLIZZARD badly frosted, and his usually thin face was swollen past recognition. As he had assured us, on our first coming, that he wished to be a "sister" to us, we put him in the warmest corner. Our fifteen-mile-off neighbor, the young teacher at the next camp, stepped in one evening to ask if we could give him a bed for the night. He had been trying all day to get to his camp, and had consumed four hours in traveling one mile and a half. His plucky little Indian pony dragged the wagon through the heavy drifts by main force, the wheels not turning, and the horse wad dling where he could not walk. The faithful creature was quite exhausted. A sheet of ice inclosed his nose, and an icicle more than a foot long hung from it. This gentle animal, during the blizzard of the twelfth, not only broke his halter, but pawed down a thick stable- door, with hinges a foot long. His master went out into the storm to see how he was faring. He spent two hours looking for him, though he was only a few yards away. When found, he was a mass of ice, his eyes nearly closed by it, and a giant icicle hanging from his nose. Mr. Warner's own eyelashes froze every time he winked, and he had to hold his hand to his face and send the hot breath up to them before he could open them again. We hear that this is common enough in Dakota, but Lilia and I don't stay out long enough to wink. MY REAL ESTATE THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB MOST of us cherish a more or less concealed desire to own some one special object just beyond our financial reach. Perhaps you have always wanted a steam yacht; your neighbor confessed to me the other night that from boyhood he had longed to possess a locomotive. " What a king among pets that would be ! " he exclaimed ; then laughed, shamefacedly, to assure me that he was joking. But I had seen the gleam in his eyes, and knew he meant it. I have a friend whose modest salary barely suffices for the support of the family; and I happen to know that his dearest ambition for years has been to own a Kelmscott Chaucer. If the prices for the output of that celebrated press continue to fall, as they have fallen in recent auctions, his wish may yet be gratified. With this preamble, let me confess that my pet desire has long been to possess a piece of real estate ; and that I am now actually a real-estate owner in an odd kind of way. This is how it happened. At the foot of a certain slope of rough pasture-land, in one of the southern counties of Maine, is a brook where I often fished when a boy. So familiar to me are its banks, that on sleepless nights I have more than once fished the stream, in memory, for a mile or more, recalling every rapid, pool, and mimic cascade, and pausing now and then to 52 MY REAL ESTATE take a trout from the spots where in the old days I was surest of success. My father was my chosen companion for these little fishing excursions; and when at last we had wound up our lines, and shouldered or thrown away our rods (cut from some alders at the brookside), we made our way wearily but happily back, up the rising ground, through tangled thickets of pine and juniper and sweet-fern, fragrant in the hot forenoon sunshine, toward the old farmhouse, a mile away. Half-way to the house, the path brought us to a huge pine, some six feet in diameter, standing by itself on a grassy hillock of the pasture. Here, in the grateful shade of the far-spreading green boughs, with their soft music above us, we always threw ourselves down on the grass and rested before resuming our journey homeward. It is many years since that dear and gentle comrade passed from my sight; but at long intervals I find time to fish the little trout-stream, to inhale the fragrance of the sweet-fern, and to pause under the old pine and listen to its songs of eternity. Not long ago I heard that the owner of the pasture had decided to sell that tree to a lumber firm. My re solve was quickly taken. Would he accept I named a small sum and leave the tree standing, as my sole property? Well, he "reckoned he would. 'T was more 'n the lumber company offered." The money was paid down and the deed was solemnly drawn up, signed, sealed, and passed. The pine tree was, and is, my own, and constitutes my sole "real" possession. Just what my legal rights are in the premises, I am sure I do not know. Not an inch of the surrounding land is mine - only the tree, above and below ground: the great, MY REAL ESTATE 53 knotty trunk; the far-spreading, singing boughs, tas- seled with green, and the strong roots, an inverted tree underground. Tenants I have, a-plenty. Never yet, I believe, have I looked up into the shining galleries and sun-lighted halls of my building not made with hands, but I have caught glimpses of a flitting wing, or heard a low, sweet warble from some hidden chamber high up in the topmost stories. Even in winter, a sable-plumed visitor pauses occasionally on its lofty window-ledges, ere he utters a single, startled "Caw!" and sails away across the snowy pasture, to a remoter covert beyond the marsh. Or, perchance, the stranger is decked in colors of the December sky and earth. He raises his saucy crest, and, by way of leaving his visiting-card, screams at me, "Jay! Jay!" To-day a flock of snow-birds, cloud-colored and wintry, drift through the lower branches like wind-swept leaves from the neighboring oak. As darkness falls, the birds nestle in shadowed nooks, or seek more sheltered resting-places for their little feet. Then enters another tenant, even more constant than they. It is the night wind; and through the long hours when the moonlight is steel-bright on the crisp snow, and the stars are alight above, the sleepless wind mur murs and chants its surf -songs in the swaying branches, the mysterious depths of the great pine. HAVE you seen Annie and Kitty, Two merry children of mine? All that is winning and pretty Their little persons combine. Annie is kissing and clinging Dozens of times in a day Chattering, laughing, and singing, Romping, and running away. Annie knows all of her neighbors, Dainty and dirty alike Learns all their talk, and, "Be jabers,' Says she "adores little Mike!" Annie goes mad for a flower, Eager to pluck and destroy; Cuts paper dolls by the hour; Always her model a boy ! Annie is full of her fancies, Tells most remarkable lies (Innocent little romances), Startling in one of her size. MY CHILDREN 55 Three little prayers we have taught her, Graded from winter to spring; Oh, you should listen my daughter Saying them all in a string! Kitty ah, how my heart blesses Kitty, my lily, my rose! Wary of all my caresses, Chary of all she bestows. Kitty loves quietest places, Whispers sweet sermons to chairs, And, with the gravest of faces, Teaches old Carlo his prayers. Matronly, motherly creature! Oh, what a doll she has built Guiltless of figure or feature Out of her own little quilt ! Nought must come near it to wake it; Noise must not give it alarm; And when she sleeps, she must take it Into her bed, on her arm. Kitty is shy of a caller, Uttering never a word; But when alone in the parlor, Talks to herself like a bird. Kitty is contrary, rather, And, with a comical smile, Mutters, "I won't," to her father Eyeing him slyly the while. 56 MY CHILDREN Loving one more than the other Is n't the thing, I confess; And I observe that their mother Makes no distinction in dress. Preference must be improper In a relation like this; I would n't toss up a copper Kitty, come, give me a kiss! A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH ONE morning last April, as I was passing through Boston Common, which lies pleasantly between my residence and my office, I met a gentleman lounging along the Mall. I am generally preoccupied when walk ing, and often thrid my way through crowded streets without distinctly observing a single soul. But this man's face forced itself upon me, and a very singular face it was. His eyes were faded, and his hair, which he wore long, was flecked with gray. His hair and eyes, if I may say so, were seventy years old, the rest of him not thirty. The youthfulness of his figure, the elasticity of his gait, and the venerable appearance of his head, were incongruities that drew more than one pair of curious eyes toward him. He was evidently an Ameri can, the New England cut of countenance is unmis takable, evidently a man who had seen something of the world; but strangely old and young. Before reaching the Park Street gate, I had taken up the thread of thought which he had unconsciously broken; yet throughout the day this old young man, with his un wrinkled brow and silvered locks, glided in like a phantom between me and my duties. The next morning I again encountered him on the Mall. He was resting lazily on the green rails, watching two little sloops in distress, which two ragged ship- 58 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE owners had consigned to the mimic perils of the Pond. The vessels lay becalmed in the middle of the ocean, dis playing a tantalizing lack of sympathy with the frantic helplessness of the owners on shore. As the gentleman observed their dilemma, a light came into his faded eyes, then died out, leaving them drearier than before. I wondered if he, too, in his time, had sent out ships that drifted and drifted and never came tc port; and if these poor toys were to him types of his own losses. "I would like to know that man's story," I said, half aloud, halting in one of those winding paths which branch off from the quietness of the Pond, and end in the rush and tumult of Tremont Street. "Would you?" replied a voice at my side. I turned and faced Mr. H , a neighbor of mine, who laughed heartily at finding me talking to myself. "Well," he added reflectingly, "I can tell you this man's story; and if you will match the narrative with anything as curi ous, I shall be glad to hear it." "You know him, then?" " Yes, and no. I happened to be in Paris when he was buried." "Buried!" "Well, strictly speaking, not buried; but something quite like it. If you 've a spare half-hour," continued my interlocutor, "we'll sit on this bench, and I will tell you all I know of an affair that made some noise in Paris a couple of years ago. The gentleman himself, standing yonder, will serve as a sort of frontispiece to the romance a full-page illustration, as it were." The following pages contain the story that Mr. H related to me. While he was telling it, a gentle wind A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 59 arose; the miniature sloops drifted feebly about the ocean ; the wretched owners flew from point to point, as the deceptive breeze promised to waft the barks to either shore ; the early robins trilled now and then from the newly fringed elms; and the old young man leaned on the rail in the sunshine, wearily, little dreaming that two gossips were discussing his affairs within twenty yards of him. Three people were sitting in a chamber whose one large window overlooked the Place Vendome. M. Do- rine, with back half turned on the other two occupants of the apartment, was reading the "Moniteur," paus ing from time to time to wipe his glasses, and taking scrupulous pains not to glance towards the lounge at his right, on which were seated Mademoiselle Dorine and a young American gentleman, whose handsome face rather frankly told his position in the family. There was not a happier man in Paris that afternoon than Philip Wentworth. Life had become so delicious to him that he shrunk from looking beyond to-day. What could the future add to his full heart? what might it not take away? In certain natures the deepest joy has always something of melancholy in it, a presentiment, a fleeting sadness, a feeling without a name. Wentworth was conscious of this subtile shadow, that night, when he rose from the lounge, and thoughtfully held Julie's hand to his lip for a moment before parting. A careless ob server would not have thought him, as he was, the hap piest man in Paris. M. Dorine laid down his paper and came forward. "If the house," he said, "is such as M. Martin describes 60 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE it, I advise you to close with him at once. I would accompany you, Philip, but the truth is, I am too sad at losing this little bird to assist you in selecting a cage for her. Remember, the last train for town leaves at five. Be sure not to miss it; for we have seats for M. Sardou's new comedy to-morrow night. By to-morrow night," he added laughingly, "little Julie here will be an old lady 't is such an age from now until then." The next morning the train bore Philip to one of the loveliest spots within thirty miles of Paris. An hour's walk through green lanes brought him to M. Martin's estate. In a kind of dream the young man wandered from room to room, inspected the conservatory, the stables, the lawns, the strip of woodland through which a merry brook sang to itself continually; and, after din ing with M. Martin, completed the purchase, and turned his steps toward the station, just in time to catch the express train. As Paris stretched out before him, with its million lights twinkling in the early dusk, and its sharp spires here and there pricking the sky, it seemed to Philip as if years had elapsed since he left the city. On reaching Paris he drove to his hotel, where he found several let ters lying on the table. He did not trouble himself even to glance at their superscriptions, as he threw aside his traveling surtout for a more appropriate dress. If, in his impatience to see Mademoiselle Dorine, the cars had appeared to walk, the fiacre which he had secured at the station appeared to creep. At last it turned into the Place Vendome, and drew up before M. Dorine's residence. The door opened as Philip's foot touched the first step. The servant silently took his A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 61 cloak and hat, with a special deference, Philip thought; but was he not now one of the family? "M. Dorine," said the servant slowly, "is unable to see monsieur at present. He wishes monsieur to be shown up to the salon." "Is mademoiselle "Yes, monsieur." "Alone?" "Alone, monsieur," repeated the man, looking curi ously at Philip, who could scarcely repress an exclama tion of pleasure. It was the first time that such n r^' 1 accorded I"- this \v after! J: A which he dei and stealthily o x The room was a. stood a slim black cas a crucifix, and some whiu by. Julie Dorine was dead. When M. Dorine heard thv rang through the silent house, IK brary, and found Philip standing u middle of the chamber. It was not until long afterwards that learned the details of the calamity that haa 62 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE him. On the previous night Mademoiselle Dorine had retired to her room in seemingly perfect health. She dismissed her maid, with a request to be awakened early the next morning. At the appointed hour the girl en tered the chamber. Mademoiselle Dorine was sitting in an arm-chair, apparently asleep. The candle had burned down to the socket; a book lay half open on the carpet at her feet. The girl started when she saw that the bed had not been occupied, and that her mistress still wore an evening dress. She rushed to Mademoi selle Dorine's side. It was not slumber. It was death. Two messages were at once despatched to Philip, one to the station at G , the other to his hotel. The first missed him on the road, the second he had neglected to open. On his arrival at M. Dorine's house, the servant, under the supposition that Wentworth had been ad vised of Mademoiselle Dorine's death, broke the intel ligence with awkward cruelty, by showing him directly to the salon. Mademoiselle Dorine's wealth, her beauty, the sud denness of her death, and the romance that had in some way attached itself to her love for the young American, drew crowds to witness the funeral ceremonies, which took place in the church in rue d'Aguesseau. The body was to be laid in M. Dorine's tomb, in the cemetery of Montmartre. This tomb requires a few words of description. First, there was a grating of filigraned iron; through this you looked into a small vestibule or hall, at the end of which was a massive door of oak opening upon a short flight of stone steps descending into the tomb. The vault was fifteen or twenty feet square, ingeniously ventilated A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 63 from the ceiling, but unlighted. It contained two sar cophagi: the first held the remains of Madame Dorine, long since dead; the other was new, and bore on one side the letters J. D., in monogram, interwoven with fleurs-de-lis. The funeral train stopped at the gate of the small gar den that enclosed the place of burial, only the immediate relatives following the bearers into the tomb. A slender wax candle, such as is used in Catholic churches, burned at the foot of the uncovered sarcophagus, casting a dim glow over the centre of the apartment, and deepening the shadows which seemed to huddle together in the corners. By this flickering light the coffin was placed in its granite shell, the heavy slab laid over it reverently, and the oaken door revolved on its rusty hinges, shut ting out the uncertain ray of sunshine that had ventured to peep in on the darkness. M. Dorine, muffled in his cloak, threw himself on the back seat of the carriage, too abstracted in his grief to observe that he was the only occupant of the vehicle. There was a sound of wheels grating on the graveled avenue, and then all was silence again in the cemetery of Montmartre. At the main entrance the carriages parted company, dashing off into various streets at a pace that seemed to express a sense of relief. The band plays a dead march going to the grave, but "Fra Dia- volo" coming from it. It is not with the retreating carriages that our inter est lies ; nor yet wholly with the dead in her mysterious dream; but with Philip Went worth. The rattle of wheels had died out of the air when Philip abruptly roused from slumber. He raised himself 64 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE on one arm and stared into the surrounding blackness. Where was he? In a second the truth flashed upon him. He had been left in the tomb! While kneeling on the farther side of the stone box, perhaps he had fainted, and during the last solemn rites his absence had been unnoticed. His first emotion was one of natural terror. But this passed as quickly as it came. Life had ceased to be so very precious to him; and if it were his fate to die at Julie's side, was not that the fulfillment of the desire which he had expressed to himself a hundred times that morning? What did it matter, a few years sooner or later? He must lay down the burden at last. Why not then? A pang of self-reproach followed the thought. Could he so lightly throw aside the love that had bent over his cradle. The sacred name of mother rose invol untarily to his lips. Was it not cowardly to yield up without a struggle the life which he should guard for her sake? Was it not his duty to the living and the dead to face the difficulties of his position, and overcome them if it were within human power? With an organization as delicate as a woman's, he had that spirit which, however sluggish in repose, can leap with a kind of exultation to measure its strength with disaster. The vague fear of the supernatural, which would affect most men in a similar situation, found no room in his heart. He was simply shut in a chamber from which it was necessary that he should obtain release within a given period. That this chamber contained the body of the woman he loved, so far from adding to the terror of the case, was a circumstance from which he drew consolation. She was a beautiful white statue now. A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 65 Her soul was far hence; and if that pure spirit could return, would it not be to shield him with her love? It was impossible that the place should not engender some thought of the kind. He did not put the thought en tirely from him as he rose to his feet and stretched out his hands in the darkness ; but his mind was too healthy and practical to indulge long in such speculations. Philip chanced to have in his pocket a box of the wax tapers which smokers use. After several ineffectual attempts, he succeeded in igniting one against the dark wall, and by its momentary glare perceived that the candle had been left in the tomb. This would serve him in examining the fastenings of the vault. If he could force the inner door by any means, and reach the grat ing, of which he had an indistinct recollection, he might hope to make himself heard. But the oaken door was immovable, as solid as the wall itself, into which it fitted air-tight. Even if he had had the requisite tools, there were no fastenings to be removed : the hinges were set on the outside. Having ascertained this, he replaced the candle on the floor, and leaned against the wall thoughtfully, watching the blue fan of flame that wavered to and fro, threatening to detach itself from the wick. "At all events," he thought, "the place is ventilated." Suddenly he sprang forward and extinguished the light. His existence depended on that candle! He had read somewhere, in some account of shipwreck, how the survivors had lived for days upon a few candles which one of the passengers had insanely thrown into the long boat. And here he had been burning away his very life. By the transient illumination of one of the tapers, he 66 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE looked at his watch. It had stopped at eleven but at eleven that day, or the preceding night? The funeral, he knew, had left the church at ten. How many hours had passed since then? Of what duration had been his swoon? Alas ! it was no longer possible for him to meas ure those hours which crawl like snails by the wretched, and fly like swallows over the happy. He picked up the candle, and seated himself on the stone steps. He was a sanguine man, this Wentworth, but, as he weighed the chances of escape, the prospect did not seem encouraging. Of course he would be missed. His disappearance under the circumstances would surely alarm his friends; they would instigate a search for him; but who would think of searching for a live man in the cemetery of Montmartre? The Prefect of Police would set a hundred intelligences at work to find him; the Seme might be dragged, les miserables turned over at the dead-house; a minute description of him would be in every detective's pocket; and he in M. Dorine's family tomb! Yet, on the other hand, it was here he was last seen; from this point a keen detective would naturally work up the case. Then might not the undertaker return for the candlestick, probably not left by design? Or, again, might not M. Dorine send fresh wreaths of flowers, to take the place of those which now diffused a pungent, aromatic odor throughout the chamber? Ah! what un likely chances ! But if one of these things did not happen speedily, it had better never happen. How long could he keep life in himself? With unaccelerated pulse, he quietly cut the half- burned candle into four equal parts. "To-night," he A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 67 meditated, "I will eat the first of these pieces; to-mor row, the second; to-morrow evening, the third; the next day, the fourth; and then then I'll wait!" He had taken no breakfast that morning, unless a cup of coffee can be called a breakfast. He had never been very hungry before. He was ravenously hungry now. But he postponed the meal as long as practicable. It must have been near midnight, according to his calcula tion, when he determined to try the first of his four singular repasts. The bit of white wax was tasteless; but it served its purpose. His appetite for the time appeased, he found a new discomfort. The humidity of the walls, and the wind that crept through the unseen ventilator, chilled him to the bone. To keep walking was his only resource. A sort of drowsiness, too, occasionally came over him. It took all his will to fight it off. To sleep, he felt, was to die; and he had made up his mind to live. Very strange fancies flitted through his head as he groped up and down the stone floor of the dungeon, feeling his way along the wall to avoid the sepulchres. Voices that had long been silent spoke words that had long been forgotten; faces he had known in childhood grew palpable against the dark. His whole life was un rolled before him like a panorama; the changes of a year, with its burden of love and death, its sweets and its bit ternesses, were epitomized in a single second. The desire to sleep had left him. But the keen hunger came again. "It must be near morning now," he mused; "perhaps the sun is just gilding the pinnacles and domes of the city; or, may be, a dull, drizzling rain is beating on Paris, sobbing on these mounds above me. Paris! it 68 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE seems like a dream. Did I ever walk in its gay streets in the golden air? Oh, the delight and pain and passion of that sweet human life!" Philip became conscious that the gloom, the silence, and the cold were gradually conquering him. The fever ish activity of his brain brought on a reaction. He grew lethargic, he sunk down on the steps, and thought of nothing. His hand fell by chance on one of the pieces of candle; he grasped it and devoured it mechanically. This revived him. "How strange," he thought, "that I am not thirsty. Is it possible that the dampness of the walls, which I must inhale with every breath, has sup plied the need of water? Not a drop has passed my lips for two days, and still I experience no thirst. That drowsiness, thank Heaven, has gone. I think I was never wide-awake until now. It would be an anodyne like poison that could weigh down my eyelids. No doubt the dread of sleep has something to do with it." The minutes were like hours. Now he walked as briskly as he dared up and down the tomb; now he rested against the door. More than once he was tempted to throw himself upon the stone coffin that held Julie, and make no further struggle for his life. Only one piece of candle remained. He had eaten the third portion, not to satisfy hunger, but from a precau tionary motive. He had taken it as a man takes some disagreeable drug upon the result of which hangs safety. The time was rapidly approaching when even this poor substitute for nourishment would be exhausted. He delayed that moment. He gave himself a long fast this time. The half-inch of candle which he held in his hand was a sacred thing. It was his last defense against death. A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 69 At length, with such a sinking at heart as he had not known before, he raised it to his lips. Then he paused, then he hurled the fragment across the tomb, then the oaken door was flung open, and Philip, with dazzled eyes, saw M. Dorine's form sharply defined against the blue sky. \Yhen they led him out, half -blinded, into the broad daylight, M. Dorine noticed that Philip's hair, which a short time since was as black as a crow's wing, had 'actu ally turned gray in places. The man's eyes, too, had faded; the darkness had spoiled their lustre. "And how long was he really confined in the tomb?" I asked, as Mr. H - concluded the story. "Just one hour and twenty minutes!" replied Mr. H , smiling blandly. As he spoke, the little sloops, with their sails all blown out like white roses, came floating bravely into port, and Philip Wentworth lounged by us, wearily, in the pleasant April sunshine. Mr. H 's narrative made a deep impression on me. Here was a man who had undergone a strange ordeal. Here was a man whose sufferings were unique. His was no threadbare experience. Eighty minutes had seemed like two days to him! If he had really been immured two days in the tomb, the story, from my point of view, would have lost its tragic element. After this, it was but natural that I should regard Mr. Wentworth with deepened interest. As I met him from day to day, passing through the Common with that same abstracted air, there was something in his loneliness which touched me. I wondered that I had 70 A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE not before read in his pale meditative face some such sad history as Mr. H had confided to me. I formed the resolution of speaking to him, though with what purpose was not very clear to my mind. One May morning we met at the intersection of two paths. He courteously halted to allow me the precedence. "Mr. Wentworth," I began, "I - He interrupted me. "My name, sir," he said, in an off-hand manner, "is Jones." " Jo- Jo- Jones !" I gasped. "Not Jo Jones," he returned coldly, "Frederick." Mr. Jones, or whatever his name is, will never know, unless he reads these pages, why a man accosted him one morning, as "Mr. Wentworth," and then abruptly rushed down the nearest path, and disappeared in the crowd. The fact is, I had been duped by Mr. H . Mr. H occasionally contributes a story to the maga zines. He had actually tried the effect of one of his romances on me! My hero, as I subsequently learned, is no hero at all, but a commonplace young man who has some connec tion with the building of that pretty granite bridge which will shortly span the crooked little lake in the Public Garden. "When I think of the cool ingenuity and readiness with which Mr. H - built up his airy fabric on my credul ity, I am half inclined to laugh ; though I feel not slightly irritated at having been the unresisting victim of his Black Art. THE mist lay still on Heartbreak Hill, The sea was cold below, The waves rolled up and, one by one, Broke heavily and slow; And through the clouds the gray gulls fled. The gannets whistled past, Across the dunes the wailing loons Hid from the rising blast. The moaning wind, that all day long Had haunted marsh and lea, Went mad by night, and, beating round, Fled shrieking out to sea. The crested waves turned gray to white, That tossed the drifting spar, But far more bright the yellow light That gleamed on Ipswich Bar. Old Harry Main, wild Harry Main, Upon the shifting sand Had built a flaming beacon-light To lure the ships to land. 72 IPSWICH BAR ' The storm breaks out and far to-night, They seek a port to bide; God rest ye, sirs, on Ipswich Bar Your ships shall surely ride. "They see my fires, my dancing fires, They lay their courses down, And ill betide the mariners That make for Ipswich town! " For mine the wreck, and mine the gold, With none to lay the blame, So hold ye down to-night, good sirs, And I will feed the flame!" Oh, dark the night and wild the gale! The skipper hither turned To where, afar, on Ipswich Bar, The treacherous beacon burned; With singing shrouds and snapping sheets The vessel swiftly bore And headed for the guiding lights Which shone along the shore. The shoaling waters told no tale, The tempest made no sign, Till full before her plunging bows Flashed out a whitened line; She struck, she heeled, the parting stays Went by with mast and spar, And then the wave and rain beat out The light on Ipswich Bar. IPSWICH BAR 73 Gray dawn beneath the dying storm; A figure gaunt and thin Went splashing through the tangled sedge To drag the treasure in; For when the darkness broke away, The lances of the moon Had shown him where lay, bow in air, A wrecking picaroon. What matter if the open day Bore witness to his shame? 'T was his the wreck and his the gold, And none had seen to blame. He did not know the eyes of men Were watching from afar, As Harry Main went back and forth The length of Ipswich Bar. They told the Ipswich fisher-tolk, Who, all aghast and grim, Came running down through Pudding Lane in maddened search for him; No word, - no blow, no bitter jest, They did not strike or mar, But short the shrift of Harry Main That day on Ipswich Bar. They marched him out at ebb of tide Where lay the shattered wreck, And bound him to the dripping rocks With chains about his neck; 74 IPSWICH BAR With chains about his guilty neck They left him to the wave The lapping tide rose eagerly To hide the wrecker's grave. And now, when sudden storms strike down With hoarse and threatening tones, Old Harry Main must rise again And gird his sea-wracked bones To coil a cable made of sand Which ever breaks in twain, While echoing through the salted marsh Is heard his clanking chain. When rock and shoal are white with foam, The watchers on the sands Can see his ghostly form rise up And wring his fettered hands. And out at sea his cries are heard Above the storm, and far, Where, cold and still, old Heartbreak Hill Looks down on Ipswich Bar. THE WILD MOTHER BY DALLAS LORE SHARP ONE of the most interesting instances of variation of the mother-instinct in birds which has ever come under my observation occurred in the summer of 1912, in the rookeries of the Three-Arch Rocks Reservation off the coast of Oregon. We had gone out to the Reservation in order to study and photograph its wild life, and were making our slow way toward the top of the outer rock. Up the sheer south face of the cliff we had climbed, through rookery after rookery of nesting birds, until we reached the edge of the blade-like back, or top, that ran up to the peak. Scrambling over this edge, we found ourselves in the midst of a great colony of nesting murres hundreds of them covering the steep rocky part of the top. As our heads appeared above the rim, many of the colony took wing and whirred over us out to sea, but most of them sat close, each bird upon her egg or over her chick, loath to leave, and so expose to us her hidden treasure. The top of the rock was somewhat cone-shaped, and in order to reach the peak, and the colonies on the west side, we had to make our way through this rookery of the murres. The first step among them, and the whole colony was gone, with a rush of wings and feet that sent several of the top-shaped eggs rolling, and several of 76 THE WILD MOTHER the young birds toppling, over the cliff to the pounding waves and ledges far below. We stopped instantly. We had not come to frighten and kill. Our climb up had been very disturbing to the birds, and had been attended with some loss of both eggs and young. This we could not help; and we had been too much concerned for our own lives really to notice what was happening. But here on the top, with the climb beneath us, the sight of a young murre going over the rim, clawing and clinging with beak and nails and unfledged wings, down from jutting point to shelf, to ledge, down, down the sight of it made one dizzy and sick. We stopped, but the colony had bolted, leaving scores of eggs and scores of downy young squealing and running together for shelter, like so many beetles under a lifted board. But the birds had not every one bolted, for here sat two of the colony among the broken rocks. These two had not been frightened off. That both of them were greatly alarmed, anyone could see from their open beaks, their rolling eyes, their tense bodies on tiptoe for flight. Yet here they sat, their wings out like props, or more like gripping hands, as if they were trying to hold themselves down to the rocks -against their wild desire to fly. And so they were in truth, for under their extended wings I saw little black feet moving. Those two mother murres were not going to forsake their babies no, not even for fear of these approaching monsters, which had never been seen clambering over their rocks before ! One of the monsters stood stock-still a moment for THE WILD MOTHER 77 the other one, the photographer, to come up. Then both of them took a step nearer. It was very interesting. I had often come slowly up to quails on their nests, and to other birds. Once I crept upon a killdeer in a bare field until my fingers were almost touching her. She did not move because she thought I did not see her, it being her trick thus to hide within her own feathers, colored as they are to blend with the pebbly fields where she lays her eggs. So the brown quail also blends with its brown grass nest. But those murres, though colored in harmony with the rocks, were still, not because they hoped I did not see them. I did see them. They knew it. Every bird in the great colony had known it, and had gone with the exception of these two. What was different about these two? They had their young ones to protect. But so had every bird in the great colony its young one, or its egg, to protect; yet all the others had gone. Did these two have more love than the others, and with it, or because of it, more courage, more intelligence? We took another step toward them, and one of the two birds sprang into the air, knocking her baby over and over with the stroke of her wing, coming within an inch of hurling it across the rim to be battered on the ledges below. The other bird raised her wings to follow, then clapped them back over her baby. Fear is the most contagious thing in the world, and that flap of fear by the other bird thrilled her, too; but as she had with stood the stampede of the colony, so she caught her self again and held on. She was now alone on the bare top of the rock, with ten thousand circling birds screaming to her in the air 78 THE WILD MOTHER above, and with two men creeping up to her with a big black camera which clicked ominously. She let the multitude scream, and with threatening beak watched the two men come on. A motherless baby, spying her, ran down the rock squealing for his life. She spread her wing, put her bill behind him, and shoved him quickly in out of sight with her own baby. The man with the camera saw the act, for I heard his machine click, and I heard him say something under his breath that you would hardly expect a mere man and a game- warden to say. But most men have a good deal of the mother in them; and the old bird had acted with such decision, such courage, such swift, compelling instinct, that any man, short of the wildest savage, would have felt his heart quicken at the sight. Just how compelling might that mother-instinct be? I wondered. Just how much would the mother-love stand? I had dropped to my knees, and on all fours had crept up within about three feet of the bird. She still had a chance for flight. Would she allow us to crawl any nearer? Slowly, very slowly, I stretched forward on my hands, like a measuring worm, until my body lay flat on the rocks, and my fingers were within three inches of her. But her wings were twitching; a wild light danced in her eyes; and her head turned itself toward the sea. For a whole minute I did not stir. Then the wings again began to tighten; the wild light in the eyes died down; the long sharp beak turned once more to ward me. Then slowly, very slowly, I raised my hand and gently touched her feathers with the tip of one finger with two fingers with my whole hand, while the loud camera clicked-clacked hardly four feet away! Photographs by William L. Finley DALLAS LORE SHARP AND THE CALIFORNIA MURRE WITH HER ONE BABY Unhatched eggs of the colony lying on the ground 80 THE WILD MOTHER It was a thrilling moment. I was not killing anything. I had no high-powered rifle in my hands, coming up against the wind toward an unsuspecting creature hundreds of yards away. This was no wounded leopard charging me; no mother bear defending with her giant might a captured cub. It was only a mother bird, the size of a wild duck, with swift wings at her command, hiding under those wings her own and another's young, and her own boundless fear ! For the second time in my life I had taken captive with my bare hands a free wild bird. No, I had not taken her captive. She had made herself a captive; she had taken herself in the strong net of her mother-love. And now her terror seemed quite gone. At the first touch of my hand she felt, I think, the love restraining it, and without fear or fret allowed me to push my hand under her and pull out the two downy babies. But she reached after them with her bill to tuck them back out of sight, and when I did not let them go, she sidled toward me, quacking softly a language that I per fectly understood, and was quick to answer. I gave them back, fuzzy, and black and white. She got them under her, stood up over them, pushed her wings down hard around them, her stout tail down hard behind them, and together with them pushed in an abandoned egg which was close at hand. Her own baby, someone else's baby, and someone else's forsaken egg! She could cover no more; she had not feathers enough. But she had heart enough ; and into her mother's heart she had already tucked every motherless egg and nestling of the thousands of frightened birds that were scream ing and wheeling in the air high over her head. AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE BY ALICE GARY O GOOD painter, tell me true, Has your hand the cunning to draw Shapes of things that you never saw? Ay? Well, here is an order for you. Woods and cornfields, a little brown, The picture must not be over-bright, Yet all in the golden and gracious light Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down. Alway and alway, night and morn, Woods upon woods, with fields of corn Lying between them, not quite sere, And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom, When the wind can hardly find breathing-room Under their tassels; cattle near, Biting shorter the short green grass, And a hedge of sumach and sassafras, With bluebirds twittering all around, (Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!) These, and the house where I was born, Low and little, and black and old, With children, many as it can hold, All at the windows, open wide, Heads and shoulders clear outside, And fair young faces all ablush. Perhaps you may have seen, some day, Roses crowding the self-same way, Out of a wilding, way-side bush. 82 AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE Listen closer. When you have done With woods and cornfields and grazing herds, A lady, the loveliest ever the sun Looked down upon, you must paint for me. Oh, if I only could make you see The clear blue eyes, the tender smile, The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace, The woman's soul, and the angel's face That are beaming on me all the while! I need not speak these foolish words: Yet one word tells you all I would say She is my mother: you will agree That all the rest may b^ thrown away. Two little urchins at her knee You must paint, sir one like me, The other with a clearer brow, And the light of his adventurous eyes Flashing with boldest enterprise: At ten years old he went to sea, - God knoweth if he be living now, He sailed in the good ship Commodore Nobody ever crossed her track To bring us news, and she never came back. Ah, 't is twenty long years and more Since that old ship went out of the bay With my great-hearted brother on her deck; I watched him till he shrank to a speck, And his face was toward me all the way. Bright his hair was, a golden brown, The time we stood at our mother's knee; That beauteous head, if it did go down, Carried sunshine into the sea! AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE 83 Out in the fields one summer night, We were together, half afraid Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade Of the high hills, stretching so still and far, Loitering till after the low little light Of the candle shone through the open door, And over the hay-stack's pointed top, All of a tremble, and ready to drop, The first half -hour, the great yellow star, That we, with staring, ignorant eyes, Had often and often watched to see Propped and held in its place in the skies By the fork of a tall red mulberry-tree, Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew, Dead at the top, just one branch full Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool, From which it tenderly shook the dew Over our heads, when we came to play In its hand-breadth of shadow, day after day. Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs; The other, a bird, held fast by the legs, Not so big as a straw of wheat; The berries we gave her she would n't eat, But cried and cried, till we held her bill, So slim and shining, to keep her still. At last we stood at our mother's knee. Do you think, Sir, if you try, You can paint the look of a lie? If you can, pray have the grace To put it solely in the face Of the urchin that is likest me: I think 't was solely mine, indeed : 84 AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE But that's no matter paint it so; The eyes of our mother (take good heed), Looking not on the nest-full of eggs, Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs, But straight through our faces down to our lies, And, oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise! I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though A sharp blade struck through it. You, sir, know, That you on the canvas are to repeat Things that are fairest, things most sweet, Woods and cornfields and mulberry-tree, The mother, the lads, with their bird, at her knee. But, oh, that look of reproachful woe! High as the heavens your name I '11 shout, If you paint me the picture, and leave that out. ACCORDING TO CODE BY KATHERINE MAYO FIRST SERGEANT STOUT of A Troop becomes his name like any hero of English ballad. First Sergeant Stout is towering tall, and broad and sinewy in propor tion. There is not a meagre thing about him, from his heart and his smile to the grip of his hand, whether in strangle-hold or in greeting. Just as he stands, he might have roamed the woods with Robin Hood, or fought on the field of Crecy in the morning of the world. But First Sergeant Stout has one peculiarity which in the morning of the world could never have marked him. Sometimes, when he turns his head to right or to left, his head sticks fast that way until he takes it be tween his two hands and lifts it back again; and the reason is that he carries a bullet close to his spinal cord, lodged between the first and second vertebrae. Once on a time, Sergeant Stout had charge of a sub station in the town of Unionville, County Fayette. And among those days came a night when, at exactly a quarter past ten o'clock, the sub-station telephone rang determinedly. There was nothing novel in this, since the sub-station telephone was always determinedly ringing, day and night, to the tune of somebody's troubles. But this time the thing was vicariously expressed ; or, you might call it, feebly conglomerate. 86 ACCORDING TO CODE The constable of the village of Republic held the wire. He complained that one Charles Erhart, drunken and violent, had beaten his wife, had driven her and their children out of doors, and was now intrenched in the house, with the black flag flying. "She's given me a warrant to arrest the man, but I can't do it," said the constable. "He'll shoot me if I try. So I thought some of you fellers might like to come over and tackle him." The sergeant looked at his watch. "The trolley leaves in fifteen minutes," said he. " I '11 be up on that." The trolley left Unionville at half after ten, reaching Republic, the end of the line, just one hour later. "Last run for the night," the motorman remarked as they sighted the terminus. "I know. And I've only about half an hour's business to do here. Then I 'd like to get back. Do you think you could wait?" "Sure," said motorman and conductor together. "Glad to do it for you, sergeant." Hovering in the middle of the road, at the " 's-far-'s- we-go" point, hung the constable a little man, nerv ous and deprecatory. Religious pedagogy would have been more in his line than the enforcement of law. Now he was depressed by a threatened lumbago, and by the abnormal hours that his duty was laying upon him. Also he was worried by the present disturbance in his bailiwick, and therefore sincerely relieved to see an officer of the State Police. "He 's a bad one, that Charlie Erhart, at the best of times. And when he 's drunk he 's awful. I could n't pretend to handle him it wouldn't be safe. Like's ACCORDING TO CODE 87 not he'd hurt me. But you" - As if struck by a new thought, the constable suddenly stopped in his tracks to turn and stare at the sergeant. "Why, you why, I thought you'd bring a squad!" "To arrest one man?" the sergeant inquired gravely. "Well, you see we're rather busy just now, so we have to spread ourselves out." They were walking rapidly through the midnight streets, turning corners, here and again, into darker and narrower quarters. The ring of their steps stood out upon the silence with a lone and chiseled clarity, as though all the rest of the world had fled to the moon. Yet, to the constable's twittering mind that very silence teemed with a horrible imminence. The blackness in each succeeding alley seemed coiled to leap at him. He dared neither to face it nor to leave it at his back. His gait began to slacken, to falter. At last he stopped. " I guess I '11 leave you here." - He flung out the words in a heap, as if to smother his scruples. - "You just go on down the street, then take the second turn to the left, and the house is on the far side third from the corner. You can't miss it. And my lumbago 's coming on so fast I guess I'll have to get home to bed. Glad you came, anyway. Good-night to you." " Wait a moment," said the sergeant. "If you are not coming along, I want to see the woman before I go farther." The constable indicated the tenement house in which the fugitive family had taken refuge. Then he whisked around, like a rabbit afraid of being caught by its long ears, and vanished into the dark. Mrs. Erhart, nursing a swollen eye and a cut cheek, 88 ACCORDING TO CODE clutching a moaning baby in her arms and with a cluster of half-clad, half-starved, wholly frightened and miser able children shivering about her, told her tale without reserve. The single little lamp in the room, by its wretched light, showed her battered face in tragic planes. Her voice was hoarse, hard, monotonous. She had no more hope no more illusion no more shame. "He has tried to kill us all, me and the children often. He does n't get helpless drunk. He gets mad drunk. Some day he will kill us, I guess. There 's nought to prevent him. Do I want him arrested? Yes, sir, I do that! He's tried to take our lives this very night. And he 's keeping us out of all the home we 've got - all the home we 've got. But" and she looked up with a sudden strange flicker of feeling akin to pride "I reckon he '11 kill you if you try to touch him, big as you are. He sure will ! Erhart 's a terror, he is ! And to-day he 's cut loose, for a fact." Armed now with an indisputable justification for entering the house, Sergeant Stout went ahead with his errand. The place, when he found it, proved to have a narrow passageway running from the street to its back door. Sergeant Stout, taking the passageway, walked quietly round to the back door and knocked. "Who's there?" "State Police." "You don't get in!" The voice was loose, flat, blaring a foolish, violent voice. The sergeant set his shoulder against the door. It groaned, creaked, splintered, gave way, opening directly ACCORDING TO CODE 89 into the kitchen. Confusion filled the place. Broken furniture, smashed dishes, messes of scattered food, made in the smudgy lamp's dim light a scene to be grasped at a glance. But there was no time to look about. Directly at hand, half-crouching, lurching side- wise for the spring of attack, lowered a big, evil-vis- aged hulk of a man. His eyes were red, inflamed with rage and drink; his breath came in gusts, like the breath of an angry bull. "You would, would you! You bloody Cossack! I 'II learn you to interfere with the rights of an honest laboring man in his home ! " He held his right hand behind him as he spoke. Now he jerked it forward, with its gun. With a jump the sergeant grabbed him, wrenched the revolver out of his grip, and, though the other struggled with all his brute strength, forced him stead ily down to the floor. Then, with practised touch, he made search for further weapons, and was already lock ing the handcuffs on the wrists of the prostrate prisoner when a voice from beyond made him raise his head. Opposite the back entrance, on the other side of the kitchen, an open doorway framed the blackness of the front room. That doorway had been empty. But now, around its casement, and to the left as the sergeant faced it, projected a long, dully gleaming bar, the barrel of a rifle, while behind, faint against the night within, showed the left hand and the left eye of the gunman. "You!" he had called, having already brought his rifle to bear. And the sergeant, stooping above his fallen assailant, looked up in quick attention. The 90 ACCORDING TO CODE gunman had wanted a better mark a full front face to fire at. He had it now so he blazed away. The bullet struck fan* between the trooper's eyes, tearing through to the spine. But because he had chanced to receive it in that very position, stooping and looking up with his head half- raised, the charge had spared the chamber of the brain, passing along its lower wall. The shock, nevertheless, was terrific. Sergeant Stout, rightly named, never wavered. In stantaneously, in his first perception of the threat be yond, he had drawn his service Colt. And even as the other's bullet burst through his head, he had sprung erect and fired at the gleam of that one visible eye be yond the door. Now, sliding over to the wall on the right, and so gaining a further view into the room, he covered his adversary with his revolver. The gunman was in the very motion of firing again, and the Trooper's Colt would have anticipated the shot, when suddenly the rifle-barrel wavered and dropped as its holder sank forward across the threshold. Still covering him, the sergeant walked over and looked at the man. He had fainted or was feigning it. The sergeant, kneeling beside him, saw that he was bleeding from the head. That snap revolver shot had gone true, striking just above the eye and glancing around to the back of the skull. But the soldier's trained touch told him that the wound was slight. Even on the instant the fallen man opened his eyes began to stir. In another minute he would be all alive again. The sergeant stood up. In the cool, impersonal way made second nature by the training of the force, he ACCORDING TO CODE 91 rapidly weighed the situation. Here was he, Sergeant Stout of the Pennsylvania State Police, at midnight, alone, in the back room of an obscure dwelling in a mean place. He had in his possession two prisoners one handcuffed and cowed, the other for the moment safe by reason of a rapidly passing daze. If this were all, the situation would be of an extreme simplicity. His second prisoner revived, he would march them both to the waiting trolley and take them back to Unionville jail. But this was not quite all. He, Sergeant Stout, had been shot through the head. His head seemed to be growing bigger, bigger. Blood was pouring down his throat in a steady stream. It would make him sick if he stopped to think of it; and his head was growing bigger curiously bigger. Presumably, like other persons shot through the head, he would pres ently die. If he died before he handed these men over into safe keeping, that would be a pity, because they would get away. Further, if he could not maintain sufficient grip on himself to handle prisoner number two, prisoner number two, beyond any doubt, would shortly shoot again. As long, however, as he did keep that grip on himself, just so long prisoner number two was a "prisoner under control." And prisoners under control, by the code of the force, must be protected by their captors. Obviously then, there was just one course for Sergeant Stout to pursue: since he must, beyond question, complete these arrests, and since he must not permit his second captive to make the move that would justify disabling him, he must hang on to his own life and wavering senses long enough to march the two men to that trolley car. It had to be done, 92 ACCORDING TO CODE though his head was growing bigger bigger (surely it must be spreading the skull apart !) and the thick, choking blood was pouring down his throat. He kicked the rifle away from the threshold, out of the left-handed gunman's reach. The gunman was moving now consciousness fully returned. The sergeant, motioning with the point of his Colt, brought him up standing. Then, with another gesture of his revolver too simple to be misunderstood, he indicated to the two the door to the street. It must have seemed to them like taking orders from a spectre from one of those awful beings through whose charmed substance bullets pass without effect. They looked at him aslant, fearfully. This Presence had been shot through its brain, there was the mark, yet it gave no sign of human vulnerability. It was not good not natural ! For the last hour they had been amusing themselves, this well-met pair, in firing at a mark on the kitchen wall. Their bullets had been strik ing through, into the house next door, arousing a spicy echo of women's screams. With relish they had awaited some attempt at restraint. But they had not expected just this! Scarcely daring to meet each other's eyes, they filed out of the door, into the yard, into the street. Little they guessed how the trooper's head was sailing. "I've got to make it!" said the sergeant to himself, clenching his teeth. And he would not think how many blocks it was to " 's far's we go." "One block at a time '11 do it," he told himself. One block at a time, he was steering them rapidly along, when upon his unsteady hearing broke the sound of footsteps, approaching on the run. 93 "Another thug to their rescue, maybe!" thought the sergeant and the idea pulled him together with a jerk. As the footsteps rang close, he held himself braced for an onset. They neared the corner ahead, his Colt waited ready, but the flying figure, rounding under the street lamp, showed, heaven be praised! the uniform of the Pennsylvania State Police. Trooper Lithgow, returning to the sub-station from detached duty, and passing through the town of Repub lic, had learned from the waiting trolley men of his ser geant's presence, with some hint of the errand which had brought him there. Thinking that help might not be amiss, he had started out to join his officer, and was hastening along the way, when the sound of the two shots, distinct on the midnight silence, had turned his stride to a run. Together they walked to the trolley, herding the pris oners before them. Together they rode to Unionville, with the prisoners between them. From time to time the two trolley men looked at Sergeant Stout, with the bleeding hole between his eyes, then looked at each other, and said nothing. Very rarely Trooper Lithgow looked at Sergeant Stout, then at the trolley men, but said nothing. A proud man he was that night. But he did not want those trolley men to know it. He wanted them to see and to understand for all time that this thing was a matter of course that you could n't down an officer of the Pennsylvania State Police on duty. They got their two prisoners jailed. Then they walked over to the hospital (the last lift of the way up the hos pital hill, Lithgow lent a steadying arm) and there, in the doctor's presence, Sergeant Stout gently collapsed. 94 ACCORDING TO CODE " I 'm glad you came, Lithgow. But you see I could have fetched it!" he said, with the makings of a grin, just before he went over. There were four days when he might have died. Then his o\vn nature laid hold on him and lifted him back again into the world of sunshine. "It's one of those super-cures effected by pure optimism. The man expected to get well," the surgeon said. But they dared not cut for the bullet: it lay too close to the spinal cord. And so First Sergeant Stout, when his head gets stuck fast, has yet to take it in his two hands and shift it free again. Still, with a head as steady as that, what does it matter? A LITTLE MOTHER BY FLORENCE GILMORE I HAD been on the train for hours and was very tired. All morning I had seen only a level, thinly wooded country, never beautiful or picturesque. The magazine with which I had armed myself, fondly imagining that it would be a protection against the tedium of a six-hour trip, had proved dull to a degree that defies expression. There was no one to talk to, for the only other passen gers were a fat woman who slept most of the time and, when she was awake, read a novel and languidly munched peanuts, and four traveling salesmen who harped on boots and shoes and notions until I became so weary listening to them that I firmly resolved that, come what might, I would never again use any of the things they sold. At one o'clock, having finished my luncheon, I sank back in my seat and looked out of the window, thinking irritably how I must be bored for another hour. The train was then standing at a country station exactly like thirty or forty others we had passed during the morning. What looked to be the same stiff-legged station-master was hurrying back and forth; the same shabbily dressed men loafed about; the same small boys ran hither and thither in everyone's way; the sameyoung girls giggled, and nudged one another, and giggled again. Turning from my window with a long-drawn sigh, I 96 A LITTLE MOTHER saw that a little girl had got on the train and was taking the seat across the aisle from mine. What impressed me most in that first glance was her quaint primness. Her hair hung down her back in the neatest of long braids, and was fastened with the neatest of small black bows. Her stiffly starched gingham dress was spotless and her gloves looked like new. She had a sweet, round, rosy little face, but it was graver than any other child's I have ever seen. Watching her, I wondered if she ever played, or broke her toys and tore her clothes and for got to do the things she had been told but a moment before, like many dear naughty little girls I know. Interested by the quaintness of the child, I reopened my magazine and watched her from behind it. As soon as she was seated she carefully arranged her belongings on the seat facing her a satchel, a box, and a large apple. She took off her hat, and spying a newspaper which I had thrown aside, asked me for it. "Perhaps the dust would spoil the flowers," she said. "I don't like to run the risk." I asked her a few questions then. She was not shy, and was evidently inclined to be friendly, for as soon as she had disposed her belongings to her satisfaction, she crossed the aisle and sat beside me. "I want to keep my hat as nice as new, because mamma trimmed it herself. Papa and I think it is the beautifulest hat we have ever seen. We are very proud of it. You see, mamma is sick all the time. She can't even sew except once in a great while. She has awful pains, and she is weak, and can hardly ever get out of bed, so papa and I are very good to her and take care of her all we can. She says we spoil her, but she's only A LITTLE MOTHER 97 joking, don't you think so? It's only children that get spoiled, is n't it?" I said that I believed so; and after a moment, to break the silence that followed, I asked her if she had any brothers and sisters. I felt certain that she had not. She would have been less staid had she been accustomed to the companionship of other children. "I had three brothers," she answered, "but they all died before I was born, and two little sisters twins; and they died when they were just one hour old." She looked puzzled after she had said this and an instant later she corrected herself: "The twins really weren't old at all; they were just just one hour young " And having settled this point to her satisfaction, she looked into my face and added seriously, "I have often thought about it. I believe that when my brothers and sisters came they did not like it here, so God did n't make them stay, but took them straight to heaven." "And you liked it, and did stay," I said, drawing my conclusion from her premises. "I? Oh, I like it pretty well. Sometimes things are inconvenient, and they're often uncomfortable, but it is n't bad if you have people to be good to." She lapsed into silence after this, and resting her chin on her hand stared thoughtfully through the window. Eager to hear more of her strange little thoughts, I racked my brain for something to say, and at last, noth ing startling or original suggesting itself, I asked: " Have you been long away from home?" "For four weeks. Mamma got so sick she had to be taken to a hospital, and then papa sent me to stay at grandma's." 98 A LITTLE MOTHER "And of course she has been spoiling you after the manner of grandmothers!" I said, smiling. The child looked doubtful, and made no direct an swer. After a time she explained in her quaint, decided way: "Mothers and grandmothers are different. Grand mothers give little girls cookies and they don't tell them to go to bed at half -past seven; but they have n't such good ways of tucking people in bed, and their kisses are n't the same. "I didn't know until yesterday that I was going home to-day," she went on after a scarcely perceptible pause. "I had a hard time to get presents for mamma. I had made two daisy chains; they were ready; and all day yesterday I was trying to think of some other things that would be nice and could n't make her tired. Papa and I always try not to let her grow tired, but she often does, anyhow." She crossed the aisle, and getting the box I had noticed when she entered the car, opened it and proudly dis played two chains of withered daisies, a bird's egg wrapped in cotton, several picture cards, and a stiff, new cotton handkerchief with a gorgeous border. "All these are for her!" she said. "The daisies have faded but she won't mind that. I know, because once before I made her a daisy chain and it withered before I got home, but she liked it as it was. She really liked it very much. She told me so, and even if she had n't I could have told from the way she smiled. A big boy gave me the bird's egg. Then I had a nickel grand ma gave me last week, and for a long time I could n't decide whether to buy this handkerchief or a pin with a A LITTLE MOTHER 99 diamond in it; but papa gave her a pin on her birthday and she 's never had any kind of handkerchiefs except plain white ones: that's what decided me. This one is very pretty, don't you think so?" I blinked at the flaming colors and murmured some thing noncommittal. The child hardly paused for breath before she con tinued her quaint chatter. She loved to talk, and as I was only too glad to have someone anyone to listen to, all went well. "It seems a long time since I left papa and mamma. I can hardly wait to see them. I was never away from home before. Do you think she 's well enough to be at the station? She's been at a hospital, and papa says a hospital 's a place where they make people well." I told her not to count on finding her mother grown quite strong in so short a time. "Is n't it wonderful how things happen just when you don't expect them to?" she exclaimed, not heeding my warning in the least. " When I got out of bed yesterday morning I did n't know I was going to see her and papa so soon! I was just throwing them a kiss from my win dow when grandma called me. She had been crying, and she told me that papa wanted me at home. I sup pose it was because she was going to lose me that she cried. I 'd been very good to her. But I did n't feel a bit like crying. I was glad all inside of me. And by and by Mrs. Dodge, who knew mamma when she was no bigger than I am, she came to see grandma and they talked and talked, and she cried too I saw her. I think she must have caught the tears from grandma, like I did the measles from our butcher's little boy." 100 A LITTLE MOTHER As she chattered, my heart grew heavy. I under stood that her mother was dead; buried, too, no doubt. Poor motherless child ! Poor, poor child ! And she had no suspicion of the truth. She was all eagerness, all hope. When we reached R , we got off the train together, but the moment she caught sight of her father she forgot my existence. I looked at him with keen, sympathetic interest. He appeared to be almost fifty years of age. His face was kindly and rather handsome. He lifted his little girl into his arms and almost smothered her with kisses; then they walked away, hand in hand, and I lost sight of them in the crowd. I was not sorry. I wondered how he could tell her. Ten minutes later, having attended to my baggage, I passed out of the station and saw them again. The father had lifted the child on the low stone wall that runs along that side of the building, and was talking to her, gently and seriously. Her big eyes were fastened on his and great tears were pouring unheeded over her cheeks. She still held her apple. The box was tucked under one arm, but the lid was gone and the precious daisy chains were hanging out of it. She did not see me, and I hurried past them. My car was long in coming, and feeling restless I walked a square or two and let it overtake me. When I seated myself in it I found to my regret that I was face to face with the father and child. She was as pale as he, now; her hat hung uncherished at the back of her neck, and from time to time tears rolled down her cheeks. I have never seen another face bespeak such utter desolation. A LITTLE MOTHER 101 Her father held one of her hands tightly clasped in his, but for some minutes neither of them spoke. Once or twice she did try to ask him something, but although she opened her lips, no sound came. At length he said gently, "You'll have to be very good to me now, Ruth. There's no one else to take care of me." She looked up at him then. Her eyes brightened a little and a faint smile spread slowly over her tear- stained face. "Yes, papa," she answered, with a little motherly air; and sighed, and snuggled closer to him. After a second she spoke again, rather more briskly: "You'd better eat this apple right away. You have n't had your dinner, and it's afternoon. You might get sick, if you are n't more careful." He took the apple and obediently tried to eat some of it, and Ruth watched him with satisfaction. "I'm going to take such good care of you!" she whispered. MY BABES IN THE WOOD THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB DURING an experience of seventeen years as super visor of rural schools in one of the most favored counties in the South, it has been my habit, several times a year, to travel twenty or thirty miles a day, often for five days of the week, visiting schools. I have frequently driven for hours along dreary stretches of sandy road, with scrub oaks on both sides, here and there a pine grove, an abandoned field, or sometimes a freshly ploughed one; and when I have reached the schoolhouse, hidden away in a thicket, and seen thirty or forty children, I have wondered where they came from. No house appears in sight, and to one's question, the teacher answers, "Oh, they come from all about here, from two to three miles." The one-room schoolhouse, which is the rule here, is generally about twenty by thirty feet, with six windows, two doors, no piazza, and no cloakroom. Sometimes it is painted white, with green blinds, the inevitable combination in our rural districts. A flue in the centre of the room makes an outlet for the stovepipe, and the stove is always a box stove for wood, holding half a dozen sticks, usually of the rich resinous pine so abun dant in the Southern woods. There is never any lack of fuel in our schools, for all that is needed is to organize the large boys into a wood brigade, and a few minutes' MY BABES IN THE WOOD 103 foraging in the neighborhood provides, without cost, an abundant supply for the day. The teacher hears from twenty to thirty recitations a day in all grades, from the A.B.C. department to an occasional class in Latin, grammar, and algebra. He begins at half-past eight in the morning, giving an hour known as "noon recess," and dismisses the school for the day at four, or even later, in time for the children to walk home before dark. Such conditions give rise to many amusing and pa thetic scenes. I recall a visit I made over fifteen years ago to as poor an apology for a schoolhouse as existed anywhere twenty-five miles from town, in the very back- woods. I rode up, tied my horse to a tree, and went into the cabin that served for a school. There was neither window-sash nor glass, only shutters to keep out the light and let in the cold; there were no desks or seats, only long benches made of slabs of pine fastened to sup ports, with pegs driven into holes at each end; no stove, only a large open fireplace with a log of fat lightwood smouldering in a heap of ashes. On the benches sat twenty or thirty pale, thinly clad, trembling children. The teacher, a very tall, lanky, yellow-haired man, sat in a low chair, and when he rose to greet me, he went up like an extension ladder. He gave me a unique and very interesting exhibition exercise in reading, which served to illustrate what might be going on in the rural schools. He called up his pupils, and they stood in line, forming a scale from a lanky six-footer to a tiny six- year-old. The reading book was the New Testament old and dingy copies from the American Bible Society. The class opened at a certain page, and on a given signal 104 MY BABES IN THE WOOD started in concert, every pupil reading as fast as he could and as loud as he could. The one first reaching the bottom of the page held up his hand and won a small card; when five cards had been thus won, the exercise ended. The reading sounded like bedlam; but it was great fun, and why inquire of its value? Besides, it was instructive in the matter of methods. After several other exercises of a similar sort, intended to enliven the hour and instruct the visitor, nothing would do but that I must make a speech to the school. When I concluded my short exhortation, I was followed to the buggy by the teacher, who commented on my visit by saying: "I am glad you came out to see the school to-day. You saw us in our everyday clothes. Your speech was good, and was just what I tell them every day. A variety is always good, however: we ought not to eat cake every day, but sometimes corn- bread comes in mighty well." After this pleasant com pliment, I departed in a meditative mood. I recall a similar visit, on which I came near losing my dignity while making a speech to a country school. It was early springtime, and the children, about twenty in number, had come in after recess, hot and panting from their play. To my surprise, every now and then during my talk I saw a pupil reach under the bench, draw out a big whiskey bottle, and take a long pull. This kept going on all over the room, and sometimes more than one bottle was held up in the air, to the undisguised satisfaction of the drinkers. I was much amused, on turning round to ask the teacher what this meant, to catch her in the act of taking a drink out of a bottle bigger and blacker than any of the others. 105 I stopped, and said, "What are you all drinking so industriously?" The teacher answered, "Water." "Well, why drink it that way?" I inquired. The teacher replied, "We have no well here, and no spring inside of a mile; so everybody brings a bottle of water from home in the morning, and whiskey bottles are the biggest we can get." Some time ago we proposed to consolidate the schools in one of our rural districts. We ordered seven small schools to be closed, hired three wagons to move along the highways and take the children to school, enlarged one of the buildings to accommodate a hundred chil dren, and had a fine programme laid out. It should have been successful, but it came to grief, because every man wanted to do the "hauling." After the contract was given out, one man said he was not going to trust his children behind "them old runaway mules"; another complained of the driver, who was accused of taking a nip on a cold day; and a third objected to the wagon. The result was that everybody refused to be hauled, and the wagons went back and forth almost empty for a month. The men who had the contract for a dollar a day to drive the wagons hauled nobody but their own children. They were content, but they alone. A peti tion with many signatures came up before the Board of Education, and the committee which was appointed to go over the whole matter declared that consolidation was a good thing, but that it did not work. So the wagons were dismissed, the little schools were reopened, and the district is now drifting along sleepily, with its seven separate groups of twenty to twenty -five children, 106 MY BABES IN THE WOOD scattered about five miles apart. The plan may have been badly managed, but I feel sure it was in advance of the times. Our people had not grown up to it. Among the delightful traditions of the country school are the closing exercises, or "commencement," as it is called. This is one of the demands made upon the schools by the rural population that cannot be refused. The terrible monotony of country life seeks this dissi pation, and the community for ten miles around gives itself up to it. Preparations are made a month in advance; and when the time comes, every child in school appears several times on the programme, and the exercises last all night. On one occasion I was asked to "come out to the closing" of one of the best country schools I know of, twenty -five miles from town. The last five miles I went in a buggy that was sent to meet me. After an early sup per at a neighbor's, I walked to the schoolhouse near by, and found that the schoolroom itself was to be used as a dressing-room, the piazza had been enlarged for a stage, and the audience was seated in the open air, on rough boards laid across felled trees in front of the school. Blazing pine fires on stands served for light. An audi ence of several hundred had arrived from many miles around, driving in all sorts of vehicles, which gradually closed in on the area devoted to the exercises, until it was almost impossible to get through the packed mass of horses, mules, buggies, and wagons. There were dogs and babies in abundance. The night was as soft as a June night in the South can be. The stars were bright above, and the pine forest made a deep black curtain behind the blazing red fires that lit the grounds. The MY BABES IN THE WOOD 107 stage, bright with lamps and Japanese lanterns, and decorated with pine boughs and bamboo vines, fitted its setting admirably. The effect of night and space was heightened, as the exercises went on, by an occa sional wail from an uncomfortable baby, a fight among the numerous dogs, or a kicking fit of a suspicious mule. There were forty numbers on the programme, and the exercises began promptly at nine o'clock. The children did their part well, the speeches were good, the songs were sweet, and the drills were interesting. The teacher had paid for nearly all the costumes, selected all the pieces, drilled the children, and staked her reputation on the success of the performance. It is pleasant to be able to say that the occasion was a memorable one, and the exhausted young teacher had reason to be proud of her triumph. The hours of the night wore slowly on. I was the guest of honor, and could not move out of my con spicuous position; so with patient impartiality I laughed at everything and applauded everybody for five labori ous hours. The programme came to an end at half -past two by my watch. As the crowd was dispersing, I asked one of the young men who had come in wagons with their best girls, how far he expected to drive. "Ten miles," he answered; and added, "then get breakfast and go to ploughing." MIANTOWONA BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH LONG ere the Pale Face Crossed the Great Water, Miantowona Passed, with her beauty, Into a legend, Pure as a wild-flower Found in a broken Ledge by the sea-side. Let us revere them These wildwood legends, Born of the camp-fire! Let them be handed Down to our children Richest of heirlooms! No land may claim them: They are ours only, Like our grand rivers, Like our vast prairies, Like our dead heroes ! In the pine-forest, Guarded by shadows, Lieth the haunted Pond of the Red Men. Ringed by the emerald Mountains, it lies there, Alfred W. Vutt 'Far in the ages, Miantowona, Rose of the Hurons, Came to these waters." 110 MIANTOWONA Like an untarnished Buckler of silver, Dropped in that valley By the Great Spirit ! Weird are the figures Traced on its margins Vine- work and leaf -work, Knots of sword-grasses, Moonlight and starlight, Clouds scudding northward! Sometimes an eagle Flutters across it; Sometimes a single Star on its bosom Nestles till morning. Far in the ages, Miantowona, Rose of the Hurons, Came to these waters. Where the dank greensward Slopes to the pebbles, Miantowona Sat in her anguish. Ice to her maidens, Ice to the chieftains, Fire to her lover! Here he had won her, Here they had parted, Here could her tears flow. With unwet eyelash, Miantowona Nursed her old father, Oldest of Hurons, MIANTOWONA 111 Soothed his complainings, Smiled when he chid her Vaguely for nothing He was so weak now, Like a shrunk cedar White with the hoar-frost. Sometimes she gently Linked arms with maidens. Joined in their dances; Not with her people, Not in the wigwam, Wept for her lover. Ah! who was like him? Fleet as an arrow, Strong as a bison, Lithe as a panther, Soft as the south-wind, Who was like Wawah? There is one other Stronger and fleeter, Bearing no wampum, Wearing no war-paint, Huler of councils, Chief of the war-path - Who can gainsay him, Who can defy him? His is the lightning, His is the whirlwind. Let us be humble, We are but ashes 'T is the Great Spirit! Ever at nightfall Miantowona 112 MIANTOWONA Strayed from the lodges, Passed through the shadows Into the forest; There by the pond-side Spread her black tresses Over her forehead. Sad is the loon's cry Heard in the twilight; Sad is the night-wind, Moaning and moaning; Sadder the stifled Sob of a widow! Low on the pebbles Murmured the water: Often she fancied It was young Wawah Playing the reed-flute. Sometimes a dry branch Snapped in the forest : Then she rose, startled, Ruddy as sunrise, Warm for his coming! But when he came not, Back through the darkness, Hah* broken-hearted, Miantowona Went to her people. When an old oak dies, First 't is the tree-tops, Then the low branches, Then the gaunt stem goes, So fell Tawanda, Oldest of Hurons, Chief of the chieftains. MIANTOWONA 113 Miantowona Wept not, but softly Closed the sad eyelids; With her own fingers Fastened the deer-skin Over his shoulders; Then laid beside him Ash-bow and arrows, Pipe-bowl and wampum, Dried corn and bear-meat All that was needful On the long journey. Thus old Ta\vanda Went to the hunting Grounds of the Red Man. Then, as the dirges Rose from the village, Miantowona Stole from the mourners, Stole through the cornfields, Passed like a phantom Into the shadows Through the pine-forest. One who had watched her It was Nahoho, Loving her vainly Saw, as she passed him, That in her features Made his stout heart quail. He could but follow. Quick were her footsteps, Light as a snow-flake, Leaving no traces On the white clover. 114 MIANTOWONA Like a trained runner, Winner of prizes, Into the woodlands Plunged the young chieftain. Once he abruptly Halted, and listened; Then he sped forward Faster and faster Toward the bright water. Breathless he reached it. Why did he crouch then, Stark as a statue? What did he see there Could so appall him? Only a circle Swiftly expanding, Fading before him; But, as he watched it, Up from the centre, Slowly, superbly Rose a Pond-Lily. One cry of wonder, Shrill as the loon's call, Rang through the forest, Startling the silence, Startling the mourners Chanting the death-song. Forth from the village, Flocking together Came all the Hurons Striplings and warriors, Maidens and old men, Squaws with papooses. No word was spoken: MIANTOWONA There stood the Hurons On the dank greensward, With their swart faces Bowed in the twilight. What did they see there? Only a Lily Rocked on the azure Breast of the water. Then they turned sadly Each to the other, Tenderly murmuring, "Miantowona!" Soft as the dew falls Down through the midnight, Cleaving the starlight, Echo repeated, "Miantowona!" 115 Alfred W. Ctittin : OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI BY MARK TWAIN i WHAT with lying on the rocks four days at Louisville, and some other delays, the poor old Paul Jones fooled away about two weeks in making the voyage from Cin cinnati to New Orleans. This gave me a chance to get acquainted with one of the pilots, and he taught me how to steer the boat, and thus made the fascination of river-life more potent than ever for me. It also gave me a chance to get acquainted with a youth who had taken deck passage more's the pity; for he easily borrowed six dollars of me on a promise to return to the boat and pay it back to me the day after we should arrive. But he probably died, or forgot, for he never came. I soon discovered two things. One was that a vessel would not be likely to sail for the mouth of the Amazon under ten or twelve years; and the other was that the nine or ten dollars still left in my pocket would not suf fice for so imposing an exploration as I had planned, even if I could afford to wait for a ship. Therefore it followed that I must contrive a new carper. The Paul Jones was now bound for St. Louis. I planned a siege against my pilot, and at the end of three hard days he 1 Copyright, 1874 and 1875, by H. O. Houghton & Co. Copyright, 1883, 1899, 1903, by Samuel L. Clemens. Copyright, 1911, 1919, by Clara Gabrilowitsch. From"The Kay's Life of Mark Twain," by Albert Bigelow Paine, Harper & Brothers. SAM CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN) ON "LOVER'S LEAP' OVERLOOKING THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER 118 OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI surrendered. He agreed to teach me the Mississippi River from New Orleans to St. Louis for five hundred dollars, payable out of the first wages I should receive after graduating. I entered upon the small enterprise of "learning" twelve or thirteen hundred miles of the great Mississippi River with the easy confidence of my time of life. If I had really known what I was about to require of my faculties, I should not have had the courage to begin. I supposed that all a pilot had to do was to keep his boat in the river, and I did not consider that that could be much of a trick, since it was so wide. The boat backed out from New Orleans at four in the afternoon, and it was "our watch" until eight. Mr. B , my chief, "straightened her up," ploughed her along past the sterns of the other boats that lay at the Levee, and then said, "Here, take her; shave those steamships as close as you'd peel an apple." I took the wheel, and my heart went down into my boots; for it seemed to me that we were about to scrape the side off every ship in the line, we were so close. I held my breath and began to claw the boat away from the danger; and I had my own opinion of the pilot who had known no better than to get us into such peril ; but I was too wise to express it. In half a minute I had a wide margin of safety intervening between the Paul Jones and the ships ; and within ten seconds more I was set aside in disgrace, and Mr. B was going into danger again and flaying me alive with abuse of my cowardice. I was stung, but I was obliged to admire the easy confidence with which my chief loafed from side to side of his wheel, and trimmed the ships so closely that OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI 119 disaster seemed ceaselessly imminent. When he had cooled a little, he told me that the easy water was close ashore and the current outside, so we must hug the bank, up-stream, to get the benefit of the former, and stay well out, down-stream, to take advantage of the lat ter. In my own mind I resolved to be a down-stream pilot and leave up-streaming to people dead to prudence. Now and then Mr. B called my attention to cer tain things. Said he, "This is Six-Mile Point." I as sented. It was pleasant enough information, but I could not see the bearing of it. I was not conscious that it was a matter of any interest to me. Another time he said, "This is Nine-Mile Point." Later he said, "This is Twelve-Mile Point." They were all about level with the water's edge; they all looked about alike to me; they were monotonously unpicturesque. I hoped Mr. B would change the subject. But no; he would crowd up around a point, hugging the shore with affection, and then say, "The slack water ends here, abreast this bunch of China-trees ; now we cross over." So he crossed over. He gave me the wheel once or twice, but I had no luck. I either came near chipping off the edge of a sugar plantation, or else I yawed too far from shore; and so I dropped back into disgrace again and got abused. The watch was ended at last, and we took supper and went to bed. At midnight the glare of a lantern shone in my eyes, and the night watchman said, "Come! turn out!" And then he left. I could not understand this extraordinary procedure ; so I presently gave up trying to, and dozed off to sleep. Pretty soon the watchman was back again, and this time he was gruff. 120 OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI I was annoyed. I said, "What do you want to come bothering around here in the middle of the night for? Now as like as not I'll not get to sleep again to-night." The watchman said, "Well, if this an't good, I'm blest!" The "off- watch" was just turning in, and I heard some brutal laughter from them, and such re marks as "Hello, watchman! an't the new cub turned out yet? He's delicate, likely. Give him some sugar in a rag and send for the chambermaid to sing rock-a-by- baby to him." About this time Mr. B appeared on the scene. Something like a minute later I was climbing the pilot house steps with some of my clothes on and the rest in my arms. Mr. B - was close behind, commenting. Here was something fresh this thing of getting up in the middle of the night to go to work. It was a detail in piloting that had never occurred to me at all. I knew that boats ran all night, but somehow I had never hap pened to reflect that somebody had to get up out of a warm bed to run them. I began to fear that piloting was not quite so romantic as I had imagined it was: there was something very real and work-like about this new phase of it. It was a rather dingy night, although a fair number of stars were out. The big mate was at the wheel, and he had the old tub pointed at a star and was holding her straight up the middle of the river. The shores on either hand were not much more than a mile apart, but they seemed wonderfully far away and ever so vague and indistinct. The mate said, "We've got to land at Jones's planta tion, sir." OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI The vengeful spirit in me exulted. I said to myself, "I wish you joy of your job; you'll have a good time finding Mr. Jones's plantation such a night as this; and I hope you never will find it as long as you live." "Upper end of the plantation, or the lower?" said Mr. B - to the mate. "Upper." "I can't do it. The stumps there are out of the water at this stage. It's no great distance to the lower, and you'll have to get along with that." "All right, sir. If Jones don't like it he'll have to lump it, I reckon." And then the mate left. My exultation began to cool and my wonder to come up. Here was a man who not only proposed to find this plantation on such a night, but to find either end of it he preferred. I dreadfully wanted to ask a question, but I was carrying about as many short answers as my cargo-room would admit of, so I held my peace. All I desired to ask Mr. B - was the simple question whether he was going to find that plantation on a night when all plantations were exactly alike and all the same color. But I held in. I used to have fine inspirations of prudence in those days. Mr. B made for the shore, and soon was scraping it, just the same as if it had been daylight. And not only that, but singing, "Father in heaven, the day is declining," etc. It seemed to me that I had put my life in the keeping of a peculiarly reckless outcast. Presently he turned on me and said, "What's the name of the first point above New Orleans?" OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I did n't know. " Don't know?" This manner jolted me. I was down at the foot again, in a moment. But I had to say just what I had said before. "Well, you're a smart one," said Mr. B . "What's the name of the next point?" Once more I did n't know. "Well this beats anything. Tell me the name of any point or place I told you." I studied a while and decided that I could n't. " Look-a-here ! What do you start out from, above Twelve-Mile Point, to cross over? " "I I don't know." "You you don't know?" mimicking my drawl ing manner of speech. "What do you know?" "I I nothing, for certain." "By the great Caesar's ghost, I believe you! You're the stupidest dunderhead I ever saw or ever heard of, so help me Moses ! The idea of you being a pilot you! Why, you don't know enough to pilot a cow down a lane!" Oh, but his wrath was up! He was a nervous man, and he shuffled from one side of his wheel to the other as if the floor was hot. He would boil a while to him self, and then overflow and scald me again. "Look-a-here! What do you suppose I told you the names of those points for? " I tremblingly considered a moment, and then the devil of temptation provoked me to say, " Well to to be entertaining, I thought." OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI 123 This was a red rag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he was crossing the river at the time) that I judge it made him blind, because he ran over the steering-oar of a trading scow. Of course the traders sent up a volley of red-hot profanity. Never was a man so grateful as Mr. B - was: because he was brim-full, and here were subjects who would talk back. He threw open a window, thrust his head out, and such an irruption fol lowed as I never heard before. The fainter and farther away the scowmen's curses drifted, the higher Mr. B lifted his voice, and the weightier his adjectives grew. When he closed the window he was empty. You could have drawn a seine through his system and not caught curses enough to disturb your mother with. Presently he said to me in the gentlest way: - "My boy, you must get a little memorandum-book, and every time I tell you a thing, put it down right away. There 's only one way to be a pilot, and that is to get this entire river by heart. You have to know it just like A.B.C." That was a dismal revelation to me, for my memory was never loaded with anything but blank cartridges. However, I did not feel discouraged long. I judged that it was best to make some allowances, for doubtless Mr. B - was " stretching." Presently he pulled a rope and struck a few strokes on the big bell. The stars were all gone now, and the night was as black as ink. I could hear the wheels churn along the bank, but I was not entirely certain that I could see the shore. The voice of the invisible watchman called up from the hurricane deck : - "What's this, sir?" 124 OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI "Jones's plantation." I said to myself, "I wish I might venture to offer a small bet that it is n't." But I did not chirp. I only waited to see. Mr. B - handled the engine-bells, and in due time the boat's nose came to the land, a torch glowed from the forecastle, a man skipped ashore, a darky's voice on the bank said, "Gimme de carpet-bag, Mars' Jones," and the next moment we were standing up the river again, all serene. I reflected deeply a while, and then said, but not aloud, "Well, the finding of that plantation was the luckiest accident that ever happened ; but it could n't happen again in a hundred years." And I fully believed it was an accident, too. By the time we had gone seven or eight hundred miles up the river, I had learned to be a tolerably plucky up-stream steersman, in daylight, and before we reached St. Louis I had made a trifle of progress in night-work, but only a trifle. I had a notebook that fairly bristled with the names of towns, "points," bars, islands, bends, reaches, etc. ; but the information was to be found only in the notebook none of it was in my head. It made my heart ache to think I had only got half of the river set down; for as our watch was four hours off and four hours on, day and night, there was a long four-hour gap in my book for every time I had slept since the voyage began. My chief was presently hired to go on a big New Orleans boat, and I packed my satchel and went with him. She was a grand affair. When I stood in her pilot house I was so far above the water that I seemed perched on a mountain; and her decks stretched so far away, fore and aft, below me, that I wondered how I could OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI 125 ever have considered the little Paul Jones a large craft. There were other differences, too. The Paul Jones's pilot-house was a cheap, dingy, battered rattle-trap, cramped for room : but here was a sumptuous glass tem ple: room enough to have a dance in; showy red and gold window-curtains; an imposing sofa; leather cush ions and a back to the high bench where visiting pilots sit, to spin yarns and "look at the river"; bright, fanci ful "cuspadores" instead of a broad wooden box filled with sawdust; nice new oilcloth on the floor; a hospit able big stove for winter; a wheel as high as my head, costly with inlaid work; a wire tiller-rope; bright brass knobs for the bells; and a tidy, white-aproned, black "texas-tender," to bring up tarts and ices and coffee during mid-watch, day and night. Now this was "something like"; and so I began to take heart once more, to believe that piloting was a romantic sort of occupation after all. The moment we were under way I began to prowl about the great steamer and fill myself with joy. She was as clean and dainty as a drawing-room; when I looked down her long, gilded saloon, it was like gazing through a splendid tunnel; she had an oil-picture, by some gifted sign- painter, on every stateroom door; she glittered with no end of prism-fringed chandeliers; the clerk's office was elegant, the bar was marvelous, and the bar-keeper had been barbered and upholstered at incredible cost. The boiler deck (that is, the second story of the boat, so to speak) was as spacious as a church, it seemed to me; so with the forecastle ; and there was no pitiful handful of deckhands, firemen, and roustabouts down there, but a whole battalion of men. The fires were fiercely glaring 126 OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI from a long row of furnaces, and over them were eight huge boilers! This was unutterable pomp. The mighty engines but enough of this. I had never felt so fine before. And when I found that the regiment of natty servants respectfully "sir" 'd me, my satisfaction was complete. When I returned to the pilot-house, St. Louis was gone and I was lost. Here was a piece of river which was all down in my book, but I could make neither head nor tail of it: you understand, it was turned round. I had seen it when coming up-stream, but I had never faced about to see how it looked when it was behind me. My heart broke again, for it was plain that I had got to learn this troublesome river both ways. The pilot-house was full of pilots, going down to "look at the river." What is called the "upper river" (the two hundred miles between St. Louis and Cairo, where the Ohio comes in) was low; and the Mississippi changes its channel so constantly, that the pilots used always to find it necessary to run down to Cairo to take a fresh look, when their boats were to lie in port a week, that is, when the water was at a low stage. A deal of this "looking at the river" was done by poor fellows who seldom had a berth, and whose only hope of getting one lay in their being always freshly posted and therefore ready to drop into the shoes of some reputable pilot, for a single trip, on account of such pilot's sudden illness, or some other necessity. And a good many of them con stantly ran up and down, inspecting the river, not because they ever really hoped to get a berth, but because (they being guests of the boat) it was cheaper to "look at the river" than stay ashore and pay board. In time these OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI 127 fellows grew dainty in their tastes, and only infested boats with an established reputation for setting good tables. All visiting pilots were useful, for they were always ready and willing, winter or summer, night or day, to go out in the yawl and help buoy the channel, or assist the boat's pilots in any way they could. They were like wise welcome because all pilots are tireless talkers, when gathered together, and as they talk only about the river they are always understood and are always inter esting. Your true pilot cares nothing about anything on earth but the river, and his pride in his occupation surpasses the pride of kings. We had a fine company of these river inspectors along, this trip. There were eight or ten; and there was abun dance of room for them in our great pilot-house. Two or three of them wore polished silk hats, elaborate shirt- fronts, diamond breastpins, kid gloves, and patent- leather boots. They were choice in their English, and bore themselves with a dignity proper to men of solid means and prodigious reputation as pilots. The others were more or less loosely clad, and wore tall felt cones suggestive of the days of the Commonwealth. I was a cipher in this august company, and felt sub dued, not to say torpid. I was not even of sufficient consequence to assist at the wheel when it was necessary to put the tiller hard down in a hurry; the guest who stood nearest did that when occasion required and this was pretty much all the time, because of the crook edness of the channel and the scant water I stood in a corner; and the talk I listened to took the hope ail out of me. One visitor said to another, "Jim, how did you run Plum Point coming up?" 128 OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI "It was in the night there, and I ran it the way one of the boys on the Diana told me; started out about fifty yards above the wood-pile on the false point, and held on the cabin under Plum Point till I raised the reef, quarter less twain, then straightened up for the mid dle bar till I got well abreast the old one-limbed cotton- wood in the bend, then got my stern on the cotton- wood and head on the low place above the point, and came through a-booming nine and a half." "Pretty square crossing, an't it?" "Yes, but the upper bar's working down fast." Another spoke up and said, "I had better water than that, and ran it lower down; started out from the false point mark twain raised the second reef abreast the big snag in the bend, and had quarter less twain." One of the gorgeous ones remarked, "I don't want to find fault with your leadsmen, but that's a good deal of water for Plum Point, it seems to me." There was an approving nod all around as this quiet snub dropped on the boaster and "settled" him. And so they went on talk-talk-talking. Meantime, the thing that was running in my mind was, "Now if my ears hear aright, I have not only to get the names of all the towns and islands and bends, and so on, by heart, but I must even get up a warm personal acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cotton-wood and obscure wood-pile that ornaments the banks of this river for twelve hundred miles; and more than that, I must actually know where these things are in the dark, unless these guests are gifted with eyes that can pierce through two miles of solid blackness ; I wish the piloting business was in Jericho and I had never thought of it." OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI 129 At dusk Mr. B - tapped the big bell three times (the signal to land), and the captain emerged from his drawing-room in the forward end of the texas, and looked up inquiringly. Mr. B said, "We will lay up here all night, captain." "Very well, sir." That was all. The boat came to shore and was tied up for the night. It seemed to me a fine thing that the pilot could do as he pleased without asking so grand a captain's permission. I took my supper and went im mediately to bed, discouraged by my day's observations and experiences. My late voyage's notebooking was but a confusion of meaningless names. It had tangled me all up in a knot every time I had looked at it in the daytime. I now hoped for respite in sleep; but no, it reveled all through my head till sunrise again, a frantic and tireless nightmare. Next morning I felt pretty rusty and low-spirited. We went booming along, taking a good many chances, for we were anxious to "get out of the river" (as getting out to Cairo was called) before night should overtake us. But Mr. B 's partner, the other pilot, presently grounded the boat, and we lost so much time getting her off, that it was plain the darkness would overtake us a good long way above the mouth. This was a great mis fortune, especially to certain of our visiting pilots, whose boats would have to wait for their return, no matter how long that might be. It sobered the pilot-house talk a good deal. Coming up-stream, pilots did not mind low water or any kind of darkness; nothing stopped them but fog. But down-stream work was different; a boat 130 OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI was too nearly helpless, with a stiff current pushing behind her; so it was not customary to run down-stream at night in low water. There seemed to be one small hope, however: if we could get through the intricate and dangerous Hat Island crossing before night, we could venture the rest, for we would have plainer sailing and better water. But it would be insanity to attempt Hat Island at night. So there was a deal of looking at watches all the rest of the day, and a constant ciphering upon the speed we were making. Hat Island was the eternal subject; some times hope was high, and sometimes we were delayed in a bad crossing, and down it went again. For hours all hands lay under the burden of this suppressed excite ment; it was even communicated to me, and I got to feeling so solicitous about Hat Island, and under such an awful pressure of responsibility, that I wished I might have five minutes on shore to draw a good, full, relieving breath, and start over again. We were stand ing no regular watches. Each of our pilots ran such por tions of the river as he had run when coming up-stream, because of his greater familiarity with it; but both remained in the pilot-house constantly. An hour before sunset, Mr. B took the wheel, and Mr. W stepped aside. For the next thirty minutes every man held his watch in his hand and was restless, silent, and uneasy. At last somebody said, with a doomful sigh, "Well, yonder 's Hat Island and we can't make it." All the watches closed with a snap, everybody sighed and muttered something about its being "too bad, too bad ah, if we could only have got here half an hour OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI 131 sooner! " and the place was thick with the atmosphere of disappointment. Some started to go out, but loitered, hearing no bell-tap to land. The sun dipped behind the horizon; the boat went on. Inquiring looks passed from one guest to another; and one who had his hand on the door-knob, and had turned it, waited, then presently took away his hand and let the knob turn back again. We bore steadily down the bend. More looks were ex changed, and nods of surprised admiration but no words. Insensibly the men drew together behind Mr. B , as the sky darkened and one or two dim stars came out. The dead silence and sense of waiting became oppressive. Mr. B - pulled the cord, and two deep, mellow notes from the big bell floated off on the night. Then a pause, and one more note was struck. The watchman's voice followed, from the hurricane deck, "Labboard lead, there! Stabboard lead!" The cries of the leadsmen began to rise out of the dis tance, and were gruffly repeated by the word-passers on the hurricane deck. "M-a-r-k three! M-a-r-k three! Quarter-less-three! Half twain! Quarter twain! M-a-r-k twain! Quarter- less " Mr. B pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint jinglings far below in the engine-room, and our speed slackened. The steam began to whistle through the gauge-cocks. The cries of the leadsmen went on and it is a weird sound, always, in the night. Every pilot in the lot was watching now, with fixed eyes, and talking under his breath. Nobody was calm and easy but Mr. B . He would put his wheel down and stand 132 OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI on a spoke, and as the steamer swung in to her (to me) utterly invisible marks, for we seemed to be in the midst of a wide and gloomy sea, he would meet and fasten her there. Talk was going on now, in low voices. "There; she's over the first reef all right!" After a pause, another subdued voice: "Her stern's coming down just exactly right, by George! Now she's in the marks; over she goes!" Somebody else muttered, "Oh, it was done beautiful beautiful!" Now the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with the current. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the stars being all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest work; it held one's heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker gloom than that which surrounded us. It was the head of the island. We were closing right down upon it. We entered its deeper shadow, and so imminent seemed the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the strongest impulse to do something, anything, to save the vessel. But still Mr. B stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the pilots stood shoulder to shoulder at his back. "She'll not make it!" somebody whispered. The water grew shoaler and shoaler by the leadsmen's cries, till it was down to "Eight-and-a-half! E-i-g-h-t feet! E-i-g-h-t feet! Seven-and " Mr. B said warningly through his speaking-tube to the engineer, "Stand by, now!" "Aye-aye, sir." "Seven-and-a-half! Seven feet! Six-and " We touched bottom ! Instantly Mr. B set a lot of bells ringing, shouted through the tube, "Now let her OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI 133 have it every ounce you've got!" Then to his part ner, "Put her hard down! snatch her! snatch her!" The boat rasped and ground her way through the sand, hung upon the apex of disaster a single tremend ous instant, and then over she went! And such a shout as went up at Mr. B 's back never loosened the roof of a pilot-house before! There was no more trouble after that. Mr. B was a hero that night; and it was some little time, too, before his exploit ceased to be talked about by river men. Fully to realize the marvelous precision required in laying the great steamer in her marks in that murky waste of water, one should know that, not only must she pick her intricate way through snags and blind reefs, and then shave the head of the island so closely as to brush the overhanging foliage with her stern, but at one place she must pass almost within arm's reach of a sunken and invisible wreck that would snatch the hull timbers from under her if she should strike it, and destroy a quarter of a million dollars' worth of steam boat and cargo in five minutes, and maybe a hundred and fifty human lives into the bargain. The last remark I heard that night was a compliment to Mr. B , uttered in soliloquy and with unction by one of our guests. He said: "By the Shadow of Death, but he's a lightning pilot!" THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN PINION THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB EVEN when he first appeared, intoxicated, in the prayer-meeting which my father was conducting, he was both witty and polite. He bowed ceremoniously when he entered; he remarked aloud, as he realized that he held his hymn-book by the wrong end, that it was a great accomplishment to be able to read upside down; he bowed politely again as he was escorted to the door by two elders. There he thanked them. He was tall and dignified and fairly well dressed, and he spoke like a gentleman. The subject of the prayer-meeting lesson was temperance, and father, who enjoys coincidences, found in him an appropriate illustration. In the morning, he called at our side door. He was out of work, he wished a trifling loan; it was a humilia ting errand, but he trusted the kind heart of a clergy man to understand his necessity. He was helped, not with money, but with food, warm underwear, a hat that was better than his, and with advice. Father likes to set things straight, whether it be a crooked road or a crooked character, and his advice, which is sensible and tactful, is often taken. "I, intoxicated in the house of God!" The stranger was overwhelmed. " I, disturb a religious service ! I was brought up to know better than that, sir. I hope you will apologize for me to your people. Ah, sir," and THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN PINION 135 here the stranger sighed, deeply and profoundly, "the bird with the broken pinion never soars so high again! " Thus did he name himself, and thus did we call him among ourselves throughout the two years during which he came regularly to see us. Once every two or three weeks he appeared, had a meal in the kitchen or on the back porch, talked for an hour or two, and departed. He was always polite, always entertaining, always will ing to listen and to talk. We valued his remarks, his comments upon life, his extraordinary and mysterious knowledge. Where he acquired it, where he came from, where he went to, we do not know to this day. To our father he discoursed about predestination, of him he made polite and interested inquiry about the tenets of our own faith, which does not include the above astonishing belief! With him he argued to mention only a few of the subjects to which he gave his thought about the destiny of man, the existence of angels, and the sad and strange difference between the individual and corporate conscience of the citizens of our ancient, proud, and somewhat mismanaged State of Pennsylvania. To my mother, when he came upon her in the garden, he held forth about rare flowers; to the oldest of my brothers he talked about Europe, whither he claimed to have been, and about football and cricket and airships; for the youngest of us he spread down a magic carpet upon which the two sped forth to the ends of the earth. Sometimes I eavesdropped, indeed, there was almost always one of us eavesdropping, and I recognized many of the familiar doings of Sinbad and Don Quix ote, and even of the glorious Greek. 136 THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN PINION With me, the bird of the broken pinion ventured upon distinctly literary topics. Somewhere he had come across a story signed by my name, and he had read it with flattering attention. He even suggested an im provement. Occasionally he presented me with news paper clippings, giving incidents which he thought would make "copy." Several of them I have used to ad vantage. He had read widely; his slips in grammar and rhetoric made his acquaintance with Arnold and Steven son all the more mysterious. What was he: a wandering son of some English manse, his education seemed to have been English, a scholar gypsy, not "pensive and tongue-tied," but cheerful and loquacious; not free, but fettered by his own weakness? For two years he came, for two years he asked and was given alms, for two years he was advised and ex horted. He always expressed great interest in the wel fare of his soul. "I do try, I will try," he would say, humbly, the smell of liquor strongly upon him. " I am sure, sir, I am grate ful to you." Never until the end and father calculated after wards that during the two years of his visitations he had been advised at least forty times never until the end did he show any impatience, any resentment. He never reminded the head of our household that, though his pinions may have suffered, he was no longer a fledge ling, and that his character was formed beyond hope of change. He listened politely even when little Bobby admonished him. And even at the end he was polite. It was one summer evening at supper-time that he appeared on the porch opening from the dining-room. THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN PINION 137 Father had finished his supper and went out to speak to him, and the rest of us sat still, anticipating the pleas ure that his conversation always gave us. The day had been intensely warm, and father was uncomfortable. So, also, may have been our friend. Father did not wait until his unfailing charity had opened the way for ad vice: he began immediately on the man, who was for once unshaven, out at elbows, and disreputable. "Well," said father with sharpness unlike him, "have you been keeping straight?" The man rose; he spoke jauntily, as one perfectly self-sufficient, perfectly satisfied with life a state of mind which is, on a hot day at least, most enviable. "Doctor," he said, "I saw a clipping some time ago that I thought would interest you." He opened the old wallet from which he used to take clippings for me, and handed a little paper to father, went down the steps and out the walk. Father made an incoherent noise in his throat, then called to our friend, who did not come back. He has never come back. I suppose he could endure us no longer our curi osity, our Pharisaism, our reforming zeal. He had amused us, entertained us, for two years, and we had never forgotten that he was a tramp. And he had done us good, not only with the example of his good temper, but with his reproof. If he still reads the Atlantic Monthly, will he accept this as an apology from us all and a confession of our own bad manners? For the title of the clipping father brought it in and read it aloud and joined in the rueful laugh which greeted it the title of the clipping was, "On the Ex cellent Virtue of Minding One's" Own Business!" THE SAILING OF KING OLAF BY ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON "NoRROWAY hills are grand to see, Norroway vales are broad and fair: Any monarch on earth might be Contented to find his kingdom there!" So spake Harald Haardrade bold To Olaf, his brother, with red-gold. "A bargain!" cried Olaf. "Beside the strand Our ships rock idle. Come, sail away! Who first shall win to our native land, He shall be king of old Norroway." Quoth Harald the Stern, "My vessel for thine, I will not trust to this laggard of mine." "Take thou my Dragon with silken sails," Said Olaf. "The Ox shall be mine in place. If it pleases our Lord to send me gales, In either vessel I '11 win the race. With this exchange art satisfied?" "Ay, brother," the crafty one replied. King Olaf strode to the church to pray For blessing of God on crew and ship; But Harald, the traitor, made haste to weigh His anchor, and out of the harbor slip. " Pray ! " laughed Harald Haardrade. "Pray! The wind 's in my favor. Set sail! Away!" THE SAILING OF KING OLAF 139 As Olaf knelt by the chancel rail, Down the broad aisle came one in haste, With panting bosom and cheeks all pale; Straight to King Olaf s side he paced. "Oh, waste no time in praying," cried he, "For Harald already is far at sea!" But Olaf answered: "Let sail who will, Without God's blessing I shall not go." Beside the altar he tarried still, While the good priest chanted soft and slow; And Olaf prayed the Lord in his heart, "I shall win yet if thou take my part!" Cheerily then he leaped on board; High on the prow he took his stand. "Forward," he bade, "in the name of the Lord!" Held the white horn of the Ox in his hand: "Now, Ox! good Ox! I pray thee speed As if to pasture in clover-mead!" The huge Ox rolled from side to side, And merrily out of the harbor sped. "Dost see the Dragon?" King Olaf cried To the lad who clung to the high mast-head. "Not so!" the watcher swift answer gave; "There is never a boat upon the wave." Onward then for a league and twain, Right in the teeth of the wind they flew. "Seest aught of the Dragon upon the main?" "Something to landward sure I view! Far ahead I can just behold Silken sails with a border of gold." 140 THE SAILING OF KING OLAF The third time Olaf called with a frown : "Dost see my Dragon yet? Ho! Say!" Out of the mast-head the cry came down : "Nigh to the shores of Norroway The good ship Dragon rides full sail, Driving ahead before the gale!" "Ho! to the haven!" King Olaf cried, And smote the eye of the Ox with his hand. It leaped so madly along the tide That never a sailor on deck could stand; But Olaf lashed them firm and fast With trusty cords to the strong oak mast. "Now, who," the helmsman said, "will guide The vessel upon the tossing sea?" "That will I do!" King Olaf cried; "And no man's life shall be lost through me." Like a living coal his dark eye glowed As swift to the helmsman's place he strode. Looking neither to left nor right, Toward the land he sailed right in, Steering straight as a line of light: "So must I run if I would win; Faith is stronger than hills or rocks. Over the land speed on, good Ox!" Into the valleys the waters rolled; Hillocks and meadows disappeared. Grasping the helm in his iron holds On, right onward, St. Olaf steered; High and higher the blue waves rose. " On ! " he shouted. "No time to lose ! " THE SAILING OF KING OLAF 141 Out came running the elves in a throng; Out from cavern and rock they came : "Now, who is this comes sailing along Over our homes? Ho! tell us thy name !" "I am St. Olaf, my little men! Turn into stones till I come again." The elf -stones rolled down the mountain side; The sturdy Ox sailed over them all. "Ill luck be with thee!" a Carline cried; "Thy ship has shattered my chamber wall!" In Olaf 's eyes flashed a fiery glint : "Be turned forever to rock of flint!" Never was sailing like this before : He shot an arrow along the wind, Or ever it lighted the ship sailed o'er The mark; the arrow fell far behind. "Faster, faster!" cried Olaf. "Skip Fleet as Skidbladnir, the magic ship!" Swifter and swifter across the foam The quivering Ox leaped over the track, Till-Olaf came to his boyhood's home; Then, fast as it rose, the tide fell back. And Olaf was king of the whole Norse land When Harald the third day reached the strand. Such was the sailing of Olaf, the king, Monarch and saint of Norroway; In view of whose wondrous prospering The Norse have a saying unto this day: "As Harald Haardrade found to his cost, Time spent in praying is never lost!" THE ROMANCE OF A ROSE BY NORA PERRY IT is nearly a hundred years ago, Since the day that the Count de Rochambeau Our ally against the British crown Met Washington in Newport town. ' Twas the month of March, and the air was chil! 9 But bareheaded over Aquidneck hill, Guest and host they took their way, While on either side was the grand array Of a gallant army, French and fine, Ranged three deep in glittering line; And the French fleet sent a welcome roar Of a hundred guns from Conanicut shore. And the bells rang out from every steeple, And from street to street the Newport people Followed and cheered, with a hearty zest, De Rochambeau and his honored guest. And women out of the windows leant, And out of the windows smiled and sent Many a coy admiring glance To the fine young officers of France. THE ROMANCE OF A ROSE 143 And the story goes, that the belle of the town Kissed a rose and flung it down Straight at the feet of De Rochambeau; And the gallant marshal, bending low, Lifted it up with a Frenchman's grace, And kissed it back, with a glance at the face Of the daring maiden where she stood, Blushing out of her silken hood. That night at the ball, still the story goes, The Marshal of France wore a faded rose In his gold-laced coat; but he looked in vain For the giver's beautiful face again. Night after night, and day after day, The Frenchman eagerly sought, they say, At feast, or at church, or along the street, For the girl who flung her rose at his feet. And she, night after night, day after day, Was speeding farther and farther away From the fatal window, the fatal street, Where her passionate heart had suddenly beat A throb too much for the cool control A Puritan teaches to heart and soul ; A throb too much for the wrathful -eyes Of one who had watched in dismayed surprise From the street below; and taking the gauge Of a woman's heart in that moment's rage, He swore, this old colonial squire, That before the daylight should expire, 144 THE ROMANCE OF A ROSE This daughter of his, with her wit and grace, And her dangerous heart and her beautiful face, Should be on her way to a sure retreat, Where no rose of hers could fall at the feet Of a cursed Frenchman, high or low. And so, while the Count de Rochambeau, In his gold-laced coat wore a faded flower, And awaited the giver hour by hour, She was sailing away in the wild March night On the little deck of the sloop Delight, Guarded even in the darkness there By the wrathful eyes of a jealous care. Three weeks after, a brig bore down Into the harbor of Newport town, Towing a wreck 'twas the sloop Delight; Off Hampton rocks, in the very sight Of the land she sought, she and her crew And all on board of her, full in view Of the storm-bound fishermen over the bay, Went to their doom on that April day. When Rochambeau heard the terrible tale, He muttered a prayer, for a moment grew pale; Then "Mon Dieu," he exclaimed, "so my fine romance From beginning to end is a rose and a glance." THE AMERICAN MIRACLE BY MARY ANTIN OUR initiation into American ways began with the first step on the new soil. My father found occasion to instruct or correct us even on the way from the pier to Wall Street, which journey we made crowded together in a rickety cab. He told us not to lean out of the win dows, not to point, and explained the word "green horn." We did not want to be greenhorns, and gave the strictest attention to my father's instructions. I do not know when my parents found opportunity to review together the history of Polotzk in the three years past, for we children had no patience for the subject: my mother's narrative was constantly interrupted by irrel evant questions, interjections, and explanations. The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little tin cans that had print ing all over them. He attempted to introduce us to a queer, slippery kind of fruit, which he called "banana," but had to give it up for the time being. After the meal, he had better luck with a curious piece of furniture on runners, which he called "rocking chair." There were five of us newcomers, and we found five different ways of getting into the American vehicle of perpetual mo tion, and as many ways of getting out of it. In our flat we did not think of such a thing as storing 146 THE AMERICAN MIRACLE the coal in the bathtub. There was no bathtub. So in the evening of the first day my father conducted us to the public baths. As we moved along in a little proces sion, I was delighted with the illumination of the streets. So many lamps, and they burned until morning, my father said, and so people did not need to carry lanterns. In America, then, everything was free, as we had heard in Russia. Light was free; the streets were as bright as a synagogue on a holy-day. Music was free; we had been serenaded, to our gaping delight, by a brass band of many pieces, soon after our installation on Union Place. Education was free. That subject my father had writ ten about repeatedly, as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence of American opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, not even misfortune or poverty. It was the one thing that he was able to promise us when he sent for us, surer, safer than bread or shelter. On our second day I was thrilled with the realization of what this freedom of education meant. A little girl from across the alley came and offered to conduct us to school. My father was out, but we five between us had a few words of English by this time. We knew the word school. We understood. This child, who had never seen us till yesterday, who could not pronounce our names, who was not much better dressed than we, was able to offer us the freedom of the schools of Boston! No application made, no questions asked, no examinations, rulings, exclusions; no machinations, no fees. The doors stood open for every one of us. The smallest child could show us the way. This incident impressed me more than anything I THE AMERICAN MIRACLE 147 had heard in advance of the freedom of education in America. It was a concrete proof almost the thing itself. One had to experience it to understand it. It was a great disappointment to be told by my father that we were not to enter upon our school career at once. It was too near the end of the term, he said, and we were to move to Crescent Beach in a week or so. We had to wait until the schools open in September. What a loss of precious time from May till September! Not that the time was really lost. Even the interval on Union Place was crowded with lessons and experi ences. We had to visit the stores and be dressed from head to foot in American clothing; we had to conquer the mysteries of the iron stove, the washboard, and the speaking-tube; we had to learn to trade with the fruit- peddler through the window, and not to be afraid of the policeman; and, above all, w T e had to learn English. The kind people who assisted us in these important matters form a group by themselves in the gallery of my friends. If I had never seen them from those early days till now, I should still have remembered them with grat itude. When I enumerate the long list of my American teachers, I must begin with those w r ho came to us on Union Place and taught us our first steps. To my mother, in her perplexity over the cook-stove, the wo man who showed her how to make the fire was an angel of deliverance. A fairy godmother to us children was she who led us to a wonderful country called "up town," where, in a dazzlingly beautiful palace called a "depart ment store," we exchanged our hateful home-made Eu ropean costumes, which pointed us out as "greenhorns" to the children on the street, for real American machine- 148 THE AMERICAN MIRACLE made garments, and issued forth glorified in each others' eyes. With our despised immigrant clothing we shed also our impossible Hebrew names. A committee of our friends, several years ahead of us in American experi ence, put their heads together and concocted American names for us all. Those of our real names that had no pleasing American equivalents they ruthlessly discarded, content if they retained the initials. My mother, possess ing a name that was untranslatable, was punished with the undignified nickname of Annie. Fetchke, Joseph, and Edle Dvereh issued as Frieda, Joseph, and Dora, respectively. As for poor me, I was simply cheated. My Hebrew name being Maryashe in full, Mashke for short, Russianized into Marya (Mar-ya) , my friends said it would hold good in English as Mary; which was very disappointing, as I longed to possess a really strange-sounding American name like the others. I am forgetting the consolation I had, in this matter of names, from the use of my surname, which I have had no occasion to mention until now. My father, I found, was Mr. Antin on the slightest provocation, and not, as in Polotzk, on state occasions alone. And so I was Mary Antin, and I felt very important to answer to such a dignified title. It was just like America that even plain people should wear their surnames on week-days. As a family we were so diligent under instruction, so adaptable, and so clever in hiding our deficiencies, that when we made the journey to Crescent Beach, in the wake of our small wagon-load of household goods, my father had very little occasion to admonish us on the way, and I am sure he was not ashamed of us. So much THE AMERICAN MIRACLE 149 we had achieved toward our Americanization during the two weeks that had passed since our landing. In Chelsea, as in Boston, we made our stand in the wrong end of the town. Arlington Street was inhabited by poor Jews, poor Negroes, and a sprinkling of poor Irish. The side streets leading from it were occupied by more poor Jews and Negroes, It was a proper locality for a man without capital to do business. My father rented a tenement with a store in the basement ; he put in a few barrels of flour and sugar, a few boxes of crack ers, a few gallons of kerosene, an assortment of soap of the " save-the-coupon " brands; in the cellar, a few bar rels of potatoes, and a pyramid of kindling wood ; in the show-case, an alluring display of penny candy. He put out his sign, with a gilt-lettered warning, "Strictly Cash," and proceeded to give credit indiscriminately. That was the regular way to do business on Arlington Street. My father, in his three years' apprenticeship, had learned the tricks of many trades: he knew when and how to "bluff." The legend "Strictly Cash" was a protection against notoriously irresponsible customers; while none of the "good" customers, who had a record for paying regularly on Saturday, hesitated to enter the store with empty purses. If my father knew the tricks of the trade, my mother could be counted on to throw all her talent and tact into the business. Of course, she had no English yet; but as she could perform the acts of weighing, measuring, and mental computation of fractions mechanically, she was able to give her whole attention to the dark myster ies of the language, as intercourse with her customers gave her opportunity. In this she made such rapid 150 THE AMERICAN MIRACLE progress that she soon lost all sense of disadvantage, and conducted herself behind the counter very much as if she were back in her old store in Polotzk. It was far more cosy than Polotzk, at least, so it seemed to me, - for behind the store was the kitchen, where she did her cooking and washing, in the intervals of slack trade. Arlington Street customers were used to waiting while the soup was salted or a loaf rescued from the oven. I was not a bit too large for my little chair and desk in the baby class at school, but my mind, of course, was too mature by six or seven years for the work. So as soon as I could understand what the teacher said in class, I was advanced to the second grade. This was within a week after Miss Nixon took me in hand. But I do not mean to give my dear teacher all the credit for my rapid progress, or even half the credit. On behalf of my race and my family, I shall divide it with her. I was Jew enough to have an aptitude for language in general, and to bend my mind earnestly to my task; I was Antin enough to read each lesson with my heart, which gave me an inkling of what was coming next, and so carried me along by leaps and bounds. As for the teacher, she could best explain what theory she followed in teaching us foreigners to read. I can only describe the method, which was so simple that I wish holiness could be taught in the same way. There were about half a dozen of us beginners in Eng lish, in age from six to fifteen. Miss Nixon made a special class of us, and aided us so skillfully and earn estly in our endeavors to "see-a-cat," and "hear-a-dog," and "look-at-the-hen," that we turned over page after page of the ravishing history, eager to find out how the THE AMERICAN MIRACLE 151 common world looked, smelt, and tasted in the strange speech. The teacher knew just when to let us help each other out with a word in our own tongue, it happened that we were all Jews, and so, working all together, we actually covered more ground in a lesson than the native classes, composed entirely of little tots. But we stuck stuck fast at the definite article; and sometimes the lesson resolved itself into a species of lingual gymnastics, in which we all looked as if we meant to bite off our tongues. Miss Nixon was pretty, and she must have looked well with her white teeth showing in the act; but at the time I was too solemnly occupied to admire her looks. I did take great pleasure in her smile of approval, whenever I pronounced well; and her patience and perseverance are becoming to her even now, after fifteen years. It is not her fault if any of us give a buzzing sound to the dreadful English th. Whenever the teachers did anything special to help me over my private difficulties, my gratitude went out to them, silently. It meant so much to me that they halted the lesson to give me a lift, that I needs must love them for it. Dear Miss Carrol, of the second grade, would be amazed to hear what small things I remember, all because I was so impressed at the time with her read iness and sweetness in taking notice of my difficulties. Says Miss Carrol, looking straight at me, "If John nie has three marbles, and Charlie has twice as many, how many marbles has Charlie?" I raise my hand for permission to speak. "Teacher, I don't know vhat is tvice." Teacher beckons me to her, and whispers in my ear the meaning of the strange word, and I am able to write 152 THE AMERICAN MIRACLE the sum correctly. It's all in the day's work with her; with me, it is a special act of kindness and efficiency. She whom I found in the next grade became so dear a friend that I can hardly name her with the rest. Her approval was always dear to me, first because she was Teacher, and afterwards, as long as she lived, because she was my Miss Dillingham. Great was my grief, therefore, when, shortly after my admission to her class, I incurred discipline, for the first, and next to the last, time in my school career. The class was repeating in chorus the Lord's Prayer, heads bowed on desks. I was doing my best to keep up by the sound; my mind could not go beyond the word "hallowed," for which I had not found the meaning. In the middle of the prayer the Jewish boy across the aisle trod on my foot to get my attention. "You must not say that," he admonished in a solemn whisper. "It's Christian." I whispered back that it was n't. and went on, to the "Amen." I did not know but what he was right, but the name of Christ was not in the prayer, and I was bound to do everything that the class did. If I had any Jewish scruples, they were lagging away behind my interest in school affairs. But all Miss Dillingham saw was that two of her pupils whispered during morning prayer, and she must discipline them. So I was degraded from the honor row to the lowest row, and it was many a day before I forgave that young missionary; it was not enough for my vengeance that he suffered punishment with me. Teacher, of course, heard us both defend ourselves, but there was a time and a place for religious arguments, and she meant to help us remember that point. HOW I KILLED A BEAR BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER So many conflicting accounts have appeared about my casual encounter with an Adirondack bear last summer, that in justice to the public, to myself, and to the bear, it is necessary to make a plain statement of the facts. Besides, it is so seldom I have occasion to kill a bear, that the celebration of the exploit may be excused. The encounter was unpremeditated on both sides. I was not hunting for a bear, and I have no reason to suppose that a bear was looking for me. The fact is that we were both out blackberrying, and met by chance, the usual way. There is among the Adirondack visitors al ways a great deal of conversation about bears, a general expression of the wish to see one in the woods and much speculation as to how a person would act if he or she chanced to meet one. But bears are scarce and timid, and appear only to a favored few. It was a warm day in August, just the sort of day when an adventure of any kind seemed impossible. But it occurred to the housekeepers at our cottage there were four of them to send me to the clearing on the mountain back of the house to pick blackberries. It was rather a series of small clearings, running up into the forest, much overgrown with bushes and briars, and not unromantic. Cows pastured there, penetrating through the leafy passages from one opening to another, 154 HOW I KILLED A BEAR and browsing among the bushes. I was kindly furnished with a six-quart pail, and told not to be gone long. Not from any predatory instinct, but to save appear ances, I took a gun. It adds to the manly aspect of a person with a tin pail if he also carries a gun. It was possible I might start up a partridge; though how I was to hit him if he started up instead of standing still puz zled me. Many people use a shot-gun for partridges. I prefer the rifle; it makes a clean job of death, and does not prematurely stuff the bird with globules of lead. The rifle was a Sharp's, carrying a ball cartridge, ten to the pound; an excellent weapon, belonging to a friend of mine who had intended for a good many years back to kill a deer with it. He could hit a tree with it, if the wind did not blow and the atmosphere was just right and the tree was not too far off, nearly every time; of course the tree must have some size. Needless to say that I was at that time no sportsman. Years ago I killed a robin under the most humiliating circumstances. The bird was in a low cherry tree; I loaded a big shot gun pretty full, crept up under the tree, rested the gun on the fence, with the muzzle more than ten feet from the bird, shut both eyes, and pulled the trigger. When I got up to see what had happened, the robin was scat tered about under the tree in more than a thousand pieces, no one of which was big enough to enable a naturalist to decide from it to what species it belonged. This disgusted me with the life of a sportsman. I men tion the incident to show that, although I went black- berrying armed, there was not much inequality between me and the bear. In this blackberry patch bears had been seen. The HOW I KILLED A BEAR 155 summer before, our colored cook, accompanied by a little girl of the vicinage, was picking berries there one day, when a bear came out of the woods and walked toward them. The girl took to her heels and escaped. Aunt Chloe was paralyzed with terror. Instead of at tempting to run, she sat down on the ground where she was standing and began to weep and scream, giving her self up for lost. The bear was bewildered by this con duct. He approached and looked at her; he walked around and surveyed her. Probably he had never seen a colored person before, and did not know whether she would agree with him. At any rate, after watching her a few moments he turned about and went into the forest. This is an authentic instance of the delicate considera tion of a bear, and is much more remarkable than the forbearance toward the African slave of the well-known lion, because the bear had no thorn in his foot. When I had climbed the hill, I set up my rifle against a tree and began picking berries, lured on from bush to bush by the black gleam of fruit that always promises more in the distance than it realizes when you reach it; penetrating farther and farther, through leaf-shaded cow-paths flecked with sunlight, into clearing after clear ing. I could hear on all sides the tinkle of bells, the cracking of sticks, arid the stamping of cattle that were taking refuge in the thicket from the flies. Occasionally, as I broke through a covert, I encountered a meek cow, who stared at me stupidly for a second and then sham bled off into the brush. I became accustomed to this dumb society, and picked on in silence, attributing all the wood-noises to the cattle, thinking nothing of any real bear. In point of fact, however, I was thinking all 156 HOW I KILLED A BEAR the time of a nice romantic bear, and, as I picked, was composing a story about a generous she-bear who had lost her cub, and who seized a small girl in this very wood, carried her tenderly off to her cave, and brought her up on bear's milk and honey. When the girl got big enough to run away, moved by her inherited instincts, she escaped and came into the valley to her father's house (this part of the story was to be worked out, so that the child would know her father by some family re semblance, and have some language in which to address him), and told him where the bear lived. The father took his gun, and, guided by the unfeeling daughter, went into the woods and shot the bear, who never made any resistance, and only, when dying, turned reproach ful eyes upon her murderer. The moral of the tale was to be kindness to animals. I was in the midst of this tale, when I happened to look some rods away to the other edge of the clearing, and there was a bear ! He was standing on his hind legs and doing just what I was doing picking blackberries. With one paw he bent down the bush, while with the other he clawed the berries into his mouth, green ones and all. To say that I was astonished is inside the mark. I suddenly discovered that I did n't want to see a bear, after all. At about the same moment the bear saw me, stopped eating berries, and regarded me with a glad sur prise. It is all very well to imagine what you would do under such circumstances. Probably you would n't do it; I did n't. The bear dropped down on his fore feet, and came slowly towards me. Climbing a tree was of no use with so good a climber in the rear; if I started to run, I had no doubt the bear would give chase; and although HOW I KILLED A BEAR 157 a bear cannot run downhill as fast as he can run uphill, yet I felt that he could get over this rough, brush-tangled ground faster than I could. The bear was approaching. It suddenly occurred to me how I could divert his mind until I could fall back upon my military base. My pail was nearly full of ex cellent berries much better than the bear could pick himself. I put the pail on the ground and slowly backed away from it, keeping my eye, as beast-tamers do, on the bear. The ruse succeeded. The bear came up to the berries and stopped; not ac customed to eat out of a pail, he tipped it over and nosed about in the fruit, "gorming" (if there is such a word) it down, mixed with leaves and dirt, like a pig. The bear is a worse feeder than the pig. Whenever he disturbs a maple-sugar camp in the spring, he always upsets the bucket of syrup and tramples round in the sticky sweets, wasting more than he eats. The bear's manners are thoroughly disagreeable. As soon as my enemy's head was down, I started and ran. Somewhat out of breath and shaky, I reached my 158 HOW I KILLED A BEAR faithful rifle. It was not a moment too soon. I heard the bear crushing through the brush after me. Enraged at my duplicity, he was now coming on with blood in his eye. I felt that the time of one of us was probably short. The rapidity of thought at such moments of peril is well known. I thought an octavo volume, had it illustrated and published, sold fifty thousand copies, and went to Europe on the proceeds, while that bear was loping across the clearing. As I was cocking the gun, I made a hasty and unsatisfactory review of my whole life. I noted that even in such a compulsory review it is almost impossible to think of any good thing you have done. The sins come out uncommonly strong. I recol lected a newspaper subscription I had delayed paying, years and years ago, until both editor and newspaper were dead; and which now never could be paid to all eternity. The bear was coming on. I tried to remember what I had read about encounters with bears. I could n't recall an instance in which a man had run away from a bear in the woods and escaped, al though I recalled plenty where the bear had run from the man and got off. I tried to think what is the best way to kill a bear with a gun, when you are not near enough to club him with the stock. My first thought was to fire at his head, to plant the ball between his eyes; but this is a dangerous experiment. The bear's brain is very small, and unless you hit that, the bear does not mind a bullet in his head, that is, not at the time. I remembered that the instant death of the bear would follow a bullet planted just back of his fore leg and sent into his heart. This spot is also difficult to reach unless HOW I KILLED A BEAR 159 the bear stands off-side toward you, like a target. I fin ally determined to fire at him generally. The bear was coming on. The contest seemed to me very different from any thing at Creedmoor. I had carefully read the reports of the shooting there, but it was not easy to apply the ex perience I had thus acquired. I hesitated whether I had better fire lying on my stomach, or lying on my back and resting the gun on my toes. But in neither position, I reflected, could I see the bear until he was upon me. The range was too short, and the bear wouldn't wait for me to examine the thermometer and note the direc tion of the wind. Trial of the Creedmoor method, there fore, had to be abandoned; and I bitterly regretted that I had not read more accounts of off-hand shooting. For the bear was coming on. I tried to fix my last thoughts upon my family. As my family is small, this was not difficult. Dread of dis pleasing my wife or hurting her feelings was uppermost in my mind. What would be her anxiety as hour after hour passed on and I did not return ! What would the rest of the household think as the afternoon passed and no blackberries came! What would be her mortifica tion when the news was brought that her husband had been eaten up by a bear? I cannot imagine anything more ignominious than to have a husband eaten by a bear! And this was not my only anxiety. The mind at such times is not under control. With the gravest fears the most whimsical ideas will occur. I looked beyond the mourning friends and thought what kind of an epitaph they would be compelled to put upon the stone. 160 HOW I KILLED A BEAR Something like this : - HERE LIE THE REMAINS OF EATEN BY A BEAR August 20, 1877 It is a very unheroic and even disagreeable epitaph. That "eaten by a bear" is intolerable. It is grotesque. And then I thought what an inadequate language the English is for compact expression. It would not answer to put upon the stone simply "eaten," for that is in definite and requires explanation; it might mean eaten by a cannibal. This difficulty could not occur in the German, where essen signifies the act of feeding by a man and fressen by a beast. How simple the thing would be in German : HIER LIEGT HOCHWOHLGEBOREN HERR GEFRESSEN August 20, 1877 That explains itself. The well-born one was eaten by a beast, and presumably by a bear, which animal has a bad reputation since the days of Elisha. The bear was coming on. He had in fact come on. I judged that he could see the whites of my eyes. All my subsequent reflections were confused. I raised the gun, covered the bear's breast with the sight, and let drive. Then, I turned and ran like a deer. I did not hear the bear pursuing. I looked back. The bear had stopped. He was lying down. I then remembered that the best thing to do after having fired your gun is to reload it. I slipped in a charge, keeping my eyes on the bear. He never stirred. I walked back suspiciously. There was HOW I KILLED A BEAR 161 a quiver in the hind legs, but no other motion. Still, he might be shamming. Bears often sham. To make sure, I approached and put a ball into his head. He did n't mind it now; he minded nothing. Death had come to him with a merciful suddenness. He was calm in death. In order that he might remain so, I blew his brains out, and then started for home. I had killed a bear ! Notwithstanding my excitement, I managed to saun ter into the house with an unconcerned air. There was a chorus of voices : "Where are your blackberries?" "Where's your pail? " "I left the pail." "Left the pail! What for?" "A bear wanted it." "Oh, nonsense!" "Well, the last I saw of it, a bear had it." "Oh, come! You did n't really see a bear?" "Yes, but I did really see a real bear." "Did he run?" "Yes; he ran after me." "I don't believe a word of it. What did you do? " "Oh, nothing particular, except kill the bear." Cries of "Gammon!" "Don't believe it!" "Where's the bear?" "If you want to see the bear, you must go up into the woods. I could n't bring him down alone." Having satisfied the household that something extra ordinary had occurred, and excited the posthumous fear of some of them for my own safety, I went down into the valley to get help. The great bear-hunter who keeps one of the summer boarding-houses received my story 162 HOW I KILLED A BEAR with a smile of incredulity, and the incredulity spread to the other inhabitants and to the boarders as soon as the story was known. However, as I insisted in all so berness, and offered to lead them to the bear, a party of forty or fifty people at last started off with me to bring the bear in. Nobody believed there was any bear in the case, but everybody who could get a gun carried one, and we went into the woods armed with guns, pistols, pitch forks, and sticks, against all contingencies or surprises a crowd made up mostly of scoffers and jeerers. But when I led the way to the fatal spot, and pointed out the bear, lying peacefully wrapped in his own skin, something like terror seized the boarders, and genuine excitement the natives. It was a no-mistake bear, by George; and the hero of the fight well, I will not in sist upon that. But what a procession that was, carry ing the bear home, and what a congregation was speed ily gathered in the valley to see the bear! Our best preacher there never drew anything like it on Sunday. And I must say that my particular friends, who were sportsmen, behaved very well, on the whole. They did n't deny that it was a bear, although they said it was small for a bear. Mr. Deane, who is equally good with a rifle and a rod, admitted that it was a very fair shot. He is probably the best salmon-fisher in the United States, and he is an equally good hunter. I suppose there is no person in America who is more desirous to kill a moose than he. But he needlessly remarked, after he had examined the wound in the bear, that he had seen that kind of a shot made by a cow's horn. This sort of talk affected me not. When I went to sleep that night my last delicious thought was, "I 've killed a bear." HOW GLOOSKAP BROUGHT THE SUMMER (Algonquin) BY FRANCES L. MACE OF the old days, of the dawn days, Still the wonder-tale is told In the shadow of Katahdin, Where the master dwelt of old, The great Glooskap, the Algonquin, Chief of warriors true and bold. Long had Winter, strong magician, Bound in icy chains the land; Though the wise men prayed and fasted, Yet he lifted not his hand, But he said, "Lead forth a warrior Who my magic can withstand ! "Let him find my secret wigwam, Face to face and without fear Feel the power of my enchantment. If he bear the burden drear, I am vanquished, and another Shall be found to rule the year." Dire the trouble of the chieftains : Who that midnight path could trace? Then spake Glooskap: "Thrice at daybreak In my dreams a shining face 164 HOW GLOOSKAP BROUGHT SUMMER Smiled and called me. I will follow, Even to Winter's hiding-place." In his frozen lodge sat Winter, Fierce and famine-eyed and old, Giant of forgotten ages, Scarred with battles manifold; On his cruel deeds he pondered, In the darkness and the cold. Suddenly the great white bearskin Was uplifted from his door, And one entered, rushing by him Entered too the storm's wild roar, And the heart of Winter trembled With a dread unknown before. Strong and beautiful the stranger Stood within the darkened tent; The faint firelight to his figure Shadowy grace and stature lent, And his glances free and fearless On the giant's face were bent. Strangely stirred the heart of Winter, Heart of ice within his breast, But he murmured, guileful ever, "Sit within the lodge and rest. Long they journey, in the morning Shall thy purpose be confessed." Then the terrible frost-spirits, Hastening to their monarch's aid, HOW GLOOSKAP BROUGHT SUMMER 165 Of the gleaming white aurora Phantom fire of welcome made, And the pipe of cloud and ashes In the stranger's hand was laid. And his heavy eyes were lifted With a fixed, unconscious gaze, While the white lips of old Winter Muttered of the ancient days With wind- voices and storm- voices Chanted wild and awful lays. Listening, dreaming, with the magic Of the place around him cast, Soon in chains of icy numbness All his senses were made fast, And the hope of the Algonquins Bound and helpless lay at last. Days and months he slept, yet often In his slumber stirred with pain; Lo ! the shining face still gleaming Far o'er midnight's frozen plain! Then with fierce and breathless struggle Burst he from the demon chain. Up he rose, to height majestic, Taller, fairer, than before. As he rent in sudden fury The white bearskin from the door, A long shaft of yellow sunshine Flashed upon the icy floor! 166 HOW GLOOSKAP BROUGHT SUMMER " I have tried thy power, O giant, To thy dark words listened well; Now the vision of the daybreak Calls me with a mightier spell. Soon it will be thine to listen, Mine the wizard tale to tell." II Oh, fast and far sped Glooskap, With shoes of magic shod ! Past icy crag and mountain By wonder-paths he trod, Until his feet sank lightly Upon a violet sod, And fairyland before him Its gates wide open threw, While myriad silver bugles From waving treetops blew; For all the elfin singers At once the master knew: And in their midst a being All beauty, smiles, and light, The fair dream-face that led him Along the waste of night. Like morning robed in roses She beamed upon his sight. But for no soft entreaty The eager master stayed. "The dark world waits thy coming," He uttered. ''Radiant maid, Take now thy earthly kingdom : Too long thou hast delayed!" HOW GLOOSKAP BROUGHT SUMMER 167 He caught her to his bosom, And fast again he sped, But craftily behind him He tossed a magic thread, And all the fairy kingdom In captive train was led. The birds flew close above them, And filled the air with song; The golden armored sunbeams, Their escort, marched along, And leaf, and bud, and blossom, And rivulet, swelled the throng. Upon a cliff gigantic By ocean's stormy shore, High perched the great wind-eagle, And urged the tempest's roar. His wings drooped as they passed him, And ocean raged no more. And over old Katahdin, Where thunders have their home One footprint of sweet Summer Let loose the spirits dumb. The lightnings gleamed, the thunders Spake deep, "-The hour is come!" Into the frozen wigwam There fell a flood of light: In stepped the great Algonquin, With visage bold and bright, And with him royal Summer, All dazzling to the sight. 168 HOW GLOOSKAP BROUGHT SUMMER Then, smiling, the enchantress, With singing low and sweet, Let fall the pearly Mayflower Before the giant's feet. Alas ! in that one moment His conquest was complete. With eyes that swam and melted, With heart that throbbed and burned, A gaze of hopeless worship Upon her face he turned. Though slain by those soft glances, For every look he yearned. The wigwam sank about him, The blue sky blazed and shone; The weeping frost-elves, fleeing, Stayed not to hear his moan: "I die for thee, O Summer! The world is thine alone." Oh, in her hour of triumph, Had Summer been less sweet, Nor viewed with sudden pity The tyrant at her feet, Her reign had been eternal, Our joy had been complete. But on the humbled monarch Dear Summer looked and sighed; Some tears let fall the dewdrops Were sprinkled far and wide. She smiled again a rainbow The hilltops glorified ! HOW GLOOSKAP BROUGHT SUMMER 169 "Farewell!" cried laughing Glooskap, "My warriors call for me! Dream deep, O fallen giant, Till love shall set thee free ! Thy fairy bride forever Will share the throne with thee!" GLOOSKAP (From an old drawing) THE BLUE-JAY BY OLIVE THORNE MILLER THE blue- jay came out of the egg with his mind made up. He always knew exactly what he wanted, and never doubted that he knew how to get it. I wrote of this bird some time ago, but he was then a comparatively new ac quaintance. He lived with us many months after that, and became much more familiar; for besides being slow to feel thoroughly at home, he was very young, and he grew in wisdom with age. So I have more to say of him. Human society was necessary to the jay; he cared for the other birds of the room only as objects on which to play tricks for his own amusement. He was peculiar, too, in never having more than one friend at a time, and was very decided in his opinions of people, having a dis tinctly different reception for each one of the household, as well as for strangers. His mistress was always his prime favorite; and although, during my absence from home, he adopted someone temporarily in my place, he was never so affectionate to that one as to me, and the instant I returned resumed his old relations to each of us. To his best beloved this bird never squawked or whistled; on the contrary, he talked in low, sweet tones, hardly more than a murmur, slightly lifting and quiver ing his wings, sidling as near as he could get, and if I put my face down to him, touching my cheek or lips gently with his beak, in little taps, like kisses. Anyone else in THE BLUE-JAY 171 that position would receive a violent peck. Sometimes, when I was busy, and therefore silent a long time, and the jay was in his cage, where I was obliged to put him in order to work at all, he stood perfectly quiet and mo tionless an hour at a time; moving only when he was hungry, and apparently watching me every instant a performance very uncommon in a bird, who usually has some interests of his own, however fond he may be of a person. The moment I spoke to him, his whole manner changed. He came at once as near as he could, about four feet from me, and began to talk, holding his tail on one side, and both wings spread to their fullest extent and parallel with his back. In this attitude he hopped up and down his three perches, always as near my side as possible, and evidently in great excitement. If, during this exhibition, anyone came in, his wings instantly dropped, though he did not stop talking to me. This ac tion of the wings showed extreme affection, and must not be profaned by common eyes. When I came close and replied to him, his agitation was almost painful to see such loving tones, such gentle kisses, such struggles to express himself. Not only did he insist on sharing his dainties with me, offering me mocking-bird food or bread and milk in the most loving way, but he wished to share mine; ice-cream he delighted in, cake he was as fond of as any child, and candy he always begged for, though, instead of eating it, he hid it somewhere about the room under my pillow, or between the leaves of a book, all sticky as it was from his mouth Second in the blue- jay's affections was a lady to whom at first he took a great dislike. She tried her best to win him, talking to him, treating him to various 172 THE BLUE-JAY tidbits, and offering him the hospitality of her room, separated from the bird-room by a passage, and, above all, dancing with him. These attentions in time secured her a warm place in his regard, though his treat ment of her was very different from that reserved for me. He was always gentle with me, while in her society he exhibited all his noisy accomplishments squawked, whistled, and screamed, stamped his feet, and jounced (the only word to describe a certain raising and violent dropping of the body without lifting the feet) . He ran after her when she left the room; he pecked her hand, and flew up at her face. Gradually, as he grew to like her better, the more violent demonstrations ceased; but he was always boisterous with her, generally expected a half- fight, half -frolic, and I must say never failed to enjoy it greatly. The dance spoken of was droll. His chosen place for this indulgence was the back of a tall chair. His friend stood before this, whistled, bowed, and moved her head up and down as if dancing; and he on his perch did the same, jumping up and down in a similar way, answering her whistle for whistle, moving his feet, sidling from one side to the other, curtsying, lowering the body and flat tening the head feathers, then rising, stamping his feet, and drooping his wings. This he kept up as long as she played second to him. When this playfellow went away, the jay missed his dances and frolics. He flew into her empty room, perched on the back of the rocking-chair, where he had been wont to stand and pull her hair, and began a peculiar cry. Again and again he repeated it, louder and louder each time, till it ended in a squawk, impatient and THE BLUE-JAY 173 angry, as much as to say, "Why don't you answer?" After a while he began to whistle the notes she used to imitate; finding that this brought no response, he re turned to the cry; and when at last he had exhausted all his resources, he came back to my desk, and consoled himself by talking to me. A young lady in the family he greeted by flying at her, alighting on her chair-back, clawing her neck, and squawking; and before a youth who often teased him he trailed his wings on the floor, tail spread and dragging also, uttering a curious "Obble! obble!" something like the cry of a turkey. The head of the household he met with stamping of the feet, and no sound ; while at a maid who came in to sweep he always flew furiously, aiming for her head, and invariably frightening her half out of her wits. The jay was extremely wary about anything like a trap, and being always on the lookout for one, he some times, like bigger persons, fooled himself badly. Find ing him fond of standing on a set of turning bookshelves, I thought to please him by arranging over it a conven ient resting-place. He watched me with great interest, but, when I had finished, declined to use the perch, though ordinarily nothing could keep him from trying every new thing. I put a bait on it, in the shape of bits of gum-drops, a favorite delicacy; but he plainly saw that I wanted him to go on it, and in the face of the fact that I had heretofore tried to keep him off the papers and magazines, he decided that it was suspicious. He flew so as almost to touch the stick, and hovered before it to snatch off the candy; but alight on it he would not, and did not, though I kept it there. 174 THE BLUE-JAY In many ways this bird was wise; he knew exactly where to deliver his blows to effect what he desired. A cage door being fastened with fine wire, he never wasted a stroke upon the door, but gave telling blows directly upon the wire. A rubber band was looped about a rod for him to play with, in the expectation that he would pull on it and make sport; but he disappointed us all by hammering at the loop, until he loosened it and easily pulled it off. Again, it was tied on with strong linen thread; he turned his whole attention to the knot of the latter, till it yielded and was disposed of also. Dear as was this bird, he was a more than usually troublesome pet. My desk became his favorite play ground, and havoc indeed he made with the things upon it, snatching and running off with paper, pen, or any small object, destroying boxes, and injuring books. Finally, in self-defense, I adopted the plan of laying over it every every morning a woolen cloth, which must be lifted every time anything was taken from the desk. This arrangement did not please my small friend in blue, and he took pains to express his displeasure in the most emphatic way. He came down on the cover, tramped all over it, and sought small holes in it, through which to thrust his bill. One day' he was busily engaged in hammering a book through an opening, and to cure him of the trick I slipped my hand under, caught his beak between two fingers, and held it a moment. This amazed, but did not alarm the bird; on the contrary, he plainly decided to persevere till he found out the secret. He pecked the mounds made by my fingers; he stooped and looked into the hole, and then probed again. This time I held him longer, so that he had to struggle and THE BLUE-JAY 175 beat his wings to get away, and then he walked off in dignantly. Still he was not satisfied about that mystery, and in a moment he was back again, trying in new ways to penetrate it. I was tired before he was. He was baffled only temporarily : he soon learned to draw up the fabric, hold the slack under one foot while he pulled it still farther, and thus soon reach anything he desired. The blue-jay always pried into packages by pecking a hole in the wrapper, and examining the contents through that; and boxes he opened by delivering upward blows under the edge of the cover. The waste-basket he nearly emptied from the outside, by dragging papers through the openings in the weaving. Seeing two or three unmounted photographs put into a book, he went speed ily for that volume, thrust his beak into the slight open ing made by the pictures, and pulled them out, flying at once across the room with one in his mouth. It was se cured and put back, and the book held down by a heavy weight; but he found the place at once, and repeated the naughtiness. The book had to be completely covered up before the photographs were safe. After the blue- jay had put on a new suit of feathers he flew with great ease, and selected for a retreat the top of a door into the passageway mentioned, which usu ally stood open. It was not long before his curiosity was roused to know what was outside the door that so often swallowed up his friends that into the hall. He re solved to find out, and to that end, when stationed on the elevated perch of his choice, held himself in readi ness, upon the exit of anyone, to fly out. He did not wish to get away; he merely took a turn in the hall, and came back; and once, when accidentally left in that 176 THE BLUE-JAY unfamiliar place, he stayed in the bathroom, with win dow wide open, for half an hour before he was found. He became so expert in flying out of the door that it was a difficult matter to pass through without his company; we had to train ourselves in sleight of hand to outwit him. There were two ways of getting the better of him; mere suddenness was of no use he was much quicker than we were. One way was to go to the room on the other side of the passage, where he was sure to follow, and before he fairly settled there, to dodge back and shut the door a proceeding so unexpected that he never learned to allow for it. The other way was to go to the hall door, as if intending to open it; instantly the bird swooped down, ready to slip out also, but finding the way closed, swept around the room and alighted somewhere. This was the second to open the door and step out, for he always paused a moment before flying again. The only notice the jay ever took of the birds, as said above, was to tease them, or put them in a flutter; as society, he plainly despised them. They soon learned to regard him as a sort of infernal machine, liable at any moment to explode; and they were fully justified, for he was fond of surprising them by unexpectedly flying around the room, tail spread, feathers rustling, squawk ing madly in a loud voice. He usually managed, in his career, to sweep close over the head of every bird, of course frightening them off their perches, and thus to put the whole room into a panic. They took refuge any where, under the bed, behind the chairs, against the wires, and on the floor, while the mischief-maker cir cled around, filling the air with shrieks, then suddenly THE BLUE-JAY 177 dropped to the round of a chair, and calmly dressed his feathers, as if he had merely been exercising his wings. Poor little fellow! he was hardly more than a baby, and not very brave. A big grasshopper which once got into the room afforded him great excitement and the spectators much amusement. He saw it before his cage was opened, and as soon as he came out he went after it. The insect hopped up three feet, and so startled the bird that he jumped almost as high. When it alighted he picked it up, but, seeming not to know what to do with it, soon dropped it. Again it hopped, and again the jay repeated his bound; and this performance went on for some minutes, one of the drollest of sights his cau tious approach, the spring of the insect, and his instant copy of the same, as if in emulation. After being picked up several times the grasshopper was disabled; then, when the bird came near, it lifted its wings, plainly to scare its persecutor; it did awe him. Meanwhile, an or chard oriole had been eagerly looking on, and on one occasion that the grasshopper was dropped, he pounced on it, and carried it off to a chair, where he proceeded to eat it, though it was so big as to be almost unmanage able. The jay did not like being deprived of his play thing. He ran after the thief, and stood on the floor, uttering a low cry while watching the operation. In the oriole's moving the clumsy insect fell to the floor, when the jay snatched it; and it was evident that he had got a new idea about its use, for he carried it under a chair and demolished it completely not even a wing remained. More disturbing to the jay, strange as it may seem, was a tree. It was really touching to see a bird afraid of 178 THE BLUE-JAY this, but the poor youngster had been taken from the nest to a house. A Christmas tree was brought into the bird-room to please the residents there, when, to our amazement, the jay went into a wild fright, flew madly around near the ceiling, squawking, and making the other birds think something terrible had happened. He flew till he was breathless, and was evidently very much distressed. For three or four days he was equally alarmed, the moment he caught sight of it in the morn ing and whenever I moved it an inch, though the other birds liked it, and were on it half the time. When he did get used to it, he did not go on it, but to the standard below, where he could pick the needle-like leaves, and carry them off to hide about the room. He was a very beautiful bird when in perfect plum age. There were six distinct shades of blue, besides rich velvety black, snowy white, delicate dove-color, and blue-gray. He is too well known to need description, but a jay is not often so closely seen, when alive and in perfection of plumage. This bird had a charming way of folding his wings that hid all the plain blue-gray. When held thus, and laid together over the back, there were displayed first the beautiful tail, with broad, white edges to the feathers ; above it the wings, looking like a square-cut mantle, of the same colors ; above this a deep pointed shoulder cape, of rich violet blue, the feathers fluffed up loosely; and at the top of all his exquisite crest. Courtesy National Association of Audubon Societies BLUE-JAY A YOUNG DESPERADO BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH WHEN Johnny is all snugly curled up in bed, with his rosy cheek resting on one of his scratched and grimy little hands, forming altogether a perfect picture of peace and innocence, it seems hard to realize what a busy, restive, pugnacious, badly ingenious little wretch he is! There is something so comical in those funny little shoes and stockings sprawling on the floor, they look as if they could jump up and run off, if they wanted to, there is something so laughable about those little trou sers, which appear to be making vain attempts to climb up into the easy-chair, the said trousers still retain ing the shape of Johnny's little legs, and refusing to go to sleep, there is something, I say, about these things, and about Johnny himself, which makes it difficult for me to remember that, when Johnny is awake, he not unfrequently displays traits of character not to be com pared with anything but the cunning of an Indian war rior, combined with the combative qualities of a trained prize-fighter. I'm sure I don't know how he came by such unpleas ant propensities. I am myself the meekest of men. Of course, I don't mean to imply that Johnny inherited his warlike disposition from his mother. She is the gentlest of women. But when you come to Johnny he's the terror of the whole neighborhood. A YOUNG DESPERADO 181 He was meek enough at first that is to say, for the first six or seven days of his existence. But I verily be lieve that he was n't more than eleven days old when he showed a degree of temper that shocked me shocked me in one so young. On that occasion he turned very red in the face, he was quite red before, doubled up his ridiculous hands in the most threatening manner, and finally, in the impotency of rage, punched himself in the eye. When I think of the life he led his mother and Susan during the first eighteen months I shrink from the responsibility of allowing him to call me father. Johnny's aggressive disposition was not more early developed than his duplicity. By the time he was two years of age, I had got the following maxim by heart: "Whenever J.is particularly quiet, look out for squalls." He was sure to be in some mischief. And I must say there was a novelty, an unexpectedness, an ingenuity, in his badness that constantly astonished me. The crimes he committed could be arranged alphabetically. He never repeated himself. His evil resources were inexhaustible. He never did the thing I expected he would. He never failed to do the thing I was unprepared for. I am not thinking so much of the time when he painted my writ ing-desk with raspberry jam, as of the occasion when he perpetrated an act of original cruelty on Mopsey, a favorite kitten in the household. \Ve were sitting in the library. Johnny was playing in the front hall. In view of the supernatural stillness that reigned, I remarked, suspiciously, "Johnny is very quiet, my dear." At that moment a series of pathetic mews was heard in the entry, followed by a violent scratching on the oilcloth. Then Mopsey bounded into the room with three empty 182 A YOUNG DESPERADO spools strung on her tail. The spools were removed with great difficulty, especially the last one, which fit ted remarkably tight. After that, Mopsey never saw a work-basket without arching her tortoise-shell back, and distending her tail to three times its natural thickness. Another child would have squeezed the kit ten, or stuck a pin in it, or twisted her tail ; but it was re served for the superior genius of Johnny to string rather small spools on it. He never did the obvious thing. It was this fertility and happiness, if I may say so, of invention, that prevented me from being entirely de jected over my son's behavior at this period. Some times the temptation to seize him and shake him was too strong for poor human nature. But I always regret ted it afterwards. When I saw him asleep in his tiny bed, with one tear dried on his plump velvety cheek and two little mice-teeth visible through the parted lips, I could n't help thinking what a little bit of a fellow he was, and it did n't seem to me that he was the sort of person to be pitched into by a great strong man like me. "When Johnny grows older," I used to say to his mother, "I'll reason with him." Now I don't know when Johnny will grow old enough to be reasoned with. When I reflect how hard it is to reason with wise grown-up people, if they happen to be unwilling to accept your view of matters, I am inclined to be very patient with Johnny, whose experience is rather limited, after all, though he is six years and a half old, and naturally wants to know why and wherefore. Somebody says something about the duty of "blind obedience." I can't expect Johnny to be more philo sophic than the philosophers. A YOUNG DESPERADO 183 At times, indeed, I have been led to expect this from him. He has shown a depth of mind that warranted me in looking for anything. At times he seems as if he were a hundred years old. He has a quaint, bird-like way of cocking his head on one side, and asking a question that appears to be the result of years of study. If I could an swer some of those questions, I should solve the darkest mysteries of life and death. His inquiries, however, gen erally have a grotesque flavor. One night, when the mosquitoes were making lively raids on his person, he appealed to me, suddenly: "How does the moon feel when a skeeter bites it?" To his meditative mind, the broad, smooth surface of the moon presented a tempta tion not to be resisted by any stray skeeter. I freely confess that Johnny is now and then too much for me. I wish I could read him as cleverly as he reads me. He knows all my weak points ; he sees right through me, and makes me feel that I am a helpless infant in his adroit hands. He has an argumentative, oracular air, when things have gone wrong, which always upsets my dignity. Yet how cunningly he uses his power! It is only in the last extremity that he crosses his legs, puts his hands into his trousers pockets, and argues the case. One day last week he was very near coming to grief. By my directions, kindling-wood and coal are placed every morning in the library grate, so that I may have a fire the moment I return at night. Master Johnny must needs apply a lighted match to this arrange ment early in the forenoon. The fire was not discovered until the blower was one mass of red-hot iron, and the wooden mantelpiece was smoking with the intense heat. When I came home, Johnny was led from the store- 184 A YOUNG DESPERADO room, where he had been imprisoned from an early pe riod, and where he had employed himself in eating about two dollars' worth of preserved pears. "Johnny," said I, in as severe a tone as one could use in addressing a person whose forehead glistened with syrup, "Johnny, don't you remember that I have always told you never to meddle with matches?" It was something delicious to see Johnny trying to re member. He cast one eye meditatively up to the ceiling, then he fixed it abstractedly on the canary-bird, then he rubbed his ruffled brows with a sticky hand; but really, for the life of him, he could n't recall any injunctions concerning matches. "I can't, papa, truly, truly," said Johnny at length. "I guess I must have forgot it." " Well, Johnny, in order that you may not forget it in future " Here Johnny was seized with an idea. He interrupted me. "I'll tell you what you do, papa you just put it down in writin'." With the air of a man who has settled a question def initely, but at the same time is willing to listen politely to any crude suggestions that you may have to throw out, Johnny crossed his legs, and thrust his hands into those wonderful trousers pockets. I turned my face aside, for I felt a certain weakness creeping into the corners of my mouth. I was lost. In an instant the little head, covered with yellow curls, was laid on my knee, and Johnny was crying, "I'm so very, very sorry!" I have said that Johnny is the terror of the neighbor hood. I think I have not done the young gentleman an injustice. If there is a window broken within the radius A YOUNG DESPERADO 185 of two miles from our house, Johnny's ball, or a stone known to come from his dexterous hand, is almost cer tain to be found in the battered premises. I never hear the musical jingling of splintered glass, but my porte- monnaie gives a convulsive throb in my breast-pocket. There is not a doorstep in our street that has n't borne evidences in red chalk of his artistic ability ; there is n't a bell that he has n't rung and run away from at least three hundred times. Scarcely a day passes but he falls out of, or over, or into something. A ladder running up to the dizzy roof of an unfinished building is no more to be resisted by him than the back platform of a horse- car, when the conductor is collecting his fare in front. I should not like to enumerate the battles that Johnny has fought during the past eight months. It is a physical impossibility, I should judge, for him to refuse a chal lenge. He picks his enemies out of all ranks of society. He has fought the ash-man's boy, the grocer's boy, the rich boys over the way, and any number of miscella neous boys who chanced to stray into our street. I can't say that this young desperado is always vic torious. I have known the tip of his nose to be in a state of unpleasant redness for weeks together. I have known him to come home frequently with no brim to his hat; once he presented himself with only one shoe, on which occasion his jacket was split up the back in a manner that gave him the appearance of an over-ripe chestnut bursting out of its bur. How he will fight! But this I can say if Johnny is as cruel as Caligula, he is every bit as brave as Agamemnon. I never knew him to strike a boy smaller than himself. I never knew him to tell a lie when a lie would save him from disaster. 186 A YOUNG DESPERADO At present the General, as I sometimes call him, is in hospital. He was seriously wounded at the Battle of the Little Go-Cart, on the 9th instant. On returning from my office I found that scarred veteran stretched upon a sofa, with a patch of brown paper over his left eye, and a convicting smell of vinegar about him. "Yes," said his mother, dolefully, "Johnny's been fighting again. That horrid Barnabee boy (who is eight years old, if he is a day) won't let the child alone." "Well," said I, "I hope Johnny gave that Barnabee boy a thrashing." " Did n't I, though? " cries Johnny. " / bet ! " "O Johnny!" says his mother. Now, several days previous to this, I had addressed the General thus: "Johnny, if I ever catch you in another fight of your own seeking, I shall cane you." In consequence of this declaration, it became my duty to look into the circumstances of the present affair, which will be IOIOWTI in history as the Battle of the Little Go-Cart. After going over the ground very carefully, I found the following to be the state of the case. It seems that the Barnabee Boy I speak of him as if he were the Benicia Boy is the oldest pupil in the Primary Military School (I think it must be a military school) of which Johnny is a recent member. This Barnabee, having whipped every one of his companions, was sighing for new boys to conquer, when Johnny joined the institution. He at once made friendly over tures of battle to Johnny, who, oddly enough, seemed indisposed to encourage his advances. Then Barnabee began a series of petty persecutions, which had con tinued up to the day of the fight. A YOUNG DESPERADO 187 On the morning of that eventful day the Barnabee Boy appeared in the school-yard with a small go-cart. After running down on Johnny several times with this useful vehicle, he captured Johnny's cap, filled it with sand, and dragged it up and down the yard triumphantly in the go-cart. This made the General very angry, of course, and he took an early opportunity of kicking over the triumphal car, in doing which he kicked one of the wheels so far into space that it has not been seen since. This brought matters to a crisis. The battle would have taken place then and there; but at that moment the school-bell rang, and the gladiators were obliged to give their attention to Smith's Speller. But a gloom hung over the morning's exercises a gloom that was not dispelled in the back row, when the Barnabee Boy stealthily held up to Johnny's vision a slate, whereon was inscribed this fearful message : Johnny got it "put down in writin' " this time! After a hasty glance at the slate, the General went on with his studies composedly enough. Eleven o'clock came, and with it recess, and the inevitable battle. Now I do not intend to describe the details of this bril- 188 A YOUNG DESPERADO liant action, for the sufficient reason that, though there were seven young gentlemen (connected with the Pri mary School) on the field as war correspondents, their accounts of the engagement are so contradictory as to be utterly worthless. On one point they all agree that the contest was sharp, short, and decisive. The truth is, the General is a quick, wiry, experienced old hero; and it did n't take him long to rout the Barnabee Boy, who was in reality a coward, as all bullies and tyrants ever have been, and always will be. I don't approve of boys fighting; I don't defend Johnny; but if the General wants an extra ration or two of preserved pear, he shall have it! I am well aware that, socially speaking, Johnny is a Black Sheep. I know that I have brought him up badly, and that there is not an unmarried man or woman in the United States who would n't have brought him up very differently. It's a great pity that the only people who know how to manage children never have any ! At the same time, Johnny is not a black sheep all over. He has some white spots. His sins if wiser folks had no greater! are the result of too much animal life. They belong to his evanescent youth, and will pass away ; but his honesty, his generosity, his bravery, belong to his character, and are enduring qualities. The quickly crowding years will tame him. A good large pane of glass, or a seductive bell-knob, ceases in time to have attractions for the most reckless spirit. And I am quite confident that Johnny will be a great statesman, or a valorous soldier, or, at all events, a good citizen, after he has got over being A Young Desperado. A GROUP OF CHRISTMAS POEMS AT THE MANGER BY JOHN B. TABB WHEN first, her Christmas watch to keep, Came down the silent Angel, Sleep, With snowy sandals shod, Beholding what his mother's hands Had wrought, with softer swaddling-bands She swathed the Son of God. Then, skilled in mysteries of Night, With tender visions of delight She wreathed his resting-place, Till, wakened by a warmer glow Than heaven itself had yet to show, He saw his mother's face. THE LITTLE CHRIST BY LAURA SPENCER PORTOR MOTHER, I am thy little Son Why weepest thou? Hush! for I see a crown of thorns, A bleeding brow. Mother, I am thy little Son Why dost thou sigh? Hush! for the shadow of the years Stoopeth more nigh! 190 A GROUP OF CHRISTMAS POEMS Mother, I am thy little Son Oh, smile on me. The birds sing blithe, the birds sing gay, The leaf laughs on the tree. Oh, hush thee! The leaves do shiver sore; That tree whereon they grow, I see it hewn, and bound, to bear The weight of human woe! Mother, I am thy little Son The Night comes on apace When all God's waiting stars shall smile On me in thy embrace. Oh, hush thee! I see black starless night! Oh, could' st thou slip away Now, by the hawthorn hedge of Death And get to God by Day! AT CHRYSTEMESSE-TYDE BY WILLIS BOYD ALLEN Two sorrie Thynges there be Ay, three: A Neste from which ye Fledglings have been taken, A Lambe forsaken, A redde leaf from ye Wilde Rose rudely shaken. Of gladde Thynges there be more Ay, four: A Larke above ye olde Neste blithely singing, A Wilde Rose clinging In safety to a Rock, a Shepherde bringing A Lambe, found, in his armes, and Chrystemesse Bells a-ringing. PARABLES IN MOTORS THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB THE other day I was escorting an elderly philanthro pist across a crowded street. She is a lady of vigorous opinions and free speech, gems of which I herewith string together without exhibiting the thread of my own color less rejoinders. "Did you ever see anything so outrageous as these motors!" she exclaimed in righteous wrath, as we just escaped being crushed between a taxi-cab and a huge touring-car. "Automobiles are such insolent advertise ments of wealth! I don't see how their owners can en dure being either hated or envied by that portion of the world that has not yet lost the use of its legs. For every human being automobiles kill, they create a socialist. They are vulgar, hideous, death-dealing machines, put in the ignorant hands of the fools who own them and the knaves who run them. Now look at those little children trying to cross the street and that poor old lady ! I declare the chauffeur is simply chasing her for his own cruel sport hunting her as he would a fox, and blow ing his horn." Then, in italics, - " / can't see how a self-respecting person with any love or regard for humanity can own a motor."" The next time I saw my vindictive friend she was tucked up in borrowed plumage, and comfortably in stalled in the limousine of an acquaintance who had 192 PARABLES IN MOTORS kindly placed her car at our disposal to visit some dis tant charitable institution of which we were both direc tors. It was my friend's maiden trip in an automobile, and as we bowled gayly along she seemed to have for gotten entirely our last meeting and conversation. "I must say the motion of these cars is delightful," she said, sinking back among the cushions with an air of perfect ease and familiarity. "Hew safe we seem! I really think it would do no harm if the chauffeur should go a little faster. Do look at those stupid women rush ing across the street like frightened hens ! I should think they'd see that we're not going to run into them. Now look at those children ! It's outrageous that they should make it so hard for the chauffeur to avoid running over them. If we killed one of those foolhardy little idiots, people would blame us, and it would n't be our fault at all it would be simply a case of suicide." I acquiesced in her views, as I had done once before. "After all, there is a great deal to be said for these motors," she continued judicially. "They are not only perfectly delightful to ride in, but they make all kinds of difficult things easy, and really, most of the people who own them are apt to be very considerate to those who are less fortunate. There are certainly two sides to automobiling." There you have the chief function of the motor. There is nothing else I can think of which changes one's point of view so completely and so suddenly. A logical mind must therefore ask itself, "If by simply stepping into an automobile I can see motors and motoring from an en tirely different point of view, cannot I believe that the same metamorphosis would take place if I could jump PARABLES IN MOTORS 193 into a mental motor and speed rapidly from one side of a question to another?" Surely the parable of the motor should make us be lieve in the existence of a missing link in the chain of mu tual understanding which ought to bind all humanity together. And if that lost link cannot be found, may we not ourselves manufacture one? (As a moral-monger it is with difficulty that I here refrain from alluding to the "flaming forge of Life" as an appropriate workshop for the manufacture of missing links.) It is, at least, in har mony with my parable to suggest that every good chauf feur should be a skilled mechanic as well as a driver. By way of an irrelevant postscript, I will mention that when I stepped in yesterday for a cup of tea with the lady who "could not see how any self-respecting person could own a motor," I found her snowed under a pile of circulars stating the rival claims of various automobiles. "Should you advise me to get a runabout, or a tour ing-car?" she asked with perfect seriousness. But I could not choose between them, for what I con sider the most important part of motors the par able was equally sound in each. SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE BY OCTAVE FORSANT THE four compositions given below, taken from the collection of papers written for the examinations for the Diploma in 1915, and reproduced word for word, give a clearer idea than any commentary of the mental qualities of the children of Rheims. I may add that the details given are as exact as possible. This is how young Andre Deligny describes the entry of the Germans at Rheims on September 4, 1914. "After breakfast, and without asking my parents' leave, because I knew very well that it would not have been granted, I started out alone to see the Germans, who had just arrived in the Place de 1'Hotel de Ville. In front of the Mayor's office I saw ten or twelve horses hitched to lamp-posts; some German cavalry were go ing to and fro on the opposite sidewalk, with their hands behind their backs and looking rather ill at ease. One of the policemen who were holding back the crowd made us fall back, saying that the German Staff was just com ing. It was n't long before they came. A magnificent limousine drove out of rue Colbert. Five officers got out, revolvers in hand, and the car went in under the arch at the left. "Suddenly there was a loud report like a clap of thunder. We pricked up our ears, but the policeman re assured us, saying that the Germans were firing blank SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE 195 shots to celebrate the arrival of their staff. In a min ute there was a second shot, and a third, and finally a fourth which sounded much louder than the others. At the same time pieces of iron and lumps of lead came tumbling down from the roofs near-by, and the police man cried, 'Sauve qui peut!' "I understood then that it was a bombardment. I ran off in a fright ; I don't even know now through what streets I ran, until I came out on Place d'Erlon. The square was deserted ; there was nothing to be seen but an abandoned tram-car, without a conductor. At that sight I was more frightened than ever, I ran faster, and during that frantic race I had to lie flat on my stomach several times for fear of the shells. At last I got home: my mother was standing at the door, anxious enough; but I told her I was all right and confessed my dis obedience. That bombardment taught me a lesson, and I determined not to go out any more without my par ents' consent. I was made very sad by what I had seen : they were the first atrocities committed by the Ger mans in Rheims, where they were to commit so many others." Young Angeline Menny describes in these words the return of the French to Rheims eight days after Sep tember 12, as the result of the victory of the Marne. "The eighth day we had spent under the German yoke had come to an end, as always, in sadness and de spair. Suddenly a cannon-shot like a thunder-clap made us jump. Two or three more followed, and then the cannon roared without interruption. Hope sprang again: could it be the French returning? After a sleep less night during which we heard the rain and wind and 196 SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE cannon roaring, we were just going home when oh, a miracle! we saw in the distance the red trousers. In a few seconds all the streets were hung with flags. We had suffered so terribly to see our city occupied by the enemy and to hear the Boches singing their hymn of victory in every street! How great was our joy to see our defenders once more ! We no longer felt our weari ness. Everybody ran after them ; people embraced them and laughed, and wept, and acted like madmen. You would have said that a mother had found her child who she thought was lost. "The shops were not large enough for their custom ers; everybody was offering sweets to our liberators. When they came in front of the Hotel de Ville, the Mayor received them and saluted them from the steps. Many Germans surrendered in the streets. That will be the happiest day of my life." Lecoq Raymond, a pupil, tells in these words of one of the numerous bombardments of which he was a spec tator and nearly a victim. "Day before yesterday we were just eating breakfast. It was half-past seven when a shell passed over our heads and burst a hundred metres away. We jumped to our feet and listened. The shells were falling now by fours in our quarter and bursting with a tremendous crash. From the house we could hear the noise of falling tiles and beams and all sorts of things. Through the open window it was a warm morning we watched the smoke, sometimes white, sometimes gray or red dish, rise in the air, taking strange shapes; and at the same time the fumes of burning powder got into our throats. The hissing noises came fast, one on another. SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE 197 A shell burst 50 metres from our house; a yellowish smoke rose from it, and with a sharp hiss a fragment buried itself in the wall a metre from the window. We hurried down into the cellar and stayed there an hour; then, as the bombardment had stopped, we went up, and resumed our ordinary life. "The next day I went out to see what damage had been done: unhappily there was a great deal. As I walked along, I saw the doors of the shops which were still occupied open ; people went and came without hur rying, looking at the ruins. A traveling kitchen went through the street with a pleasant smell of soup. House keepers were going to and fro, one with a basket on her arm. A nice old man who had not left his house went out to get his newspaper. For my part, I took my school satchel and went off to school, where I tried to work hard so as to obtain the Diploma as a reward of my efforts." Last of the four, Georgette Thierrus tells the story of the battle of Thillois, near Rheims, which she saw with her own eyes. "In the last ten months many historical events have occurred : one of them happened in my village, and I shall never forget it. Early in September the villages near mine were occupied by the Germans; ours was visited by only a few of the enemy. But on the second, about four o'clock in the afternoon, the invaders appeared, to the number of several thousand. They quartered themselves and passed the night in the houses and lofts and barns. The next morning they started early and dug trenches in the fields. Several officers said to us, 'Hide in your cellars or clear out; the French are coming and we're going to fight.' 198 SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE "We did not believe a word of it; we thought that they meant to pillage our houses. Not at all what they said was quite true. In fact, at a quarter past two the machine-guns which the Germans had set up in the church tower began to crackle, then the cannon roared loudly; several of the guns were near our houses. The French did not fire on the village, because they wanted to spare the people, but into the near-by fields. They attacked the Germans several times, but were driven back. " It was not until four in the afternoon that, victori ous at last, they made their way into the village and drove the Germans out with the bayonet. Alas! about two hundred of our soldiers had fallen. The Germans had had losses too, but they made haste to burn their dead. Once more the French had shown their gallantry and courage, for they had been victorious over superior forces." II. KEEPING SCHOOL UNDER FIRE The Dubail School was one whigh was severely tried. Not only did more than a hundred shells fall in its immediate neighborhood, but three damaged the build ing itself, and two actually fell in the schoolroom, al though we had no fatal results to deplore, since the chil dren were got out on time. The first, a 210, fell on March 6, 1915, a Saturday, at five minutes to nine in the morning, when the children and their teachers were as sembled in the upper store-room ready to go down into the schoolroom ; and the second on March 27, 1916, just as they were all going down into the cellar. There were 200 SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE also some other happenings not less noteworthy, as ap pears from the following extracts from the Journal of the principal. "Monday, February 8, 1915. This is the opening day of the school, as announced by the only two news papers still published in Rheims. This morning, some time before the hour fixed, a number of mothers were on hand with their children, in the store-room on the ground floor. The children were of all ages from four to twelve years, and very clean and neat. Some of them had even dressed up as they used to on the opening day. All those little creatures, who bow to the teachers on their arrival with such a radiant air, seem overjoyed to be at school again with their little comrades after such a long holi day. That is a good augury for their future assiduity and work. I have registered some new names, I am up to seventy-six now, and the parents have gone away after kissing the little ones they have placed in our charge. "We all go down into the cellar. Assisted by my un- der-teachers, I go through a rapid examination in order to divide the pupils into three classes; and the lessons begin. "How impressive it was that first session in cellars less than two kilometres from the enemy lines, while from time to time shells passed whistling over our heads, to fall some distance beyond, hammering away at the city with a sinister rending crash which we shall never forget! Supplied with copy-books of all sorts and with old books often lacking several pages, all the children set to work with zeal. "It was a lovely day. The sparse beams of the win> SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE 201 ter's sun which filtered through the ventilators in that part of the room where I was, made a melancholy con trast to the yellowish light of the kerosene lamps set in the dark corners. And during the dictation exercise of the larger children, my thoughts strayed back to our fine schoolrooms of the days before the war so large and so pretty, above all, so healthy, with light and air pouring in in floods. What a change! To think that those 'bandits,' in order to force their Kultur on us, con demn us to burrow underground thus, with our poor children who cannot help themselves! And I thought: if a shell should fall on the building, what should we do with all these children? How terribly frightened they would be ! And I should I be self-controlled enough to prevent a panic? Yes, I simply must! "Meanwhile the little children of the kindergarten stared with wide-open, startled eyes, but kept very quiet on their benches, apparently not at all at home. Thus discipline was easily maintained on that first day of school! Everybody worked with zest; and four hours of teaching pass very quickly. Really one would have thought that they were conscious of the part they had to pi ay, of their duty those little darlings who seemed to defy the German close by, following the example of their fathers who flout him in the trenches. With such children France cannot perish. "I had this afternoon 106 scholars (63 boys and 43 girls) , and I am told there will be more to morrow. All goes well. " Tuesday, July 20. Children present, 174. This day will remain in memory as one of the most memor able of the dreadful time through which we are passing. 202 SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE For an hour and a half after midday, the district about the Dubail School was subjected to a most violent bom bardment by large shells. It had been unusually quiet during the morning. Suddenly, just when we were least expecting it, there came a characteristic caterwauling, followed almost instantly by a tremendous explosion, while the square near by was filled with smoke, and fragments, large and small, of the deadly missiles fell in showers. My neighbor Floquet's house was hit. There was a general sauve-qui-peut. "Zzz! Another shell bursts thirty metres beyond, in the middle of the square. People hurry back to their homes and I go hastily down to my schoolroom in the basement. The shells are raining down on all sides, and for one full hour there is a frightful uproar throughout the city. A shell falls on the garden of the school and the last panes of glass in the last ventilator which had any left are shattered; the floor all about us is strewn with bits of glass. Since we are huddled together in the cen tre of the room no one is hit. At last, about half-past one, all is quiet again; we go out and learn that about fifty shells have fallen within a very short distance. No one was killed, most fortunately; but two persons com ing from the bakery with their loaves were struck by fragments; one was severely wounded in the hand. "Saturday, December 4. This morning, about a quarter to nine, I had nearly reached the school, when a shell whistled by and fell on the boulevard not far away. I called in all the pupils who were there, and we went down into the schoolroom. The teachers arrive, then more children in rapid succession, all out of breath; it seems that the shell landed in the centre of the square. SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE 203 The lessons continue nevertheless, although sometimes disturbed by the hissing of shells passing over. About ten o'clock the reports come nearer; I order the writing lesson stopped and collect the children on the staircase. At two o'clock, before dismissing them, I go up to the store-room. What a tumult! Courageous parents come running in to fetch their children, and I learn from them that bombs are falling on the boulevards and the streets nearby. That is just where most of our pupils live. What is to be done? I turn over to the parents the chil dren they have come for, but those who are left behind are unhappy : they cry, and want to go home. At last we persuade them to be patient and comfort them as best we can. "How slowly the hands move! Half -past eleven twelve ! We are still waiting for the end of this horrible bombardment; we can't think of leaving. Half-past twelve a quarter to one. How long shall we be obliged to stay like this? There are a hundred or more children here, of all ages and there is no way to keep them quiet. The larger ones, very excited, say insistently, ' Madame, I want to go home, I 'm too hungry. We 've seen many worse ones than this, madame.' The little children, too, are over-excited and nervous; I must put an end to it; in any case the bombardment is grow ing less and less violent. I have the children arranged in groups, according to the streets where they live, and place each teacher in charge of those who live in her neighborhood ; I myself take the children from the Bar- batre and the neighboring streets. I tell them all that there will be no afternoon session, and give the following instructions : not on any condition to go along the boule- 204 SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE vard; to go as fast as possible through the streets, and if they hear the hissing of a shell to lie flat on the ground. The groups are to start five minutes apart. Our children are calmer now; they understand me, and, in general, they realize the gravity of the situation. "I set out with my group. I cannot deny that I am a bit anxious. The children press close to my side, hang on my arms, and stoop over from time to time when the shells whistle in the distance. Luckily, I get rid of them one by one alt along the road, and on rue Montlaurent I deliver the last ones at their homes. What a relief! "Friday, January 7, 1916. Present, 255 pupils. To-day the session has been far out of the ordinary course. When they enter the schoolroom the children's curiosity is keenly aroused by two large chests. About half -past ten I have the chests opened and take out a number of little blue, green, and yellow bags which are placed on my desk in packages. All eyes question me. The children have seen similar bags hanging from the soldiers' belts, but surely these can't be for them! I dis tribute them among the children, who open them and find in each a pad and a pair of glasses. 'Why, yes! that 's just what the soldiers have ! ' They exchange con jectures and are unanimous in saying that the pad has a very bad smell. 'But how can we use the things?' 'Attention! all watch closely. See: I put the pad over my nose and mouth; I pass the strings behind my head, bring them round in front, and tie them tight. Then I put the glasses on over it.' "After this there is little of the aspect of a school. The pupils laugh frantically and climb on the tables to see me better. I must look very comical for even the 206 SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE teachers have hard work to keep sober. I remove my mask. 'It's your turn now, my dears; come on.' And they go through the performance several times, to be able to execute it well and quickly. "Monday, March 27. The session begins as usual, at half -past eight; I am giving a lesson in oral arithmetic, when all of a sudden my assistants, who have remained above, come rushing down to the stairway, crying, ' The bombardment is close by ! ' - ' Bring your children down instantly,' is my reply. I am not greatly excited because of the frequency of the bombardments, which very seldom reached the school. But suddenly a terrific noise deafens us: two shells have fallen on a house at the corner of the square, close by. The little ones begin to tremble and cry. Aided by my teachers, I quickly form them in groups encouraging them the while in or der to take them down into the cellar. We have hardly begun to go down when we hear above our heads a tre mendous crash, mingled with the noise of shattered glass. Another shell has fallen on the building, penetrating the first two concrete layers and smashing all the windows. The children who are a little way behind are terrified and begin to shriek; some soldiers who have taken refuge with us take them in their arms and quickly carry them down. The older ones, whom I am leading, remain per fectly calm; they go down quietly. Below we gather them all about us and comfort the most timid. When they see that they are safe, they soon grow quiet. But a few small girls keep on sobbing. I go up to them. 'You must n't cry any more: you're out of danger now.' But holding me, one by the apron, another by the hand, they say, 'Mamma will be killed, madame! there is n't any SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE 207 cellar in our house.' -- 'Papa was working in the square, madame! Suppose he didn't have time to run away?'- -'Don't be afraid, children,' I reply, kissing them; 'your papa and your mamma won't be killed; they will be able to reach some safe place. Your mamma will come to fetch you in a moment; it will soon be all over.' My assistants meanwhile are comforting others. " Our stay in the cellar lasted two hours. It seemed to us extraordinarily long. So far as most of the children were concerned, it was a surprise; and it ended by amus ing them; they would have liked to go upstairs to see what was going on. Some of them talked with the sol diers, who gave them bread which they calmly set about eating. At last, about twenty minutes past two, hearing nothing more, I went to make sure that the danger was at an end. Some parents hurried in to get their children, and thanked us for taking them where they were safe. The pupils quickly came up two by two, each of the older ones leading a little one. I formed them in line, and each of us took charge of a group. Then I dis missed them for the afternoon." The result of the investigations that I made shows that during the thirty months that the schools were open, thirty-seven shells fell upon the buildings and two of them went through the roof, luckily while the children were absent, into the rooms where the ses sions were held every day. More than a thousand pro jectiles of all calibres fell within a space of less than 100 metres from the schools, in which space they killed sev enty-six grown persons and eight children who never at tended school. Not a single teacher or pupil was wounded. THE DESERTED PASTURE BY BLISS CARMAN I LOVE the stony pasture That no one else will have. The old gray rocks so friendly seem, So durable and brave. In tranquil contemplation It watches through the year, Seeing the frosty stars arise, The slender moons appear. Its music is the rain-wind, Its choristers the birds, And there are secrets in its heart Too wonderful for words. It keeps the bright-eyed creatures That play about its walls, Though long ago its milking herds Were banished from their stalls. Only the children come there, For buttercups in May, Or nuts in autumn, where it lies Dreaming the hours away. 210 THE DESERTED PASTURE Long since its strength was given To making good increase, And now its soul is turned again To beauty and to peace. There in the early springtime The violets are blue, The adder-tongues in coats of gold Are garmented anew. There bayberry and aster Are crowded on its floors, When marching summer halts to praise The Lord of Out-of-doors. And there October passes In gorgeous livery In purple ash, and crimson oak, And golden tulip tree. And when the winds of winter Their bugle blasts begin, I watch the white battalions come To pitch their tents therein. IN THE TRENCHES BY F. WHITMORE WE lay among the rifle-pits, above our low heads streaming Bullets, like sleet, with now and then, near by, the vicious screaming Of shells that made us hold our breath, till each had burst and blasted Its ghastly circle, hid in smoke here, there and while it lasted, That murderous fume and fusillade, our hearts were in our throats ; For hell let loose about us raged, and in those muddy moats The rain that fell was shot and shell, the plash it made was red, And all about the long redoubt was garrisoned with dead. Upon my right a veteran in rasping whispers swore; Upon my left an Irish lad breathed Ave Marys o'er. And I? Well, well, I won't aver my lips no murmur made; A prayer, long silent, half forgot, stirred them; but some thing stayed The sacred words; I locked my lips. "No, no, ah no!" I thought ; Not now! I'll wait, nor sue for what, unharmed, I left un sought ! Not so I '11 pray, let come what may ! " I held my heart and lips, And, nerved afresh, I gripped my rifle-stock when something clips IN THE TRENCHES Smartly ray temple (that long lock conceals the bullet's mark) , And, sharply stinging, with ears loud-ringing, I dropped into the dark. When I awoke, the sultry smoke was gone, and over me, Faint as a cloud against the air, a sweet face tenderly, A mother-woman's face, was bending, in the evening beam That touched her good gray hair to gold with eyes that made me seem, 'Mid all the fever's burning, wholly safe since they were there. Well, oddly, sir, in that dim peace, I let my lips breathe prayer. THE LAME PRIEST BY S. CARLTON IF the air had not been December's, I should have said there was balm in it. Balm there was, to me, in the sight of the road before me. The first snow of winter had been falling for an hour or more; the barren hill was white with it. What wind there was was behind me, and I stopped to look my fill. , The long slope stretched up till it met the sky, the softly rounded white of it melting into the gray clouds - the dove-brown clouds that touched the summit, brooding, infinitely gentle. From my feet led the track, sheer white, where old infrequent wheels had marked two channels for the snow to lie; in the middle a clear filmy brown, not the shadow of a color, but the light of one; and the gray and white and brown of it all was veiled and strange with the blue-gray mist of falling snow. So quiet, so kind, it fell, I could not move for look ing at it, though I was not halfway home. My eyes are not very good. I could not tell what made that brown light in the middle of the track till I was on it, and saw it was. only grass standing above the snow; tall, thin, feathery autumn grass, dry and with ered. It was so beautiful I was sorry to walk on it. I stood looking down at it, and then, because I had to get on, lifted my eyes to the skyline. There was some thing black there, very big against the low sky; very 214 THE LAME PRIEST swift, too, on its feet, for I had scarcely wondered what it was before it had come so close that I saw it was a man, a priest in his black soutane. I never saw any man who moved so fast without running. He was close to me, at my side, passing me even as I thought it. "You are hurried, father," said I, meaning to be civil. I see few persons in my house, twelve miles from the settlement, and I had my curiosity to know where this strange priest was going. For he was a stranger. "To the churchyard, my brother to the church yard," he answered, in a chanting voice, yet not the chanting you hear in churches. He was past me as he spoke five yards past me down the hill. The churchyard! Yes, there was a burying. Young John Noel was dead these three days. I heard that in the village. "This priest will be late," I thought, wondering why young John must have two priests to bury him. Father Moore was enough for everyone else. And then I won dered why he had called me "brother." I turned to watch him down the hill, and saw what I had not seen before. The man was lame. His left foot hirpled, either in trick or infirmity. In the shallow snow his track lay black and uneven where the sound foot had taken the weight. I do not know why, but that black track had a desolate look on the white ground, and the black priest hurrying down the hill looked desolate, too. There was something infinitely lonely, infinitely pathetic in that scurrying figure, indistinct through the falling snow. I had grown chilled standing, and it made me shiver; or else it was the memory of the gaunt face, the eyes that THE LAME PRIEST 215 did not look at me, the incredible, swift lameness of the strange priest. However it was, virtue had gone from me. I went on to the top of the hill without much spirit, and into the woods. And in the woods the kindliness had gone from the snowfall. The familiar rocks and stumps were unfamiliar, threatening. Half a dozen times I wondered what a certain thing could be that crouched before me in the dusk, only to find it a rotten log, a boulder in the bare bushes. Whether I hurried faster than I knew, for that unfriendliness around me, I did not trouble to think, but I was in a wringing sweat when I came out at my own clearing. As I crossed it to my door something startled me what, I do not know. It was only a faint sound, far off, unknown, unrecog nizable, but unpleasing. I forgot the door was latched (I leave my house by the window when I go out for the day) and pushed it sharply. It gave to my hand. There was no stranger inside, at least. An old Indian sat by the smouldering fire, with my dog at his feet. "Andrew!" said I. "Is anything wrong?" I had it always in my mind, when he came unexpect edly, that his wife might be dead. She had been smoking her pipe and dying these ten years back. "I don' know." The old man smiled as he carefully shut and barred the door I had left ajar. "He want to bacco, so I come. You good man to me. You not home; I wait and make supper; my meat." He nodded proudly at the dull embers, and I saw he had an open pot on them, with a hacked-off joint of moose meat. "I make him stew." He had done the same thing before, a sort of tacit pay ment for the tobacco he wanted. I was glad to see him, 216 THE LAME PRIEST for I was so hot and tired from my walk home that I knew I must be getting old very fast. It is not good to sit alone in a shack of a winter's night and know you are getting old very fast. When there was no more moose meat we drew to the fire. Outside the wind had risen full of a queer wailing that sounded something like the cry of a loon. I saw An drew was not ready to start for home, though he had his hat on his head, and I realized I had not got out the to bacco. But when I put it on the table he let it lie. "You keep me here to-night?" he asked, without a smile, almost anxiously. "Bad night, to-night. Too long way home." I was pleased enough, but I asked if the old woman would be lonely. "He get tobacco to-morrow." (Andrew had but the masculine third person singular; and why have more, when that serves?) "Girl with him when I come. To morrow He listened for an instant to the wind, stared into the fire, and threw so mighty a bark-covered log on it that the flames flew up the chimney, "Red deer come back to this country!" exclaimed he irrelevantly. "Come down from Maine. Wolves come back, too, over the north ice. I s'pose smell 'em? I don' know." I nodded. I knew both things, having nothing but such things to know in the corner of God's world I call my own. Andrew filled his pipe. If I had not been used to him, I could never have seen his eyes were not on it, but on me. THE LAME PRIEST 217 " To-morrow," he harked back abruptly, " we go 'way. Break up here; go down Lake Mooin." "Why?" I was astounded. He had not shifted camp for years. "I say red deer back. Not good here any more." " But ' I wondered for half a minute if he could be afraid of the few stray wolves which had certainly come, from Heaven knew how far, the winter before. But I knew that was nonsense. It must be something about the deer. How was I to know what his mind got out of them? "No good," he repeated. He lifted his long brown hand solemnly, "No good here. You come too." I laughed. "I'm too old! Andrew, who was the strange priest I met to-day crossing the upland farm?" "Father Moore no? Father Underbill?" "No. Thin, tired-looking, lame." "Lame! Drag leg? Hurry? " I had never seen him so excited, never seen him stop in full career as now. "I don' know." It was a different man speaking. " Strange priest, not belong here. You come Lake Mooin with me." "Tell me about the priest first" - though I knew it was useless as I ordered it. He spat into the fire. "Lame dog, lame woman, lame priest all no good!" said he. "What time late you sit up here?" Not late that night, assuredly. I was more tired than I wanted to own. But long after I had gone to my bunk in the corner I saw Andrew's wrinkled face listening in the firelight. He played with something in his hand, and I knew there was that in his mind which he would 218 THE LAME PRIEST not say. The wind had died away; there was no more loon-calling, or whatever it was. I fell asleep to the sound of the fire, the soft pat of snow on the window. But the straight old figure in my chair sat rigid, rigid. I opened my eyes to broad, dull daylight. Andrew and the tobacco were gone. But on the table was some thing I did not see till I was setting my breakfast there : three bits of twig, two uprights and a crosspiece; a lake- shore pebble; a bit of charred wood. I supposed it was something about coming back from Lake Mooin to sit by my fire again, and I swept the picture-writing away as I put down my teapot. Afterwards I was glad. I began to wonder if it would ever stop snowing. An drew's track from my door was filled up already. I sat down to my fly -tying and my books, with a pipe in my mouth and an old tune at my heart, when I heard a hare shriek out. I will have no traps on my grant, a beg garly hundred acres, not cleared, and never will be; I have no farmer blood, and for a moment I distrusted Andrew. I put on my boots and went out. The dog plumped into the woods ahead of me, and came back. The hare shrieked again, and was cut off in mid-cry. "Indian is Indian!" said I savagely. "Andrew!" But no one answered. The dog fell behind me, treading in my steps. In the thick spruces there was nothing; nothing in the opener hardwood, till I came out on a clear place under a big tree, with the snow falling over into my boot-legs. There, stooping in the snow, with his back to me, was a man the priest of yesterday. Priest or no priest, I would not have it; and I said so. THE LAME PRIEST 219 He smiled tightly, his soutane gathered up around him. " I do not snare. Look ! " He moved aside, and I saw the bloody snow, the dead hare. "Something must have killed it and been frightened away. It is very odd." He looked round him, as I did, for the fox or wild-cat tracks that were not there. Except for my boot-prints from my side, and his uneven track from his, there was not a mark on the snow. It might have been a wild-cat which jumped to some tree, but even so it was queer. "Very odd," he said again. " Will you have the hare? " I shook my head. I had no fancy for it. "It is good meat." I had turned to see where my dog had gone, but I looked back at the sound of his voice, and was ashamed. Pinched, tired, bedraggled, he held up the hare; and his eyes were sharp with hunger. I looked for no more phantom tracks; I forgot he had sinned about the hare; I was ashamed that I, well fed, had shamed him, empty, by wondering foolishly about wild cats. Yet even so I had less fancy for that hare than ever. "Let it lie," said I. "I have better meat, and I sup pose the beasts are hungry as well as we. If you are not hurried, come in and have a bite with me. I see few strangers out here. You would do me a kindness." A very strange look came on his face. "A kindness ! " he exclaimed. "I do a kindness!" He seemed so taken aback that I wondered if he were not a little mad. I do not like madmen, but I could not turn round on him. "You are off the track to anywhere," I explained. 220 THE LAME PRIEST "There are no settlements for a hundred miles back of me. If you come in, I will give you your bearings." " Off the track ! " he repeated, almost joyfully. " Yes, yes. But I am very strong. I suppose" -his voice dragged into a whisper "I shall not be able to help getting back to a settlement again. But - ' He looked at me for the first time, with considering eyes like a dog's, only more afraid, less gentle. "You are a good man, brother," he said. "I will come." He cast a shuddering glance at the hare, and threw it behind him. As I turned to go he drifted lamely after me, just as a homeless dog does, half hope, half terrified suspicion. But I fancied he laid a greedy eye at the bloody hare after he had turned away from it. Somehow, he was not a comfortable companion, and I was sorry I was alone. I whistled for my dog, but he had run home. He liked neither snow nor strangers. I saw his great square head in my bed as I let the priest in, and I knew he was annoyed. Dogs are funny things. Mad or sane, that priest ate ravenously. When he had finished his eyes were steadier, though he started frightfully when I dropped some firewood started toward the door. "Were you in time for the funeral yesterday, father? " I asked, to put him at his ease. But at first he did not answer. "I turned back," he said at last, in the chanting voice of yesterday. " You live alone, brother? Alone, like me, in the wilderness?" I said yes. I supposed he was one of the Indian priests who live alone indeed. He was no town priest, for his nails were worn to the quick. THE LAME PRIEST 221 "You should bar your door at night," he continued slowly, as if it were a distasteful duty. "These woods are not not as they were." Here was another warning, the second in twenty-four hours. I forgot about his being crazy. "I always bar it." I answered shortly enough. I was tired of these child's terrors, all the more that I myself had felt evil in the familiar woods only yesterday. "Do more!" cried the priest. He stood up, a taller man than I had thought him, a gaunt, hunted-looking man in his shabby black. "Do more! After nightfall keep your door shut, even to knocking; do not open it for any calling. The place is a bad place, and treach ery - ' He stopped, looked at the table, pointed at something. "Would you mind," said he, "turning down that loaf? It is not not true!" I saw the loaf bottom up on the platter, and remem bered. It is an old custom of silent warning that the stranger in the house is a traitor. But I had no one to warn. I laughed, and turned the loaf. "Of course there is no traitor." If ever I saw gratitude, it was in his eyes, yet he spoke peevishly : " Not now; but there might be. And so I say to you, after nightfall do not open your door till the Indians come back." Then he was an Indian priest. I wondered why An drew had lied about him. "What is this thing" -I was impatient- "that you and they are afraid of? Look out there." I opened the door (for the poor priest, to be truthful, was not savory), and pointed to the quiet clearing, the soft-fall ing snow, the fringe of spruces that were the vanguard 222 THE LAME PRIEST of the woods. "Look there, and tell me what there is in my own woods that has not been there these twelve years past! Yet first an Indian conies with hints and warnings, and then you." "What warnings?" he cried. "The Indian's, I mean! What warnings?" "I am sure I do not know." I was thoroughly out of temper; I was not always a quiet old man in a lonely shack. "Something about the -red deer coming back, and the place being bad." "That is nonsense about the red deer," returned the priest, not in the least as if he meant it. "Nonsense or not, it seems to have se,nt the Indians away." I could not help sounding dry. I hate these silly mysteries. He turned his back to me, and began to prowl about the room. I had opened my mouth to speak, when he forestalled me. " You have been kind to an outcast priest." He spoke plainly. "I tell you in return to go away; I tell you earnestly. Or else I ask you to promise me that for no reason will you leave your house after dark, or your door on the latch, till the Indians come ba ' He stopped in the middle of a word, the middle of a step, his lame leg held up drolly. " What is that ?" It was more like the howl of a wild beast than a ques tion, and I spun round pretty sharply. The man was crazier than I liked. "That rubbish of twigs and stones? The Indian left them. They mean something about his coming back, I suppose." THE LAME PRIEST 223 I could not see what he was making such a fuss about. He stood in that silly, arrested attitude, and his lips had drawn back from his teeth in a kind of snarl. I stooped for the things, and it was exactly as if he snapped at me. "Let them be. I I have no fancy for them. They are a heathen charm." He backed away from them, drew close to the open door, and stood with a working face the saddest sight of fierce and weary ruin, of effort to speak kindly, that ever I saw. "They're just a message," I began. "That you do not understand." He held up his hand for silence, more priest and less madman than I had yet seen him. "I will tell you what they mean. The twigs, two uprights and a crosspiece, mean to keep your door shut; the stone is the stone does not matter call it a stranger; the charcoal" -for all the effort he was making his hand fell, and I thought he trembled "the charcoal " I stooped mechanically to put the things as he de scribed them, as Andrew had left them; but his cry checked me. "Let the cruel things be! The charcoal means the unlucky, the burned-out souls whose bodies live ac cursed. No, I will not touch them, either. But do you lay them as you found them, night after night, at your door, and and," he was fairly grinding his teeth with the effort; even an outcast priest may feel shame at believing in heathenry, "and the unlucky, the unhappy, must pass by." I do not know why such pity came on me, except that it is not right to see into the soul of any man, and I knew 224 THE LAME PRIEST the priest must be banned, and thought Andrew had meant to warn me against him. I took the things, twigs, stone, and charcoal, and threw them into the fire. "I 'd sooner they came in," I said. But the strange priest gave me a look of terror, of agony. I thought he wrung his hands, but I could not tell. As if I had struck him he was over my threshold, and scurrying away with his swift lameness into the woods and the thin-falling snow. He went the way we had come in the morning, the way of the dead hare. I could not help wondering if he would take it with him if it were still there. I was sorry I had not asked him where he was going; sorrier I had not filled his pockets with food. I turned to put away my map of the district, and it was gone. He must have moved more silently than a wolf to have stolen it, but stolen it was. I could not grudge it, if I would rather have given it. I went to the bunk to pull out my sulky dog, and stood amazed. Those books lie which say dogs do not sweat. "The priest certainly had a bad smell," I exclaimed, "but nothing to cause all this fuss! Come out!" But he only crawled abjectly to the fire, and presently lifted his great head and howled. "Snow or no snow, priest or no priest," said I, "we will go out to get rid of these vapors "; for I had not felt much happier with my guest than had the dog. When we came back we had forgotten him; or why should I lie? the dog had. I could not forget his lame ness, his poor, fierce, hungry face. I made a prayer in my bed that night. (I know it is not a devout practice, but if the mind kneels I hold the body does not matter, and my mind has been kneeling for twenty years.) THE LAME PRIEST 225 "For all that are in agony and have none to pray for them, I beseech thee, O God!" And I meant the priest, as well as some others. But, however it was, I heard I mean I saw no more of him. I had never heard of him so much as his name. Christmas passed. In February I went down to the village, and there I heard what put the faint memory of the lame man out of my head. The wolves who had fol lowed the red deer were killing, not deer in the woods, but children in the settlements. The village talked of packs of wolves, and Heaven knew how many children. I thought, if it came to bare truth, there might have been three children eaten, instead of the thirty rumor made them, and that for the fabled pack there probably stood two or three brutes, with a taste for human flesh, and a distaste for the hard running of pulling down a deer. And before I left the village I met a man who told the plain tale. There had been ten children killed or carried off, but there had been no pack of wolves concerned, nor even three nor two. One lame wolf's track led from each robbed house, only to disappear on some highroad. More than that, the few wolves in the woods seemed to fear and shun the lonely murderer; were against him as much as the men who meant to hunt him down. It was a queer story; I hardly thought it held water, though the man who told it was no romance-maker. I left him, and went home over the hard shining of the crusted snow, wondering why the good God, if he had not meant his children to kill, should have made the winter so long and hard. 226 THE LAME PRIEST Yellow shafts of low sunlight pierced the woods as I threaded them, and if they had not made it plain that there was nothing abroad I should have thought I heard something padding in the underbrush. But I saw noth ing till I came out on my own clearing, and there I jerked up with surprise. The lame priest stood with his back to my window stood on a patch of tramped and bloody snow. "Will you never learn sense?" he whined at me. "This is no winter to go out and leave your window un fastened. If I had not happened by, your dog would be dead." I stared at him. I always left the window ajar, for the dog to go out and in. "I came by," drawled the priest, as if he were passing every day, "and found your dog out here with three wolves on him. I I beat them off." He might speak calmly, but he wiped the sweat from his face. "I put him in by the window. He is only torn." "But you " My wits came back to me. I thanked him as a man does who has only a dumb beast to cherish. "Why did you not go in, too? You must be frozen." He shook his head. "The dog is afraid of me; you saw that," he answered simply. "He was better alone. Be sides, I had my hands full at the time." "Are you hurt?" I would have felt his ragged clothes, but he flinched away from me. "They were afraid, too!" He gave a short laugh. "And now I must go. Only be careful. For all you knew, there might have been wolves beside you as you came. And you had no gun." THE LAME PRIEST 227 I knew now why he looked neither cold nor like a man who has been waiting. He had made the windows safe for the dog inside, and run through the woods to guard me. I was full of wonder at the strangeness of him, and the absurd gratitude; I forgot or rather, I did not speak of the stolen map. I begged him to come in for the night. But he cut me off in the middle. "I am going a long way. No, I will not take a gun. I have no fear." "These wolves are too much ! " I cried angrily. " They told me in the village that a lame one had been harry ing the settlements. I mean a wolf - ' Not for worlds would I have said anything about lameness if I had re membered his. "Do they say that?" he asked, his gaunt and fur rowed face without expression. "Oh, you need not mind me. It is no secret that I I too am lame. Are they ?? ? ~^^. "Sure enough to mean to kill him." Somehow, my tongue faltered over it. " So they ought." He spoke in his throat. "But I doubt if they can!" He straightened himself, looked at the sun with a queer face. " I must be going. You need not thank me except, if there comes one at night fall, do not, for my memory, let him in. Good-night, brother." And, "Good-night, brother," said I. He turned, and drifted lamely out of the clearing. He was out of my sight as quickly as if he had gone into the ground. It was true about the wolves : there were their three tracks, and the priest's tracks running to the place where they had my dog down. If, remembering the hare 228 THE LAME PRIEST I had had other thoughts, I was ashamed of them. I was sorry I had not asked in the village about this strange man who beat off wolves with a stick; but I had, unfor tunately, not known it in the village. I was to know. Oh, I was to know! It may have been a month after it was hear sun set of a bitter day when I saw the lame priest again. Lame indeed. Bent double as if with agony, limping horribly, the sweat on his white face, he stumbled to my door. His hand was at his side; there was a dry blood stain round his mouth; yet even while he had to lean against the doorpost he would not let me within arm reach of him, but edged away. " Come in, man." I was appalled. " Come in. You are you hurt?" I thought I saw blood on his soutane, which was in flinders. He shook his head. Like a man whose minutes are numbered, he looked at the sun; and, like a man whose minutes are numbered, could not hurry his speech. "Not I," he said at last. "But there is a poor beast out there," nodding vaguely, "a a dog, that has been wounded. I I want some rags to tie up the wound, a blanket to put over him. I cannot leave him in his his last hour." "You can't go. I'll put him out of his misery: that will be better than blankets." "It might," muttered he, "it might, if you could! But I must go." I said I would go, too. But at that he seemed to lose all control of himself, and snarled out at me. "Stay at home. I will not have you. Hurry. Get me the things." THE LAME PRIEST 229 His eyes and, on my soul, I thought death was glazing them were on the sinking sun when I came out again, and for the first time he did not edge away from me. I should have known without telling that he had been caring for some animal by the smell of his clothes. "My brother that I have treated brotherly, as you me," he said, "whether I come back this night or not, keep your door shut. Do not come out if I had strength to kneel, I would kneel to you for any calling. And I, I that ask you have loved you well; I have tried to serve you, except" (he had no pause, no awkward ness) "in the matter of that map; but you had burned the heathen charm, and I had to find a way to keep far off from you. I am I am a driven man!" " There will be no calling." I was puzzled and despair ing. "There has been none of that loon-crying, or what ever it was, since the night I first met you. If you would treat me as a brother, come back to my house and sleep. I will not hurt your wounded dog," though even then I knew it was no dog. " I treat you as I know best," he answered passionate ly. "But if in the morning I do not come ' He seized the blanket, the rags ; bounded from me in the last rays of sunlight, dragging his burden in the snow. As he van ished with his swift, incredible lameness, his voice came back high and shrill: "If I do not come in the morning, come out and give give my dog burial. For the love of" - he was screaming "for the love I bore you - Christian burial!" If I had not stayed to shut the door, I should not have lost him. Until dark I called, I beat every inch of cover. 230 THE LAME PRIEST All the time I had a feeling that he was near and evading me, and at last I stopped looking for him. For all I knew he might have a camp somewhere; and camp or none, he had said pretty plainly he did not want me. I went home, angry and baffled. It was a freezing night. The very moon looked fierce with cold. The shack snapped with frost as I sat down to the supper I could not eat for the thought of the poor soul outside; and as I sat I heard a sound, a soft, implor ing call, the same, only nearer and more insistent, as the cry on the wind the night after I first saw the priest. I was at the door, when something stopped me. I do not exaggerate when I say the mad priest's voice was in my ears : " If there comes one to your door after nightfall, do not let him in. Do not open for any crying. // I had strength to kneel, I would kneel to you." I do not think any pen on earth could put down the entreaty of that miserable voice, but even remembering it I would have disregarded it, if, before I could so much as draw breath, that soft calling had not broken into a great ravening howl, bestial, full of malice. For a mo ment I thought the priest had come back raving mad; I thought silly thoughts of my cellar and my medicine chest; but as I turned for my knitted sash to tie him with, the horrid howl came again, and I knew it was no man, but a beast. Or I think that is a lie. I knew noth ing, except that outside was something more horrible than I had ever dreamed of, and that I could not open my door. I did go to the window; I put a light there for the priest to see, if he came; but I did no more. That very day I had said, "There will be no more calling," and THE LAME PRIEST 231 here, in my sober senses, stood and sweated because my words were turned into a lie. There seemed to be two voices, yet I knew it was but one. First would come the soft wailing, with the strange drawing in it. There was more terror for me in that than in the furious snarl to which it always changed; for while it was imploring it was all I could do not to let in the one who cried out there. Just as I could withstand no longer the ravening malice of the second cry would stop me short. It was as if one called and one forbade me. But I knew there were no two things outside. I may as well set down my shame and be done. I was afraid. I stood holding my frantic dog, and dared not look at the unshuttered window, lest I should see I knew not what inhuman face looking at me through the frail pane. If I had had the heathen charm, I should have fallen to the cowardice of using it. It may have been ten minutes that I stood with frozen blood. All I am sure of is that I came to my senses with a great start, remembering the defenseless priest outside. I shut up my dog, took my gun, opened my door in a fury, and did not shoot. Not ten yards from me a wolf crouched in the snow, a dark and lonely thing. My gun was in my shoulder, but as he came at me the sound that broke from his throat loosened my arm. It was human. There is no other word for it. As I stood, sick and stupid, the poor brute stopped his rush with a great slither in the snow that was black with his blood in the moonlight, and ran, - ran terribly, lamely, from my sight, but not be fore I had seen a wide white bandage bound round his gray-black back and breast. 232 THE LAME PRIEST "The priest's dog!" I said. I thought a hundred things, and dared not meddle with what I did not under stand. I searched as best I might for what I knew I should not find searched till the dawn broke in a lurid sky ; and under that crimson light I found the man I had called brother on the crimson snow. And as I hope to die in a house and in my bed, my rags I gave for the dy ing beast were round his breast, my blanket huddled at his hand. But his face, as I looked on him, I should not have known, for it was young. I put down my loaded gun, that I was glad was loaded still, and I carried the dead home. I saw no wounded wolf nor the trace of one, except the long track from my door to the priest's body, and that was marked by neither teeth nor claws, but, under my rags, with bullets. Well, he had his Christian burial! though Father Moore, good, smooth man, would not hear my tale. The dead priest had been outcast by his own will, not the Church's; had roamed the country for a thousand miles, a thing afraid and a thing of fear. And now some one had killed him, perhaps by mistake. " Who knows? " finished Father Moore softly. " Who knows? But I will have no hue and cry made about it. He was once, at least, a servant of God, and these," he glanced at the queer-looking bullets that had fallen from the dead man's side as I made him ready for burial, "I will encourage no senseless superstition in my people by trying to trace these. Especially " But he did not finish. So we dug the priest's grave, taking turn by turn, for we are not young; and his brother in God buried him. THE LAME PRIEST 233 What either of us thought about the whole matter he did not say. But the very day after, while the frozen mound of consecrated earth was raw in the sunshine, Andrew walked in at my door. "We come back," he announced. "All good here now! Lame wolf dead. Shoot him after dark, silver bullet. Weguladimooch. Bochtusum." 1 He said never a word about the new grave. And neither did I. 1 Evil spirit, wolf. Weguladimooch is a word no Indian cares to say. FIRE OF APPLE-WOOD BY M. A. DEWOLFE HOWE THE windows toward the east and north Rattle and drip against the storm. Though spring, without, has ventured forth, Only the fireside here is warm. Through wind-swept sheets of driven rain The ancient orchard shows forlorn, Like brave old soldiery half slain, With gaps to tell the losses borne. And fragments of the fallen trees Burn on the hearth before me bright; The fire their captive spirit frees : Musing, I watch it take its flight. In embers flushed and embers pale Sparkle the blooms of some far spring; Of bees and sunshine what a tale Told in a moment's flowering! How swift the flames of gold and blue Up from the glowing logs aspire ! There yellowbird and bluebird flew, And oriole, each with wings of fire. FIRE OF APPLE-WOOD 235 Now in the hearth-light or the trees Stirs something they and I have heard: Ah, is it not the summer breeze, Come back to us with sun and bird? Poor summers, born again to die! Quickly as they have come, they go. See, where the ashes smouldering lie, The orchard floor is white with snow. SUMMER DIED LAST NIGHT BY MAUDE CALDWELL PERRY SUMMER died last night, Lady of Delight, Summer died last night; Look for her no more. In the early gray Of this golden day, In the early gray By the mirrored shore I saw leaves of red, So I knew her dead, I saw leaves of red Wreathed upon her door. UNAWARES BY ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON A SONG welled up in the singer's heart (Like a song in the throat of a bird,) And loud he sang, and far it rang For his heart was strangely stirred; And he sang for the very joy of song, With no thoughts of one who heard. Within the listener's wayward soul A heavenly patience grew. He fared on his way with a benison On the singer, who never knew How the careless song of an idle hour Had shaped a life anew. SAINT R. L. S. BY SARAH N. CLEGHORN SULTRY and brazen was the August day When Sister Stanislaus came down to see The little boy with the tuberculous knee. And as she thought to find him, so he lay: Still staring, through the dizzy waves of heat, At the tall tenement across the street. But did he see that dreary picture? Nay, In his mind's eye a sunlit harbor showed, Where a tall pirate ship at anchor rode. Yes, he was full ten thousand miles away. (The Sister, when she turned his pillow over, Kissed "Treasure Island" on its well-worn cover.) Courtesy Stevenson Society KING KALAKAUA AND ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, THE AUTHOR OF "TREASURE ISLAND" THE YELLOW BOWL BY LILY A. LONG WHEN first the Manchu came to power, A potter made this yellow bowl, With quiet curve and border scroll, And here inlaid the imperial flower. The peace of art was in his soul. Had not the Manchu come to power? Upon the flaky yellow base That now is dull and now is bright, A flowering branch, a bird alight, Expressed his thought in formal grace. Had not disorder taken flight And left for art a quiet place? And then, the artist sense alight, He drew upon the yellow bowl The symbol of the restless soul A butterfly, in poised flight. For though the Manchu was in power, The soul must wake when strikes the hour. OUT OF THE WILDERNESS BY JOHN MUIR FATHER'S strict rule was, straight to bed immediately after family worship, which in winter was usually over by eight o'clock. I was in the habit of lingering in the kitchen with a book and candle after the rest of the family had retired, and considered myself fortunate if I got five minutes reading before father noticed the light and ordered me to bed; an order which, of course, I immediately obeyed. But night after night I tried to steal minutes in the same lingering way; and how keenly precious those minutes were, few nowadays can know. Father failed, perhaps, two or three times in a whole winter to notice my light for nearly ten min utes, magnificent golden blocks of time, long to be re membered like holidays or geological periods. One evening when I was reading Church History father was particularly irritable and called out with hope-killing emphasis : "John, go to bed! Must I give you a separate order every night to get you to go to bed? Now, I will have no irregularity in the family; you must go when the rest go, and without my having to tell you. " Then, as an afterthought, as if judging that his words and tone of voice were too severe for so pardonable an offense, he unwarily added, "If you will read, get up in the morning. You may get up as early as you like." 242 OUT OF THE WILDERNESS That night I went to bed wishing with all my heart and soul that somebody or something might call me out of sleep to avail myself of this wonderful indulgence; and next morning, to my joyful surprise, I awoke before father called me. A boy sleeps soundly after working all day in the snowy woods, but that frosty morning I sprang out of bed as if called by a trumpet blast, rushed downstairs scarce feeling my chilblains, enormously eager to see how much time I had won; and, when I held up my candle to a little clock that stood on a bracket in the kitchen, I found that it was only one o'clock. I had gained five hours, almost half a day! "Five hours to myself!" I said, "five huge, solid hours!" I can hardly think of any other event in my life, any discovery I ever made that gave birth to joy so transportingly glorious as the possession of these five frosty hours. In the glad tumultuous excitement of so much sud denly acquired time-wealth I hardly knew what to do with it. I first thought of going on with my reading, but the zero weather would make a fire necessary, and it occurred to me that father might object to the cost of firewood that took time to chop. Therefore I pru dently decided to go down cellar, where I at least would find a tolerable temperature very little below the freez ing-point, for the walls were banked up in the fall to keep the potatoes from freezing. There were a few tools in a corner of the cellar, a vise, a few files, a hammer, and so forth, that father had brought from Scotland, but no saw excepting a coarse, crooked one that was unfit for sawing dry hickory or oak. So I made a fine tooth saw suitable for my work out of a strip of steel that had OUT OF THE WILDERNESS 243 formed part of an old-fashioned corset, that cut the hardest wood smoothly. I also made my own brad awls and punches, a pair of compasses, and so forth, out of wire and old files, and went to work on a model of a self -setting sawmill I had invented. Next morning I managed joyfully to get up at the same gloriously early hour. My cellar workshop was immediately under father's bed and the filing and tapping in making cog-wheels, journals, cams, and so forth, must no doubt have annoyed him; but with the permission he had granted in his mind, and doubtless hoping that I would soon tire of getting up at one o'clock, he impatiently waited about two weeks before saying a word. I did not vary more than five minutes from one o'clock all winter, nor did I feel any bad effects whatever, nor did I think at all about the sub ject whether so little sleep might be in any way injur ious; it was a grand triumph of will-power over cold and common comfort and work-weariness in abruptly cutting down my ten hours' allowance of sleep to five. I simply felt that I was rich beyond anything I could have dreamed of or hoped for. I was far more than happy. Like Tarn o' Shanter, I was . . . glorious, O'er a' the ills of life victorious. Father, as was customary in Scotland, gave thanks and asked a blessing before meals, not merely as a matter of form and decent Christian manners, for he regarded food as a gift derived directly from the hands of the Father in heaven. Therefore every meal was to him a sacrament requiring conduct and attitude of mind not unlike that befitting the Lord's Supper. No 244 OUT OF THE WILDERNESS idle word was allowed to be spoken at our table, much less any laughing or fun or story -telling. When we were at the breakfast-table, about two weeks after the great golden time-discovery, father cleared his throat, pre liminary, as we all knew, to saying something consid ered important. I feared that it was to be on the sub ject of my early rising, and dreaded the withdrawal of the permission he had granted on account of the noise I made, but still hoping that, as he had given his word that I might get up as early as I wished, he would as a Scotchman stand to it, even though it was given in an unguarded moment and taken in a sense unreason ably far-reaching. The solemn sacramental silence was broken by the dreaded question : "John, what time is it when you get up in the morning?" "About one o'clock," I replied in a low, meek, guilty tone of voice. "And what kind of a time is that, getting up in the middle of the night and disturbing the whole family?" I simply reminded him of the permission he had freely granted me to get up as early as I wished. "I know it," he said, in an almost agonizing tone of voice; "I know I gave you that miserable permission, but I never imagined that you would get up in the mid dle of the night." To this I cautiously made no reply, but continued to listen for the heavenly one-o'clock call, and it never failed. After completing my self-setting sawmill, I dammed one of the streams in the meadow and put the mill in operation. This invention was speedily followed by a OUT OF THE WILDERNESS 245 lot of others water-wheels, curious door-locks and latches, thermometers, hygrometers, pyrometers, clocks, a barometer, an automatic contrivance for feeding the horses at any required hour, a lamp-lighter and fire lighter, an early-or-late-rising machine, and so forth. After the sawmill was proved and discharged from my mind, I happened to think it would be a fine thing to make a timekeeper which would tell the day of the week and the day of the month, as well as strike like a common clock and point out the hours; also to have an attachment whereby it could be connected with a bed stead to set me on my feet at any hour in the morning; also to start fires, light lamps, and so forth. I had learned the time laws of the pendulum from a book, but with this exception I knew nothing of timekeepers, for I had never seen the inside of any sort of clock or watch. After long brooding, the novel clock was at length com pleted in my mind, and was tried and found to be durable, and to work well and look well, before I had begun to build it in wood. I carried small parts of it in my pocket to whittle at when I was out at work on the farm, using every spare or stolen moment within reach without father's knowing anything about it. In the middle of summer, when harvesting was in progress, the novel time-machine was nearly completed. It was hidden upstairs in a spare bedroom where some tools were kept. I did the making and mending on the farm; but one day at noon, when I happened to be away, father went upstairs for a hammer or something and discovered the mysterious machine back of the bed stead. My sister Margaret saw him on his knees examining it, and at the first opportunity whispered in 246 OUT OF THE WILDERNESS my ear, "John, fayther saw that thing you're making upstairs. " None of the family knew what I was doing, but they knew very well that all such work was frowned on by father, and kindly warned me of any danger that threatened my plans. The fine invention seemed doomed to destruction before its time-ticking commenced, al though I had carried it so long in my mind that I thought it handsome, and like the nest of Burns's wee mousie it had cost me mony a weary whittling nibble. When we were at dinner several days after the sad dis covery, father began to clear his throat, and I feared the doom of martyrdom was about to be pronounced on my grand clock. "John," he inquired, "what is that thing you are making upstairs?" I replied in desperation that I did n't know what to call it. "What! You mean to say you don't know what you are trying to do?" "Oh, yes," I said, "I know very well what I am doing." "W T hat then is the thing for?" "It's for a lot of things," I replied, "but getting people up early in the morning is one of the main things it is intended for; therefore, it might perhaps be called an early-rising machine." After getting up so extravagantly early, to make a machine for getting up still earlier seemed so ridicu lous that he very nearly laughed. But after controlling himself, and getting command of a sufficiently solemn face and voice, he said severely, " Do you not think it is very wrong to waste your time on such nonsense?" OUT OF THE WILDERNESS 247 "No," I said meekly, "I don't think I'm doing any wrong. " "Well," he replied, "I assure you I do; and if you were only half as zealous in the study of religion as you are in contriving and whittling these useless, non sensical things, it would be infinitely better for you. I want you to be like Paul, who said that he desired to know nothing among men but Christ and Him crucified." To this I made no reply, gloomily believing my fine machine was to be burned, but still taking what com fort I could in realizing that, anyhow, I had enjoyed inventing and making it. After a few days, finding that nothing more was to be said, and that father, after all, had not had the heart to destroy it, all necessity for secrecy being ended, I finished it in the half-hours that we had at noon, and set it in the parlor between two chairs, hung moraine boulders, that had come from the direction of Lake Superior, on it for weights, and set it running. We were then hauling grain into the barn. Father at this period devoted himself entirely to the Bible and did no farm work whatever. The clock had a good loud tick, and when he heard it strike, one of my sisters told me that he left his study, went to the parlor, got down on his knees, and carefully examined the machinery, which was all in plain sight, not being inclosed in a case. This he did repeatedly, and evidently seemed a little proud of my ability to invent and whittle such a thing, though careful to give no encouragement for anything more of the kind in future. But somehow it seemed impossible to stop. Inventing 248 OUT OF THE WILDERNESS and whittling faster than ever, I made another hickory clock, shaped like a scythe to symbolize the scythe of Father Time. The pendulum is a bunch of arrows symbolizing the flight of time. It hangs on a leafless mossy oak snag showing the effect of time, and on the snath is written, "All flesh is grass." This, especially the inscription, rather pleased father, and of course mother and all my sisters and brothers admired it. Like the first, it indicates the days of the week and month, starts fires and beds at any given hour and minute, and though made more than fifty years ago, is still a good timekeeper. My mind still running on clocks, I invented a big one like a town clock, with four dials, with the time figures so large they could be read by all our immediate neighbors as well as ourselves when at work in the fields, and on the side next the house the days of the week and month were indicated. It was to be placed on the peak of the barn roof. But just as it was all but finished father stopped me, saying that it would bring too many people around the barn. I then asked permission to put it on the top of a black oak tree near the house. Study ing the larger main branches, I thought I could secure a sufficiently rigid foundation for it, while the trimmed sprays and leaves would conceal the angles of the cabin required to shelter the works from the weather, and the two-second pendulum, fourteen feet long, could be snugly incased on the side of the trunk. Nothing about the grand, useful timekeeper, I argued, would disfigure the tree. "But that," he objected, "would draw still bigger, bothersome trampling crowds about the place, for who OUT OF THE WILDERNESS 249 ever heard of anything so queer as a big clock on the top of a tree." So I had to lay aside its big wheels and cams and rest content with the pleasure of inventing it, and look ing at it in my mind and listening to the deep, solemn throbbing of its long two-second pendulum, with its two old axes back to back for the bob. One of my inventions was a large thermometer made of an iron rod, about three feet long and five-eighths of an inch in diameter, that had formed part of a wagon- box. The expansion and contraction of this rod was multiplied by a series of levers made of strips of hoop- iron. The pressure of the rod against the levers was kept constant by a small counterweight, so that the slightest change in the length of the rod was instantly shown on a dial about three feet wide, multiplied about thirty-two thousand times. The zero point was gained by packing the rod in wet snow. The scale was so large that the big black hand on the white painted dial could be seen distinctly, and the temperature read, while we were ploughing in the field below the house. The ex tremes of heat and cold caused the hand to make sev eral revolutions. The number of these revolutions was indicated on a small dial marked on the larger one. This thermometer was fastened on the side of the house, and was so sensitive that when anyone ap proached it within four or five feet the heat radiated from the observer's body caused the hand of the dial to move so fast that the motion was plainly visible, and when he stepped back, the hand moved slowly back to its normal position. It was regarded as a great wonder by the neighbors, and even by my own all-Bible father. 250 OUT OF THE WILDERNESS Talking over plans with me one day, a friendly neighbor said, "Now, John, if you wish to get into a machine-shop, just take some of your inventions to the state fair, and you may be sure that as soon as they are seen they will open the door of any shop in the country for you. You will be welcomed everywhere." And when I doubtingly asked if people would care to look at things made of wood, he said, "Made of wood! Made of wood ! What does it matter what they 're made of when they are so out-and-out original. There 's noth ing else like them in the world. That is what will at tract attention, and besides, they're mighty handsome things anyway to come from the backwoods." So I was encouraged to leave home and go at his direction to the state fair when it was being held in Madison. When I told father that I was about to leave home, and inquired whether, if I should happen to be in need of money, he would send me a little, he said, "No. Depend entirely on yourself." Good advice, I suppose, but surely needlessly severe for a bashful home-loving boy who had worked so hard. I had the gold sovereign that my grandfather had given me when I left Scotland, and a few dollars, perhaps ten, that I had made by rais ing a few bushels of grain on a little patch of sandy, abandoned ground. So when I left home to try the world I had only fifteen dollars in my pocket. Strange to say, father carefully taught us to consider ourselves very poor worms of the dust, conceived in sin, and so forth, and devoutly believed that quenching every spark of pride and self-confidence was a sacred duty, without realizing that in so doing he might, at OUT OF THE WILDERNESS 251 the same time, be quenching everything else. Praise he considered most venomous, and tried to assure me that when I was fairly out in the wicked world, making my own way, I would soon learn that, although I might have thought him a hard taskmaster at times, strangers were far harder. On the contrary, I found no lack of kindness and sympathy. All the baggage I carried was a package made up of the two clocks and a small ther mometer made of a piece of old washboard, all three tied together, with no covering or case of any sort, the whole looking like one very complicated machine. The aching parting from mother and my sisters was of course hard to bear. Father let David drive me down to Pardeeville, a place I had never before seen, though it is only nine miles south of the Hickory Hill farm. When we arrived at the village tavern it seemed de serted. Not a single person was in sight. I set my clock baggage on the rickety platform. David said good-bye and started for home, leaving me alone in the world. The grinding noise made by the wagon in turning short brought out the landlord, and the first thing that caught his eye was my strange bundle. Then he looked at me and said, "Hello, young man, what 's this?" "Machines," I said, "for keeping time and getting up in the morning, and so forth." "Well! Well! That's a mighty queer get-up. You must be a Down-East Yankee. Where did you get the pattern for such a thing?" "In my head," I said. Someone down the street happened to notice the landlord looking intently at something and came to see what it was. Three or four people in that little village 252 OUT OF THE WILDERNESS formed an attractive crowd, and in fifteen or twenty minutes the greater part of the population of Pardeeville stood gazing in a circle around my strange hickory be longings. I kept outside of the circle to avoid being seen, and had the advantage of hearing the remarks without being embarassed. I stayed overnight at this little tavern, waiting for a train. In the morning I went to the station, and set my bundle on the platform. Along came the thundering train, a glorious sight; the first train I had ever waited for. When the conductor saw my queer baggage, he cried, "Hello! What have we here?" "Inventions for keeping time, early rising, and so forth. May I take' them into the car with me?" "You can take them where you like," he replied, "but you had better give them to the baggage-master. If you take them into the car they will draw a crowd and might get broken." So I gave them to the baggage-master, and made haste to ask the conductor whether I might ride on the engine. He goodnaturedly said, "Yes, it's the right place for you. Run ahead, and tell the engineer what I say." But the engineer bluntly refused to let me on, saying, "It don't matter what the conductor told you. I say you can't ride on my engine." By this time the conductor, standing ready to start his train, was watching to see what luck I had, and when he saw me returning came ahead to meet me. "The engineer won't let me on," I reported. " Won't he? "said the kind conductor. " Oh, I guess he will. You come down with me." And so he actually OUT OF THE WILDERNESS 253 took the time and patience to walk the length of that long train to get me on to the engine. "Charlie," said he, addressing the engineer, "don't you ever take a passenger?" "Very seldom," he replied. "Anyhow, I wish you would take this young man on. He has the strangest machines in the baggage car I ever saw in my life. I believe he could make a locomo tive. He wants to see the engine running. Let him on. " Then, in a low whisper, he told me to jump on, which I did gladly, the engineer offering neither encourage ment nor objection. As soon as the train was started the engineer asked what the "strange thing" the conductor spoke of was. "Only inventions for keeping time, getting folks up in the morning, and so forth," I hastily replied; and before he could ask any more questions I asked permis sion to go outside of the cab to see the machinery. This he kindly granted, adding, "Be careful not to fall off, and when you hear me whistling for a station you come back, because if it is reported against me to the superintendent that I allow boys to run all over my engine, I might lose my job." Assuring him that I would come back promptly, I went out and walked along the footboard on the side of the boiler, watching the magnificent machine rushing through the landscape as if glorying in its strength like a living creature. While seated on the cow-catcher plat form I seemed to be fairly flying, and the wonderful display of power and motion was enchanting. This was the first time I had ever been on a train, much less a locomotive, since I had left Scotland. 254 When I got to Madison I thanked the kind conductor and engineer for my glorious ride, inquired the way to the fair, shouldered my inventions, and walked to the fair-ground. When I applied for an admission ticket at a window by the gate I told the agent that I had something to exhibit. "What is it?" he inquired. "Well, here it is. Look at it." When he craned his neck through the window and got a glimpse of my bundle he cried excitedly, "Oh! you don't need a ticket come right in." When I inquired where such things should be ex hibited, he said, " You see that building up on the hill with a big flag on it? That's the Fine Arts Hall, and it 's just the place for your wonderful invention." So I went up to the Fine Arts Hall and looked in, wondering if they would allow wooden things in so fine a place. I was met at the door by a dignified gentleman who greeted me kindly and said, "Young man, what have we got here?" "Two clocks and a thermometer," I replied. "Did you make these? They look wonderfully beau tiful and novel, and must, I think, prove the most inter esting feature of the fair." "Where shall I place them?" I inquired. "Just look around, young man, and choose the place you like best, whether it is occupied or not. You can have your pick of all the building, and a carpenter to make the necessary shelving and assist you in every way possible!" 255 So I quickly had a shelf made large enough for all of them, went out on the hill and picked up some glacial boulders of the right size for weights, and in fifteen or twenty minutes the clocks were running. They seemed to attract more attention than anything else in the hall. I got lots of praise from the crowd and the newspaper reporters. The local press reports were copied into the Eastern papers. It was considered wonderful that a boy on a farm had been able to invent and make such things, and almost every spectator foretold good for tune. But I had been so lectured by my father to avoid praise, above all things, that I was afraid to read those kind newspaper notices, and never clipped out or pre served any of them, just glanced at them, and turned away my eyes from beholding vanity, and so forth. They gave me a prize of ten or fifteen dollars, and a diploma for wonderful things not down in the list of exhibits. Many years later, after I had written articles and books, I received a letter from the gentleman who had charge of the Fine Arts Hall. He proved to have been the Professor of English Literature in the University of Wisconsin at this fair-time, and long afterward he sent me clippings of reports of his lectures. He had a lecture on me, discussing style, and so forth, and telling how well he remembered my arrival at the hall in my shirt sleeves with those mechanical wonders on my shoulder, and so forth, and so forth. These inventions, though of little importance, opened all doors for me, and made marks that have lasted many years, simply because they were original and promising. ONCE, when the river had been up but was falling, I decided that I must get to the post-office after school. They told me that it would be safe if I crossed carefully and at the right spot. To impress upon me how very unsafe it might be to cross Rio Verde at the wrong spot, they had before told me various gruesome tales of hap penings along the river. There was the story of a young soldier who, before the Post was the Post only in name, had tried to cross the Verde during high water and had been seen no more. There was the story of a young cowboy who, only a few years before this, had been lost just below the Wests' house, in the sight of the Wests and of several other people. He had gone down suddenly into the quicksand. Some of those who watched him were unable to swim; others lost their heads for a minute or two. He was gone when help tried to reach him. His body was never found. These stories I had heard; but I was told now that I could cross the river without danger, if only I would be careful and take the Old Crossing. They insisted strongly upon that. I must take the Old Crossing right here below the house. There would be no danger then. I rode forth a very trifle timorously in spite of the reassurances of the family; but I must have the mail. Also, I must put in the office my own important letters. THE SCHOOLMA'AM OF SQUAW PEAK 257 Down the lane I went, and across the tiny bridge to the little hollow at the foot of the bluff. The mud was black and deep and shiny. Beyond, the wet sand lay quite unmarred except in one narrow track. It gave the country a very lonely look, somehow, as if it were uninhabited newly washed up from the waters. The river tumbled by, black and angry. To take the Old Crossing I must turn from the one narrow track, and that very act gave me a feeling of greater loneliness. I seemed to be blazing my way through a new country and I did not much like being a pioneer. Still, I was determined to obey instructions! Brownie liked being a pioneer no better than I did; but we traveled obediently across the smooth, wet sand into a bog of the shiny black mud I had noticed before, and on to the ford. A white cotton wood log marked the beginning of this ford a bleached skeleton of a log that lay now half-drowned in the muddy water, like a dead body washed ashore. I did n't like the look of the crossing the water was so still and mysterious there. Neither did Brownie like it; but we were both docile. We followed instructions and waded bravely in. I pulled my skirts up and up and curled my feet higher and higher on Brownie's sides. The water was much nearer wetting me than I liked to have it; but we were out of the deep place at last, where Brownie stepped so gingerly, and were splashing over a long stretch of shal low water with a hard, stony bottom. And then we were on the wet, unruffled sand again, and finally on the muddy road, where I saw once more a few tracks that proved that somebody besides myself was alive in the Valley. 258 THE SCHOOLMA'AM OF SQUAW PEAK We hurried as well as we could to the Post. The river had to be crossed again just before we entered Camp Verde; but it was broader and shallower here, and the bottom was known to be stony all the way across. We splashed over, a long way it seemed, and as soon as I could finish my brief business and reach it again, we splashed back. Three crossings were made! Only one more remained, and I should know myself to be safe! I hurried. I needed to hurry to reach the last ford before dark. In spite of all my haste, I failed. The damp twilight had faded into night as Brownie and I drew near again to the long stretch of fresh wet sand that lay between us and the last crossing. The stars were not very bright up in heaven, and they weird ly lighted the river waters that glimmered a dull silver under them. There seemed to me something sinister in that shimmering silver. It looked too peaceful. I heard the river's ugly voice gurgling hungrily, as if demanding something. I remembered the cowboy and the poor young soldier. It was very dark. I strained my eyes, when I had reached the water's edge, and only dimly made out the bleached skeleton log that I must head for. Then fearfully, I confess I urged the unwilling Brownie into the water. It was a long, long way across. I drew farther up on Brownie's back, away and away from the water, and held my breath. We were across at last. The next morning at the breakfast-table I told them how hard it had been to see the white log when I had crossed the evening before. Three men stopped eating and gazed, gasping, at me. THE SCHOOLMA'AM OF SQUAW PEAK 259 "You crossed at the white log?" they demanded. "Why, yes! You told me the Old Crossing" I began, puzzled, feeling guilty, somehow. "But that's not the Old Crossing!" they denied excitedly. "You you crossed at the white log!" They seemed stupefied by the knowledge. " Why, yes. That 's the crossing we always have used. It 's what I call the Old Crossing " "No! no!" they hurried to inform me. "The Old Crossing You crossed at the white log ! Have n't you heard about the cowboy who was drowned there? Don't you know the river-bottom changes there with every storm? You did n't see any tracks leading down to that crossing, did you?" Oh, there were plenty of questions they had to ask me ! I could hardly remember ever having caused so much perturbation among my acquaintances. "Sonny," es pecially, who had given me most of my instructions for crossing, kept repeating over and over, "But I told you I'm sure I must have told you!" And the "white log" kept coming in like a refrain from them all. At last they were convinced that I should never again try to use the white-log crossing in bad weather. Then they grew calm ready to let the matter drop. "You crossed where no man would 'a' dared cross," saidBert then, serenely once more. " You were brave "I was not brave. I was ignorant," I had the grace to admit instantly. But now that I was ignorant no more, I had a great fear of the river when it was at all muddy and high; and not even for the mail would I try crossing it when it was called rather dangerous by those who knew. Yet my 260 THE SCHOOLMA'AM OF SQUAW PEAK obsession did lead me into real danger at least one other time. It was nearing the end of my year. Mrs. West had brought Bally and the buggy to the schoolhouse for me that afternoon; and with their help, I was to return our borrowed books to the school across the river. Then, in spite of a blackening sky and a gusty wind, I was going to risk continuing to the Post for the mail ! To do myself justice, Mrs. West actually advised my going this time. "Why, certainly I'd go on for it, if I really wanted it," said she. "It's too late in the season for storms on the Verde. If it should rain, it would n't amount to much." That was enough for me, of course ! I took the books home and then went on, down a not very familiar road, toward Camp Verde and the post-office. The country here was rather more desert-like than on our side of the river. It was flatter, more monotonous; and I was traveling through an uncultivated section, too. There was a fence on one side for a way, but it seemed to be only a pasture fence. Inside and outside, the al most level land was dotted with a scattering growth of thin mesquite. It was all dreary enough under the dark ening sky. It was indeed a darkening sky. The clouds that rolled about old Squaw Peak were taking on a hue more and more inky every minute. And the wind was blowing ever more gustily. I was watching the sky with an increasing nervous ness now. Mrs. West had assured me that it could n't rain in the Valley at this time of year. If I had been anywhere else, I should certainly have expected rain or something. As it was, I began to expect something. THE SCHOOLMA'AM AND SOME OF HER CHILDREN 262 THE SCHOOLMA'AM OF SQUAW PEAK Now a few icy blasts came cutting down from the mountain, and with them a great stinging drop or two of rain. I decided to trust no longer to Mrs. West, but to act for myself; and I dived under the seat for the old umbrella she kept there and hoisted it in the teeth of the wind. Since I was still driving Bally, who evidently did not like the wind or the occasional lashing raindrops, this was no small task. I had hardly got the umbrella up and its handle tucked firmly under my arm, when I began to perceive that it was going to be entirely insufficient. The cutting gusts were increasing to a gale; the occasional drops to a clat ter of pelting rain, spiced now and then with a touch of hail. I struggled down with the umbrella, and hauled out an old slicker which providentially reposed under the seat. A large square had been torn from one corner of its tail, but its shoulders were intact. The wind got inside of it, puffed it out like a sail, and tried to carry it bodily out of my hands. I was decidedly nervous now. How to get into the slicker and under the umbrella how to keep Bally from running away? I managed it somehow. I was inside the slicker. I had the handle of the open umbrella tightly clasped under my arm again. The umbrella itself rested low, almost on my hat. I was again sitting on the seat of the buggy with the reins in my resolute hands. Harder and harder blew the wind. Faster and faster fell the rain. More and more hail come hurtling down with it larger and larger stones. They battered on to my um brella; they whacked poor Bally 's sides like a cannonade of great marbles. For a little I was half -blind with the storm and with sheer fright. Then, in my desperate need to act, the terror cleared away a little. The buggy was filling with ice and ice-water. Bally was shivering, balking, leaping ahead in sudden spurts when the larger stones pelted her. At last she got her back to the tempest as nearly as she could, and, forsak ing the road, set off galloping unsteadily through the mesquite. I would jerk at her almost stop her. An extra pelting of hail would set her off again. I saw the end of it in a swift vision the wheels of our chariot tangled in some clump of mesquite the buggy upset I, lying stiff, crumpled, in the ice-water, with the hailstones pounding me. Somehow I had got to stop Bally! For a second I did get her stopped, huddled together in the raging storm. And then I hurled myself out over the wheel on to the plain a shallow lake, now, with hailstones floating in it. I was instantly wet to the knees gasping with cold; but I could not stop. I sprang to Bally's bridle and caught it and held on. Somehow I kept the umbrella, too. I had a wild notion of leading my horse to the shelter of some clump of mesquite; but she had wild notions of her own. We dragged each other back and forth for a time. Once in a while I got her near a bush, only to find that it was worthless. Now and then she grew crazy with the beating of the stones and set off, pulling me after her. At last it seemed long, but I suppose it was only a short while we both realized the hopelessness of trying to better ourselves, and then we huddled close together and took what was coming. That lasted only a few minutes, too, I am sure. 264 THE SCHOOLMA'AM OF SQUAW PEAK The gale swept the black clouds and the lashing storm over us. The flood of driving rain became a drizzle and then a sprinkle. The pelting stones grew fewer and fewer, and ceased. I stood there hanging to Bally's bridle and to the um brella, and wondered how I had escaped alive. Any one of those stones might have stunned me if it had struck me squarely. The shallow lake of the plain was afloat with them everywhere. I climbed into the buggy - its body several inches deep in ice-water and headed Bally in what I thought was the direction of the road. I happened to be right. We reached the road. We were near Camp Verde, I saw. Now I was very wet. My shoulders, protected by the yellow slicker, were dry ; but my shoes were soaked, my skirts, to far above my knees, were wringing wet. In spite of the umbrella, my hat was wet. It hung in a dripping straw ruffle about my face, and from its two bunches of lovely pink roses fell rosy drops of ice-water. Damp strings of hair lay against my cold cheeks. I probably looked even worse than I felt, but my spirit was up. I was not going to be downed by such trifles as my appearance and the atmospheric conditions. I had set out to Camp Verde for the mail, and to Camp Verde for the mail I went. They made rather a fuss over me in the post-office. I might have been killed, they said. It was a marvel I had n't been killed! And my nerve ! "Nerve!"! cried half impatiently. "It was n't nerve! I was in it and I could n't get out ! I had to stand it somehow!" To this day I am very glad I did n't "collapse after it THE SCHOOLMA'AM OF SQUAW PEAK 265 was all over," or desert Bally, as they suggested I might have done; but also to this day I do wonder whether I did display much courage in this little experience? As I said then, I was in it, and I could not get out. I borrowed some dry clothes in Camp Verde and went home after the dark had fallen. It was barely light enough, I remember, for me to see white foam and float ing hailstones in the water at the first crossing. I was a little afraid, but I reminded myself that I was now a rural school-teacher and that I 'd better get over some of my weaknesses. A GROUP OF SEASON POEMS CANDLEMAS BY ARTHUR KETCHUM THE hedgerows cast a shallow shade Upon the frozen grass, But skies at evensong are soft, And comes the Candlemas. Each day a little later now Lingers the westering sun; Far out of sight the miracles Of April are begun. O barren bough ! O frozen field ! Hopeless ye wait no more. Life keeps her dearest promises The Spring is at the door! AN APRIL MORNING BY BLISS CARMAN ONCE more in misted April The world is growing green. Along the winding river The plumy willows lean. A GROUP OF SEASON POEMS 267 Beyond the sweeping meadows The looming mountains rise, Like battlements of dreamland Against the brooding skies. In every wooded valley The buds are breaking through, As though the heart of all things No languor ever knew. The goldenwings and bluebirds Call to their heavenly choirs. The pines are blued and drifted With smoke of brushwood fires. And in my sister's garden, Where little breezes run, The golden daffodillies Are blowing in the sun. APRIL'S RETURN BY GRACE RICHARDSON A FLUSH is on the woodland, A song is in the hedge, The meadow wan is fair again, For April keeps her pledge. A thrill with every heartbeat, A rapture touched with sighs, New lustre on the soul of Life, Tears in my happy eyes. 268 A A DAY IN JUNE BY ALICE CHOATE PERKINS SOFT breezes through the apple orchards blow. Deep in the tangle of the matted grass Lies golden silence. High above me pass The summer clouds, white, fathomless, and slow. The dim green aisles beneath the branches low Are hushed and still; only one merry bird Clear calling from a treetop high is heard. The sunlight glances through the leaves below. There is a sense as of a world apart, Where peace and beauty hand in hand will go. Lost is all bitterness, and hate, and wrong. Concealed within the dusky wood's deep heart The quiet hours seem lingering as they go, And all the perfect day is one glad song. AUTUMN BY BLISS CARMAN Now when the time of fruit and grain is come, When apples hang above the orchard wall, And from a tangle by the roadside stream A scent of wild grapes fills the racy air, Comes Autumn with her sunburnt caravan, Like a long gypsy train with trappings gay And tattered colors of the Orient, Moving slow-footed through the dreamy hills. The woods of Wilton, at her coming, wear Tints of Bokhara and of Samarcand; The maples glow with their Pompeian red, The hickories with burnt Etruscan gold; And while the crickets fife along her march, Behind her banners burns the crimson sun. JONAS AND MATILDA THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB THEY were English, and their names were Jonas and Matilda; not their real names, of course, for though one often writes of real individuals, it is the custom to give them fictitious names. In this case I am obliged to use fictitious names, for though this couple lived next door to me for two seasons, I never found out their true names ; so, in order to discuss their affairs in the privacy of my family, I christened them Jonas and Matilda. Their dwelling was not over twenty feet from my sitting- room window. It was quite old, but had never before, to my knowledge, been occupied; and when, one April morning, I saw a couple inspecting it with the evident intention of making it their residence if it proved satis factory, I became much interested in the prospect of new neighbors. I was somewhat of an invalid that spring, or thought I was, which is much the same thing, as all physicians can testify, and as I could neither read nor work long at a time, I welcomed the advent of the newcomers as a pleasant break in watching the clock for medicine hours. Several visits were made before the couple decided to make the place their local habitation, and I had my couch drawn close to the window, where, behind the friendly screen of the muslin curtains, I could see with- 270 JONAS AND MATILDA out being seen. Sometimes, when the discussion over the location became specially lively, I did not scruple to use my opera-glass. I may as well confess that, owing to the perfectly open way in which Jonas and Matilda conducted their domestic affairs, by keeping up a daily espionage assisted by the aforementioned glass, I became almost as familiar with their household con cerns as with my own, and I can assure you I found them vastly more interesting. From the very first Matilda showed herself a female of decided opinions, which she aired both in season and out of season. As for Jonas, he proved himself like charity: he bore all things, hoped all things, endured all things, did not behave himself unseemly, suffered long, and was kind. After at least a dozen visits, in which Matilda pointed out every disadvantage of the situation, to which Jonas ventured only to utter a mild protest now and then, they decided to take the place for the season. Then began the moving and settling. All the furnishings were new, and instead of going to look and select for herself, Matilda stayed at home and had everything brought for her inspection. When Jonas brought what he considered a piece of fine floor-covering or wall-decoration, she turned and twisted it in every conceivable way ; and if, after thoroughly examining it, she decided it would do, she laid it down, and Jonas picked it up and fitted it into the house. This did not end the matter, however, for as soon as Jonas came out and began to brush himself, Matilda would pop her head in the door; and if the thing was not arranged to her liking, she would drag it out, and patient Jonas had his work to do over again. A whole morning would often 271 be spent in this way, Jonas putting in order and Matilda pulling to pieces some part of the furniture. When Jonas brought home anything that did not please Matilda, she would snatch it from him, run a short dis tance, and toss it into the air, so that it would fall over into my yard. Then he would find a choice dainty which he would offer her, and hasten away to get something else while she was for the moment apparently good- natured. In the five weeks which it took Jonas to get the house in order, only once was he seen to rebel against Matilda's tyranny. It was a very hot, close morning, and he had been gone for at least two hours, during which time Matilda had done nothing but prance back and forth in front of the house. Whether the material itself did not please her, or she was angry because Jonas had been gone so long, I do not know, but as soon as he came in sight, with a sharp exclamation she pounced on him and tried to pull his burden away from him. To her great astonishment he refused to let go his hold. She moved away a little, and looked at him as if she could not believe the evidence of her own senses. Then she again caught hold of one end and tugged with all her might, but Jonas held on firmly; and thus they tugged and pulled for nearly five minutes. At last Matilda succeeded in wresting it from Jonas, and running with it, endeavored to drop it into my yard; but Jonas was too quick for her, and caught it just as it was falling. Again they contended for its possession, without either gaining any advantage, when suddenly Matilda let go her hold, and going off a little way sat down. Jonas, unexpectedly finding himself the victor, seemed at first 272 JONAS AND MATILDA undecided what to do; but after waiting a minute and finding Matilda did not renew the attack, he carried the material into the house and fitted it in place. When he came out he waited, as was his custom, for Matilda to inspect his work, but the little minx never so much as looked toward the house. After a while Jonas went away. As soon as he was out of sight, Mistress Matilda ran to the house, and tore out, not only what Jonas had just put in, but also sev eral other things, and tossed them, one by one, into my yard. Then she too went away. Presently Jonas re turned with more material for Matilda, but no Matilda was in sight. He called several times, and getting no response peeped into the house. I could not tell what his feelings were on beholding his dismantled home, for feelings cannot be seen, even with an opera-glass; but after standing about for a while, he laid his bundle down and hurried away, and I saw neither of them again for two days. The second morning they returned together. Matilda seemed to be in a very peaceful frame of mind, for she allowed Jonas to repair the damage she had wrought and finish the furnishings without further interference. When it was all done, she refused to go one step inside. Jonas coaxed and pleaded. He went in and out half a dozen times, and tried his best to persuade Matilda to enter; but no, she would not even cross the threshold. Finding all his entreaties of no avail, he went away, and returned with an elderly looking female, whom I took to be either an aunt or a mother-in-law. Then the two tried their united eloquence, the elderly female talking as rapidly and volubly as a book-agent, to induce the JONAS AND MATILDA 273 obstinate Matilda to set up housekeeping; but their breath was thrown away she refused to be persuaded. About a week later I saw Matilda skip into the house and out again in the greatest hurry. She tried this several days in succession, and after a while concluded that she might endure living in the house. Just at this time I went into the country for a month : but on the evening of my return almost my first inquiry was for Jonas and Matilda. What was my surprise to learn that they had two babies! I thought that with looking after them and taking care of the house the little mistress would have no time to indulge any of her dis agreeable characteristics ; but I reckoned without know ing all about Matilda. I took a peep at my neighbors the next morning before I went down to breakfast, and what did I see, under the shade of a blossoming cherry tree, but Matilda serenely taking the morning air as if she had not a care in the world, while the long-suffering Jonas sat in the door patiently feeding the babies! Later reconnoitring revealed the fact that Jonas was still the commissary and general caretaker, and Matilda retained her old office of inspector-general; but now, in stead of furnishings for the house it was supplies for the larder. Everything that Jonas brought home Ma tilda examined carefully, and if she considered it unfit food for the babies, promptly gobbled it up herself, without giving Jonas so much as a taste. As for feeding the little ones, I never saw her give them the tiniest crumb. Jonas not only brought the food and fed them, but saw that they were snugly tucked into their little bed and warmly covered. It was Jonas who gave them their first lessons in locomotion and taught them every- 274 JONAS AND MATILDA thing else they learned; Matilda, meanwhile, looking on with the indifference of a disinterested spectator. When cold weather came they all went away, as the place was not a desirable winter residence even for an English sparrow for of course you have guessed that Jonas and Matilda were English sparrows. Their home was in a knothole of the eaves of the house next door. I have often wondered where Matilda learned her advanced ways of bird-living. I can think of only one possible explanation. The walls of the old Chapter House on Carolina Avenue were once covered with ivy, which furnished quarters for hundreds of English sparrows. A year ago last winter, a series of lectures was given in the hall of the Chapter House on woman suf frage, and on the rights, privileges, and prerogatives of the New Woman. The following spring the ivy was torn from the walls, and the sparrows had to seek new habita tions. Was Matilda one of them, and had she listened to these lectures on the New Woman, and put the theories of the lecturers into practice? THE SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL BY ZITKALA-SA I. THE LAND OF RED APPLES THERE were eight in our party of bronzed children who were going East with the missionaries. Among us were three young braves, two tall girls, and we three little ones, Judewin, Thowin, and I. We had been very impatient to start on our journey to the Red-Apple Country, which, we were told, lay a little beyond the great circular horizon of the Western prairie. Under a sky of rosy apples we dreamt of roam ing as freely and happily as we had chased the cloud shadows on the Dakota plains. We had anticipated much pleasure from a ride on the iron horse, but the throngs of staring palefaces disturbed and troubled us. On the train, fair women, with tottering babies on each arm, stopped their haste and scrutinized the children of absent mothers. Large men, with heavy bundles in their hands, halted near by, and riveted their glassy blue eyes upon us. I sank deep into the corner of my seat, for I resented being watched. Directly in front of me, children who were no larger than I hung themselves upon the backs of their seats, with their bold white faces toward me. Sometimes they took their forefingers out of their mouths and pointed at my moccasined feet. Their mothers, instead of reproving such rude curiosity, looked 276 SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL closely at me, and attracted their children's further notice to my blanket. This embarrassed me, and kept me constantly on the verge of tears. I sat perfectly still, with my eyes downcast, daring only now and then to shoot long glances around me. Chancing to turn to the window at my side, I was quite breathless upon seeing one familiar object. It was the telegraph pole which strode by at short paces. Very near my mother's dwelling, along the edge of a road thickly bordered with wild sunflowers, some poles like these had been planted by white men. Often I had stop ped, on my way down the road, to hold my ear against the pole, and, hearing its low moaning, I used to wonder what the paleface had done to hurt it. Now I sat watch ing for each pole that glided by to be the last one. In this way I had forgotten my uncomfortable sur roundings, when I heard one of my comrades call out my name. I saw the missionary standing very near, tossing candies and gums into our midst. This amused us all, and we tried to see who could catch the most of the sweetmeats. The missionary's generous distribu tion of candies was impressed upon my memory by a disastrous result which followed. I had caught more than my share of candies and gums, and soon after our arrival at the school I had a chance to disgrace myself, which, I am ashamed to say, I did. Though we rode several days inside of the iron horse, I do not recall a single thing about our luncheons. It was night when we reached the school grounds. The lights from the windows of the large buildings fell upon some of the icicled trees that stood beneath them. We were led toward an open door, where the brightness SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL 277 of the lights within flooded out over the heads of the excited palefaces who blocked the way. My body trem bled more from fear than from the snow I trod upon. Entering the house, I stood close against the wall. The strong glaring light in the large whitewashed room dazzled my eyes. The noisy hurrying of hard shoes upon a bare wooden floor increased the whirring in my ears. My only safety seemed to be in keeping next to the wall. As I was wondering in which direction to escape from all this confusion, two warm hands grasped me firmly, and in the same moment I was tossed high in mid-air. A rosy-cheeked paleface woman caught me in her arms. I was both frightened and insulted by such trifling. I stared into her eyes, wishing her to let me stand on my own feet, but she jumped me up and down with increasing enthusiasm. My mother had never made a plaything of her wee daughter. Remembering this, I began to cry aloud. They misunderstood the cause of my tears, and placed me at a white table loaded with food. There our party were united again. As I did not hush my crying, one of the older ones whispered to me, "Wait until you are alone in the night." It was very little I could swallow besides my sobs, that evening. "Oh, I want my mother and my brother Dawee! I want to go to my aunt!" I pleaded. But the ears of the palefaces could not hear me. From the table we were taken along an upward in cline of wooden boxes, which I learned afterward to call a stairway. At the top was a quiet hall, dimly lighted. Many narrow beds were in one straight line down the 278 SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL entire length of the wall. In them lay sleeping brown faces, which peeped just out of the coverings. I was tucked into bed with one of the tall girls, because she talked to me in my mother tongue and seemed to soothe me. I had arrived in the wonderful land of rosy skies, but I was not happy, as I had thought I should be. My long travel and the bewildering sights had exhausted me. I fell asleep, heaving deep, tired sobs. My tears were left to dry themselves in streaks, because neither my aunt nor my mother was near to wipe them away. II. THE CUTTING OF MY LONG HAIR The first day in the land of apples was a bitter-cold one; for the snow still covered the ground, and the trees were bare. A large bell rang for breakfast, its loud metallic voice crashing through the belfry overhead and into our sensitive ears. The annoying clatter of shoes on bare floors gave us no peace. The constant clash of harsh noises, with an undercurrent of many voices murmuring an unknown tongue, made a bedlam within which I was securely tied. And though my spirit tore itself in struggling for its lost freedom, all was useless. A paleface woman, with white hair, came up after us. We were placed in a line of girls who were marching into the dining-room. These were Indian girls, in stiff shoes and closely clinging dresses. The small girls wore sleeved aprons and shingled hair. As I walked noise lessly in my soft moccasins, I felt like sinking to the floor, for my blanket had been stripped from my shoul ders. I looked hard at the Indian girls, who seemed not to care that they were even more immodestly dressed SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL 279 than I, in their tightly fitting clothes. While we marched in, the boys entered at an opposite door. I watched for the three young braves who came in our party. I spied them in the rear ranks, looking as uncomfortable as I felt. A small bell was tapped, and each of the pupils drew a chair from under the table. Supposing this act meant they were to be seated, I pulled out mine and at once slipped into it from one side. But when I turned my head, I saw that I was the only one seated, and all the rest at our table remained standing. Just as I began to rise, looking shyly around to see how chairs were to be used, a second bell was sounded. All were seated at last, and I had to crawl back into my chair again. I heard a man's voice at one end of the hall, and I looked around to see him. But all the others hung their heads over their plates. As I glanced at the long chain of tables, I caught the eyes of a paleface woman upon me. Immediately I dropped my eyes, wondering why I was so keenly watched by the strange woman. The man ceased his mutterings, and then a third bell was tapped. Everyone eating. I began crying instead, for by this time I was afraid to venture anything more. But this eating by formula was not the hardest trial in that first day. Late in the morning, my friend Judewin gave me a terrible warning. Judewin knew a few words of English, and she had overheard the paleface woman talk about cutting our long, heavy hair. Our mothers had taught us that only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy. Among our people short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair by cowards! 280 SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL We discussed our fate some moments, and when Judewin said, "We have to submit, because they are strong, " I rebelled. "No, I will not submit! I will struggle first!" I answered. I watched my chance, and when no one noticed I disappeared. I crept up the stairs as quietly as I could in my squeaking shoes my moccasins had been ex changed for shoes. Along the hall I passed, without knowing whither I was going. Turning aside to an open door, I found a large room with three white beds in it. The windows were covered with dark green curtains, which made the room very dim. Thankful that no one was there,! directed my steps toward the corner farthest from the door. On my hands and knees I crawled under the bed, and cuddled myself in the dark corner. From my hiding-place I peered out, shuddering with fear whenever I heard footsteps near by. Though in the hall loud voices were calling my name, and I knew that even Judewin was searching for me, I did not open my mouth to answer. Then the steps were quickened and the voices became excited. The sounds came nearer and nearer. Women and girls entered the room. I held my breath, and watched them open closet doors and peep behind large trunks. Someone threw up the curtains, and the room was filled with sudden light. What caused them to stoop and look under the bed, I do not know. I remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly. In spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a chair. I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit. Since the day I was taken from my mother I had suffered extreme indignities. People had stared at me. I had been tossed about in the air like a wooden puppet. And now my long hair was shingled like a coward's! In my anguish I moaned for my mother, but no one came to comfort me. Not a soul reasoned quietly with me, for now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder. III. THE DEVIL Among the legends the old warriors used to tell me were many stories of evil spirits. But I was taught to fear them no more than those who stalked about in material guise. I never knew there was an insolent chieftain among the bad spirits, who dared to array his forces against the Great Spirit, until I heard this white man's legend from a paleface woman. Out of a large book she showed me a picture of the white man's devil. I looked in horror upon the strong claws that grew out of his fur-covered fingers. His feet were like his hands. Trailing at his heels was a scaly tail tipped with a serpent's open jaws. His face was a patch work: he had bearded cheeks, like some I had seen pale faces wear; his nose was an eagle's bill, and his sharp- pointed ears were pricked up like those of a sly fox. Above them a pair of cow's horns curved upward. I trembled with awe, and my heart throbbed in my throat, as I looked at the king of evil spirits. Then I heard the paleface woman say that this terrible creature roamed loose in the world, and that little girls who dis obeyed school regulations were to be tortured by him. 282 SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL That night I dreamed about this evil divinity. Once again I seemed to be in my mother's cottage. An Indian woman had come to visit my mother. On opposite sides of the kitchen stove, which stood in the centre of the small house, my mother and her guest were seated in straight-backed chairs. I played with a train of empty spools hitched together on a string. It was night, and the wick burned feebly. Suddenly I heard someone turn our door-knob from without. My mother and the woman hushed their talk, and both looked toward the door. It opened gradually. I waited behind the stove. The hinges squeaked as the door was slowly, very slowly pushed inward. Then in rushed the devil! He was tall! He looked exactly like the picture I had seen of him in the white man's papers. He did not speak to my mother, be cause he did not know the Indian language, but his glittering yellow eyes were fastened upon me. He took long strides around the stove, passing behind the woman's chair. I threw down my spools and ran to my mother. He did not fear her, but followed closely after me. Then I ran round and round the stove, crying aloud for help. But my mother and the woman seemed not to know my danger. They sat still, looking quietly upon the devil's chase after me. At last I grew dizzy. My head revolved as on a hidden pivot. My knees be came numb, and doubled under my weight like a pair of knife-blades without a spring. Beside my mother's chair I fell in a heap. Just as the devil stooped over me with outstretched claws, my mother awoke from her quiet indifference and lifted me on her lap. Whereupon the devil vanished, and I was awake. SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL 283 On the following morning I took my revenge upon the devil. Stealing into the room where a wall of shelves was rilled with books, I drew forth the "Stories of the Bible." With a broken slate pencil I carried in my apron pocket, I began by scratching out his wicked eyes. A few moments later, when I was ready to leave the room, there was a ragged hole in the page where the picture of the devil had once been. IV. INCURRING MY MOTHER'S DISPLEASURE In the second journey to the East I had not come without some precautions. I had a secret interview with one of our best medicine men, and when I left his wig wam I carried securely in my sleeve a tiny bunch of magic roots. This possession assured me of friends wherever I should go. So absolutely did I believe in its charms that I wore it for more than a year. Then, be fore I lost my faith in the dead roots, I lost the little buckskin bag containing all my good luck. At the close of this second term of three years I was the proud owner of my first diploma. The following autumn I ventured upon a college career against my mother's will. I had written for her approval, but in her reply I found no encouragement. She called my notice to her neighbors' children, who had completed their education in three years. They had returned to their homes, and were then talking English with the frontier settlers. Her few words hinted that I had better give up my slow attempt to learn the white man's ways, and be content to roam over the prairies and find my living upon wild roots. I silenced her by deliberate disobedience. 284 SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL Thus, homeless and heavy-hearted, I began anew my life among strangers. As I hid myself in my little room in the college dor mitory, away from the scornful and yet curious eyes of the students, I pined for sympathy. Often I wept in secret, wishing I had gone West, to be nourished by my mother's love, instead of remaining among a cold race whose hearts were frozen hard with prejudice. During the fall and winter seasons I scarcely had a real friend, though by that time several of my class mates were courteous to me at a safe distance. My mother had not yet forgiven my rudeness to her, and I had no moment for letter- writing. By daylight and lamplight, I spun with reeds and thistles, until my hands were tired from their weaving, the magic design which promised me the white man's respect. At length, in the spring term, I entered an oratorical contest among the various classes. As the day of compe tition approached, it did not seem possible that the event was so near at hand, but it came. In the chapel the classes assembled together, with their invited guests. The high platform was carpeted, and gayly festooned with college colors. A bright white light illumined the room, and outlined clearly the great polished beams that arched the domed ceiling. The assembled crowds filled the air with pulsating murmurs. When the hour for speaking arrived, all were hushed. But on the wall the old clock which pointed out the trying moment ticked calmly on. One after another I saw and heard the orators. Still, I could not realize that they longed for the favorable de cision of the judges as much as I did. Each contestant SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL 285 received a loud burst of applause, and some were cheered heartily. Too soon my turn came, and I paused a mo ment behind the curtains for a deep breath. After my concluding words, I heard the same applause that the others had called out. Upon my retreating steps, I was astounded to receive from my fellow students a large bouquet of roses tied with flowing ribbons. With the lovely flowers I fled from the stage. This friendly token was a rebuke to me for the hard feelings I had borne them. Later, the decision of the judges awarded me the first place. Then there was a mad uproar in the hall, where my classmates sang and shouted my name at the top of their lungs; and the disappointed students howled and brayed in fearfully dissonant tin trumpets. In this excitement happy students rushed forward to offer their congratulations. And I could not conceal a smile when they wished to escort me in a procession to the students' parlor, where all were going, to calm themselves. Thanking them for the kind spirit which prompted them to make such a proposition, I walked alone with the night to my own little room. A few weeks afterward, I appeared as the college representative in another contest. This time the compe tition was among orators from different colleges in our state. It was held at the state capital, in one of the largest opera houses. Here again was a strong prejudice against my people. In the evening, as the great audience filled the house, the student bodies began warring among themselves. Fortunately I was spared witnessing any of the noisy wrangling before the contest began. The slurs against 286 SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL the Indian that stained the lips of our opponents were already burning like a dry fever within my breast. But after the orations were delivered a deeper burn awaited me. There, before that vast ocean of eyes, some college rowdies threw out a large white flag, with a drawing of a most forlorn Indian girl on it. Under this they had printed in bold black letters words that ridiculed the college which was represented by a "squaw." Such worse than barbarian rudeness em bittered me. While we waited for the verdict of the judges, I gleamed fiercely upon the throngs of palefaces. My teeth were hard set, as I saw the white flag still floating insolently in the air. Then anxiously we watched the man carry toward the stage the envelope containing the final decision. There were two prizes given, that night, and one of them was mine! The evil spirit laughed within me when the white flag dropped out of sight, and the hands which furled it hung limp in defeat. Leaving the crowd as quickly as possible, I was soon in my room. The rest of the night I sat in an armchair and gazed into the crackling fire. I laughed no more in triumph when thus alone. The little taste of victory did not satisfy a hunger in my heart. In my mind I saw my mother far away on the Western plains, and she was holding a charge against me. CURBSTONE THEATRICALS THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB I ONCE told the Club of various children encountered in city streets, each of whom, though Like the snow-fall in the river, A moment white, then melts forever, had nevertheless in that moment contrived to win upon my affections. The snowflake melts forever, but other snowflakes come, and now I am again begging listeners for a small budget of news from the pavement. One day, as I was walking up Broadway from the Battery, my attention was attracted by a tenement- house little girl swinging along before me. She was, I suppose, about ten years old ragged, certainly not clean, though still not looking altogether uncared-for. What caught my eye was the enjoying, free, unconscious gusto with which she was taking life. Her movement, the expression of her back (which was all I saw), fairly sang the fact aloud, to a simple-minded tune. I kept her in sight for some minutes, and then Real Life, who sometimes for a moment shows the instinct of an artist, favored me with one glimpse of my heroine doing something in character. She stopped at an old woman's apple-stand, laid down a coin, took up an apple, and set her teeth in it instantly. As she accom plished her bite, the old woman held out her change to her. You will live long before you see anything more CURBSTONE THEATRICALS sweetly magnificent than the gesture and movement with which my Lady Bountiful, without turning her rough little head, gently pushed back the change-laden hand and went swiftly on her way. The tender, joyous pride of it was enough to give one hysterics, between* laughing and crying. But, fortunately doubtless, our sensibility to mere spectacle in life rarely so far overcomes us; and as for me, on this occasion, I only hurried on to catch a glimpse of Lady Bountiful's face, but I never caught it. In a moment she plunged into a little crowd gath ered about something I don't know what in the street; and the last I saw of her, she still eating her apple was gallantly working her way to its front with a zeal and courage I could not imitate. Not long ago I watched from my window a more complex case of infantine charity. A much-disheveled, shabby woman had come along and seated herself in a doorway opposite. Mine is not a neighborhood too fine to let many of its children play in the street, and soon there gathered about the sorry wayfarer a curious group of them. I suppose they soon might have been pelting her with stones, but I find the fact that they became very differently occupied illustrative not only of the plasticity of children, but of the impressionability of the race. This "drunk lady," as they doubtless called her, despite the lingering disqualifications of the intoxica tion from which she was plainly but just emerging, had even now a genius for managing mankind. She had so far come to herself as to desire a respectable appearance. It was to attain this laudable ambition and some others that she engaged the children's assistance. She took CURBSTONE THEATRICALS 289 off her hat, let down her hair, drew from her pocket a folded white apron, which she shook out carefully and laid on a fold of her dress beside her, and all the time she held her growing audience in what must have been fascinating conversation. I wish I could have heard it. The existence of her charm was further attested in three minutes by the eagerness with which competing mes sengers sped upon her errands. One came back with a wet handkerchief; another with a comb (!); another, though the drunk lady had furnished no pennies, with a bunch of radishes, obtained, as I saw, at the corner grocery. She at once sent another child for salt, as the event proved; then wiped her face and hands well with the handkerchief, and gave her attention to re shaping her battered hat and fastening properly its trimmings, getting pins from sympathetic boys as well as girls. When the salt came, she made a modest meal, sharing it with no one; but those children hung around her, not familiarly, but with a touch of awe, while she ate, as if the sight were in some occult way a feast for their souls. She needed more pins than they could furnish on the spot, and when, her radishes eaten, she returned to the c.are of her toilet, raiders on the domestic stock of various homes brought them to her, and hairpins as well. The ardor and devotion of her ministers did not flag during the half -hour she stayed among them; and when, finally, vastly changed in appearance, she took herself off, I had not a doubt that the change helped her incalculably to make her peace with whomsoever she wished to concil iate. The children followed her to the corner, where, evidently at a word from her thrown over her shoulder, 290 CURBSTONE THEATRICALS aiid without further pantomime of leave-taking, they stopped, and watched her out of sight. I was glad and grateful when she gave that word, "Thus far and no farther, " for I had made up my mind that she was the last incarnation of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and that if she would, she might leave us with not a little girl or boy to bless ourselves with for blocks around. THE WORD BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS TO-DAY, whatever may annoy, The word for me is Joy, just simple Joy: The joy of life; The joy of children and of wife; The joy of bright blue skies; The joy of rain ; the glad surprise Of twinkling stars that shine at night; The joy of winged things upon their flight; The joy of noon-day, and the tried True joyousness of eventide; The joy of labor, and of mirth ; The joy of air, and sea, and earth The countless joys that ever flow from Him Whose vast beneficence doth dim The lustrous light of day, And lavish gifts divine upon our way. Whate'er there be of Sorrow I '11 put off till To-morrow, And when To-morrow comes, why then 'T will be To-day and Joy again ! PAN THE FALLEN BY WILLIAM WILFRED CAMPBELL HE wandered into the market With pipes and goatish hoof; He wandered in a grotesque shape, And no one stood aloof. For the children crowded round him, The wives and graybeards, too, To crack their jokes and have their mirth, And see what Pan would do. The Pan he was they knew him, Part man, but mostly beast, Who drank, and lied, and snatched what bones Men threw him from their feast; Who seemed in sin so merry, So careless in his woe, That men despised, scarce pitied him, And still would have it so. He swelled his pipes and thrilled them, And drew the silent tear; He made the gravest clack with mirth By his sardonic leer. He blew his pipes full sweetly At their amused demands, And caught the scornful, earth-flung pence That fell from careless hands. PAN THE FALLEN 293 He saw the mob's derision, And took it kindly, too, And when an epithet was flung, A coarser back he threw; But under all the masking Of a brute, unseemly part, I looked, and saw a wounded soul * And a godlike, breaking heart. And back of the elfin music, The burlesque, clownish play, I knew a wail that the weird pipes made, A look that was far away A gaze into some far heaven Whence a soul had fallen down; But the mob saw only the grotesque beast And the antics of the clown. For scant-flung pence he paid them With mirth and elfin play, Till, tired for a time of his antics queer, They passed and went their way; Then there in the empty market He ate his scanty crust, And, tired face turned to heaven, down He laid him in the dust. And over his wild, strange features A softer light there fell, And on his worn, earth-driven heart A peace ineffable. And the moon rose over the market, But Pan the beast was dead; While Pan the god lay silent there, With his strange, distorted head. 294 PAN THE FALLEN And the people, when they found him, Stood still with awesome fear. No more they saw the beast's rude hoof, The furtive, clownish leer; But the lightest in that audience Went silent from the place, For they knew the look of a god released That shone from his dead face. LOVE IS ALWAYS HERE (Toujours Amour) BY EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN PRITHEE tell me, Dimple-Chin, At what age does Love begin? Your blue eyes have scarcely seen Summers three, my fairy queen, But a miracle of sweets, Soft approaches, sly retreats, Show the little archer there, Hidden in your pretty hair : When didst learn a heart to win? Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin! "Oh!" the rosy lips reply, "I can't tell you if I try! 'Tis so long I can't remember; Ask some younger miss than I!" Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face, Do your heart and head keep pace? When does hoary Love expire? When do frosts put out the fire? Can its embers burn below All that chill December snow? Care you still soft hands to press, Bonny heads to smooth and bless? TERMONDE (destroyed) THE CHIMES OF TERMONDE 297 When does Love give up the chase? Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face! "Ah!" the wise old lips reply, "Youth may pass and strength may die; But of Love I can't foretoken; Ask some older Sage than I!" THE CHIMES OF TERMONDE BY GRACE HAZARD CONKLING THE groping spires have lost the sky, That reach from Termonde town; There are no bells to travel by, The minster chimes are down. It 's forth we must, alone, alone, And try to find the way; The bells that we have always known, War broke their hearts to-day. They used to call the morning Along the gilded street, And then their rhymes were laughter, And all their notes were sweet. I heard them stumble down the air Like seraphim betrayed; God must have heard their broken prayer That made my soul afraid. 298 THE CHIMES OF TERMONDE The Termonde bells are gone, are gone, And what is left to say? It 's forth we must, by bitter dawn, To try to find the way. They used to call the children To go to sleep at night; And then their songs were tender And drowsy with delight. The wind will look for them in vain Within the empty tower. We shall not hear them sing again At dawn or twilight hour. It's forth we must, away, away, And far from Termonde town, But this is all I know to-day The chimes, the chimes are down ! They used to ring at evening To help the people pray, Who wander now bewildered And cannot find the way. A PUPIL OF AGASSIZ BY NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER WHEN I first met Louis Agassiz, he was still in the prime of his admirable manhood; though he was then fifty-two years old, and had passed his constructive period, he still had the look of a young man. His face was the most genial and engaging that I had ever seen, and his manner captivated me altogether. But as I had been among men who had a free swing, and for a year among people who seemed to me to be cold and super- rational, hungry as I doubtless was for human sym pathy, Agassiz's welcome went to my heart I was at once his captive. It has been my good chance to see many men of engaging presence and ways, but I have never known his equal. As the personal quality of Agassiz was the greatest of his powers, and as my life was greatly influenced by my immediate and enduring affection for him, I am tempted to set forth some incidents which show that my swift devotion to my new-found master was not due to the accidents of the situation or to any boyish fancy. I will content myself with one of those stories, which will of itself show how easily he captivated men, even those of the ruder sort. Some years after we came together, when indeed I was formally his assistant, I believe it was in 1866, he became much interested in the task of comparing the 300 A PUPIL OF AGASSIZ skeletons of thoroughbred horses with those of common stock. I had at his request tried, but without success, to obtain the bones of certain famous stallions from my acquaintances among the racing men in Kentucky. Early one morning there was a fire, supposed to be in cendiary, in the stables at the Beacon Park track, a mile from the College, in which a number of horses had been killed and many badly scorched. I had just returned from the place, where I had left a mob of irate owners and jockeys in a violent state of mind, intent on finding someone to hang. I had seen the chance of getting a valuable lot of stallions for the museum, but it was evident that the time was most inopportune for suggest ing such a disposition of the remains. Had I done so, the results would have been, to say the least, unpleasant. As I came away from the profane lot of horsemen gathered about the ruins of their fortunes or their hopes, I met Agassiz almost running to seize the chance of specimens. I told him to come back with me: that we must wait until the mob had spent its rage ; but he kept on. I told him further that he risked spoiling his good chance, and, finally, that he would have his head punched; but he trotted on. I went with him, in the hope that I might protect him from the consequences of his curiosity. When we reached the spot, there came about a marvel : in a moment he had all those raging men at his command. He went at once to work with the horses which had been hurt but were savable. His intense sym pathy with the creatures, his knowledge of the remedies to be applied, his immediate appropriation of the whole situation, of which he was at once the master, made A PUPIL OF AGASSIZ 301 those rude folks at once his friends. Nobody asked who he was, for the good reason that he was heart and soul of them. When the task of helping was done, Agassiz skillfully came to the point of his business, the skeletons, and this so dexterously and sympa thetically that the men were, it seemed, ready to turn over the living as well as the dead beasts for his service. I have seen a lot of human doing, much of it critically, as actor or near observer, but this was in many ways the greatest. The supreme art of it was in the use of a perfectly spontaneous and most actually sympathetic motive to gain an end. With others, this state of mind would lead to affection; with him, it in no wise dimin ished the quality of the emotion. He could measure the value of the motive, but do it without lessening its moral import. As my account of Agassiz's quality should rest upon my experiences with him, I shall now go on to tell how and to wiiat effect he trained me. In that day there were no written examinations on any subjects which candidates for the Lawrence Scientific School had to pass. The professors in charge of the several depart ments questioned the candidates and determined their fitness to pursue the course of study they desired to undertake. Few or none who had any semblance of an education were denied admission to Agassiz's laboratory. At that time the instructors had, in addition to their meagre salaries, his was then $2500 per annum, the regular fees paid in by the students under their charge. So I was promptly assured that I was admitted. Be it said, however, that he did give me an effective oral examination, which, as he told me, was intended to show 302 A PUPIL OF AGASSIZ whether I could expect to go forward to a degree at the end of four years of study. On this matter of the degree he was obdurate, refusing to recommend some who had been with him for many years and had succeeded in their special work, giving as reason for his denial that they were "too ignorant." The examination Agassiz gave me was directed first to find that I knew enough Latin and Greek to make use of those languages; that I could patter a little of them evidently pleased him. He did n't care for those de testable rules for scanning. Then came German and French, which were also approved: I could read both, and spoke the former fairly well. He did not probe me in my weakest place, mathematics, for the good reason that, badly as I was off in that subject, he was in a worse plight. Then, asking me concerning my reading, he found that I had read the essay on classification and had noted in it the influence of Schelling's views. Most of his questioning related to this field, and the more than fair beginning of our relations then made was due to the fact that I had some enlargement on that side. So, too, he was pleased to find that I had managed a lot of Latin, Greek, and German poetry, and had been trained with the sword. He completed this inquiry by requiring that I bring my foils and mask for a bout. In this test he did not fare well, for, though not untrained, he evidently knew more of the Schldger than of the rapier. He was heavy-handed and lacked finesse. This, with my previous experience, led me to the conclusion that I had struck upon a kind of tutor in Cambridge not known in Kentucky. While Agassiz questioned me carefully as to what I A PUPIL OF AGASSIZ 303 had read and what I had seen, he seemed in this pre liminary going-over in no wise concerned to find what I knew about fossils, rocks, animals, and plants: he put aside the offerings of my scanty lore. This offended me a bit, as I recall, for the reason that I thought I knew, and for a self -taught lad really did know, a good deal about such matters, especially as to the habits of insects, par ticularly spiders. It seemed hard to be denied the chance to make my parade; but I afterwards saw what this meant, that he did not intend to let me begin my tasks by posing as a naturalist. The beginning was indeed quite different, and, as will be seen, in a manner that quickly evaporated my conceit. Agassiz's laboratory was then in a rather small two- storied building, looking much like a square dwelling- house, which stood where the College Gymnasium now stands. In this primitive establishment Agassiz's lab oratory, as distinguished from the store-rooms where the collections were crammed, occupied one room about thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide what is now the west room on the lower floor of the edifice. In this place, already packed, I had assigned to me a small pine table with a rusty tin pan upon it. When I sat me down before my tin pan, Agassiz brought me a small fish, placing it before me with the rather stern requirement that I should study it, but should on no account talk to anyone concerning it, nor read anything concerning fishes, until I had his permis sion so to do. To my inquiry, "What shall I do?" he said in effect, "Find out what you can without damag ing the specimen ; when I think that you have done the work I will question you." 304 A PUPIL OF AGASSIZ In the course of an hour I thought I had compassed that fish; it was rather an unsavory object, giving forth the stench of old alcohol, then loathsome to me, though in time I came to like it. Many of the scales were loosened so that they fell off. It appeared to me to be a case for a summary report, which I was anxious to make and get on to the next stage of the business. But Agas- siz, though always within call, concerned himself no further with me that day, nor the next, nor for a week. At first, this neglect was distressing; but I saw that it was a game, for he was, as I discerned, rather than saw, covertly watching me. So I set my wits to work upon the thing, and in the course of a hundred hours or so thought I had done much, a hundred times as much as seemed possible at the start. I got interested in finding out how the scales went in series, their shape, the form and placement of the teeth, etc., etc. Finally, I felt full of the subject and probably ex pressed it in my bearing; as for words about it, there were none from my master except his cheery "Good morning." At length, on the seventh day, came the question, "Well?" and my disgorge of learning to him as he sat on the edge of my table, puffing his cigar. At the end of the hour's telling, he swung off and away, say ing, "That is not right." Here I began to think that, after all, perhaps the rules for scanning Latin verse were not the worst infliction in the world. Moreover, it was clear that he was playing a game with me to find if I were capable of doing hard, continuous work without the support of a teacher, and this stimulated me to labor. I went at the task anew, discarded my first notes, and in another week of ten hours a day labor I had A PUPIL OF AGASSIZ 305 results which astonished myself and satisfied him. Still there was no trace of praise in words or manner. He signified that it would do by placing before me about half a peck of bones, telling me to see what I could make of them, with no further directions to guide me. I soon found that they were the skeletons of half-a- dozen fishes of different species; the jaws told me that much at a first inspection. The task evidently was to fit the separate bones together in their proper order. Two months or more went to this task, with no other help than an occasional looking over my grouping, with the stereotyped remark, "That is not right." Finally, the task was done, and I was again set upon alco holic specimens this time a remarkable lot repre senting, perhaps, twenty species of the side-swimmers, or pleuronectidce. I shall never forget the sense of power in dealing with things which I felt in beginning the more extended work on a group of animals. I had learned the art of compar ing objects, which is the basis of the naturalist's work. At this stage I was allowed to read, and to discuss my work with others about me. I did both eagerly, and acquired a considerable knowledge of the literature of Ichthyology, becoming especially interested in the system of classification, then most imperfect. I tried to follow Agassiz's scheme of division into the order of ctenoids, and ganoids, with the result that I found one of my species of side-swimmers had cycloid scales on one side and ctenoid on the other. This not only shocked my sense of the value of classification in a way that permitted of no full recovery of my original respect for the process, but for a time shook my confidence in 306 A PUPIL OF AGASSIZ my master's knowledge. At the same time I had a malicious pleasure in exhibiting my find to him, ex pecting to repay in part the humiliation which he had evidently tried to inflict on my conceit. To my question as to how the nondescript should be classified, he said, "My boy, there are now two of us who know that." THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING BY DALLAS LORE SHARP WE have had a series of long, heavy rains, and water is standing over the swampy meadow. It is a dreary stretch, this wet, sedgy land in the cold twilight, drearier than any part of the woods or the upland pastures. They are empty, but the meadow is flat and wet, naked and all unsheltered. And a November night is falling. The darkness deepens; a raw wind is rising. At nine o'clock the moon swings round and full to the crest of the ridge, and pours softly over. I button the heavy ulster close, and in my rubber boots go down to the river and follow it out to the middle of the meadow, where it meets the main ditch at the sharp turn toward the swamp. Here at the bend, behind a clump of black alders, I sit quietly down and wait. I am not mad, nor melancholy; I am not after copy. Nothing is the matter with me. I have come out to the bend to watch the muskrats building, for that small mound up the ditch is not an old haycock, but a half- finished muskrat house. The moon climbs higher. The water on the meadow shivers in the light. The wind bites through my heavy coat and sends me back; but not until I have seen one, two, three little figures scaling the walls of the house with loads of mud-and-reed mortar. I am driven back by the cold, but not until I know that here in the 308 THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING desolate meadow is being rounded off a lodge, thick- walled and warm, and proof against the longest, bit terest of winters. This is near the end of November. My wood is in the cellar; I am about ready to put on the double windows and storm-doors; and the muskrat's house is all but finished. Winter is at hand; but we are prepared; the muskrats even better prepared than I, for theirs is an adequate house, planned perfectly. Through the summer they had no house, but only their tunnels into the sides of the ditch, their roadways out into the grass, and their beds under the tussocks or among the roots of the old stumps. All these months the water had been low in the ditch, and the beds among the tussocks had been safe and dry enough. Now the autumnal rains have filled river and ditch, flooded the tunnels, and crept up into the beds under the tussocks. Even a muskrat will creep out of his bed when cold, wet water creeps in. What shall he do for a house? He does not want to leave his meadow. The only thing to do is to build move from under the tussock, out upon the top, and here in the deep, wiry grass, make a new bed, high and dry above the rising water, and close the new bed in with walls that circle and dome and defy the whiter. Such a house will require a great deal of work to build. Why not combine, make it big enough to hold half a dozen; save labor and warmth, and, withal, live sociably together? So they left, each one his bed, and joining efforts, started, about the middle of October, to build this winter house. Slowly, night after night, the domed walls have been 310 THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING rising, although for several nights at a time there would be no apparent .progress with the work. The builders were in no hurry, it seems; the cold was far off; but it is coming, and to-night it feels near and keen. And to night there is no loafing apout the lodge. When this house is done, then the rains may descend, and the floods come, but it will not fall. It is built upon a tussock; and a tussock, you will know, who have ever grubbed at one, has hold on the bottom of creation. The winter may descend, and the boys, and foxes, come, and they will come, but not before the walls are frozen, yet the house stands. It is boy-proof, almost; it is entirely rain-, cold-, and fox-proof. Many a time I have hacked at its walls with my axe when fishing through the ice, but I never got in. I have often seen, too, where the fox has gone round and round the house in the snow, and where, at places, he has at tempted to dig into the frozen mortar; but it was a foot thick, as hard as flint, and utterly impossible for his pick and shovel. Yet strangely enough the house sometimes fails of the very purpose for which it was erected. I said the floods may come. So they may, ordinarily; but along hi March when one comes as a freshet, it rises sometimes to the dome of the house, filling the single bed-chamber and drowning the dwellers out. I remember a freshet once in the end of February that flooded Lupton's Pond and drove the muskrats of the whole pond village to their ridgepoles, to the bushes, and to whatever wreckage the waters brought along. The best laid schemes o' muskrats too Gang aft a-gley. THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING 311 But ganging a-gley is not the interesting thing, not the point with my muskrats : it is rather that my muskrats, and the mice that Burns ploughed up, the birds and the bees, and even the very trees of the forest, have fore sight. They all look ahead and provide against the coming cold. That a mouse or a muskrat, or even a bee, should occasionally prove foresight to be vain, only shows that the life of the fields is very human. Such foresight, however, oftener proves entirely adequate for the winter, dire as some of the emergencies are sure to be. The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, And what will poor Robin do then, Poor thing? And what will Muskrat do? and Chipmunk? and White- foot? and little Chickadee? poor things! Never fear. Robin has heard the trumpets of the north wind and is retreating leisurely toward the south ; wise thing ! Musk- rat is building a warm winter lodge; Chipmunk has al ready dug his but and ben, and so far down under the stone wall that a month of zeros could not break in; Whitef oot, the wood mouse, has stored the hollow poplar stub full of acorns and has turned Robin's deserted nest, near by, into a cosy house; and Chickadee, dear thing, Nature herself looks after him. There are plenty of provisions for the hunting, and a big piece of suet on my lilac bush. His clothes are warm, and he will hide his head under his wing in the elm tree hole when the north wind doth blow, and never mind the weather. I shall not mind it either, not so much, anyway, on account of Chickadee. He lends me a deal of support. So do Chipmunk, Whitefoot, and Muskrat. 312 THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING This lodge of my muskrats in the meadow makes a difference, I am sure, of at least ten degrees in the mean temperature of my winter. How can the out-of-doors freeze entirely up with such a house as this at the middle of it? For in this house is life, warm life - and fire. On the coldest day I can look out over the bleak white waste to where the house shows, a tiny mound in the snow, and I can see the fire glow, just as I can see and feel the glow when I watch the slender blue wraith rise into the still air from the chimney of the old farmhouse along the road below. For I share in the life of both houses; and not less in the life of the mud house of the meadow, because, instead of Swedes, they are muskrats who live there. I can share the existence of a muskrat? Easily. I like to curl up with the three or four of them in that mud house and there spend the worst days of the winter. My own big house here on the hilltop is some times cold. And the wind! If sometimes I could only drive the insistent winter wind from the house corners ! But down in the meadow the house has no corners; the mud walls are thick, so thick and round that the shrieking wind sweeps past unheard, and all unheeded the cold creeps over and over the thatch, then crawls back and stiffens upon the meadow. The doors of our house in the meadow swing open the winter through. Just outside the doors stand our stacks of fresh calamus roots, and iris, and arum. The roof of the universe has settled close and hard upon us a sheet of ice extending from the ridge of the house far out to the shores of the meadow. The winter is all above the roof outside. It blows and snows and freezes out there. In here, beneath the ice-roof, the roots of the THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING 313 sedges are pink and tender; our roads are all open, and they run every way, over all the rich, rooty meadow. The muskrats are building. Winter is coming. The muskrats are making preparations; but not they alone. The preparation for hard weather is to be seen every where, and it has been going on ever since the first flocking of the swallows, back in July. Up to that time the season still seemed young; no one thought- of harvest, of winter; when there upon the telegraph wires one day were the swallows, and work against the winter had begun. The great migratory movements of the birds, mysteri ous in some of their courses as the currents of the sea, were in the beginning, and are still, for the most part, mere shifts to escape the cold. Why in the spring these same birds should leave the southern lands of plenty and travel back to the hungrier north to nest, is not easily explained. Perhaps it is the home instinct that draws them back; for home to birds (and men) is the land of the nest. However, it is very certain that among the autumn migrants there would be at once a great falling off should there come a series of warm open win ters with abundance of food. Bad as the weather is, there are a few of the seed-eat ing birds, like the quail, and some of the insect-eaters, like the chickadee, who are so well provided for that they can stay and survive the winter. But the great majority of the birds, because they have no storehouse or barn, must take wing and fly away from the lean and hungry cold. And I am glad to see them go. The thrilling honk of the flying wild geese out of the November sky tells me 314 THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING that the hollow forests and closing bays of the vast desolate north are empty now, except for the few creatures that find food and shelter in the snow. The wild geese pass, and I hear behind them the clang of the arctic gates, the boom of the bolt then the long frozen silence. Yet it is not for long. Soon the bar will slip back, the gates will swing wide, and the wild geese will come honking over, swift to the greening marshes of the arctic bays once more. Here in my own small woods and marshes there is much getting ready, much comforting assurance that Nature is quite equal to herself, that winter is not ap proaching unawares. There will be great lack, no doubt, before there is plenty again; there will be suffering and death. But what with the migrating, the strange deep sleeping, the building and harvesting, there will be also much comfortable, much joyous and sociable living. Long before the muskrats began to build, even before the swallow r s began to flock, my chipmunks started their winter stores. I don't know which began his work first, which kept harder at it, chipmunk or the provident ant. The ant has come by a reputation for thrift, which, though entirely deserved, is still not the exceptional virtue it is made to seem. Chipmunk is just as thrifty. So is the busy bee. It is the thought of approaching winter that keeps the bee busy far beyond her summer needs. Much of her labor is entirely for the winter. By the first of August she has filled the brood chamber with honey forty pounds of it, enough for the hatching bees and for the whole colony until the willows tassel again. But who knows what the winter may be? How cold and long drawn out into the coming May? So THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING 315 the harvesting is pushed with vigor on to the flowering of the last autumn asters on until fifty, a hundred, or even three hundred pounds of surplus honey are sealed in the combs, and the colony is safe should the sun not shine again for a year and a day. But here is Nature, in these extra pounds of honey, making preparation for me, incapable drone that I am. I could not make a drop of honey from a whole forest of linden bloom. Yet I must live, so I give the bees a bigger gum log than they need; I build them greater barns; and when the harvest is all in, this extra store I make my own. I too with the others am getting ready for the cold. It is well that I am. The last of the asters have long since gone; so have the witch hazels. All is quiet about the hives. The bees have formed into their warm winter clusters upon the combs, and except "when come the calm, mild days," they will fly no more until March or April. I will contract their entrances, put on their storm-doors. And now there is little else that I can do but put on my own. The whole of my out-of-doors is a great hive, stored and sealed for the winter, its swarming life close-clus tered, and covering in its centre, as coals in the ashes, the warm life-fires of summer. I stand along the edge of the hillside here and look down the length of its frozen slope. The brown leaves have drifted into the entrances, as if every burrow were forsaken; sand and sticks have washed in, too, littering and choking the doorways. There is no sign of life. A stranger would find it hard to believe that my whole drove of forty-six ground- 316 THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING hogs (woodchucks) are gently snoring at the bottoms of these old uninteresting holes. Yet here they are, and quite out of danger, sleeping the sleep of the furry, the fat, and the forgetful. The woodchuck's is a curious shift, a case of Nature outdoing herself. Winter spreads far and fast, and Woodchuck, in order to keep ahead out of danger, would need wings. But he was n't given any. Must he perish then? Winter spreads far, but does not go deep down only about four feet; and Woodchuck, if he cannot escape overland, can, perhaps, under land. So down he goes through the winter, down into a mild and even temperature, five long feet away but as far away from the snow and cold as Bobolink among the reeds of the distant Orinoco. Indeed, Woodchuck's is a farther journey and even more wonderful than Bobolink's, for these five feet carry him beyond the bounds of time and space into the mysterious realm of sleep, of suspended life, to the very gates of death. That he will return with Bobolink, that he will come up alive with the spring out of this dark way, is very strange. For he went in most meagrely prepared. He took nothing with him, apparently. The muskrat built him a house, and under the spreading ice turned all the mea dow into a well-stocked cellar. The beaver built a dam, cut and anchored under water a plenty of green sticks near his lodge, so that he too would be under cover when the ice formed, and have an abundance of tender bark at hand. Chipmunk spent half of his summer lay ing up food near his underground nest. But Woodchuck simply digged him a hole, a grave, ate until no particle THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING 317 more of fat could be got into his baggy hide, then crawled into his tomb, gave up the ghost, and waited the resur rection of the spring. This is his shift ! This is the length to which he goes, because he has no wings, and because he cannot cut, cure, and mow away, in the depths of the stony hill side, enough clover hay to last him over the winter. The beaver cans his fresh food in cold water; the chip munk selects long-keeping things and buries them; the woodchuck makes of himself a silo, eats all his winter hay in the summer while it is green, turns it at once into a surplus of himself, then buries that self, feeds upon it, and sleeps - and lives ! The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, but what good reason is there for our being daunted at the prospect? Robin and all the others are well pre pared. Even the wingless frog, who is also lacking in fur and feathers and fat, even he has no care at the sound of the cold winds. Nature provides for him too, in her way, which is the way neither of the robin, the musk- rat, or the woodchuck. He survives, and all he has to do about it is to dig into the mud at the bottom of the ditch. This looks at first like the journey Wood- chuck takes. But it is really a longer, stranger jour ney than Woodchuck's, for it takes the frog far be yond the realms of mere sleep, on into the cold, black land where no one can tell the quick from the dead. The frost may or may not reach him here in the ooze. No matter. If the cold works down and freezes him into the mud, he never knows. But he will thaw out as good 318 THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING as new; he will sing again for joy and love as soon as his heart warms up enough to beat. I have seen frogs frozen into the middle of solid lumps of ice in the laboratory. Drop the lump on the floor, and the frog would break out like a fragment of the ice itself. And this has happened more than once to the same frog without causing him the least apparent suffering or inconvenience. He would come to, and croak, and look as wise as ever. The north wind may blow, but the muskrats are building; and it is by no means a cheerless prospect, this wood-and-meadow world of mine in the gray November light. The frost will not fall to-night as falls the plague on men; the brightness of the summer is gone, yet this chill gloom is not the sombre shadow of a pall. Nothing is dying in the fields : the grass-blades are wilting, the old leaves are falling, still no square foot of greensward will the winter kill, nor a single tree, perhaps, in my wood-lot. There will be no less of life next April because of this winter, unless, perchance, conditions altogether exceptional starve some of the winter birds. These suffer most; yet, as the seasons go, life even for the winter birds is comfortable and abundant. The fence-rows and old pastures are full of berries that will keep the fires burning in the quail and partridge during the bitterest weather. Last February, however, I came upon two partridges in the snow, dead of hunger and cold. It was after an extremely long severe spell. But this was not all. These two birds since fall had been feeding regularly in the dried fodder corn that THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING 319 stood shocked over the field. One day all the corn was carted away. The birds found their supply of food suddenly cut off, and, unused to foraging the fence- rows and tangles for wild seeds, they seemed to have given up the struggle at once, although within easy reach of plenty. The smaller birds of the winter, like the tree-sparrow and junco, feed upon the weeds and grasses that ripen unmolested along the roadsides and waste places. A mixed flock of these small birds lived several days last winter upon the seeds of the ragweed in my mowing. The weeds came up in the early fall after the field was laid down to clover and timothy. They threatened to choke out the grass. I looked at them, rising shoulder high and seedy over the greening field, and thought with dismay of how they would cover it by the next fall. After a time the snow came, a foot and a half of it, till only the tops of the seedy ragweeds showed above the level white; then the juncos, goldfinches, and tree- sparrows came, and there was a five-day shucking of ragweed-seed in the mowing, and five days of life and plenty. Then I looked and thought again that, perhaps, into the original divine scheme of things were put even ragweeds. But then, perhaps, there was no original divine scheme of things. I don't know. As I watch the changing seasons, however, through the changeless years, I seem to find a scheme, a plan, a purpose, and there are weeds and winters in it; and it seems divine. The muskrats are building; the last of the migrating geese have gone over; the wild mice have harvested 320 THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING their acorns; the bees have clustered; the woodchucks are asleep ; and the snap in the big hickory by the side of the house has crept down out of reach of the fingers of the frost. I will put on the storm-doors and the double windows. Even now the logs are blazing cheerily on the wide, warm hearth. Photograph by G. Clyde Fisher THE MUSKRAT'S HOUSE OF HIS OWN BUILDING THE OFFERING BY OLIVE CECILIA JACKS How have we fallen from our high estate, O Lord ! plunged down from heaven ! In wanton pride, in lust for empires great, For riches have we striven. Are these not dust and ashes in thy sight, Swept by the wind and lost? Have we not sinned against the Spirit's might, Blasphemed the Holy Ghost? What dost thou ask from all the sons of men? Atonement for this wrong? Behold, we lay upon thine altar, then, A host twelve million strong: Twelve million dead; they stand before thy face, An offering for sin ; Their cry goes forth into the bounds of space; They crowd thy courts within. Our dead they are, friend, foe, alike, our dead; On sodden battlefield They laid them down; for us their blood was shed; By their stripes were we healed; For our transgressions were we smitten sore; Slaughtered with shot and shell; For us the chastisement of peace they bore, Descending into hell. 322 THE OFFERING Not theirs alone the atoning sacrifice : Wives, mothers, at the call, In unity of sorrow paid the price, Gave of their best, their all : One was the heartache, one the darkened home; And one the company Of living dead, who wait to see God come : A mighty company. THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE BY GEORGE W. PURYEAR IT was in the afternoon of September 15 that we arrived at Villingen. The prison camp was n't at all attractive from the outside, but it proved much better and more comfortable than it looked. It covered an area of about 1000 metres by 250. Barracks were built around the outer edges, with an open court in the centre, in which were a tennis-court, volley-ball court, library, reading-room, and assembly hall. Around these, inside the line of barracks, was room for us to walk or run for exercise. This had been a Russian officers' camp, but it was being vacated for American officers. There were still two hundred Russians there, and at that time seventy Americans. The American Red Cross had bulk supplies, both of food and clothing, at Villingen. Food was issued every Monday. The German food here was nothing but the old vegetable compound. Once a week we got a little slice of very poor meat. The Russians, who had to live largely on this food, looked awfully pale and underfed. We were not bothered with any formal breakfast at all. Instead, they issued us twenty lumps of sugar a week, which pleased us much better. I never ate any of my sugar, but saved every piece of it for rations on my escape. 324 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE The Germans took a picture of each of us, after which we could, if we chose, go out of camp for walks, on our word of honor. We could not walk about at our pleasure, of course, but were allowed to go out at a certain time every other day (the weather and convenience of the Germans per mitting), in a group of not less than ten, or more than fifty. A German non-commissioned officer went with us as a guide, and we were subject to his orders. We would be out an hour or two. As we went out we would give our written word of honor not to try to escape, accom panied with our picture; and when we returned, we would take it up again. The defenses of the camps were as follows. The outer windows of the barracks were barred. Where the bar racks did not join, a blind fence with wire on top con nected them. A few feet outside the line of barracks and fence came the main barrier, which went all around. This was, first, a low barbed- wire fence; just outside that, a ditch about four feet wide, filled with barbed- wire entanglement; and at the outer edge of this came the main fence, of woven barbed wire, about nine feet high, with steel arms on top of the posts, curving toward the interior about two feet, thus making the top of the fence lean toward the inside, so that it was impossible to climb from that direction, even with nothing else to bother you. Just outside this was the outer guard patrol. This patrol was doubled before dark every night. There was also a line of electric lights a few feet outside, which burned all night. The weather was already growing cold, and I realized that the time for making the attempt, without hazard- THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE 325 ing the winter weather, was getting short. In spite of my effort to keep myself in condition, I found that my con finement had softened as well as delayed me. I walked miles and miles inside the camp in order to harden myself. After a few rainy days it cleared, and I went out on the first honor walk. I learned from the Rus sians that a few weeks of good weather might be ex pected. The moon was dark. It would be much more dangerous to go in moonlight, and it would be winter before the next dark of the moon. All these things indicated that now was the time. I talked to Lieutenant H. C. Tichenor, better known among us as "Tich," and found him of my mind, willing to go any length to try it. We shook hands on it and went to work. It was then Thursday, October 3. Monday we would get a new food-issue, and we deter mined to be ready to break Monday night. We pro posed to go right out of our window and over that barrier some way; get as good a start on the guard as possible, and chance the rest. The bottoms of our beds were made of planks running lengthwise. These were strong boards one inch thick, eight inches wide, and seven feet long. From these I thought that we should be able to construct some means of scaling the barrier. Tich was a good engineer. We could not drive nails, of course, nor could we make any large show of work for the interpreter dropped in on us every hour or two, and his eye was keen; therefore we worked out and drew our design on paper. We took the boards out one at a time, while someone stood watch for us; bored the necessary holes and did the necessary cutting on each; and replaced them under the beds, 326 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE where they remained until the last moment, when we took them out and quietly put them together with wire, like putting up ready-made wooden barracks. Albert- son, who was good at map-drawing, drew the map I used. From a Russian officer I bought a Russian over coat and cap. I considered this a fair disguise, as well as necessary cover, because the silhouette at night would be the same as that of the German uniform. Also, if I should accidentally be seen in the daytime, a Russian prisoner at liberty is common enough in Germany not to attract suspicion if he does not act suspiciously. Again, in the guise of a Russian prisoner I would not be ex pected to speak German. There was in camp a Russian who, by ways and means known only to himself, could produce anything you wanted if you had the price. I went to him for a compass. Tich had a good one, but I though that we should both be fully equipped. I also bought a big springback knife and a twenty-mark bill. For the twenty marks in German money I gave thirty marks canteen money. There were several other men who were planning to escape, and knowing that, when one escaped, there would be an inspection which would catch those pre paring, we determined to make our break all together. Willis and Isaacs had discovered a means to short-cir cuit all the lights of the camp. We planned to put them all out, and as this was done, to break at once at our different points. They certainly could not stop all of us. Isaacs, Battle, and Tucker were to break out of one window, Tichenor and I another, and a third bunch still another. All three of the windows were along the THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE 327 southern side of the camp. Willis, Wardle, Chalmers, and some others, disguised as Germans, were to slip into the quarters of the guard and await the alarm raised by our escape, and then, as these guards were turned out to chase us, they would rush out the open gate with the Huns. Sunday morning we learned that all the Russians would be sent away Monday. We knew that this would cause an inspection of quarters, and our plans would be discovered. We therefore determined to make the break Sunday night. Having expected to leave Mon day night after the food-issue, several of us were short of food-supplies. I had traded off so much of mine for my compass and other equipment, that I had practically none. We could not wait, however, and as it turned out, it was probably a good thing that I was no more heavily loaded, even with food. I had my sugar, however, and from the other boys I got four boxes of hard-tack and one opened can of hash. The lights inside our barracks were turned out every night at ten-thirty. Our plan was to short-circuit the others a few moments after that; and the putting out of the outside lights would be the signal to go. Sunday night, before ten-thirty, Tich and I had cut loose the bars in our window, had taken the prepared slats from our beds and put them together, making a strong and solid run-board fourteen feet long, and were ready. At ten-thirty the lights in our quarters went out. I put on my Russian cap and overcoat, pinning up the tail to prevent its catching on the wire, and slung on my haversack with my small food-supply and so forth. 328 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE Tich and I took our run-board to the window. A mes senger came to ask if we were ready. We told him we were. I was to go out of the window first, with the head of the run-board. Tich was to feed it out the window to me, coming out himself as the back end came out. I was to put the end on the fence and go over, Tich coming over behind me. We had selected a rendezvous outside in case we became separated. About ten minutes elapsed before anything happened. This time we spent, quite nervously, of course, right at the window. Then the outer lights began to sputter and went out. We pulled the curtain down from the window, bent back the bars, which, though remaining in place, had been cut loose during the night, and the window was cleared for the go. The guard, who appeared to have noticed something suspicious about our window during the evening, was standing directly in front. Wlien he saw the lights go out, he knew, of course, that something was up, and uttering a little exclamation plainly audible to us, who were so near him, pulled his rifle down from his back and got it ready for action. With the lights out, things were not clearly visible, but the outline of a man was easily distinguishable within fifty yards or less. Seeing that the guard stood right in front, I thought it advisable to wait and see what he would do on hearing the noise of the other parties, who I knew would then start out, hoping that he would move from his position of such advantage. In a few seconds I heard the wire screech, and the guard below shoot off his gun and blow his whistle. This guard, however, did not move. I knew then that the time had come to go, or we would soon THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE 329 be caught. I shoved the ladder partially out of the window and jumped out myself. The ground was about seven feet below the window. Tichenor fed the ladder out to me, and came out with the rear end. I threw it against the fence, and immediately started over. The guard standing directly in front saw me, of course, and the instant that I started over the fence challenged me. I paid no attention to him, and he chal lenged me a second time just as I reached the top of the fence. I jumped down on the outside. I thus stood just outside the fence, the guard about fifteen feet in front of me and facing me. At an angle to my left, and about half-way between us, stood a large tree. I jumped be hind this tree. The guard saw me go behind it and waited. I looked back and saw Tichenor then outside the barracks and inside the fence. I saw the other guard on his beat coming from about thirty yards to the left of me. I knew that I could not keep one tree between me and two guards very long, and that the only chance that Tichenor possibly had of getting out was to come over while I had the guard occupied. I did not intend to give myself up, so after a few sec onds I jumped out from behind the tree and dashed past the guard. I passed within about three steps of the nearest and about twenty of the other. The nearest guard challenged me just as I dashed by him. I did not heed him, but tried to run in as much of a zig-zag course as I could without losing forward speed. He challenged a second time. By that time I had got probably six or seven steps farther, and he fired. The other guard, who had said nothing, also fired at me at the same time. The bullets passed quite near me, but neither touched me. 330 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE Just as quickly as they could breech their guns, they fired again. Of course, I was not standing round waiting for them to breech those guns. Just as the second shots were fired, both at the same time again, I stumbled into a ditch and fell. I was familiar with the whereabouts of this ditch, but under the circumstances naturally forgot it. I fell just at the time of the shots. Probably one or both might have hit me, had I not fallen. Also the guard nearest, seeing me fall, evidently thought he had shot me and turned his attention back to the ladder. When I scrambled up, he seemed not to see me. The other guard shot at me twice more; but I was then out of sight. I ran only a short distance before I was out of breath, being loaded down with the heavy Russian overcoat, two woolen suits of underwear and two woolen shirts, and my food-parcel. I sat down just out of sight, in order to catch my breath. At this time, all kinds of dis turbances and shots were heard, for a dozen men were trying to escape at once. I then got up, but being too tired to run, began walking in the direction of the place where Tichenor and I had arranged to meet. After I had walked about a thousand yards away, my silhouette evidently rose above the sky-line, and one of the guards took a pot-shot at me at this long range. Finding that I was seen, I stooped down, so as not to silhouette my self, and ran on to the place where I was to meet Tiche nor. I waited for him fifteen or twenty minutes, ac cording to our agreement. While there, I heard some seventy -five or a hundred shots fired down at the camp. At the end of that time I heard the bugle blown for assembly, and knew that he was not coming. I prayed to the Lord and started for the Swiss border alone. THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE 331 ii The trip to the Swiss border was accomplished in five nights' walking. At first I traveled almost directly west. My compass, being made by hand, was not as conven ient and easy to use as an ordinary compass, but it was a good one and never failed me. The compass-needle itself was made of a small flat piece of steel about an inch long, tapered at each end. It was pivoted on a sharpened brass peg screwed into the bottom of a little wooden box. Though large when assembled, it was ideal to pass inspection in prison, because, when disassem bled, it bore no resemblance to a compass. To make it visible at night, I had taken some of the phosphorus from the face of my wrist-watch and stuck it to the north end of the compass, balancing the other end with a little mucilage. Morning found me about fifteen kilometres on my way, west by a little south from Villingen. Toward morning, having walked a little late, though it was not yet light in the forest, I met two wood-cutters on their way to work. My tactics of noiselessness, however, saved me, and I observed their approach before they saw me and easily avoided them. After a little I came out to seek a better hiding-place for the day. Just as I rose, I saw, and was seen by, the only human who ever saw me by daylight during my whole trip. He was a civilian, about three hundred yards away, and was looking straight at me. I feigned indifference to him, adjusted my clothes leisurely, and strode away as if he meant nothing to me. Thanks to my Russian costume, he was not suspicious and did not follow. 332 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE In a few minutes I found a good place, and taking off my shoes and putting on a pair of heavy wool socks, which I had brought for that purpose, settled down for the day. The weather was kind to me, and after a few hours the sun brought to me the possibility of food and sleep. During this first day I ate all my hash, because, being opened, it would not keep. It made a reasonably good day's rations. Realizing the swim be fore me, and not having swum in two years, I began the exercises which I used several hours daily from then on. As evening came on, I was restless to be on my way, and started as soon as it was dark enough to venture it. Soon after starting, while circling a little village, where there was a crowd of people in the street, I came upon what seemed to be a narrow strip of water. When I at tempted to jump across it, what appeared to be the other bank proved to be only long grass, and I went into water up to my waist. I was more afraid that the splash I had made would attract attention than I was worried by my wetting. I clambered to the other side and re sumed my journey with the water sloshing in my shoes. I raided my first garden about midnight, filling my little bag. I ate some during the night, and kept a sup ply to eat during the day, when it would be impossible to search for anything. For the remainder of my jour ney I lived more upon these raw foods than upon my scanty rations. Each morning, a little before time to hide for the day, I would collect my day's supply. My dry food I ate mostly when I rested during the night. When I was exhausted, I could feel the immediate stim ulating effect of a lump of sugar, just like a hot cup of coffee to the tired man. THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE 333 A few hours after I started, the sky became covered with clouds, and a little after midnight it began to drizzle on me. About four in the morning, while it was still raining, I found the only barn that I ever saw in Germany which was not either partially inhabited by the people themselves, or so near their house as to be useless as a hiding-place. It stood in a pasture, by itself, and looked inviting. The finding of this barn was but one of the many in stances where Providence helped me on my journey. It rained continually until about four of the following afternoon. By this time, as I had walked all the way with wet feet, they were beginning to trouble me, and to have a dry place for the day was a great advantage. Inside the barn I had hopes of finding some hay, but in this I was disappointed. I had, however, a dry floor, and lying down in my wet clothes, immediately fell asleep from exhaustion, but soon woke and found it too cold to sleep any more. When I woke it was getting light. I kept myself warm during the day, taking my swimming exercises, and my clothes soon dried on me, except my shoes, which I had taken off immediately upon stopping. No one came near the barn during the rain, but in the evening the farmers came, and I could hear them talking outside. Once they opened the door of the shed below and came in. For a while I thought it was all up with me; but they never came into the loft where I was hiding, and all was well. As darkness came on, I put on my shoes and started out again. I was feeling fine, and after a few hours on the road which was winding down into a mountain valley, I saw before me a town of considerable size. It was the town of 334 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE Neustadt, the largest through which I passed during my journey. All roads led through the town. I therefore decided to trust to the similarity of my costume to the German uniform and bluff my way through. It was about 10.30 P.M., and though the streets were already mostly deserted, it was not late enough for a wayfarer to be looked upon with particular suspicion. I met a lone woman, who spoke to me; but my bearing was so haughty as not to encourage familiarity. I next passed a hotel, through the windows of which I could see many soldiers in uniform. No one was outside as I passed in front of the brightly lighted door; but after I had gone beyond about twenty-five steps, the door opened and a German officer, or someone who appeared to me to be one, stepped out and started down the street behind me. In all my experience I have never seen a German walk so fast as he did. I almost had to drop my dignity, in order to prevent him shortening the distance between us. I tried to make speed and hold an external appearance of indifference, while internally all was in a turmoil. Thus pressed, I marched across an over head bridge spanning both river and railroad, and though it was nip and tuck, I think we came over with the dis tance between us lengthened a little. I don't think anyone could have outwalked me under those circum stances. Once over, the German soon relieved me from the ever-increasing fear that he was following me by turning into another street. Then I met five women com ing from work. These, I fear, had a good look at me, but I passed inspection. I then heard a noisy party of five or six, but by turning down a dark street, allowed them to pass and returned to my route behind them. THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE 335 Just at the edge of the town, the road began to climb again into the mountain forest. Here I came up behind an old man carrying a heavy burden on his back. His pro gress was very slow, and his appearance quite harmless, so I determined to pass him. As I approached within about five steps, he lowered his burden to the ground, to rest, which caused him to turn and face me. I was by this time beyond the lights, and I passed him without difficulty, grunting, "Guten Nacht." The road soon began to wind, and after about an hour's walk, climbing all the while, I came out in a clearing on the side of the mountain, overlooking the town, within a stone's throw below. I stopped and rested, realizing that I had used a lot of my strength and gained very little distance on my journey. The lights and hum of the mills coming up through the fog from the town in the valley below held a weird attraction, and I seated myself on a fallen tree and watched. While I was sitting here, it began to drizzle again. A clock in the town below chimed the hour of midnight. I turned again into the forest. Though I never had any very definite belief in anything on the subject, my expe rience during this journey almost made me a believer in guardian angels. Never did I feel lonesome, or even alone, during all that trip, Several times I waked to hear someone speaking. During the next hour or so, I had much need for the assistance of my Guardian Angel. My road, still climbing the mountain, led south. After a little it began to grow narrower and narrower, until it vanished in the forest. I could not, however, force myself to turn and retrace my steps. With my compass I labored my way on through the forest in a 336 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE constant rain, hoping soon to hit another road leading down on the other side. I realized the danger of my blind groping; often an unseen hand seemed to halt me just on the verge of danger, and I would be more and more cautious without knowing what I had really avoided. Once I stepped into space and down I went. My fall was short, and with only a few scratches I came to a stop on a ledge covered with low underbrush. I could only feel my way along. When looking straight up, I could sometimes see the dim glow of the cloud- covered sky above the tree-tops. I stepped back into the uncut forest, where, because of the absence of underbrush, I could make my way, and repeatedly tried to skirt this barrier. At every turn it faced me. I would stumble and fall, often lying where I fell, almost dropping off to sleep. Always I would wake with a start, thinking that I had just heard a com panion calling to me not to weaken. Finally, I just stumbled into another road which, though not going in my direction, I unhesitatingly took and started down the mountain. This road conducted me to a highway going in the proper direction, and with what strength I had left I struck out to make as much progress as pos sible for the rest of the night. After this experience I tried to stick to roads which appeared to be big high ways, and a telephone line along them gave me great assurance. I walked very late that morning, trying to make up for some of my lost time; and finally, after exposing my self to great danger, had to drop in a little wet wood, where I spent a very uncomfortable day. That night (the night of the 9th and 10th), I made my longest THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE 337 stage. I passed through Hausern about 11 o'clock, where, from the road-crossing signboard, I found the main highway to Waldshut. This I followed for the re mainder of the night, stopping for the day within a few kilometres of Waldshut. After waking from my first sleep of exhaustion, I found that, where I was lying, I was exposed to the cold mountain wind, and though it was getting light, I walked on for a little distance, in. order to find a more protected place to spend the day. Realizing that, if nothing happened, I would come to the passage of the last ditch the Rhine that night, I ate heavily of my reserve dry strength-producing food. In fact, I had left, when I started that night, only one box of hard-tack biscuits and three lumps of my precious sugar. Sugar I found to be the very best ration for such a journey. Its stimulating effect was quickly felt, and it heated me better than any food. Before starting that night, I took off all my clothes and put on first those in which I intended to make the swim, adjusting them very snugly and tightly, taking up all slack with strings. Over these I put my other clothing, to keep me warm till the time came. in About eleven o'clock that night of the tenth of Octo ber I came to the Rhine at Waldshut. In order to make sure that I was not mistaken in my location, or misled by the signboards along the road, I climbed up on a hill overlooking the city and carefully compared the coun try below with my map. Having satisfied myself that the country which I saw before me, across the river, was Switzerland, I began to 338 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE plan to make the swim. In the drawing of our many and various maps, some of the boys would use different means of designating Switzerland. I had labeled the Swiss territory on my map "The Promised Land," and I wondered, while standing on this mountain looking over into Switzerland, if I, like Moses, would only be allowed thus to look into it. Though I do not think it an admirable trait in a man to expect the Lord to help him out of all tight places, and then not live up to his teach ings after he has safely come through, I guess there are not many who have not at some time called upon the assistance of the Lord. Here I thanked Him for having taken care of me thus far, and prayed for his further assistance. From the hill I could get a favorable view of the river for some distance. I risked a place where, because of the bend in the river, I knew that the current after hitting this bank would bound back toward the other bank. I determined to undertake the crossing here, just below the bend, because I knew that at this place near the bank I would find an eddy of comparatively still water, and that as soon as I hit the current it would have a tendency at first to carry me tow r ard the other bank. About a mile downstream, the river took a re verse curve, and here I knew the current would be hard against the opposite bank. I hoped to make the other shore before, or at least by the time, I reached this curve, thus taking the benefit of every possible advantage. \Yhen I approached this place, I found that the de scent to the water would be comparatively easy, also. It was well after midnight by now. I ate the last lumps of my sugar and part of the box of crackers. I was nerv- THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE 339 ous to be off, but wanted to make sure. I lay there and watched for about three hours, and during that time no guard appeared near the spot where I intended to start my swim. The only sound that came up to me was the constant voice of the river. The swift current kept up a ceaseless little roar, punctuated by the noise of the whirlpools which came and went here and yonder. I did not underestimate the crossing of this last ditch, in the impassableness of which the Germans had so much confidence that they considered no other barrier necessary to protect the frontier. I knew that its swift and treacherous current was made up from the melting snow of the mountains above, and that its temperature was so low that no ordinary constitution was strong enough to withstand it more than a few minutes. I had heard in camp of a little cemetery near Basel, filled with the dead bodies of Russian prisoners who had attempted to swim the river. I had known and considered these things from the beginning, however, and they did not disturb me now. Once, during the time that I lay there, from up the river a big searchlight shot its rays over the water for an instant and was gone again. It was by now about four o'clock in the morning. I took off all my clothes, except those in which I intended to try to make the swim, and one olive-drab shirt, which I kept on, to hide the white ness of my undershirt, but all unbuttoned and ready to throw off very quickly. I put my compass, map, and German pictures, which I wished to carry over with me, in my pocket. I opened in my hand my big knife and started to creep down to the water's edge. I had not bought this knife with the intention of using it as a 340 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE means of violence, because violence generally would not pay, and would get one in great difficulty if captured afterwards. I felt, however, that if anyone attempted to stop me just on the border of the Promised Land, I would stop at nothing rather than be taken. So slow and careful was my progress that it took me about an hour to cover the few yards down to the water's edge. I had to cross a railroad and a road w r hich ran parallel to the river. As I lay just at the edge of the water, like a lizard, with eyes and ears alert, ready to slip in, I heard a clock strike five. It was thus that I knew the exact time of crossing the river; I knew also that I did not have much time to spare, for soon the day would begin to break. After that, all was quiet but the river before me, whose voice was never silent as it tum bled on, with a current in the centre of seven kilo metres an hour. I got to my feet and, still crouching low, stepped into the water. As I had expected, near the bank it was practically still. The bank went down steeply, and I saw that I could make no distance wading. I stripped off my O.D. shirt, dropping it, with my knife, in the water, set my eyes on the opposite bank, and uttering a short, silent prayer, shoved out into the stream. I knew then that I had my liberty. The chance of recapture was past. Either I would soon be on neutral soil and a free citizen, or I would have a place in the little cemetery at Basel. After a few strokes, I saw that my shoes about my neck would be too great a hindrance, and I cast them off into the river. For a while I swam quietly but swiftly, expecting any moment to hear an alarm given and to become the target, under the rays of a searchlight, for THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE 341 the German sentries who were sure to be not far away. But nothing of the kind happened, and after a little I felt myself pass from the eddying waters into the swift current, which picked me up and hurled me on at a tremendous rate. I knew then that the time for my ut most effort was at hand. I knew that the treacherous current, which was now kindly assisting me out toward the centre, would, after I reached that point, have a similar tendency to hold me in the centre. I laid aside my caution, and raising my arms out of the water, put forth my best effort. By this time I began to be affected by the temperature of the water, my head became dizzy, and for a while I thought I was about to lose my grip on myself. All was confusion about me. I feared that I might mistake the bank I had left for the bank I was going toward. I struggled hard to right things in my head and eyes and maintain control of my body. In the background of my mind, I remember, I began to wonder whether, if I were drowned, I would be put in the little cemetery with the Russians, or whether they would start an American one. After a few moments, however, I felt better and my head cleared. I threw every ounce of my strength into the effort. Though I had won one attack, I felt the temperature taking a firmer hold on me. Also, I knew that at any moment I might strike a whirlpool. So I swam as fast as I could. When within about twenty- five feet of the other bank, which was shooting by like scenery out of any express-train window, my hand touched the bottom. I immediately attempted to land, but, though the water was not waist-deep, I could not stand against it, and my feet not taking firm hold on 342 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE the bottom, I was thrown full length down the stream. There I got my first ducking. I soon recovered myself, however, and allowing myself to go down freely with the current, kicked toward the bank with one foot on the bottom. With every step I went downstream fifteen or twenty feet. After a few steps, and when very close, the bottom again disappeared, and I had to swim. I was in the bend of the river which I had seen from the moun tain on the other side, and the bank, being steep and well washed, was passing me like an express train. At first my grasp at the bank was futile; but I scratched and clawed along for a good many feet, and finally suc ceeded in stopping the bank. When I pulled myself out, I was not able to stand up. I was very much afraid of falling back in the river in my dizziness. My physical distress was too great, and my danger still too apparent, to enjoy at first the fact that I had reached the neutral shore. I kept on all fours, work ing my muscles as hard as I could, to stimulate circu lation. After a little I was able to crawl up the bank, where I ran around on all fours like a dog, until I was able to stand up. I then took off my wet clothes, wrung them out, and put them on again. On both the Swiss and German sides, the course of the river is here followed by a national highway and a railroad. About 500 yards from where I came out I saw a small railroad house, in which lived the man whose duty it is to raise and lower the gates for the regulation of the traffic at the crossing. I made haste to this house and threw myself on the hospitality of the old man, who met me at his gate. I can never forget the hospitality of this old peasant. THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE 343 He certainly "came through" with all that could have been expected of him. In fact, the same is true of every Swiss with whom I came in contact. He took one look at me and knew my story. Paying not the slightest attention to my chattering mixture of French and English, he led me into his house. As he entered, he took off his overcoat and put it around me. He drew a chair before his fire and brought a big pair of wooden-bottom shoes. While doing these things for my comfort, he said nothing and, as he did not stop to try to understand, I too fell silent. Turning to his stove, he poured out a bowl of hot goat's milk and brought it to me. I took a few big swallows, and as the warm milk went down, I looked up at him standing there with the pitcher ready to refill my bowl. Then it was that thank fulness and happiness flowed over me. I will not at tempt to say how I felt. From my expression he again saw my feeling. Then it was that he spoke. It was the first time that he had said a word, and although he still looked on me with his kindly expression, his words were German. I had thought that the Swiss all spoke French. Instantly a cold dread seized me. My mind flew back to the time, two and a half months ago, when I had first heard that accent. I had been mistaken then as to where I was, and like a ghost the idea seized me that perhaps I was again in the same error. I almost dropped the bowl of milk as that idea stung me. With an effort, I asked him if he were Swiss. Reading my consterna tion, he assured me that he was Swiss, this was Switzer land, and I was all right. Life again flowed back into me. I drank the hot milk, 344 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE and while he refilled my bowl I told him that I was an American escaped from Germany. This he already knew, and the knowledge increased his interest in me. I asked him for a telephone, that I might telephone Berne. He said that he did not have one, but after breakfast he would take me to the military post nearby, where I could find one. He told me that his wife was away and he was doing the cooking for himself and his two little boys, who, appearing to be about seven and nine years of age, were displaying great interest in me. Of course, I could not speak his Swiss German, but, with a few words and my experience, I can converse on simple and apparent subjects with almost anyone. I warmed myself before his fire while he busied him self with his household duties. In a few minutes break fast was prepared. He placed a large bowl in the centre of the table, and he and his two boys and I sat about it. Each had a large spoon, and all ate out of the common bowl. Breakfast over, we started out for the military post rather a long walk. There a Swiss soldier who spoke English took charge of me. He brought me a complete outfit of dry clothes. The old peasant was given back his overcoat and shoes, and I was soon dry-clad in a Swiss uniform from shoes to hat. I was again fed. Though I had just had one big breakfast, I felt equal to two, or even more. This post was just across the river from Waldshut. From the windows I could look right over into the Ger man town, and could see the guard at both ends of the railroad bridge. I was informed that, there being only a non-commis- THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE 345 sioned officer in charge of this post, I would have to be taken to Zurich. While waiting, we went into a cafe, where the soldier bought me a drink of cognac, as I still felt chilled. We got to Zurich about eleven o'clock, after quite an interesting trip. My guard, guide, or companion, what ever you might call him, would explain my identity to people at the different places where we stopped. Once our road ran along the Rhine, and I could look over and see the German guards along the other bank. At Zurich I went before the commandant. I had to pass a physical examination, and after I had proved myself to have ex cellent health, he gave a little note to my guard, and sent me out to buy an outfit of clothes. I had dinner here, and at two o'clock was sent by train to Reinfelden, to the commanding general of the frontier. I was then sent out to - , where I again found my credit unlimited. I ate a fine dinner, had a bath, and hopped into a good feather-bed. I had said to the landlord during dinner that I had been unable to get entirely warm since coming out of the river. My chill had been so great that I had never got my blood to cir culating right. Every now and then a cold shiver would run over me, though there was no reason for my being cold. When I got into this bed, I found the biggest hot-water bottle in there that I ever saw. The landlord meant to see that I got "thawed out." It had been two and a half months since I had been in a comfortable bed, and five nights since I had been in any. You may imag ine from that how I felt when I crawled into this one. I sank down in it, and if ever a man was happy, I was. 346 THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE With this perfect physical comfort was combined the knowledge that I had won my freedom. I thanked the Lord for my deliverance, and went to sleep. The warm bed, with the big hot-water bottle, did the work. I got so warm that night that I have n't felt cold since. The next morning a Swiss officer called for me and we went to Berne. The American military attache had been notified, and Captain Davis, assistant military attache, met us at the train. He did not recognize me, however, in my rustic civilian clothing, as the man he came to meet, and we missed him. The Swiss officer and I went on to the Swiss headquarters. We were just going in when Captain Davis caught us. I was in hopes that others of the bunch had come through, and, having taken an unnecessarily long time myself to avoid danger of recapture, I expected to find them there ahead of me. None, however, had arrived. Captain Davis told me that I was the first American army officer to escape. NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS THE SPIRIT OF '17 MRS. MARY HERRICK SMITH is a sister of the Hon. Myron T. Herrick, once Governor of Ohio, and a former ambassador to France. We may well wish that she were a more frequent contributor to the magazines The writer is evidently portraying an actual experience: Wells- ville, the home of her hero, is in southwestern New York; at Spartan- burg, South Carolina, is located one of the great training camps; and Senator Wadsworth was just beginning his service in the national Senate. What qualities do you admire most in this "young fellow"? What boyish traits does he exhibit? What details show the w r riter both a discriminating and a sym pathetic observer of life? Why is the closing sentence especially effective? A LITERARY NIGHTMARE MARK TWAIN'S real name was Samuel Langthorne Clemens. He was born in Missouri in 1835 and died in Connecticut in 1910. He is generally acknowledged as the greatest of the American humorists. A considerable portion of his early work was first published in the "Atlantic Monthly." How does the writer skillfully tempt us to repeat these verses? Repeat this jingle a few times; is it easy to learn? Does it stay with you and keep repeating itself? Try to account for its fascination. Name some other jingles, or some songs, that have "taken pos session" of you. Does the humor here lie principally in what is said, or in the manner in which it is said? The author here seems rather to talk to the reader than to write for him. How does he produce this effect? PERE ANTOINE'S DATE-PALM THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH (1836-1907) holds a well-established place in American literature as a writer both of verse and of prose. He is probably most widely known as the author of "The Story of a Bad Boy" and of "Marjorie Daw." For many years he was an occasional contributor to the "Atlantic Monthly," and from 1881- 1890 he was its editor. He numbered among his literary friends Lowell, Holmes, Mark Twain, and Howells; and at his newly estab lished home Longfellow conceived his well-known poem "The Hang ing of the Crane." As a youth, Aldrich spent three years in New Orleans and saw "near one of the streets immediately north of the old cathedral" the date-palm here portrayed. During these same years the famous British scientist, Sir Charles Lyell, visited the city, learned the his tory of the palm from Mr. Bringier, the State Surveyor, made further inquiries among the old people of French descent, the Creoles, and described the tree in practically the words here attributed to him. The legend as here given, however, is supposedly told by a Miss Badeau. For the quotation "Get thee behind me, Satan," see Matthew, xvi, 23. The pronunciation of a few words here will require attention : Pere Antoine (par an'twan) : Father Anthony Ernile Jardin (a-mel zhar-daN') Anglice (ang'les) mon dieu (mon dyu) : a French exclamation = Heavens! mon pere (mon par) : my father How does a legend differ from an ordinary story? Are the names here given the characters in keeping with the set ting of the legend? Why not begin the narrative with the fourth paragraph? What hints prepare for the appearance of the palm? Try to select one word to characterize the spirit of the legend. ALEC YEATON'S SON Gloucester, the scene of this ballad, is along the Massachusetts coast, about thirty-five or forty miles from Aldrich's birthplace at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The poet may have been prompted NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 351 to treat this theme through the success of Longfellow, whom he greatly admired, in handling a somewhat similar subject in "The Wreck of the Hesperus." For the reference to "a sparrow's fall," see Matthew, x, 19. What in the ballad itself causes us to feel that this adventure happened long ago? Some of the characteristics of the ballad are as follows : 1. An abrupt beginning. 2. The portrayal of simple, primitive life. 3. The repetition of lines with a slight variation in the wording. 4. The introduction of superfluous words to increase the rhythm of the line. 5. The usual ballad stanza consists of four lines, the first and third containing four stressed syllables, the second and fourth con taining three. The first and third lines may rhyme; the second and fourth must. Which of these characteristics do you here discover? A CANADIAN FOLK-SONG WILLIAM WILFRED CAMPBELL, a Canadian poet of rare lyric charm, was born in 1861, in the province of Ontario, and died in 1918. He was the author of another selection in this volume, "Pan the Fallen." Is the season here pictured late autumn, or winter? What excellent use of contrast is here made? Name three or four qualities marking a good song. Which of these qualities distinguish this song? What lines here serve as a chorus or refrain? What is the value of a refrain in a song? Why is this an excellent refrain? THE CHILDREN'S CITY ELIZABETH SARA SHEPPARD (1830-1862) was an English linguist, musician, and writer of fiction, who passed most of her brief life in and near London. Express in a sentence of your own the chief thought back of this story. Are the names of the three princes well chosen? 352 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS The style of the opening sentence suggests that of what familiar book? Why does the writer begin so many sentences with "and"? Do you here discover many difficult words, or long, involved sentences? Why has the author chosen such a style? What indications do you here find that the author was not an American? THE PLUNGE INTO THE WILDERNESS JOHN MUIB (1838-1914) was born in Dunbar, on the southeastern coast of Scotland; but when he was about eleven years old, he came with his father to the wilds of Wisconsin. Later this naturalist- author wandered from the Arctic to Australia, but he felt most at home among the glaciers and the great trees of our own West. For his splendid service in helping to save one of the greatest natural wonders of the West, he has been called " the father of the Yosemite." The extracts here given from the story of his boyhood days in Central Wisconsin are only a few of the fascinating pages to be found in his "Story of My Boyhood and Youth." What details best illustrate the author's keen observation of ani mal life? What details bring out forcefully the hardships of the frontier life? What kind of a man was his father? Notice the easy, colloquial tone of writing. How does he make us feel almost as if he were talking to us, face to face? Do you fancy that he had a keen sense of humor? Select the words which he probably gained from his Scottish ancestry. THE BLUE AND THE GRAY During his student days at Yale College FRANCIS MILES FINCH (1829-1907) was editor of the "Literary Magazine," and throughout his busy life as a lawyer and as Dean of the College of Law in Cornell University he never lost his interest in literature. To-day he is remembered chiefly as the author of "The Blue and the Gray," which appeared in 1867, when sectional feeling between the North and the South was running high. The poem is said to have been inspired by the fine spirit of women of Columbus, Mississippi, who had decked the graves of "both friend and foe." Near Columbus NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 353 flows the Tombigbee River; it was the scene of severe fighting, and is probably "the inland river" of the first line of the poem. The student will he interested in noting how the union of the blue and the gray is used as the theme of one of the best of the shorter poems evoked by the world-war : Here 's to the blue of the wind-swept North, As they meet on the fields of France ! May the spirit of Grant be over them all As the sons of the North advance! Here 's to the gray of the sun-kissed South, As they meet on the fields of France! May the spirit of Lee be over them all As the sons of the South advance! Here 's to the blue and gray as one As they meet on the fields of France ! May the spirit of God be over them all As the sons of the flag advance! GEORGE HOWARD MATS. Why has "The Blue and the Gray" been widely known and fre quently quoted? In the second stanza, what is symbolized by the laurel; what by the willow? What lines in each stanza serve as a refrain? Note carefully how the refrain is varied from stanza to stanza. What parts of the refrain remain unchanged? Which do you regard as the best stanza of the poem? Why? A DAKOTA BLIZZARD "Last January": all over the United States the winter of 1887- 1888 was marked by storms of unusual severity. What details best bring home to you the force of the wind? the intensity of the cold? the dangers of the storm? How does this storm differ from that described in Whittier's "Snow-Bound"? Does the writer here express any word of complaint? Does she enjoy the storm? Why is the opening sentence a good one for arousing our attention? Point out some other sentence appropriately placed in this narrative. 354 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS MY REAL ESTATE State at least three reasons why the writer loves this especial tree. What sentence best suggests the spirit of the tree? Do you know of any such place you should like to own? What purpose is served by the first paragraph? Might the essay well begin with the second sentence of the second paragraph? MY CHILDREN JOSIAH G. HOLLAND (1819-1880) was born in Western Massachu setts and first gained prominence as the editor of the Springfield (Mass.) "Republican." In 1870 he became the first editor of "Scrib- ner's Monthly," later named the "Century Magazine," and held the position till his death. He was an untiring and versatile writer of essays, editorials, novels, and poems. Two of his volumes of verse, "Bitter Sweet" and "Katrina," were immensely popular. While he can scarcely claim a sure place among our greatest writers, he has exerted a wide, pure, and helpful influence upon American life. State in your own words the differences between the two children. Which child does the father like the better? What is the best touch of humor in the poem? Notice carefully the words chosen, the verse form used, and the spirit of the poem, and try to determine why these verses move lightly and rapidly. A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE In the opening sentence of "A Struggle for Life" Aldrich intro duces a detail from the life he was then living: he was actually pass ing each day through the "Boston Common which lay between his residence and his office"; and this same park might readily have furnished him with many such realistic touches as that of the boys sailing their boats. With a similar semblance of truth he has here chosen many of the details in his Parisian scenes : the Place Vendome is a famous square near the heart of the city; not far from this is the street called the Rue d' Aguesseau ; somewhat to the north, but easily accessible, lies Montmarre, one of the chief cemeteries of Paris. Even the newspaper introduced, the " Moniteur," was at that time the official organ of the French government. NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 355 What different purposes are served by introducing so many real istic details in the setting of the story? How do they affect our belief as we read the story? Do they afford any contrast to some other features of the tale? Why does the author introduce such terms as "fiacre," "salon," "surtout"? What double use of surprise does Aldrich here make? In many of his stories, including "Marjorie Daw," he has made a similar use of this same principle of surprise. In what different ways is our interest in the hero excited? What details introduced early in the story are used later in devel oping the plot? What devices are here used to make Philip's entombment seem a long one? Is it true that strong physical excitement and terror may thus suddenly change one's face and hair? IPSWICH BAR Ipswich is in the northeast county of Massachusetts, a district which in memory of its famous poet is sometimes called "Whittier- land." What different ballad characteristics do you here discover? (See p. 351.) In the opening stanzas, what purposes are served by the careful description of the scene? Is the closing stanza especially appropriate? Defend your answer. Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of two or more neighboring words. Point out some illustrations of skillful alliteration in this poem. Why do poets frequently employ this device? THE WILD MOTHER DALLAS LORE SHARP is a professor of English in Boston Univer sity. He is a frequent contributor to the "Atlantic Monthly" and has published a dozen books on outdoor life. As is well shown in the selection here given, he is an especially patient, sharp-eyed, and sym pathetic observer of animal life. 356 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS Do you know of other instances of a small mother animal defend ing its young? Describe the murre (mur) from the hints here given regarding its appearance. Pick out some especially well-constructed sentences, and try to decide why they are effective. AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE ALICE GARY (1820-1871) was born near Cincinnati, but passed a large part of her literary life in New York City. She and her sister Phcebe published a very considerable body of verse in the magazines of their day and gathered these verses into volumes that met with a cordial reception. Among her poems "An Order for a Picture " is one of the most widely known. Give two or three reasons to account for the popularity of this poem. What is to be the central figure of the picture? Describe the pro posed background. What things in life can a painter most easily represent on canvas, and what does he find especially difficult to suggest? (See, for example,, line 18.) Which of the suggestions here made would be especially helpful to him? Which might he find it difficult to include, or be forced to exclude? What is the season of the year? Are there any details here sug gested that do not fit the season? How are we reminded from time to time that the supposed speaker is addressing the painter? Does the author wish this picture to teach a lesson? If so, what is it? ACCORDING TO CODE The brutal murder, about thirty miles from New York City, of a carpenters' foreman, whose murderers were known and yet escaped punishment because of the weakness of the sheriffs and constables, roused Miss KATHERINE MAYO to make a study of the Pennsyl vania State Police, to tell their story in her powerful book, "Justice to All," and thus to bring about the establishment of a similar body in New York the State Troopers. Unionville, or Uniontown, as it appears on the maps, is a city in NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 357 southwestern Pennsylvania; it is connected by trolley with Liberty- ville. The scene of the story, it may be added, lies at no great dis tance from Miss Mayo's birthplace, Ridgeway, Pa. How has the author skillfully aroused our interest near the begin ning of the story? Are you ever in doubt as to the outcome? What details bring home most vividly to us the desperate nature of the battle? What points introduced early in the narrative are used later ? Give at least two reasons for introducing the village constable. What sentence best pictures him for us? What different qualities distinguish the hero? When do you admire him the most? What sentence best reveals the secret of his power? A LITTLE MOTHER FLORENCE GILMORE is a gifted magazine writer whose present home is in Columbus, Ohio. Point out at least two purposes served by the first two paragraphs. Trace the skillful way in which we are told of the child's home life. What homely little things come to mean much in the course of the story? Where do you first suspect the child's great loss? Show how her traits of character brought out in the third para graph are developed and illustrated later. Which of her characteristics most deeply rouse our sympathies? Do you here find any unfamiliar words or any long, involved sen tences? Purpose of this style? MY BABES IN THE W T OODS Are any physical features of the country here described distinctly Southern? What details bring out most forcefully the primitive life of the country? What is the supervisor's attitude toward his work and these people? Do you here discover any unfamiliar words? If so, what do they mean? Has the author arranged his experiences in an order of increasing interest? 358 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS MIANTOWONA One of the most striking characteristics of THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH was his ability to turn rapidly and easily to many different styles of writing. One would scarcely suspect that "A Struggle for Life" and "Miantowona" came from the same pen. In "Miantowona" he reflects the current interest in Indian legends which had been greatly stimulated by the publication of Longfellow's "Hiawatha" in 1855. The Hurons were once a powerful tribe living near the great lake which bears their name. Can you give any other Indian legends? How does Longfellow, in the introduction to "Hiawatha," characterize such stories? What Indian burial belief is brought out in stanza ten? Repeat aloud the Indian proper names, Miantowona, Wawah, Tawanda, Nahoho, and determine why they are especially well chosen. Do you here discover any words or phrases which the Indians commonly employed? Are the comparisons used throughout the poem such as might occur to an Indian? Give two or three reasons why this poem is easy and rapid reading. OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI MARK TWAIN was in his twenty-second year when he began the difficult task of learning "the Mississippi from New Orleans to St. Louis," under the guidance of an excellent pilot named Horace Bixby. Though the author here makes fun of his own stupidity, he was really an apt pupil and made such rapid progress that in eighteen months he was licensed as a pilot. During the two and a half years preceding the beginning of the Civil War, he guided safely some of the largest and fastest boats on the Mississippi. The writer here skillfully carries us back to the palmy days of the river steamer; he invites us to watch with him the windings of that shifting, muddy stream; and he tells us with humorous exaggeration of his trials in his long, hard task as a "cub" pilot. Select the details that most vividly picture for us these early days on the Mississippi. NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 359 Trace the skillful way in which he is brought to realize the diffi culty of his task. What are some instances of his power to put an idea vividly and quaintly? Find some illustrations of his ability to say absurd things gravely. THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN PINION "Pensive and tongue-tied" is quoted from Arnold's poem "The Scholar Gypsy," a treatment of the story of a vagrant Oxford stu dent of the seventeenth century. "The glorious Greek " is an allusion to Homer. Who were Sinbad, Don Quixote, Stevenson, Matthew Arnold? A good title should be brief, fresh, attractive, and suggestive of the theme. Judged by these .standards, is this a well-chosen title? Would this sketch be more interesting, or less, if the mystery regarding the central character had been solved? Show how his distinguishing traits mentioned in the first sentence are illustrated later. Point out three clever uses of contrast. What use is here made of the element of surprise? Why is it especially effective? THE SAILING OF KING OLAF ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON (Mrs. William Ernest Brotherton), who lives in Cincinnati, is known as a writer of good prose and verse, especially of some excellent children's verse. "The Sailing of King Olaf " is a free translation of an old legend which still lives in Norway, and which may be found in such collec tions as Gruntvig's "Old Danish Ballads," II, 143 ff. Around the name of Olaf, the king and saint, who died in 1030 A.D., there has gathered a large body of tradition, including this story of how he gained his kingdom by sailing straight home on the tide that flooded the land in his course. Several places in Norway where the rocks are parted from the main land by a channel claim the honor of lying along this course. On the prow of the King's ship was a figurehead suggestive of the name of the boat, the Ox. This Olaf strikes as he commands the Ox 360 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS to sail as fast as Skid-blad-nir, a magic boat made by the elves. This enchanted ship was so large that it could hold all the gods "with their war and household implements, but so skillfully was it wrought that when folded together it could be put into a side pocket." What is the first incident that inclines us to take sides with Olaf against Harold? What added meaning do you see in the title after you have read the poem? What characteristics of the ballad mark this poem? Which interested you the more: the rapid, vivid progress of the story, or the concluding moral? How many verbs picturing vigorous motion do you here discover? THE ROMANCE OF A ROSE NORA PERRY (1841-1896) was born in Massachusetts, educated at Providence, Rhode Island, and later made her home in Boston. She is known chiefly as a writer of stories for girls. In 1780-1781 the French allies of the American revolutionists, under the command of the Count de Rochambeau (de ro-shaN-bo'), were stationed at Newport, on the south end of Rhode Island, for merly called Aquidnec Island. At a short distance to the west lies Connecticut Island. " Hampton rocks," where the sloop was wrecked, are near the southern edge of the New Hampshire coast line. Do you here find many details suggestive of colonial life? What lines move rapidly and "trippingly on the tongue"? Which move less smoothly? Notice that frequently the close of the sentence and the close of the stanza do not coincide. Effect? THE AMERICAN MIRACLE MARY ANTIN was born in Polotzk (Po'lotsk), an ancient Russian city about four hundred miles east of the German boundary. In 1894, when she was about twelve years of age, she came to Boston, where she made rapid progress in school and gained many warm friends. From time to time she has written of her own life and of that of other immigrants to America "The Promised Land." NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 361 Which did you find the most interesting details of this narrative? How does the author make us feel that she is telling a true story? Is she ashamed of her history, or is she proud of it? What are the chief traits of her character here emphasized? At times, as in her description of a banana, she employs a quaint, clever way of putting her thought. Can you find other illustrations of this characteristic? HOW I KILLED A BEAR CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER (1829-1900) was a steady and tireless writer, who turned rapidly from one task to another writing editorials for the Hartford "Courant," conducting a department in "Harper's Monthly," editing a "Library of the World's Best Litera ture," and at frequent intervals publishing a book of travel, a novel, or a charming volume of essays. Much of what he produced is now passing into oblivion; but some of his writings, including this paper, "How I Killed a Bear," which later appeared as the opening chapter of "In the Wilderness," seem destined to hold a modest but secure place in American literature. Where are the Adirondacks? Explain the allusion to Elijah and the bears. See II Kings, n, 23. What is the story of the slave and the lion to which allusion is here made? Do you suppose that this encounter with the bear actually hap pened? How many of the longer paragraphs end with a touch of humor? Why are the beginning and the close of this selection especially effective? Where does the author employ a series of short sentences? What is the effect? HOW GLOOSKAP BROUGHT THE SUMMER FRANCES LAUGHTON MACE was born in 183G near Bangor, Maine, and passed a large part of her life in the East, where she gained a modest reputation as a writer of hymns and other verses. Late in life she made her home in California, where she died in 1899. About seventy-five miles north of her girlhood home, near Bangor, lies Mt. Katahdin (Ka-ta'din), the scene of this legend. 362 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS Explain the reference to the "aurora," line 51. On second reading did you find that any features of the story stand out whose significance had escaped you on the first reading? Which is the better told, the first or the second division of the legend? Which did you find the more interesting? How does the movement of the verse in the first part differ from that in the second; which is the more rapid; which is the lighter? Why is the last stanza of the first division an excellent one for closing that part of the poem? Point out some words which we usually associate with the Indian vocabulary. Compare this legend with Aldrich's "Miantowona." How do they differ in their pictures and suggestions of Indian life? Which do you consider the better poetically? An interesting comparison may also be made between this Indian legend and the Roman story of Proserpine, to be found in Gayley's "Classic Myths." THE BLUE- JAY OLIVE THORNE MILLER (born in New York in 1831), is noted principally for her intimate writings on birds. "The Blue-Jay" is one of the numerous articles about her feath ered acquaintances which Olive Thorne Miller published in the "Atlantic Monthly," and which includes a previous study of this "small friend in blue." Look up her story, the " Study of a Cat Bird," between which and the present selection some interesting compar isons may be made. What very human traits does the blue-jay exhibit? What inci dents best illustrate his curiosity? his persistence? Which show the greatest intelligence? Of the various bird stories you have read, which have you found most interesting? Why? What indications do you find of the writer's cleverness in man aging and caring for birds? With which has the author here been more successful, the opening or the close of her essay? What characteristics of style marking this essay can you definitely name? NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 363 A YOUNG DESPERADO "A Young Desperado" represents well one side of Aldrich's nature, and served, perhaps, as a small preparatory study for one of the most delightful books ever written by an American, his "Story of a Bad Boy." What different titles or epithets are here applied to Johnny? Show how his characteristics mentioned in the first sentence are illustrated later. What is the worst you can say about him? the best? What appeals to you as the most humorous of his escapades? Are his exploits such as commonly characterize six-year-old boys? From what details might you infer that this article was not written recently? Select three instances where the author has expressed his ideas cleverly. AT THE MANGER JOHN BANISTER TABB (1845-1900), commonly known as "Father Tabb," was born in Virginia, and when scarcely more than a boy served as a captain's mate on a Confederate blockade runner. Later he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest and became Professor of English at St. Charles College in Maryland. Many of his beautiful, exquisitely finished verses embody religious themes. What words and phrases here bring out the quiet peace of sleep? What is the source of the "warmer glow," line 10? Suggest a sub-title that will make clear the chief thought of the poem. AT CHRYSTEMESSE-TYDE WILLIS BOYD ALLEN was born in Maine, educated at Harvard College and at Boston University, and practised law in Boston. He is a prolific author : scarcely a year passes without one or two books from his pen. He is best known as the writer of boys' books, which combine adventure with history and travel. Why does the author use this old-fashioned spelling and quaint diction? Why does he choose the nest, the Iamb, and the leaf as emblems of "sorrie" and of "gladde thynges"? 364 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS THE LITTLE CHRIST Comparatively few of her numerous readers know that LAUEA SPENCER PORTOR is the pen-name of Mrs. Francis Pope. Though she is connected with the staff of a noted women's publication in New York City, she is also a frequent contributor to the "Atlantic Monthly." She is a charming story-teller, a writer of some excellent verse, and the author of many admirable essays. What thought is uppermost in all the mother's replies? Explain the thought of the last two lines. What characteristics of the ballad (p. 351) do you here discover? Which of this group is not strictly a Christmas poem? If you did not know the authors of these poems, which should you say was written by a woman? Why? Which is the most musical of these poems? Commit to memory the one you like best. A PARABLE IN MOTORS An interesting comparison may be made between this parable and JSsop's fable of the boys and the frogs. Show how the characteristics of the "elderly philanthropist" stated in the second sentence are illustrated later in the parable? Describe the attitude of the writer toward this woman. Express in a sentence the moral of this parable as JEsop's morals are expressed. Write a short parable or fable in which a change of circumstances induces someone to change his point of view. SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE OCTAVE FORSANT, Inspector of Schools in Rheims (remz), France, through the trying days of bombardment during the war, not only kept open his schools, but encouraged the children to attend. In spite of many bombardments during school-hours, no lives were lost and none of the children received injuries. These four compositions were written by French children of eleven and twelve in the examination for the diploma or certificate on com- NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 365 pleting their elementary school course. The extracts from the Jour nal are written by the principal of one of the schools supervised by M. Forsant. What details of the life here pictured impress you as strange or picturesque? Which bring home vividly the dangers of the war? Which do you consider the most interesting of these four composi tions? Why? What do you here learn about each of these children? Which seems the bravest? Which seems most patriotic? Which has the best eye for color effects? How will these compositions compare in excellence with those written by American students of the same age? KEEPING SCHOOL UNDER FIRE For month after month the city of Rheims, in northwestern France, was under the fire of the German guns. But even when these guns were blazing only a mile away, several schools in that city were reopened. The record here given is taken from the diary of the principal of the Dubail (du-bal') School. This school was "installed in a room at the rear of a basement store-room, protected by three courses of reinforced cement, and by heaps of dirt piled above it. It was lighted by eight small air holes, and had direct access to three cellars, one over the other, the lowest of which was not less than twelve metres below ground." Would Americans hold school under such trying conditions? What is the attitude of these teachers and pupils toward their hardships? What qualities of a good principal and teacher does the writer exhibit? How do you know that this principal is a woman? THE DESERTED PASTURE BLISS CARMAN was born in Canada in 1861, and is one of the fore most of the brilliant little group of Canadian poets. He has been connected with the "Atlantic," the "Cosmopolitan," the "Inde pendent," and other magazines, and during the past quarter of a century has published numerous books of delightful verse. 366 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS In what section of our country should you judge this pasture lies? Why is the second stanza one of the most vivid in the poem? Select a sub-title for the last four stanzas. Which of the pictures suggested by these four stanzas do you like the best? IN THE TRENCHES Why, when he awoke, had the soldier's attitude toward prayer changed? What is the most vivid detail in this picture of the trenches? Select several well-chosen, picturesque adjectives. Study the arrangement of the rhymes in these verses. Do they seem to hasten, or to retard, the movement? In what lines is the regular swing of the verse interrupted? Purpose? THE LAME PRIEST "S. CARLTON" is the pen name of SUSAN CARLTON JONES, who has published two or three books of fiction and has been an occa sional contributor to the "Atlantic." The writer has here treated very effectively the old and widespread belief in the werewolf (wer'wdolf or we"r'-), a person, who, under the curse of the devil or through an appetite for human flesh, assumes the form of a wolf. Why are the time and place used as a setting for this story espe cially well chosen? Why not make the location more definite? Contrast the spirit of the opening paragraphs with that of the main course of the story. Trace the way in which the story tightens in interest. Where does the interest rise to its climax? Is the ending especially effective? Why is the narrator represented as an old man; as dim sighted; very kindly; a man of strong common sense; quick and stubborn of temper; unusually brave? Point out the different ways in which it is suggested that the priest and the wolf are one; the ways in which this idea is combatted. Study carefully the words chosen to describe the different move ments of the priest; his manner of speaking; the expressions of his face. Give at least two reasons why the author has here used a very simple style of narrative. NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 367 FIRE OF APPLE-WOOD M. A. DE\VOLFE HOWE, whose home is in Boston, has been editor of the "Harvard Graduates' Magazine" and a frequent contributor to the "Atlantic." In what section of our country do the storms come frequently from the east? Select a sub-title that will help suggest the mood or fancy of the writer. Why is a poem expressing some fancy or whim or some single mood of the writer usually short? Wliy has the author here employed short, simple words? SUMMER DIED LAST NIGHT What are some other early signs that summer is dead? How does the arrangement of the rhymes help unify the poem? What line of each stanza is used as a refrain? Could this poem be set to music easily? SAINT R. L. S. SARAH N. C LEGHORN was born in Virginia but now makes her home in Vermont. She is well known as a writer of fiction and of verse and as an advocate of social reforms. Why is the title especially well-chosen? Name some other books that will take us to romance land. What different qualities make this a charming little poem? UNAWARES With these verses compare Longfellow's "The Arrow and the Song." What is the central thought in each? Is it a true, helpful thought? THE YELLOW BOWL LILY A. LONG, whose home is in St. Paul, Minnesota, has contrib uted both short stories and verse to many of our better magazines. State in your own words the central idea which the author here suggests. 368 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS What is gained by giving this allegory an oriental setting? What is the only word used in the rhyme scheme of the third stanza which has not been employed hi either the first or the second stanza? OUT OF THE WILDERNESS A few years after the events narrated in the preceding selection (p. 33 ff), the Muir family moved to a new farm, which they named Hickory Hill, just a few miles from their first home in south-central Wisconsin. On this new farm, like that other Scotch ploughboy, Bobby Burns, from whose "Tarn o' Shanter" and "To a Mouse" he here makes brief quotation, John Muir was the chief toiler of the family. For the reference to the apostle Paul, see I Corinthians, n, 2. Into what three divisions may this narrative be divided? Which interested you the most? Which did you find the more attractive selection, "The Plunge into the Wilderness" or "Out of the Wilderness"? Account for your preference. What homely little features of the writer's life here add interest to his narrative? What new sides of his nature are here presented? What incidents best illustrate these? What, besides his novel inventions, do you fancy attracted strangers to him? What eighteenth-century American had a similar genius for in vention? What nineteenth-century American? What is the least attractive aspect of his father's character as it is here portrayed? The most attractive? Pick out some simple, forceful adjectives or phrases, e.g., "my all-Bible father." Can you here find any pet phrase which he is fond of repeating? THE SCHOOLMA'AM OF SQUAW PEAK In "The Schoolma'am of Squaw Peak," LAURA TILDEN KENT tells of her experiences as a country teacher in Arizona. Since then she has taught in other rough but interesting districts of the West. Several miles to the north of Squaw Peak, in central Arizona, is the small town of Camp Verde, which lies in the valley of the Rio Verde. This stream flows close to the home of a family named West, with whom Miss Kent was living at the time here described. NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 369 What words and phrases help us picture the nature of the river and of the surrounding country? Which describe vividly the move ments of the horses? In which are you more interested, the character of the woman or the story of her adventures? Was she "brave," or only "ignorant"? CANDLEMAS Candlemas: a church festival on February 2, when the holy can dles for the year are blessed. What is the author here attempting to suggest? Try to select a sub-title for the poem that will make clear this suggestion. What is the meaning in the second stanza of "the miracle of April"? Might that phrase be used appropriately as a title for either of the succeeding poems? AN APRIL MORNING BLISS CARMAN'S present home is in southwestern Connecticut, not far from "the woods of Wilton," whose ragged yet blazing autumnal foliage he pictures in the las*t poem of this group. Which of these details picturing an April morning hold true of your home? Study carefully the adjectives and verbs here used. Which are especially picturesque and well chosen? APRIL'S RETURN How do the details of the second stanza differ from those of the first? Which of these poems on April reflects more clearly the personal feelings of the writer ? A DAY IN JUNE What line by Lowell may have suggested the title "A Day in June"? What line of the same poem by Lowell is suggested by the last line here? 370 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS What purpose guided the author in her choice of details in the first five lines? Does the bird's song destroy the effect of quiet, or does it deepen it? AUTUMN In what different ways does the poet here develop the fancy of Autumn's gypsy train? Why are Bokhara and Samarcand especially well-chosen and sug gestive words? Note how the poem appeals to our different senses sight, smell, hearing. Why do we scarcely notice the absence of rhyme in this poem? Which of this group of lyrics of the seasons could easily be set to music? Why? Memorize the poem you like the best. JONAS AND MATILDA For the allusion to the nature of charity, see I Corinthians, xin, 4. Jonas and Matilda are here* used as type names for English people. What are some other type names, e.g., for an Irishman, a Scotchman, a Chinaman, a negro, a green countryman, a German soldier, an English soldier, an American soldier? Where do you begin to suspect the real nature of "Jonas and Matilda"? Where were your suspicions strengthened? How does your interest on rereading this essay differ from that of your first reading? Where has the author been especially clever in expressing bird life in terms of human life? Is the writer a man or a woman? THE SCHOOLDAYS OF AN INDIAN GIRL ZITKALA-SA (pronounced Shah) was born in the northern part of Dakota, in the winter of 1876-77, when her tribe, the Yankton Sioux, was fleeing from the government troops in one of the last of the Sioux wars. Her birthplace was an actual snowbank. Her name, Zitkala- Sa, signifies Red Bird. After this war the Yankton Sioux settled down 011 their reservation on the Missouri river in South Dakota to an entirely peaceable life. When about sixteen years old, Zitkala-Sa was taken, with a group of other Indian children, to Indiana to be educated. Here the name of Gertrude Simpson was bestowed upon her by the whites, and un der this name she graduated in 1899 from Earlham College, at Rich mond, Indiana. In the same year she came to Boston to study the violin; and it was while engaged in study here that she wrote a series of three articles, descriptive of the life of an Indian child in Dakota and the experiences of such a child in an Eastern school, with her emotional reactions to the new life, which were published in the "Atlantic Monthly." She afterward contributed sketches to other magazines, and was the author of a volume of "Old Indian Legends," illustrated by an Indian girl-artist, Angel De Cora, a Winnebago. In 1902 Zitkala-Sa returned to her old home in South Dakota, and married a member of her tribe. She has since resided at the Ute Agency at White Rock, Utah, where her husband is in the government service. Point out instances of kindness to the writer by the whites; in stances showing a lack of consideration. Are her associates ever purposely cruel? In what instances do the Indian ideas here conflict with those of the whites? Are the former ever preferable to the latter? Should you say the writer w r as over self-conscious? strong-willed? Judging by the evidence here offered, should you say she made a mistake in disregarding her mother's advice to return home? What words here used do we associate with the Indian vocabulary? Indicate three sentences in which the thought is cleverly expressed. CURBSTONE THEATRICALS That New York City is the scene of these "Curbstone Theatricals" is shown by the reference to Broadway and the Battery, the latter a park of about twenty acres at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. The two lines of verse quoted in the first paragraph are from Burns's "Tarn o' Shanter"; "Lady Bountiful" was a "kind-hearted country gentlewoman," in an early eighteenth -century comedy, whose name is now commonly applied to any charitable lady. What is the story of the "Pied Piper of Hamelin"? Show how the idea suggested by the title is developed in the narra tion of the incidents. 372 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS What is the writer's attitude toward these children of the street? Which is the writer, a man or a woman? Can you relate an incident that illustrates some trait of character? Watch for such incidents and report them to the class. THE WORD JOHN KENDRICK BANGS has been connected with the editorial staff of several of the better periodicals, including "Life" and "Harp er's Monthly" and is widely known as a lecturer. He has published humorous fiction, verse, farces, and criticism sufficient to stock a small library. Though lie is known chiefly as a humorist, he has done some excellent work in a more serious vein. Express in a single sentence the central thought of this poem. What are some of the common things of everyday life, not men tioned here, that may bring us joy? Account for the unusual grouping of lines on the page. Why is the ending of the poem especially good? PAX THE FALLEN Much of Mr. Campbell's excellent verse deals with Canadian life, especially life around the lakes. Who was Pan? (See Gayley's "Classic Myths.") Describe his appearance. What details here show us "Pan the Beast"? Which show us "Pan the God"? Does the writer here try to enforce any moral? Which is the most musical stanza? LOVE IS ALWAYS HERE (Ton jours Amour] EDMUND CLAREXCE STEDMAN (1833-1908) lived in New York City and passed his days in buying and selling stocks and bonds on the Exchange; but his evenings he gave to literature. He is to be remembered as one of our best American literary editors and critics, especially in the field of poetry, and as a writer of much excellent verse, varying from the serious and scholarly to the playfully tender and gay. NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 373 Why is the title of this poem an extremely apt one? Why are "Dimple-Chin" and "Grizzled Face" here especially suggestive names? Who is meant by "the little archer " of line 7? Point out the resemblances and the differences in the thought and form of the two replies. THE CHIMES OF TERMONDE GRACE HAZARD CONKLING (Mrs. Roscoe Platt Conkling) is a grad uate of Smith College and was formerly a teacher in New York City. Some of the best of the numerous verses she has published deal with foreign scenes. Termonde (tar-mond'), or Dendemonde, as it is sometimes called, is a Belgian city of ten thousand inhabitants, between Brussels and Ghent. Its most famous church, Notre Dame, was seriously damaged when the German army occupied the city, early in October, 1914. What feeling is uppermost in the writer's heart? Does the wording of the poem ever suggest the sound of the bells? Point out some repeated words and phrases, and try to determine their effect. What purpose is here served by the unusual arrangement of the stanzas? A PUPIL OF AGASSIZ NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER (1841-1906) was the son of a Kentucky physician. He received his education at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University, under the eminent Swiss naturalist, Louis Agassiz [ag'a-se]. After his graduation Shaler served brilliantly in the Union army, and was later made Professor of Geology and finally Dean in the Lawrence Scientific School. Through his teaching and his numerous books he did much to advance the study of natural science in America. The extract here given is taken from that section of his "Chapters of an Autobiography" in which he tells how, as a youth of eighteen, he gave up his chance of entering the classical course at Harvard by refusing to learn the rules of Latin scansion and then turned to the study of natural science. Shaler was first attracted to Agassiz by the "Essay on Classification," which had recently appeared in the first volume of his "Contributions to the Natural History of the United States." 374 NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS Should you judge that the writer was a young man, or an old man reviewing his life? Where does he frankly admit his own weaknesses? Do we respect him less, or more, for these admissions? What qualities did Agassiz demand of his pupils? Show how the author gave evidence of possessing these. What incidents illustrate Agassiz's sympathy; his lack of conven tionality; his firmness; his shrewdness; his enthusiasm for his work? Indicate some fresh, crisp words or phrases. Do you here discover many long, formal words? THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING PROFESSOR SHARP teaches in Boston University but lives on his farm at Hingham, Massachusetts, some fifteen or twenty miles from Boston. Though he has here been unusually successful in portraying the life of his wild tenants, he introduces occasionally friendly phrases from the world of books; thus, like John Muir, he recalls Burns's "To a Mouse," with its "best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley" (a-gle'=awry). The "lean and hungry" cold sug gests the description of Cassius in "Julius Caesar," i, 2, 194; and the "quick and the dead" recalls "Hamlet," v, 1, 137. Similarly the reference to the "rains descending" may be found in Matthew, vn, 25; and to Luke, xn, 18, maybe traced the allusion to the rich man who "built greater barns. " Again the writer quotes the familiar old nursery song, "The north wind doth blow." Summarize the most interesting things you have learned from this essay. Which did you find the most interesting of the animals here des cribed? Why? Can you name other animals, besides the woodchuck and frog, that sleep through the winter? How does the writer rouse our curiosity at the beginning of the essay? What sentence states the central thought of the essay? How is it related to the title? Why is the title repeated at intervals through the course of the essay? What excellent use of contrast is made in the closing paragraph? Point out some well-chosen comparisons that help make clear and vivid the writer's ideas. Point out some ideas that are very cleverly expressed. Indicate two or three instances of effective use of alliteration. NOTES, QUESTIONS, AND COMMENTS 375 THE OFFERING OLIVE CECILIA JACKS is an Englishwoman who has lived a life of rare culture and refinement. Her husband is L. P. Jacks, Principal of Manchester College, Oxford; her father was Stopford Brooke, the noted critic and writer 1. In what sense did the Great War make us fall from our former high estate? 2. Who are the people that have made atonement for the wrong committed against the world? 3. Does Mrs. Jacks imply that the dead suffered more than the living? 4. To whom will the world probably award the highest praise? THE AIRMAN'S ESCAPE MR. GEORGE W. PURYEAR is the son of a Southerner who during the Civil War escaped from a Northern prison. It is interesting to speculate on how much this may have stimulated the son during his recent adventure. In a personal letter to the Editor of the "Atlantic" the author of "The Airman's Escape" vouches for the exact truthfulness of each detail. His comment on possibilities for harmless enlargement of the story is significant. The manuscript would have been better reading had I added some descrip tions, etc., for pauses, but I wrote it more as a record. When I turned from the Rhine to seek aid in a free country I did not stop to admire, or rave about, the beauty of Switzerland, the little valley of the Rhine and the Aar surrounded by the distant peaks of the Alps even then bathed in the glow of the coming day. I did not stop to deeply inhale the sweet air of freedom, nor even look back on the grim mountains across the river which marked the Hated Land from which I had escaped. All such might help a story and would not alterate the facts, but I was wet, cold, weak, and hungry. I only looked for the nearest possible relief and that is what I wrote in the record. Note. No questions or comments have been provided for this story. Teachers may find it interesting to have the pupils supply these. SYMBOLS USED IN RESPELLING FOR PRONUNCIATION The markings here employed are, with some slight modifications, those used in Webster's International Dictionary, a as in ale, fate. 4 " " sen'-ate, del'-i-c&te. a " " care, pa'-rent. A " " fi'-ndsl, in'-fdnt. a " " arm, far. d " " so'-fd, d'-bound. a " " ask, grass. du for duin ver'-dure; also for deu as in grandeur. e as in eve, se-rene'. g " " g-vent', depend'. 8 " " find, m8t. e " " ev'-er, un'-der. e " " as in re'-cnt, pru'-d^nce. I " " Ice, sight. I " " 111, hab'-It. j for soft g as in gem; also for gi as in religion; and/ordg(e) as in edge. N (small capital) indicates the nasal tone (as in French) of the preceding towel, as in ensemble (ax-saN'-bl'). rj (like ng) as in lin'-ger, can'-ker. 6 as in old, he'-ro. 6 " " 6-bey', t6-bac'-co. 6 " " orb, or'-der. " " odd, for'-est, f ' ' con-nect', cdm-bine. 01 " ' oil, nois'-y. 60" ' food, moon. foot, book. th ' out, thpu. as :in then, smooth. ta, as in cul'-ture, na'-ture. u as in ust, du'-ty. u " " 3p, cup. u " " u-nite', mu-si'-cian. d " ' urn, con-cflr'. ii for French u, as in menu. u as in cir'-ciis, cau'-ciis. zh for a as in pleasure, usual; also for si as in vision; and for g as in rouge, cortege. GLOSSARY ab'- ject (ab'-jSkt) : Low in spirit or hope; cast down. ab-stract'-ed (ab-strakt'-6d) : Removed, drawn apart. ac-cou'-tre (d-koo'-ter) : To equip, fit out, dress. ac-qui-esce' (ak-wl-s') : To consent orally or silently; to agree. ad'-der-tongue: The dog-toothed violet. a-dios' (a-dyos'): Adieu: chiefly used among Spanish-speaking peoples. Ag-a-mem'-non (ag-d-mSm'-non) : The leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War. ag-gres'-sive (d-grf s'-Iv) : Disposed to attack or assault others. A-gues-seau' (d-gS-so'): A noted French judge and statesman of the eighteenth century. a-kim'-bo (d-klm'-bo): With the hand on the hip and the elbow turned out ward. al'-der (ol'-der) : A family of certain trees and shrubs that thrive in wet places. Al-gon'-quin (al-gdrj'-kln) : A group of Indian tribes formerly extending over large areas of the United States and Canada; now mostly found in the prov ince of Quebec. al'-ien (al'-y^n): A stranger; a foreigner; especially one living in a country of which he is not a citizen. al'-mond (a'-mtfnd; al'-miind): A nut grown in Southern Europe and in Cali fornia; much used in confectionery and in cooking. am'-i-ca-ble (am'-I-kd-b'l): Friendly. an'-arch-y (an'-dr-kl): A state of law lessness due to the lack of government or its inefficiency. an-i-ma -tion (an-I-ma'-shun) : Liveli ness of body or of mind. an-ni'-hi-late (d-nl'-hl-l&t) : To destroy utterly. an'-o-dyne (an'-o-dln): A medicine which lightens pain; anything that soothes wounded feelings. An-tae'-us (an-te'-iis): A Greek mythi cal giant, unconquerable \yhile he touched the earth. Hercules lifted him and then destroyed him. aii-ti-sep'-tic (an-tl-sep'-tftc) : A sub stance used to destroy germs but with little or no harmful effect on the living body. ap-pro-pri-a'-tion ( Form L-fl 20m-12,'39(3SS6> UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001 448 277 2 PS 535 T36a I ul AT LOS ANGELES MMRARY