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THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
(page 364) 
 
 I LL WARN THEM ALL IN SPITE OF YOU 
 
THE OATH OF 
 ALLEGIANCE 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 .<Cbc lliticrsi&e press Cambridge 
 1909 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published October IQOQ 
 
Oz- 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE i 
 
 COVERED EMBERS 32 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 70 
 
 A CHARIOT OF FIRE 113 
 
 His SOUL TO KEEP 142 
 
 A SACRAMENT 177 
 
 " TAMMYSHANTY " 205 
 
 UNEMPLOYED 239 
 
 THE SACRED FIRE 278 
 
 CHRISTOPHORUS 319 
 
 THE CHIEF OPERATOR 353 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 I LL WARN THEM ALL IN SPITE OF YOU (page 364) 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 SHE HAD ONE OF THOSE EXALTED HOURS 76 
 
 THE THIRD MAN WAS HARRIS GLESSNER 162 
 
 I LL GET OUT OF IT AS SOON AS I CAN 174 
 
 TIRED, FATHER ? 250 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 IT was the time of great purposes and small hopes; 
 it was the time of grand deeds and dark dreams; it 
 was the time of glory and madness, of love and 
 despair; it was the time of the greatest motives and 
 the noblest achievement, the truest praying and the 
 bitterest suffering that our land and our day have 
 known. 
 
 The story which I have to tell, in so far as it is a 
 story at all, is a tale of the war, and therefore not 
 in the fashion. It is in such important particulars 
 true that it may ask a respectful hearing, since, in the 
 matter of which I have to speak, it will be found that 
 the fact rather than the way of putting the fact is the 
 source of interest. 
 
 It was the summer of the year 1862, in the New Eng 
 land university town which let us call Bonn upon these 
 pages. The year and the term were at their bloom ; 
 the elms were in rich leaf, and stood stately, like 
 unconscious pagan divinities, august, in groups and 
 ranks upon the college greens. The paths were 
 weeded and clean. The grass was long and luxu 
 riant; for this was before it was thought necessary 
 to shave one s lawn to fighting-cut. The June air 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 melted delicately against the cheek. The proper 
 cultivated flowers grew in the proper places, as such 
 things do in well-directed towns. The white Persian 
 lilac was in blossom in the sedate gardens of the 
 faculty. The well-trimmed honeysuckle clambered 
 over the well-painted porch. The June lilies, in 
 rows, stood decorously dying on the edges of the 
 graveled paths. No one ever did anything indeco 
 rously in Bonn, except, of course, the boys. 
 
 One of the boys had been dangerously near an 
 indecorum in one of those highly cultivated gardens 
 on the June day of which we speak. It had been a 
 merry day, full of sun and winds and spices, full of 
 the essences of growth and blossom and of reaching 
 on to that larger life which precedes a glowing death ; 
 and the sturdy boy felt it, as he ought to, restlessly; 
 not as the serene elms did, and the white lilac. The 
 elms always seemed to him to belong to the faculty. 
 
 As he sat in the shade of the particular elm that 
 overhung the southeast corner of Professor ThornelFs 
 garden, on the rustic seat (of iron, painted, not at all 
 rusty) against the high stone wall, the arms of the 
 tree swooped over him vigilantly, and gave him an 
 uneasy sense as of one who would be requested to 
 stay after that recitation if he forgot himself. Nature 
 herself always seemed, in Bonn, to be appointed by 
 the trustees. 
 
 His companion on the painted rustic seat did not 
 
 2 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 say "swooped." She said " swept," the branches 
 swept. She was the only daughter of Professor 
 Thornell. 
 
 The young man, it was easy to see at a glance, was 
 of the sort known in college circles as the popular 
 fellow. This may mean almost anything ; it sometimes 
 means the best of things, as perhaps in this instance. 
 He had a happy, hearty face. His eye was as direct as 
 a noon sunbeam, and at times as bright; at others, 
 it withdrew, like the eyes of a much older man, into 
 a subdued cloud, blue, or gray, or violet, or one 
 knew not what. He had bright brown hair, curly, 
 and beneath the boyish mustache the cut of a firm, 
 rather full, but remarkably delicate mouth was agree 
 ably visible. He had the complexion and hands of 
 carefully reared but athletic boys. He did not look as 
 if he had ever done a stroke of work in his life outside 
 of a campus or a schoolroom. One smiled on glancing 
 from his cheek, ruddy and fair as a girPs, to his 
 palms, gnarled with the knocks of baseball, and his 
 iron wrists. He had a round, Greek head, well set upon 
 his shoulders. Seen for the first time in a crowd, an 
 experienced teacher would have said of him, "There 
 goes a promise, a well -born, well-balanced promise." 
 
 The girl beside him was a trifle older than he, by 
 the shade of a year, perhaps. At their age each 
 camePs-hair stroke of the brush of time tells. This 
 little circumstance added dignity to her carriage and 
 
 3 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 appearance. She hardly needed it. To some of the 
 students she would have been more charming with a 
 touch less of stateliness, but Harold Grand liked her 
 the better for it. Deep in his young heart he was proud 
 of the fact that the fellows used to say that you could 
 not get near her with a ten-foot pole. This ancient 
 and obvious figure of speech was the final college 
 tribute to the distance, the modesty, and the sweet 
 haughtiness of womanhood. Young Grand rated it 
 accordingly. 
 
 In the pleasant, delicate fashion with which our 
 best young people conduct such comradeships they 
 had been friends for a long time, as university 
 time goes, since junior year; and he was about to 
 graduate. They talked friendship, as young folks 
 do. Of love they had never spoken. 
 
 We speak of language as if it depended upon the 
 lips to utter. What does the heart say, and what the 
 turn of the head, the touch of the hand, the fall of 
 the foot, or the mood of the eyes ? He sat looking at her 
 that day steadfastly, with the bright, fearless, mascu 
 line gaze before which her own drooped. She leaned 
 against the painted seat, and stirred uneasily. "Will 
 you have the rest of the song?" she said. She 
 reached around without turning her head, and lifted 
 her guitar from the grass to her lap. Miriam did not 
 play the piano, like the other girls. To please her 
 father she had accomplished herself in the use of this 
 
 4 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 old-fashioned instrument, her mother s guitar. She 
 played for Harold now and then because he liked it. 
 Little dashes of light from the elm branches overhead 
 flecked her sensitive face. She was not a beautiful 
 girl, but she had the prophecy of a noble face. 
 
 She wore the "spring- and -fall dress" of a well-regu 
 lated professor s daughter, who must always appear as 
 pretty as possible on the least possible sum of money. 
 The dress was gray, trimmed with dark blue. Her eyes 
 played between the two colors. She wore a drapery 
 sleeve, in the fashion of the day, with a wide, full white 
 undersleeve finished with a narrow linen cuff; a linen 
 collar bound her throat : both were fastened by plain 
 gold studs. Her hands, like her playing, were differ 
 ent from the other girls , for she wore no rings. 
 
 Young Grand was quite familiar with the details of 
 this severe little costume, for it was not new this 
 spring. It seemed to him a kind of celestial uniform 
 created for her, but he had never said so. She 
 mourned sometimes that she could not "dress" when 
 Harold called. She would have liked to put on a new 
 gown every time he came to see her, and so be a new 
 girl on each occasion; but she had never said that, 
 either. She did not feel so when the other boys called. 
 Now, when Tom Seyd came it was quite different. 
 
 "Yes, play to me, please," said Harold Grand. 
 
 She struck a few notes, and stopped. 
 
 "I can t! "she pleaded. 
 
 5 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 " Why not?" 
 
 "It s because it s the way it s the way you 
 look at me." 
 
 He did not look at her any the less for this. She 
 began to tremble, and her cheek blazed. Then he 
 took a swift, manly pity upon her, and folded his 
 arms and turned his head, staring at the stone wall 
 and the elm tree. He had never touched her in his 
 life; beyond the conventional grasp of meeting and 
 parting, his hand never met her hand. He would as 
 soon have dared to touch the Ludovisi Juno. But 
 now his moment of weakness overtook him, as it over 
 takes most of us at some unexpected time. His fingers 
 strolled to the edge of her gray dress; his arms ached 
 to take her, so he folded them, like the young gentle 
 man that he was, and nodded at the faculty elms as 
 who should say, "No, sir! You don t keep me after 
 this recitation!" And Miriam began to sing. 
 
 Thus ran the scene of their simple courtship; so 
 plain and pure and young, one might say so primitive, 
 that it seems almost too slender to reset, in these days 
 when our boys and girls coquet with the audacity 
 and the complexity of men and women of the world. 
 And that was all. 
 
 Call the memory on wings through the upper air, 
 move the sympathy gently, and summon the imagi 
 nation softly, and, possibly, then one may understand 
 what one has forgotten or what one never under- 
 
 6 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 stood. We keep ourselves supplied with superior, 
 slighting phrases for the loves of boys and girls. It 
 would become us to preserve our respect for, and our 
 comprehension of, experiences which may be the ten- 
 derest and the truest of life. 
 
 And Miriam, under the elm tree in her father s 
 garden, to her mother s guitar, began to sing: - 
 
 "Under floods that are deepest, 
 Which Neptune obey; 
 Over rocks that are steepest, 
 Love will find out the way." 
 
 She had a sweet, not a strong voice; and she sang as 
 the young and the happy do. Harold Grand unfolded 
 his arms. He became curiously aware of the pressure 
 of his mother s ring upon his finger. His eyes dropped 
 from the elm to the white lilac; then they strayed to 
 the drooping yellow lilies. The end of the long blue 
 ribbon at her throat blew in the warm air against his 
 wrist. He restrained it softly with his hand. 
 
 11 Go on, " he whispered; for the girl had stopped. 
 
 "Over the mountains 
 And over the waves, 
 Under the fountains 
 And under the graves," 
 
 sang Miriam, - 
 
 " Over the mountains, 
 And under the graves, 
 Love will find out the way." 
 
 7 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 Her voice fell and ceased; her ringless hands strayed 
 over the strings of the old-fashioned instrument; she 
 looked as if she had come out of a picture of the date 
 of her mother s youth. He watched her profile, with 
 the braid of brown hair low in the neck, and the silver 
 arrow piercing the coil above. The air began to cool 
 a little in the hot garden. The bees whispered sleepily 
 to the honeysuckle, disdaining the lilies, which had 
 left their prime behind them. The afternoon sank. 
 
 "Yet I like them," said Miriam abruptly. "I love 
 those yellow lilies as long as they live, and when they 
 die I love their ghosts. You never could think how 
 they look by moonlight! I come out sometimes and 
 walk up and down that path, quite late, to see 
 them." 
 
 "You are changing the subject," suggested the 
 young man, but not with the self-possession that 
 the little sally might have implied. 
 
 "I have forgotten what the subject was," said 
 Miriam mischievously; for she had recovered herself 
 the first of the two, as women do. 
 
 " Oh it is one as old as older than we are 
 older than earth is, for aught I know," the boy said, 
 passing his hand over his eyes. "And I was going to 
 say to try to say " 
 
 Then the color burned the girPs fine, reserved face 
 from brow to throat. Then she caught her breath, 
 and thrust out her hand as if she would have inter- 
 
 8 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 rupted him. But she was spared her pretty maiden 
 trouble. 
 
 Professor Thornell, accompanied by Professor Seyd 
 (of the Scientific Chair), came down the garden walk. 
 The two learned men walked ponderously between 
 the rows of yellow lilies. They discussed the unfortu 
 nate friction at the last faculty meeting, and the prob 
 able course of pedagogical harmony at the meeting of 
 that night. They were absorbed in these great themes. 
 They looked vaguely at the young people on the 
 painted iron settee. Professor Thornell smiled affec 
 tionately at his daughter and passed on, and forgot 
 her at once. 
 
 It no more occurred to him that she and young 
 Grand needed matronizing than that he should offer 
 a chaperon to the busts of Apollo and Minerva in 
 the college library. But when he had paced to the 
 garden fence and back again, he stopped confusedly 
 to say: - 
 
 "My dear, I forgot we are so driven with com 
 mencement business I forgot entirely that I had a 
 message from your mother. She said I was to tell you 
 How unfortunate! It was some minor domestic 
 errand. Professor Seyd, what was it that Mrs. Thor 
 nell desired to have done?" pleaded the Professor 
 of English Letters helplessly. 
 
 "She desired a salad prepared for supper," 
 prompted the Professor of Science accurately. "She 
 
 9 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 desired, if you found Miss Miriam, that she should 
 prepare a potato salad, with the addition of beets. " 
 
 Miriam rose at once. She gathered her guitar to 
 her lap, and put on her straw hat. The two heavily in 
 structed gentlemen continued their walk up and down 
 the garden paths; supperless and inaccessible, they 
 discussed faculty matters till eight o clock that night. 
 
 The two young people passed on up to the house 
 between the rows of dying lilies. They passed in 
 silence, and separated at the front door. The winged 
 moment had fled. The sacred embarrassment of youth 
 and love fell between them. For his life he could not 
 then have finished his sentence. Nor could she, for 
 hers, have helped him. 
 
 Now, the scientific professor, having an unscientific 
 and emotional wife, had gone home, as her nerves 
 exacted, to report himself to her; thus he came late 
 to the faculty meeting at the president s house. Pro 
 fessor Thornell was annoyed. 
 
 "We need all hands to-night," he remarked, with 
 the natural acerbity of a colleague. 
 
 Professor Seyd turned upon him a stiffened face; it 
 showed an unprecedented lack of color; he was usu 
 ally a red, comfortable man. 
 
 "Have you seen the bulletins?" he demanded 
 shortly. " I am just from the telegraph office. We have 
 been defeated again. Our losses are said to be" 
 
 10 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 He began slowly to repeat, with his own frightful, 
 statistical accuracy, the rumors for there were only 
 rumors yet to turn to of the evening: Killed - 
 Wounded Missing a fearful table. 
 
 The faculty sprang from their chairs and gathered 
 round him, while with pallid lips he recounted the 
 horrors of one of the worst days of the Peninsu 
 lar Campaign. The gray-haired president uttered a 
 fierce, unscholarly exclamation, and automatically 
 reached for his hat and cane. He acknowledged after 
 wards that it came into his head to go down town and 
 enlist. For once in the history of Bonn University, 
 commencement was obliterated from the conscious 
 ness of her professors. The quarrel in the faculty was 
 forgotten. The Professor of English Letters and the 
 Professor of Science shook hands with the Mathe 
 matical Chair, their chronic foe. 
 
 "The boys are beside themselves. They are un 
 manageable, " said Professor Seyd, with evident agita 
 tion. "The whole university is in the streets. It is 
 rumored that President Lincoln will issue a call for 
 more troops. Five-sixths of the senior class will enlist, 
 if he does, and God bless them ! I would if I 
 were they!" 
 
 He had a boy of his own in the senior class. It 
 never had occurred to him that Tom could go. 
 
 "Hush!" said Professor Thornell, with a break in 
 his voice. " Hear them, now. Listen!" 
 
 ii 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 Far down the street and wide over the college green 
 the boys were singing; not wildly, but with a restrained 
 pathos and solemnity, strange to their young lips : 
 
 "And then, whate er befalls me, 
 I 11 go where duty calls me." 
 
 The tramping of their steps fell on the smooth, hard 
 streets like the marching of an army corps. It ap 
 proached the president s house with measured tread. 
 
 "The college militia is out," observed Professor 
 Thornell. "They have done some good drilling, our 
 boys." 
 
 The faculty answered with proud eyes. These 
 elderly men flung open the doors and windows, and 
 rushed out like boys to meet the other boys as they 
 poured upon the lawn, calling for speeches. In the 
 centre of the crowd stood the college company, drawn 
 up rank and file. The lights blazed upon their grave 
 young faces. They saluted their instructors solemnly. 
 Their captain advanced from the line. He stood 
 apart, with his curly head bared, while he conferred 
 with the president. Nobody had such a manner as 
 young Grand. He had heroic beauty that night. 
 His eyes were elate and remote. He seemed to see 
 no person present. 
 
 But Tom Seyd, back in the ranks, looked straight at 
 his old father. 
 
 In the house of the Professor of English Literature, 
 
 12 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 4 
 
 half a mile down the surging street, a girl opened the 
 window of her room, and put aside the white dimity 
 curtain, to lean over the sill and listen. The drum 
 beats tapped the hot night air, and grew above the 
 ceasing and the silenced college songs. 
 
 "It is the boys out drilling," thought Miriam. 
 "They are having a good time. I wish I could see - 
 He looks so handsome in that uniform! And Father 
 will make them a speech. " 
 
 Commencement at Bonn was but a broken drama 
 that agitated year. The ceremonials began, after their 
 usual fashion at that time and in that college, upon 
 one of the closing days of June. But on the first of 
 July came the yet well -remembered call of the Presi 
 dent of the United States for three hundred thousand 
 more recruits. 
 
 He who lived the war through in a university town 
 knows what patriotism meant, in those large days, 
 to our educated men. Where was found the purer 
 motive, the braver, nobler act ? What class of heroes 
 in our smitten land offered to their country life more 
 high and precious, or death so calm, intelligent, and 
 grand ? 
 
 The scientific professor, with his habitual accuracy, 
 had foretold the turn of affairs in the college quite 
 precisely. In fact, five-sixths of the senior class, in 
 one wild burst of sacred rage, offered themselves for 
 
 13 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 enlistment; and a large number were accepted. The 
 boys exchanged their diplomas for their muskets. 
 The professors held an impromptu faculty meeting on 
 the platform of the exhibition hall, where, for the first 
 time in the history of the old university, commence 
 ment etiquette was hurled to the winds. The short- 
 breathed trustees clambered up by the winding stairs 
 into the anteroom, and these venerable men, with 
 streaming eyes, signed the sheepskins, which they 
 dispatched after the young heroes who had flung 
 scholastic honor and peace and safety down at the 
 scorching feet of that great July. And so the senior 
 class of Bonn was nobly and irregularly graduated, 
 and marched away. 
 
 In those fiery days, personal tragedy was but the 
 little tongue of flame in the great conflagration. Men 
 swept to their doom with ecstasy, and the firm-set lip 
 trembled only when it gave the last kiss at home. 
 Women, old in trouble, took upon their souls one 
 anguish more, and uttered no complaint. Girls 
 sometimes I think that the girls had the hardest of it. 
 Nobody thought so then, or perhaps believes it now. 
 Who has ever measured the depths of the possibility 
 of suffering in a girl s heart ? She is so unused to life, 
 so young and trustful of joy ! She expects to be happy ; 
 she has endured so little, she has hoped so much; 
 she tastes of tenderness and anticipates delight; she 
 
 14 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 prays to God, she adores her lover, and believes in her 
 fair fate. Why do the gray-haired women weep? 
 What is this prattle about trouble that she overhears ? 
 By love she is incredulous of sorrow. By youth she 
 overcomes the world. 
 
 Miriam, in her father s house, sat dumb. In an hour, 
 in a moment, it seemed, her catastrophe had come 
 upon her. At the call for three hundred thousand 
 more to fight the war out, he had given himself, 
 without doubt or delay. The captain of the college 
 militia had dashed into service without a commis 
 sion, and came to her in his private s uniform to say 
 good -by. 
 
 In the whirlwind of those few wild days, leisure was 
 the inaccessible thing, and privacy impossible. He 
 came: it was a matter of moments. He was allowed 
 a day in which to visit his home in New York; for he 
 had a mother and a sister. They had rights. Miriam 
 had none. Who thought to leave the boy and girl 
 alone together ? It did not occur to the unimaginative 
 mother of an unengaged daughter to force the situ 
 ation, or to create a difficult tete-a-tete in a house full 
 of company long ago bidden for the spoiled com 
 mencement, and staying over out of sheer excitement, 
 to discuss the national emergency. It did not occur 
 to the Professor of English Literature, who bustled 
 in to bid his favorite student Godspeed, and to tell 
 him that the university was proud of him. Bab- 
 
 15 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 bling guests overflowed the parlors and library, the 
 piazza, and the hall itself. 
 
 It was raining, and the garden was uninhabitable. 
 The two young people, in the pitiable publicity which, 
 forced at the crisis of fate, has separated thousands of 
 approaching lives, said farewell. They looked miser 
 ably into each other s eyes. Miriam heard an old 
 clergyman in the back parlor doorway talking about 
 Arianism. A professor s wife in the hall was cackling 
 to another about the lint that she had picked for the 
 soldiers. Dully the girl was conscious that her father 
 dear old stupid father! stood behind her. He 
 was telling Harold for the third time that Bonn was 
 proud of her noble boys. Before everybody she and 
 Harold clasped hands. Before all those people she 
 saw him move across the threshold of her father s 
 door, and step out into the summer storm and leave 
 her. She stirred into the vestibule, and stood beside 
 him. In the garden the elm trees were tossing about ; 
 a wet gust blew against her thin dress, she wore 
 a white organdie muslin with a little van -colored 
 pattern; she shivered in the wind. From the stone 
 wall drops were dripping on the iron seat. The yellow 
 lilies lay over in the gravel, beaten by the storm. 
 
 "I shall write to you," he said, "I shall write." 
 He wrung her cold hand. She gave one look at his 
 bowed face; its expression awed her. She saw him 
 put on his military cap. He turned and lifted it when 
 
 16 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 he had reached the sidewalk. All the people stood 
 about, but he looked only at her. 
 
 Miriam made her way back through the com 
 mencement company. She felt her way upstairs by 
 the banisters, for she seemed to be going blind. She 
 held the muscles of her face stiff. Everybody could 
 see her. She was only an unbetrothed girl, she 
 had no right to cry. 
 
 She got up to her room, thrust open her blinds, and 
 leaned against the dimity curtain. But she could not 
 see him. She thought she heard the tread of his ring 
 ing feet as they turned the corner. 
 
 She tottered to her white bed, and flung herself face 
 down. And the people babbled in the parlors. But 
 the old clergyman talked no more of Arianism. Word 
 had just been sent him by telegraph from New Hamp 
 shire that his only son had enlisted for the war. By 
 and by a maid knocked at Miriam s door; for young 
 Mr. Seyd had come; he would go to camp in the 
 morning. 
 
 "Oh, I can t I can t!" moaned Miriam. "Mag 
 gie manage somehow!" She held her arms up to 
 the other girl, her mother s servant, the only other 
 young thing in the house. 
 
 "An that you sha n t ! " cried Maggie. She went up 
 to Miriam, and out of her warm Irish heart, and on 
 the passion of the solemn time that washed out all 
 little human laws and lines, she kissed her young 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 mistress, for the first and only time in her life, and 
 went away without a question or a word. 
 
 Confused phrases ran through Miriam s burning 
 brain: "Father and mother hast thou put far from 
 me in this hour. " Only the Irish maid under 
 stood. 
 
 From Washington he wrote to her. It was a short 
 note, dashed off in pencil upon the journey, on a leaf 
 torn from his diary. Already the solemn strangeness 
 of his sacrifice had moved between them. In a day 
 the college boy had become a man. He had other 
 things to think of besides herself. He wrote of the 
 national emergency; he spoke passionately of the 
 Flag and its perils; he said that he hoped to go soon 
 into action. He should write her a letter before then. 
 
 "This is all I can manage now. I write on my 
 cap, in the cars. The boys are chattering about me. 
 They are all in excellent courage. Some of them are 
 talking about my being made lieutenant. It was too 
 bad all those old coves were round when I came to 
 say good -by. I wanted to see you alone. 
 
 " I shall write again, when I can collect my thoughts 
 as I wish to. I shall certainly write before I go on 
 the field. I have a good deal to say to you, and I 
 want to hear from you before we go under fire." 
 
 And this was all. From the young soldier no other 
 message came to her. The poor girl tied her thick 
 winter veil across her hunted eyes, and shadowed the 
 
 18 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 post-office, anticipating all the mails before her father 
 got them. She knew that the regiment had been 
 ordered to the front, everybody knew that. She 
 knew no more than everybody knew. There was no 
 letter. 
 
 Days writhed by, as such days do ; weeks, how 
 many she could not have told. She lived like a crea 
 ture under vivisection, who understands what the men 
 of science are saying around the torture-table. Her 
 mother had begun to notice how she looked, and the 
 Irish girl watched her furtively. 
 
 The professor s wife came slowly upstairs one 
 burning midsummer day, and pushed open the un 
 latched door of her daughter s room. The blinds were 
 closed, and Miriam sat in the green darkness by the 
 window, in the great old-fashioned chair, cushioned 
 in white, that she had gone to sleep in when she was 
 so little that her feet could not touch the floor. Her 
 face was turned toward the lines of fiery light that 
 blazed between the slats of the blinds; her head lay 
 back against the chair. 
 
 Mrs. Thornell stopped in the middle of the room. 
 Her countenance was agitated. 
 
 "My dear," she said, with embarrassment, "Pro 
 fessor Seyd has news from Tom. There has been 
 I think they called it a skirmish it was not a great 
 battle but Tom was wounded ; not dangerously, I 
 think. They have gone on to bring him home." 
 
 19 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 Miriam opened her eyes ; she did not turn her head, 
 nor did she rind it necessary to speak. 
 
 " And there were others hurt and Harold 
 Grand." 
 
 " You need not try, Mother, "saidMiriam distinctly. 
 " Maggie told me. She brought me the paper. " 
 
 "He died nobly ! " faltered the mother. " And it 
 was instantaneous, my dear. He did not suffer like 
 
 some." 
 
 "Thank you, Mother," said Miriam. She turned 
 her head away from the hot window, and shut her 
 eyes. Her head lay heavily against the high white 
 chair. Helpless and distanced, her mother stood un 
 certain. Then she stole away and went downstairs. 
 
 Miriam crawled across the room, and locked her 
 door. After a little she went back and unlocked it. 
 She had no right, she remembered, even to turn the 
 key upon her unnamed, unauthorized, unmaidenly 
 anguish. She stood alone in her room, and lifted her 
 arms up once to the invisible sky. In her face was one 
 of the challenges that God himself must find it hard 
 to answer. 
 
 "How do women bear their lives?" she said. 
 
 God who sends them only knows. She bore hers as 
 other women do who are smitten as she was. Per 
 haps, on the whole, she bore it better than many. 
 But she was very young. 
 
 The letter did not come. At first she looked for it 
 
 20 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 a little, with the defiant hopefulness of youth. It was 
 a long time before she gave up haunting the post- 
 office. She went in the morning sometimes, but in the 
 evening always. Her hand shook so that the clerk no 
 ticed it, when she took her father s seven o clock mail. 
 In time the reaction struck, and a sick horror of the 
 whole thing came upon her. Then she went no more. 
 "I shall write to you," he had said. But he had not 
 written. 
 
 They brought him to his mother s home in New 
 York; and although it was vacation, a delegation from 
 the college went on to his military funeral. His 
 mother and sister, in their black dresses, tied the 
 flowers about his sword, and the scattered students 
 wore crape upon their arms for thirty days. 
 
 Miriam wore her gray dress with the blue trimming, 
 and the muslin with the bright spot. She would have 
 gone on her knees for the shelter of a black veil in 
 which to hide her face from the eyes of people. But 
 Miriam had no right to the sacred insignia of mourn 
 ing, in those days thought as necessary to the decency 
 of grief as tears. She pinned on her bright ribbons, 
 and trimmed her hat with flowers; she went to merry 
 makings with the young people, as she must. She 
 laughed when she had to. She did not cry : that was 
 the worst thing about it. She had never cried since 
 Maggie brought her the paper with the list. 
 
 After a while she stopped wearing those two dresses, 
 
 21 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 the gray, and the organdie that she had on the last 
 time she saw him. She folded them and put them 
 away, for she could not bear to look at them. Only 
 girls will understand this. 
 
 On the guitar, now, she did not play. She could not 
 hide that; it must stand in the parlor, in its usual 
 corner. But she put away the sheet of music on 
 which were penciled the notes of the old English song 
 that she had sung to him : 
 
 "Over the mountains, 
 And under the graves, 
 Love will find out the way." 
 
 But he had not found out the way. 
 
 So she took up her part in the long tragedy of life, 
 and supported it, as her nature was. Her pride was 
 as fierce as her love; the twain seized her like fighting 
 Titans, and tare her. She stood her ground between 
 them, as strong youth does; and one day she opened 
 her sad blue eyes and noticed that she was young no 
 more. 
 
 It took the most ardent lover she had ever had to 
 call her attention to this unobtrusive fact; which was 
 the last thing that he had intended to do. It was a 
 June day, in the year 1877, when Tom Seyd spoke 
 to her, fifteen years after he and Harold had en 
 listed. Tom had loved her all his life; he had never 
 loved any girl but Miriam. She was a woman now, 
 thirty- five years old, and he a man. 
 
 22 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 Since young Seyd had become his father s assistant 
 professor he had been an absorbed, ambitious man; 
 but he had forced the leisure to see her so often 
 that she had become in a measure dependent upon 
 his evident tenderness, as he meant she should. 
 Indeed, she would have missed it. She cherished 
 beautiful, preposterous ideals of friendship, as lonely 
 women do; dreaming of noble devotion which asked 
 for nothing in return. She blessed Tom Seyd in her 
 desolate heart that he had never "made love" to her. 
 and never would. 
 
 So when he told her, that day, without prelude or 
 apology, that he had always loved her, she experienced 
 a suffocating, moral shock. 
 
 "It won t do," said Seyd firmly. "It won t go, all 
 this about friendship. I do not feel the need of a 
 friend. It is a wife I want. I love you." 
 
 "But not in that way! " protested Miriam. 
 
 "I love you in just that way," replied the young 
 man, as quietly as if he had been analyzing a crystal 
 before the sophomore class. "I do not love you in 
 any other, and I never have." 
 
 "Then you have deceived me!" cried Miriam, 
 growing as pale as a pear-blossom. 
 
 "I undeceive you, then," said Seyd. "I love you, 
 and I believe that I could make you happy, if you 
 would let me try." 
 
 He stated his case with something of his father s 
 
 23 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 scientific manner; dryly, so far as the words went. 
 But his voice shook, and his hand. And into his gray 
 eyes, that she had always thought so commonplace 
 and " worthy," she could not look; for they beat and 
 blinded hers. She felt in them that which the most 
 lovable of women do not often see, the loyalty of an 
 unselfish, unswerving, lifelong love. 
 
 She knew good women who would have given their 
 lives it was in her heart to say, would have sold 
 their souls for love like this. 
 
 And for what should she fling it from her? For 
 the memory of a memory, the shadow of a wraith, the 
 echo of the voice of an unseen spirit flitting through 
 a dark and ghostly realm; for an oath of allegiance to 
 a claim that had never existed ; for love of a boy who 
 had not loved her enough to find a way to tell her so 
 before he died. 
 
 "I have waited fifteen years," said Tom Seyd 
 patiently. "I have not intruded on you, have I? 
 I have not been stupid about it, I think. I understood 
 how it was. But I have loved you all the same and 
 all the while." 
 
 Her white cheek burned. A sacred shame, even 
 after all these years, covered her with womanly confu 
 sion. She remembered how she used to be called 
 the proudest girl in the college town. Did he taunt 
 her with her pitiable love? "Let me go!" she 
 gasped. 
 
 24 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 " No, no," he pleaded. " Sit down here beside me 
 for a minute. Listen to me here." 
 
 Then she lifted her eyes, and behold, he had led her 
 to the painted iron seat against the garden wall. The 
 elm tree rose above it, venerable and calm. The 
 white lilac was in blossom; the bees of Bonn sang to 
 the honeysuckle ; in rows the yellow lilies were begin 
 ning to die. 
 
 But Miriam stood rigid and tall. She looked 
 through him and on, beyond him, as if he had been 
 the ghost, and that dead boy the living man. 
 
 "If I ever listen to you," she breathed, "it will not 
 be here." 
 
 And with this she fled and left him. But his heart 
 leaped with hope and madness; and he went down 
 to his father s laboratory to try a difficult experiment, 
 in the delirium that a man knows but once in life. 
 
 Miriam went up the garden walk and into the 
 house. She felt her way by the branches of trees and 
 shrubs; for she had, for the second time in her life, 
 that feeling of one about to be stricken blind. The 
 house was still that night, and empty. The professor 
 was at faculty meeting, and the professor s wife at a 
 commencement tea. It was one of the rare occasions 
 when a grown daughter in her father s home may 
 command the freedom and solitude which become so 
 precious as we grow old. 
 
 Maggie brought the tea-urn, but said nothing. 
 
 25 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 Maggie had grown old and sober. There was a 
 grocer s boy who never came back from Antietam. 
 But Maggie wore his ring, and shared her quarter s 
 wages with his mother. Miriam looked with a fierce 
 envy, sometimes, at the Irish girl. 
 
 It came on to be a moonlit night, sultry and sweet. 
 Miriam went to her own room, but could not stay 
 there. She caught up her straw hat and wandered 
 out. House, garden, home, seemed too small to hold 
 her. She struck into the street, and began to walk. 
 Automatically her feet turned towards the post-office, 
 as they used to do fifteen years before, when the 
 seven o clock mail came in. The boys were singing on 
 the campus. All the college town was bright and alive. 
 
 "I am the only ghost in it," thought Miriam. 
 
 Her father s mail had been taken, and she came 
 wearily back. Into the dark parlor the moonlight fell 
 through the long muslin curtains. The guitar stood 
 in the corner. For the first time for fifteen years she 
 took it in her trembling hands. There was no one to 
 listen. She played and sang: 
 
 "Over the mountains 
 And under the graves, 
 Love will find out the way." 
 
 With the wail of the worse than dead her voice 
 faltered through the empty house. She laid her cheek 
 against the old guitar and patted it. 
 
 26 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 "Oh, good -by, dear!" she said. 
 
 The college boys on the campus began to sing those 
 
 cruel army songs, fifteen years old. What right had 
 
 they, these fortunate, light-hearted sons of pampered 
 
 peace, to torture people who lived the war through? 
 
 " Farewell, farewell, my own true love!" 
 
 Impossible! Impossible to think about Tom Seyd 
 till the boys had finished singing! And it was impera 
 tive to think about Tom Seyd. Miriam put down the 
 guitar, and ran upstairs with her fingers in her ears. 
 If she should listen to this live man, dead ones must 
 be kept still. She cried out as if the boys of Bonn 
 could hear her, or would regard her if they did, "Oh, 
 boys, stop that singing! ... It murders us, - 
 women grown so old that you have forgotten we re 
 alive!" 
 
 When the knock came at her door, she did not hear 
 it at the first ; for she was moving through those spaces 
 where sound is not, nor time, nor human interruption. 
 She was lying on her bed, with her face buried in the 
 pillows. The moonlight built a bridge straight through 
 the middle of the dark room. She got up and crossed 
 it, to come to Maggie, who stood upon the threshold. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Miriam!" said Maggie, with broken 
 breath. "For the love of God, come here! Come out 
 to me lamp and see ... for I darsen t go into the 
 dark to give it yez!" 
 
 27 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 In the hall, a hand -lamp was set upon the little 
 table. Maggie tottered beside it; the cheek of the 
 Irish girl was whiter than the paper in her shaking 
 hand. 
 
 For she held a letter, stained and marred and time- 
 discolored, bearing the forgotten red postage stamp 
 of the denomination of the war; a letter as old as 
 O God! as old as anguish! For when Miriam dashed 
 it up against the light, the house rang with such a cry 
 as it would have broken his heart, in heaven, to hear. 
 
 "It is his ghost/ sobbed Maggie. "His ghost has 
 taken his pen in hand to comfort yez!" 
 
 But when has it been recorded in the heavens above, 
 or on the earth beneath, that a ghost could write as 
 he had written ? Living was the hand and living was 
 the love that penned those worn and faded pages. 
 
 With a clang she locked, and double-locked, and 
 triple-locked the door, to read this message from be 
 yond the grave. She had the right now. She could 
 keep the whole world off. She and her sacred joy 
 and her holy grief were sanctified at last. He loved 
 her. He had loved her then and always. In a few 
 manly, ardent words, written upon the march, he had 
 poured his heart out, and placed it in her keeping. 
 He had meant to write differently, he said. He had 
 waited to find a better time. But war made no way 
 for love. Would she listen to this poor love-letter? 
 Spoiled, he said, as so much else was spoiled, the 
 
 28 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 lives of men and the happiness of women, by the 
 accidents of war. 
 
 " I shall give it to one of the boys who is on the sick- 
 list and has a furlough," he wrote, "and he will get 
 it mailed for me, in Washington, I hope, or even 
 in New York. I think it will go more quickly so, and 
 surer. Our mails are irregular, you know, and un 
 certain. Write to me, if there is time. We may be 
 called into action any hour. I hope I sha n t disgrace 
 myself, for your sake. I think I shall behave better 
 if I can get your answer, either way you put it. 
 I have never dared believe you really love me. But if 
 you do, or if you can, enough, I mean, to be my 
 wife some day, I don t think I could die if I knew 
 that. I should come back all right. Love would find 
 out the way, you used to sing it seems fifty years 
 ago! I shall write my mother about you, if you give 
 me the right, at once. She and my sister would want 
 to see you. I send you that old ring of mother s you 
 used to see me wear. It is the best I can do, on the 
 march. Wear it for me, dear, if you do love me, till 
 I see your face again. For I am 
 
 Your own, and only yours, 
 
 Till death and after it, 
 
 HAROLD GRAND." 
 
 She read. She clasped the gray and tattered paper 
 to her bosom and buried it there. She fell upon her 
 
 29 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 knees, and lifted her streaming face to heaven. And 
 then, for the first time in all those years, she broke 
 into terrible sobs. 
 
 So much of this story of a letter as is true I tell; 
 and for more I cannot vouch. What was the fate of 
 the message for fifteen years withheld from the 
 stricken girl? Perhaps the soldier on the furlough 
 died. Perhaps, at the time, his pockets were not 
 searched. Was he some friendless fellow, for whose 
 affairs nobody cared ? Did the letter slip between the 
 lining and the army blue? Did the uniform pass 
 from hand to hand ? Perhaps it was cut up some day 
 for a veteran s son, and so the worn envelope slipped 
 out, and some one said to one of the children, "There 
 is an old army letter, sealed and stamped, and never 
 sent. Run and mail it, my dear. We must not open 
 it or keep it. It may be some poor girl has waited for 
 it all these years." Whether in this way or in that 
 way God s mysterious finger traced the lines by which 
 the dead boy s declaration of love did force its way 
 to her, who shall say? I know no more than you, 
 no more than she; for I tell it only as it was told to 
 me. 
 
 Only this I can append. When young Professor 
 Seyd came to the house again, that evening, the Irish 
 girl stood in the front door and barred the way. 
 
 "It s no use, Professor Tom," said Maggie, "an 
 that I takes upon meself to say. There s a dead man 
 
 30 
 
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 
 
 got ahead of yez. Me and you are nothin , Mr. Tom, 
 - nothin to her but just livin folks. " 
 
 Then Maggie told him what had happened. And 
 Tom Seyd went back to his father s laboratory with 
 out a word. In this he showed the discretion of his 
 temperament, which accepts a fact, be it what it will 
 and lead it where it may, without an idle protest. 
 
 On that great glad night, she had forgotten him as 
 utterly as annihilation. The Irish girl was wise. He 
 was nothing to Miriam but a living man. 
 
 The elm tree in the garden could have taught him 
 that; and the Persian lilac might have told him, "It 
 was not love she gave you." But the yellow lilies 
 kept awake to watch for her. 
 
 She came at midnight, when all her father s house 
 was still. She wore the old white muslin dress with 
 the little colored pattern. She held her head like a 
 bride, and trod like the Queen of Joy. Nor God nor 
 man could say her nay, now. Proudly she took upon 
 her soul the oath of allegiance which binds the living 
 to the dead, that ancient oath, so often taken, so 
 often broken, and sometimes kept. She stopped be 
 neath the elm, and stood beside the iron seat against 
 the garden-wall. The hot night had grown cool 
 and calm. The moon-light lay at the flood. There 
 Miriam put his mother s ring upon her marriage 
 finger; and there she lifted from the earth to heaven 
 the solemn face of the happiest woman in the land. 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 WHEN the stenographer knocked at the door, John 
 Herrick laid down his brief impatiently. 
 
 "I believe I told you not to disturb me," he re 
 marked. His manner had "the courteous formality 
 with which he was in the habit of addressing this 
 young person. 
 
 Her brows wrinkled. She had the haughty pom 
 padour roll, the coquettish puff of white tulle at the 
 back of her neck, and the severe black -silk cuffs 
 characteristic of her class. 
 
 "I have done nothing but see people all the morn 
 ing. I reminded you that I would see no one else 
 until I finished this. It is important. You will say 
 that I am very much engaged." 
 
 "But, you see," suggested the girl, shutting the 
 door behind her, "this is a new one, from up-country, 
 I guess, I should say as much as thirty miles out ; 
 perhaps forty. He s got to get the train. His business 
 is very important, but they all say that, " admitted 
 the experienced office-girl. "He says he s got to get 
 the one o clock train back to China. " 
 
 "Oh, very well," replied the lawyer, "if he comes 
 as far as that I J d better see him. " 
 
 The circumstance that John Herrick was a gentle- 
 
 32 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 man indescribably affected the new client, who had 
 entered the room noisily; he brought the aggressive 
 scowl of a man whose acquaintance with the bar had 
 been limited to the shysters he had met and the news 
 paper reports that he had read. 
 
 "I came," began the man, with a natural tactless 
 ness not lessened by embarrassment, "because you 
 was recommended. That s the only reason. " 
 
 "Ah!" replied Herrick, with a charming smile; "to 
 whom do I owe this pleasure?" 
 
 "To last Sunday s Planet/ sir. You won that 
 case. Me and my wife have been reading it up. My 
 name is Dinsmore of Dinsmore & Peeler." 
 
 The visitor, who had begun to speak in an orator 
 ical key, as if he were addressing a prayer-meeting, 
 now dropped from the combative to the conversa 
 tional, and took the chair which the lawyer had 
 suavely indicated. 
 
 Herrick sat watching him with a clear scutiny, 
 shrewd but straightforward. Dinsmore was a big, 
 beetling man ; his thick hair and his jungle of a beard 
 gave one the impression that he was top heavy. His 
 eyes were black, and of a smouldering sort; on the 
 surface they were cool, or even cold, and his manner 
 was arbitrary. 
 
 Herrick thought: "Born tyrant. I pity his wife." 
 But he said: "I am at your service. What can I do 
 for you, Mr. Dinsmore?" 
 
 33 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 "Well, you see," blurted Dinsmore, "me and my 
 wife can t get on. We want a divorce. " 
 
 The lawyer s expression changed indefinably. In 
 difference and politeness strengthened into gravity and 
 attention. For this class of cases he cherished a dis 
 taste out of proportion to his success in the recent 
 instance which had attracted comment in the press 
 and added to his already brilliant reputation. In 
 fact, he had only touched that out of chivalry; the 
 woman was wronged, and she was dying. 
 
 "Ah?" He leaned back in his chair, with the 
 motion of a man who has made up his mind not to 
 neglect the client. "That s a pity. " 
 
 Dinsmore s jaw fell a little, and he sat staring fool 
 ishly. This was not what he expected from an attorney 
 who was about to take his money for the disruption 
 of a home. 
 
 Embarrassed by he knew not what, and resentful 
 he knew not why, he hurriedly began to talk as if he 
 had been cross-examined ; in point of fact, the lawyer 
 had not yet put a question. 
 
 "I am Robert Dinsmore, of the firm of Dinsmore 
 & Peeler. There ain t any Peeler he died of a 
 shakin palsy, but we go by the name the neighbors 
 are used to. We re in paint and wall-paper. My 
 address is Southeast Street, China. My wife s name is 
 Anna christened Diana to the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. I m a Baptist myself. We don t agree in 
 
 34 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 religion more n we do in anything. We ain t happy 
 together. We can t get on. We want to be divorced." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "What business is it of yourn ? " shot back the client. 
 
 " I can give you the address of some other attorney," 
 suggested Herrick, smiling. "There are many. You 
 can take your choice." 
 
 "By gum!" exploded the mechanic, "I chose you, 
 
 sir." 
 
 "Very well, sir. Then you will answer my ques 
 tions, and do it like a gentleman. " 
 
 "I ask your pardon," slowly said the client, after 
 some difficult thought. "Goon. I ain t used to this 
 sorter thing nor I ain t as used to gentlemen as you 
 be, Mr. Herrick. Go ahead." 
 
 "Now we re friends," observed Herrick, in his 
 winning way.. "And we can get together. Foes can t, 
 you know. And counsellor and client must work to 
 gether, as much as well, in another sense, like man 
 and wife. Litigation, like marriage, demands har 
 mony while creating discord, " he appended, under 
 breath. 
 
 "That s just it," urged Dinsmore. "There ain t 
 any in our house. It s one eternal and infernal bob- 
 whizzle." 
 
 "What is excuse me; the word is unfamiliar - 
 what is your definition of a bob-whizzle ? " 
 
 "Why, it s a it s a bob-whizzle, " answered Dins- 
 
 35 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 more, dogmatically. "If you d ever been bob- 
 whizzled, you d know without askiri* what bob- 
 whizzlin means." 
 
 "Possibly," returned the lawyer, wheeling in his 
 chair and looking out of the window at the opposite 
 building; its dead stone-wall constituted at once his 
 foreground and perspective. "But if you will have 
 patience with my ignorance suppose you particu 
 larize. Precisely what do you understand by the 
 striking phrase that you use ? Is it anything that is 
 to say" 
 
 "What!" cried the house-painter. 
 
 "Is there anything in this case such as your present 
 manner forbids me to define too particularly?" 
 
 "What do you take us for ?" gasped the client, start 
 ing from his chair. "Why, we re respectable folks!" 
 
 " I understand perfectly ; of course. In other words, 
 you are not unfaithful to Mrs. Dinsmore?" 
 
 "Me unfaithful to my wife? Good Lord, sir! 
 Why, I never thought of such a thing!" 
 
 "You will excuse me we lawyers have to be 
 blunt, you know; that is our business. There is, then, 
 no other question of equal or greater delicacy in 
 volved?" 
 
 "I don t know what you re drivin at," said Dins- 
 more, with ominous precision. 
 
 "I mean to say that, as a husband, you have no 
 moral grounds of complaint?" 
 
 36 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 "If you mean to insinerrate that my wife Diana 
 Dinsmore my wife, sir, is capable of of any 
 thing like that - If you was n t so much smaller n 
 me, I d knock you off a fifty-foot ladder and not pick 
 up the pieces." 
 
 "Come, Mr. Dinsmore," replied the lawyer, good- 
 naturedly, "be a reasonable man. We agreed to be 
 friends. " 
 
 "I did n t agree to set here and have my wife in 
 sulted," cried Dinsmore, in a high key. 
 
 "You don t suppose it s any easier for a lawyer to 
 put such questions than it is for a client to answer 
 them, do you?" asked the attorney, with a self-pos 
 session which now began to act upon the client s 
 nerves, like slow massage, set deep, and working to 
 the surface. " Sit down and tell me all about it. Why 
 do you want a divorce? Don t drink, do you?" 
 
 "I m a member of the First Baptist Church of 
 China, " answered the mechanic, simply. 
 
 "The lady s habits are good, of course ? I was sure 
 of it." 
 
 "We ain t a dissipated family," replied the client, 
 in a weakened voice. 
 
 The lawyer went firmly on. "What is the ground 
 of complaint ? Desertion ? Won t she live with you ? 
 Have you ever stayed three years away from her?" 
 
 "I hain t been three days away from her for 
 thretty years, " answered Dinsmore, dully. 
 
 37 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 His face had now begun to assume a vacant look; 
 his fingers jerked at his beard, and then skulked after 
 his hat. Herrick noticed the stains under the man s 
 nails, where vermilion and ocher had refused to yield 
 to turpentine baths. It occurred to the lawyer that 
 he was dealing with a simple-hearted, good fellow, 
 and that his professional aim had overshot. 
 
 "I ain t an edoocated man," said the house- 
 painter, not without dignity. " We can t all be, I sup 
 pose. But I ve got some sense left in my skull if 
 I did come to this here office. And I say, sir, I d 
 rather be a house and sign painter walls papered 
 in the latest styles at short notice an live in South 
 east Street, China, and make an unfortnit marriage 
 with a good woman, than mix up with sin an 
 uncleanness the way you do. She wanted a city 
 lawyer," added the client, plaintively; "she said they 
 knew so much. I guess she s about right there if 
 you re a specimen. I d rather dry out in China 
 like old putty than have your learnin at the ex 
 pense of studyin out the wickedness of this tarnation 
 town or livin in it, either." 
 
 "And so would I," answered the lawyer, unex 
 pectedly. "You have altogether the advantage of us. 
 It is that which makes me sorry to see you throw it 
 away. What did you say was the reason you wanted 
 a divorce?" 
 
 "Eternal bob-whizzlin ," urged Dinsmore, relaps- 
 
 38 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 ing into his earlier tone. "She gets mad. She says 
 things she had n t orter. When she does, I don t like 
 my wife. She don t like me, neither. She says I order 
 her round." 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 "I dare say. She deserves it. Besides, she s a 
 woman. It s natur to order a woman round." 
 
 "Well ? " asked the lawyer. " Go on. " 
 
 "That s about all," replied the client. 
 
 "Nothing else? Consider carefully. Are you tell 
 ing me the whole story. How about cruelty? Any 
 blows ? Did you ever use her roughly ? " 
 
 "I may not be a gentleman," said the mechanic 
 through his teeth, "but I am a man. Once I yanked 
 her apron-string, and mebbe there was once I sorter 
 pushed her into the wagon of a Sunday when she was 
 all -fired late, and another time I knocked a coffee-cup 
 outen her hand . There warn t never any thi ng worse . 
 
 "Did she ever offer any personal violence to you ?" 
 pursued the lawyer; his mustache twitched a little as 
 he put the question. 
 
 "Do I look like it?" demanded the client, fiercely; 
 he held out his huge clenched fists. 
 
 "You never were five years in prison, I am sure?" 
 inquired Herrick, with his perfect manner. 
 
 "Good Lord!" cried the client, sopping his fore 
 head with his handkerchief. "Any more questions 
 where that come from?" 
 
 39 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 "Then," returned Herrick, quietly, "I do not see 
 that you can obtain a divorce in this State. If you 
 will allow me to say so, I think it is fortunate that you 
 cannot. In fact, I advise you strongly against such a 
 step. I am sure you would both regret it. I should 
 rather not further your making such a mistake 
 even if the statutes permitted." 
 
 "But I thought that was the way you fellars made 
 your money! " cried the client. He sat with his mouth 
 open, staring. 
 
 "There is one thing," observed the attorney, in a 
 low voice, "better than the pursuit of money, or the 
 habit of having one s own way, those I take to be 
 the two great errors of life in our day, and that is a 
 human home. It is the best thing there is in the world. 
 If I were you, I should save yours somehow." 
 
 "But we ve gotter have that divorce," insisted 
 Dinsmore, obstinately. "She says we have." 
 
 "Very well," replied Herrick, taking up his brief. 
 "Bring her here Friday morning at half -past ten. I 
 will see what can be done. " 
 
 It was early May, and the evening was chilly, with 
 a formless blur, neither fog nor rain. Dinsmore 
 shivered as he walked up the path between the dahlia- 
 and peony -beds and pushed open his own door. His 
 wife had not come to meet him, but she stood in the 
 entry, expectantly. She was a small woman, who had 
 
 40 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 once been pretty; she was neatly dressed in black 
 cashmere, with a fresh white apron trimmed with 
 edging that she had crocheted on winter evenings; 
 she wore a modern stock of lace and blue ribbon about 
 her still well-shaped throat. Her hair, now rather 
 gray, had been of the reddish variety; she looked like 
 a woman with a warm heart and a red-haired temper. 
 
 "Lost your train, did n t you?" she began, nerv 
 ously. "I ve been watchin all afternoon. Supper s 
 hot and ready." 
 
 " I m beat out," said Dinsmore, handing her his hat. 
 
 She took it with the readiness of a wife who has 
 always waited on her husband, and hung it up for him. 
 As she did this, she avoided his eyes, for she felt that 
 these evaded her. Dinsmore put his lips together in 
 the obstinate way that she was used to ; he did not 
 she perceived that he did not mean to speak. 
 
 "Well?" she asked timidly. The habit of being 
 afraid of him was old and fixed ; the prospect of free 
 dom from it did not seem to help her any, yet. 
 
 "He says we can t do it," said Dinsmore, stolidly. 
 "There ain t any law." 
 
 "There s gotter be a law!" cried the red-haired 
 wife. "I Ve been miser ble long s I can stand it." 
 
 "Guess I m even with ye on that score, Anna." 
 The painter laughed unpleasantly. "You got no call 
 to plume yourself that I know of beginnin to bob- 
 whizzle already." 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 "We got no call to set out to quarrel that I know 
 of, either/ returned the wife, in a gentler tone. "It 
 always disagrees with you to get riled before eatin . 
 You must be powerful hungry, Robert." 
 
 "I could eat a pint o white lead," admitted the 
 man, with a mollified air. "Besides, he says he ll 
 think it over. He says for you to come there along o 
 me on Friday, and he 11 see." 
 
 "My spring sack won t be done till Saturday," 
 urged the woman. "But mebbe Mary Lizzie can be 
 drove on it a little. Here I 11 bring your other 
 coat. You go lie down on the lounge till I get sup 
 per on. I don know when I ve seen you so beat." 
 
 "That s a fact," said Dinsmore, plaintively; he 
 yielded to feminine sympathy as he had always done, 
 as if it were a man s right, rather than a woman s 
 gift. 
 
 "There s shortcake." said Mrs. Dinsmore, cheer 
 fully. "I got the first strawberries Dickson had for 
 you. They ain t half so sour as you d expect, and 
 I whipped the cream." 
 
 Dinsmore as he ate his supper seemed to smooth in 
 soul and body; one could see the outlines of his cheek 
 round off and his smouldering eye cool. When he 
 spoke, it was in a comfortable tone. 
 
 "There ain t a woman in China can beat you on 
 strawberry shortcake, Anna, if I say it as should n t." 
 
 His wife blushed with pleasure. 
 
 42 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 "It s your mother s receipt," she observed, with a 
 tact worthy of a happier marriage. 
 
 Dinsmore cordially passed his plate for a second 
 piece. 
 
 "You see," he said abruptly, "we ain t wicked 
 enough, neither of us." 
 
 Mrs. Dinsmore lifted the pained and puzzled ex 
 pression of a woman who, however unfortunate her 
 matrimonial experience, has never disputed the in 
 feriority of her own to her husband s intellect. It 
 occurred to her that Robert had begun to discourse 
 (he was naturally a little oratorical) upon some 
 abstruse subject, like politics or savings-banks, - 
 one upon which she could not be expected to follow 
 him; she was quite in the dark as to his drift, until he 
 offered a magnanimous elucidation in these words : - 
 
 "There ain t no law for decent folks. If we wanter 
 divorce, we ve gotter do some mean thing to arn it. 
 Mebbe if I take to drink we might stand a chance. 
 If you d ruther, I can knock you down - 1 don t 
 favor that way, myself. If you 11 jam me over the 
 head with the family Bible, it might do ; it s good n 
 heavy. There ain t no other way I can see, onless I 
 steal something and get sent to prison for five years. 
 We ain t neither of us loonies, and I ve been so near 
 sighted I hain t deserted you. I can, if you say so. 
 T ain t too late. But it takes quite a while three 
 years. If you was to elope with a fellar, that would 
 
 43 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 help us out. Can you think of anybody you d fancy ?" 
 As Dinsmore uttered this long and inscrutable dis 
 course, his wife had grown pale, and paler; her 
 plump elbows shook. 
 
 "He s wanderin ," she thought. "He s taken a 
 a spell and it s gone to his head." 
 
 "Let me get you a dose of your spring tonic, 
 Robert," she purred, soothing him. "An then I 11 fix 
 you up a nice hot foot-bath n mustard, and send for 
 the doctor. You must have taken cold, or maybe 
 you re a mite bilious. There, Rob, there ! You come 
 along o me, and I 11 take care of you." 
 
 It was so long since she had called him Rob that 
 the word arrested Dinsmore s attention and quenched 
 the retort burning upon his tongue. He looked at his 
 wife steadily and with a certain interest, as if in a new 
 subject, or a new phase of an old one. 
 
 "You don t understand, Anna. You re a woman, 
 and I had n t orter expected it. I ain t out o my head ; 
 I ve only been to the city. This ain t loonacy. It s 
 law. I ain ter goin ter take no spring tonic," he added 
 pugnaciously. "Nor I ain ter goin ter go to bed. I m 
 goin ter light the settin -room fire and set by it. I m 
 cold. It s so cold I guess I 11 keep it agoin till mornin 
 Burnin , did you say? Good and ready? Well! 
 That s nice, Anna. You d better go to bed. I 11 set 
 awhile alone. You ve given me a fust-rate supper, 
 and I m much obleeged to you, Anna. But there s 
 
 44 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 times a man has to be alone and this is one of them 
 times - We may as well. get used to it. We Ve gotter 
 set alone a good deal, I s pose." 
 
 The wife shriveled away into herself at once. With 
 out further words the two parted for the night. She 
 washed the dishes and went slowly upstairs to her own 
 room, which her husband had not entered for longer 
 than either of them cared to recall. 
 
 Robert Dinsmore sat by the hearth and fed the fire 
 gloomily. His thoughts flickered as the blaze did, 
 under the big birch logs, which he crossed and re- 
 crossed, and built up and built again ; but his feeling 
 went steadily to ashes as the fire went. He perceived 
 that two respectable people who had married ought 
 to be able to live together in comfort and in what is 
 called peace. But he felt that in his own case some 
 thing fundamental to this mysterious achievement 
 was lacking; he supposed it was what is known as 
 love, but he was not quite sure. That it was some 
 thing which had been, and was not, was plain; beyond, 
 he got into fog. He shook his head as he crouched 
 over the fading fire. His wife never saw the look that 
 settled over his large, unfinished face. He sat brood 
 ing till midnight, as an unhappy man will, bitter and 
 separate. Then he covered the fire carefully with its 
 own ashes, hot and cold. " It s a tarnation late 
 spring," he said. " I guess I 11 keep it up overnight." 
 
 45 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 The stenographer s brows wrinkled perplexedly 
 when she admitted the unworldly couple. A com 
 posite feeling of disdain and respect struggled for ex 
 pression in the face of this sophisticated young woman 
 as Mrs. Dinsmore, in her new spring sack (visibly 
 unappreciated by the office-girl, though conceded to 
 be the banner of fashion in China), was introduced 
 into the inner office. A peremptory wave of the girl s 
 hand relegated the husband to a seat in the waiting- 
 room without. 
 
 "That young lady with the tulle rosette behind told 
 me to come in here, " began Mrs. Dinsmore, with her 
 company manner. "She said you wanted to see me 
 alone. My husband is right out there in call," she 
 added, with a sudden sense of propriety. 
 
 She could not remember when she had been shut 
 up in a room with a strange man. Indeed, she had 
 never met a man like this one. His delicate courtesy, 
 his high-bred features, his chivalrous smile, first be 
 wildered and then charmed her. When he said, "I 
 thought, Mrs. Dinsmore, we had better talk matters 
 over together," she could have told him everything 
 she had ever thought o r felt. 
 
 The instinct for the confessional which is so strong 
 in every woman is not provided for by the polity of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Anna Dinsmore, 
 who was in her own way a reserved wife, had never 
 told her story to her minister. Herrick s sincerity and 
 
 46 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 sympathy, qualities necessary to a successful coun 
 selor, and obvious in him, drew the woman on. The 
 misery of years melted from her lips. In half an hour 
 he had a life s history, and the heart of a wretched 
 wife throbbed in his hand. 
 
 His face underwent a change as the consultation 
 progressed; the experienced lines about his mouth 
 wavered, and his melancholy eyes dwelt upon the 
 client kindly; once or twice they grew moist, and once 
 his finger dashed to the lashes. 
 
 "And the child?" he asked gently. "I under 
 stood you to say that there was a child ?" 
 
 "One, sir. We never had but one. That was a 
 little girl, that was Deeny. He named her Diana, 
 after me. He used to call me Nan in those days; he 
 don t now. But we called her Deeny. She called her 
 self that before she could talk. Deeny died. She was 
 three years old. She was the prettiest little girl, Mr. 
 Herrick, you ever see. Her father set the world 
 and all by her. It s fourteen years come Sunday after 
 next since Deeny died." 
 
 Herrick arose silently, opened the door, and beck 
 oned the husband in. The two sat before their lawyer 
 like children before a father, with downcast eyes. 
 The man was the first to assert himself. 
 
 "Well!" he began, in a loud voice. "I suppose 
 she s been pitching into me?" 
 
 "On the contrary," replied the lawyer, sternly, 
 
 47 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 "your wife has taken her full share of the blame 
 more than her share, perhaps." 
 
 "I m obleeged to ye, Anna," observed the husband, 
 after some thought. "I wisht I d done as much by 
 you. I m afraid I didn t. I told him you bob- 
 whizzled. " 
 
 "Now, if you will be influenced by me," began the 
 lawyer, in his paternal tone; it was that of a man who 
 has listened to the uneven tempo of so many hundred 
 disordered human hearts that he might have been 
 pardoned for slighting the exigency of these plain 
 people; instead, he made it his own, as a few men 
 might who hold and honor the name of counselor, - 
 "if you will be guided by me, you will go home and 
 begin all over again make the best of each other, 
 and of life, in short. You have no case at all. You 
 cannot obtain a divorce in this State. If you feel that 
 you must separate, you can do that, of course. I can 
 arrange the details, if you wish. " 
 
 "That would do," said Dinsmore, quickly. "It s 
 more respectable, and it ain t so ondooable either, is 
 it?" 
 
 " I guess we d like that," added the wife, but slowly, 
 and with averted eyes. 
 
 Those of the lawyer saddened a little; he had the 
 look of a man who has lost his case. But he said : 
 
 "I have told you what I advise. If I were in your 
 place, I should try again. A hot temper and an 
 
 48 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 arbitrary will are not a fatal combination. I assure 
 you that it s a pretty common one. It s worth the 
 fight to get the better of it, or so it strikes me. " 
 
 "We ve fit and fit," replied the man. "We re 
 beat out." 
 
 "Yes, " assented the woman. "We re tired of it. " 
 
 "Very well," returned Herrick, curtly. "Come a 
 week from Monday, and I 11 go over the details with 
 you. I am greatly pressed for time just now. Mrs. 
 Dinsmore, if you please, I will speak with your 
 husband a moment alone." 
 
 When the two were left together, the counselor s 
 manner abruptly changed. John Herrick s face had 
 taken on a certain transparency, making him look 
 fairer and finer than most men; he wheeled in his 
 office-chair before he began to speak. His words were 
 carefully chosen and few in number. These were 
 they:- 
 
 "Dinsmore, I want to tell you about a friend of 
 mine a man I knew well. He was not happy with 
 his wife, and they parted. They had one child it 
 was a little girl; it died. After that they drifted apart, 
 the way people do, and then they drove apart. 
 Matters got worse you know how it is. They had 
 begun by loving each other very much very 
 truly. When they found that they were losing this - 
 precious thing this feeling that brings men and 
 women together and leads them to meet life 
 
 49 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 patiently and tenderly for one another s sake, they 
 did not try to hold it ; they let it go, and so I think 
 I told you, did n t I ? they parted. She went in 
 fact, they put the seas between them. I think the 
 man was the more to blame I think we are apt to 
 be to blame. It is n t a very easy thing to be a woman, 
 Dinsmore. Let us put ourselves in their places. 
 Come! They need to be loved manfully, nothing 
 cowardly about it, not to whine over the disap 
 pointments of marriage. These are altogether mutual. 
 
 "A woman has got to be cherished, Dinsmore, 
 yes, even if she is quick-tempered. A man can do 
 that, though he has outlived his honeymoon. This 
 man that I tell you of began to think so after a while; 
 after he had lived alone till the ferment of things, 
 that is, perhaps I do not make it plain, till his first 
 irritation and soreness had healed and calmed. One 
 day he said to himself: I will take the next steamer. 
 I 11 go to her and tell her how I feel. We will try again. 
 We will begin all over. That night, Dinsmore, that 
 same night, he had a message from her by cable 
 Do you see ? that very evening. She said, Come 
 at once. - When he got there, she was He was 
 too late. She was dead. He never had his chance 
 to try again. You have. Good -morning, sir." 
 
 Herrick wheeled and dismissed the client, who 
 went from the office with hanging head and walking 
 on tiptoe. 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 Robert Dinsmore was not a quick-witted man, as we 
 measure men and minds, but he had it in him to sur 
 mise, if he did not perceive, that the counselor had 
 shared with a stranger, the sacred tragedy of his own 
 history; and that he had done this delicate, self- 
 obliterating thing not to save a case, but to save a 
 client s happiness and a human home. 
 
 When Dinsmore had gone, John Herrick turned the 
 key in the door. The stenographer knocked in vain, 
 and whisked away, pouting. Herrick did not get to 
 work, but sat for some time looking at the dead stone 
 wall, which constituted his foreground and his per 
 spective. 
 
 The late spring lagged. The peonies and dahlias 
 in front of Robert Dinsmore s house held up green 
 finger-tips, as if they were trying the weather, and 
 found it too cold to venture into, so came no farther. 
 For several evenings the fire burned late on the sitting- 
 room hearth, and the man sat before it, silent and 
 apart, bitter and determined. As determined, but 
 sadder and more gentle, the wife wept on her pillow, 
 listening for his heavy footfall turning to his down 
 stairs room. If the night were cold, she could hear 
 the scrapings of the shovel as he covered the fire to 
 hold it over till morning. Like many big men, he 
 had small weaknesses and self-indulgences; fancied 
 a warm place to dress in if it were chilly, and crept 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 there with his clothes, half guiltily, while his wife 
 was building the kitchen fire and getting breakfast. 
 
 The lawyer had allowed the couple ten days before 
 the fateful and final interview which should indicate 
 the terms of their separation and put its details into 
 execution. If it occurred to them to wonder why, in 
 reply to the incontrovertible statement on Mrs. Dins- 
 more s part that Monday was washing-day, Mr. 
 Herrick had nevertheless insisted on that moist date, 
 they had not protested, and obediently pursued their 
 preparations for the step which they now curiously felt 
 as if they were legally obliged to take. 
 
 It was to their simple minds as if their fate were in 
 the hands of a sheriff. In a sense it was. The dark 
 sheriff Disillusion that arrests fugitive married love, 
 and does not easily let go, had laid a heavy grasp upon 
 these two. Yet the mechanic perplexed the lawyer 
 by a certain fine magnanimity which would have 
 embellished the soul of what is called a gentle 
 man: 
 
 "Allowance? All there is, if you say so. I don t 
 propose to cut Anna short. I m in comfortable cir 
 cumstances and have laid up consider ble. I don t 
 want more J n enough to pay the laundryman and find 
 a little to eat somewheres. I can sleep in the shop. 
 She must have the house, it stands to natur . No man 
 could turn a woman outer doors. I want to per vide 
 handsomely for Anna." 
 
 52 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 " Mr. Dinsmore is very generous to me. " His wife, 
 to her neighbors and relatives, said this proudly. 
 
 The domestic misfortunes of the two were now the 
 scandal of China, and she reported to her husband 
 the efforts of the village to preserve the indivisibility 
 of their home. Public opinion was against them ; their 
 course was felt to be a distinct reflection upon the 
 character of the community and the standing of the 
 Baptist and Methodist churches. 
 
 The unhappy husband and wife were made to feel 
 themselves the object of a general censure so un 
 expected and so severe that they combined instinctively, 
 like the happiest of married people, to resent it. 
 
 They grew, in fact, quite friendly over their com 
 mon misfortune, and discussed it daily between gusts 
 of a mutual irritation. 
 
 " Your minister called here to-day. He preached at 
 me for an hour. I told him I preferred to be disci 
 plined by my own denomination. He said wives orter 
 submit themselves to their own Baptist husbands." 
 
 " Your minister came to my shop this afternoon. 
 He pitched into me for quite a spell. He said hus 
 bands oughter love their wives, as Christ loved the 
 Methodist Church." 
 
 It would not have been easy for Robert and Diana 
 Dinsmore to say when they had passed so much time 
 in each other s society as since they had agreed to 
 forswear it forever. 
 
 53 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 All this was by day. With evening their spirits fell, 
 and they crept apart. The wife cried a good deal ; but 
 never in his presence. She was mysteriously and re 
 morselessly busy over what, he could not have told, 
 she seemed to be working about the house all day, 
 giving it the religious touch of something more sacred 
 than spring-cleaning; washing his bedspreads, iron 
 ing his shirts, doing up curtains in his room, mending 
 flannels, disinterring camphorated mummies of sum 
 mer clothes all his, all for him. His smouldering 
 eyes saw everything, but he asked no questions. With 
 the eagerness of a bride, the skill of a happy and 
 experienced housewife, and the sadness of a widow, 
 the woman worked on doggedly. He thought what a 
 neat, sweet housekeeper she had always been 
 snapping, sometimes, when he tracked in mud, but 
 always ready to mop it up after him with a laugh. 
 He thought he began to think how many com 
 fortable hours he had owed to her for how many 
 years. He hated to see her tiring herself like this 
 at the last. 
 
 "What ails you, Anna?" he asked sharply. 
 
 "Don t ye darst find fault with me now!" she 
 cried, quavering. She took up the big stocking she 
 was mending and went into another room. 
 
 Dinsmore stared after her. His large face wrinkled 
 uncomfortably. She could see him from where she 
 sat, though she seemed not to. She thought : 
 
 54 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 "He was a handsome fellow those first years. 
 He s lost consider ble looks the last two weeks. I hope 
 he 11 keep his health, and not get to complainin . 
 I don t know who to mercy 11 look after him if he 
 should have any of his spells. His aunt Sophia 
 could n t no more n a " she paused for an adequate 
 simile - - "no more n a camphorated woodchuck," 
 added the New England wife. 
 
 The spring relented slowly and began to burgeon. 
 The dahlias and peonies thrust up their arms beside 
 the front walk. In the bed under the south window - 
 that had been the little girl s window an old-fash 
 ioned flower called the star-of -Bethlehem budded and 
 blossomed; it was a delicate flower, lily-shaped, or 
 star-shaped, with a gray shade and a white light. 
 
 The fire in the sitting-room was not burning now, 
 but Dinsmore kept it carefully laid, and sat by its 
 cold hearth doloK>usly. It had come to be Saturday 
 night the last that they were to spend together. 
 Dinsmore had been quiet and dull ; but Anna worked 
 all day. She did not stop sewing until nine o clock; 
 then she put away her thimble, folded a big pink and 
 blue outing-shirt neatly, and came and sat down be 
 side her husband. The unlighted fire lay between 
 them. 
 
 "I believe I ve thought of everything, " she began, 
 in a tone as if she had been entertaining a caller with 
 whom she was on rather distant terms. " Your winter 
 
 55 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 ones are all done up in camphor, summer ones in 
 the lowest drawer of your bureau. I don t think 
 you 11 find a button off of anything. I hain t in 
 tended you should. All yer stockings are mended 
 up n turned at the heel. Your furs are in the big 
 chest in the attic, here s the key. I ve had em 
 all aired n sunned n brushed, an done up in cam 
 phor n cedar-oil, I know you hate moth-balls. Don t 
 you never let anybody - She broke off. 
 
 " The house is clean s clean from top to toe, Rob 
 ert. I ve had everything out and everything in. It 
 fairly smells of soap n water n sunshine. You 11 
 find your spring tonic in the medicine cupboard. I 
 do hope you will will you will take good care 
 of yourself, an not get any of your spells. I should 
 kinder hate to have you get sick and me I hope 
 you 11 change your feet when you get em wet, when 
 I - Then, come sunstroke weather, remember how 
 I always put a wet sponge in the crown of your straw 
 hat, won t you? You ll find it over the kitchen 
 dresser. I ve baked a dozen pies all sorts. I 11 
 roast a couple of fowl and leave doughnuts and 
 those long cookies with holes in that you like. You 
 can get along for quite a spell, till that camphorated 
 wood I mean, your aunt Sophia comes. I made up 
 my mind after we come from that lawyer o Monday 
 night, to stop along o Mary Lizzie. " 
 
 " What ? " shouted the husband. 
 
 56 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 The wife winced as she had done, how often! 
 at his rising voice. But she answered steadily: "I ve 
 made up my mind. I ain ter goin ter turn you outer 
 your own home. I m goin ter stop along of Mary 
 Lizzie. I could n t seem, anyways, to turn you out, 
 Robert. It don t seem fair. I ain ter goin ter do it. 
 I ain ter goin ter stop here. I ve fixed everything 
 for you, Robert, pretty s I know how, and come o 
 Monday, I guess I won t come back. Seems to me 
 it would be easiest, somehow. I - No, Robert, no! 
 I airtt cryin , nor I ain ter goin ter cry. You lemme 
 be, that s all. Hain t you always been at me all 
 these years to let you be, to let you have your way? 
 Now, I m goin ter have mine for once. I ve made 
 up my mind. I know you ve got one of your own, 
 but it ain t big enough to change mine this time. 
 I ain ter goin ter turn you out, and that I m set on. 
 I could n t stand it, Robert, no way in this world, to 
 see you campin in that shop. A man is such a help 
 less creetur, a man is such a such a tomfool without 
 a house and a woman in it! No, I ain ter cryin , 
 either, but if you darst touch me, Robert, I shall I 
 shall begin to - 
 
 He did not dare to touch her. He was a dull man, 
 as we have said. Before his wet and winking eyes, 
 before his empty arms, she whirled and fled. He 
 heard her sob her way upstairs, and heard her lock 
 her door. 
 
 57 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 She was quite self-possessed the next morning; 
 more so than the man. Dinsmore flung himself about 
 the house uneasily, and took an after -breakfast pipe 
 - a secular amusement which he did not allow him 
 self on Sunday. When he knocked the ashes out in 
 the hearth the fire caught and blazed robustly; he 
 watched it with sombre eyes till it had fallen quite 
 away. 
 
 " It s the last one, " he thought. He gave the fender 
 a kick as he shoved it into place. 
 
 They went to church as usual, and reflected what 
 credit they could, and such discredit as they must, 
 upon their separate and distinct denominations; he 
 drove her both ways, and helped her in and out of the 
 buggy. She got up an excellent Sunday dinner for 
 him, one of her best, and it must be recorded that he 
 did generous justice to it, and that this gratified her 
 very much. In the afternoon she began to grow a 
 little gray about the mouth, and he noticed that her 
 hand fumbled with her apron when she came at last 
 and stood behind him. He was laying the fire on the 
 cold hearth. 
 
 "Well," he said, "you don t object, do you? I 
 thought I d leave it as it had orter be. It won t we 
 sha n t / sha n t set by it any more, I s pose. If 
 you think you re goin to Mary Lizzie s, you never 
 was more mistaken in your life, Diana Dinsmore. 
 You can t leave this here house. It s your house. 
 
 58 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 Mr. Herrick s got the deeds made out. Come to 
 morrow he 11 pass em, and you gotter stay. " 
 
 "I ain ter goin ter," replied the wife, with the in 
 exorable obstinacy of gentleness. "I ain ter goin ter 
 turn you out. It ain t gospel." 
 
 "Well, it s law," persisted Dinsmore. "Mr. Her 
 ri ck 11 make you. You 11 see. " 
 
 "Is n t it kinder late to be fightin as to which shall 
 treat the other prettiest?" asked Mrs. Dinsmore, 
 slowly. 
 
 "By gum!" answered Dinsmore, "I never thought 
 of that." 
 
 "Robert," began the woman, laying her hand 
 timidly on his arm, "have you forgotten - 
 
 " I hain t forgotten a blessed thing, " interrupted the 
 husband, shortly. 
 
 " It s fourteen years you know since - 
 
 "Lord, don t I know?" groaned Dinsmore. "I ve 
 thought about it every night I ve set here this two 
 weeks past." 
 
 "Would you mind comin along o me this last 
 time same s we ve done for fourteen years to 
 to visit with her, Robert ? The star-of -Bethlehem 
 is up. It s always up in time for Deeny. " 
 
 "It gnaws at me so, Anna!" The man put his 
 hand to his heart as if he were undergoing a physical 
 pang. "I always feel it here," he said. 
 
 "I didn t know but you d like to go and say 
 
 59 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 good-by to Deeny with me, " urged the woman, 
 drooping; "but never mind!" 
 
 "Oh, I 11 go!" cried Dinsmore; "of course I 11 go." 
 
 Silently the two went out of the house, and silently 
 took the road together. They walked with bent 
 heads. Their feet seemed to carry them without 
 direction of their wills to the greening, budding 
 village churchyard. Anna held the star-of -Bethle 
 hem in her hand. Now and then she buried her face 
 in the silver-gray, lilylike, starlike flowers. Once he 
 thought she kissed them, but he did not seem to see 
 or know it. He seemed to see nothing, he seemed to 
 know nothing, and he had a stolid look when they 
 came to the little girl s grave. One might have 
 thought that he did not care. The bit of marble 
 flickered before his eyes in the cool May sunlight, as 
 if it had been a leaf, or some frail living thing. 
 
 What a little grave it was ! It had never seemed so 
 short before. 
 
 "The letters need polishin up," he said; he 
 traced them out with his stained forefinger. 
 
 DEENY 
 
 THREE YEARS OLD 
 WHEN SHE DIED 
 
 "She would have been seventeen, would n t she? 
 I had n t thought of that. " 
 
 "Shall we divide em up -same s we always 
 have?" asked Anna, hesitating. She was afraid of 
 
 60 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 him even then, and even there. It was an old habit 
 and an iron one. She glanced at him deprecat- 
 ingly. 
 
 "I don t know s I care if we do," he answered. 
 "I s pose Deeny d like that." 
 
 Anna halved the flowers in silence. He was con 
 scious of wondering why she did not cry. He laid the 
 star-of-Bethlehem on Deeny s grave with his huge 
 fingers; they shook, and one of the silver-gray bells 
 fell. Anna picked it up and kissed it before she 
 added to it her handful. He watched her with 
 wretched eyes; hers leaped, and it was for a moment 
 as if they ran to him. 
 
 "There s Dickson!" he said suddenly, "and your 
 minister s wife. And Mary Lizzie. " 
 
 The last place in China where grief could shelter 
 itself was in the spot where it grieved the sorest ; and 
 on the day when it had most leisure to weep it had 
 least opportunity. There was no seclusion in the 
 village churchyard on Sunday afternoon. The child 
 less parents fled the place before their curious towns 
 folk, and, climbing the old stone-wall among the 
 blackberry- vines, went home silently by another 
 way. 
 
 The mother did not look back, but the father did 
 so once; it seemed to him as if the bit of marble turned 
 a little, like something that watched them. But mar 
 ble does not move, and Deeny could not. She lay 
 
 61 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 deep among the roots of spring, with the star-of- 
 Bethlehem above her. 
 
 The two came to their home as mutely as they had 
 gone from it, and made no attempt to reassume the 
 shield of words. It was as if it had suddenly proved 
 to be made of some false substance gauze or 
 paper and hung ragged in their hands. Now they 
 flung the flimsy thing away. 
 
 Anna laid the table for their light Sunday-night 
 supper, and both sat down, but neither ate. Pretty 
 soon she came back and cleared away the dishes. 
 Dinsmore lighted his pipe, and went and sat by the 
 fireless hearth. He heard her stirring about with her 
 soft, housewifely step; she had a light step for so 
 heavy a woman. Anna was not awkward; she had 
 been a graceful girl, and pretty he remembered 
 how pretty she used to be ; he did not know when he 
 had thought of it before. He had been very much in 
 love with her; so had most of the young men in China; 
 but she had denied them all to marry him. Anna had 
 always kept something of the look and manner of a 
 woman who has been ardently and frequently sought 
 in youth, and when marriage ceased to sustain the 
 valuation at which she had been taught to rate her 
 self, she was as perplexed as she was wretched. Dins- 
 more pulled at his pipe nervously. 
 
 "Yes," he thought, "she was a good-looking girl. 
 
 62 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 And Anna s a handy housekeeper. If it had n t a 
 ben for bob-whizzlin - By gum!" he said aloud, 
 "if she ain ter gone upstairs without comin to set 
 along of me this last night! " 
 
 For Anna had crept upstairs to her own room, and 
 he heard her lock her door. He put his pipe away; 
 suddenly there was no pleasure in it any more. He 
 stretched his legs out on the cold hearth and, folding 
 his hands, began to twirl his big thumbs perplexedly; 
 his head fell to his breast. He must have sat there for 
 some time. Presently he said : 
 
 u Deeny she would ha stayed along of me. It 
 would ha ben somebody. No," he added, on re 
 flection. "Women hang together. She would ha 
 stood by her mother I d ruther she would, too. 
 If there d ever ben a boy, but there warn t. No. 
 There warn t no boy. And Deeny s dead." 
 
 He repeated the word aloud, two or three times : 
 
 "Deeny! Deeny!" 
 
 With a cry the man sprang to his startled feet. He 
 did not believe in ghosts; no good Baptist did; but 
 then and there he was sure that one had got into the 
 house. It was well fitted up against burglars, but 
 there were no ghost -locks on the doors and windows, 
 as there are no ghost-locks on a father s or a mother s 
 heart. 
 
 It was his wife who had frightened him so as he 
 started to tell her, but he thought better of it. Her 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 feet were bare, like any spirit s, and her hand as cold 
 as Deeny s; she had come without sound and she 
 stood without speech; though the night was warm, 
 she had covered her night-dress carefully with her 
 blue flannel wrapper, as if he had been some neighbor 
 or acquaintance hurriedly met in an emergency. 
 
 "Lord!" he said, "Lord o mercy! You scared the 
 sense outer me." 
 
 "Robert," she began at once, "I came to I 
 thought I d come I wanted to sit with you this last 
 time if you don t mind me. Do you, Robert ?" 
 
 She looked about timidly. There ain t any chair. 
 
 "Would you care," asked Dinsmore, humbly, "if 
 you should set on the arm of mine ? Seein it s the 
 last time." 
 
 He sank back into the big cushioned chair that he 
 had been occupying. After a moment s hesitation, she 
 seated herself upon its arm. She did not look at him, 
 but began to talk at once : he saw that she had one of 
 those flowers thrust in the bosom of her blue flannel 
 gown. 
 
 "I brought it down for you," she said hurriedly, 
 " seein it s Deeny s. I picked it up off the grave after 
 I d laid it there. I thought you d like to keep it 
 even if you took it from me. Put it in your Bible, 
 will you, Rob ? Put it on that Jairus chapter we read 
 together that night we buried her; about his little girl 
 who was not dead, but sleepeth don t you remem- 
 
 64 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 her? See, Rob, what a pretty flower it is! What a 
 Deeny flower! When it is a bud, it is a lily. When it 
 blossoms, it is a star. I ve been thinkin it s that way 
 with Deeny. When she died she was just a baby, Rob, 
 no more n a lily-bud a little white thing. Then we 
 could hold her and cuddle her. Now she s blos 
 somed, she is a star, and we can t. 
 
 "Oh, she was such a pretty baby, Rob! She was 
 such a dear little girl ! - - I I set so much by her - 
 Ah me ! Ah me ! O Robbie, don t blame me, will 
 you not now ? Don t be hard on me if I set and 
 cry a little about about Deeny this last time 
 I 11 get a chance. Nobody else cares about Deeny but 
 you n me. Everybody else has forgotten Deeny. 
 She s nothin but a handful o dust in the grave 
 yard to other folks just a little dead baby four 
 teen years ago. - - It s only fathers and mothers that 
 love dead children so long s that. Why, Robbie, 
 think ! She s seventeen years old to-day ! She s singin 
 round heaven, a grown-up girl, same s she would ha 
 ben singin round this house along of you and me." 
 
 Dinsmore s large face worked pitifully; a man 
 should not cry like a woman but the tears came 
 storming down. 
 
 "Now, Anna! Now, Anna!" he repeated, help 
 lessly. 
 
 He thought of Deeny as a seventeen-year-old ghost 
 with a harp and wings. But her mother thought of her 
 
 65 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 as an angel in a long skirt, with a lace-stock and 
 ribbons. 
 
 " She was a dear little thing ! " reiterated the woman, 
 who was sobbing now without restraint. 
 
 "So she was, Anna, so she was!" the father 
 groaned. 
 
 "And she set so much by you, Robbie, climbin 
 onto your knees to pull your whiskers, and kissin of 
 you - 
 
 "So she did, Nan, so she did!" 
 
 "And singin of a morning to wake us up and 
 sayin her little prayers of an evening: Now I lay me 
 so gentle and so so Deeny. " 
 
 "It gnaws me here," gasped the man; he laid 
 his hand upon his heart, and changed color. But the 
 woman, herself stupid with misery, went, unobserv- 
 ing, on: 
 
 "Rob - - Listen to me; I ve been thinkin we 
 can divide everything else houses n lands n 
 money n all those things that ain t of no account 
 Mr. Herrick can fix em all up, and the law can deal 
 with them. But, Rob, we can t divide Deeny no 
 way in the world." 
 
 "That s a fact, we can t," panted Dinsmore, 
 faintly. "Who ever said we wanted to ? " 
 
 "The law can t part off Deeny, Rob, between 
 you and me. It was love made Deeny, and law 
 can t unmake her. Love and law can fight for ever n 
 
 66 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 ever, Rob, but there s Deeny. Robert ? Say, Robert ? 
 Did you hear me? Robert!" 
 
 But Robert Dinsmore did not answer Diana his 
 wife. His head against the tall easy-chair suddenly 
 fell to one side. His big body sloped and toppled, and 
 his wife caught him as he dropped. 
 
 "He s got one of his spells, " thought Anna. "I Ve 
 killed him this last night. " 
 
 Then she fell upon him with the hunger of her 
 starved heart. She kissed him and kissed him, she 
 chafed and stimulated, she wept and called, she 
 warmed him and held him, and yearned over him, 
 and prayed over him, and kissed him again. 
 
 "Oh, my man!" she cried, "my man, my man!" 
 
 When Dinsmore came to himself he muttered a 
 little, and said queer things : - 
 
 "I am not dead, but sleepeth. I ve lost my 
 chance to try again. Good -morning, sir. " 
 
 "It s a stroke," thought Anna. " He 11 miss his 
 mind same as Peeler, with the shakin palsy." 
 
 But it was not a stroke, and the painter did not miss 
 his mind. He found it, presently, all he ever had, and 
 perhaps a little more. And when he found it, he per 
 ceived a marvel. 
 
 On the cold hearth the fire leaped and began to 
 burn joyously. From ashes below ashes some hidden 
 spark, some covered coal, had caught, and in a 
 
 67 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 moment the cold room went warm, and the gray 
 night turned a royal color. 
 
 Did wonders, like troubles, come together? For 
 now the man was aware that an unbelievable thing 
 had happened, and this was the greatest wonder in 
 the world. Love had happened. His head was on a 
 woman s breast. He felt her arms, her tears, her lips. 
 
 The miracle of married life had happened. Long- 
 forgotten tenderness, smothered and silent, had 
 leaped from the embers of cold years ; it was not dead, 
 but smouldered; for love is not a circumstance; it is 
 not a state; it is a living soul. 
 
 "That you, Nan?" he asked feebly. "I must 
 have had a spell." 
 
 The two sat in the shining, clasped and still. She 
 did not cry any more. She feared to agitate him, 
 and was very quiet. She put her hand to his beard 
 and stroked his cheek. Her wrapper fell away from 
 her neck, but she did not notice that her throat was 
 bare, until he turned his face and kissed it. Deeny s 
 flower lilylike, starlike, childlike had fallen from 
 the warm blue gown, and lay upon her mother s 
 bosom beneath his lips. 
 
 "Nan," said Robert Dinsmore, "Nan, you may 
 bob-whizzle all you want to." 
 
 "But I don t want to, Rob." 
 
 "And, Nan, I guess I ve ordered you round some." 
 
 " I d rather you would !" cried the wife. " Should n t 
 
 68 
 
COVERED EMBERS 
 
 know you if you did n t. What 11 Mr. Herrick say?" 
 she added, in a frightened voice. It occurred to her 
 at that moment that even now the statutes would 
 require her to live alone in the house, while Robert 
 camped in the shop. 
 
 Then Robert laughed. "I ll risk Mr. Herrick, by 
 gum!" 
 
 "But the law, Rob" 
 
 "Law be hanged! This ain t law. It slovel- 
 That s a clever fire of yours, Nan," he suggested, 
 smiling beatifically at the hot birch-blaze. 
 
 He thought that she had lighted it, and she did not 
 undeceive him. She and the fire exchanged looks, 
 and kept each other s counsel, But the fire laughed. 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 AUREOLA 
 
 HER phenomenal name had been imposed by a 
 mother who read novels, and opposed by a father who 
 manufactured golf -shoes and mountain-climbers 
 the kinds that have nails in the soles. Sentiment and 
 sense struggled in the child of one of those difficult 
 unions which may acquire more consciousness of 
 happiness than they give evidence of achieving. All 
 her life she vibrated between the instinct of ideals and 
 the conviction of realities; as she grew older she read 
 more poetry, and wore an extra row of nails in her 
 walking-boots. 
 
 She kept her father s factory, as she had kept her 
 mother s name. Long before they departed for a 
 state of being where, whatever may be the custom as 
 regards novel-reading, it seems apparent that shoe- 
 factories will have become an anachronism, her 
 parents had reconciled their personal divergence in 
 her behalf in so far as to agree, with a content that 
 might have signalized a gladder marriage, upon their 
 daughter s name. They called her Aura. 
 
 All the village knew her by her Christian name, for 
 all the village honored, and most of it loved, the soli- 
 
 70 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 tary and sane old maid who had managed her father s 
 business and sustained her mother s charities with the 
 strong, dual nature which gave her something of 
 brilliance and eminence among her less composite 
 neighbors the people of monochrome or monologue. 
 
 These called her "Miss Aura," when they did not 
 call her "Miss Orry." The Miss-Aura citizens, on 
 the whole, lived in one part of the town, and the 
 Miss-Orry citizens lived in another; the Miss-Aura 
 persons went to school and college, and the Miss-Orry 
 persons went into the factory; but these were trifling 
 differences. There was no visible difference in the 
 rather remarkable feeling offered the clear-thinking, 
 warm-loving woman by the community in which she 
 had spent her life, now rounding to fifty-six happy, 
 self-forgetting years. 
 
 She came as near to being universally beloved as it 
 is possible for a person of any force of character to 
 become and remain. As she was beyond question the 
 foremost citizen of the town of Glynn, she was, in point 
 of fact, its dearest. 
 
 When it began to be suspected that Miss Aura was 
 ailing, that she was seriously ill, that she was not 
 likely to be better, the whole town was uneasy. 
 
 When it trickled out somehow that the vigorous, 
 vivacious, generous woman in the large white house 
 by the factory she who watched with other people s 
 sick, and comforted their mourning, and carried their 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 poor; she who knew the love-stories of all the girls, 
 and to whom the wildest boys gave confidences that 
 parents and teachers never heard ; she who was dear 
 in houses where there was trouble, and powerful in 
 hearts where there was temptation ; she who, having no 
 children of her own, had mothered the whole town 
 when it become known that Miss Aura was capable of 
 dying like anybody else, half of Glynn was skeptical; 
 but the other half was miserable. 
 
 In fact, every person in the village knew that Miss 
 Aura could not get well before she had thought of 
 such a thing. For the truth was that nobody was 
 willing to tell her. 
 
 "I won t. I tell you, I won t do it! Go get some 
 body else. You sha n t put it off on me. " 
 
 Thus said the old, the very old doctor who had 
 conducted her into the world and her parents out of 
 it, who had looked after Aureola herself since at nine 
 teen and in war-time she fell ill of her first and only 
 romance. He had a little of the same feeling for her 
 that everybody had, added to the other feeling ex 
 perienced by a faithful physician towards a trustful 
 patient. 
 
 "Get the young doctor to do it. Ask the minister. 
 Tell her yourself. Don t ask me. I 11 go on a vaca 
 tion first," added the old doctor, with a blaze in his 
 eyes, but a tremor on his long white beard. " Have n t 
 
 72 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 I done this thing for enough of you when nobody 
 else could be got to do the job? Who told old Sam 
 Dobson Lord! how he cursed! Who told young 
 Amy Grieve five children and a whole houseful of 
 relatives, but nobody dared open his lips. Who told 
 Annie McDonald when her man went through the 
 ice ? And Robert Dawson when his wife slipped under 
 the car ? I tell you, there has n t been a case of fibroid, 
 or Bright s, or hypertrophy, no, nor a drowning, 
 nor a trolley accident, nor a railway smash, that 
 has n t been put off on me : my own death-certificates 
 and the Almighty s too. Don t you know a doctor s 
 the last man on earth you should pile this on to? I 
 say I won t. I strike at this. I won t tell this woman. 
 I 11 I 11 go to Europe first." 
 
 In truth, the old doctor was so much disturbed that 
 he took a train to New York that afternoon, and was 
 gone some weeks, an unprecedented circumstance 
 in his history. 
 
 The young doctor was left; but he evaded the re 
 sponsibility on the ground of his youth and recent 
 acquaintance with the patient. A pardonable pro 
 fessional pride in the fact that this public calamity had 
 been his diagnosis filtered through his decorous reluc 
 tance to assume the burden of the consequences. 
 
 The minister was in town, but he was younger than 
 the doctor, and a certain gentle reserve in spiritual 
 matters on the part of his valuable parishioner had not 
 
 73 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 encouraged him to open with Miss Aura a subject 
 which everybody else preferred to keep closed. 
 
 "I will do my duty, of course, " he said plaintively, 
 "but I cannot at present see duty clearly in this direc 
 tion. Has the lady no relatives who could be in 
 duced? Her house seems always to be filled." 
 
 " Always was. Always will be," curtly said the next- 
 door neighbor, one Mrs. Ranney, who had introduced 
 the matter to the young minister. "She s that kind. 
 Always has somebody on hand t needs motherin . 
 Just now it s those boys second cousins nearest 
 she J s got. If you think those smokin , slammin , 
 singin , swaggerin college boys fit to carry news like 
 this I d ask Emmyline first," snapped the next- 
 door neighbor. 
 
 "Who is Emmyline?" inquired the young minister, 
 wavering under the scorn of this attack. 
 
 "Why, she s done for Miss Orry she s done for 
 Miss Aura this twenty years. She s her hired girl. 
 Would you recommend our leavin it to her?" added 
 the neighbor, scathingly. 
 
 "I would do my duty, of course," repeated the pas 
 tor, "but perhaps some person who has known the 
 lady longer some woman, for instance. Why not 
 yourself, Mrs. Ranney?" 
 
 "Me!" cried the next-door neighbor "me!" 
 Her large lips quivered. She had a square, freckled 
 face, and it worked. "Why, she n me we ve swapped 
 
 74 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 patterns and receipts these fifteen years! She s rich 
 V 1 m poor, her house is big n mine s little, but 
 she s never let on to make me feel it, never once in all 
 this time. And the things that woman s done for me, 
 nobody knowin but us two! Me! Well, I guess 
 you 11 have to find somebody t don t feel to her 
 the way I do if you can," added Mrs. Ranney. 
 
 She was a big woman, and she began, at this, to 
 weep in a slow, big kind of way, which so affected the 
 young minister who, if he had got to see a woman 
 cry, cherished a preference for having her small - 
 that he fled the scene and the subject precipitately. 
 Not, however, before the next-door neighbor had 
 recovered herself sufficiently to shoot after the re 
 treating divine one poisoned arrow: - 
 
 "I thought such things were what parsons were 
 
 Miss Aura went slowly upstairs to her own room. 
 It was early, scarcely eight of a vivid June day the 
 most vivid of any day that she could remember having 
 lived, since she was nineteen and it was war-time. It 
 had been one of those days when the sky is a hymn 
 and the earth is a song, when the grass-blades blaze 
 and the leaves tremble with delight, when every dande 
 lion is a star and every dandelion ghost a spirit, when a 
 robin s song sets your nerves athrill, and a rose in bud 
 seems a thing good enough to explain the creation of 
 
 75 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 the world. It had been one of those days when trouble 
 skulks, and pain is ashamed, and death is impossible; 
 when one is avid for life, and confident of having it 
 always; when the sad are comforted, and the glad are 
 ecstatic, and the content are joyous. 
 
 Miss Aura had waked that morning and found her 
 self happy. Her soul overflowed. Her heart lifted. 
 Her head was alert, and her hands laden. It seemed 
 to her that she thought of every person she knew who 
 needed her or loved her. Schemes and dreams of 
 doing little kindnesses or giving overlooked com 
 fort fled fast through her clear and active brain. She 
 had one of those exalted hours known only to the 
 strong and the self-subduing, when the possession 
 of joy seems eternal because the power to bestow it is. 
 
 "I am glad I am alive," thought Miss Aura. "I 
 shall live a long time. As long as you live you can 
 help somebody. Life is a glorious thing." 
 
 She was on her piazza, tacking the woodbine, when 
 one of her boy cousins came out he was the only 
 one in the house just then and asked her to mend 
 a glove. He did it something awkwardly, and Miss 
 Aura noticed that he looked sober for a lad. 
 
 "Rob," she asked, with her mouth full of tacks, 
 "anything wrong?" 
 
 "I m going home," the boy blurted out. "People 
 tell me you re not well. I ve been all sorts of a fool 
 to stay so long. I m not quite such a beast. Say 
 
 76 
 
SHE HAD ONE OF THOSE EXALTED HOURS 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 Cousin Aura I wish you d take care of yourself. 
 I wish you would." 
 
 When Miss Aura looked at the college boy, she saw 
 that there were real tears in his eyes. 
 
 She started to say, "Who s been talking nonsense 
 to you?" but in fact she said nothing, for the lad 
 backed away into the house, and when she had finished 
 mending his glove, he was upstairs packing. 
 
 She did not follow him, she could hardly have 
 said why, but went into her sitting-room and sat 
 down to draw some checks, and she was busy at her 
 desk when Emmyline, without announcing him, ad 
 mitted the young doctor. 
 
 He was a very young doctor, but he was not a 
 stupid one, and he perceived, without saying so, that 
 Miss Aura had changed since he saw her last. She 
 was of a firm, fine presence ; her head had the carriage 
 which belongs to tall women who have been beautiful 
 in youth. Miss Aura s eyes were dark and direct. 
 She turned them upon the young doctor, and he 
 wavered. 
 
 "Well?" she said. 
 
 "I came to see you about a case," parried the 
 young doctor. 
 
 Her hand moved toward her check-book. 
 
 "How much?" she asked, with the quick cordiality 
 which made it so easy to beg of Miss Aura. " I know 
 you would n t ask if it were not urgent, doctor." 
 
 77 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 The young doctor fumbled on about the case. She 
 drew a generous check, and handed it to him, smiling. 
 The young doctor rose to go, hesitated, returned, and 
 stood with his hat in his hands. 
 
 "I think you ought to be told, Miss Aura " 
 
 " Bad news ? " interrupted Miss Aura. "Any of my 
 boys gone wrong? It can t be one of my shop-girls. 
 Scarlet fever at the Dawsons ? Diphtheria anywhere ? 
 Nan McDonald has n t has she ? " 
 
 The young doctor shook his head with a kind of 
 vexed perplexity, or perplexed vexation. 
 
 "I did n t suppose that you were a dull woman," he 
 said. He found himself in the belief that she was 
 playing with him; he turned, put on his hat, took it off 
 again. "I was not speaking of your fellow-citizens; 
 I referred to yourself." 
 
 "Oh, well," replied Miss Aura, in a grieved tone, 
 "out with it!" 
 
 She had risen from her desk, and stood at her 
 commanding height, which looked down a trifle at 
 the young man; her color was suddenly high, and 
 out of her eyes a certain defiance blazed at the 
 physician. 
 
 "You should take the greatest possible care of your 
 health," ventured the young doctor. 
 
 "Can t," curtly said Miss Aura; "have n t got the 
 time." 
 
 "You have a serious malady," persisted the physi- 
 
 78 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 dan, more stoutly. "I have been requested to tell 
 you " 
 
 "Nonsense!" cried Miss Aura. 
 
 The young doctor s color rose; he bowed, and left 
 the room. 
 
 "Nothing ails me but these spells/ insisted Miss 
 Aura. She followed him into the hall; the woman s 
 expression had changed, but the fire in her fine eyes 
 had not gone down. 
 
 "I feel well; to-day I feel well enough to live 
 forever." 
 
 "I have not the reputation of being an alarmist," 
 observed the young physician, coldly. 
 
 He closed the front door, and his retreating foot 
 steps struck with scientific precision on the long walk 
 between the box borders that Miss Aura s mother had 
 planted. Miss Aura listened to the curt sound with 
 gentle perplexity. 
 
 "I have offended the young doctor," she thought. 
 "I must find out why." 
 
 Then she went upstairs to help Rob, and speedily 
 forgot the young doctor. Half-way up she had to 
 stop ; then again before she reached the landing. The 
 college boy heard a little stifled cry, and sprang in 
 time to catch her. When she found herself, she was 
 lying on her own bed, and Rob and Emmyline and 
 Mrs. Ranney were in the room. 
 
 "I must have had one of those spells," said 
 
 79 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 Miss Aura, guiltily. "And all Rob s packing to 
 do!" 
 
 She put her feet to the floor. 
 
 "Emmyline will help me/ replied the college boy, 
 winking violently. He and Emmyline went out of the 
 room. Mrs. Ranney remained. She put her large 
 hand on Miss Aura s small one, and mightily re 
 strained her. 
 
 "You lie still, Miss Orry. I ve got something to 
 say to you. Here, put your feet up; keep em on the 
 hot-water bag. Don t you talk. I ve come to do that 
 myself." 
 
 "Well," said Miss Aura, lying back on her pillows, 
 "then why don t you?" 
 
 "I m goin 9 to," retorted Mrs. Ranney. "It s a - 
 it s a pretty day, is n t it ? A regular weather -breeder, 
 though." 
 
 " I never knew you to talk about the weather, Mary 
 Ranney." 
 
 "The Junior Endeavor s goin to have a basket 
 picnic next week, Friday." 
 
 "Did you come over here, in the middle of the 
 morning, to tell me that, on baking day?" 
 
 "Well no. I don t know s I did," replied Mrs. 
 Ranney, with a remote, esoteric air. "Fact is, I come 
 to see you on a it s very important I m a com 
 mittee." 
 
 "Church fair?" ventured Miss Aura. "Chautau- 
 
 80 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 qua ? Wednesday Club ? Or is it that new plan for a 
 Civic League? Oh, I see. It must be the Boys 7 
 Temperance, or the Girls Friendly, or the Factory 
 Library, perhaps. Or else the Mothers Rest or the 
 Mercy to Animals. How much, Mary?" 
 
 Miss Aura s weak hand stirred to her pocket. 
 
 "I must have left it down with my check -book," 
 she said. 
 
 Across the big, freckled cheek of the next-door 
 neighbor the color of oak-leaves in November burned 
 slowly. 
 
 "I don t come beggin , Miss Orry not of sick 
 folks not to-day." 
 
 "I m perfectly well," persisted Miss Aura. " No 
 thing ails me but spells." 
 
 "I m a committee of your friends," burst out the 
 next-door neighbor; "I m a committee for an auto 
 biography. You are invited to write one." 
 
 "Whose?" asked Miss Aura, with unexpected in 
 terest. She raised herself upon her elbow. "I should 
 enjoy doing that. I like to write and read. But I 
 never have had time. Whose biography is it?" 
 
 "Land sakes, Miss Orry!" cried Mrs. Ranney, 
 with a groan. "It s yours I m after!" 
 
 "Oh!" said Miss Aura, in a disappointed tone. 
 
 "You see," groped on Mrs. Ranney, "the ladies 
 thought they said as you was n t very well - 
 and you d lived such an interesting life so long 
 
 81 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 amongst us and so many folks loved you, Miss 
 Aura they said, Miss Orry, if you d write your 
 autobiography this summer it might if anything 
 should ever happen not that anything ever will. 
 But everybody sets so much by you, dear, and so I m 
 a committee to request you to tell you Lord!" 
 cried the committee, "I would n t do it again for no 
 man!" 
 
 She sat back exhausted, rose, stooped, and kissed 
 Miss Aura with a wet, resounding smack, and rolled 
 out of the room. Miss Aura lay quite still when Mary 
 Ranney had trundled away. 
 
 "I don t understand," she thought. "It is a very 
 singular thing; but I ll do it. I ll write them their 
 autobiography." 
 
 Miss Aura got up and finished Rob s packing and 
 kissed him good -by; ate a little dinner, and tried to 
 sew awhile for the next missionary barrel, but found 
 herself more and more perplexed by the events of that 
 extraordinary day. 
 
 For the fact was that the concerted conscience of 
 her fellow-citizens, at last aroused to the necessity of 
 somebody s telling Miss Aura that she could never 
 get well, had broken out in an epidemic. Everybody 
 had hit upon the same day for the performance of this 
 unwelcome duty, and everybody, so far, had failed 
 completely. 
 
 In the afternoon the young minister added himself 
 
 82 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 to the unhappy list. His reluctant conscience, having 
 flayed him to the task, well-nigh deserted him at the 
 crisis. He made a pleasant, impersonal call, carefully 
 selecting every topic in the scope of parish proprieties 
 excepting that which had brought him to Miss Aura s 
 house. He talked church politics, town charities, and 
 the Civic League; the Junior Endeavor, the Girls 7 
 Friendly and the Boys Temperance, the Factory 
 Library, the morning s news, Kipling s last poem, 
 and the Harvard and Yale game, 
 
 Miss Aura spoke and listened eagerly. She had what 
 she called a beautiful time. She had never known that 
 the young minister could be so entertaining. She was 
 disappointed when his manner suddenly flagged, and 
 he began in a remote professional way to introduce 
 religious topics. When he inquired about her spiritual 
 condition, Miss Aura politely changed the subject to 
 house-plants, and branched from this illimitable 
 theme to the pecuniary circumstances of the Dawsons 
 and the Grieves. Miss Aura was a good parishioner 
 and a good Christian, but she cherished a reluctance 
 to turning her soul wrong side or even right side out 
 for the inspection of ministers. 
 
 "The love of life," urged the young minister, "is a 
 healthy instinct ; but the imminence of death and 
 the necessity of preparation for it - 
 
 "I can t stop to think about death," interrupted 
 Miss Aura. "I ve got too much to do." 
 
 83 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 "Yet, as one advances in years - blundered the 
 inexperienced minister. 
 
 " Sir ! " cried Miss Aura. " I am only fifty-six." 
 
 "I beg your pardon," interposed the young man. 
 "You see, I am twenty-eight, and our standards are, 
 I suppose, not synchronous. I only wish to remind 
 you I have been asked to tell you - 
 
 "Tell me something jolly! " demanded Miss Aura, 
 irreverently. "Death is n t in my line, you see." 
 
 "I see," replied the baffled clergyman, but without 
 a smile. 
 
 He changed the subject to the Day Nursery, the 
 Mothers Rest, and the Mercy to Animals, and 
 Miss Aura s spirits rose to their natural level. She 
 entertained him so charmingly that he quite forgot 
 what he had come to say to her, and left half an 
 hour later, as happy and, to all appearances, as 
 unspiritual as herself. 
 
 But she was tired when the young minister had 
 gone, and Emmyline found her lying on the sofa in 
 the dark. Emmyline lighted the gas, and the face of 
 the old servant showed rigidlv in the sharp illumi 
 nation. 
 
 Emmyline was a small woman, and thin; she 
 stooped a little, and her hair was grayer than Miss 
 Aura s. She loved Miss Aura with the long-tried, 
 unillusioned love that is possible only between mis 
 tress and maid an old-fashioned love which has 
 
 84 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 almost passed out of date in our domestic economy. 
 For fifteen years the two solitary women had shared 
 "the kingdom called home." Neither had nearer ties, 
 and their affection was as mutual as their respect. 
 
 Emmyline came up and stood by the sofa; her 
 face was in the shadow, she stood in profile, and that 
 brought out her stoop. 
 
 " Emmyline/ began her mistress, abruptly, "I m 
 not a fool, am I ? " 
 
 "I don t know s I ever said you was," admitted 
 Emmyline, cautiously. 
 
 "This house has been full of people all day trying 
 to say something they have n t said, Emmyline." 
 
 "Think so?" asked Emmyline, but her work-worn 
 hands began to tremble. 
 
 "I don t understand, Emmyline. I can t see what 
 they re all up to. But I m not a fool. There s some 
 thing. I want to know what it is." 
 
 "Lord!" groaned Emmyline. "I said all day t 
 would be left for me. I did n t hire out for it." 
 
 "Very well," said Miss Aura, with the patient 
 sweetness that always brought Emmyline round. 
 "You need n t unless you want to. I only thought - 
 if it is n t very good news I d rather hear it from 
 you, Emmyline. I d rather than from anybody else 
 in the world. We ve lived together so long." 
 
 "That s the worst on t! " cried Emmyline. " We 
 can t live together much longer!" 
 
 85 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 "What ? " gasped Miss Aura. "Not live together! 
 You and I, Emmyline ! You going to leave me ! You! " 
 
 "Oh, Miss Orry! Miss Orry!" wailed Emmyline. 
 "It s you that s a-goin to leave me ! " 
 
 The old servant got upon her knees beside the sofa, 
 and threw her arms about Miss Aura s neck. 
 
 "There ain t one of em had the pluck to darst to 
 tell you," sobbed Emmyline. "Me that loves you 
 more n the whole keboodle of em put together 
 I ve got to do it! I ve got to do it! Oh, my dear! my 
 dear!" 
 
 So Emmyline told her all there was to tell. 
 
 Now Miss Aura was going slowly upstairs. Emmy- 
 line had gone back to wash the dishes. The house 
 was very still. The street light shone on the box 
 borders that Miss Aura s mother planted. 
 
 "Mother died at three in the morning. It was ebb 
 tide," thought Miss Aura. She had not remembered 
 this before for some years. She went up and on, and 
 into her own room. She locked the door and sat 
 down on the edge of the bed, and her face sank into 
 her hands. Suddenly raising her head, she perceived 
 that the room was dark, and felt an uncontrollable 
 and mysterious fright. She groped for matches, and 
 lighted her candle with a shaking hand. As she did 
 so, her eye fell upon a little book, old, and so much 
 worn that the cover scarcely held to its place; the 
 
 86 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 print was so small that Miss Aura had not been able 
 to read it even with her Boston glasses for some 
 years; but the book always stood upon the table by 
 her bed. 
 
 She took the ragged little book now, and held it 
 for a moment thoughtfully. Then she slid slowly to 
 her knees, and the woman who would not talk about 
 her spiritual condition to her minister laid her cheek 
 upon the Bible that her mother gave her, and, with 
 out a word, for the first time admitted to her soul the 
 consciousness of approaching death. 
 
 Inarticulate prayer like that expends the body, but 
 sustains the spirit, and Miss Aura, when she rose 
 from her knees, dropped panting upon her bed. But 
 she found that her feeling of fright had quite left her, 
 and presently she regained her strength and got up 
 to go downstairs. 
 
 "Emmyline will be worried," she thought. But 
 she whose life had responded always to the claims of 
 other people, and who denied herself in that supreme 
 hour the sacred right of solitude for the sake of an 
 old servant, suddenly found herself confronted by a 
 power stronger than the habit of her life. This was 
 the power of a memory. 
 
 Lingering to find her keys, Miss Aura unlocked 
 the desk which stood beyond the screen, below the 
 crayon picture of her mother, between the windows 
 that gave the sun. She carried the candle and set it 
 
 87 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 down; drew from the desk a small photograph, and 
 held it to the fluttering light. It was an old photo 
 graph, dating back to the eighteen-sixties, and it had 
 yellowed and faded so that the portrait seemed to 
 retreat into a mist. The lad was like the wraith of a 
 lad, and the soldier seemed to be the ghost of a soldier. 
 Does young love become an apparition, appearing 
 and disappearing through a long, preoccupied life, 
 visiting the heart like a sweet and solemn mystery, 
 cherished more by reverence than by passion, and 
 becoming more a vision than a pain ? 
 
 Sometimes Miss Aura may have thought so. That 
 night she examined the picture of her soldier with an 
 attention strangely energized and poignant. After 
 she had laid the photograph back in the desk, she took 
 it out again and lifted it to her lips, but most quietly, 
 and without tears. 
 
 Then she went downstairs to comfort Emmyline, 
 and they both sewed the rest of the evening for the 
 missionary barrel. Aureola went late to bed, and 
 slept soundly. 
 
 At four o clock in the morning she awoke from a 
 dreamless night. Beyond the salt-marshes the distant 
 tide was rising. The June morning was broadening 
 to a hot day. The birds were singing; the woodbine 
 stirred against the window in a gentle wind. Dew was 
 on the box, and the scent of the yellow roses in the 
 garden came up delicately. Suddenly Miss Aura 
 
 88 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 remembered walking one day in the garden, but not 
 alone, and the yellow roses brushed against her white 
 dress and dashed it with gold. Then, too, beyond the 
 marshes the distant tide was rising. That was 
 thirty no, that was almost forty years ago. 
 
 "Why, I suppose," she said aloud, "after all this 
 while I shall see Ralph. " 
 
 She went downstairs with a strange emotion upon 
 her. Her heart was not heavy, yet it did not lift as 
 it did yesterday morning. She had put on a white 
 dress by some impulse which she could not have ex 
 plained, and Emmyline glanced at it, but without 
 remark. She and Emmyline avoided each other s 
 eyes; they talked of the thermometer and straw 
 berries. 
 
 "I guess you ll take it easy to-day," ventured 
 Emmyline at last; "it s goin to be a scorcher." 
 
 " Oh, I ve got nothing at all to do to-day, " replied 
 Miss Aura, "only those checks to finish, and we 11 
 pack the missionary barrel and get it off, and I pro 
 mised the Dawsons I d run over, the baby s sick, 
 and I feel somehow as if I ought to see Nan Mc 
 Donald a minute; and I m due on the library com 
 mittee and the Day Nursery and the Mothers Rest. 
 Oh, I said I d serve on the Mercy to Animals. But 
 I really have nothing much to do. I promise you I 11 
 take it easy, Emmyline." 
 
 "Think so!" sniffed Emmyline. "Looks like it! 
 
 89 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 What s Mis McDonald gosgaddin over this time o 
 day for, I d like to know ? Folks says she has the 
 second sight." 
 
 "It must be Nan," murmured Miss Aura, inaudi- 
 bly. It usually was Nan. Nan was one of the too 
 familiar products of our day a girl who had got 
 beyond her mother. Nobody could do much with 
 Nan except Miss Aura. But when she saw the face 
 of the Scotch mother that morning, Aureola s own 
 blanched. She turned the key of the sitting-room, 
 and the two women talked in low tones for an hour. 
 Then, without consulting Emmyline, they went out 
 together into the hot sun. 
 
 The sick woman had quite forgotten that she was 
 not going to live a long time. Her beautiful face 
 was absorbed and stern. She carried her head like 
 St. Ursula, who protected eleven thousand virgins 
 beneath her mantle. 
 
 Miss Aura had begun the first day of her "prepa 
 ration for death" by a divine and delicate task which 
 spent her, soul and body. She was trying to save a 
 tempted girl from a married man. 
 
 It was full midsummer before any one said any 
 thing to Aureola about the autobiography. Then Mrs. 
 Ranney asked abruptly one day: 
 
 " Is it done?" 
 
 Miss Aura looked quite confused. 
 
 90 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 "Do you mean the Factory Library? It will be 
 finished by the last of next week. If it s the fund for 
 the Mercy to Animals, no. It goes slowly this year. 
 But I think I can make it up almost. " 
 
 "I meant that autobiography," said Mrs. Ranney, 
 reproachfully. "I am a committee of your friends. 
 I feel responsible. " 
 
 "Oh, yes," replied Miss Aura, unexpectedly, "I Ve 
 begun the autobiography. In fact," she added, "I 
 believe it s about done." 
 
 Pretty long ? demanded Mary Ranney. l You Ve 
 known so many interes/ing things, and folks set so 
 much by you." 
 
 "I 11 work some more on it to-night," said Miss 
 Aura, guiltily. 
 
 That evening she locked herself into her room, 
 drew from her desk a pile of manuscript, and slowly 
 read it over several times. The manuscript ran thus : 
 
 MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 I am glad I am alive. 
 
 I was born in Christmas week in the year 1845. 
 This event occurred in the town of Glynn, and in the 
 house that I now occupy. 
 
 My father said I was a very homely baby. 
 
 My mother said I cried steadily the first six weeks 
 of my life. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 I think I must have done up most of my crying in 
 those six weeks. 
 
 The first time that I remember myself I was not 
 crying. I was quite happy. 
 
 When I was ten I had the measles. 
 
 When I was sixteen I joined the church. 
 
 When I was nineteen there was a war. 
 
 When I was thirty I took the management of my 
 factory. 
 
 Thus I became acquainted with my dear girls who 
 work upon the shoes. 
 
 I have known many dear girls. I have known a 
 great many lovely people. 
 
 I have had the best neighbors that any woman ever 
 had in this or any other town. 
 
 I have had the dearest friends whom any person 
 could have in this or any other world. 
 
 I have received more kindness than I can begin to 
 remember, and more affection than I can possibly 
 deserve. 
 
 Nobody living has ever done me a wrong. 
 
 I cannot remember that I ever hated any person. 
 The nearest I ever came to it was once where a man 
 tried to do a harm to a poor girl I knew. Then 
 there was once when I saw a man beat a horse to 
 death. 
 
 I thought I should enjoy writing this autobio 
 graphy; but I find it very hard work. 
 
 92 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 It is the hardest work I ever did in my life. I did 
 not know it was so hard to write. 
 
 Perhaps I could write better if I had some interest 
 ing subject. 
 
 I send my love to all my dear girls, and my neighbors 
 and my boy cousins, and to everybody in Glynn. 
 
 I think I am too busy to write an autobiography. 
 I have a great deal to do. 
 
 I have always had a great deal to do. I have 
 always been very busy. 
 
 I have always been very happy. Not counting a 
 few exceptional instances of no interest to any person 
 but myself, I have been happy all my life. 
 
 I am glad that I have been alive. I would rather 
 not die if I could help it; but I am glad that I have 
 lived. 
 
 One day in the last week of October the young 
 minister sat in his study trying to write a doctrinal 
 sermon, because an important parishioner had com 
 plained that the pulpit was destitute of doctrinal 
 sermons. 
 
 It was a bleak day; November had bitten in upon 
 the soft flesh of a rich and tender autumn ; there was 
 a flurry of unseasonable snow in the air; before it the 
 dead leaves were fleeing like unholy ghosts, and the 
 wind came straight from the salt marshes. 
 
 The doctrinal sermon went hard. The minister 
 
 93 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 thought that if the important parishioner had not 
 been one of those rich people who rule affairs in factory 
 towns, he would have written instead a short sermon 
 about the tenderness of Christ to sick people, which 
 of late had been much in his mind. 
 
 He was not sorry to be interrupted in his reluctant 
 work by the most unexpected caller whom the par 
 sonage had entertained since the young man had 
 occupied it. This was a more important parishioner 
 than the man who demanded doctrinal sermons. It 
 was, in fact, Miss Aura. She had never called upon 
 the minister before, and he received her with pro 
 portional interest. She delayed somewhat in making 
 known her errand, and he confided to her every 
 body confided something to Miss Aura his discom 
 fort about the doctrinal sermon. 
 
 "Doctrinal fiddlesticks !" cried the lady. 
 
 "I agree with you perfectly," interrupted the minis 
 ter. "But the commercial nature he is in cotton, 
 I believe," pursued the young student, vaguely. 
 
 "Who is he?" demanded Miss Aura, with a sudden 
 reduction of tone. 
 
 The minister gave the name of the important 
 parishioner. 
 
 Miss Aura s brows darkened to a visible, almost a 
 savage frown. Evidently struggling to withhold ex 
 planation of her displeasure, she said shortly: 
 
 "Put that sermon in the fire! Write one about 
 
 94 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 Pharisees and hypocrites! I ve come/ she added, 
 with one of her sv/ift and fascinating changes of man 
 ner, "to talk to you on a personal matter. I never 
 did such a thing before. I never consulted a minister 
 about myself in all my life." 
 
 "It must be a great exigency which has driven you 
 to do so," answered the minister, quietly. 
 
 The tact and delicacy of this reply soothed Miss 
 Aura so much that she felt ashamed of having expected 
 to be met by anything else. 
 
 "Well, I suppose it is," she admitted, with strongly 
 restrained emotion. " But I don t know how to begin, 
 all the same." 
 
 "Don t try," urged the young pastor, gently. 
 "Break into the middle of the subject; or the end, for 
 that matter. It is possible that I understand without 
 being told." 
 
 "Oh, I dare say," responded Miss Aura, wearily. 
 " Everybody in town understood before I did. I can t 
 get well. I suppose you know that. I m going to 
 die. I am going to die," she repeated. An 
 expression of incredulous horror settled slowly upon 
 every feature of her strong countenance; it was as if 
 she threw off, rather than drew off, a mask which she 
 had worn so long and so closely that it had clung to 
 her flesh. Her face seemed to tear in the act. She 
 did not look at the minister. 
 
 1 1 1 have lost strength, she resumed . "I am not as I 
 
 95 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 was last spring. I am weaker than I was in July. 
 I may not live as long as I think I shall, as I thought 
 I should. I understand it at last perfectly. I am 
 going to die. I have got to a point where saying, I 
 will live, does n t amount to anything any more. 
 I ve got to die, in spite of me. And I m not ready." 
 
 "Then I don t know who is," exclaimed the min 
 ister, warmly. 
 
 Miss Aura, who was expecting a homily on her 
 spiritual condition, turned squarely around and pre 
 sented fully to the young man an astonished and 
 warring face on which the ravages of her malady were 
 but lightly etched. Miss Aura was one of those people 
 who look well till they are in their coffins. 
 
 "It is n t possible," she said in a very low voice, 
 "that you really understand." 
 
 "No," he replied; "it is not possible for me a 
 young fellow out of the seminary only a few years 
 to understand the strength, the beauty, the sanctity of 
 a character like yours." 
 
 "Sanctity!" interrupted Miss Aura. "I haven t 
 got a bit of sanctity. It s nothing but sense." 
 
 "But I can understand that I do not understand," 
 proceeded the minister," and that may be something." 
 
 "You are a remarkable boy!" cried Miss Aura, 
 with her own mischief, and smiling merrily. "Per 
 haps I was n t such a fool to come here, after all. You 
 see, the trouble is, I have n t got time to get ready to 
 
 96 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 die. I m too busy. I have too much to do. I mean 
 to, but I never can seem to catch up. I say: Now I 
 will think about dying. I will pray a great deal more. 
 I will read more chapters at night. I will sit down and 
 make a business of getting ready for the next world. 7 
 I say: You ve got to go there. You ve got to make 
 a decent appearance in that life you know no more 
 about than that poor kitten we saved from the medi 
 cal student at the Mercy to Animals last week knows 
 how to write a doctrinal sermon. And yet you ve 
 got to go there. Oh ! " with a break in her firm voice, 
 " nobody knows. Nobody can. It s only those 
 that go through it that can understand. I would n t 
 ask it of you. You could n t. You re young and 
 well, and a man and a minister. But don t you see 
 I have taken it for granted that you know your 
 business ? Come ! What did your professors teach you 
 to say to a middle-aged woman who has n t got time 
 to die?" 
 
 The clergyman slowly shook his head in silence. 
 
 "I understand the shoe business and factories," 
 continued Miss Aura, "and shop-girls and sick neigh 
 bors ; stray dogs and all those things. I never was 
 at a divinity school. You were. What will become of 
 me if I never do catch up? There never was any 
 body, I do believe, who found so little time to think 
 about her own soul. You see, there are so many other 
 people all my poor girls, and one in particular I 
 
 97 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 am very anxious about. Her mother and I take turns 
 going out evenings to watch and see her get safely 
 home. And then there are always so many people 
 sick. And when I get to bed at last, I must own I m 
 pretty tired tireder than I was. Oh, I don t want 
 any sympathy ! I can stand suffering. I can stand any 
 thing but seeing other persons suffer. You know for 
 yourself how much harder that is. But come now! I 
 should like to know if I go crash into eternity some 
 day, and have not time to do a single thing to get ready 
 - what then ? I suppose I 11 be blamed for it. I 
 suppose I shan t be fit to enter good society up 
 there. Not if I go on this way. And I presume I shall. 
 Probably I shall die with my head full of things. 
 It s cram-jam full now. Last at night, first at day 
 break for I don t sleep as I used to things! Not 
 religious things, you understand, nothing sacred, or 
 divine, or that. Fancy going to heaven while you re 
 planning out a club supper for shop-girls, or trimming 
 a hat for your cook, or sending letters to college boys 
 who have got into a scrape, or or writing checks for 
 somebody. Or perhaps you re chloroforming a dis 
 eased dog that nobody would keep and nobody would 
 touch. Come! Out with it! What will become of me 
 if I never have time to think about what you called my 
 spiritual condition?" 
 
 " Did I ever call it names ? " interposed the minister. 
 "At any rate, I never will again." 
 
 98 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 "Do you think they ll send me to hell?" added 
 Miss Aura, whimsically. She spoke right on, as if 
 she had not been interrupted. 
 
 "If they do, then I don t know anybody who will 
 get to heaven," observed the inexperienced pastor. " I 
 can t teach you, Miss Aura. I can t help you. You 
 have taught me far too much. But it seems to me, if 
 I were you, I would n t trouble. I would n t bother 
 myself about these eschatological difficulties." 
 
 Miss Aura nodded comfortably. 
 
 "Yes, I know. Eschatology means last things. 
 Why did n t you say so?" she added. 
 
 "I shall, next time," replied the young minister, 
 humbly. He gave her his blessing, such as it was, 
 and comforted her, as he could; and then the very 
 young pastor had to send for the very young doctor 
 suddenly, for the agitation of her first and last " spir 
 itual" interview with a minister had been too much for 
 Aureola. She slid quietly off the edge of her chair, and 
 dropped upon the study floor. 
 
 She grew somewhat more amenable after this; 
 followed advice, up to a point, and promised every 
 body with suspicious readiness that she would be 
 careful. 
 
 When the old, the very old doctor said, "Aureola, 
 you must put in a telephone," she put one in. When 
 the young doctor (who afterwards found occasion to 
 wish he had not) told her she must keep a horse, she 
 
 99 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 bought a horse. This she did without objection, be 
 cause it provided a situation for Nan McDonald s 
 brother Ja, and rides for half the invalids in town. 
 But she got very tired entertaining the invalids, so she 
 used to stay at home and let Ja drive them out without 
 her. In fact, Aureola, as everybody could see, was 
 " losing," but nobody dared to tell her so. They were 
 afraid she would take on some terrible spurt of self- 
 denial, and waste herself. She moved through what 
 remained to her of time, like the old Greek racer who 
 ran and carried fire, holding her torch above her head. 
 She worked as if she expected annihilation. The 
 Christian doctrine of eternal life seemed to have gone 
 out of her mind. One would have thought, who 
 observed the woman, that the present moment was 
 the last chance to exist, and that existence meant 
 nothing whatever but the relief of other people s 
 miseries. Of the enthusiasm of humanity Aureola 
 had made an art, as another paints or writes or sings. 
 
 She spent herself with a divine fervor, behind which 
 there was something of the deliberation and calm 
 pertaining always to art. While she seemed most mad 
 she was most sane. Thus the autumn went with her, 
 and winter found her weakened, radiant, and sur 
 charged with loving activities. Then there happened 
 that which is recalled in Glynn to this day with hushed 
 voices and brimming eyes. 
 
 One night in late December Miss Aura was lying 
 100 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 on the sofa downstairs, pale and peaceful, her noble 
 day s work done, and her hard night before her, - 
 for she battled much for breath when she should have 
 slept, when voices were heard wrestling in the 
 hall: that of Emmyline, strident, imperious, deny 
 ing; that of another, pleading and claiming admis 
 sion with a note of anguish which brought Aureola s 
 feet to the floor in an instant. She called Emmyline 
 peremptorily. 
 
 "It s that everlasting never-dyin Mis McDonald 
 gosgaddin over here in a snow-storm after you," cried 
 Emmyline, with holy anger. "Talk about second 
 sight! First sight of you would teach her to leave you 
 be. You re a-murderin of Miss Orry!" blazed Em 
 myline, turning upon the Scotchwoman. 
 
 But Miss Aura, when her compassionate eyes had 
 met the mother s, said: "Emmyline, bring my furs 
 and sleighing-hood. Tell Ja to put Peter into the 
 double sleigh. I am going out, Emmyline. Do you 
 understand ? / am going" 
 
 By this time Annie McDonald had thrust out a 
 hand from whose shaking grasp a bit of paper flut 
 tered to the floor. Even then she allowed Miss Aura 
 to stoop and pick it up herself. It was a half-sheet 
 of pink, perfumed note-paper, torn and stained, wet 
 with snow and tears; it contained, in a few words, one 
 of the most piteous outcries of this sad world the 
 farewell of a ruined girl to her mother. 
 
 101 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 "He took her in a sleigh," said the Scotchwoman, 
 dully. " They ve driven yander to the meshes. I 
 see them dashin by. I called after the mon for the 
 luve of heaven an her mither but he s got her 
 in the sleigh." 
 
 "I ll get him in a sleigh!" answered Miss Aura. 
 Her voice was terrible, and so was her face. With this 
 undramatic comment she passed the dramatic mo 
 ment flung on her furs, brushed the mother aside, 
 pushed Emmyline off, ran out into the snow, herself 
 helping Ja to get the heavy harness on, and whirled 
 away with the lad into the storm. She took two whips ; 
 one she kept in her own hand. 
 
 "An ? for what should we be goin to the meshes? " 
 complained Ja, stupid and rebellious, after the 
 manner of his kind when the unexpected occurs. 
 Although the storm was assuming the windpipe of a 
 blizzard, Miss Aura put her lips to the boy s ear, and 
 whispered what she had to say, so careful was she 
 of long habit about the reputation of a girl. Of the 
 worst in town no person had ever heard Miss Aura 
 repeat a severe or slighting word. 
 
 Now, indeed, the lad set his teeth and laid the whip 
 on the horse. The sleigh sped into the throat of the 
 storm. Miss Aura said nothing more. She drew her 
 sleighing-hood far over her face. Once or twice Ja 
 heard her gasp. Only once she cried : 
 
 "Turn around quick a minute! " 
 1 02 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 Ja turned and got her back to the wind till she 
 could recall her breath. Her lips were purple, and 
 her cheeks. She went so far as to say: - 
 
 "Wait a minute longer! " 
 
 Then they turned and dashed on. The snow, 
 though it slew the breath and froze the blood, was 
 light, and accumulated slowly. Miss Aura s hand 
 some sleigh flew down the long marsh road like an 
 aeroplane. She crouched under the fox robe and 
 tried to hold it up to her throat. But the inability to 
 use her arms prevented; these dropped, and the robe 
 with them; it slid to her knees. She had laid the whip 
 upon the robe. The salt wind drove from the sea; it 
 seemed to her as if it drove into her soul- 
 
 "Blank him to blank!" yelled the lad, suddenly. 
 "I see him! I see J em! I see em in a cutter yander 
 down acrost the bridge!" 
 
 Ja stood up in the sleigh, lashing and swearing. 
 Praying and crying, Miss Aura clutched her extra 
 whip, and the president of the Mercy to Animals, she 
 who would go twenty miles to find an abused kitten, 
 she who treated her horse like a younger brother, 
 who babied and spoiled him past the lot of any other 
 horse in town, brought down the whip, the second 
 whip, on Peter s quivering flank, and overtook the 
 cutter just beyond the bridge. 
 
 It will never be known just how she did it, but 
 somehow she rode the fellow down, hurled herself out, 
 
 103 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 and barred his way, standing straight and tall across 
 the road. Before he could collect himself, she had 
 her hand on the bridle. 
 
 "Come, Nan," she said quietly. 
 
 There was a street lamp just there, the rough 
 town kept the lonely marsh road lighted in self- 
 defense, and the flickering kerosene gave a sight of 
 the Scotch girl, pale and pretty, weak of mouth, warm 
 of eyes, a poor creature, to be spoiled and flung 
 away. 
 
 It gave, too, a swift and cowardly vision of the man, 
 whose wife trusted him, whose children loved him, 
 whose neighbors honored him, whose church deferred 
 to him. He, indeed, was the important parishioner 
 who demanded doctrinal sermons. 
 
 Miss Aura stood, as we say, very straight and tall. 
 She had her St. Ursula look. She was divinely 
 beautiful and divinely angry. 
 
 With her weakened arms she raised her extra whip 
 and brought the lash down on the neck and cheek of 
 the important parishioner, once, twice, and perhaps 
 again. And the brother of the girl, without staying to 
 ask permission, joined in from behind with the other 
 whip. 
 
 "Come, Nan," Miss Aura spoke again. "Come 
 home with me to your mother." 
 
 She held out her hand. Nan took it with hanging 
 head, and followed the lady like a dog. 
 
 104 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 "I m sorry, Peter," panted Miss Aura. She laid 
 her shaking hand on her sweating and astounded 
 horse. "It was between you and the girl. We 11 drive 
 home slowly, Peter." 
 
 Now, in fact, they drove home very slowly, for 
 neither Nan nor Ja expected to get Miss Aura home 
 at all. But her indomitable spirit served her, and 
 Emmyline, crying silently and savagely, was there 
 to meet them at the end of the path, where the snow 
 lay on the box borders. Emmyline had telephoned 
 for the young doctor, and he and Ja carried Miss Aura 
 in and up to her own bed. 
 
 There she lay quietly for a few days, disturbed at 
 first when she found she could not get up and go to the 
 fair for the Mercy to Animals; but she accepted this 
 disappointment cheerily, as she had all the others of 
 her life. 
 
 It was left for the very old doctor, after all, to tell 
 her he who had brought her into the world and 
 helped her parents out of it. One evening she was 
 looking at the crayon portrait of her mother above 
 the desk where the misty photograph was locked, 
 when a face, with the accumulated pity of more 
 than four-score beneficent years upon it, bent over 
 the bed. 
 
 "Why, doctor!" said Aureola. "I thought you 
 had a bad cold. You should n t have come out in the 
 night air to see me. What did you do it for ? " 
 
 105 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 But she perceived, as soon as she asked, what he 
 did it for. 
 
 " Doctor," asked Miss Aura, "is this it?" 
 
 The old doctor nodded without speaking, and 
 turned his face away. 
 
 "Oh, very well," replied Aureola, gently. She 
 thought she heard some one crying, and looking about, 
 was astonished to see how many people were in the 
 room. 
 
 Mary Ranney was there. She stood looking over 
 the screen. Her square face, with last summer s 
 freckles still upon it, appeared strange to Miss Aura, 
 like a big bodiless cherub that was overgrown. The 
 Scotchwoman was there, but she showed no face 
 at all, having buried it in the bedclothes where she 
 knelt at the foot of the bed. Somewhere, quite out 
 of sight in the hall or on the stairs, a girl was 
 sobbing. 
 
 The young doctor was there, and the young minister. 
 Emmyline was there. She sat on the other side of 
 the bed, jealously holding one of Miss Aura s hands 
 in her thin, hard ringers. Oddly it occurred to 
 Aureola at the moment how pleased Emmyline had 
 always been because she wore a size smaller glove 
 than her mistress did. Emmyline sat in profile, and 
 that brought out her stoop. 
 
 Rob was there, too. Miss Aura became aware that 
 the boy was sitting out of sight and had his arm 
 
 106 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 about her, behind the pillows. She had treated all 
 those boys alike, but only Rob had cared enough to 
 come. 
 
 "Why, Rob," she said, "you re spoiling your 
 vacation for me!" 
 
 But she was pleased that he was there, for the power 
 of kin is strong, and the love of kin is precious at the 
 end of life. "No debts this term, Rob?" she whis 
 pered. "That s good, dear." 
 
 Miss Aura looked all around the room; her eyes, 
 quite clear and strong, moved to the faces of her 
 friends each in turn. Suddenly her lips twitched, and 
 she laughed. 
 
 "It looks like the Death-bed of Calvin/ or Last 
 Hours of Daniel Webster. Doctor, do give them a 
 better pose." 
 
 Then she beckoned to the minister. 
 
 "I told you so," she complained. "I said I should 
 go crash into eternity, doing something I should n t. 
 And here I am laughing ! Besides," she added, " I did 
 a dreadful thing. I got dreadfully angry. I horse 
 whipped a man." 
 
 "I honor you for it!" replied the young pastor. 
 
 "I hope I did n t hurt him very much/ panted 
 Miss Aura. "I didn t mean to. But I think he 11 
 keep away from her now don t you?" 
 
 Then her mind returned persistently to the thoughts 
 that had been troubling her, touching her own unfit- 
 To; 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 ness for the life invisibly to be; and she detained the 
 young minister to ask: 
 
 "What have you got to say to me? You ought to 
 know your trade. You must see that I ve been too 
 busy. I have never had time to make preparation for 
 death. To-night I haven t even read my chapter. 
 Where s Nan? " she asked anxiously. "I thought 
 Nan was in the house. She hasn t gone out 
 sleigh-riding has she?" 
 
 Somebody called Nan. She came in with hanging 
 head, and knelt instinctively. The college boy made 
 way for her, moving to the other side, where Emmy- 
 line was, and Miss Aura feebly put her arm around 
 Nan s neck. 
 
 "The Lord bless them and keep them my poor 
 girls for I can t. I can t do it any longer, Nan," 
 said St. Ursula. 
 
 After this she spoke a little about her shop-girls, and 
 the Mercy to Animals; tried to say what she wanted 
 done for Emmyline, and the Factory Library, and for 
 Peter, and for some of her poorest people. 
 
 But she soon ceased to try to talk much. She 
 made it understood that she wished the desk- 
 drawer unlocked and the manuscript autobiography 
 taken therefrom. This she put into Mrs. Ranney s 
 hands. 
 
 "I m sorry it isn t longer, Mary Ranney," she 
 apologized; "but I found it very hard work." 
 
 1 08 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 The night was long, and more air was needed in the 
 room.* The old doctor sent some of the neighbors 
 away. 
 
 The night was long and the conflict strong. Miss 
 Aura did not die like a weak person. Yet those who 
 loved her best said afterward that it was the happiest 
 passing they had ever seen. She treated death as she 
 had treated life like a great opportunity, and a glad 
 one. 
 
 "Are you sure this is it?" she repeated to the old 
 doctor. "I have often suffered more than this a 
 great deal more." 
 
 "You ought to tell people," she managed to add, 
 "that dying is easier than living. Tell them I said 
 how easy it is. It might be of use to somebody," 
 she urged, anxious to give comfort, anxious to save 
 pain to the very end. 
 
 She did not say anything more about her religious 
 views, or her personal feeling concerning the great 
 event which was upon her. A certain reserve which 
 was natural to her in such matters exhibited itself, as 
 it always had. Once she asked for her mother s Bible, 
 and Rob put it into her hand. She laid her cheek upon 
 it and kept it there. 
 
 As the cold night moved solemnly toward daybreak, 
 and the tide turned on the salt-marshes, she found 
 that she did not see plainly. Only Emmyline s face 
 remained visible to her. The old servant was* the last 
 
 109 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 person whom she saw Emmyline sitting in profile, 
 with her stoop. 
 
 At three in the morning, at the ebb of the tide, 
 Miss Aura said suddenly and quite distinctly: 
 
 "Why, Ralph! Why, Ralph!" 
 
 But nobody knew what she meant, and the two 
 doctors said she wandered. 
 
 When the Scotchwoman, who had the second sight, 
 came out of her own house to go back to the other in 
 the freezing dawn (for she could not stay away), she 
 stood still in the snow with a sudden stricture at the 
 heart, half of awe and half of fright for there, she 
 said, she met Miss Orry walking down the path be 
 tween the box borders that her mother had planted. 
 Beside her, the Scotchwoman always told, there 
 walked a lad. His face was the face of a soldier lad 
 beneath an army cap. 
 
 "An J the twa gaed doon the road thegither an 
 went their way beyand the een of me." 
 
 When the young doctor heard this he smiled; but 
 the young minister pondered. 
 
 Now, when Mary Ranney came to read over the 
 autobiography of Aureola, she found it very short and 
 all unfinished, as we have seen. It set forth the facts 
 that Miss Aura was born, as she died, in Christmas 
 week, that she had the measles, that she joined the 
 church, that when she was nineteen there was a war, 
 
 no 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 that she sent her love to all her dear girls, that she 
 had been always quite busy and very happy, that no 
 person had ever done her a wrong, nor had she hated 
 any person, and that she was glad she was alive. 
 
 Like the sacred book of the Apocalypse, nothing 
 had been added, nor could be, to this brief record of 
 the dearest and noblest life that the people of Glynn 
 had ever known. 
 
 Aureola might have read her beautiful biography 
 written in their hearts; and heart biographies are the 
 only true ones, as we know. 
 
 For they poured out on the day of Miss Aura s 
 burial (it was a brilliant day and warm) like the tide 
 overwhelming the marshes, a strong, impulsive force 
 of human love and grief such as any other artist might 
 have envied from his soul they who write, or paint, 
 or sing, and live and die, perhaps, starved for love and 
 frozen for its evidence. She who had been this other 
 kind of artist, she who had the passion of humanity 
 and the genius for it, and the will to perfect herself in 
 it, went to her grave right royally. A throng followed 
 her, not weeping much, because, if she had taught 
 them anything, she had taught them cheerfulness and 
 self-restraint, - - but looking bereft and awed ; the 
 mill-people, the very poor, the overlooked, the cross- 
 grained and the sick, the unpopular, the tempted, and 
 the unhappy; lonely people, and poor girls whom no 
 one else befriended. 
 
 in 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AUREOLA 
 
 Far behind them all one walked, veiled, with 
 drooping head, but holding tight her mother s hand. 
 
 And Emmyline rode with Rob among the relatives. 
 Emmyline felt fiercely that she was the only real 
 mourner of them all. Who else knew how precious 
 Miss Aura could be every day? For the shared life 
 is the test of love and the measure of loss. 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 WHEN the White Mountain express to Boston 
 stopped at Beverly, it slowed up reluctantly, crashed 
 off the baggage, and dashed on with the nervousness 
 of a train that is unmercifully and unpardonably 
 late. 
 
 It was a September night, and the channel of home- 
 bound summer travel was clogged and heaving. 
 
 A middle-aged man a plain fellow, who was one 
 of the Beverly passengers stood for a moment star 
 ing at the tracks. The danger-light from the rear of 
 the onrushing train wavered before his eyes, and 
 looked like a splash of blood that was slowly wiped 
 out by the night. It was foggy, and the atmosphere 
 clung like a sponge. 
 
 "No," he muttered, " it s the other way. Batty s 
 the other way." 
 
 He turned, facing towards the branch road which 
 carries the great current of North Shore life. 
 
 "How soon can I get to Gloucester ?" he demanded 
 of one who brushed against him heavily. He who 
 answered proved to be of the baggage staff, and was 
 at that moment skillfully combining a frown and a 
 whistle behind a towering truck; from this two trunks 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 and a dress -suit case threatened to tumble on a bull- 
 terrier leashed to something invisible, and yelping in 
 the darkness behind. 
 
 "Lord! This makes leven dogs, cats to burn, 
 twenty-one baby-carriages, and a guinea-pig travelin 
 over this blamed road since yesterday. What s 
 that ? Gloucester ? 6.45 to-morrow morning. " 
 
 "Oh, but look here!" cried the plain passenger, 
 "that won t do. I have got to get to Gloucester to- 
 night." 
 
 "So s this bull-terrier," groaned the baggage- 
 handler. "He got switched off without his folks 
 and I Ve got a pet lamb in the baggage-room bleat - 
 in at the corporation since dinner-time. Some galoot 
 forgot the crittur. There s a lost parrot settin along 
 side that swears in several foreign languages. I wish 
 to Moses I could!" 
 
 The passenger experienced the dull surprise of one 
 in acute calamity who wonders that another man can 
 jest. He turned without remark, and went to the 
 waiting-room; he limped a little, for he was slightly 
 lame. The ticket -master was locking the door of the 
 office, and looked sleepy and fagged. 
 
 "Where s the train to Gloucester?" 
 
 "Gone." 
 
 " T ain t gone?" 
 
 " Gone half an hour ago. " 
 
 The official pointed to the clock, on whose face an 
 114 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 ominous expression seemed to rest, and whose hands 
 marked the hour of half -past twelve. 
 
 " But I have got to get to Gloucester! " answered the 
 White Mountain passenger. "We had a naccident. 
 We re late. I ain t much used to travelin . I sup 
 posed they 7 d wait for us. I tell you I ve got to get 
 there." 
 
 In his agitation he gripped the arm of the other, 
 who threw the grasp off instinctively. 
 
 "You 11 have to walk, then. You can t get any 
 thing now till the newspaper train. " 
 
 "God!" gasped the belated passenger. "I ve got 
 a little boy. He s dying. " 
 
 "Sho!" said the ticket-master. "That s too bad. 
 Can you afford a team ? You might try the stables. 
 There s one or two around here." 
 
 The ticket -master locked the doors of the station 
 and walked away, but did not go far. A humane un 
 easiness disturbed him, and he returned to see if he 
 could be of any use to the afflicted passenger. 
 
 "I 11 show you the way to the nearest," be began 
 kindly. 
 
 But the man had gone. 
 
 In the now dimly lighted town square he was, in 
 fact, zigzagging about alone, with the loping gait of 
 a lame man in a feverish hurry. 
 
 "There must be hosses," he muttered, "and places. 
 Why, yes. Here s one, first thing. " 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 Into the livery-stable he entered so heavily that he 
 seemed to fall in. His cheap straw hat was pushed 
 back from his head ; he was flushed, and his eyes were 
 too bright; his hair, which was red and coarse, lay 
 matted on his forehead. 
 
 "I want a team," he began, on a high, sharp key. 
 "I ve got to get to Gloucester. The train s gone." 
 
 A sleepy groom, who scowled at him, turned on a 
 suspicious heel. " You re drunk. It s fourteen miles. 
 It would cost you more n you re worth. " 
 
 "I ve got a little boy," repeated the lame man. 
 "He s dying." 
 
 The groom wheeled back. "That so? Why, that s 
 a pity. I d like to commodate you. See ? I m here 
 alone see ? I darsen t go so far without orders. 
 Boss is home and abed. " 
 
 "He got hurt in a naccident," pleaded the father. 
 "I come from up to Con way. I went to bury my 
 uncle. They sent me a telegraph about my little 
 boy. I ain t drunk. They sent me the telegraph. 
 I ve got to get home." 
 
 "I 11 let you sleep here along of me, " suggested the 
 groom, "but I darsen t leave. I m responsible to the 
 boss. There s other places you might get one. I 11 
 show you. See? I d try em all if I was you. " 
 
 But again the man was gone. 
 
 By the time that he had found another stable his 
 manner had changed; he had become deprecating, 
 
 116 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 servile. He entreated, he trembled; he flung his 
 emergency at the feet of the watchman ; he reiterated 
 his phrase :- 
 
 "I ve got a little boy, if you please. He s dying. 
 I Ve got to get to Gloucester - - I live in Squam." 
 
 "I don t like to refuse you," protested the night- 
 watchman, "but two of my horses are lame, and one 
 is plumb used up carrying summer folks. I m dread 
 ful short. I have n t a team to my name I could put 
 on the road to Gloucester. It s --why, to Squam 
 it s seventeen miles thirty-four the round trip. It 
 would cost you - 
 
 "I 11 pay!" cried the lame man; "I 11 pay. I ain t 
 beggin ." 
 
 "I m sorry I haven t got a horse," apologized the 
 watchman. "It would cost you ten dollars if I had. 
 But I hain t." 
 
 "Ten dollars?" The traveler echoed the words 
 stupidly. 
 
 "I m sorry; fact, I am," urged the watchman. 
 "Won t you set V rest a spell?" 
 
 But the visitor had vanished from the office. 
 
 Twenty minutes after, the doorbell of a home in 
 the old residence portion of the town rang violently 
 and pealed through the sleeping house. 
 
 It was a comfortable, not a new-fashioned, house, 
 sometimes leased to summer citizens, and modernized 
 in a measure for their convenience; one of the few of 
 
 117 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 its kind within reach of the station, and by no means 
 near. 
 
 When the master of the family had turned on all 
 the burglar electricity and could get the screen up, 
 he put his head out of the window, and so perceived 
 on his doorstep a huddled figure with a white, up 
 lifted face. 
 
 A shaking voice came up: 
 
 " Sir ? Be you a gentleman ? " 
 
 "I hope so," went down the quiet reply. "But I 
 can t remember that I was ever asked that question 
 at this time of morning before. " 
 
 "Be you a Christian?" insisted the voice from 
 below. 
 
 "Sometimes perhaps," went down the voice 
 from above. 
 
 The voice from below came up: "Sir! Sir! I m in 
 great trouble. For the love of Christ, sir, come down, 
 quick!" 
 
 "Why, of course," said the voice from above. 
 
 The man stood quite still when the great bolts of 
 the door shot through their grooves. Against a back 
 ground of electric brilliance he saw a gentleman in 
 pajamas and bath-robe, with slippers as soft as a 
 lady s on his white feet. The face of the gentleman 
 was somewhat fixed and guarded; his features 
 were carefully cut, behind their heavy coat of seaside 
 tan. 
 
 118 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 "Well," he said, "that was a pretty solemn adjura 
 tion. What is it?" 
 
 "I want to get a team," stammered the figure on 
 the steps. Suddenly, somehow, his courage had be 
 gun to falter. He felt the enormity of his intrusion. 
 He came up against the mystery of social distinctions; 
 his great human emergency seemed to be distanced 
 by the little thing men call difference of class. 
 
 "You want to get --a team?" repeated the 
 gentleman; he spoke slowly, without irritation. 
 "You have made a mistake. This is not a livery- 
 stable." 
 
 "Livery-stable!" cried the intruder, with a swift 
 and painful passion. "I ve tried three! Fust one 
 had n t any boss. Next one had n t any hoss. It was 
 ten dollars if he had. Last one wanted leven dollars, 
 pay in advance. I ve got four dollars n sixteen cents 
 in my pocket. I ve been up to Conway to bury my 
 uncle. My folks sent me a telegraph. My little boy 
 he s had a naccident. My train was late. I ve 
 got to get to Gloucester, sir. So I thought, " added the 
 traveler, simply, "I d ask one the neighbors. Neigh 
 bors is most gener lly kind. Up our way they be. 
 Sir could you let me have a team to see my little 
 boy before in case he dies?" 
 
 "Come inside a minute," replied the gentleman. 
 
 The words, which had begun shortly, ended softly. 
 "Perfectly sober," he thought. His fingers stole to 
 
 119 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 the button of a bell as the stranger stepped into the 
 hall. 
 
 "Yes I 11 send you over. What s your name ? " 
 
 "Dryver, sir. Jacob Dryver." 
 
 "Where do you live?" 
 
 "Squam." 
 
 "Annisquam? That is several miles beyond Glou 
 cester. Your trouble is too swift for horses. I have 
 rung for my chauffeur. I 11 send you in the automo 
 bile. Be so good as to step around to the stables, Mr. 
 Dryver. I 11 join you outside. " 
 
 Now the voice of a sleepy child could be heard 
 overhead; it seemed to be trying to say, "Popper! 
 Popper!" A woman s figure drifted to the top of the 
 padded stairs. The intruder caught a gleam of delicate 
 white drapery floating with laces, closely gathered at 
 the throat, and held with one ringed hand as if 
 hastily thrown on. The door shut, and the bolts 
 shot again. Jacob Dryver felt that he was at once 
 trusted and distrusted; he could not have said why 
 he did not go to the stables, but sat down on the 
 broad granite steps. His knees hung apart ; his el 
 bows dropped to them; his face fell into his hands. 
 
 The child above continued to call: "Popper! 
 Popper!" Then the little voice trailed away. 
 
 "It s smaller n Batty, " Jacob said. 
 
 When he lifted his head from his hands, up the 
 curving avenue a steam-carriage was sweeping upon 
 
 1 20 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 him. Its acetylene lanterns blazed like the eyes of 
 some prehistoric thing; but this simple fellow knew 
 nothing about prehistoric things. The lanterns re 
 minded him of the living creatures that Ezekiel saw. 
 Such imagination as he had was Biblically trained, 
 and leaped from Ezekiel to Elijah easily. 
 
 "It s a chariot of fire," thought Jacob Dryver, 
 "comhV for to carry me home." 
 
 As he gathered himself and went to meet the mir 
 acle, a dark figure, encased in rubber armor from foot 
 to head, brought the carriage to a swift and artistic 
 stop. 
 
 "Are you the shove-her?" asked Jacob, timidly. 
 
 "I am not the shove-her," replied the figure at the 
 brake, "and I hope I sha n t have to be. I am Mr. 
 Chester. My chauffeur is not at home, I find. I shall 
 drive you to Annisquam myself." 
 
 "You re takin some trouble, sir," said Jacob, 
 slowly. His head reeled. He felt that he was growing 
 stupid under the whirlwind of events. He went down 
 the long steps like a lame blind man. As he did so, 
 the bolts of the door behind him leaped back again, 
 and the lady ran down and slid into the carriage. 
 The fog glittered on the laces of her white woolen 
 garment. Her husband thought of it as a negligee; 
 but Jacob called it a wrapper. She was a dainty lady, 
 and fair to look upon; her hair lay in long, bright 
 braids upon her shoulders; she had caught up an 
 
 121 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 automobile coat and cap, which she flung across her 
 arm. Dryver heard her say: "I shall be a little 
 anxious. After all, you know nothing about him. 
 May n t I go?" 
 
 "And leave Bert? I don t think I would, Mary. 
 I ve told James to sit up and watch. Draw the big 
 bolt on top and keep the lights all on. If I have good 
 luck, I shall be back in less than two hours. Good -by, 
 Mary dear." 
 
 The last word lingered with the caressing accent 
 which only long-tried marriage love ever puts into it. 
 The lips of the two met silently, and drooping, the lady 
 melted away. Jacob Dryver found himself in the 
 steam-carriage, speeding down the avenue to the silent 
 street. He looked back once at the house. Every pane 
 of glass was blazing, as if the building were on fire. 
 
 "You 11 find it colder than you expect," observed 
 Mr. Chester. "I brought along Thomas s coat. Put 
 it on and hold on. Never in one of these before, 
 were you?" 
 
 "N-no, sir," chattered Jacob Dryver. "Thank 
 you, sir. I n-never was." 
 
 He clung to the side of the seat desperately. In 
 fact, he was very much frightened. But he would 
 have gone under the heavy wheels before he would 
 have owned it. Spinning through the deserted Beverly 
 streets, the carriage took what seemed to him a 
 startling pace. 
 
 122 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 "I m going slowly till we get out of town," re 
 marked Mr. Chester. "Once on the Manchester 
 road, I 11 let her out a bit." 
 
 Jacob made no reply. What had seemed to be fog 
 drenched and drowned him now like driving rain. 
 There had been no wind, but now the powers and 
 principalities of the air were let loose. He gasped for 
 breath, which was driven down his throat. That 
 made him think of Batty, whom for the moment he 
 had actually forgotten. When people died they 
 could not - - Had Batty by this time it was so 
 long should he find that Batty 
 
 "What ails your boy?" asked the half -invisible 
 figure from the depths of its rubber armor. 
 
 "I had a telegraph," said Jacob, monotonously. 
 "I never was away from home so far I ain t used 
 to travelin . I supposed the train would wait for the 
 accident. The telegraph said he was hurt bad. I got 
 it just as the fun ril was leavin the house. I had to 
 quit it, corpse V all for Batty. I ran all the way 
 to the depot. I just got aboard, and here I be be 
 calmed all night and there is Batty. His name is 
 Batwing," added the father. "He was named after 
 the uncle I went to bury. But we call him Batty. " 
 
 "Any more children?" inquired Mr. Chester, in the 
 cultivated, compassionate voice which at once at 
 tracted and estranged the breaking heart of Jacob 
 Dryver. 
 
 123 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 "We have n t only Batty, sir, " he choked. 
 
 The hand on the lever tightened; the throttle opened; 
 the dark figure in the rubber coat bent and its muscles 
 turned to iron. The carriage began to rock and fly. 
 It was now whirling out upon the silent, sleeping road 
 that goes by the great houses of the North Shore. 
 
 "I 11 let her out a little, " said Mr. Chester, quietly. 
 " Don t worry. We 11 get there before you know it. " 
 
 The carriage took on a considerable pace. Jacob s 
 best straw hat flew off; but he did not mention it. His 
 red hair stood endwise, all ways, on his head ; his eyes 
 started; his hands gripped one at the rail, one at 
 the knee of his companion. The wind raised by the 
 motion of the car became a gale, and forced itself into 
 his lungs. Jacob gasped, 
 
 "It s on account of Batty." 
 
 "I have a little boy of my own," observed Mr. 
 Chester. Plainly thinking to divert the attention of 
 the anguished father, he continued: "He had an 
 accident this summer he was hurt by a scythe; he 
 slipped away from his nurse. He was pretty badly 
 hurt. I was away I hurried from Bar Harbor to get 
 to him. I think I know how you feel. " 
 
 "Did you have a telegraph, sir?" asked Dryver, 
 rousing to the throb of the common human pulse. 
 
 "Yes, there was a telegram. But I was a good 
 while getting it. I understand your position." 
 
 "Did he ever get over it your little boy? Oh, I 
 124 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 see; that was him I heard. Popper/ he says, - 
 Popper. " 
 
 Above the whir of the steam-carriage, above the 
 chatter of the exhaust, above the voice of the wind, 
 the sound of a man s muffled groan came distinctly to 
 the ear that was fine enough to hear it. 
 
 "Trust me," said Chester, gently. "I ll get you 
 there. I 11 get you to your boy. " 
 
 The gentleman s face was almost as white now as 
 Jacob Dryver s. The fog glistened upon his mustache 
 and made him look a gray-haired man as he emerged 
 from gulfs of darkness and shot by widely scattered 
 dim street lamps. Both men had acquired something 
 of the same expression the rude face and the fin 
 ished one; both wore the solemn, elemental look of 
 fatherhood. The heart of one repeated piteously, - 
 
 "It s Batty." 
 
 But the other thought, "What if it were Bert?" 
 
 "I 11 let her out a little more," repeated Chester. 
 The carriage throbbed and rocked to the words. 
 
 "How do you like my machine?" he added, in a 
 comfortable voice. He felt that the mercury of emo 
 tion had mounted too far. "Mrs. Chester has named 
 her," he proceeded. "We call her Aurora." 
 
 "Hey?" 
 
 "We ve named the machine Aurora, I said." 
 
 l " Roarer, sir?" 
 
 "Oh, well. That will do Roarer, if you like. 
 125 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 That is n t bad. It s an improvement, perhaps. By 
 the way, how did you happen on my place to-night ? 
 There are a good many nearer the station; you had 
 quite a walk. " 
 
 "I see a little pair o reins an bells in the grass 
 alongside such as little boys play horse with. We 
 had one once for Batty, sir. " 
 
 "Ah! Was that it ? What s your business, Dryver ? 
 You have n t told me. Do you fish ?" 
 
 "Winters, I make paving-stones. Summers, I raise 
 vegetables," replied Jacob Dryver. "I m a kind of a 
 quarry-farmer. My woman she plants flowers for the 
 summer folks, and Batty bunches em up and delivers 
 em. Batty he God! My God! Mebbe there 
 ain t any Batty " 
 
 The sentence broke. In truth, it would have been 
 hard to find its remnants in the sudden onset of sound 
 made by the motion of the machine. 
 
 The car was freed now to the limit of her mighty 
 strength. She took great leaps like those of a living 
 heart that is over-excited. Powerfully, perfectly, with 
 out let or hindrance, without flaw or accident, the 
 chariot of fire bounded through the night. A trail of 
 steam like the tail of a comet followed her. The dark 
 scenery of the guarded shore flew by; Montserrat was 
 behind; Prides was gone; the Farms blew past. 
 
 They were now well out upon the beautiful, silent 
 Manchester road, where the woods, solemn at noon- 
 
 126 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 day, are something else than that at dead of night. 
 The steam-carriage, flying through them, encountered 
 no answering sign of life. Both men had ceased to 
 speak. Awe fell upon them, as if in the presence of 
 more than natural things. Once it seemed to Dryver 
 as if he saw a boy running beside the machine a 
 little fellow, white, like a spirit, and, like a spirit, 
 silent. Chester s hands had stiffened to the throttle; 
 his face had the stern rigidity of those on whom life 
 or human souls absolutely depend. Neither man 
 spoke now aloud. To himself Jacob Dryver repeated : 
 
 "It s Batty. It s my Batty. " 
 
 And Hurlburt Chester thought, "What if it were 
 Bert?" 
 
 Now the great arms of the sea began to open visibly 
 before them. The fog on their lips grew salter, and 
 they seemed to have entered the Cave of the Winds. 
 Slender beach and sturdy headland slid by. West 
 Manchester, Manchester, Magnolia, rushed past. 
 In the Magnolia woods they lost the sea again; but 
 the bell-buoy called from Norman s Woe, and they 
 could hear the moan of the whistling-buoy off Eastern 
 Point. In the Cape Ann Light the fog-bell was 
 tolling. 
 
 At the pace which the car was taking there was an 
 element of danger in the situation which Jacob 
 Dryver could not measure, since he feared safety 
 ignorantly, and met peril with composure. Chester 
 
 127 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 reduced the speed a little, and yet a little more, but 
 pushed on steadily. Once Jacob spoke. 
 
 " I 11 bet your shove-her could n t drive like you do," 
 he said proudly. 
 
 Fresh Water Cove slipped by; Old Stage Fort was 
 behind ; the Aurora bumped over the pavement of 
 the Cut, and reeled through the rough and narrow 
 streets of Gloucester. He of Beverly was familiar 
 with the route, and asked no questions. The car, 
 now tangled among electric tracks, swung around 
 the angle from Main Street carefully, jarred across the 
 railroad, and took the winding, dim road to Annis- 
 quam. 
 
 Bay View flew behind the bridge the village 
 the pretty arcade known as Squam Willows. The car 
 riage dashed into it and out of it as if it were a tunnel. 
 Then Dryver gripped the other s arm and, without a 
 word, pointed. 
 
 The car followed the guidance of his shaking 
 finger, and, like a conscious creature, swung to a 
 startling stop. 
 
 There were lights in the quarryman s cottage, and 
 shadows stirred against drawn shades. Jacob Dryver 
 tumbled out and ran. He did not speak, nor by a ges 
 ture thank his Beverly "neighbor." Chester slowly 
 unbuttoned his rubber coat and got at his watch. The 
 Aurora had covered the distance in dark and fog, 
 over seventeen miles in fifty-six minutes. Now 
 
 128 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 Jacob, dashing in, had left the door open, and Chester, 
 as he put his watch back into its pocket, heard that 
 which sent the blood driving through his arteries as 
 the power had driven the pumps of the car. The 
 sound that he heard was the fretful moan of a hurt 
 child. 
 
 As he had admitted, he was a Christian some 
 times; and he said, "Oh, thank God! " with all his 
 generous heart. Indeed, as he did so, he took off his 
 heavy cap and bared his head. 
 
 Then he heard the sobbing of a shaken man close 
 beside him. 
 
 "Sir! Oh, sir! The God of Everlastin bless you, 
 sir. Won t you come and look at him? " 
 
 Batty lay quietly; he had put his little fingers in his 
 father s hand; he did not notice the stranger. The 
 boy s mother, painfully poised on one elbow in the 
 position that mothers take when they watch sick 
 children, lay upon the other side of the bed. She was 
 a large woman, with a plain, good face. She had on a 
 polka-dotted, blue cotton wrapper, which nobody 
 called a negligee. Her mute, maternal eyes went to 
 the face of the visitor, and reverted to the child. 
 
 There was a physician in the room a very young, 
 to the trained eye an inexperienced, man. In fact, the 
 medical situation was unpromising and complicated. 
 It took Chester but a few moments to gauge it, and to 
 
 129 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 perceive that his mission to this afflicted household 
 had not ended with a lost night s sleep and an auto 
 mobile record. 
 
 The local doctor, it seemed, was away from home 
 when Batty s accident befell; the Gloucester surgeon 
 was ill; some one had proposed the hospital, but the 
 mother had the prejudices of her class. A neighbor 
 had suggested this young man a newcomer to the 
 town one of the flotsam practitioners who drift and 
 disappear. Recommended upon the ground that he 
 had successfully prescribed headache pills to a Swedish 
 cook, this stranger had received into his unskilled 
 hands the emergency of a dangerously wounded lad. 
 The accident, in fact, was more serious than Chester 
 had supposed. He had now been told that the child 
 was crushed by a carriage steaming through Annis- 
 quam Willows the day before. 
 
 The boy, it was plain, was sorely hurt, and igno 
 rant suffering lay at the mercy of ignorant treatment, 
 in the hopeless and helpless subjection to medical 
 etiquette which costs so many lives. 
 
 "Dryver," said Chester, quietly, "you need a sur 
 geon here at once. Your physician is quite willing to 
 consult with any one you may call." He shot one 
 stern glance at the young doctor, who quavered a 
 frightened assent. "I know a distinguished surgeon 
 - he is a friend of mine ; it was he who saved my boy 
 in that accident I told you of, this summer. He is not 
 
 130 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 far away; he is at a hotel on Eastern Point. I can have 
 him here in twenty well, say twenty-five minutes. 
 Of course we must wait for him to dress." 
 
 The woman raised her head and stared upon the 
 gentleman. One swift, brilliant gleam shot from her 
 heavy eyes. She had read of angels in the Bible. She 
 had noticed, indeed, that they were men angels. But 
 she had never heard of one in a rubber touring-coat, 
 drenched from head to foot with fog, spattered from 
 foot to head with mud, and with a wedding-ring upon 
 his fine hand. 
 
 Jacob Dryver began: "Sir! The God of Ever- 
 lastin " but he sobbed so that he could not finish 
 what he would have said. So Chester went out and 
 watered the Aurora, opened the throttle, and started 
 off again, and dashed through the rude streets of 
 Gloucester to her summer shore. 
 
 Dawn was rose-gray over Eastern Point, and the 
 tide had turned upon the harbor, when the "Roarer" 
 curved up quietly to the piazza of the hotel. 
 
 It was gray-rose upon Annisquam, and the tide 
 was rising up the river, when the great surgeon went 
 into the little place where the lad lay fighting for his 
 mangled life. There had been some delay in rousing 
 the sleeper it was a trip of six rough miles twice 
 taken and it was thirty-five minutes before his 
 "merciless merciful" hands went to work upon the 
 mortal need of the boy. 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 The child had been crushed across the hips and 
 body, and only an experienced or only an eminent 
 skill could have saved the little fellow. 
 
 / 
 
 In the blossoming day Jacob Dryver limped out 
 
 and stood in the front yard among his wife s flowers 
 that Batty "bunched up" and sold to summer people. 
 He could not perceive the scent of the flowers only 
 that of the ether. His big boot caught in a sweet-pea 
 vine and tore it. One of the famous carmine dahlias 
 of Cape Ann seemed to turn its large face and gaze 
 at him. 
 
 An old neighbor a cross-eyed lobsterer, going to 
 his traps came by, cast a shrewd look, and asked 
 how the boy was. Jacob did not reply to the lob 
 sterer; he lifted his wet eyes to the sky; then they fell 
 to a bed of blazing nasturtiums, which seemed to 
 smoke before them. His lips tried to form the words 
 which close like a strangling hand upon the throat of 
 the poor in all the emergencies of life. Till he has 
 answered this question, a poor man may not love a 
 woman or rear a child; he may not bury his dead or 
 save his living. 
 
 "What will it cost?" asked Jacob Dryver. He 
 looked piteously at the great surgeon, whose lips 
 parted to speak. But Hurlburt Chester raised an 
 imperious hand. 
 
 "That," he said, "is my affair." 
 132 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 It was broad, bright day when the Aurora came 
 whirring home. Chester nodded to his wife at the 
 window, but went directly to the stables. It was a 
 little longer than she expected before he returned. 
 She waited at the head of the stairs; then hurried 
 half-way down to meet him. Her white robe was un- 
 girdled and flowing; it fell apart the laces above 
 from the laces below, and the tired man s kiss fell 
 upon her soft throat. 
 
 She was naturally a worrier in a sweet-natured way, 
 but he had always been patient with her little weak 
 ness; some men are, with anxious women. 
 
 "No," he smiled, but rather feebly; "you ve missed 
 it again. The boy is saved. St. Glair s got hold of 
 him. I 11 talk presently, Mary, not just now." 
 
 In fact, he would say no more till he had bathed 
 and taken food. He looked so exhausted that she 
 brought his breakfast to his bed, serving it with her 
 own hands, and asking no questions at all; for, al 
 though she worried, she was wise. She sent for the 
 baby, too, a big baby, three years old, and 
 Chester enfolded the chin of the child in his slender 
 brown hand silently. 
 
 Then he said: "Lock the door, Mary. I ve some 
 thing to tell you." 
 
 When she had drawn the brass bolt and returned, 
 somewhat pale herself with wonder and alarm, to the 
 side of the bed, her husband spoke abruptly: 
 
 133 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 "Mary, you ve got to know it may as well have 
 it over. I found this pinned on the stable wall. It 
 was the Aurora that ran over the that that poor 
 little fellow." 
 
 His hand shook as he laid the piece of paper in her 
 own. And while she read it he covered his face; for 
 he was greatly overworn, and the strain which he had 
 undergone seemed now to have leaped again with the 
 spring of a creature that one supposes one has left 
 lifeless behind. 
 
 Mrs. Chester read the writing and laid it down. 
 It ran like this: 
 
 "Mr. Chester, Sir, Ime goin away while I can. It 
 was me run over that boy while you was in town. I 
 took Her out for a spin. I let Her out some racin with 
 another one in the Willows an he got under Her 
 someways. I see it in the papers so I was afraid of 
 manslorter. Ime awful cut up about it so Ime goin to 
 lite out while I can. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 THOMAS." 
 
 The eyes of the husband and wife met silently. 
 She was the first to speak. 
 "Do they know?" 
 Chester shook his head. 
 "You ll tell them, of course?" 
 "I haven t made up my mind." 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 The baby was jabbering loudly on the bed he 
 was very noisy; it was not easy for her to hear what 
 was said. 
 
 "I m sure you ought to tell them!" she cried 
 passionately. 
 
 "Perhaps so. But I d like to think it over." 
 
 A subtle terror slid over her face. "What can they 
 do to you ? I don t know about such things. Is there 
 any law?" 
 
 "Laws enough laws in plenty. But I m not 
 answerable for the crimes of my chauffeur, It s only 
 a question of damages." 
 
 The wife of the rich man drew a long breath. " Oh, 
 if it s nothing but money!" 
 
 "Not that it would make any difference if they 
 could touch me," he continued, with a proud motion 
 of his tired head. "It s purely a question of feeling 
 it s a question of right within a right, Mary. It s 
 to do what is really kind by these people - Why, 
 Mary, if you could have seen it! From beginning to 
 end it was the most beautiful, the most wonderful 
 thing. Nothing of the kind ever happened to me 
 before. Mary, if an angel from the throne of God had 
 done it they could n t have felt they could n t 
 have treated me it was enough to make a fellow a 
 better man the rest of his days. Why, it was worth 
 living for, I tell you! . . . And now to let them 
 know . . . " 
 
 135 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 Hurlburt Chester was very tired, as we say. He 
 choked, and hid his pale face in his pillow. And his 
 wife laid hers beside it and cried as women do 
 without pretending that she did n t. But the baby 
 laughed aloud. And then there drove through the 
 father s mind the repeated phrase which followed the 
 race of the " Roarer" all the way from Beverly to 
 Annjsquam : 
 
 "What if it were Bert?" 
 
 Chester s head whirled yet from the fatigue and jar 
 of the trip, and the words seemed to take leaps through 
 his brain as the car leaped when she was at the top of 
 her great speed. So he kissed the child, and dashed a 
 drop from his cheek quite openly since only Mary 
 saw. 
 
 A constraint unusual to their candid relations 
 breathed like a fog between the husband and the wife ; 
 indeed, it did not lift altogether as the autumn opened 
 and closed. 
 
 Chester s visits to Annisquam (in which she once 
 or twice accompanied him) were many and merciful; 
 and the distinguished surgeon took the responsibility 
 of the case till the boy was quite convalescent. The 
 lad recovered slowly, but St. Clair promised that the 
 cure would be complete. 
 
 The touching gratitude of Jacob Dryver amounted 
 to an idealization such as the comfortable, undramatic 
 
 136 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 life of Chester had never experienced. He seemed to 
 swim in it as an imaginative person dreams of swim 
 ming in the air, tree-high above the heads of the crowd 
 on the earth. The situation had become to him a 
 fine intoxicant, but it had its reactions, as intoxi 
 cants must. 
 
 September and October burned to ashes upon the 
 North Shore. Fire of maple, flash of sumac, torch of 
 elder, flare of ivy, faded into brown November, and 
 the breakers off the Beverly coast took on the greens 
 and blues of north-wind weather below the line of 
 silver surf. 
 
 The Chesters closed "their own hired house" and 
 moved to town. The Aurora remained in her stable, 
 nor had she left it since the morning when she came 
 wearily back from Annisquam. 
 
 His wife had noticed, but had not seemed to notice, 
 that Chester rode no more that fall. She noted too, 
 but did not seem to note, that he continued his visits 
 to the injured lad after they had returned to the city. 
 
 On all the great holidays he made a point of going 
 down Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New-Year s 
 day. Mrs. Chester had wished to duplicate for the 
 quarryman s boy the Christmas gifts of her own child 
 (such had been her pretty fancy), but Batty was quite 
 a lad ten years old ; and Bert, like a spoiled collie, 
 was yet a baby, and likely to remain so for some time 
 to come. So the mother contented herself, perforce, 
 
 137 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 with less intimate remembrances. Once, when she 
 had packed a box of miracles toys and books, 
 clothes and candy she thrust it from her with a 
 cry: "They would never touch these if they knew! 
 Hurlburt! Hurlburt! don t you think they ought to 
 know?" 
 
 "Do what you think best, Mary," he said wearily. 
 " I have never been able to decide that question. But 
 you are free to do so if you prefer." 
 
 He regarded her with an expression that went to 
 her heart. She flung herself into his arms and tried 
 to kiss it away. 
 
 Now Mary Chester, as we have said, was a worrier, 
 and the worrier never lets a subject go. As the winter 
 set in, her mind closed about the matter which had 
 troubled her, and it began to become unbearable, like 
 a foreign substance in the flesh. 
 
 On a January afternoon it was one of those dark 
 days when the souls of people cloud over she flung 
 on her furs, and leaving a penciled line to her husband 
 saying what she had done, she took the train to 
 Gloucester and a dreary electric car to Annisquam. 
 
 The flowers in the front yard were knee-deep in 
 snow; but Batty sat in the window busy with a Sor 
 rento woodsaw of her providing. He laughed outright 
 when he saw her, and his mother flung open the door 
 as if she had flung open her heart. 
 
 "Land!" she cried. "In all this snow!" 
 138 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 She finished tying a fresh white apron over her 
 polka-dotted blue wrapper, and joyously led the 
 lady in. 
 
 Batty was a freckled little fellow, with red hair like 
 his father s ; he had the pretty imperiousness of a sick 
 and only child who has by all the sorceries contrived 
 to escape petulance. When he had greeted the visitor, 
 he ran back to his jig-saw. He was carving camwood, 
 which stained his fingers crimson. 
 
 "I want to see you alone," began Mrs. Chester, 
 nervously. It had been one of Chester s pleasures to 
 warm the entire house for the convalescent lad, and 
 big coal fires were purring in Batty s bedroom and in 
 the ten -foot "parlor," whither his mother conducted 
 her guest. The doors were left open. The scent of 
 the camwood came across, pungent and sickening. 
 The fret of the jig-saw went on steadily. 
 
 "He s makin a paper-cutter for Mr. Chester," 
 observed Batty s mother. "He made a watch-case 
 last week for Mr. Chester." 
 
 Mary Chester paled, and she plunged at once:- 
 
 " There s something I ve come to tell I ve got to 
 tell you. I can t keep it to ourselves any longer. I 
 have come to tell you how it happened that Batty 
 We thought you d rather not know - 
 
 "Lord! my dear," said the quarryman s wife, 
 "we ve known it all the while." 
 
 The visitor s head swam. She laid it down upon 
 i39 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 her gloved hands on Mrs. Dryver s centre-table. 
 This had a marble top, and felt as the quarries look 
 in winter on Cape Ann. What were tears that they 
 should warm it? The sound of the jig-saw grew 
 uneven and stopped. 
 
 "Hush!" said the boy s mother. "Batty don t 
 know; he s the only one that don t." 
 
 She tiptoed and shut the door. 
 
 "You never see Peter Trawl, did you? He s a 
 neighbor cross-eyed sells lobsters well, it was 
 him picked Batty up to the Willows that day. So he 
 seen the number runnin away, an so he told. We ve 
 known it from fust to last, my dear." 
 
 "And never spoke!" said Mary Chester. "And 
 never spoke!" 
 
 "What s the use of jabberin ?" asked Batty s 
 mother. "We thought Mr. Chester d feel so bad," 
 she added. "We thought he did n t know." 
 
 The worrier began to laugh, then cry; first this, 
 then that; for her nerves gave way beneath her. She 
 sat humbly in her rich furs before the quarryman s 
 wife. She felt that these plain people had outdone her 
 in nobility, as they had rivaled her in delicacy, her, 
 and Hurlburt, too. 
 
 "Oh, come and see my baby!" she cried. It was 
 the only thing that occurred to her to say. 
 
 Now at that moment Batty gave a little yelp of 
 ecstasy, threw down his jig-saw, and got to the front 
 
 140 
 
A CHARIOT OF FIRE 
 
 door. His father was there, stamping off the snow; 
 and the lad s idol, his ideal, his man angel, stood upon 
 the threshold, nervous, for an angel, and with an 
 anxious look. 
 
 But when the two men saw the women crying 
 together upon the quarry-cold centre-table, they 
 clasped hands, and said nothing at all. 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 "HAS the carrier come?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And gone?" 
 
 "Some time $go." 
 
 "No letters?" 
 
 " Only a few bills, or receipts. I put them on his 
 desk." 
 
 " Nothing for me ? You are sure ? " 
 
 "Quite sure." 
 
 The figure on the bed turned its face to the wall. 
 The figure in the cap and apron dropped upon the 
 patient a glance more professional than personal 
 one of the sort which drives the sick to a mutiny none 
 the less pronounced because helpless and hopeless. 
 
 There were moments when Mrs. Glessner could 
 cheerfully have flung boiling hot water bags at Miss 
 Peck, not without the spectral wish that the rubber 
 might burst. There were others when she regarded 
 the nurse with a grateful glow that could almost 
 be called affectionate, and checked herself in the act 
 of conversation verging on the confidential. She 
 vibrated between the emotional extremes of a monot 
 onous but well cared for invalid life. 
 
 142 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 Now the face upon the pillow it was an attractive 
 face, not marred by any of the corrosive disorders - 
 flung itself over suddenly, and a pair of delicately 
 rounded arms rose out of lace elbow-sleeves and shot 
 straight into the air with a gesture which Miss Peck 
 knew well. 
 
 "Is the door open ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Is the hall door open? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Are all the doors open so we could hear the 
 telephone ? " 
 
 "Every one." 
 
 "So 7 could hear it?" 
 
 "I don t see how you could help it." 
 
 "You are sure there has not been any message? " 
 
 "Perfectly sure." 
 
 "Would you mind going down and asking the 
 Central if we have missed any call ? " 
 
 "I will go as soon as I have attended to a few 
 things." 
 
 "Would you mind going now?" 
 
 "I suppose not. No, I will go." 
 
 . . . "There wasn t any message, was there?" 
 
 "Not any." 
 
 "Do you think it s too late for any, to-night ? " 
 
 "He never calls up after ten o clock. He don t 
 want to spoil your night." 
 
 H3 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 "He is very thoughtful of me," said Mrs. Glessner. 
 
 The nurse made no reply. 
 
 The patient watched her with a furtive interest. 
 Miss Peck was a small person. She had a profile like 
 a squirrel s; her mouth was kind and weak; her eyes 
 were bright and experienced. She had the shrill 
 American voice; it filed the ear and brain. Miss 
 Peck s had become the chief society of a naturally 
 vivacious but sensitive, now too sensitive, woman. 
 The fatal human repugnance to solitude fed, however 
 sparingly, upon the nurse. The invalid had gone so 
 far as to wish that she could love Miss Peck. 
 
 Melicent Glessner had not yielded easily to her fate. 
 In fighting phrase, she had "died hard." Even yet 
 she was not bedridden; not perhaps so much from 
 force of heroism as from personal fastidiousness. She 
 was a vigorous hater (good lovers are apt to be), and 
 had battled with her doom all the way down, abhor 
 ring the evidences of descent in the curving lines of 
 strength. She loved health, youth, beauty, admira 
 tion, tenderness, love; she had known them all. She 
 liked action, eagerness, social attrition, the incidents 
 of the hour; the natural human impulses were strong 
 in her; she craved the wine of joy, and used to think 
 that she was born to drink it. There was not a hypo 
 chondriac nerve in her; she had rung to the tuning- 
 fork of hope as long as any string of her responded to 
 the key. She was not particularly patient, and did her 
 
 144 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 share of complaining as any hearty, undisciplined 
 creature will; but she was not ill-natured, nor sour 
 in the flavor. She was not what we call a religious 
 woman, although she had been taught, when she was 
 a child, to respect a type of faith which in maturity 
 she had not cultivated. In a word, she was no saint; 
 only a woman a very woman smitten by the sword 
 of suffering which lays the soul and body low. She 
 had been stabbed through and through, but she had 
 not perished. For years she had cherished a pugna 
 cious instinct of recovery. When the knowledge of 
 the facts was made known to her, by one of the phy 
 sicians who will not tell professional lies, she had 
 fought fiercely with the truth, and then accepted it as 
 she had defied it altogether. At first she used to 
 speak of it to her husband; it was not easy not to 
 share such a great thing with some human creature 
 who loved her; but she had long since given that up. 
 It was her first lesson in the grammer of self -con 
 quest, of which the well know so little and the sick 
 must learn so much. 
 
 "I see it now. It was a kind of rudeness," she said 
 aloud to the only consciousness that she could address 
 upon so intimate a topic. This, plainly, was not 
 Miss Peck s. Then what? Had the atmosphere in 
 telligence? The rose tint on the four walls of her 
 silent room had it sentience ? Did the stars hear, 
 on winter nights when the shade was lifted for them 
 
 145 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 to look coldly through ? Had the frosty moon a soul ? 
 Did the brutal wind experience sympathy? Could 
 the picture of one s dead mother smiling underneath 
 the Leonardo s Christ above the mirror answer when 
 one cried out? By degrees, very quietly but very 
 plainly, it had become apparent to the denied woman 
 that something answered, not always, not explicitly, 
 but sometimes, and in some way. She had begun to 
 be aware of a soft encroachment upon the reserve of 
 her loneliness; a movement of spirit towards her own. 
 She did not go so far as to call it an interchange of 
 intelligence; she was chiefly conscious of it as a deli 
 cate blender of feeling blurring the outlines of her 
 solitude. 
 
 This, in Harris Glessner s necessary and altogether 
 pardonable absences from her, was mainly unre 
 lieved. When he was at home he was attentive to his 
 wife, whom he had rapturously loved, and whom he 
 still cherished when he could. When he was serving 
 his country at the capital his opportunities to make 
 poor Mele s lot easier to bear were, of course, limited 
 by his civic obligations. He had accepted his nomina 
 tion reluctantly; she had urged him, and her physi 
 cian had permitted him to do so. Mele was young, 
 and might live for twenty years. Glessner purposed 
 to return to his law practice in a year or so. Meantime 
 she could make a home with him in Washington for 
 the winter. But she shook her head. 
 
 146 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 "We tried that last year. How long did I stay? 
 Six weeks ? I can t undergo another earthquake just 
 now. I m not quite so well able." This was so ob 
 viously true that the matter had dropped. 
 
 "Try it," she had said, "try it for one session. 
 If I find that I take it hard if I grow worse - 
 
 "If you grow worse, you sha n t have to take it at 
 all," he vowed eagerly. He ran home as often as he 
 could ; usually every week. He wrote. He telephoned. 
 Between committees he thought of her a good deal. 
 But she she thought of him all the time and in all 
 the ways that a deprived and lonely and idle woman 
 can think of a well and overworked man. 
 
 That, in a sense, was the worst of it her terrible 
 power of concentration upon the man whom she had 
 happened to love and marry. This, if a fault, was a 
 wholly feminine one, belonging to the class of wifely 
 traits which might be supposed to appeal to a man, 
 but seldom do. At the beginning of her illness she 
 had followed her temperament and had encroached 
 upon his with the naivete of one who is inexperienced 
 in suffering. She had exacted and exhausted ; she had 
 claimed and accepted. She had fed upon his sympathy 
 and had assumed his presence ; she took his devotion 
 for he had given her no inconsiderable amount of 
 it as a matter of course, and it was a long time before 
 it occurred to her that a too dependent sick woman 
 may bring a man more discipline than happiness. 
 
 147 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 Melicent possessed one quality which, when the 
 eternal two enter the caves of disillusion, is more 
 valuable than beauty, charm, or intellect: she had 
 good sense. This enabled her, after a time, to read 
 just the attitude of her expectations. Her life was like 
 her electric fan whirring feverishly, now at a lower, 
 now at a higher pace, but always fixed to its base; 
 never getting anywhere; always hearing its own out 
 cries, by which it worried or wearied the listener. 
 Sometimes, on a hot August night when the current 
 was turned on at the power house afresh, at one 
 o clock in the morning, it would seem to her as if her 
 soul must rush out on the gusts of the artificial wind 
 and wander through space, a disconnected, freed, but 
 unappeased identity, clamoring for what it could not 
 have, obedient as machinery, but perhaps who 
 knew ? as rebellious at the secret of its being. She 
 felt a curious kinship with the helpless thing. 
 
 Now it was February, and the heavy fan stood 
 silent upon its firm shelf on the other side of the bed. 
 Melicent glanced at it compassionately. 
 
 "You cannot even complain," she thought. 
 
 She had experienced several years of captivity be 
 fore it came to her knowledge that escape from hei 
 fate was possible. At first all her thoughts swung 
 towards life. She expected in fact, she commanded 
 - recovery; she pushed her way towards all the reme 
 dial doors, and when she found one locked, clamored 
 
 148 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 at another. Her mind dwelt upon health, on healing, 
 on salvation. Afterwards, as the long disabled do, 
 she rebounded, and hated that which she had so 
 passionately and vainly sought. She weighed her lot 
 and flung it from her with a healthy contempt which 
 no well person is sound enough to understand. 
 
 She began to believe that she wished to die. She 
 was quite sincere in this conviction, and when she 
 learned at last that her preference might be gratified 
 at any unknown time she was surprised to find that 
 the news gave her so little pleasure. That it should 
 be in the nature of her malady to bring the clockwork 
 of life to a sharp stop without warning seemed, some 
 how, bad manners. A sheriff or an executioner had 
 more courtesy. Death, it appeared, felt under no 
 obligations to show any. One might live ten years, 
 or as many minutes; five years, or five seconds. 
 What of it ? Now that her heart s desire had become 
 practicable, what was there so tragic in the fact? 
 She was perplexed to find that her instinct leaped 
 against her conviction in the direction of life. Life ! 
 Mere life plain, commonplace life that which it 
 had been so easy to condemn and habitual to hate! 
 Life --hard life, denied, disabled, forbidden of hope, 
 and captive to that dejection which only the long 
 afflicted can distinguish from despair cruel life - 
 torn by the beasts of suffering, refused the angels of 
 healing just life! 
 
 149 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 She stood astonished before the windows of revela 
 tion. The natural vigor of her soul arose and 
 opened them. After all, in face of everything, did she 
 crave the despised and rejected thing that she had 
 trampled ? Did she want to live ? 
 
 She had never been what we call a morbid person, 
 and it was a curious fact that her chief danger of be 
 coming such arrived by the way of her healthiest 
 impulse. In the very splendid sanity of her revolt 
 against death she began to experience such a fear of 
 it as she had never known or imagined. 
 
 It was not so much to the incident of dying that 
 she objected this had for a long time presented 
 itself to her rather as a circumstance than an event 
 but to the prospective abruptness of the circumstance. 
 She had dreamed of death as a friend, or even a lover. 
 Now she was face to face with a highwayman or 
 assassin. Had she coughed or ached her life away, 
 decently and in order, by a conventional process, she 
 was sure that she should have welcomed a release 
 which now began to assume all the hues and contours 
 of alarm. 
 
 Melicent was by nature sincere, and she acknow 
 ledged to herself that the ambush of death occupied 
 the foreground of her thoughts, but no method of 
 avoiding the fact occurred to her. 
 
 None at least occurred to her by any philosophy 
 of life that she had known or Harris Glessner, 
 
 150 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 either, for that matter. They had both been people 
 of the world the live, visible world, throbbing with 
 pleasures and ambitions, silken with luxuries, clamor 
 ous of joy, vocal with self, the well world (until she had 
 been smitten), and this is to say the supreme word of 
 it. They had been the children of good fortune, pam 
 pered and arrogant of personal and mutual happiness. 
 Now it seemed there were other worlds. Pain, 
 denial, desolation, despair these strange planets, 
 which had appeared upon her unprepared astronomy 
 in their order, preceded the gentle movement into 
 its appointed place of that other which is called the 
 world of the unseen. Persons who lack certain of 
 the finer forms of development do not use the adjec 
 tives defining them; and she, who had no religious 
 life, did not use its terms. She did not say to her 
 self that the star which was slowly revolving into the 
 map of her sad skies was the world of spiritual things. 
 She did not call it so, because she did not know 
 enough to name it. Rather she felt it to be so 
 before she knew it. For a time she rested mistily 
 in her feeling, as creation rests in nebulosity before 
 form occurs. When does it occur ? Did chaos recog 
 nize the moment when construction stood apparent ? 
 Who, though he watch the night out, can capture 
 the instant of dawn ? Who sees when the breathing, 
 blushing torch of perfume and of color ceases to be a 
 bud and is a rose ? 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 There came at last an hour when Melicent per 
 ceived that her rose was afire, her dawn abloom, her 
 chaotic world an ordered cosmos, swinging out of 
 haunted darkness into solemn light. 
 
 It was a snowy night, and the wind was wild. The 
 knuckles of the storm knocked upon the windows 
 eagerly, as if an organism without called upon that 
 within. Melicent had been less strong than usual, 
 and breathed with difficulty. She had been thinking 
 all day about her husband God knew why un 
 easily. All her thoughts and feeling returned upon 
 herself, baffled and beaten, like homing pigeons that 
 could not be induced to fly unless they were carried 
 to a distance by force. 
 
 It was never possible afterwards for her to explain 
 the manner of her soul when it became suddenly but 
 very quietly apparent to her that it communicated 
 with Soul beyond itself. Out of the storm, cleaving 
 the dark, the wings of intelligence, emotion, power, 
 replied to her; and she perceived for the first time in 
 her own consciousness that there was such a fact as 
 human prayer. 
 
 She struggled against her pillows and sat erect, 
 stretching out her beautiful arms. 
 
 " God ! " she cried. " Great God ! " 
 
 She sank back, panting. Her ignorance of the 
 world of spirit its supernal heights, its sacred 
 depths overwhelmed her with a sudden shame. 
 
 152 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 "I do not know the language," she said. "I am an 
 uneducated person." 
 
 She got up and groped to the window, trying to 
 fling it wide; but the sleet had frozen, and she could 
 not stir the sash. She dropped upon the cushioned 
 seat below and laid her face upon the sill. The room 
 seemed as small as asphyxiation. Only the night, the 
 storm, the skies, immensity, were large enough to hold 
 the mighty impulse which enveloped her. 
 
 "Thou, Unseen!" she said aloud, "I am a prisoner 
 of the body. I cannot break my bars. My fetters are 
 sore upon me. I suffer more than anybody knows - 
 it is making a coward of me. I bear it very badly. I 
 am not brave. I am worn out. I hate my life oh, 
 I loathe my life and yet I have this inconsistency 
 I cannot understand it in myself I am afraid to die. 
 Is that not contemptible ? Nobody understands it 
 no well person how could they ? No, nor any of 
 the people who die slowly in their beds, persons 
 they love holding their hands, because you know 
 when it will be. But not to know never to know - 
 any minute and every little thing that happens 
 lessening the chances and not to be a religious per 
 son, either. I used to have such a happy life. I was 
 well, and the world was gay, like tulips in the grass. 
 I went to dinners, I loved my husband, I enjoyed 
 myself. I did not expect to be like this not to suffer 
 this way not to be crushed out as you J d step on a 
 
 153 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 crawling creature just the motion of some awful 
 Foot " 
 
 She sank from the cushion to the floor and reached 
 for her bell, but withdrew her shaking hand. 
 
 "I won t," she thought. "I will not have Sarah 
 Peck around not just now not if I do die!" 
 
 Her emotion and her will dueled together, and for 
 the first time the agitation which had almost over 
 powered her went down before the stronger force. 
 She lay where she was till she could crawl; and then, 
 crawling, reached her bed. That first acute, coherent 
 prayer went nigh to being her last. 
 
 "It is plain," she said, "I cannot even pray like 
 other people One must have more strength and 
 then I do not say things in the proper way." 
 
 With her indomitable good sense she added, 
 
 "A person cannot be expected to kill herself 
 praying." 
 
 Now, while she lay there, smiling whimsically, for 
 she had the saving quality of humor when suffering 
 gave it half a chance, there came to her something 
 which she had not recalled for who knew how long? 
 It took the form of a sensation, as the acutest memory 
 often will, and she leaned against a substance soft and 
 warm. She perceived suddenly that it was her mother s 
 knee. Above her a still face brooded and melted; it 
 had the unfathomable tenderness that only mothers 
 faces are deep enough to know. She was a little girl, 
 
 154 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 and she said her prayers as she had been taught, before 
 she went to bed. 
 
 "Now I lay me down to sleep." 
 
 Melicent smiled. Too weak for emotion, even for 
 the sacred emotion that may save one s soul alive, - 
 forced to the parsimonious economy of feeling by 
 which the sick are bound, she turned upon her tum 
 bled pillow and her lips moved. 
 
 " Won t this do? "they said. 
 
 "Now I lay me down to sleep, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to keep." 
 
 Miss Peck came running up. 
 
 "He is at the wire," she cried. "He called for you. 
 He said not to disturb you, unless - - Good Lord ! 
 I should say so! Put your two feet back upon that 
 bed ! No. Not a livin step, on my diploma ! Here. 
 I 11 open the window for you. Can you hold on a 
 minute till I ring him off?" 
 
 The nurse bent to the broken whispers that struggled 
 from the pillow. " My dear love to him and I have 
 something to say to him I will write. Miss Peck ? 
 Miss Peck! Be sure and thank Mr. Glessner for tak 
 ing the trouble to call me up to-night. If I had been a 
 little stronger - 
 
 But Miss Peck, at the long-distance wire, was 
 wrestling with the powers and principalities of the 
 storm. 
 
 155 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 "It cut us off," she said discontentedly, when she 
 hurried back. 
 
 Drama, like the kingdom of heaven, is within, not 
 without. 
 
 It is the human spirit rather than the human inci 
 dent that stands for energy and the thrill of life. It 
 would not be easy to explain to the lover of a cheap 
 stage or of a decadent novel the intensity of thought 
 and feeling which now accelerated the existence of this 
 invalid woman. She came into the spiritual inher 
 itance with a quiet excitement which the passing of 
 many days did not wear down. Your enthusiasm or 
 mine may rush like a toreador into the arena of a 
 startling world. Hers fed upon the reality and the 
 history of a prayer. 
 
 She wrote her husband when she had thought it 
 well over, and tried to explain to him something of the 
 novelty of that which had befallen her. She was sur 
 prised that she found this so hard to do, chiefly for 
 lack of a common vocabulary; for she perceived from 
 her own experience that he would not readily know 
 what she was talking about. She did not see her way 
 to make the subject interesting to him, and Melicent 
 was not stupid. She never wrote him a dull letter. 
 Now she observed that she must use a foreign tongue 
 to her politician. Nevertheless, she wrote. He had 
 planned to come home for a Sunday, but the bill 
 
 156 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 before the Ways and Means, then occupying the atten 
 tion of the country, needed him. He was detained, 
 and regretfully telephoned to say so. She had not 
 seen him for nearly three weeks; this was the longest 
 separation of their lives. Glessner had not yet allowed 
 his career to remove his wife from the foreground to 
 the perspective of life. 
 
 Meanwhile she continued to pray as she continued 
 to breathe. That outgoing of the spirit to the "not 
 herself" which existed beyond her personal lot had 
 become to her a strange necessity, like a narcotic to 
 the sleepless; yet she exercised her newly discovered 
 energy with a restraint which would have commanded 
 the respect of the coldest scoffer. Since that first 
 rapturous break into the world of spiritual power 
 she had never wasted her strength in superfluous 
 emotion. 
 
 Each night she quietly gathered up the burden of 
 the day into the words her mother taught her, and she 
 made no effort to think or feel beyond them. When 
 she laid her down to sleep she prayed the Lord her 
 soul to keep, and that was the end of the matter. It 
 could not be said that her fear of death was extin 
 guished, but that it was superseded by something 
 which she felt more keenly: the conscious effort to 
 remove it by a newly attained faculty. Miss Peck s 
 experienced eyes observed her patient with a studious 
 perplexity. Sarah Peck perceived that she had to deal 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 with something which was not taught in the hospitals. 
 She wondered if the omission were in the surgical line. 
 
 "Has the carrier come?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And gone?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "No letter to-day?" 
 
 "You had one yesterday." 
 
 "I know. I had reasons something especial. Is 
 the door open?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 " All the doors open between me and the telephone ? 
 
 "Just as usual; every one." 
 
 "You are sure there hasn t been any call?" 
 
 "Oh, yes sure. It ain t forty-eight hours since 
 you had one. I never knew a man telephone his 
 wife so much. It must cost a sight all these long 
 distance tolls. Ain t feeling quite so well, are 
 you?" 
 
 "I don t know," replied Mrs. Glessner. "I had 
 not thought perhaps not. One has something else 
 to think of than how one feels. Would you go and 
 ask the Central no, never mind. Miss Peck ? I 
 don t want to hurt your feelings. But I think I should 
 like to be alone for a little while." 
 
 "Here s your bell," said Sarah Peck, averting the 
 profile of a grieved squirrel. She went away, but 
 
 158 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 remained within hearing of her patient, on the couch 
 in the hall. 
 
 Melicent lay still and looked about her room, as if 
 the familiar details of it might reduce the force of 
 some emotion whose current startled her. The pearl- 
 white roses on her table were fresh (Harris had 
 ordered them to come every other day); the velvet 
 below them, beneath a mist of Mexican embroidery 
 blurred into the rose tint of the walls ; her magazines, 
 with leaves uncut, disregarded her; her mother s Bible 
 which Miss Peck had hunted up for her lay on the 
 foot of the lace-draped bed; her mother s picture, with 
 the Leonardo s Christ above it, had the manner of 
 observing her. The large brass fan on its shelf stood 
 stolidly but resentful, as if it would have crashed 
 something to atoms if it could move; or perhaps it 
 would have spun disdainfully and whirled into space, 
 whence electric fires spring, and where they cannot be 
 imprisoned to the whims of man. 
 
 The night was as sultry as it was still; a warm fog 
 was crawling from some unexplained, one was almost 
 tempted to say some inexperienced point of the com 
 pass, and the lungs of the air were paralyzed. 
 
 Mrs. Glessner panted upon the bed, but she had 
 the unconsciousness of her personal discomfort which 
 mental exaltation may give to physical suffering. She 
 was drawn into the upper ether of a strange and 
 mighty moment through which she seemed to herself 
 
 159 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 to be swept like an indirigible air-ship, moving at the 
 will of winds upon whose nature or force she could 
 not count. 
 
 With motionless body, with closed eyes, she stirred 
 and saw. A half a thousand miles away from her dim 
 room, from her gray life, from Sarah Peck and the 
 electric fan, she moved about the throbbing city where 
 she had not set her foot for now six years. Those few 
 poignant weeks of last winter scarcely counted, except 
 as one of the nightmares in the dream of her troubled 
 life. 
 
 Then, borne from her private car, by way of the 
 easiest automobile in Washington, to her rooms, she 
 had remained there until the experiment, disastrous 
 for the invalid, and hardly less so for the husband, 
 ended in a demonstrated failure. Without a protest 
 from any source, she had been taken back to her 
 New England country home. She had not left it 
 since. 
 
 Now, as she crossed the smooth pavement of the 
 brilliant streets, curious old Bible words occurred to 
 her: " I sought him whom my soul loveth . . . but I 
 found him not ... I said, I will rise now . . . and 
 seek him. " She experienced no difficulty in finding 
 his apartment, to which she was drawn by hidden 
 currents as unseen but as effective as the wires which 
 interlaced and lighted the house. Should love be less 
 ingenious than electricity? She asked herself the 
 
 1 60 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 question for the first time, smiling as she did so at the 
 conceit. 
 
 His doors opened to her without ring or knock, and 
 she crossed the vestibule to his parlor. There was a 
 portiere, of the sort common to hotel suites, a heavy, 
 vulgar thing; it was of a dark color, maroon or Indian 
 red. She stood half behind it, clinging to its plush 
 folds, and now for the first time conscious of fear 
 lest she should be discovered, but made quickly aware 
 that she was not she gazed into the room. 
 
 Three men sat at a walnut centre-table. The table 
 was littered with papers and cigar ashes. The room 
 was purple with smoke. Out of its spiral coils the fig 
 ures and faces of the men evolved. One presented an 
 indifferent appearance she could not have told her 
 self anything about him except that his hair had once 
 been red. The other was a heavy man with a furtive 
 eye; his face was broad and blunt; his hands were 
 more intelligent than the rest of his physique, and one 
 of them played with a pencil. With the other he 
 snapped the corners of envelopes sedulously, as if he 
 were setting a paper trap. The third man was Harris 
 Glessner. He was the only one of the three who was 
 not smoking; he seemed to have laid aside his cigar 
 to think better without it. 
 
 Melicent made an instinctive movement to go in 
 and speak to her husband; she longed to put a hand 
 upon his shoulder, an arm about his neck, but found 
 
 161 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 that this was impossible; advance she could not, for 
 whatever reason; but stood swaying, checked and 
 forbidden, clinging to the portiere. She knew little 
 of politics (she had sometimes asked him to explain 
 that mystery, but Harris had replied that he did not 
 like to talk shop with her), and she knew less of law; 
 but she made out soon enough to understand that 
 which smote her sick and still. He who sat making 
 paper traps was proposing to Harris a monstrous 
 thing: he was offering her husband her husband 
 an opportunity of the questionable sort that ap 
 proaches a man in a man s world; it had to do, she 
 perceived, with his vote, or with his influence, with 
 one of the sacred charges which the people confide to 
 the brains and principles that they choose to represent 
 them. 
 
 She was shocked to perceive that her husband 
 did not receive the proposition as the insult that it 
 was. Inscrutably silent, he sat with level eyes that 
 scarcely saw the man who played with the envelopes. 
 Glessner s cigar gleamed between his fingers; the 
 strong lines about his mouth seemed to weaken as she 
 watched; he was sunken in a pit of speculation or 
 indecision. 
 
 The man who was talking snatched up a fresh 
 envelope and twisted it into a curious form like that 
 of the old-fashioned fly-traps which our mothers used 
 to make, and suddenly tossed it aside. The envelope 
 
 162 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 unfolded slowly from its unnatural shape, and re 
 vealed itself to the wife s eyes quite plainly; it was one 
 that had been addressed in her husband s hand 
 writing and it was addressed to herself. As it was 
 slipping over into the waste-basket, Harris put out his 
 clean, white hand and reclaimed it; he put it in his 
 pocket gently, she thought ; but still he did not speak. 
 His silence distressed her; it seemed to her to imply 
 a moral vacillation of which in her clinical world she 
 had never dreamed that he could be capable, and 
 she cried out : - 
 
 "Harris! Harris! Dear Harris!" three times to 
 him, piteously. 
 
 The cry caught her back again to her own room, 
 to her own bed. There she lay, agitated beyond any 
 agitation that she had ever known. Her quivering 
 lips stirred. Self went out of her like a burden thrown 
 a thousand miles down to lighten and quicken flight. 
 She could no more have asked any personal comfort 
 of the Almighty Heart than she could have sprung 
 into a life-boat and left Harris on deck of a drown 
 ing ship. All her being leaped to the side of his, and 
 stood as if it would protect him, or perish with him. 
 
 But Melicent was now very tired and weak; she 
 found it impossible to exercise her newly discovered 
 spiritual faculties; these evaded her, as the spiritual 
 will, from sheer physical inadequacy; she could not 
 pray; she could not pray for her husband in any man- 
 
 163 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 ner adjusted to the emergency in which, whether 
 rightly or wrongly, she felt him to be. No words 
 worthy of his need or her distress subjected themselves 
 to her will. In utter weariness and discouragement she 
 crept into those her mother taught her, as she had 
 crept upon her mother s lap. Something other than 
 her will wrought upon the prayer of her childhood 
 this significant and beautiful revision : 
 
 " Now I lay me down to sleep, 
 I pray the Lord his soul to keep." 
 
 She slept little and brokenly, but towards morning 
 floated into uneasy rest. The winter dawn was later 
 than usual, for the fog was still solid, and rose like a 
 wall between the windows and the world. Melicent s 
 consciousness began where it left off in the night, and 
 she found herself repeating words that grew from 
 those with which she prayed herself asleep as rhyme 
 grows to mating rhyme: 
 
 " Be near to bless him when I wake, 
 I pray the Lord for his dear sake." 
 
 Her mind was quite clear and strong, and moved 
 without delirium or delusion in the direction whence 
 her heart propelled it. She thought of her husband 
 she thought of him without respite, but all her vigor 
 was now in her mind and heart. Her body had be 
 come suddenly and unaccountably weak. This fact 
 she did not notice; or if she did, she gave no sign. 
 
 164 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 She never permitted herself to be what is called "sick 
 abed," but lay upon the outside of it, beneath her 
 rose-pink puff. Miss Peck observed her, not without 
 anxiety. 
 
 " I sent for the doctor, " she said. " Just our luck - 
 he s gone off; out of town somewhere. You 11 have 
 to let me call one of the others." 
 
 But Mrs. Glessner shook her head. She was paying 
 the least possible attention to anything the nurse was 
 saying, and this Miss Peck perceived. 
 
 " T ain t a good day," she suggested consolingly. 
 "You might as well be a mouse in a glass bell. There 
 ain t any air to breathe. There ! I believe I 11 turn 
 your fan on." 
 
 The patient did not answer, and Miss Peck 
 switched the fan first to its gentlest, then to its fiercest 
 speed. The room was gray, although the shades 
 were flung to the top; the fog pressed up against the 
 windows like the depths of a motionless sea which 
 had arisen silently in the night and engulfed the house. 
 The two women looked into it and up through it like 
 divers from some unfathomable submarine depth. 
 Miss Peck went to the window, and returned uneasily 
 to the bed. The hand which crept to the patient s 
 pulse was pushed away, not without some vigor. 
 
 "I don t want to be bothered about my pulse," 
 said Mrs. Glessner; "I have things to think of." 
 She lay staring steadily into the fog. 
 
 165 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 The fan was whirling wildly, fixed to its base, unable 
 to escape. Melicent felt as if it were trying to whirl 
 off into space, and that it would drag her with it if 
 it could. The sound of it was half articulate, wholly 
 uncanny, and filled the world. 
 
 Miss Peck stepped softly out into the hall, but a 
 voice from the bed detained her. 
 
 "Miss Peck, you will not telephone not yet. 
 Wait awhile. I am not as sick as you think. I don t 
 wish Mr. Glessner disturbed not yet." 
 
 "Very well, " said Miss Peck, soothingly. " I s pose 
 you 11 let me go down and heat your beef tea, won t 
 you. There s no objection to that, is there? I am 
 going, anyhow." 
 
 She slid downstairs and went to the telephone as 
 straight as she could go. She had taken the precaution 
 to shut the doors. 
 
 Sarah Peck sat at the telephone with an inspired 
 obstinacy upon her face. The squirrel in her profile 
 seemed to come out and crack a hard nut. She was 
 an experienced telephoner, and the wire carried her 
 piercing American voice very distinctly through the 
 windless, resonant fog. " There ! " she said, when, after 
 the necessary delay of the long-distance message, she 
 hung up the receiver, "I m not going to be ordered 
 around by any patient. She ain t fit to judge, God 
 help her. I don t s pose God has much to do with 
 it," she added, with the natural materialism of her 
 
 1 66 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 profession. "It s husbands are the Almighty, most 
 cases, as far as I can see." 
 
 Sarah Peck came back with her beef tea. 
 
 "You Ve been telephoning," said Mrs. Glessner. 
 " I know it as well as if I had heard you." 
 
 "Well, yes," replied Sarah Peck, "I did. I tele 
 phoned to my gentleman friend. I had something im 
 portant <to say to him, and I thought you would n t 
 mind." 
 
 "I didn t know you had a gentleman friend," ob 
 served the patient, with a spark of feminine wicked 
 ness. "He never came here to see you, did he?" 
 
 "I don t allow him to come when I am on cases," 
 returned Miss Peck, primly. 
 
 The fog, as it thickened, changed its nature, as fogs 
 do; the wall had toppled into the ocean; the sea 
 crinkled into a sponge a huge, unwieldy, pitiless 
 sponge, held at the face and pressed down hard. 
 Melicent found herself putting out her hands and 
 trying to push it away. As the day crawled on, and 
 Mrs. Glessner s condition did not improve, Miss Peck 
 took this nut, too, into her own teeth and cracked it. 
 She sent for the foreign doctor, who left drugs 
 which the patient refused, and went away. After his 
 visit, Miss Peck applied herself to the long-distance 
 wire again, but failed to connect her number with 
 that of anybody s gentleman friend, and returned to 
 her post upstairs. The patient slept, or seemed to 
 
 167 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 sleep, and the rage of the electric fan rilled the 
 room. 
 
 Now, in truth, Melicent was not sleeping; she was 
 feeling; she might have said that she was praying, 
 except that, as we have noticed, she was still unused 
 to the terminology, and the religious phrase did not 
 readily occur to her. All day her emotion outran her 
 strength, but all day it ran the old, beautiful, self- 
 effacing road of a wife s love. She seemed to have 
 lost the occult power, or the telepathic gift call it 
 what you will of the previous evening, and no 
 longer with mind or eye could she follow the image 
 of her husband. Nothing was left her; by no way 
 could she project herself towards him, except in the 
 simple words which had got possession of her. She 
 rang the changes upon them in the fluctuations of her 
 strength. Whether she had enough of it left to take 
 her through the day or the night was a matter which 
 had ceased to occupy her thoughts. She did not con 
 cern herself whether she should live or die; she con 
 cerned herself with him. 
 
 " I pray the Lord for his dear sake 
 For his dear sake 
 I pray the Lord his soul to keep." 
 
 It might be said that her being had now no articula 
 tion beyond these gentle outcries. As the night drew 
 on, Miss Peck noticed that her lips moved, and 
 stooped to catch some wish or sign of suffering from 
 
 1 68 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 her. The nurse was embarrassed to find that the 
 patient was praying. The staff had not taught the 
 training-school what to do for such a symptom. 
 Sarah Peck wished that she could have recorded on 
 her chart the fluctuations of a condition which made a 
 patient look like that ; but she missed them, obviously. 
 She felt that this was the fault of the electric fan, 
 which raved like thwarted love or an escaping soul 
 about the room. All night the fan disturbed itself - 
 now madly, now patiently but all night it had the 
 energy of a purpose, as if it would achieve God knew 
 what, or perish He knew how. Melicent heard it 
 plainly and it did not seem to trouble her. She felt 
 herself whirling on with it, spinning into spaces 
 unseen, acquiring powers unknown, growing one 
 with the mysterious forces of nature, which went upon 
 their awful errands, and returned when these were 
 done. She felt as solitary as if she had been cast out 
 into ether, the only thing that had no orbit, and so 
 went seeking one with all its being. Now the fan 
 itself seemed to have taken the words from her too 
 weak lips, and to repeat them in the strange, half- 
 querulous tones of the ever-living and all-demanding 
 elements : 
 
 " I pray the Lord . . . 
 I pray the Lord his soul to keep." 
 
 In the morning she was no better; perhaps, as she 
 tried to assure Miss Peck, no worse. She experienced 
 
 169 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 unusual need of sleep, and drifted into it again, almost 
 as soon as she awoke. 
 
 The day was vivid when she turned upon her pillow 
 and fully found herself. For once she had not been 
 able to get into her pretty gowns and play that she 
 was not sick abed, but lay still beneath the rose puff 
 in her white nightdress with its lace elbow sleeves, 
 her long hair braided in two bright braids, and her 
 sweet, gray profile set towards the window. 
 
 There was no fog. Walls and seas and smothering 
 sponges had melted and were not. The sun was shin 
 ing joyously. A dart of it had stabbed through the 
 lace curtain and reached the wall above the mirror, 
 where it seemed to pierce like a golden nail and sup 
 port the pictures of her mother and the great Christ : 
 these regarded her smiling, she thought. 
 
 It did not occur to her for a few moments that some 
 one was holding her hand. Plainly it could not be 
 Sarah Peck, and she had not thought of herself as 
 sick enough for the doctor to do that. She turned and 
 took a leisurely look, and across the lenses of her 
 eyes there passed the image of her husband sitting still 
 and pale beside the bed. 
 
 "I am having that strange experience again," she 
 thought. "It is not Harris; it is the vision of Harris. 
 It will pass as the other passed. I will hold it as 
 long as I can Dear Harris! " she said aloud. 
 
 But then she perceived that it was not his vision; 
 170 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 it was not the wraith of his body, nor of her own, that 
 met in that long, warm, silent hand -clasp, too inti 
 mate at first to be broken by any words. She saw 
 that he was trying not to startle her, as he had been 
 cautioned, so she spoke before he dared to, quite as if 
 he had been there every day. 
 
 "Why, dear," she said, "good -morning!" 
 
 She was surprised to find that he could not answer. 
 The emotion in his face did not arouse her own, 
 because she was too weak to feel any. But it drew 
 them together by quiet, invisible currents. He 
 stooped, and their lips found each other. She did 
 not feel able to lift herself from the pillow, but lay 
 observing him gently: his strong head, sparsely dashed 
 with gray, his experienced, kind, gray eyes alert and 
 worldly, but luminous with the consciousness of her. 
 The lines about his mouth were all strong now; it 
 shut with a tender resolution. 
 
 She had half forgotten how massive his shoulders 
 were. He had the firm attitudes of the successful man. 
 One of his white, authoritative hands sank into the 
 down of the rose-pink silk above her body as if to 
 make sure that he had not lost her. The other held 
 her own cold fingers. These were growing slowly 
 warm within his vital grasp. 
 
 Miss Peck appeared in the doorway with warning 
 eyes, and went away. 
 
 " Mele, said Glessner, "we must not talk not yet." 
 171 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 " How long are you going to stay ? " asked Melicent. 
 
 "Oh, any length of time. Until you get well." 
 
 "Is n t that rather a large proposition ? " 
 
 "I don t care how large. Why didn t you send 
 for me before ? " 
 
 "I didn t send for you at all. You see, I was so 
 busy." 
 
 "Busy?" 
 
 "Busy thinking," she said dreamily. She reached 
 for his free hand, and disengaging hers from the 
 other, made him understand that he should place it 
 on the pillow, so that she could turn her cheek upon it, 
 and in that nest of love and warmth she rested with a 
 divine content. He sat beside her, scarcely stirring. 
 
 As the day deepened, she strengthened. He per 
 ceived that whatever her burden was, it would now 
 harm her less to share it than to wear it, and when he 
 saw that she was determined to speak he did not gain 
 say her, but bent and listened ; guardedly, she thought 
 not without the pickets in his handsome eyes. 
 
 Her gaze traversed his familiar lineaments; it was 
 as if she sought a new road across the map of him. 
 Suddenly her pathological existence seemed to her so 
 small a matter beside his vigorous and powerful one 
 that her courage fell, and what she had purposed to 
 say failed her altogether; so she plunged into the 
 last words she had meant to utter: 
 
 "Harris, what did those two men want of you?" 
 172 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 Glessner stared upon her. 
 
 "Night before last that foggy night. It was at 
 your hotel. One of them had red hair. The other - 
 I hate the other. They were trying to persuade you 
 to do something. It was something you thought you 
 ought not to do." 
 
 " Do you often have bad dreams of this sort, Mele ? " 
 asked Glessner, in the soothing tones of an alienist. 
 But Mele disregarded him without the tolerance of a 
 smile. 
 
 " Ought you to have done it?" she persisted. 
 
 The guards in the politican s eyes retreated; they 
 were replaced by a species of superstitious discomfort. 
 
 "Probably not," he parleyed, "if one had red hair, 
 and since you hate the other - He tried to laugh it 
 off, but still sat staring. Mele caught her feeble breath. 
 
 "Did you do it?" she demanded. 
 
 " If you could possibly explain yourself - " he urged. 
 Then his manner veered abruptly, and he seemed to 
 weigh and measure what she had been saying. She fol 
 lowed this change of posture as quickly as it occurred. 
 
 "He made fly-traps out of envelopes at your table, " 
 she suggested, in a matter of fact tone. 
 
 "She has been delirious," thought Glessner. But 
 he did not say so. He only sat beside her, staring still. 
 
 "Did you do it?" she repeated. 
 
 "No, thank God!" said Glessner, in a ringing voice. 
 " No and I never will ! " 
 
 173 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 "No," reiterated Mele, comfortably. "Of course 
 you never will. You couldn t, could you?" 
 
 "Oh, look here!" cried the Congressman, "I won t 
 take what I don t deserve not from you. How does 
 a man know what he could or could n t do ? He is the 
 equivalent of his temptation, or he is not. How is 
 he to know whether he is, or isn t, till the thing 
 gets a mathematical form? Suppose a fellow finds 
 g, weak spot in himself a rotten one, if you say 
 so pretty late in life, when he had thought he was 
 safe like that! And then, just like that! too, he 
 thinks he thought Mele, Mele ! I thought of 
 you" 
 
 "I know," nodded Mele. "The envelope was 
 addressed to me. You took it away from him. It re 
 minded you." 
 
 But Glessner did not seem to hear her; he hurried, 
 trembling, along. 
 
 "Anyhow, I did n t, and here I am. And here you 
 are alive. I 11 never leave you again! " 
 
 "Oh, yes, you will," smiled Mele. "What would 
 your constituents say?" 
 
 "Hang my constituents!" 
 
 "Poor things!" said Mele, mischievously. "They 
 did n t mean any harm when they elected you." 
 
 But he could not smile, and did not try. 
 
 "I 11 be good to you," he gulped. 
 
 "You always have been good to me!" protested 
 174 
 
I LL GET OUT OF IT AS SOON AS I CAN 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 Mele. "You are the kindest man I ever knew. And 
 thoughtful look at those roses! " 
 
 She pointed a frail finger at the pearl-white buds. 
 He caught the fiager to his lips, and then her hand, 
 her wrist, her arm. 
 
 "I 11 get out of it as soon as I can. I 11 come back 
 to law and you." 
 
 " What will becomeof thecountry ?" inquired Mele. 
 "What will become of your career?" 
 
 "Hang my career!" exploded the politician. 
 
 " Dear," spoke Mele,, ruefully, "I ve been such a 
 drag on you, shut in here always ailing never 
 able to do things for you like other men s wives. Not 
 even to stay in Washington the way other women 
 do, never to order your house, can t entertain your 
 friends just shriveling here with Sarah Peck and 
 an electric fan to ask the Lord for your dear 
 sake " 
 
 "Mele," said the Congressman, in an undertone, 
 "if women only knew! But they don t, the best of 
 them. There is n t a well, superficial woman in the 
 land who could have done the kind of thing for me 
 you have, you brave girl! You patient, sensitive, 
 thinking, feeling creature! . . . What has got into 
 your letters lately? You never wrote any like them 
 before. I won t pretend I understood them, but 
 sentences from them got between me and the bill. 
 
 175 
 
HIS SOUL TO KEEP 
 
 I was answering one that night when but never 
 mind that any more. Why, Mele, what is Washington ? 
 What is political society? A house of cards, Elaine 
 called it. Suppose you could have been there, playing 
 the old stupid game ? Do you believe you could have 
 well, I don t, that s all. You haven t the least idea 
 what character does for a fellow; then there s the way 
 of loving him. There s an assorted lot of ways, and 
 yours, Mele yours . . . Oh, you shall get well!" 
 he cried boyishly. "I will make you so happy you 
 will have to get well. Mele, Mele, Mele!" he en 
 treated her. 
 
 Mele lifted a shining, inscrutable smile. She put 
 up her hand to his cheek. 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 THE summer afternoon was long and vivid. It was 
 not too warm, but had the happy temperature of an 
 ideal day, not to be expected by the calendar of the 
 most capricious and the most compelling, we may 
 dare to say one of the most respected of climates. 
 Your true New-Englander loves his Northeasterly 
 and forgives his blizzard, adores his Junes and ig 
 nores his Augusts, pardons his March, and flaunts 
 his October in the face of the world. 
 
 This was a July Sunday, and the quite comfortable 
 audience in the village meeting-house, having pre 
 pared for the auto-da-fe suitable to the occasion, 
 relaxed in their bony pews with the sense of physical 
 relief which goes so far to create a promising spiritual 
 condition. 
 
 Considered aesthetically, the church presented no 
 illusions and few attractions; the white paint was 
 blistering and peeling on its wooden anatomy; the 
 light and heat beat through its unstained windows; 
 it occupied a gravelly hill-top, in winter as bleak as 
 the theology which the people had outgrown with 
 out knowing it, in summer as hot as the doctrine of 
 eternal retribution to which the senior deacon and 
 
 177 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 the heresy-hunter of the parish still adhered. The 
 building, which had borne the suns and snows of a 
 hundred bitter years, wore an expression of patient 
 endurance creditable to the religion that it repre 
 sented, and yet, somehow, touched by the spirit of 
 the age at which it had arrived. The long, lean spire 
 rising solitary against the hard sky had the aspect 
 of enforced rather than voluntary loneliness; it seemed 
 to cast reproachful glances at the well -occupied grave 
 yard behind the horse-sheds, as those of a church 
 which would have said to its departed worshipers : 
 
 "You can be buried and done with it. I was built 
 of oak, and on honor, and I have to live and bear it 
 all your sins and your sorrows and your lack of 
 sense, your gossip and scandal, and your theology; 
 the way you treat your pastors and drive off your 
 young men but you can be buried and done with 
 it. There s no such luck for me." 
 
 This was on the outside, where, that afternoon, the 
 young people of the parish loafed in the brambly 
 graveyard or the shaded sheds, flirting or gossiping in 
 undertones, not to be overheard by the "members " 
 collected within. For inside the church it was four 
 o clock of a communion Sunday, and the elect of the 
 faith were about to partake of the sacrament. 
 
 "There s as many as sixty," suggested a clean- 
 faced boy who sat on a gray slab, sarcophagus- 
 shaped, with a gentle girl beside him; there was a 
 
 178 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 bodiless cherub on the sarcophagus, green with moss 
 and grim with age; the boy traced the cherub with 
 his fingers. 
 
 "I used to think it was an owl," he said, "when I 
 was a little fellow." 
 
 But the girl smiled absently; she had a thoughtful 
 look. 
 
 "Don t you ever want to go too?" She nodded 
 toward the church. 
 
 " I 11 go anywhere you say," replied the boy. "You 
 know I will." 
 
 " I like the way they look when they come out," said 
 the girl. "It ain t the same s when they go in." 
 
 "I like the way you look, all times," returned the 
 eyes of the boy. But his lips did not say it ; they were 
 restrained by the higher feeling of the girl ; his nature 
 followed her religious sense as instinctively as his 
 gaze followed her motions. Religion was a mystery, 
 like love, and one was no more sacred than another to 
 him. The boy and girl sat contentedly among the 
 dead. Life was before them, and joy; both seemed to 
 them eternal; the graves and the brambles retreated 
 from their observation like the sombre details on the 
 margin of an illuminated page whereon a passionate 
 and happy lyric has been printed. 
 
 Inside the church it was cool and quiet. The light 
 was now so late that it could not offend, and entered 
 the long, unshaded western windows softly, as if it, 
 
 179 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 too, had been a worshiper. The summer air fluttered 
 in and about like a flock of invisible birds; one had 
 almost the sense of wings against the face. There 
 was a scent of flowers growing outside perhaps a 
 syringa, overripe; some shrub that had been planted 
 in a pitiful attempt to soften the barrenness of this 
 denied and unattractive Zion. 
 
 For these were poor people, and could not afford 
 beautiful things. The aesthetic sense is expensive, my 
 cultivated friend; it is better to keep it under, unless 
 it can be gratified. Perhaps it were better not to have 
 any; there was now and then some one in the country 
 parish who thought so, for instance, the summer 
 lady who had joined these plain people lately. 
 
 She pitied that parish so that she dared let nobody 
 know how much; all the starvation of it, body and 
 soul, its ugliness and ignorance, its penury and petti 
 ness yes, its pettiness most of all, because that was 
 least the material of pity; so, too, its willfulness and 
 hardness, its complacency and stupidity, all the blots 
 that poverty and remoteness and ecclesiastical bigotry 
 dash in the noble face of faith. Perhaps most of all 
 she pitied the minister. 
 
 But she was not there that afternoon to pity any 
 body. Decorous Sabbatical glances aimed at her 
 empty pew had already made known to the wor 
 shipers that Mrs. Hermione Alford was not among 
 them. She was conspicuous to them always by 
 
 1 80 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 her efforts to seem like them, as much as by her 
 difference from them; by her knowledge of a world 
 which they had never entered; by the ease of it, the 
 dress of it, and the candid ingenuity of its manner; by 
 the conscientious, perhaps too elaborate, determina 
 tion to make herself useful or beloved, which over 
 takes a person who has begun rather late in life to 
 consider the natures or needs of others. Everybody 
 in church knew that Mrs. Alford was not there, be 
 fore the Rev. Daniel True came out from the minis 
 ter s room to open the service. 
 
 The audience was small, those of communion 
 Sundays always were, but, by the standard of the 
 parish, creditable to the faith, and, to the most inex 
 perienced or skeptical eye, a group of people quite in 
 earnest. 
 
 Prominent among these was the senior deacon ; he 
 had a submerged air, not expressive of his official im 
 portance; he had creaking feet, and good intentions; 
 he sat humbly before the sacred table. 
 
 The pew of the heresy-hunter was opposite the 
 senior deacon; neither appeared to observe the other 
 that afternoon. The heresy-hunter had one of the 
 faces which seem to have been omitted from the 
 processes of evolution, a specimen left over from a 
 prehistoric age; he had the eyes of a ferret and the 
 mouth of a cod. The heresy-hunter observed keenly, 
 but inferred weakly; his mentality was as chaotic as 
 
 181 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 his physiognomy, yet no more to be overlooked. He 
 had influence, but was not popular. He had more 
 followers than friends. 
 
 The widow of the last pastor sat in the pew imme 
 diately in front of Mrs. Alford s. The widow was 
 critical of the present pastor. Her daughter, who 
 worshiped beside her, was not. The minister s 
 widow was very poor; perhaps the poorest member 
 of a congregation familiar with the filings of a lifelong 
 economy and the teeth of a biting penury. 
 
 The minister s widow wore a long crape veil, as 
 rusty as an unblackened stove, and almost as thick. 
 Her daughter had large eyes, blue and melancholy; 
 they had the childlike look which some women never 
 outgrow and others try in vain to acquire; they lifted 
 once when the pastor s tall, slender height rose before 
 the people; then dropped sadly. 
 
 The Rev. Daniel True stood beside the holy table. 
 For such a scene, perhaps for any scene, he was some 
 thing of a memorable figure. He had the dignity of 
 early middle life, but none of its signs of advancing 
 age. His hair was quite black, and curled on his 
 temples boyishly; his mustache, not without a worldly 
 cut, was as dark as his hair, and concealed a mouth 
 so clean and fine that it was an ethical mistake to 
 cover it. He had sturdy shoulders, although not 
 quite straight; they had the scholar s stoop; his 
 hands were thin, with long fingers; his gestures were 
 
 182 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 sparing and significant; his expression was so sincere 
 that its evident devoutness commanded respect; so 
 did his voice, which was authoritative enough to be a 
 little priestly, and lacking somewhat in elocutionary 
 finish, as the voices of ministers are apt to be, but 
 genuine, musical, persuasive, at moments vibrant 
 with oratorical power. He had a warm eye and a 
 lovable smile. He was every inch a minister, but he 
 was every nerve a man. 
 
 It was one of the parishes which do not keep their 
 pastors, and Mr. True had already been there eight 
 years. His people could not estimate him, but they 
 were attracted to him. It was not in the higher 
 mathematics that they should understand him, but 
 some of them loved him, and most of them thought 
 they did. 
 
 It was not said, but it was always felt, about the 
 Reverend Mr. True that he was afraid of nobody. 
 The senior deacon and the heresy-hunter did not 
 control their pastor. That awful tribunal, the church 
 committee, which has wrecked the lives and weakened 
 the consciences of so many well-meaning clergymen, 
 had no more terrors for this one than if he had been 
 the editor of a popular magazine. He was as inde 
 pendent of parish politics as a sea-gull. The widow 
 of his predecessor said this was because he was not 
 married. 
 
 He stood for some moments silently before his 
 
 183 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 people that summer afternoon; he had an attentive 
 and beautiful expression, as if he listened for some 
 command from the invisible Power in which he be 
 lieved. His white fingers reverently touched the 
 bread; he broke it slowly; he did not raise his eyes. 
 
 The church had grown quite still. A butterfly had 
 drifted in upon a sunbeam and hovered over the 
 communion-table, swaying thence to the empty pulpit, 
 where a vase of white roses stood ; it was now so quiet 
 that one almost fancied one could hear the butterfly, 
 the motion of its wings, the sound of its approach to 
 the rose; it was like the conflict of a soul with moral 
 conditions so delicate that all sense of peril is absent. 
 The hands of the minister continued to stir upon the 
 sacred bread. 
 
 "When He had broken," he said, "He blessed it. 
 If there is any blessing above all others that we most 
 sorely need, Lord make us fit to ask it." 
 
 It was scarcely possible to say where speech ended 
 and prayer began, so gentle, so natural, were the 
 minister s voice and manner; but when the people 
 found their own souls at the feet of God they knew 
 that his had led them there. 
 
 It was now so still that a woman s fan could be 
 heard anywhere in the audience-room, and one of 
 lace in the rear pew, finding itself audible, abruptly 
 stopped and fell from a white-gloved hand to a white 
 lap. The belated communicant, who had crept in 
 
 184 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 during the pastor s prayer, bowed her face upon the 
 rail of the pew in front of her. Her little white French 
 hat touched the widow s veil; this disturbed Mrs. 
 Alford, and she moved slightly, making herself more 
 comfortable with the pains of a worshiper who meant 
 to retain her position. In fact, when the prayer came 
 to an end, the summer lady did not raise her head. 
 
 "Lord," said the pastor, "we hunger. We starve 
 for the love divine, and for human love, and some 
 times the one famine confuses itself with the other 
 famine, so that we know not where this ceases and 
 where that begins. There is one hunger of the heart, 
 and another of the soul. Feed Thou our highest which 
 is our sorest hunger. If we starve, let us starve nobly, 
 for Christ s sake." 
 
 As the voice of the pastor sank into these words a 
 shrill sound pierced the silence of the village church. 
 It was the whistle of the Sunday train, shrieking 
 through the valley; it halted at the station, panting 
 and protesting at the stop ; for it was late. The air was 
 so clear that one almost fancied one could hear the 
 newspapers slapped off on the platform of the station, 
 and the unwashed wheels of the Sunday cab which 
 awaited chance passengers from a secular and unre- 
 generate world. 
 
 The heresy-hunter cleared his throat as one who 
 wished it to be recalled that he disapproved of Sunday 
 papers. But most of the people were beyond atten- 
 
 185 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 tion to external trifles; each had gone the way of his 
 own nature into a sincere and solemn hour. 
 
 Mrs. Hermione Alford did not stir. Her forehead, 
 bent on the hard rail of the pew, received red marks 
 like stigmata; she did not evade but wooed the sense 
 of physical discomfort; this was a counter-irritant to 
 misery with whose pangs she was out of patience, and 
 out of courage. She had not meant to come to the 
 service; she did not mean to share in its sacred 
 symbols; she was where she was in spite of herself, 
 and whether compelled by the noblest or the weakest 
 in her, she could not have told. 
 
 The soft blur of her white hat, a little dark line of 
 her hair, the curve of her delicate cheek, could be seen 
 beyond the black barrier of the widow s veil. The 
 minister had glanced, but did not look at the summer 
 parishioner. 
 
 The senior deacon and the heresy-hunter distrib 
 uted the sacred bread. Even the heresy-hunter felt 
 that it had been blessed by a good man. The boots 
 of the deacon, innocent of chalk or soapstone, 
 creaked up and down the broad aisle. Two or three 
 children who had wandered in from the sheds listened 
 with awe and admiration to the deacon s boots; this 
 nerve-rending sound was fixed in their minds and 
 remained there for life, as the first condition to the 
 initiation of the sacred ceremony. 
 
 The boy and girl had come from the sarcophagus 
 
 1 86 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 in the graveyard, and hesitating, quietly settled into 
 an empty back pew. They sat thoughtfully. No wand 
 then the boy looked at the girl so reverently that he 
 seemed afraid to look at all ; but she gazed at the table 
 with its long white cloth and shining silver tankards. 
 
 Now the widow cried behind her veil as her old 
 darned black glove carried the little square of bread 
 to her lips ; she exercised the enviable rights of char 
 tered grief freely. But the blue eyes of her daughter 
 were dry. For her sorrow she had no right to weep. 
 
 And now the aged deacon received the symbol from 
 the white hand of his pastor with humility; and the 
 heresy-hunter recalled the fact that the Lord s Supper 
 was not a doctrine. 
 
 The butterfly had drifted away from the roses, and 
 was searching the quiet church like a fair spirit seek 
 ing a fit body, or a high impulse trying to find a noble 
 deed. Only the minister had noticed the butterfly, 
 and he now sat with his hand above his eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Alford had not moved when the deacon offered 
 her the great silver plate, now nearly empty of its 
 broken bread. She declined with a gentle gesture. 
 The heresy-hunter with the prehistoric face did not 
 turn in the lady s direction. But the ferret in his eyes 
 looked out. 
 
 Light, which moves at one hundred and eighty -six 
 thousand miles a second and more; electricity, which 
 
 187 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 takes a pace as inconceivable are laggards beside 
 excited thought. Mrs. Alford was unconscious of the 
 rate that hers was making; she seemed herself to be 
 racing with it, and able to estimate the speed of it 
 by the wind in her face, like one in an observation- 
 car rushing through a high country. In those few 
 moments they may have been fifteen since she 
 came into the church, half her life blew by her. 
 It was as if everything to which she had formed 
 the habit of resolutely shutting her eyes started 
 out and stared upon her foregrounds that she 
 had long ignored, perspective that she had actually 
 forgotten. She dashed like a reluctant traveler 
 whirled past scenes which he had neither cared nor 
 dared to revisit because their delight was lost while 
 their distress remained as pain does remain, last 
 ing longer than joy in the sensation of any but the 
 superficial. 
 
 Mrs. Alford s was not a superficial sensibility. She 
 could not " throw things off, " as we say. She did not 
 find it easy to elude her consciousness of her personal 
 tragedy. The heart of a woman of her type is the 
 finest photographer in the world. The retina of her 
 imagination is more sensitive than that of the truest 
 camera, and her memory was stored with inexorable 
 plates; these she had spent years trying in vain to 
 break. 
 
 One might say, rather, that hers was the retina of 
 1 88 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 the Claude Lorrain; everything that it reflected was 
 exquisite, but set in black whichever way she turned 
 it, her fate, or the forecast of her fate, looked out at 
 her. It was as if the delicacy of her impressions in 
 creased her capacity for misery more than it had 
 enhanced her capaciousness of happiness. In a word, 
 it was so long since she had been happy that she had 
 forgotten how to be. This was the more fortunate, 
 because opportunities for the exercise of this lost art 
 did not present themselves. 
 
 She belonged to the great army of the disillusioned 
 who begin by believing marriage a sacrament, and end 
 by feeling it a profanation. It was now nearly two 
 years since she had seen her husband or no : one 
 day they had met at their lawyer s; it was necessary 
 for her to sign something; she had done as she was 
 asked, and they had parted at the office door; it had 
 occurred to her to invite Gerald home to dinner she 
 would have done as much for any old acquaintance, 
 but, in the embarrassment of the moment, she had 
 hesitated just long enough for him to observe that he 
 was going directly aboard the steamer, which sailed 
 at six in the morning. So she had not said it. They 
 shook hands, and he lifted his hat. She had noticed 
 that his hair was beginning to whiten at the temples. 
 As she sat at the communion service she found herself 
 occupied in trying to recall whether his mustache 
 were still black. 
 
 189 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 Then she remembered that he had his gloves off, 
 and that she had noticed the old scar on the third 
 finger of the left hand; he had splashed it with hot 
 sealing-wax one day. She had on a rose-colored 
 muslin, and a spark from the candle caught the 
 dress. What a cry he had given when he clasped 
 her, and extinguished the little blaze against his 
 rough coat ! He had loved oh, he had loved her ! 
 And she 
 
 The ravages of her feeling had been heavy; it had 
 harrowed her; she was a waste, because overculti- 
 vated, land; that the very roots of tenderness were 
 dying in her she was critically aware. 
 
 She was a sincere woman she never posed before 
 her own heart and she had lately begun to suspect 
 in herself a certain tendency which she was quite 
 capable of despising, as if her finer sensibilities were 
 running to weeds: as, for instance, why was she where 
 she was to-day? She had distinctly purposed not to 
 come. What power unclassified had drawn her on? 
 The question disturbed her. It shot athwart her rev 
 erie as if it were a bolt of blue lightning flung across 
 a passionate sunset. Her husband s face, her hus 
 band s voice, fled before it like riven clouds. Then 
 they came back, closing in, massing, blazing higher 
 than, brighter than, before. 
 
 Love may be a torch, flickering for a fete; it may 
 be a domestic brush-fire, burning decorously as long 
 
 190 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 as the material lasts; it may be a conflagration that 
 runs till it laps the edge of the river Lethe. 
 
 Hermione and her husband had found the map 
 of existence destroyed and recreated by their attach 
 ment. For eight years they had believed themselves 
 to have secured the joy everlasting. Both were of 
 the order of souls who perceive that a pure and 
 permanent love between man and woman is the 
 greatest thing in the world, and both believed that 
 marriage may offer this exquisite justification of the 
 mystery of living. 
 
 How had they suffered the blinding vision to evade 
 their darkened eyes? Where had the wonder gone? 
 How had it eluded them? How did it all happen? 
 For the life of her lost happiness she could not 
 have told. Bowed there on the rail of the bony 
 pew, with its stigmata on her burning forehead, and 
 the crape of the widow s veil blackening between 
 herself and the sacred table she sifted the ashes of 
 her life scornfully. For what, then, had they lost the 
 glamour of the sacred fire ? What had disenchanted 
 them? Was it a turn of the head, a trick of the eye, 
 a lapse of the tongue ? Was it a glacier in the will ? 
 Was it a geyser of the temper ? 
 
 There seemed to her now, as she thought of it, a 
 touch of something half humorous in her desolation - 
 that she should have been brought to the pass she 
 was without the dignity of a great tragedy. No moral 
 
 191 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 cataclysm had sundered them. Gerald was fastidious 
 in his way; he was a gentleman; he did not intrigue 
 with other women. The tables of stone had not been 
 broken between them. His rendering of the graven 
 letters had been as steady as her own. Perhaps in 
 the last analysis it had been steadier, or at least 
 clearer. She found herself wondering if he, since their 
 separation, had admitted to his consciousness moments 
 of weakness such as she had known this last year; to 
 do him justice, she doubted if he had. She thought of 
 him as setting his teeth, and attending to his business 
 methodically forgetting her, no doubt (oh, yes, 
 Gerald could forget better than she could), but 
 respecting to the margin of his imagination the tie 
 which still bound them. She did not believe that he 
 had gone maudlin over his loneliness, or dabbled in 
 the clouded spring of accessible sympathies. Whether 
 this were true of Gerald Alford or not, it was the 
 beautiful thing about Hermione that she thought so. 
 It was her lovely "way." She had always believed 
 the best of men of the men for whom she cared. 
 Her father was a commonplace person, but she had 
 never found it out. Her brother was a rascal, but she 
 had idealized him until he died. Marriage had 
 broken her heart, and she and her husband had 
 parted, but she went on saying, "Gerald would never 
 do that," "Gerald would be sure to do this," as if 
 they had been living and loving together still. 
 
 192 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 There had been no legal separation at all ; scarcely 
 a public scandal, yet. It was understood that Alford s 
 business had become of a character which compelled 
 him to travel. It was said that some sensitiveness to 
 malarial influences would not permit Mrs. Alford to 
 live in Brazil, and that her physical delicacy, indeed, 
 was of a sort which forbade frequent sea-voyages; in 
 short, the social fictions had been respectably pre 
 served up to this time. It had occurred to Hermione 
 that the serial novel might not run much longer. But 
 her minister her summer minister was the first 
 person to broach to her distinctly this unpleasant 
 truth. 
 
 "Where is Mr. Alford?" he had said abruptly, one 
 day in May. She came early now, earlier than they 
 used to come, to her summer home. She had nothing 
 else to do. There was nowhere else she wanted to go. 
 She crept into the Berkshire cottage like a hurt thing 
 that had been torn from its shell and crawls back to 
 heal if it can. 
 
 "He is in Paris that is," she corrected herself 
 (she never could tell a half-truth to Daniel True), 
 "he was when I heard from him last." 
 
 "And how long ago," continued the pastor, with no 
 apology for the question, "was that?" 
 
 " It is three months," she replied, without hesitation 
 or resentment. It seemed as natural for her to allow 
 as it was for him to assume the priestly prerogative. 
 
 193 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 "What does this mean?" demanded the Reverend 
 Mr. True, authoritatively. " That is, if you don t 
 mind telling me," he added, in the personal tone. She 
 would have thought that she should mind telling him 
 very much indeed. But she found her reluctance 
 suddenly and subtly failing her. She began, in point 
 of fact, to justify herself. 
 
 "I was miserable," she urged. "I was too miser 
 able to bear the disillusions of married life its 
 disappointments. I was hurt all the time. We had 
 been very happy happier than most people. So, I 
 suppose, we suffered more when Not that I would 
 have you think I blame my husband!" She lifted 
 her head with a desolate pride. "I was as much to 
 blame as he; I tired him; sometimes he thought I 
 nagged him. I was too easily wounded. I could not 
 overlook little things as I might have, as it seems to 
 me now that I could." 
 
 "Was there any great that is, any greater thing ? " 
 asked the pastor, gravely. "Forgive me. I wish to 
 help you. I do not put the question idly. I do not 
 want you to go into details. I am not urging any 
 confidence that you would regret nothing that I 
 ought not to hear. But perhaps if I understood a 
 little better " 
 
 The unwedded man hesitated; a fine change of 
 expression ennobled his delicate features. 
 
 " Of course, " he said, " if you would rather not " 
 
 194 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 The dreary eyes of the wife lifted and fell. 
 
 "There was something," she admitted. "I cannot 
 tell you " 
 
 "I do not wish you to!" he interrupted. " Could 
 you forgive it?" he persisted gently. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I could forgive it now." 
 
 "Not then?" 
 
 "No, not at the time. I was I suffered too 
 much." 
 
 Hermione, receiving no reply to these words, turned 
 her beautiful head abruptly. The minister was look 
 ing at her with a strong steadiness; his lips were 
 locked; in his eyes an angel seemed to sit on guard 
 beside a tomb. 
 
 "I am sorry that you must suffer," he said, in 
 a very low voice. He rose, and took his hat. 
 
 "I never met anything like it, " began Mrs. Alford. 
 She was impulsive sometimes, for a woman of the 
 world. "I mean such sympathy as yours not one 
 so delicate, and so so right. It helps me, Mr. True." 
 
 "No," he answered sharply, "it does not help you. 
 It is not helping anybody." 
 
 He wheeled and crossed the room. Then he came 
 back. The woman of the world sat with cheeks 
 scorching like a girl s. 
 
 "Forgive me," he said manfully. "I have blun 
 dered. I have spoken without tact. I am not accus 
 tomed to the surfaces of society as you are. I am 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 trying to do the best thing, to find the right way, 
 that J s all. I am afraid the expression of sympathy is 
 not the way." 
 
 "Have I ever sought it?" she cried proudly. 
 
 "You have never sought anything," he answered, 
 with a reverent inclination of his head. 
 
 From that hour the subject of her unhappy mar 
 riage had never been mentioned by either. It was the 
 first time, and the last. The memory of it wavered 
 between them like a tendril without a trellis, unsus- 
 tained and groping, quivering in mid-air. 
 
 Yet Hermione found herself able to recall the inter 
 view without discomfort. She was forced to suspect 
 that a power not herself had determined that she 
 should. Aching under the dislocation of her painful 
 position (she neither wife nor divorcee), she was 
 accustomed to hold herself haughtily. She was used 
 to averting the admiration of men; she distanced 
 their society and denied their friendship. It had been 
 her habit to protect them. She perceived that this 
 country parson, this inexperienced, unmarried man, 
 was able to take care of himself. It hardly occurred 
 to her that he might be guarding her. 
 
 At the communion service she thought of these 
 things without fear, and without reproach. She did 
 not lift her eyes to the table with the white cloth and 
 glittering silver; she prayed that there should be 
 nothing in her heart which she must veil before that 
 
 196 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 sacred sight. The pastor had now arisen to bless the 
 cup. A fold of the widow s veil swept against Mrs. 
 Alford s white hat and soft, thin cheek. She did not 
 move. A late communicant, coming in quietly, had 
 taken a seat beside her; but her consciousness could 
 hardly be said to have grasped the circumstance. 
 She sat remote from the trivial, devout and sweet. 
 
 The minister began to pray: 
 
 Lord, Thou hast given us the cup of life. We have 
 drunk deeply of it not as Thou wouldst, but as we 
 willed." 
 
 The stranger, near the summer parishioner, had 
 been sitting straight and stiff. At these words he 
 bowed his head, and his forehead fell reverently upon 
 the rail beside Hermione. As he did so, something 
 indeterminate emanated from his presence a subtle 
 medium one could not say to which of the senses it 
 would have appealed, if to any. Hermione thought 
 of the N-ray, which is said to assume the hues of a 
 personality, of a given emotion or passion. It seemed 
 to her that if she looked, she should see the color that 
 she felt streaming between herself and this unknown 
 man. Her mind slipped from the sacred symbols. 
 A fierce human pang drove through and through her. 
 The remembrance of her Lord, the prayer of her 
 pastor, the aspiration of her religious nature what 
 were they? What could they have meant a moment 
 ago? She was rent with that which extinguished 
 
 197 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 heaven and earth. What had befallen her ? Was it a 
 memory, or a prophecy ? A link of thought ? or a tint 
 of feeling ? She was thrilling with a consciousness of 
 buried joy, a sense of its infinite resources, of its 
 deserted hopes. In that country church she found 
 herself confronted with a miracle. Her married love 
 arose with all its grave-clothes on and looked at 
 her. 
 
 Panting with her emotion, she turned her head and 
 pushed the widow s veil aside, that she might gain air 
 (for she found it difficult to breathe) and still not 
 reveal her agitated face. The worshiper beside her 
 moved when she did, and his hand, which was 
 clenched upon his knee, opened and relaxed. It was 
 the left hand, and Hermione saw upon its third 
 finger, just above the wedding-ring, a deep white 
 scar; such as might be made by a drop of burning 
 wax. . . . 
 
 The village church spun and vanished about her. 
 With rose on her dress, and rose in her heart, and 
 youth in her veins, she stood in a whirlwind of fire. 
 Arms clasped her, lips touched her, passionate words 
 adjured her. She could feel the rough nap of her 
 husband s woolen coat against which she was held. 
 She thought she had cried out audibly: "Gerald! Did 
 you burn your hands ?" But her lips had not moved 
 no, nor a muscle of her fair body. The lace fan fell 
 from her fingers; that was all. The butterfly drifted 
 
 198 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 towards the flowers on the pulpit and swayed away. 
 The homely scent of the syringas floated in. The 
 praying voice of the pastor filled the silent church. 
 
 There had been but one passenger that afternoon on 
 the Sunday train, and when the newspapers were 
 slapped off and tossed upon the box of the muddy cab, 
 its driver had leisurely approached the traveler. 
 
 "You won t find her to home," he had said, with 
 the familiarity of a fellow townsman. "She ll be 
 to meetin . It s communion afternoon. Drive you 
 up?" 
 
 "I 11 walk," replied the passenger, shortly. He 
 had, in fact, taken his time about it. Once on the 
 way he had stopped under a chestnut-tree and drawn 
 a letter from his pocket. This he read and reread, 
 with the pertinacity of a man who already knew its 
 contents by heart, and who was perplexed or pro 
 foundly moved by them. He replaced the letter care 
 fully in his breast pocket, and walked on more 
 rapidly. As he walked he felt for the crackling paper 
 occasionally, to make sure that it was there. Thus the 
 letter ran : - 
 
 "Dear Alford: I have that to say which a man 
 does not usually say to another and it is not easy 
 to do. I have decided that I ought to do it. 
 
 "I am only your summer pastor, and you may not 
 view as I do the obligation under which I feel myself 
 
 199 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 to the most transient of my people the responsi 
 bility, I mean, to be of service to them, if I can. 
 
 "That sort of thing is not easy to explain to a man 
 
 who was never in the pulpit. No layman knows how 
 
 a pastor feels about such matters. But you and I 
 
 are more than pastor and parishioner; we are friends 
 
 - so here it is, Alford, and out with it. 
 
 "I am writing this letter with the distinct purpose 
 of asking you to return to your wife, and I do not 
 qualify in any way, nor do I apologize for this, as you 
 will justly say, extraordinary request. I make it; I 
 repeat it; I urge it; and there it stands. I do not even 
 explain the process by which I have arrived at the 
 making of it. I will go farther, and say that I urge 
 your return without delay. 
 
 "What has separated you two I do not know. We 
 have exchanged but a few words, she and I, upon the 
 subject. When I see you I will tell you, if you wish it, 
 what these were. Mrs. Alford is a reserved woman; 
 she bears her painful position with dignity; she does 
 not babble of her miseries. But she cannot conceal 
 the effect that they are having upon her. 
 
 " It is true that I am I do not need you to remind 
 me of it a solitary man. The sacred joys, the 
 intricate perplexities of married life I have not expe 
 rienced, and perhaps I never shall. Is it not possible 
 that for this very reason I am more, rather than less, 
 qualified to recall you to its obligations and its privi- 
 
 200 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 leges ? To me these seem, even in the least successful 
 marriage, so inexorable, so valuable, that I find it 
 hard to understand how a man can disregard them. 
 They seem to me worth the world and all that is 
 therein. 
 
 "Alford! come back to her. Don t wait to ques 
 tion why. Come at once, and ask no questions. Why, 
 man! you vowed to guard her the tenderest, the 
 most love-needy of women you know what she 
 is. How could you set her drifting like this? If she 
 had not been the noblest, as she is the tenderest; if 
 her own soul had not been a flame of white fire 
 scorching every unworthy thing or thought out of her 
 presence to what accidents of the sensibilities 
 might you have exposed her ? 
 
 "It is these exquisite natures, these sensitives, who 
 are most in peril. I don t mean a man would be 
 a savage who could conceive of their moral danger in 
 his lowest thought, but I mean the peril of accumu 
 lated pain, easy to prevent, impossible to cure. A 
 woman of her kind can bear only about so much 
 loneliness. I tell you she has borne all she can. 
 
 "Alford, I give you my word, as your friend and 
 hers, that she loves you; perhaps more, but not less, 
 than she did. I tell you we ministers yes, even we 
 unwedded ones may be better equipped than you 
 suppose to offer counsel to people in positions like 
 yours. 
 
 201 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 "The Protestant Church has its own confessional. 
 I am not without my experience in that. 
 
 "I do not think that Mrs. Alford is well this spring. 
 I am confident that she is losing strength. She is 
 very unhappy. I don t care what the causes of your 
 separation were; it makes no difference who was right 
 or who was wrong; nothing makes any difference. 
 The wrong is that you two should remain apart. The 
 right is that you should be together. I ask you to 
 take the next steamer; and I am, 
 
 Your friend and minister, 
 
 DANIEL TRUE. 
 
 "P. S. She does not know that I have written 
 this letter. You will do as you please, of course, but 
 perhaps it may be as well that she should not know." 
 
 The reverent house was still. The minister stood 
 with the silver goblet in his hand. His praying voice 
 was distinct and low. It was long remembered among 
 his people that it vibrated that day with strange 
 emotion. 
 
 "Lord, make us less unworthy to touch this cup 
 with our lips our lips, that err so often and are 
 so weak. They tremble as they drink. Make us fit 
 for the sacrifices and the privileges of love the 
 heavenly love, and the earthly. Teach us its sanctity. 
 Qualify us for its preciousness and its purity " 
 
 In the rear pew, empty of all but its two communi- 
 202 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 cants, a man s hand with a scar on it slid out timidly 
 and appealed to the woman sitting beside him. She 
 saw that it shook; it stole to her lap and lay suppliant 
 upon her knee. She had now raised her face, tear- 
 discolored, and with the stigmata on her forehead. 
 When he saw how worn she was, how changed, a 
 choked word fought for articulation, and fell defeated 
 in the listening silence. She thought he had tried to 
 say,- 
 
 She did not turn her head; but her hand crept 
 towards him and his closed upon it. 
 
 Above the tall figure of the pastor, the white 
 butterfly was circling delicately; it hovered over his 
 head as if it sought and loved him. A fine imagination 
 might have recalled the dove that hovered above the 
 head of another Preacher as he stood mid -stream in 
 Jordan receiving the chrism of his life s work. 
 
 The voice of the minister sank to a supreme 
 solemnity: "Behold I give you this cup. Drink ye all 
 ofit." 
 
 The people stirred and lifted praying faces. The 
 deacon and the heresy-hunter took the silver goblet 
 meekly from the pastor s hand. The heresy -hunter 
 did not remember if anything or anybody were 
 " sound." The deacon s boots creaked softly down 
 the main aisle. The widow wiped her eyes, and threw 
 her crape veil back. Her daughter did not look 
 
 203 
 
A SACRAMENT 
 
 towards the pulpit; she sat with downcast, patient 
 lashes. The boy and girl across the aisle exchanged 
 a gentle look, and honored one another; they thought, 
 "Some day this good man shall marry us." Each 
 heart received its own sacrament, and went its own 
 way. 
 
 Two communicants stayed yet with heads bowed 
 and faces hidden. But their hands were clasped. 
 When the silver chalice reached them, last of all, it 
 was nearly empty; a few heart -red drops remained. 
 The man and the woman put the shining brim to 
 their lips ; they found the holy wine and drank all of it. 
 
 But the minister sat with his face covered from the 
 people, and his heart open to his God. 
 
TAMMYSHANTY 
 
 THE boy curled astride the bowsprit of the schooner, 
 and looked over into the thick water. 
 
 There are certain defects in early education of 
 which one is so poignantly conscious at so tender an 
 age that they might as well be, since they seem, 
 irreparable. 
 
 Not to have experienced more than a term or two 
 at night school, not to be able to offer evidential 
 parents to society, not to have any home more concrete 
 than the wharves, the bridges, the railroad yard, or a 
 stray bed at the newsboys lodge, and not to command 
 an appreciable income these are inferior circum 
 stances about which one does not concern one s self. 
 Not to know how to swim that is the irrevocable, 
 that is the fatal thing. There is about this affliction 
 an air of finality against which human hope cannot 
 wrestle. The boy felt that it would be easier to get 
 into prison and out again than it would ever be to get 
 into the lake and out. 
 
 Once he had ventured to "do time" like a man, 
 but he had escaped like a monkey. Once he had tried 
 to swim, and it had taken two doctors and two hours 
 to resuscitate his valuable life. He had long since 
 
 205 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 come to look upon criminal careers and nautical 
 sports as equally serious and objectionable. But the 
 rebound of attraction to that which one has renounced 
 is as inevitable as the nature of gutta-percha. The 
 boy hung upon the bowsprit and dared himself to 
 drop. 
 
 "I stump yer!" he said. 
 
 The schooner was silent, and to all intents empty. 
 The cook who was left in charge of her slept the sleep 
 of too much and too recent shore leave. The wharf, 
 deserted, blistered in the scorching noon. An ore 
 barge that had lain alongside was laboring out in 
 charge of a tug which never washed its face. There 
 had been a couple of men fishing in a boat, but these 
 had rowed away. 
 
 A pauper dog sat on a pile of lumber to view die 
 scenery; but he had a misanthropic and preoccupied 
 air; he did not notice the boy. There was not so much 
 as a policeman, to say, " Move on, now!" 
 
 The child had taken off his clothes, excepting for a 
 rag of underwear, and looked like a crab, half in, half 
 out of its shell. He clung with a desperate daring, 
 born of his conscious timidity, peeping over into the 
 black -green depths; these seemed as solid as mala 
 chite, and as impenetrable. He hung by one dirty 
 hand, then by the other by two grimy feet, then by 
 one then by all fours; by his chin, on his stomach, 
 by anything, on anywhere, unable to plunge, unable to 
 
 206 
 
TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 refuse to plunge a grotesque little image of irres 
 olution. No observant deity interfered with it. 
 
 Now, the bowsprit was shiny and slippery; and the 
 boy was sprawly and not very strong; he had not had 
 much to eat for a few days in fact, he seldom did 
 have very much. 
 
 It would not have been easy to say which came 
 first, the splash or the cry. Without intention to defy 
 the suicide laws of his paternal state, the lad was in 
 the water, whence a final trapeze performance sus 
 tained upon one foot and one finger had hurled him. 
 
 He dropped, and sank, and rose, and shrieked. 
 But the cook who had too much shore leave did not 
 turn in his bunk in the hot fo castle. The boy sank, 
 and rose again, and this time he did not shriek. 
 
 His hair was red the red that one might expect 
 of a tiger lily crossed with a dahlia the live, deep- 
 bodied red, touched with orange and flaming. As he 
 came up his head flared on the black water like a 
 torch sputtering before it should be extinguished. 
 He threw up his little thin, naked arms. As he went 
 down he felt himself gripped, and after a while slapped 
 in the face by something. 
 
 The pauper dog, who had been cynically regarding 
 the lake, turned his neck slowly to look at the drown 
 ing boy but after that he did nothing slow. He 
 sprang, he leaped, he plunged, he swam; each impres 
 sive motion as swift as a noble feeling. Only a 
 
 207 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 kinetoscope could have followed the movements of 
 the flying, battling creature. He was not a handsome 
 dog, but the beauty of the merciful nature was in him ; 
 its grand unconsciousness, its splendid disregard of 
 self. To these things a muscle responds, as well as a 
 mind. 
 
 The shore officer who ran down to the wharf felt 
 the moisture start in his experienced eyes as he saw 
 the sight. The two men in the boat rowed back with 
 tremendous strokes, shouting: 
 
 "Good dog! Good fellow! Have him, sir! Get him, 
 sir!" 
 
 The cook waked, and staggered up the companion- 
 way, and said : - 
 
 "Damn!" 
 
 But the boy and the dog said nothing at all the one 
 because he was too weak and the other because he 
 was too busy. The child had resigned himself instinc 
 tively to his rescuer, and did not struggle. The 
 pauper dog had seized the drowning lad by his little 
 ragged underwear, and tugged at that stolidly, pulling 
 and treading water with his paws. 
 
 A dreadful fact had now forced itself upon the 
 animal s intelligence either he was too small or the 
 boy was too large. In a general way he had always 
 observed that there were bigger dogs than he, but he 
 had never been convinced that he was not their equal, 
 or superior, when it came to the point. When he 
 
 208 
 
"TAMMYSHANTY 
 
 found that he could not support the weight of the lad, 
 an intense mortification overcame him. Now morti 
 fication, when it does not crush, stimulates, and the 
 dog s body, fighting not to be drawn under by the 
 human body, became brain all over where it was not 
 heart, and heart wherever it was not brain. 
 
 The animal perceived a chance his only one - 
 and took it. A rope s end trailed from the rail of the 
 schooner and writhed like a snake in the water. The 
 dog seized and dragged the snake. No man who saw 
 it could say afterwards how it was done; but every 
 stupid, helpless, laggard human of them agreed that 
 the dog and the rope united before the rope and 
 the boy did. One little purple hand reached, and 
 missed, and rose, and clutched and clung. The lad 
 sprawled dangling; the cook, swearing, held down his 
 drunken arms. 
 
 But the two in the boat rowed up on a spurt, and 
 the Good Angel of the Gamin (if there be such a 
 minister of grace) ordained that they should not be 
 too late. The fishermen jerked the little fellow off 
 the rope and in upon the thwarts, where he lay 
 dripping and lobster red. Then, pausing only to let 
 off a curse or two upon the cook, they started back 
 to the wharf with their passengers. 
 
 When they had covered a considerable space of 
 fluent malachite it occurred to them in a leisurely way 
 to look back. A little brown spot undulated through 
 
 209 
 
TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 the water at their wake; slowly, as if it found difficulty 
 in moving. One of the rowers asked : 
 
 " Where s the dog, Jim?" 
 
 "Great Scott!" said Jim. "That must be him. 
 Looks kinder tired, don t he, Bill?" 
 
 "Nigh petered out, " admitted Bill contritely. " Put 
 about, an be quick, you! " 
 
 With swift and powerful oars the two men put about, 
 and brought up against the dog, who was swimming 
 feebly, as if exhausted by his late exertion. 
 
 So Bill penitently pulled him aboard, and Jim said, 
 "Good fellow! " and the boat resumed her course to 
 the wharf. The boy had crawled from the thwarts 
 to the bottom, and lay sputtering and shivering; he 
 did not say " Good fellow" to anybody, either man or 
 dog. When the men had spilled their passengers upon 
 the wharf they rowed away about their business, 
 nodding, and reprimanding the boy: 
 
 "Don t do it again, you!" 
 
 The child blinked at them stupidly. His purple 
 lips opened and moved several times, but nothing of 
 value to the world came from them; he did not know 
 how to thank anybody for a kindness; in his whole 
 life he had never received enough to learn the art. 
 
 The fishermen rowed off. The cook on the 
 schooner swore at the boy for a few minutes, and went 
 below to finish his nap. The wharf officer came up 
 and patted the dog, and shook the boy, and told him 
 
 2IO 
 
TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 to move on when he got dry. Then he, too, went 
 away. 
 
 The boy and the dog remained upon the wharf; 
 dripping and shivering, they eyed each other cau 
 tiously. The dog saw a red head and freckles, a 
 purple human crab, and a stealthy human grin to 
 which he felt an inclination to respond. The boy saw 
 an Irish terrier. He was a mongrel, and of a con 
 siderable size; his tail was stubbed to a humorous 
 shortness, but his ears were uncut; the shock of hair 
 above his eyes was larger and thicker than usual, and 
 gave to the slow imagination of the lad the impression 
 of a tam-o -shanter cap. The dog s eyes were fine and 
 sad. At the moment they gleamed with something 
 between pride and fear. The animal seemed to be 
 uncertain whether he should expect to be praised or 
 beaten for the deed that he had done. He regarded 
 the boy with the alert wariness that one sees some 
 times in the eyes of an experienced old Irishman who 
 has met a new type of employer. After some silent 
 reflection the boy cautiously observed : - 
 
 " Hullo! " He had something of the diffidence that 
 he once felt when he talked with a little deaf mute. It 
 occurred to him that the dumb dog had more ways of 
 speaking than the dumb child. Tail, eyes, ears, tongue, 
 throat, each and all knew how to listen and to answer. 
 The boy felt that he and the dog already experienced 
 conversation. With growing confidence he repeated: 
 
 211 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 " Hullo!" 
 
 " Hullo yourself," barked the dog. 
 
 "Hully gee," said the boy. 
 
 "Hully gee," returned the dog. 
 
 "Cold, ain t it? You bet!" 
 
 "You bet," rejoined the dog. 
 
 "Deep, warn t it? Darn deep," Suggested the boy. 
 
 "Darned deep," agreed the dog. 
 
 "Say," said the boy slowly, "I hain t never had 
 nobody do nothin for me like you done." 
 
 To this the terrier did not reply, but the experi 
 enced Celt in his eyes came out and scruntinized the 
 lad, as if he weighed the probable meaning of the 
 words. 
 
 "You ain t no relation, nuther, " added the boy. A 
 flash in the face of the Irish dog seemed to retort? 
 "Doncher be too sure of that." 
 
 Now the boy hesitatingly extended a little dripping 
 hand, and laid it on the terrier s drenched tam-o - 
 shanter. The child could not remember that he had 
 ever caressed anything, even a dog or a kitten; and he 
 did not know how. The dog recognized the attention 
 by a pleasant wag of his too-short tail. 
 
 "Say," said the boy, "you V me might be pals." 
 
 The dog assented politely. 
 
 "I hain t got no partikkelar place to put up," 
 admitted the boy, by way of apology. 
 
 The obvious reply, "I hain t none myself," did not 
 
 212 
 
TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 come from the dog. The process of thought was too 
 complicated. 
 
 "Was you ever hungry?" asked the boy. 
 
 The terrier threw up his dripping head, and 
 laughed. 
 
 "I be myself, sometimes," explained the boy. 
 "But somethin or nothin , half s yourn. See?" 
 
 "I see," said the dog. 
 
 "Me name," observed the boy incidentally, "is 
 Peter Roosevelt Tammany." 
 
 The dog permitted himself a look of pained per 
 plexity. 
 
 "But they calls me Jack the Marineer. That s cos 
 I can t swim. Me common Monday edition name is 
 Jacket. Got any name of yer own? " 
 
 The dog hung his wet head with embarrassment. 
 
 "How s Tammyshanty ? " asked the boy. 
 
 The dog uttered a hilarious howl. Jacket hesitated 
 for a reply, instinctively seeking something more 
 serious than profane. Now and then, at Christmas 
 time, he had wandered into Sunday-school, and he 
 raked his memory for a sacred phrase. 
 
 "Amen," he said, after some thought. 
 
 "Amen," replied the dog. The shivering lad sol 
 emnly put his arm about the neck of the drenched 
 and shaking animal, and whistled something haugh 
 tily, as if he had been the owner of large private ken 
 nels. The terrier leaped and sprang to the sound. 
 
 213 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 The boy hunted up his ragged clothes, and he and the 
 dog passed soberly up the wharf together. 
 
 In the prelude to any union of spirits there is a 
 solemn moment; and something of the seriousness of 
 an intimate relation settled upon the gamin and the 
 mongrel, as they trotted into the city and disappeared 
 from the lenient eye of the wharf officer, who smiled, 
 as if he had heard a good story which might bear 
 repeating. 
 
 Love is a variety in unity, and we hear much, but 
 not too much, about it. We read forever of the love 
 of man and woman, and the love of a mother for a 
 child ; we study love as the chief lesson of life, and the 
 choice material of art. In the great heart of human 
 feeling at whose beats we listen, have we thought it 
 quite worth while to count the love of a boy for a dog ? 
 A friendless boy for a homeless dog? One should 
 add: A loveless boy for an unloved dog? 
 
 Jacket the gamin and Tarn o Shanter the terrier 
 came together in one strong dramatic moment and 
 united like rain-drops, or waves, or flame. What had 
 life been to either without the other? In a week, in a 
 day, it became impossible to imagine. The outcast 
 animal, longing always for an unknown master, ac 
 cepted the sweet servitude rapturously. The desolate 
 child, knowing neither the name nor the fact of love, 
 he who had no human tie, and knew no human ten- 
 
 214 
 
"TAMMYSHANTY 
 
 derness, received with almost incredible emotion the 
 allegiance of the dog. The swish of a stubby tail, the 
 kiss of a pink tongue, the clasp of scrawny paws, 
 the mute worship of dark, pursuant eyes these be 
 came the events of a day, and mounted to the romance 
 of existence. For such signs that he was dear to some 
 thing the lad watched with an idealization that was 
 well-nigh poetic; and for such cumulative evidence 
 that anything was dear to him, he lived. A few men, 
 but not many, remember or understand the capacity 
 for affection in the soul of the boy. Behind the 
 rough bark what fine sap flows! Below the blazonry, 
 the bluff, the vulgarity, if you will, of a neglected lad, 
 what gentle, what delicate fibres hide! 
 
 The gamin acquired that splendid fortune which 
 may be the supreme ennobler of a human creature - 
 he had experienced a great passion. Prince or poet 
 may live and die and miss it, or even never know that 
 he has missed it. Jacket the newsboy had found it, 
 and recognized the fact. Everything that he felt, 
 everything that he had was the pauper dog s the 
 child s poor corner in the attic of the tenement where 
 he had become a lodger because he felt that Tam o 
 Shanter needed a home and shelter; the scantiest 
 meals that ever were earned out of a bad day s 
 business, or the biggest that good luck gave a fellow 
 now and then half of everything there was went 
 to the patient, snuggling terrier, who never begged, 
 
 215 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 who never grabbed, who ate silently, it seemed under 
 protest, when the larder was low. The first quarter 
 that the lad could save gave the dog a strap collar, 
 laboriously marked in indelible ink with a master s 
 name and street and number. One day a deluded 
 philanthropist who had inquired into the circum 
 stances gave two dollars to license the dog. The 
 philanthropist was an old man, with an old-fashioned 
 gray beard, and a water-proof coat; he did not look 
 like every other man; he was an officer in some 
 society that occupied itself with the reduction of 
 human cruelty; but that the street child could not 
 know, nor would he have understood it if he could. 
 
 Among the recorded good deeds of many serious 
 years it may be doubted if the gray man in the water 
 proof coat had ever done a wilder, kinder act than 
 when he flung two dollars into the bottomless sea of 
 gamin life, and trusted an unwatched boy to spend it 
 for the protection of an unlicensed dog. 
 
 When Jacket returned from the city hall he lifted 
 his red head proudly. He had become a property 
 holder; Tammyshanty was a tax-payer; both were 
 citizens; they celebrated the event by an extravagant 
 supper. They bought a big bone with much meat on 
 it, cooked it between two stones and an old piece of 
 funnel in a vacant lot, and divided the consequences. 
 In the development of their mutual affection the two 
 tried to interchange tastes, if not natures. Tammy- 
 
 216 
 
TAMMYSHANTY 
 
 shanty would have lived on apples and potatoes (to 
 which he cultivated a hopeless objection) for his 
 master s sake. The lad would have eaten bones, if 
 he could, for the dog s. 
 
 That night they slept ecstatically, Tammyshanty 
 upon the foot of his master s ragged bed. A dozen 
 times a night, whether asleep or awake, the boy felt 
 about with his foot to make quite sure that the dog 
 was there. In cold weather he covered Tammy- 
 shanty with his own ragged coat. With some vague 
 reminiscence of his too-brief Sunday-school existence, 
 he had taught the terrier to say his prayers at night. 
 When one cried "Amen! " in a deep, religious voice, 
 Tammyshanty barked, and jumped into bed. In 
 the morning the two kissed rapturously, but some 
 times sadly, for it was not always safe or possible 
 to take Tammyshanty upon a journalistic career in 
 the crowded crossings of Newspaper Row. The dog 
 was in the habit of going to the corner of the alley 
 with the newsboy, and returning home alone. There, 
 on the broken steps of the tenement, he sat, a statue 
 of a dog, whom neither fights nor fires, kicks nor 
 caresses could allure, and waited for the lad. If it 
 were very stormy or cold, Tammyshanty climbed to 
 the attic bedroom, and watched soberly through a 
 broken window, listening for a whistle or a call at 
 which the heart of a dog must leap like climbing 
 
 foam. 
 
 217 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 "Peppers! Peppers! Tammyshanty! Oh oo 
 ee ! Tammyshantee ! 
 
 Down the steps or down the stairs, across the alley, 
 up the alley to run as the heart runs, how short 
 a time it takes! Sometimes twice, never more than 
 that, the lad may cry : 
 
 "Pep pers! Oh oo ee! Tammyshantee! " 
 
 Then, with clasping arms and paws, with little 
 laughs of delight and yaps of joy, boy and dog are one. 
 
 Now it befell that one day, when business was dull, 
 the two went out for pleasure, and took a walk of 
 considerable length. A brown brick house came in 
 their way, a house with an ell, and a yard; a gloomy 
 house, whose shades were drawn. It had old-fash 
 ioned wooden shutters, of a dingy white, and in the 
 ell the lad noticed that the shutters were closed. 
 
 A man stood in the vestibule of the house. He was 
 a middle-aged man, dressed as a gentleman dresses. 
 For some reason he did not strike the gamin as being 
 a gentleman. The man s face was heavily lined, like 
 a piece of old leather that has been folded into certain 
 creases so long that it cannot smooth out. His eyes 
 were cold, like Bessemer steel, and might have been 
 as useful, for they were not stupid eyes; but some 
 thing in their expression was indescribably repulsive. 
 Jacket, who was whistling, glanced and stopped. 
 The street boy was shrewd as the tribes of the street 
 are in the interpretation of character. 
 
 218 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 " That s a fine dog of yours," observed the man. 
 
 "You bet, " replied Jacket, proudly; but he walked 
 on, without stopping. Tarn o Shanter followed with 
 a passionate docility. 
 
 " I 11 give you fifty cents for him, " pursued the man 
 in the vestibule. He came down the steps and out 
 upon the sidewalk as he spoke. "Here." 
 
 He held out a long, sinuous hand, in which a piece 
 of silver glittered. The boy and the dog stopped. 
 The Irish terrier set his teeth and growled. Jacket 
 threw back his red head. 
 
 "Fifty cents! Me? For my dog? You must a 
 come from way back." The child laughed. "You 
 must be orful green for a fellar of yer size," he 
 added. 
 
 "Fifty cents is a good deal of money, " returned the 
 man with the Bessemer eyes. "I don t know but 
 I 11 make it sixty; seventy-five if you want to drive a 
 bargain. I ve been wanting a dog." 
 
 The boy seemed, on the instant, to grow before the 
 man s eyes as if he had been another man and to 
 tower above his elder and by all the standards of the 
 world his superior. A terrible torrent of profanity 
 poured from the gamm s quivering lips: 
 
 "I wouldn t sell that there dog for not for 
 seventy-five dollars!" Jacket enunciated the words 
 slowly, striving to express the inconceivable in the way 
 of monetary values. Once or twice he had seen a ten- 
 
 219 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 dollar bill. Once in his life he had handled five 
 dollars. He dwelt upon this computation of human 
 wealth with awe. 
 
 Then he turned upon his ragged heel. 
 
 "Peppers! Pep pers! Wireless extry! Oh 
 oo ee ? Tammy shan tee ! " 
 
 The soprano cry whistled down the alley. It was 
 night, and a dark one; a winter night, some five weeks 
 or so after the incident of the brick house. It was 
 snowing, and very cold. The boy s feet were wet, 
 and he shivered as he hurried home. From a busi 
 ness point of view it had not been a bad day, and 
 tucked tight under his ragged elbow the newsboy held 
 his supper their supper; his and Tammyshanty s ; 
 a scrap of cooked beef, cast out from a poor restau 
 rant for a poor but possible price. 
 
 "I ll give him the biggest half," thought the child. 
 "He s the littlest. See?" 
 
 There had been no answer to his call, and Jacket 
 lurched into a run, repeating shrilly: 
 
 l Oh oo ee ! Tammyshantee ! 
 
 As he ran he listened for the sure, dear bark. The 
 lad s lips moved, muttering: 
 
 "Must be so stormy Ican t hear him. Oh oo ee! 
 Tammyshantee? Must be up attic. That s wot s e 
 matter. Must a got shet in somewheres. Oh oo 
 ee! Tammyshantee? He ll be settin in e winder 
 
 220 
 
"TAMMYSHANTY" 
 
 a-watchin an a-yappin like to split hisself. Oh 
 oo ee! " 
 
 He pushed on, sprinting through the piling drifts, 
 jerked the fringe of snow from his forelock and eye 
 brows, and raked the tenement from roof to cellar 
 in one sharpened glance. The dog was not upon the 
 doorsteps; the broken window was empty of his little 
 watching, anxious, Irish face. Jacket dashed on, and 
 up four flights of broken stairs, burst open the door 
 of his attic, and fell in panting. 
 
 A wisp of snow had drifted through the broken 
 pane upon the foot of the cot where the child and the 
 dog slept. There was of course no fire, and the attic 
 was very cold. It occurred to Jacket that it was cold 
 enough to freeze even an Irish terrier, and he gasped 
 and gazed. But the bed was as empty as the window. 
 The dog was not in the room. 
 
 At the moment when I pause in the story, as one 
 pauses before the thing from which one shrinks, my 
 eyes chance upon these words chosen from one of the 
 people s philosophies of our epigram-loving day: 
 
 " You don t know all of grief and loneliness unless 
 you are a boy, and have lost a pet dog." 
 
 The first of it seemed, at the time, the worst of it; 
 though afterwards the lad came to know that it was 
 not. He spent that night in the storm, baffled and 
 beaten, searching alleys and yards, and tenements, 
 
 221 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 calling upon neighbors, friends and foes, newsboys, 
 messengers, letter-carriers, girls in flaunting hats, all 
 the population that exists by locomotion of the throb 
 bing streets. He went so far and it is difficult for 
 the sheltered and respectable and mature to estimate 
 the extent of this tremendous step as to consult the 
 arch enemy of mortal man, the police of his own city. 
 Towards midnight the storm stopped, but the little 
 master s passionate search did noi. He crawled about 
 town until the gray of the dawn, then stumbled to his 
 attic, and dropped down exhausted upon the bed 
 where the wisp of snow had driven to a drift. There, 
 curled in his drenched clothes, he sobbed and slept 
 a little, and dreamed that Tammyshanty slept and 
 sobbed beside him. In his dream the lad moved his 
 cold foot, and felt about for the dog upon the bed. 
 
 "Say, Mister, hev you seen a lost dog anywheres? 
 A licensed dog ? A yaller dog, Mister ? A pure mon 
 grel Irish terrier dog ? The purtiest t ing of his kind 
 you ever seen. Had a tammy shanty cap acrosst his 
 eyes. You never seen such harnsome eyes. He 
 warn t no common purp; he ain t no poorhouse dog. 
 He s got his master s name that s me, Peter 
 Roosevelt Tammany printed on his collar, sir. But 
 I 11 low they calls me Jacket gener lly. An my 
 residence, Mister, my street and number in case any 
 thing happened to him. My dog s name is Tammy- 
 
 222 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY 
 
 shanty. He s a licensed dog. 1 1 ought I d find him 
 long before now. See? Say, Mister, sure ye hain t 
 seen any sech a dog? Not anywheres? " 
 
 This question, repeated a score of times a day, as 
 many more by night, quivered plaintively through 
 the city for a week, for two, for three; for more than 
 the boy had kept the heart to count. 
 
 In his emergency he consulted all his old friends, 
 and made some new ones. On the wharf endeared to 
 him as the scene of love at first sight between himself 
 and Tammyshanty, he sought, and as it befell, he 
 found his rescuers, the two fishermen. He who was 
 called Jim said : 
 
 "Sho! Can t cher find him?" 
 
 But he who was called Bill said : 
 
 "I 11 have a shy at lookin for that yaller dog, my 
 self." 
 
 The shore policeman strolled up and committed 
 himself to the extent of saying, "That so? " and took 
 the description and address of dog and master. 
 Jacket had the pertinacity of purpose belonging to 
 love and anguish. He went so far as to look for the 
 drunken cook. But the schooner had vanished into 
 the storm-swept, frowning lake. 
 
 The newsboys rallied around the bereaved child 
 with the alert instincts of their calling. One passed the 
 event to the other. A subterranean intelligence ran 
 through the gamin world. In particular the afflicted 
 
 223 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 boy was aware of the sympathy as dumb as a 
 dog s, and almost as helpless of two lads, officers in 
 the Newsboys Association, and bearing, in that impor 
 tant organization, their own dignities and titles, but 
 known to an indifferent public as Freckles and Blinders. 
 
 "Dis t ing otter be giv to de press," suggested 
 Freckles. 
 
 "I ll speak to me Paper bout it," observed 
 Blinders with journalistic assurance. Jacket received 
 this stupendous idea slowly. After giving it some 
 silent consideration, he timidly sought his own 
 favorite reporter upon his own staff and told the story 
 of Tarn o Shanter. The reporter glanced up from his 
 yellow pad. 
 
 "Why, that s a pity!" he said kindly, and went 
 on writing. 
 
 "Say, Mister, hev yer seen a dog? A yaller dog? 
 A licensed dog? Wid his street n number on his 
 collar n his name, Tammyshanty, sir? Hair 
 stood up all round his eyes. Master s name, that s 
 me Peter Roosevelt Tammany printed plain 
 beside. Hain t seen him anywheres ? Hain t ye seen 
 any sort of a yaller dog? Hain t ye " 
 
 The plaintive entreaty, now learned by heart, and 
 reiterated by rote, fell from the lips of Peter Roose 
 velt Tammany as a bag of ballast drops from a 
 balloon in full flight, and sank with a thud into a 
 
 224 
 
"TAMMYSHANTY" 
 
 guttural oath. The boy, blinded by grief, had failed 
 to notice where he was or to whom he spoke. Now, 
 the brick house with the ell and the drawn shades 
 revealed itself like an unwelcome scene shifted sud 
 denly upon a stage in an unpleasant people s play; 
 and in the vestibule the man with the steel in his 
 eyes stood looking down^coldly. 
 
 "Go to thunder, you!" screamed the gamin. 
 "Offerin me money money! for me dog. Fifty 
 cents seventy -five for a pure mongrel Irish 
 terrier. Fished me outen e lake n saved me life, 
 blank yer ! Cuddled in me neck an - - an kissed me. 
 Why, Mister, I d I d give ye seventy-five dollars 
 for my dog. I d git it someways er nuther. Prob- 
 a ly I d git it from me Pepper. Would n t mind ef 
 I had ter steal it an do time for it. Say! Look here! 
 You! Come back, Mister! Look round here! You 
 hain t you hain t seen him anywheres, hev yer ? 
 Mister ! Mister ! Ef you did, ef yer ever should, you d 
 be kind to him, would n t yer? Cos he s e littlest. 
 See ? You d let me know, would n t yer ? He was 
 sech an orful cunnin dog knowed so much an 
 he wagged his tail so - - t wa n t a very big one - 
 when I got home an - - an kissed me, Mister - 
 
 But the door of the brick house was shut. 
 
 Shrilling and sobbing, the child turned down the 
 street unsteadily; he was seldom so demoralized; for 
 composure and fortitude are newsboy traits. As he 
 
 225 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 reeled along, punching his grimy knuckles into his eyes 5 
 he ran against an old man, tall and gray, striding in 3 
 water-proof coat. Jacket, sputtering out of his bath of 
 tears, recognized the philanthropist who had lavished 
 the incredible sum of two dollars to license Tammy- 
 shanty. 
 
 "Oh, sir!" he cried. "Oh, sir!" 
 
 Wildly he related the circumstances of his expe 
 riences at the brick house. 
 
 "Ah?" said the old man, sharply. "Show me the 
 place." 
 
 The two retraced their steps, and stood before the 
 house. Most of its shades were closely drawn. In 
 the ell the blinds were closed. It was a gloomy house, 
 destitute, it seemed, of family ties, of the sense of 
 home, of the consciousness of human love. While 
 the old man and the boy stood regarding it, a strange 
 sound escaped from the place; it accelerated, then 
 lapsed; muffled, or perhaps stilled. 
 
 The child shivered and gasped : 
 
 "Sounds like sounds like it was " 
 
 "Come away," said the old gentleman, quickly. 
 He grasped the boy s hand and led him, hurrying 
 down the street. 
 
 The reporter looked up from his yellow pad. 
 Jacket stood panting, ragged cap in hand. His teeth 
 chattered in his broad mouth. 
 
 226 
 
"TAMMYSHANTY 
 
 " Freckles n Blinders says" -he began. "De 
 fellers says he cuts em up. Critters an - - an 
 dogs livin ones they heern em." 
 
 He babbled forth some one of the tragic tales 
 which are so unwelcome to the sensibilities that it 
 is more comfortable to doubt than to investigate 
 their dark significance. The reporter whirled on the 
 revolving chair of an absent editor the religious 
 one. 
 
 "Must be one of these private experimenters," he 
 said below his breath. The chief was passing by, and 
 stopped. 
 
 "They re apt to do pretty rough work," added the 
 subordinate. " Shall we take it up ? " 
 
 The chief stood with his hands in his pockets, and 
 regarded the boy; who cringed when he saw the great 
 man shake his head. Jacket s faith in his "Pepper" 
 was illimitable. That its strong arms encompassed all 
 human powers, and some divine ones, he pathetically 
 believed. His little body bent together like a shut jack- 
 knife before the indifference of the managing editor. 
 
 "If there were any sort of story in it " - observed 
 the chief. "It does n t strike me there is." 
 
 The pen that wrote the best "story" in the office 
 sighed for its opportunity. But the young man s 
 heart ached for the lad. 
 
 "Tell me," he urged gently. "All there is to tell. 
 There might be something I could do." 
 
 227 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 Jacket did not answer. The reporter went out after 
 him; but the child and the night had blended silently. 
 
 It was a wild night, and Jacket pushed weakly 
 against the resistance of the brutal lake wind. He 
 ran upon a little squad of whispering newsboys, but 
 veered past them, volleying incoherent, piteous words. 
 His head hung forward, and his tongue lolled from his 
 mouth. It was as if he scented the brick house as a 
 hound scents prey. He flung himself upon the high 
 steps. Choking between sobs and curses, he demanded 
 entrance by ringers and feet, by voice and fists, by 
 prayers and oaths. 
 
 " Gimme my dog, - you ! Mister ! Dear Mister ! 
 Please gimme my dog. You got so many dogs an 
 I ain t got nothin but him I 11 set the cops on you. 
 I 11 set my Pepper on you if you don t gimme my dog. 
 Say, Mister, please, Mister, I 11 pay you for my dog. 
 I ll gin you a hundred dollars for Tammyshanty. 
 My Pepper 11 start a public sooperscription for him. 
 Don t you darst tech my dog. Tammyshantee ? 
 Tammyshantee ? A men ! 
 
 The door of the house remained shut, and locked, 
 and barred. Jacket shook it furiously, and fell back. 
 Like a cat he climbed up the iron railing into the area ; 
 crawled beneath the blinded windows of the large ell, 
 lay flat upon his stomach, and beat back his sobs to 
 listen. Plucking up his broken voice he softly called : 
 
 " Oh oo ee ! Tammyshantee ? " 
 228 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY 
 
 Was it accident, or answer? Did his brain reel 
 with his misery? Or had the lonely lad recognized in 
 that inaccessible inferno the cry of his own dog ? 
 
 He dashed over the railing and tottered up the steps. 
 There, a raging little figure, hurling blow after blow 
 upon the unyielding door, his friends found him. It 
 was the old philanthropist in the water-proof coat who 
 took the child to his aged heart. But the reporter was 
 there; and the shore policeman (now promoted to an 
 inland beat) and the newsboys, Freckles and Blinders, 
 cursing behind. 
 
 "Tree hunderd more of us is comin ! " screamed 
 the lads. "We ll smash de doors an winders in! 
 We // get Tammy shanty. You betcher life we will! " 
 
 But the policeman put out his awful hand and 
 motioned back the thronging boys three hundred 
 of them, as their little officers had said. 
 
 "Nothing can get out that there yellow dog but 
 just a search warrant, " said the officer sadly enough. 
 " And the judge he won t give it. He says the evidence 
 is lackin ." 
 
 Chattering like monkeys, the newsboys clamored 
 and pressed up against the office. The old philan 
 thropist patted the child upon his arm. The reporter 
 stood in the foreground; as if he cast his lot in with 
 the boys. 
 
 For a moment law and humanity regarded each 
 other silently. Then the newsboys broke into a yell. 
 
 229 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 It was taken up from the alley, from the sidewalk, 
 from the windows of the neighboring houses, and 
 swelled from the street beyond. Freckles pushed 
 Blinders forward. 
 
 "Mr. Cop," said Blinders, "we repersent every 
 paper in dis yer city. We ain t er goin in for no free 
 fight. We re law-abidin citizens, Cop, but we re er 
 goin to hev dat dog. You betcher life! " 
 
 " I wish to Moses you could," admitted the officer. 
 But he stood stolidly between the house and the 
 muttering crowd. 
 
 Apparently baffled, the newsboys consulted in 
 whispers, massed and turned away. The philan 
 thropist and the reporter carried Jacket somewhere, 
 and tried to make him eat or drink, to warm him or 
 to comfort him; but the child, refusing, sat with a 
 sly eye upon the door. While the reporter stirred the 
 sugar in the coffee, and the philanthropist was paying 
 for the beefsteak, the boy slid out of the restaurant 
 like an eel out of a basket. He had not spoken a word. 
 His face was pinched. He had ceased to sob. With 
 the look of a little old man who was weary of life, but 
 with the wings of childhood in his feet, he flew to the 
 brick house. There, crawling flat beneath the windows 
 of the ell, he lay and watched and listened. Once he 
 faintly called : 
 
 " Oh oo ee ! Tammyshantee ? " 
 
 Towards morning, when it grew pretty cold, he 
 230 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 climbed the iron fence, got back to the steps, and 
 coiled himself against the barred door. His heart 
 went through it like a battering ram. It was as if he 
 could force his way in and draw the dog out. 
 
 Forty-eight hours is a long time to experience 
 despair, but it is a short time in which to prepare for 
 retribution. Of this the private experimenter found 
 himself unexpectedly and poignantly aware. He sat 
 alone among his victims, and eyed them with a 
 grudging regret. It was well on towards midnight of 
 the second day since the unpleasant scene which the 
 uninstructed public had made upon his premises. 
 The uninstructed public, as fate would have it, had 
 not gone away appeased. 
 
 The brown brick house was in a state of siege. 
 Neighbors hooted at the blinded windows; epithets 
 and missiles assailed the man with the steel in his 
 eyes if he raised a shade. A door he dared not open. 
 He sat and cursed. He listened and quaked. 
 
 The street that night had grown impressively, al 
 most unnaturally still. He did not ask himself whether 
 there were any reason for this circumstance. It 
 occurred to him that no time was likely to be better 
 for the execution of the purpose that he had formed, 
 and he proceeded to hasten his preparations furtively. 
 
 The man, in a word, had been brought to the pass 
 of contemplating flight. Startled by the popular sus- 
 
 231 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 picion under which he had suddenly fallen, the vivi- 
 sector gave up his dreadful game. He yielded it so 
 far as the protection of his life and limb concerned 
 him; he did not propose to yield his "material." He 
 purposed, as is now well known, to betake himself 
 and the doomed creatures in his power to some other, 
 some safer lair; and to select for such a sally the small, 
 dull hours after midnight, when the streets would be 
 relatively quiet and suitable for his venture. The re 
 markable stillness in the region of the brick house mis 
 led him, and he decided to make the move at midnight. 
 He stepped stealthily about his laboratory. The 
 place was dim, but it was not still. This pen refuses 
 to portray the sights which met the cold eyes so familiar 
 with them that the man s nerves did not complain. 
 Such of his subjects as could walk he urged to their 
 feet, and leashed them. 
 
 It was perhaps half an hour after midnight when 
 the locked iron gate of the area fence swung open 
 cautiously, and a man peered out. The street was 
 quite deserted. Not so much as a yawning officer was 
 to be seen. The vivisector tiptoed out, and down the 
 sidewalk. Behind him followed a strange and pitiable 
 group. Dogs on leashes, as many as the hand could 
 hold; dogs fastened abreast and tandem to a rope 
 dragged at the heels of their tormentor, followed him 
 with the beautiful docility which only the dog, of all 
 
 232 
 
" TAMM YSHANTY " 
 
 created beings, offers to the master man. It was not 
 an uncommon thing for them to kiss his hand while 
 they lay bound beneath his knife. At first this used 
 to make him uncomfortable; but he had become 
 quite accustomed to it. 1 
 
 Skulking, with darting eyes, he dragged the dogs 
 along. He congratulated himself that he was not 
 disturbed. He was surprised at the freedom of his 
 movements. He anticipated that his troubles were 
 over. The fugitive physiologist had proceeded per 
 haps sixty feet when there burst upon him a sound 
 before which that which he called his heart stood still. 
 No man city born or bred ever mistakes that sound. 
 It was the roar of an oncoming mob. It seemed to 
 him for the moment as if the whole town had become 
 a throat. 
 
 The tramp of feet advanced upon him with an 
 ominous steadiness. Out of the dimly lighted streets 
 the crowd took rapid form neighbors and strangers, 
 women and men. Sobbing and swearing had be 
 come audible and articulate. For the first time in his 
 life the man heard himself hissed. Officers in front 
 threatened and beat back, but could not stay the 
 onset of the people. Beyond, behind, surging and 
 shrilling, pushed the newsboys almost a thousand 
 strong. 
 
 The man stood perfectly still. He cringed, but he 
 
 1 This narrative in its main incident is history. 
 233 
 
TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 did not cry out. He expected to be torn to pieces. 
 He felt as if the heart of humanity leaped upon him. 
 It occurred to him that he had no escape. It occurred 
 to him that his subjects, in all the years of his red 
 life, had no escape. He felt the air split with yells 
 and curses. Instinctively, stupidly, he held fast to 
 his dogs. 
 
 Gray-white, silent, with his shock of red hair stand 
 ing straight up from his head, grimy hands clenched, 
 teeth set, and lips drawn back from them like those 
 of a snarling fox, Jacket had got himself to the front 
 of the throng. The newsboys, Freckles and Blind 
 ers, pushed zealously to him and tried to support him 
 on either side, he tottered so; but he did not notice 
 them. His favorite reporter and the gray philan 
 thropist in the waterproof coat said something to 
 him, but he did not hear what it was. His old friend, 
 Bill the fisherman, stood under the electric arc, and 
 pushed his sleeves to the shoulders. 
 
 "If yer want anybody to punch him to a jelly, 
 I m your man/ he said. 
 
 The officer who used to be shore policeman turned 
 his back and winked a little, but did not see nor hear 
 the fisherman. Jacket noticed none of these things. 
 To human sympathy he had gone deaf and blind. 
 The reporter, trying to keep close to him, saw that 
 the lad had dropped upon his hands and knees and 
 
 234 
 
TAMMYSHANT Y " 
 
 was crawling on all fours like a small animal with 
 some purpose which it cannot share with the superior 
 race. 
 
 Suddenly and silently he pounced. 
 
 The dogs were of various breeds and all sizes, and 
 huddled, themselves terrified by the rescuing people, 
 clinging for protection to their tormentor, the only 
 master whom their pitiable fate had left them. But 
 some of them struggled, and one made weak efforts 
 to escape from the rope to which he was attached. 
 Plaintively from somewhere in the turmoil a stealthy 
 call arose: 
 
 "Oh oo ee! Oh oo ee! Tammyshantee ? 
 ,4men!" 
 
 The weak dog lifted up his wounded head, and 
 feebly barked. 
 
 Then, as we say, the lad pounced. With one swift 
 stroke he cut the terrier free, and clasped him; but 
 in the making of the effort fell over on the curbing 
 with Tammyshanty in his nerveless arms. 
 
 The act was enough to fire the fury of the crowd. 
 It rolled on and swept under the street light. The 
 lake fisherman who was called Bill made the first 
 stroke, and liberated a beautiful spaniel, who kissed 
 his brown, big hand. Knife after knife flashed in the 
 electric tremor cry upon cry applauded until every 
 dog in the captive group ran free. It was said after 
 wards that some people in the mob who had dogless 
 
 235 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 homes adopted these poor creatures, and took them 
 to their roused, indignant hearts. 
 
 The police, who had mercifully ignored the descent 
 upon the animals, rallied to the protection of the man. 
 They dragged him off behind their billies where, 
 or to what future, no one at that time knew or cared. 
 It has since been told of him that this practical phys 
 iologist fled the city where his scientific amusements 
 had been so rudely interrupted by ignorant laymen, 
 and that he escaped from the metropolis of the West 
 to the metropolis of the East; wherein it is not the 
 province of this story to pursue his professional 
 career. 
 
 But Jacket and Tammy shanty lay clasped and 
 clasping upon the sidewalk, and neither spoke. The 
 reporter lifted them in his strong, young arms; and 
 the gray philanthropist, dashing hot drops from eyes 
 too old to weep at much in a world where sympathy 
 must blunt itself to suffering for its own life s sake, 
 said imperiously: 
 
 "Call a carriage and a doctor, and bring them to 
 my house. " 
 
 So the boy and the dog were lifted into the carriage 
 silently and gently, and a thousand newsboys followed 
 the cab as if it had been a hearse. Rumor ran riot in 
 the streets now that the dog was dead, and the 
 boy lived; now that the dog lived, but not the boy; 
 
 236 
 
" TAMMYSHANTY " 
 
 then that both were past recall to a life in which they 
 had fared so hardly. 
 
 The morning edition of Jacket s paper ran like a 
 freshet through the town. The pen that wrote the 
 best "story" in the office set forth the fact which 
 had now become of compelling public interest - 
 that the boy and the dog, though weak, and sore 
 bested, would live; and that "The Wireless" had 
 already instituted a public subscription in their be 
 half. A portrait of Tammyshanty, taken in his band 
 ages, and sprawled in his little master s feeble arms, 
 adorned an extra of that energetic daily. The News 
 boys Association cut this out and framed it, to hang 
 upon their club-room walls. 
 
 Jacket and Tammyshanty lay on a clean bed in the 
 old philanthropist s third-story back room, and re 
 garded each other seriously. 
 
 "Hullo," said the boy. 
 
 "Hullo yourself," nodded the dog. 
 
 "Hully gee," said the boy. 
 
 "Hully gee," said the dog. 
 
 "Warm here, ain t it? You bet." 
 
 "You bet," agreed the dog. 
 
 "Hard, warn t it?" sobbed the boy. 
 
 "Pretty hard," blinked the dog. 
 
 "All over, ain t it? " asked the boy. 
 
 "All over," smiled the dog. 
 
 "Say your prayers, amen," said the boy. 
 237 
 
TAMMYSHANTY 
 
 "Amen," replied the dog. 
 
 "An we ain t no relations, nuther," suggested the 
 boy. Beneath the bandages on his wounded head a 
 spark in the eye of the Irish dog fired as if he 
 said : 
 
 "Doncher be too sure of that!" 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 "SIR, I wish a position." 
 
 He who spoke was a man of middle age, yet under 
 sixty. An old man would have called him still young. 
 He was tall, and stooped a little, not, it seemed, with 
 years, but perhaps in consequence of some one of the 
 occupations which have a tendency to round the 
 shoulders. His hair was grizzled rather than gray; 
 he was clean-shaven ; his lips were full and emotional, 
 but not coarse ; he had a hopeless blue eye and a well- 
 formed nose hardly large enough to indicate that 
 force of character which expresses itself distinctly in 
 this feature. He was tall and thin; his flesh, although 
 shrunken, was soft; a physician would have called 
 it flabby; it gave the impression of being neither 
 nourished nor exercised. His coat was short at the 
 sleeves, and he had no visible linen. All his clothing 
 was brushed and sponged, but shiny and shapeless. 
 It was a cold day, but he had no overcoat. Lacking 
 rubbers, his feet were wet. He held his hat, a battered 
 derby, in his hand. 
 
 He had stood in the rear of a group of thirty or forty 
 men, all in search of work, which none of them had 
 found ; and he came up last to the desk of the manager 
 
 239 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 who held a pen suspended like a sword about to fall, 
 before he said, with the lifeless voice of a man whose 
 occupation it is to see his fellows suffer disappointment 
 that he is chartered, but not empowered, to relieve: 
 
 "Well? Your name?" 
 
 "Racer, John Racer." 
 
 "Residence?" 
 
 "21 Gulf Street, city. Fourth bell on the right." 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 "I wish a position," repeated John Racer. 
 
 The manager s pen stabbed the cup of shot that 
 dried it. 
 
 "What will you do?" 
 
 "Anything honest." 
 
 "What can you do?" 
 
 "Anything that I know how. I am a professional 
 
 man." 
 
 The manager sighed patiently. His lips moved. 
 Racer thought that they muttered the two words, 
 "Oh Lord!" 
 
 Aloud and articulately others followed : 
 
 "If you could dig, or build a stone wall, there 
 might be some hope for you. My branch of this con 
 cern is the worst in the building. What do you teach ? 
 
 John Racer replied, " My calling is that of a music- 
 master." 
 
 The dejection (apparently chronic) on the mana 
 ger s face settled into acute gloom. 
 
 240 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 "I am no strolling musician, you understand," 
 suggested the applicant. "I am not a Bohemian. I 
 don t play in bands and small orchestras. I was a 
 responsible man. I held a position for fifteen years 
 in a well-known institution. It was a young lady s 
 academy. It was a position of trust. I can give you 
 all the references you want. 
 
 His thin hands groped in a ragged wallet for letters 
 that were yellow with time. He held them out with 
 a deprecating bow. The manager glanced at them, 
 took the addresses that they offered, and pushed 
 them back. 
 
 "All these are pretty old. Haven t you anything 
 newer? What have you been doing all this while? 
 Why did you leave ? " 
 
 "I was taken sick," pleaded Racer. "I had a 
 fever. I was abed two months. I got up before I was 
 strong enough, and I fell downstairs and broke my 
 arm. They did n t set it right, so I was laid up a 
 year. You can see for yourself by that time my 
 place was filled I supposed it would be easy to get 
 another. I kept a few of my pupils, but they have 
 all gone. I did not realize the pressure of modern life." 
 
 He held out his fine musical hands, palms upward, 
 as if they were an illustration of an argument. A 
 pale spark stirred in the manager s eyes. 
 
 "The pressure of modern life is damnation," he 
 said unexpectedly. 
 
 241 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 " Thank you," replied the applicant, without 
 smiling. 
 
 He stood patiently and silently by the desk. The 
 manager shut his books. Something in the expression 
 and attitude of the elderly applicant made him uncom 
 fortable. It was plain to his experienced eye that the 
 man was well on the way to a proud and respectable 
 starvation. 
 
 "I will look up your references," he said, with some 
 gentleness, "as our custom is. If anything turns up, I 
 will notify you. What do you play besides the piano ? 
 Anything?" 
 
 "The flute, somewhat. But I am only an amateur 
 there. I was trained I was thoroughly trained to 
 teach the art of playing upon the piano." 
 
 "I wish you had been thoroughly trained in the 
 art of running a street -car! " exclaimed the manager, 
 recklessly. "Or if you could build a cellar. Or 
 shingle a roof." 
 
 "I could try," quavered Racer "I mean, to run 
 a car. Don t misunderstand me. I am perfectly will 
 ing to do anything. A gentleman is, you know." 
 
 "What do you call a gentleman?" demanded the 
 manager. He rose to put an end to the conference. 
 The early dark of a cloudy winter day was settling into 
 the close room, which seemed (the fancy had occurred 
 to Racer) to gasp with the emotion of its occupants 
 and to writhe with the tragedy that packed those four 
 
 242 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 walls day upon day. One might call our employment 
 offices the laboratories in which human lives are 
 vivisected ; those of the employed, or of the employer, 
 as the case may be. 
 
 "Our office hours are over," added the manager. 
 "I can do nothing more for you to-day. We have 
 two thousand three hundred and fifty-six men on our 
 books. You see, you may have to wait." 
 
 "I see," replied John Racer. 
 
 He turned away and stumbled to the door. He had 
 eaten nothing since morning, and when the air from 
 the street dashed into his face he found himself 
 suddenly faint. With the instinct of a man to avoid 
 the repetition of an old accident, he gripped the rail 
 of the stairs and sat down hard. A door opened 
 behind him and the manager of the agency came out. 
 He looked disturbed. 
 
 " Don t feel well, do you ? " he asked, not unkindly. 
 "I will get you some water." 
 
 He brought a tumbler and put it to the lips of the 
 collapsing man. "There is a sandwich left over from 
 the luncheon my wife put up for me." The young 
 man fumbled in his leather bag. " It s a little crushed, 
 but it is clean. If you don t mind, sir ? " 
 
 The impulse of long experience had added that 
 last word, and the music-master instinctively yielded 
 to it. He had begun to fling out his hands in acute 
 protest. He expressed himself more freely with his 
 
 243 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 hands than most American men; he talked with his, 
 supple fingers as some fine dogs do with their paws. 
 
 "I thank you," he said weakly. "I did not expect 
 any special kindness here." 
 
 The manager was a young man who wore middle- 
 aged glasses. One straight look escaped through them 
 and struck the elderly applicant. 
 
 "We are a hard lot," he admitted. "We have to 
 be. We should go to pieces if we were n t. We have 
 got our living to earn. See?" 
 
 John Racer did not answer. He was devouring the 
 sandwich. He ate it like a famished animal. He 
 collected the crumbs and swallowed those ravenously. 
 He looked about for a napkin, with the unconscious 
 ness of a man who has always been accustomed to 
 use one. 
 
 When there was nothing more to be eaten, he went 
 slowly down the long flight of stairs and out into the 
 street. It was growing cold, and the slush was 
 freezing under his wet feet. He buttoned his old 
 coat over his chest and bowed his head to the north 
 west wind. Something in his feeble motions and 
 timid gait impressed the manager, who stood in the 
 doorway for a moment and watched him. "Racer? 
 Racer? What a name for that old cove! Plodder, 
 now Plodder John Plodder. John Jogger. John 
 Leftbehind. John Anything! But Racer! Lord !" 
 
 At 21 Gulf Street, the fourth bell on the right, the 
 
 244 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 evening had set in early. The tenement one called 
 it a flat by courtesy was on the rear of the build 
 ing, badly lighted, ill ventilated, and up four flights. 
 There was no gas, but the kerosene -lamps had been 
 lighted an hour ago. Both the occupants of the 
 rooms were wage-earners, and their eyesight was 
 their capital. 
 
 Mrs. Racer sat at a hoarse sewing-machine, which 
 had fits of desperation, like a dyspeptic with a bron 
 chial complication. She could not afford to have it 
 repaired; it broke a good many needles, and when 
 this happened it cried or snarled. Mrs. Racer was 
 pretty and a matinee girl when she fell in love with 
 her music -teacher, and left for him the home of a 
 prosperous father, who disapproved the marriage and 
 died a bankrupt without changing his mind. Her 
 hands were distorted with hard work, but her profile 
 was refined by gentle thought and feeling. 
 
 Mrs. Racer made shirt-waists for a living. She 
 was paid seventy-two cents a dozen six cents apiece. 
 The sitting-room was littered, but clean. It was 
 warmed by a small cylinder stove, on the top of which 
 a teapot boiled eternally. When she could stop long 
 enough, Mrs. Racer drank a cup of tea. It was as 
 strong as her force of will, and as bitter as her lot. 
 She had given up counting how many cups she drank 
 in a day. 
 
 "I must be kept up, somehow," she said. Her skin 
 245 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 was yellow with the tannin on which she fed. Her 
 machine was pushed near the table whereon the lamp 
 was. She had removed the shade from the light, 
 which revealed without remorse the ravages on her 
 face. 
 
 On the other side of the table was an invalid-chair. 
 The occupant was a large cripple a woman, and 
 still young. Her crutches hung upon the top of the 
 chair. Her hands, not strong, were deft and delicate. 
 Like her mother, she worked industriously. She had 
 a cheerful expression. For six weeks she had earned 
 a dollar and a half a week. In this circumstance she 
 took an exquisite pride. 
 
 Her business was daintier than her mother s and 
 quieter. She worked in tissue-paper. She dressed 
 dolls. Incidentally she made lamp-shades and 
 Christmas bells, doilies, decorations, but by pro 
 fession she was a dressmaker for paper dolls. 
 
 She would have been attractive or possibly hand 
 some if she had been well. She sat in a billow of 
 bright colors; her lap, like the table and the floor, 
 blazed with brilliant flimsiness. She was snipping a 
 silver sash for a doll with a bronze skirt and a Nile- 
 green shirt-waist. It was to be noted that she did 
 not trick her toys discordantly. She had a sense of 
 color, it came out in tissue-paper, nor did she scorn 
 (no artist does) the available material. As her father 
 had loved and mastered musical sound, the spirit of 
 
 246 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 the daughter yearned for beautiful tints. To an 
 extent not guessed by the uninitiated, crepe paper 
 offered these. In them she rejoiced, and of them she 
 wrought cheerfully. 
 
 Everything about the young woman was cheerful, 
 except her name; this was a twice-told corruption. 
 Sarah, her mother, had called the child Sadie; but 
 the baby elected to name herself Little Sad, and Little 
 Sad she had remained a big, happy cripple, 
 patient from the beginning of her denied life. She 
 sat smiling in a wave of pearl grays, shading to dove 
 and steel, and foaming into pale rose. She handled 
 the delicate paper as freely as if it had been lace; she 
 never tore it. 
 
 "There!" cried Mrs. Racer. The old sewing- 
 machine snarled and snapped. Sad laid down her 
 paper doll. 
 
 "Another needle, mummy?" 
 
 "Two to-day," sighed Mrs. Racer. "I believe I 11 
 stop and breathe on this one. Whom are you dressing 
 now, Little Sad?" 
 
 "A lady," replied the paper-dress maker. She held 
 up the painted cardboard body of a middle-aged doll 
 with gray hair. "Princess, and a dinner dress," said 
 Sad; "three shades of gray let in somewhere, and 
 rose on the corsage. She will be quiet; quiet like a 
 moonbeam from top to toe." 
 
 "Who was that you dressed yesterday? " asked the 
 247 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 mother, indulgently. While she talked she reset her 
 needle and replaced the sleeve of a shirt-waist with 
 a yellow stripe. "Who was the one with the red 
 feather on the picture-hat ? " 
 
 "Oh, she was an actress," replied Sad. "She sings 
 in ballet. But the lady, mummy the lady stays at 
 home. She has a lovely home!" added Sad, joy 
 ously. " She entertains educated people. In fact, I m 
 not perfectly sure she is n t Cousin Guy s wife." 
 
 "What do you know about Cousin Guy, Sad? We 
 haven t any of us seen him this dozen years." 
 
 "Oh, I hear Father talk," said Sad. She was 
 crimping a tiny ruffle of rose tissue for the bodice of 
 the lady in silver gray. The ruffle was so small that 
 only exquisite fingers could have handled it. 
 
 "I know," replied the mother, patiently. "He has 
 those times. He thinks of everything we can t have, 
 and of everybody who has forgotten us. Your father 
 is a dreamer, Sad. He always was." 
 
 "That s the music in him," answered Sad. She 
 spoke in a low, cooing voice. Her father used to say 
 that she sounded like a pigeon on a roof. 
 
 "It s time he got home," said Mrs. Racer, anx 
 iously. "You don t hear him, do you? I couldn t 
 hear the last trumpet, working. Sometimes I do 
 wish we could afford one of those new machines. 
 They don t make half the racket." 
 
 "Oh, I shall hear him," returned Sad, in her 
 
 248 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 comfortable way. "I always hear him six steps 
 down from the top of the last flight. Don t slander 
 your machine, mummy. It s all you ve got. Sewing- 
 machines can t have cultivated voices; they re not 
 born ladies." 
 
 "Nor born poultry-yards, either, Sad. When this 
 one does n t crow it cackles." 
 
 "Or quacks," suggested Sad, laughing. "When it 
 has made up its mind to chew off a needle it barks. 
 Mummy dear, he is coming." 
 
 The sewing-machine was now screaming down the 
 seam. The woman, with her foot on the treadle, 
 could hear nothing. The cripple laid down her tissue- 
 paper daintily, slipped her crutches under her arms, 
 and got to the door. 
 
 John Racer entered silently. He stooped more than 
 usual, and his lips were shut together hard. His 
 hopeless eyes included everything in the room at a 
 glance. This ran from the mother to the daughter, 
 and back again with an expression that was less ten 
 der than defiant. He regarded the two wage-earners 
 with a fathomless envy. It was as if a transparent 
 sliding-door rolled between himself and them. He 
 experienced the bitter exclusion of a man who is sup 
 ported by the women of his household. If he had 
 shirked or dawdled, he would not have been capable of 
 feeling this. He had tried, like a man, to do a man s 
 work. The merciless modern world had none to offer 
 
 249 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 him. No woman can understand the workings of a 
 man s mind and heart in such a maladjustment of 
 life; and his women did not. 
 
 They thought they did, of course. They were 
 conscious of "keeping up" for his sake. They never 
 nagged; they asked few questions; they were con 
 scientiously kind. Racer dimly suspected that it was 
 by no means a circumstance to count upon that a man 
 should be cherished by two feminine creatures who 
 never lost their tempers. Sometimes he wished they 
 would. If they snapped at him occasionally, or even 
 reproached, he had a curious feeling that it would 
 reduce his sense of obligation. In fact, his was the 
 uncertain temper; his wife and daughter expected a 
 given amount of irritability from him, and assumed 
 towards it the half -indulgent, half -superior patience 
 that women at their best offer to the weaknesses of 
 men. 
 
 On the evening of which we tell, John Racer came 
 home in beaten reticence. Every day that winter he 
 had set forth upon his solitary share in the mortal 
 struggle for existence, and every night he had returned 
 defeated. At first his wife used to ask him kind, 
 foolish questions, as, "John, what luck to-day?" or, 
 "Dear, is there any news? " She had long ceased to 
 make any inquiries; his daughter never had. When 
 he chose, he spoke, and to-night he did not choose. 
 Sad, leaning on her crutches, put both her delicate 
 
 250 
 
TIRED, FATHER? 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 hands upon his arm. She was so tall that her smiling 
 face came almost upon a level with his own. 
 
 " Tired, Father? " When she spoke, she patted his 
 arm. This was all she said. He looked at her and 
 dropped heavily into a chair before the stove. 
 
 The sewing-machine screamed on to the end of the 
 seam, and stopped crossly. It seemed to Racer that 
 it cawed like a crow and jeered at him. Even the 
 senseless piece of machinery was his superior, for it 
 could earn money. His wife stepped out of a thicket 
 of shirt-waists, scrutinized without seeming to see 
 him, and hurried to his side. There she began to brood 
 over him. She insisted upon the first rights of a wife, 
 and seldom relinquished them, even to her daughter. 
 Sad might divert and amuse and cheer her father, but 
 his wife should comfort him. 
 
 "You are cold," she said. "It was such a mistake 
 to sell that overcoat. You are chilled through. Why, 
 John, John! Your feet are wet. They are sopping. 
 You must change them right away." 
 
 She knelt and pulled off his old drenched shoes. 
 She dragged away his stockings, and rubbed his feet 
 with her small, roughened hands. Although he pro 
 tested he let her do it; he knew that it made her happy. 
 
 She brought him dry stockings, and apologized 
 because they had holes in them. "I have n t had time 
 to mend them yet. I 11 get around to it pretty soon. 
 Here s a cup of tea, John. It s hot and strong. It 
 
 251 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 may just save you a cold. I will get supper right away. 
 We have got baked potatoes. I saved you a little 
 piece of bacon. Did you have any luncheon to-day ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Racer, eagerly; "an excellent 
 luncheon." He quivered with delight at being able 
 to say so without lying. For two months he had gone 
 without luncheons, for which he could not pay, and 
 for which he was determined that Sarah should not. 
 This she did not know; he meant that she never 
 should. But Sarah was a wife and loved; therefore 
 she suspected. She perceived in her husband the 
 growing morbidness of idleness and penury. It had 
 even occurred to her that he was depriving himself 
 with deliberate purpose of such food as she could 
 offer him at their scanty meals. He claimed to have 
 lost his appetite; she had begun by believing him; of 
 late she did not know what to believe. But she had 
 never said so. She spared him all she could. 
 
 Sad cleared away her litter of colored papers from 
 the table, and knocked about softly on her crutches 
 to help her mother serve their supply of potatoes and 
 salt and tea. It was a cheap green tea. Mrs. 
 Racer drank it like a drunkard. She gave her hus 
 band the slice of bacon which she had jealously kept 
 for him. The three sat at their crude meal with the 
 table manners of a class as foreign as their grammar 
 was to their squalid conditions. Sad talked lightly 
 she always did making merry of their lot. Some- 
 
 252 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 times her father tired of the unremitting cheerfulness, 
 for lack of which he would have sunk into abject 
 melancholy. Once he had said to her: 
 
 "Sad! This has ceased to be ridiculous. It is 
 dreadful." 
 
 But Sad laughed. 
 
 The music-master had no piano; he had sold his 
 two years ago; his flute alone was left him; it lay on 
 the mantel (which Sad had draped in soft moss-green 
 paper), and regarded him with the patience of the 
 helpless and neglected. After supper, which he had 
 eaten without speaking, Sad did a bold thing. She 
 thudded over on her crutches and brought the flute 
 to him. 
 
 "Give us a little music, Father, won t you? Give 
 us Adelaide/" 
 
 But John Racer pushed the flute away. He got to 
 his feet and flung his arms above his head. 
 
 "Damn music!" he said. 
 
 Such a shocked silence answered him that it 
 startled the man. He stood and stared at his wife and 
 daughter for a moment; at Sarah s yellow cheeks and 
 Sad s big pale face; then his uplifted arms fell slowly 
 and his head sank upon his breast. As if he had 
 cursed his Creator, the musician stood trembling and 
 repentant. 
 
 It may have been penitence for this sin that moved 
 him several weeks thereafter to do the thing he did 
 
 253 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 with his flute. But the incident needs a prefatory 
 word. 
 
 The winter was a cold one and fuel was high. The 
 kitchen stove and the cylinder in the working-room 
 gaped greedily for unprecedented fodder. The rent 
 was due. After the holidays there was a decline in the 
 paper-doll market, and the cripple s income visibly 
 decreased. Sarah Racer was disabled by one of the 
 influenzas obstinately cherished by the American 
 populace under the pseudonym of grippe. Orders for 
 shirt-waists fell off, and long silences punctuated the 
 cross chatter of the sewing-machine. 
 
 When every other form of economy is exhausted, 
 one is left. The human body can refuse the food 
 that nourishes it, and scorn the consequences. How 
 many suicides have eluded life by this unsuspected 
 road no medical examiner has reported to us or ever 
 will. The Racers began to go hungry, and then cold. 
 The women exchanged grave glances; they had 
 ceased to discuss their plight with each other; they had 
 long ago ceased to discuss it with the music-master; 
 it had, somehow, abruptly (as such troubles do) struck 
 down below the reach of words. For the first time in 
 her life, Sad s temperamental cheerfulness deserted 
 her. She did not tell funny stories to her father when 
 he came home with his beaten it had become a 
 hunted look. The untimely is the unseemly opti 
 mism, like a laugh at a grave. Not all optimists per- 
 
 254 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 ceive this, but Sad did. She made lamp-shades in 
 silence. 
 
 For the first time in their history, the family clung 
 together and dragged each other into the pit that is 
 called despair; Sad had planted her crippled feet on 
 the edge of the precipice, and withstood this disaster as 
 long as she could. In all households there is the lifter, 
 and there are the leaners; so, in most there is the light- 
 bearer, and there are gloom-bringers. When the hu 
 morous and the luminous qualities in Sad gave way, 
 everything tumbled and crumbled with her. 
 
 With this rapid descent of their already fallen for 
 tunes, certain curious changes might have been no 
 ticed in the home of John Racer. He himself grew 
 rougher of speech and manner; sometimes he talked 
 the patois of the street ; his grammar halted now and 
 then. The ladies became careless of their dress; the 
 rooms were not as clean as they used to be; the habits 
 of tenement life subtly encroached upon the household 
 of the starving gentleman. It was as if privation, hav 
 ing worked its will upon their bodies, had turned upon 
 their delicate instincts. Below the deeps of hunger 
 and cold and rags there is a deeper depth, and into 
 this the music-master s family had begun to slide. 
 The inherited and acquired refinement of their na 
 tures was in danger; but the subtlest of their perils 
 was that they did not know it. 
 
 One sharp morning the musician slyly slid his flute 
 255 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 under his coat when he set forth on his daily, and de 
 nied demand for the right to exist. With shuffling 
 steps, with hanging head, he crawled to the business 
 section of the town, sought the densest crowd he saw, 
 and, standing with his back against a big plate-glass 
 window, suddenly dragged out his flute and put it to 
 his blue lips. The day was very cold, and his fingers 
 shook. His heart beat with long, thumping strokes. 
 He had eaten little breakfast. The flute fell from his 
 hands, and he picked it up from the snow, and, with 
 a gasp, began to play "Adelaide." 
 
 After a moment, the acute misery of his position 
 subsided a little, and he was able to see that people 
 were listening to him. Many stopped, some smiled, 
 some held out hands. Suddenly he felt money in his 
 palm a dime, another, two, a quarter, some 
 nickels. The hot color raced across his face. From 
 sheer shame he lifted the flute again to his lips and 
 played on wildly; thus occupying both his hands, that 
 they need not betray his soul. With a scorching hu 
 miliation he perceived the nature of the thing that he 
 had done. 
 
 "Adelaide! Adelaide!" sang the flute. 
 
 "I am a beggar! I am a beggar!" said the gentle 
 man. 
 
 John Racer, as we have said, was a dreamer. He 
 knew much music, but little law. It had never oc 
 curred to him that he could be breaking any by his 
 
 256 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 humiliating act. When a policeman s hand gripped 
 him by the wasted shoulder he looked up like a child. 
 
 " Where is your license?" thundered the officer. 
 
 "Why," said the music-master, trembling with ter 
 ror, "I did not know that I had to obtain any." 
 
 "Oh, come off!" cried the guardian of public 
 morals; "that s too thin." 
 
 His big hand slipped from the old man s shoulder 
 to his wrist. 
 
 "Why, Professor Racer!" cried a voice from the 
 crowd. Some one stepped up and whispered a few 
 words to the officer, who reluctantly released his hold 
 on the musician. 
 
 "Oh, well," he said, "if you ll be answerable for 
 him. But he s old enough to know better. Don t let 
 it happen again." 
 
 Pale and panting, the bewildered music-teacher felt 
 a kindly hand drawn through his arm, and found him 
 self led quickly and quietly out of the now fast -thick 
 ening crowd. His rescuer was a middle-aged person, 
 with the head and features of an educated man and 
 the dress of a prosperous clerk or upper employee. 
 
 " What ! Don t remember me ? I taught history at 
 the academy. We went to faculty meeting together for 
 two years." 
 
 The speaker did not offer his name, and it had gone 
 clean out of Racer s memory; but he remembered the 
 voice ; by means of this he identified the face, and his 
 
 257 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 heart yearned towards his old colleague as one yearns 
 to a neighbor, never sought at home, whom one meets 
 at a distance from it upon a journey. 
 
 Under a few warm-hearted questions, the shield of 
 Racer s reserve lowered, and he yielded the personal 
 history of five bleak years. 
 
 " Oh, I know! "cried the other. "Ztow /Iknow? I 
 have been through it myself. Every man s hand is at 
 the other man s throat now. You earn a living at the 
 bayonet s point. Get pushed a foot out of the ranks, 
 and they rush right over you like Waterloo. 7 gave up 
 trying to live the intellectual life two years ago. Some 
 how, I got left and I couldn t catch up. There are too 
 many of us, Racer, and New England is the very 
 devil. Any bricklayer has a better chance. What ? 
 Yes; took the first thing I could get the first honest 
 thing, I mean. I m not a gentleman and a scholar, 
 Professor Racer, any more. I am a florist s assistant. 
 I decorate rich people s houses. My children have 
 enough to eat, and my wife is warmly dressed." 
 
 The two derelicts of professional life looked at each 
 other with the deep instincts of class allegiance. 
 
 "The trouble with you is," suggested the teacher of 
 history, "you have struck too high. Been bothering 
 the teachers agencies, haven t you?" 
 
 The music-master nodded bitterly. 
 
 "Come down!" said the teacher. "Come down! 
 Try the employment offices something manual. I 
 
 258 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 will give you some addresses. There s one I got my 
 situation from. You are n t very young, that s a fact," 
 he added, ruefully. "Can you lift?" 
 
 "I can try," said John Racer. 
 
 "We are short a hand to-day," suggested the flor 
 ist s decorator, "and I have got a reception on at 
 the West End. Jump into my team and I will 
 take you over. It will be worth seventy-five cents. 
 You have n t got an overcoat. Whew! That s too 
 bad." 
 
 "I am quite warm," protested the music-master, 
 joyfully. He hugged his shivering shoulders as they 
 rode. 
 
 Now, when he went with his friend into the rich 
 man s house he saw upon the door-plate the name of 
 his wife s relative, he who was known in the family 
 as Cousin Guy Guy Northrup. Racer was so 
 disturbed by this that he would have turned and 
 fled, but the sturdier will of his old colleague pushed 
 him on. 
 
 The master of the house was not within it, but the 
 mistress was. She came in personally to superintend 
 the decorations of her drawing-room, and John Racer 
 looked at her furtively while he carried potted plants 
 and tubs of palms. The lady was dressed in shades of 
 gray, like that paper doll of Sad s. She was "quiet as 
 moonlight," as Sad had said, from head to foot. She 
 had a warm smile, and her voice was like the prelude 
 
 259 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 to " Adelaide." A fine piano stood open at the end of 
 the long drawing-room. A wild impulse to reveal him 
 self seized upon the old musician. He could hardly 
 keep his hands from the keys. The ease of the beau 
 tiful house crept upon his nerves; its familiar luxury 
 stung the tears to his hollow eyes he was physically 
 so weak. In such homes he had taught half his life; 
 in such he had been entertained the artist honored 
 with his art. 
 
 He asked to be allowed to decorate the piano, and 
 he laid a low basket of violets upon it reverently. The 
 familiar Beethoven hung above the piano Mozart 
 and the others beyond ; there was a bust of Chopin in 
 the corner. The old musician lifted his eyes to the 
 masters. 
 
 " Madam," he observed, holding out a spray of ivy, 
 "shall I crown Chopin?" 
 
 "Be a little careful," said the decorator, in the tone 
 with which he used to reprimand his history class. 
 "You will give yourself away." 
 
 Racer did not speak again. At noon he hurried 
 home like a boy with his seventy-five cents. But 
 the money that the flute had brought him had 
 dropped from a hole in his vest pocket between the 
 lining and the cloth. He let it stay there. He felt 
 ashamed to touch it; he did not tell his wife that he 
 had dishonored "Adelaide" by begging in the street. 
 
 260 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 "Sir," said John Racer, "I want a situation." 
 
 At the desk of an employment office of the lower 
 grades the music-master stood patiently. He was 
 pushed from behind by two farm-hands; a groom 
 elbowed him; a motorman and a coachman had forged 
 ahead of him. In that mass of brawn and bluster he 
 looked feeble, inadequate, and older than he was. 
 His voice had a strange, thin note, like that of a being 
 speaking through an electric wire from a star. 
 
 "What can you do?" demanded the man at the 
 desk. He made, to do him justice, a good-humored 
 effort to subdue the contempt that he felt. "Can you 
 dig? Plough? Mow?" 
 
 "I never have," replied Racer, humbly; "but I 
 could learn, I think." 
 
 "Can you milk a dozen cows night and morning?" 
 
 The music-master was silent. 
 
 "Can you drive a span?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. I have often done that." 
 
 Whose were they ? Your own ? 
 
 "No," replied John Racer, with his childlike man 
 ner; "I owned but one horse." 
 
 "Have you a coachman s reference?" 
 
 The musician did not reply. 
 
 "Or a butler s? You might do as a butler now. 
 You have a pretty respectable look." 
 
 " I have no reference as a butler no." 
 
 " Could you drive a furniture-van ? Have to handle 
 261 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 heavy furniture. We have an order for an express 
 man s helper. Can you lift trunks ? I see there s one 
 or two ice companies want hands. That s up at 3 A. M. 
 and coolin off pretty quick in ice-houses hot weather. 
 Could you carry fifty pounds to the pick, think ? Hey ! 
 What? Look here! Boys, what ails the old fellar? 
 Here. Let me come. Great Scott! The poor devil! 
 Starved, by Moses!" 
 
 The coachman and the farm-hands stepped up; the 
 motorman shook his head and said, "Gee!" 
 
 A teamster lifted the musician. 
 
 "Look at them fingers!" he whispered to a stone 
 mason; "I could snap em like macaroni!" 
 
 When John Racer tried to get himself up from the 
 floor by his despised and rejected artistic hands, a 
 good-natured furnaceman was spilling water over him 
 out of a tin cup. 
 
 "Here," said the furnaceman, "lemme boost yer!" 
 
 John Racer thanked the furnaceman with elaborate 
 courtesy, but said that he was quite able to walk alone. 
 This he did, staggering pathetically away. He never 
 entered an employment office again. 
 
 "It must be something in the air," he said to his 
 wife. 
 
 A philosopher was the poet who sang, 
 
 "These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust 
 Among the heart-strings of a friend." 
 262 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 
 
 The florists decorator had held out a hurried hand 
 to the music-master, and gone his ways with a pleas 
 ant sense of having done an easy kindness, and with 
 a comfortable purpose to follow it up by others when 
 he saw the chance. The cost of his inconsequent good 
 humor was definite and heavy to his old colleague; 
 but this the teacher of history never knew, nor would 
 he understand if he were told the subtle relation of 
 that morning s tragedy to John Racer s life. The 
 links were too fine for him. 
 
 It is never easy to distinguish the precise origin of a 
 great temptation. One may recall the point back of 
 which one can be sure that it did not exist; but the 
 moment when it began to be is as hard to define as the 
 moment when a fog forms upon a clear coast. Of no 
 human besetment is this so true as of the temptation 
 to cease from the trouble of living. Racer could not 
 have said whether he had or had not dallied with this 
 ghastly siren before the day when he crowned the bust 
 of Chopin with ivy in the home of the relative of 
 Sarah, his wife. But he could not have denied that 
 since that hour his brooding, melancholy soul had 
 been obsessed by invisible forces, most of them sinis 
 ter, all of them strong. Although an imaginative man. 
 he could not have conceived of their power until he 
 had come beneath it. When he had yielded by the 
 width of a tolerant thought, he seemed suddenly to 
 
 263 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 have yielded half his fighting quality. This thought, 
 nebulous at first, then clear, and soon distinct, formed 
 about the gray-clad figure of the lady who had lifted 
 beautiful startled eyes to her decorator s assistant 
 when he said, "Shall I crown the Chopin?" They 
 were kind. Oh, yes, her eyes were kind. They had the 
 woman in them; they were capable of pity; they might 
 weep if she were touched ; they would recognize gentle 
 nature when they met it. Sarah, too, was a lady. She 
 would be sorry for Sarah. When he was gone if he 
 were out of Sarah s life for once and for always she 
 would compassionate Sarah. And Sad a cripple ! 
 That would appeal to the gray lady. She could not 
 stand off in her beautiful gown and see Sad suffer. In 
 a word, Racer had brought himself to the point of be 
 lieving that the relative of his wife would provide for 
 the family if its unfortunate head were removed. 
 Once he would have set aside this delusion healthily 
 and intelligently. Ten years ago it could not have got 
 the better of him. He had been so long exiled from his 
 own world ; he had been so long a poor man, forgotten, 
 neglected, cold, ragged, starved, that he had lost the 
 natural focus of his class, and acquired that of the 
 poor towards the rich. He had undergone the color 
 blindness of penury. He saw yellow as a murderer 
 sees red. He came to exaggerate the distant claim of 
 kin upon those luxurious people. He dwelt upon it 
 until it assumed preposterous proportions. He saw 
 
 264 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 his wife in a soft gown, all shades of gray like the 
 paper dolls. He saw Sad, smiling and idle, in an easy 
 chair beside the bust of Chopin. He had come to the 
 pass of assuming that his family would be adopted 
 bodily into that home of ease and gentle feeling. 
 
 Now this peril of the soul he could not share with 
 his wife. Most of the temptations of his life he had. 
 Years ago, when he had come to depend too much on 
 his madeira at dinner, she had persuaded it off the 
 table. Once, when he was a little epris with a pretty 
 pupil, he had told his wife about it, as a matter of 
 course. They talked it over together, and Sarah s 
 good sense and good nature had kept him from mak 
 ing a fool of himself. But this no, from this he 
 must shield Sarah as he had shielded her from a 
 draught or a too bright light in their bridal days. He 
 could fling himself off the spinning world into the 
 mysteries of space and leave her. But he would shel 
 ter her from the agony of knowing that he meant to 
 do it. As he toyed with this idea it grew like some 
 creature of mythology that assumes unnatural meta 
 morphoses. 
 
 At first it had been a little thing with which he 
 played like a kitten or some domestic pet Now it 
 was a monster and played with him. Whichever way 
 he looked he saw the temptress death. 
 
 That he should ultimately yield to her he had no 
 longer any doubt. But the method and the time of his 
 
 265 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 surrender still remained undecided in his mind. As 
 long as this was so he was still comparatively safe, 
 although he did not know it. But the serious aspect 
 of his situation was that he did not tell. Intelligent 
 persons talk suicide sometimes, but if they do, they 
 seldom commit it. 
 
 When a man locks his purpose in his heart, and 
 barricades the door, and stations patrols of watchful, 
 cheerful words or sombre reticence to keep off human 
 approach and human suspicion then save him if 
 you can. Whether the mind of a suicide is always an 
 alienated mind is not a question for this chronicle to 
 decide or discuss. As for John Racer, he was not in 
 sane. His melancholy had not yet broken the hinge 
 of his intellect. He knew perfectly what he was 
 about, and why. It was not at all clear to him that he 
 had not the right to take the life imposed upon him 
 by a fate which now forbade him the power to sustain 
 it. If he reasoned fallaciously, remember that he was 
 not a philosopher, but a musician. He was accus 
 tomed to put his emotions to the front. Beethoven, 
 Mozart, and Chopin had not taught him logic. Nor 
 had he been what is called a religious man; he had 
 only loved his wife. What he purposed to do he 
 should do for Sarah s sake. Love was his syllogism, 
 but there was a false term in it, and his conclusion 
 betrayed him. 
 
 He began to stroll into drug-stores and put ques- 
 266 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 tions about poisons. He began to haunt the bridges 
 spanning the river that curved around the city. 
 One day his fingers went down into the hole in 
 his vest pocket and fumbled for the change that his 
 flute had begged for him when it sang " Adelaide." 
 He thought of the thirty pieces of silver for which 
 Judas had betrayed his Lord. He took the money out 
 and counted it slowly. There were eighty-five cents. 
 He took this to a pawn-shop and bought a second 
 hand pistol, old and rusty. This he carried home 
 and hid in his shaving-stand, which had a drawer that 
 locked. It was almost the only piece of furniture that 
 he had saved from his comfortable past. He laid the 
 pistol beside the razor and a bottle of laudanum that 
 had been there for some weeks, put the key in his 
 pocket, fled the house, and went back to the river. 
 
 It came on to be early spring, when, if ever, the 
 starving are fed. Masses of men with bitter eyes and 
 powerful muscles thronged out into the country to 
 wrench a living from their mother earth. It occurred 
 to John Racer to do the same. He dug holes to plant 
 trees upon a gentleman s lawn for half a day. He 
 was kindly dismissed at noon upon the ground that 
 they needed a stronger man, and he did not try again. 
 
 All this while (having abandoned the employment 
 offices) he ravaged the advertisements; mechanically, 
 dutifully, not because he had hope, even what a great 
 misanthrope called " desperate," as distinct from 
 
 267 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 " common hoping hope," but because of a crude, 
 peremptory thing within him that he neither under 
 stood nor respected the instinct to live. Now that 
 he had determined to die, he scorned this savage 
 impulse, while yet he parried with it, God knew why. 
 
 From a flaring red and yellow Sunday paper he cut 
 out a couple of lines which set forth the demand of a 
 family for a gentleman to go to the seashore and tutor 
 two boys, very little boys, and to teach them the 
 rudiments of music. It would not be easy to say why 
 John Racer staked his life, or even what one might 
 call his soul, upon this venture; but he did. Beyond 
 it, he was determined not to make another. If he got 
 the place he would live, at least till fall ; perhaps even 
 he would take the chance as a sign (he did not know 
 of what) and go on living. If he failed to get it, his 
 mind was made. He would tolerate the injustice of 
 existence no more. He would rebel and riot against 
 it. Yes, and he would take the consequences, be they 
 what they might. Once he muttered, "I will not be 
 supported by women any longer." 
 
 He was so fortunate as to secure a reply from the 
 advertiser upon whose whim he had flung this awful 
 toss, and the evening before the day when he should 
 keep his appointment he locked himself into his little, 
 hot bedroom and wrote for a while. He heard the 
 cackle of the sewing-machine in the working-room, 
 and in the pauses his wife s voice not so modulated 
 
 268 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 as it was once. Then Sad spoke, not merrily, as she 
 used to do; she had caught phrases that she heard 
 from their neighbors, the women in the tenements 
 above and below them. By a curious freak of his 
 excited mind he thought of some of the unpleasant 
 details in their sordid lot: how they had parted with 
 the last piece of Sarah s wedding silver, and ate any 
 how, with anything; and that it was some time since 
 their napkins gave out, darned to the last thread. 
 Once he had just saved himself from putting the 
 edge of the table-cloth to his lips at supper. It was 
 oilcloth, and veined to imitate marble. 
 
 "It is for their sakes," he said. "We are sinking 
 into the bottomless pit. We have become part of the 
 great submerged. It is for their sakes." 
 
 He wrote two letters, read and reread them, but 
 changed nothing in them; sealed, addressed, and put 
 them in his shaving-stand, which he did not lock. 
 Thus they ran: 
 
 "MR. GUY NORTHRUP: 
 
 "MY DEAR COUSIN, My poor wife will tell you 
 the history which has driven me to that which I have 
 decided to do. Please tell Mrs. Northrup that I put 
 the ivy on the Chopin when I came with the florist s 
 decorator that day. Do me the credit, if you can, to 
 remember that I have never made myself known to 
 annoy you, or to appeal to your sympathy. I believe 
 
 269 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 poor relatives sometimes do. Sir, I have tried in 
 every way I can think of to earn a living. I cannot do 
 it. The ladies of my family my poor wife, my 
 crippled daughter have supported me as long as I 
 can bear it. When I am out of their way, for the love 
 of God and pity on a desperate man, will you look to 
 it, somehow, that they do not starve or freeze ? We 
 have been pretty near it. If there is any knowledge 
 in the place to which I am going (I don t know 
 whether there is) I shall thank you, sir. 
 I am, yours truly, 
 
 JOHN RACER." 
 
 The other letter was no longer, and was blurred 
 from beginning to end with splashing tears: 
 
 "SARAH, We ve been happy together in spite of 
 all. We have loved each other a good while and a 
 good deal. What I mind most is the way you 11 look 
 when they bring me home. But it is the only thing 
 to be done. I have tried everything else. Your 
 cousin Guy will look after you and Sad his wife 
 will, if he does n t. I hope you won t take it very 
 hard, Sarah. I wish I could make you see it as I do. 
 Sometimes I am afraid you won t. 
 
 "Bury my flute with me, and if there were any 
 body that could sing Adelaide I should like that. 
 But I don t suppose there will be. How long was it I 
 
 270 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 called you Adelaide? It seemed I never could get 
 used to Sarah. You were such a delicate, poetic 
 creature half music, half fire. All our lives to 
 gether you have been all love. I wish I could make 
 you believe that it is love that makes me do this 
 deed. 
 
 " Tell Sad " 
 
 But what he would have told Sad was blotted past 
 deciphering. 
 
 He went in and spent the rest of the evening with 
 his wife and daughter. They were not working, and 
 the family sat in the dark to save kerosene. They 
 chatted quietly, and Sarah Racer remembered after 
 wards that John had talked more than usual, and 
 more cheerfully. 
 
 In the night she waked once or twice, and thought 
 that he was not asleep, and once she found him 
 holding her hand as he lay straight and still at her 
 side. 
 
 In the morning he ate no breakfast, but this 
 was not unusual, and he did not tell them where 
 he was going, but that often happened. He did 
 say:- 
 
 "I may be late to-night. Don t worry if I am." 
 
 He kissed them both good-by, and then he came 
 back and kissed his wife a second time. She went to 
 the top of the stairs and watched him going down the 
 
 271 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 upper flight; he clung to the banister and measured 
 his steps carefully. She thought him paler than usual, 
 or feebler. She said to Sad : 
 
 "Your father is getting to be an old man." 
 
 It was four o clock that afternoon when John 
 Racer came to the river. Why to the river, he could 
 not have told, because he had no intention, remote 
 or near, of drowning. Perhaps he wished to feel that 
 he could if the other failed. The rusty pistol was in 
 his breast-pocket, and he felt of it as if it had been a 
 love-letter or money, or even a Bible, such as religious 
 persons carried. It occurred to him once that he had 
 never been religious, and to wonder if it would have 
 made any difference if he had been with this which 
 he purposed to do. His determination was quite 
 fixed. He had passed all the doubtful stages. He 
 had gone by the border-land. He had come to the 
 country of no retreat. His mind was perfectly clear 
 and calm. He had risked his last throw. He could 
 not even teach the rudiments of music to very little 
 boys. Whatever dying was, he was convinced that 
 it would be easier than living; and this is a dangerous 
 conviction for any man to reach. 
 
 The bridge was not crowded it was an hour 
 too early for that and he had chosen a place 
 at its farther end, as far as possible (he would 
 have said) from Sarah. He found it difficult to 
 
 272 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 forget he wished he could that Sarah might take 
 this hard. 
 
 He was leaning over the rail of the bridge; it 
 appeared that he was watching the water, but in fact 
 he was accustoming himself to the feel of the trigger 
 on the pistol, which he had covered from observation 
 by his coat. While he was standing so, at halt be 
 tween life and death, and craving death with the 
 passion of failure and age, he was disturbed by the 
 sobbing of a child, and looking up he saw a little 
 crippled girl. He thrust the pistol into his breast 
 pocket. 
 
 " There s plenty of time," he thought. "It will 
 stay there." 
 
 With the manner and tone which could have be 
 longed only to the father of a crippled child, he put 
 his arm about the little thing and besought her to tell 
 him the nature of her trouble. It seemed she had 
 lost one crutch ; it had fallen into the river, she thought. 
 She stood crying and pointed down with a dirty little 
 finger. 
 
 "Why, no," he said, cheerfully. "It is right on 
 the rocks, not very far down. I can get it for you 
 easily." 
 
 This he did, clambering down like a young, strong 
 man, and brought back the crutch to the child, who 
 gave him a small, twisted smile and hobbled away. 
 He stood and watched her, smiling too. 
 
 273 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 "I must tell Sad that," he thought. Then he re 
 membered that he should never tell Sad anything 
 again. 
 
 He went back upon the bridge, walking slowly. 
 Four men were coming from the city, straggling one 
 after the other. 
 
 "I must wait till they have gone," he thought. 
 Two passed, and a third; the fourth was well behind. 
 John Racer resumed his station at the spot which he 
 had left to help the crippled child. His hand crept 
 stealthily to his breast pocket; he pulled his hat vio 
 lently over his eyes. The fourth and last man came 
 up, passed, turned, and stopped. A hand touched 
 the musician s shoulder. 
 
 "Hello, John Jogger! " cried the fourth man. 
 
 In the tenement that one called a flat by courtesy 
 it was very hot. Work went heavily, and the sewing- 
 machine, which seemed to mind the weather, like 
 other people, turned shrewish, snarled, and bit off a 
 needle. 
 
 "There!" said Mrs. Racer; "the third to-day. 
 And I believe I have n t got another to my name." 
 
 "Then you can rest and enjoy yourself, mummy," 
 suggested Sad. 
 
 "Oh, yes; I can rest and enjoy my-self," 
 repeated Sarah Racer, bitterly. 
 
 She pushed her chair away from the machine and 
 274 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 began to fold and pile up the shirt-waists that billowed 
 about her. Sad put back the straggling wet hair 
 from her own damp face and leaned back in her 
 cushioned chair; her large eyes brooded as if she had 
 been the mother and Sarah Racer had been the child. 
 
 "Don t begin yet," she said abruptly. "It really 
 is n t time. He is often later than this, you know - 
 much later, mummy." 
 
 "It J s the look he had," replied Mrs. Racer. "But 
 it is early to worry, I 11 own to that. What are you 
 dressing to-day, Sad ? " 
 
 Sad hesitated, and held up her paper doll in silence. 
 The cripple sat in a mass of mournful colors, black 
 and white; and the doll in her hands was a paper 
 widow in a long black veil. Sad tied a little white 
 tissue bow beneath the widow s chin, and laid her 
 away in a pasteboard box. 
 
 "I hate it! I hate it!" she cried suddenly. "To 
 morrow I 11 have a bride and six bridesmaids." 
 
 "Sad," said Mrs. Racer, "there s no use pretending 
 any longer. Your father ought to have been here 
 half an hour ago." 
 
 She got up and drained a cup of bitter tea, cold, and 
 poisoned by the tin pot in which it had stood all day. 
 Then she began to pace the hot, small room, pass 
 ing in and out of the bedroom as she flung herself 
 to and fro, pulling on her nerves as a dog pulls on a 
 leash. 
 
 275 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 "I did n t like his looks to-day," she repeated. 
 
 Now Sad had liked them even less, but she had not 
 said so. She sat with her large head on one side, 
 listening acutely. She took her crutches from the top 
 of the chair and held them ready for she knew not 
 what. She tried to say something, but only suc 
 ceeded in making that cooing, comforting noise which 
 her father said was like pigeons on a roof. The two 
 women endured the inquisition of anxiety which men 
 inflict because they are men, and never, for the same 
 reason, understand. 
 
 Then Sad heard a cry low at first, but rising till 
 it cleft her heart. From out of the bedroom Mrs. 
 Racer dashed ; her face, shriveled beneath its yellow 
 skin, was of a piteous color; in her small, rough hands 
 she held out two shaking letters. 
 
 All disheveled as she was, in her cotton wrapper, 
 open at the throat, Sarah Racer would have 
 plunged into the street. But the cripple held her 
 back. 
 
 "Not without me, mummy! Not without me!" 
 Sad, who had not been down the stairs since she had 
 been lifted up them more than a year before, put her 
 crutches under her arms and thudded to the top 
 flight, sat herself down and pushed from step to step, 
 as persons on crutches can. As she did so she held 
 her mother s skirt and clung to it, for she was afraid 
 that the woman would fling herself headlong. So 
 
 276 
 
UNEMPLOYED 
 
 the little procession of two came down four flights of 
 stairs and panted into the street. There they stood, 
 bewildered, knowing no more than the pigeons on 
 the roofs above them what to do. But Sad kept her 
 head, and held her mother by the cotton wrapper. 
 
 "Keep a little quiet, mummy! Don t let every 
 body know." 
 
 They stumbled along the sidewalk, staring every 
 where, as if that would find or help him, afraid to 
 tell their dreadful news, afraid not to tell it, and 
 clinging together as women do in the emergencies 
 that have gone beyond their wits. 
 
 Then, running rapidly towards them they saw a 
 radiant man. He was an aging man, but his years had 
 fallen from him like melted snow. He was gaunt and 
 bent and ragged; but he held his head like a boy. 
 He was feeble and bald, and in his excitement he had 
 lost his hat and ran bareheaded ; but the fire of youth 
 flared in his eyes, and his voice was as the voice of 
 those who have drunk the wine of joy. Gesticulating 
 with his voluble fingers, he held out his arms, and his 
 wife lurched into them. The cripple, tottering, sup 
 ported only by her crutches, laughed. Proud, ecstatic, 
 with the triumph of one who, being compelled by the 
 laws of God and man to exist, has found the way to do 
 so, John Racer cried aloud : 
 
 "I ve got a jobl" 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 THE room was high and dimly lighted, its ceiling 
 traversed with oaken beams. In the shadow that 
 seemed to rise from below, like hot air, these gave 
 the effect of arms extended; whether in benediction 
 or malediction, who but the occupant should say? 
 
 The walls, such portions of them as showed be 
 tween the tall bookcases, were papered in dull gold. 
 The bookcases were full and in ceremonious order; 
 editions de luxe were many, and all the books were 
 expensively bound; few were at all worn, and a bind 
 ing battered by love was not to be seen. 
 
 The room, in fact, was a library in which nobody 
 read a rich man s library, selected by a bookseller, 
 or some literary friend; ordered as one chooses his 
 horses., his wines, his upholstery, or his wife, to com 
 plete an establishment. 
 
 Jackson GrenfelPs wife sat by the reading-lamp with 
 the yellow porcelain shade (a dash of butterflies and 
 golden -glow blew across it), and, though one had been 
 a stranger in the room, it would have seemed some 
 how the unexpected thing that Allyria Grenfell should 
 have an open book not a novel in her hand. 
 Strictly speaking, for the last year it could not have 
 
 278 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 been said that nobody read in the library. Allyria 
 had read. This is to say, she had been trying to, or 
 learning to, taught by her friendship for a reading 
 man. Enchained as he was by her charm, it must be 
 confessed that he had been perplexed, at times even 
 chilled, by her ignorance, and he had set about the 
 pleasant task of leading her through the gardens of 
 literature with that mingled sense of superiority and 
 delight natural to a man who is accustomed to femi 
 nine admiration, and who has failed to experience the 
 power of a woman stronger than himself. 
 
 In a word, Allyria read because Cecil Murray had 
 asked her to, and Murray had asked her to because he 
 could not help it. He felt the waste in her rich nature 
 as an affront ; it had come to take on the character of 
 a personal loss to him. She was no more undevel 
 oped than other women of her type. Her luxurious 
 instincts had been pampered to surfeit, and her brain 
 starved to famine; her soul but Murray did not go 
 so far as that; in the matter of souls he was as unin- 
 structed as she, perhaps, although he did not know it, 
 more so. He had the self-satisfaction of a dilettante 
 whose literary taste may supplant his conscience with 
 out his suspecting it. At all events, he had led and 
 she had read, and both had learned; lessons not in 
 their calculation, and amassing upon them an educa 
 tion yet to be reckoned with. 
 
 She had called it friendship, as good women do; 
 279 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 and what he called it she did not ask. In spite of the 
 fatal history of man and woman, friendship exists; 
 an emotion noble if not safe; and Allyria had sat in 
 the old perilous seat and thought herself secure, be 
 cause it had not occurred to her that she could possibly 
 be otherwise. 
 
 But her reading, like her experience, had followed 
 the line of least resistance. Murray had begun, when 
 he was a dreamy, self-indulgent lad at college, to 
 read the artistic, tainted novels, making his own 
 misguided selection, and this habit he had never 
 dropped. It was like that of any other inebriation; 
 his dram had long since ceased to please him, but he 
 drank on. He had lent a few French and Russian 
 classics to Mrs. Grenfell, but she did not care for 
 them. He had read the dangerous fiction; but she 
 had chosen the dangerous poetry; the combination 
 had its liabilities, like those of sulphur and fire. 
 
 On this evening of which we tell, Allyria had not 
 been reading attentively; her mind and her body 
 were equally restless. She closed her book suddenly 
 it was one of the modern decadents and pushed it 
 as far from her as she could across the table, replacing 
 it by another for which she groped with brown, 
 September hands upon the mantel. A low fire had 
 been started in the grate, but, being a fire, and unfed, 
 was dying slowly. She stood for a moment in the 
 faint cannel flicker, urging the pages through her 
 
 280 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 fingers. When she had found the poem she did not 
 read it, but glanced at it, wincing. She seemed to 
 cower before it, and with a gesture more of fear than 
 of impatience, laid the book open face down below the 
 reading-lamp. She did not resume her seat, but stood 
 with her eyes upon the failing fire. 
 
 She was not in dinner dress, as the servants had 
 observed, but wore a street gown of dark cloth. The 
 early autumn night was warm, and she had pushed 
 off the jacket. Her face rose from her cream lace 
 waist as if both had been parts of the same piece of 
 delicate embroidery. Her skin was as soft as that of 
 a well woman can be, and her coloring was fair and 
 fine. But her eyes and hair were tropical. 
 
 She had dined early and lightly, and it was still 
 scarcely seven by the clock upon the mantel. It 
 seemed to Mrs. Grenfell that the clock watched her 
 and followed her about the room, as the eyes of a 
 good portrait follow the observer. She grew uncom 
 fortable before the clock, and presently it occurred 
 to her that it was pointing at her with its fingers. 
 This idea possessed her so that she turned her back 
 upon the clock resentfully and left the room. The 
 house was quite still, and the upper story deserted. 
 She met no one, and she wandered from doorway 
 to doorway with something of the sense of freedom 
 which she had when she let all the servants off upon 
 a half -holiday. 
 
 281 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 "It is only then," she once told her husband, "that 
 I feel as if we owned our own house." 
 
 "Oh, come now!" Jackson Grenfell had said, 
 staring, "there isn t a mortgage on it." 
 
 She was quite used to Jackson s not understanding; 
 he was not apt to. Allyria would have loved her home 
 if she had been happy in it; she was naturally a 
 homing woman. Now she looked about the house 
 compassionately, as if it were something that could 
 feel and suffer, and if it were deserted would know it. 
 With more of purpose than of accident in her motions 
 she slid from room to room, lingering chiefly in three 
 her own, a reverie in pearl and rose, too delicate to 
 be sumptuous, but too tender to be cold; her hus 
 band s, where her bridal portrait still hung above 
 the empty bed, flanked by riding-whips and antlers, 
 champion golf cups, and photographs of racing 
 yachts; and then the child s. This last was locked. 
 She had always kept the key herself since the baby 
 died. She used to go in every morning and sun and 
 air the empty nursery, but for a long time she had 
 neglected to do so; perhaps she had purposed not to 
 do so. The place was damp and cold. She shrank 
 from it at first, as if she had opened a vault; then 
 resolutely pushed in. She had carried her own tiny 
 mother-of-pearl candlestick with its long pink taper, 
 and the colored wax guttered upon her fingers as she 
 bent over the crib. A spark touched the little lace- 
 
 282 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 draped bed, and the flimsy stuff blazed. She extin 
 guished the flames without calling for help, and 
 burned her hand. She felt something like a sense of 
 pleasure in the smart. It was the mooca to a misery 
 which seemed to have settled in the marrow of her 
 life. She buried her face in the lace, but did not kiss it. 
 Her dry lips straightened before it and refused. She 
 arranged the scorched drapery carefully in its place, 
 and did not look back at it as she left the room, but 
 when she had locked the door she put the key in her 
 pocket. It was a small key, and it had been her 
 pretty fancy to have it made of silver. 
 
 Cecil Murray was in the library when she came 
 downstairs. Mrs. GrenfelPs maid, Janet, had ad 
 mitted him, it being the butler s evening off. Janet 
 stood observantly in the hall. 
 
 "Do you want me, Madam?" 
 
 " If I do I will let you know," replied Mrs. Grenfell, 
 coldly. 
 
 "Very well, Madam. I did not know but " 
 Something in the girl s expression or tone annoyed 
 her mistress, and she turned with unusual sharpness ; 
 for her manner with servants was finished, and there 
 fore considerate. 
 
 "Why should you know? "she demanded. Shewent 
 abruptly into the library, and shut the door; a thing 
 which Janet had never seen her do before when Mr. 
 Murray was there. And Mr. Murray was often there. 
 
 283 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 He was standing before the fainting fire, and made 
 as if to warm his fingers, although he was not cold. 
 He advanced to meet her without speaking. 
 
 One of the long windows was open and unscreened. 
 A creeper of woodbine, beginning to be crimson, blew 
 between the lace draperies as if it were trying to get 
 into the room. She, too, did not speak, but went up 
 nervously and broke off the woodbine. 
 
 "I don t like the looks of it," were the first words 
 she said. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Oh how can I tell ? It intrudes. It looks as if 
 it were trying to get hold of something." 
 
 "It is the nature of tendrils to cling," he suggested, 
 smiling, but it was not a happy smile; and when, with 
 a forced determination, she lifted her face to his, she 
 found it fixed with a fatal seriousness. He had her 
 book in his hand, and she thought he had read the 
 poem that she was afraid to. It was Tennyson s 
 " Love and Duty." He shut the book and put it upon 
 the table where it lay between them. 
 
 "This is strong," he said, "but it does not close the 
 subject." 
 
 "What does?" asked Allyria, suddenly. 
 
 "We must find out for ourselves," responded 
 Murray. "No man, no woman, can judge, can decide 
 for any other. By the way," he added lightly, as if he 
 had been making a conventional call, "I brought my 
 
 284 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 car along. The evening is so warm and there will 
 be a moon if the clouds break. Will you ride with 
 me?" 
 
 "No," said Allyria, distinctly. 
 
 He could see her hand, with the woodbine in it, 
 clench where she had laid it against the lace upon 
 her breast. 
 
 "I am sorry," suggested Murray, gently. "I 
 thought you would. We can talk here if you would 
 rather. I wish to talk I have some things to say." 
 
 Allyria had sat down, and he towered above her; 
 rather she had sunk down, and sat breathless. 
 
 " I don t think," she panted, " that I had better hear 
 what you have to say." 
 
 "Pardon me." A delicate deprecation was in 
 Murray s voice. "I shall say nothing that you do 
 not choose to hear. I came to ask the honor of your 
 company for a ride in my touring car." 
 
 "What time should we get back ? " Allyria did not 
 look at him; but he gazed at her tenaciously. 
 
 "That is for you to say. I am at your command, 
 absolutely, always. You know that." 
 
 "If we could get back quite early " wavered 
 Allyria. When she found that he did not reply, she 
 lifted her eyes timidly. His received them with a 
 formidable intentness. He watched her in a steady 
 silence which had the effect of argument. 
 
 Now suddenly Mrs. Grenfell thrust outward and 
 285 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 upward both her hands. It was as if her flesh pleaded 
 for mercy which her spirit would not ask. As she 
 did this, the crimson woodbine dropped from her 
 bosom to her lap, and from her lap to the floor. He 
 stooped without a word, and wound it like a bracelet 
 on her wrist. 
 
 "There," he observed in a commonplace, com 
 fortable tone, "shall we take a ride? " 
 
 "I will get my coat and things," she said. But she 
 delayed, fumbling at the vine on her wrist, as if she 
 were trying to tear it off. Murray stood perfectly 
 still and scrutinized her. 
 
 "No," she said to herself, "it is not friendship." 
 
 She had long known as much as that. But she had 
 never before admitted that she knew. The signifi 
 cance of the moment seemed to her as irrevocable 
 as birth or death. 
 
 She stood looking about her with a frightened ex 
 pression. Every detail in the room projected itself 
 upon her. The oaken arms of the ceiling stretched 
 and wrung themselves above her head. The books in 
 the tall cases seemed to retreat upon their shelves. 
 The fire was cold within the grate, and the dull gold 
 panels on the walls darkened to a chilly brown. She 
 was so sure that the fingers of the clock pointed at 
 her that she could have screamed. He stood silently 
 by the yellow reading-lamp. But she did not look at 
 him. 
 
 286 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 She came down in her automobile coat, her hat tied 
 with yards of pearl-colored chiffon. Murray stood in 
 his touring coat and cap. Janet held the door open. 
 
 "You will want your rubber coat," the girl said 
 anxiously, "in case it should storm." 
 
 "Oh, it will not storm," replied Mrs. Grenfell. 
 "Will it ? " She did not look at Janet, but at Murray. 
 
 "And the little bag, in case of an accident " - per 
 sisted Janet " you will find it folded in the coat." 
 
 "Oh, there will not be an accident," repeated Mrs. 
 Grenfell. "We shall not break down, Janet. But if 
 we do if we did, I should Could we ride towards 
 my cousin s, Mrs. Herman Joselyn s?" she asked, 
 abruptly turning to Murray. "Then, if anything did 
 happen, Janet, I could telephone you from there." 
 
 "If Mr. Grenfell should return," the girl suggested 
 timidly, "I shall tell him that?" 
 
 "Mr. Grenfell will not return." 
 
 "Or if he should telephone, Madam?" 
 
 "Mr. Grenfell will not telephone. He telegraphed 
 this noon. He will remain in Chicago until he starts 
 for California. Mr. Grenfell will be in California for 
 some months." 
 
 On the upper step she turned. " You may ex 
 pect me by ten o clock, Janet." 
 
 Murray had not spoken, but listened deferentially 
 to her nervous words. When he helped her into the 
 car he dismissed the chauffeur. 
 
 287 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 "Oh!" she protested, with a little conventional 
 cry, "is n t Stokes going, too? " 
 
 But Murray answered, "I like to do my own 
 steering in the dark." 
 
 He gave directions in a lowered voice to >tokes. 
 Mrs. Grenfell sat trying not to hear them. She did 
 not look at her own house, where Janet, in a narrow 
 gleam of light, still held the front door ajar. Stokes 
 stood with his finger at his cap, and the car started 
 slowly. Allyria sat with her eyes fixed straight before 
 her. She felt, although she did not see, that Murray 
 was seated beside her with his long gauntleted hand 
 upon the wheel. 
 
 He was a careful driver, and he wove through the 
 streets of the city with deliberation. Allyria observed 
 his light, firm touch upon the wheel. A crude sense of 
 his masculine skill and strength aroused her admira 
 tion. She ventured for the first time to glance at his 
 massive figure buttoned to the chin in the long coat. 
 His visor cast a shadow on his face. They rode in a 
 silence which embarrassed her, but she did not break 
 it. He drove slowly through the lower city, and chose 
 the suburban boulevard which led to the home of 
 her relative, as she had asked. She perceived this with 
 a curiously mingled sense of pleasure and of regret. 
 
 Up to this time he had not spoken one word, and 
 had driven at a very leisurely pace. Now, as the 
 street and the night widened before them he let the 
 
 288 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 car out. The first thing he said was, "Did he really 
 send you that message this afternoon? " 
 
 "Why not? It is like him." 
 
 "And you did not know that he was going to Cal 
 ifornia when he left you when he left home ? The 
 telegram was the first you heard of it ? " 
 
 "He goes where he chooses; he does what he 
 pleases," replied Allyria, drearily. 
 
 Murray bit off an oath between his teeth. 
 
 "Why should you mind it," asked Allyria, "if I do 
 not?" 
 
 "Not the discourtesy? Not the neglect?" 
 
 "We agreed not to mind," said Allyria. "You see, 
 if you did not care enough to mind don t you see ? " 
 
 "I see," replied Murray. Their acquaintance had 
 long since passed the invisible line on the other side 
 of which one preserves the transparent but dignified 
 fictions that conceal domestic misery. For a year he 
 had known how unhappy she was, and had smoked 
 his midnights out, thinking the situation through; he 
 felt that somebody must, and he knew that she did 
 not. He recognized perfectly that there was no escape 
 for her in the respectable solution called divorce. 
 Jackson Grenfell had bruised his wife with chronic 
 indifference, and broken her with most of the other 
 vices. But he had never flayed her alive with the 
 fragments of the seventh commandment. In his way, 
 Grenfell was a decent fellow; which was, in a sense, 
 
 289 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 the worst of it. Murray thought of him not unjustly, 
 only contemptuously. 
 
 " You can t bear much more," he said, in a shattered 
 voice. 
 
 "You have helped me to bear it," said Allyria, 
 plaintively. " I have thought, I hoped, that this feel 
 ing we used to call it friendship it has been a 
 comfort to me. I thought it would go on forever. 
 I thought it was not like the other." 
 
 "What other?" demanded Murray. 
 
 It seemed to her that if he had so much as turned 
 his head he would have weakened the tragedy of his 
 words. He drove rapidly, looking straight before 
 him. They had now left the boulevard, and were 
 whirling through smooth suburban lands, into a 
 yawning country where the lights were dim and 
 few, and great ambushes of shadow swallowed 
 them. 
 
 With the increasing motion of the machine Allyria s 
 mind and heart spun madly. His presence, his near 
 ness, their solitude, the silence of the deserted roads, 
 their separateness from every other form of life except 
 their mutual attraction, moved her to an emotion 
 which at once entranced and terrified her. At mo 
 ments she felt exalted, as if she had been lifted 
 into mid-ether, and as if she were flying from star to 
 star. She had a sense of something like spiritual 
 ecstasy. Then it was as if she plunged, and found 
 
 290 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 herself in a shoreless and bottomless abyss where she 
 drowned from depth to depth. 
 
 There was no moon, as he had promised her, for 
 the clouds had massed upon it. The wind was rising, 
 and drove in their faces and down their throats. 
 
 She dared not look at Cecil Murray. In the broad 
 car she shrank away from him. She would not have 
 allowed her soft shoulder to touch his arm no, not 
 for her soul s life. She was afraid, and for the first 
 time she said to herself that she was afraid. 
 
 The machine now ran like a fugitive, and swayed 
 from side to side. Murray experienced the immoral 
 madness of speed. In the open country the languor 
 ous perfumes of dying summer swam from the late 
 September night. Gulfs beyond gulfs of warm dark 
 ness opened before the two. Through these the car 
 flew with a recklessness which she was surprised to 
 find did not alarm her. Once, when they blew by a 
 kerosene street lamp, he turned and regarded her. 
 
 Her long veil wavered about her head and throat 
 like smoke. Out of it her face blazed fire-white. 
 As the car dashed around a corner of the village street 
 an onset of wind took the veil and twisted it around 
 and around Murray s neck. The thing was faint 
 with the perfume of her hair, her cheek. They sat 
 united in that yoke of gauze. 
 
 " God help us! "he said. 
 
 Allyria s face was as bewildered as a lost child s. 
 291 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 But the man s was definite and fixed. It assumed an 
 expression that she had never seen, and before which 
 she felt the pitiable helplessness which is the doom 
 of woman. As she sat with her chin upturned appeal - 
 ingly through the haze of her veil, drops dashed 
 upon their heads. She was the first to recover herself. 
 
 "Oh," she cried, "there is going to be a storm! 
 There is a storm! " 
 
 "We will find your rubber coat," he said soothingly. 
 
 He buttoned the coat at her throat. She perceived 
 that his fingers trembled. In an instant the wind had 
 risen to a gale. Before they could say, "It rains," a 
 deluge opened upon them. There was a menace of 
 distant thunder, and then a roar in which they could 
 not hear each other speak. Allyria wailed a little. 
 
 "Oh, I wish we had brought Stokes along or 
 Janet! How far are we from Anna Joselyn s ? " 
 
 In the turmoil Murray could not hear the words, 
 but he understood the tone. 
 
 "Compose yourself," he said gently, "I will get 
 you to Joselyn s if I can." 
 
 Now, suddenly and strangely, the woman s emotion 
 reacted upon itself. At once, she did not think it 
 important whether she went to Anna Joselyn s. They 
 were spinning through a tunnel of willows which over 
 arched a deserted street. He slackened the pace of the 
 car, and brought it to a stop in the cone of darkness. 
 Down this the acetylene lamps searched. Behind 
 
 292 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 the man and woman their road was shut in blackness, 
 and before them they could see but a very little way. 
 There was something inexpressibly wild in this 
 unrelated light; as if it served to cut them off from 
 rather than unite them to the common world. She 
 felt that he had changed his position, and that his hand 
 crept toward her. 
 
 "Why do you stop?" asked Allyria. Then she 
 uttered a low cry. "My hand! You have hurt my 
 hand ! She held up her smarting fingers in the dark. 
 "I burned them. It was just before you came. I 
 could not get my glove on. It aches a good deal. And 
 you and you - 
 
 "How did it happen? " cried Murray, savage with 
 remorse. "Why did you not tell me? What have you 
 been doing?" 
 
 But Allyria shook her head. "It is nothing," she 
 pleaded. "I do not want to talk about it not to 
 you." The emphasis on the last word was not too fine 
 for Murray s acute ear. 
 
 He unwound the veil fiercely from his neck, and set 
 both hands upon the wheel. The car leaped, and ran. 
 It dashed out of the willow tunnel like a thing pursued. 
 They shot into a long country road, feebly lighted, and 
 sparsely settled. Again, beneath a smoking street 
 lamp they turned and stared at each other. In the 
 anger of the storm she leaned a little toward him. 
 
 "It does not matter," she said; "I do not care. 
 293 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 Go where you please. You know best what we ought 
 to do." 
 
 The words were taken from her bleached lips by 
 a bolt of blue lightning, and the two bent beneath a 
 tempest in which heaven and earth and hell had 
 become indistinguishable. The man, recalled by the 
 inexorable responsibilities of his position, felt his way 
 gravely through the alternations of glare and gloom, 
 whoseominous acceleration seemed to him lessdanger- 
 ous than the alternations of their own emotion. But the 
 woman had ceased to cherish responsibility she had 
 cast it solidly upon him ; he felt that she was not helping 
 him, and that she might not help him any more. They 
 rode at a creeping pace through the streets of a drip 
 ping, empty village. The car cowered before the storm 
 which chased and flogged its occupants. Drenched 
 and bewildered, Allyria clung to a fold of Murray s 
 long coat. 
 
 Her lips moved. She tried to say, "I never saw 
 such lightning in my life." But he could not hear her. 
 She added a few words. Afterwards she did not know 
 whether she were sorry or glad that he had not heard 
 those. She felt more exalted than terrified. It was to 
 her as if they two were driving through space upon a 
 meteorite, detached from some time-worn planet, and 
 falling upon a new one, uninhabited, and therefore 
 without history. She did not rebel against the man 
 any more than the machine did. 
 
 294 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 She had yielded her fate so dreamily, so utterly to 
 his guidance that she asked no questions when she 
 felt the car swerve abruptly from the village road 
 and take a mighty bound into the dark. Quivering 
 through every metal nerve, the automobile stopped 
 short. Bars of crimson fire like the grating of a mighty 
 gate scorched the sky as Murray leaped, and held up 
 his arms to her. 
 
 " Get out ! " he cried. " This will be a hurricane for 
 aught I know. Jump!" 
 
 "Are we at Cousin Anna s ? " wavered Mrs. Grenfell. 
 
 "No matter where we are ! Come, I tell you ! Come ! " 
 
 Not knowing why, not knowing where, and not 
 caring very much, Allyria sprang. His arms received 
 but did not retain her. He grasped her burned hand; 
 even then, he remembered to take her by the wrist 
 so that he should not hurt her; and she heard him 
 say, "Run!" 
 
 As they pushed on, scrambling and struggling with 
 the tornado, she was aware of indistinct articulation, 
 and that the voice was other than his. A light, neither 
 blood -red, nor demon blue, nor ghastly white a light 
 not from the scarified heavens, but of the human 
 earth streamed upon her, and she stumbled into it. 
 She now perceived that Murray had driven the auto 
 mobile into the front yard of a country home; the 
 machine stood trembling like a frightened dog beneath 
 a large elm in whose veins ran the blood of a hundred 
 
 " 295 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 years; she felt that she crushed the life out of some 
 drenched garden flowers as she ran away from the 
 tree. The house was small, and painted white; its 
 front door was thrown wide, and brightly lighted 
 from within. The two, pelted by rain and chased by 
 thunder, followed the gleam, and came panting to the 
 wooden steps. 
 
 A woman stood in the doorway. She held one hand 
 at her temples to peer out; but the other was occu 
 pied by a crutch whose fellow leaned against her dark 
 woolen dress. She was a tall, rather comely woman 
 of composed manners. When she said, 
 
 "Come in! Why, come right in!" there was felt to 
 be a compelling quality in her voice; it was not, to 
 Murray s surprise, what one calls an uncultivated 
 voice. He lifted his cap from his dripping forehead. 
 
 " Madam," he began, "we have taken the liberty " 
 
 "Why, of course," interrupted the woman. "I am 
 sorry you should have chosen so stormy a night. 
 This way. Be so good as to shut the door it beats 
 in so. The lady had better take her wet coat right off. 
 Will you hang it on the hat -tree for her ? You see I 
 am a little disabled. I will call my husband. Come 
 right in. The parlor is dark, but we will have every 
 thing as pretty as possible for you in a minute. Mr. 
 Titus ! Mr. Titus ! " Then, " He must be in the barn 
 talking to the horse," she added. " Our old horse is so 
 afraid of thunder we always go out and speak to 
 
 296 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 her about it. There! I hear him in the kitchen. He 
 will light up for you directly. If you will please find 
 some seats till he gets here?" 
 
 She slipped the second crutch beneath her arm, and 
 swung herself across the oilcloth of the narrow entry. 
 The two, dripping on the carpet (it was plainly the 
 parlor carpet) of the dim room into which they had 
 been ushered, heard from the lips of their hostess 
 these unexpected words, 
 
 "Abel! Abel! Father! Mr. Titus! Here are some 
 people in all this storm who want to be married. 7 
 
 The master of the house came in with a kerosene 
 lamp in his hand; he found the man and woman of 
 the world touched with an obvious embarrassment 
 which appeared to arouse in him no surprise what 
 ever. He was a person of some presence, with a 
 good pulpit figure, neatly dressed in clerical black, 
 much worn, and he made at once the impression that 
 his experience was as white as his hair. Although he 
 had what one calls the Christian eyes, they were 
 direct and keen; the glance which he aimed at his 
 guests returned upon itself with a slightly baffled 
 expression. It occurred to Murray that their host 
 was not lacking in a sense of humor, and that he 
 shared to an extent with them the amusement of the 
 travelers at finding themselves derelicts of the storm, 
 shipwrecked upon a country parsonage. 
 
 They stood in a plain room. It evidently was no 
 297 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 unused vault, like the parlors of the farmers and 
 mechanics, its neighbors, but quite accustomed to 
 society. A brown tapestry carpet of a small pattern 
 met a pale cartridge paper which mercifully relieved 
 a few religious engravings. Above the mantel was one 
 secular picture : a framed photograph of Sir Frederick 
 Leighton s " Wedded." In the fireplace the wood 
 was laid, but not lighted. There was a centre-table 
 with books, and a metal lamp. The minister lighted 
 the bright, hot lamp while he said with a hospitable 
 wave of the burned match, "Pray be seated." 
 
 For the two were still standing, with an awkward 
 ness foreign to their class. 
 
 "I am afraid we are almost too wet," ventured 
 Mrs. Grenfell, but she sat down upon a brown rep 
 sofa. Murray remained standing. 
 
 "I must go out and see to my car," he suggested, 
 "as soon as the storm holds up." 
 
 "This has been as near a hurricane as we are apt 
 to get in this climate," observed the minister, "and 
 I fear that you must have borne the brunt of it. 
 The lady will have suffered. Let her come to our 
 hearth." 
 
 He stooped and struck a match to the fire. Mrs. 
 Grenfell went up and put her narrow feet upon the 
 fender. Her skirts were wet. A soft voice welled at 
 her side, "What a pity ! Can t I lend you something ? " 
 
 The minister s wife stood eagerly, moving up a 
 298 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 little stand, which she pushed with one of her crutches. 
 The tray held sponge cake and unfermented grape 
 juice plainly, the usual entertainment offered by 
 the parsonage to its bridal couples. 
 
 "And now, sir," said the minister, holding out his 
 hand, "you have the license, I presume? You will 
 understand, of course, that it is necessary for me to 
 
 examine it." 
 
 "You have mistaken the nature of our errand," 
 replied Murray, setting his shaven lips together. "It 
 is not what you very naturally supposed." His long, 
 cynical face paled a little. "We were taking a ride 
 in my touring car, and were overtaken by the shower. 
 All we seek under your roof, sir, is shelter until the 
 storm has passed." 
 
 The words beat like a bell in Allyria s brain, and 
 seemed to hit through and knock from temple to tem 
 ple on either side. Her face scorched so that she 
 made a feint of removing her veil, and in so doing, 
 managed for a moment to shrink behind the gauze. 
 
 "All we seek is shelter all we seek is shelter till 
 the storm has passed." Her mind repeated the 
 phrase automatically. 
 
 "Ah?" said the minister, with a slow, rising in 
 flection, "I beg your pardon." 
 
 As he spoke, the house quivered to its skeleton, 
 and such a billow of wind was followed by such a 
 concussion that the four occupants of the parsonage 
 
 299 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 parlor got to their feet in one huddled group. Allyria 
 trembled with fright, and Murray instinctively 
 stepped to her side. Their hands reached to each 
 other, but fell apart. The minister put his arm about 
 the waist of his lame wife, who leaned more upon 
 him than upon her crutches. An arrow of lightning 
 seemed to try to enter the room, but to be driven 
 back by the lamplight and the firelight. Murray 
 wondered if he could be mistaken in thinking that 
 the husband and wife had glanced at their guests, and 
 exchanged a significant, if not a solemn look. 
 
 "The rain is lessening," remarked Cecil Murray, 
 uncomfortably, as soon as he could. "I will go out 
 between the drops and see to my machine." 
 
 "Allow me to be of any assistance to you that I 
 can," said the Reverend Abel Titus, heartily. " Ruth, 
 my dear? This room is pretty warm. Shall I open 
 the window for you before I step out ? " 
 
 The minister s wife nodded and smiled, over her 
 crutches. 
 
 "Thank you, Father. You always think of every 
 thing." She tossed the words at him as if they had 
 been a kiss. 
 
 The two men went out, and the women were left 
 together. Mrs. Grenfell did not look at Murray as 
 he passed her. She had resumed her seat by the fire, 
 which was now blazing cordially, and she sat trying 
 to get dry; she had folded her green cloth skirt back 
 
 300 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 from her silk petticoat. She felt that the eyes of her 
 hostess rested upon her fixedly; in them was a curious 
 union of expressions which only a woman could have 
 understood. A sheer feminine interest in the costume 
 of the stranger battled with something like a sense 
 of moral responsibility for her which the guest was 
 astonished to find that she did not resent. The 
 quality of a dark green broadcloth dress, the silk 
 frills upon a petticoat, also green, the size of ^ damp, 
 dainty boot, the tint and texture of a long chiffon veil, 
 the pattern and nature of the cream lace showing 
 beneath an imported and embroidered jacket these 
 things the pastor s wife was not too old or too religious 
 to estimate for what they represented. But clothes 
 never muddled Mrs. Titus. She had been able to 
 perceive that she was not entertaining an adventuress, 
 over-dressed, and under-bred. In five minutes she 
 had classified Mrs. Grenfell correctly. 
 
 "Are you quite comfortable, dear?" asked the 
 hostess. She had a motherly manner to which 
 Allyria felt all the child in her nature and there 
 was a good deal of it turn and lean. "You are 
 sure I could n t lend you anything ? I have one black 
 silk dress " 
 
 Allyria shook her head ; she had not yet found her 
 self able to speak. She had a vision of that silk - 
 the country dressmaking the sacredness of the 
 material the pathetic way in which it was cherished. 
 
 301 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 Then poignantly she felt that she would not have been 
 worthy to wear that old black silk. She sat looking 
 straight at the fire. It did not occur to her how sel 
 dom the parsonage could afford an open wood fire. 
 She had never thought of fuel as costing anything. 
 
 "You see we have a little wood-lot," explained 
 Mrs. Titus, as if she apologized for an extravagance 
 that must be apparent to all classes of society. "Mr. 
 Titus saws and chops it himself. I don t know of any 
 thing like an open fire it s so homey, isn t it? 
 There is only one other thing makes me feel the same 
 way. That s sunsets. But it s quite different, after 
 all; it is only the lightness and the deepness that are 
 alike. Sunsets carry you up; they lift you out of 
 everything like good music, or thinking about 
 heaven. But an open fire your own open fire 
 why, that keeps you at home, and makes you love to 
 be there, and makes you thank God you ve got one. 
 And I d rather be at home than in heaven, any day 
 at least except for one thing," added the min 
 ister s wife, with a sudden reserve. 
 
 It had not yet suggested itself to Allyria, but it did 
 a little after, that the woman s freedom of speech was 
 not natural to her, and might be the accident of em 
 barrassment, or of some other state of mind and feel 
 ing, not quite clear. 
 
 "Has your husband broken his machine?" asked 
 the pastor s wife, so naturally that it was impossible 
 
 302 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 to take offense at the question. "They usually do. 
 They break as easily as a woman s heart those 
 great metal things. I have noticed that." 
 
 She chattered on, giving her guest full time to re 
 cover herself and say: 
 
 "The gentleman is not my husband. My hus 
 band is away from home. His business calls him to 
 California. It is an old family friend, and I I 
 went to ride with him. We meant to go to my cousin s, 
 Mrs. Herman Joselyn s. How far is that from here ? " 
 
 "Oh, not far at all, not quite a mile. We know 
 Mrs. Joselyn. She comes to our church, summers. 
 That must be very hard what you say about your 
 husband being away that he should go to Califor 
 nia without you. I don t think I could bear that. 
 Mr. Titus and I why, we have never been separated 
 for a week I mean not since the first year. Once, 
 he went to a convention and was gone four days. 
 We have been married thirty-seven years. But then 
 I don t suppose there are any other husbands like 
 Mr. Titus. When I think of what he has been to me 
 what he has done for me : 
 
 "What has he been? What has he done? " inter 
 rupted the visitor, turning down the hem of her 
 broadcloth dress to dry the lower edge before the 
 brilliant fire. 
 
 "Why, he has loved me, that is all," replied the 
 elder wife. 
 
 303 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 A blighting bitterness froze across Allyria s face. 
 She thrust out her hands to the placid parsonage 
 fire; the woodbine bracelet shook upon her wrist. 
 The pastor s wife was silent for a moment; it was as 
 if she collected her courage before she said, very 
 slowly: 
 
 "This is the house of a Protestant priest. We are 
 used to caring for strangers the minister and I. 
 Many persons ask Mr. Titus for his advice, and some 
 they are more likely to be women talk with 
 me. Even if we cannot help, don t you see, it does 
 good sometimes just to speak ? Our life I don t 
 know how to make you understand it but our life 
 has been a life of listening to what other people had 
 to say about themselves. I tell you this so that you 
 may not think me rude; so that you may forgive me 
 if I say too much. My dear, I am older than you. 
 I have lived a harder life. It has been a different 
 one; I understand that as well as you do. But I 
 know a troubled woman when I see one. If there 
 were anything in the world I could do Don t! 
 Oh, don t! You would be sorry to break down before 
 him. He may come in any minute. Is n t there any 
 thing that you would like to say ? " 
 
 "No," said Allyria, dashing some scorching tears 
 from her cheeks. "I haven t anything to say. You 
 would not understand. You have been too happy. 
 You have never been perplexed. Did you ever 
 
 304 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 ride through the willows on a mad machine in a 
 hurricane and in the dark?" 
 
 "No," said the minister s wife, gently. "We have 
 taken the old horse, and jogged along the road." 
 
 "Well, then," said Allyria, triumphantly, "What 
 do you know about it ? " 
 
 "You look faint," replied the hostess. "Suppose 
 you try the grape-juice. I made it myself, for our 
 brides. Just a swallow ? It s the same we use at the 
 Sacrament." 
 
 Allyria put the holy wine to her lips, but set it 
 down untasted. 
 
 "I can t," she pleaded. She pushed the tray 
 away. 
 
 Murray stood beneath the century-old elm, and 
 tinkered his machine. The rain had practically 
 ceased, and the thunder complained from a distance. 
 
 "The storm is over," he said dogmatically, while 
 he fitted his tire. 
 
 "It is liable to return," observed the country par 
 son, holding the lantern higher. "That is the nature 
 of storms, you know such storms, I mean ; these 
 untimely ones for which nobody is prepared. It is 
 only the unaccountable in life which gets the best of 
 us. We are generally equal to what we can under 
 stand. A dog or a chicken in the country will keep out 
 of the way of any four-horse team, but the first big 
 delivery motor that gets so far will run them down." 
 
 305 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 "You speak in parables," remarked Cecil Murray, 
 with a guarded smile. 
 
 " It is a professional habit ; it dates a good way back. 
 A Rabbi in Palestine began it, two thousand years 
 ago. Is there any other injury to your machine be 
 sides the punctured tire?" 
 
 "None whatever," replied Murray, promptly. 
 "I shall soon have this set, and we shall be able to 
 resume our ride." 
 
 " Forwards ? Or backwards ? " asked the minister, 
 abruptly. 
 
 "I have not decided," answered Murray, pushing 
 his vi sored cap back from his forehead to return the 
 direct look of his host. 
 
 "Then, if I cannot help you in any way " began 
 the minister, making as if he would return to the 
 house. 
 
 "Not about the tire, certainly thank you." 
 
 " Nor, I presume, as to the direction of your route ? " 
 ventured the other with the self-possession and tact 
 of one whose life s business has been to win the souls 
 of men. 
 
 "Every man s decisions are his own," replied Mur 
 ray, curtly. "It is his business." 
 
 " On the contrary," argued the Reverend Abel Titus, 
 "every decision is the business of society. There is 
 a saying that no man liveth to himself. It s old, but 
 it s pretty true. Do I hold the lantern right ? " 
 
 306 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 "You have been very kind. I don t think I shall 
 need the light held any more. It might stand on that 
 stone, and save you the trouble." 
 
 "If you are sure I cannot serve you." 
 
 "Quite sure," said Murray, bending his tire com 
 posedly. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Titus bowed, and went into the 
 house. He opened and shut the front door softly, so 
 softly that he did not disturb the two women; but, 
 as he stood hesitating, he heard a word or two which 
 deterred him, and he turned away. His feet made no 
 sound upon the oilcloth in the entry. He latched the 
 door of his study as if he had been a burglar, or a 
 spirit, and sat down, thoughtfully, before his old, 
 cheap desk, among his books. 
 
 Cecil Murray, under the elm tree, laid down his 
 tools and wiped his hands carefully upon some wisps 
 of waste. The machine appeared to try to turn and 
 look at him. His face showed rigid and uneasy. He 
 could not have told why it seemed to him that he 
 must not remain where he was a moment longer. He 
 felt as if invisible forces got behind him and pushed 
 him towards the house. The glare of the automobile 
 lamps followed, but fell short of him. His feet, as 
 Allyria s had done, crushed flowers as he walked 
 thoughtlessly across the garden, and so reached the 
 open window. His lips opened to speak to Mrs. 
 Grenfell, and tell her that he was there, but they 
 
 307 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 closed without a word. No bolt from heaven could 
 have smitten him as did the thing which he heard. 
 It was the sound of a single, stifled sob a dry sob, 
 for Allyria was not crying. 
 
 The fire in the parsonage hearth was burninggently ; 
 it had a steady, sober flame. The two women sat be 
 fore it, side by side. Beyond them stood the little 
 table with its sacramental wine. He knew as well 
 as if he had been told that Allyria had not touched 
 it that she had not dared. 
 
 One hand shielded her eyes from the fire. There 
 was a splash upon her wrist, it was the crimson vine 
 that he had bound there. The older woman was 
 speaking; he noticed that quality in her voice which 
 he had observed at first ; it vibrated now with the con 
 trolled passion of a person naturally reticent, who has 
 elected to lavish her personal experience for another s 
 sake. 
 
 "We were under age, and our people wanted us 
 to wait; so we took it into our own hands. We ran 
 away, and got married. We thought that was love. 
 But, my dear, it was n t. And then came our honey 
 moon, and we thought that was love. But now, I 
 see it was n t. So, when the honeymoon was over 
 you are a married woman, and you know. When 
 kissing turns into living, then the tug begins. The 
 first time he was cross to me I thought my heart 
 would break. But that wasn t heartbreak. When 
 
 308 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 he had to go to Chicago to try to find a position 
 there and my baby was born too soon while he was 
 away, I thought I had the worst trouble that could 
 happen. But that wasn t trouble. Before he got 
 home he never saw the little thing alive the 
 baby died. Oh, did you lose yours, too ? Oh, I did n t 
 know! How thoughtless it was of me! I am thought 
 less sometimes, in spite of all. Don t cry! There, 
 there ! Don t ! How long did he live ? Was his father 
 there to help you bear it?" 
 
 "Damn these old people!" muttered Murray, 
 bringing his clenched fist down upon the window-sill. 
 "What are they doing to her?" He would have 
 pushed into the house, but recalled himself, and 
 paced to and fro savagely. He was so disturbed that 
 he did not notice the signs of the returning storm 
 which spat upon him sullenly where he stood. As 
 yet, there was no lightning, and his antagonistic 
 figure warred with the shadows of an increasing 
 gloom, out of which he drove back to the glimmering 
 window it seemed, scarcely knowing why, or even 
 that he did so. Above the two women the clasped 
 figures of the wedded lovers in Leighton s great 
 picture arrested his attention. He looked at the 
 picture with a horrible envy. The voice of Mrs. Titus 
 crept on more composedly. 
 
 "It was the baby s dying, I think, that did it all. 
 He never got religion in any revival he only got 
 
 309 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 a new way of seeing things. He came home from the 
 cemetery one night and said: Ruth! I ve got it in 
 me to go to the devil. I ve got it in me to go the 
 other way. I m going to tackle some job that will 
 keep me straight. I am going to be a minister, so 
 help me God, and that little dead thing out there! 
 
 "You wouldn t think it now seeing us in this 
 poor, small parish what a preacher Mr. Titus has 
 been. Everybody that knows about ministers at all 
 but you don t. You would know about automobiles 
 and polo, but not religious matters. My husband 
 had a city church. He was very successful. He was 
 an eminent preacher. Fifteen hundred people came 
 to hear him Sunday nights mostly men, young 
 men; they stood in the aisles to hear him; he kept 
 you could not understand how many he kept from 
 going wrong. We were very happy. We had a 
 beautiful home. He wasn t one thing there and 
 another thing in the pulpit. He was so kind to me 
 that I could have knelt and kissed his feet any 
 wife would feel that way to a kind husband. 
 
 "And when the other baby died, he he com 
 forted me so! For every trouble we had was half a 
 trouble, we bearing it together. And every joy we 
 had was twice a joy, because we had the joy together. 
 And afterwards our little boy lived to be three years 
 old. And we thought we expected but he died, 
 too. And that, you see, is what I meant when I spoke 
 
 310 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 of heaven. People write about immortality, and 
 reason this way and that as if they knew! Three 
 dead children, my dear they make the best argu 
 ment for immortality I have ever found. 
 
 " But that was n t trouble either I mean we came 
 to feel so afterwards, because it was so much better 
 for the children, like sending them into a healthier 
 climate, and because dying is the least of human 
 miseries, after all, you know." 
 
 It had now occurred to Cecil Murray that he was 
 exceeding his rights as a listener to this pathetic 
 feminine interview, and he stepped back suddenly 
 from the window. The movements of the elder 
 woman s lips the eager lifting of Allyria s delicate 
 brows the passionate clasping and unclasping of 
 her hands passed before him like a beautiful pan 
 tomime from whose action he could not rend himself. 
 The rain began to strike him where he stood. The 
 returning storm was lulled by strange and ominous 
 calms. In these, broken sentences were tossed out 
 to him: 
 
 "When I got well, you see, I never got well. I 
 could not walk. For six months I could not turn in 
 bed. It was a year before I put my feet to the floor. 
 I said: Doctor, you call it rheumatism; I call it hell 
 the wife of the best man God ever made I 
 swore at the doctor. I told him it was damnable. 
 But Mr. Titus did not hear. And the climate was 
 
 3" 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 against me. And there I lay. I went to pieces. I 
 lost my temper, I lost my pluck, I lost my patience, 
 I lost my faith, I lost my looks and I don t care if 
 I tell you, for you re a woman I minded that most 
 of all. 
 
 "Yes, I had put three children into their little 
 coffins, and borne it. I could not bear it to be a 
 crippled creature. I got perfectly demoralized. I 
 was unattractive, and unlovable, and exacting, and 
 hard to live with, and ugly enough to hate. But he 
 he loved me in spite of everything. 
 
 "My dear, he gave up his great parish and took me 
 South. We had n t anything but our salary he took 
 me to Florida, and there we stayed. We were so 
 poor as you could never think oh, very poor. He 
 had some Sundays preaching, and we kept a garden, 
 and we had a few orange trees, and he tutored boys 
 for rich people that came South winters. He took 
 care of me, and lifted me, and did the housework for 
 me (he said he learned everything but how to do up 
 bosom shirts), and sitting up nights with me, and 
 going without things to eat to save them for me! 
 oh, he was one of the sons of God! 
 
 "And when I got a little better for it had been a 
 good while, and the world forgets, and pulpits fill up, 
 and nobody cares for the absent man when we 
 came North again, then his own health had begun to 
 break. So he found no place but just the little parishes, 
 
 312 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 and we went from one to another each one smaller 
 and so to this one but not a word ! Never a 
 word to let me think he was sorry, or that he had 
 made any sacrifice for me. Why, he never seemed to 
 know that a faded, crippled wife had cost him his 
 career his brilliant career, so noble, so valuable ! 
 And every day he was the same; hard times and 
 easier, hungry or fed, warm or shivering for we 
 have gone hungry, and we ve been cold but never 
 love-hungry, and never love-cold in all the life we ve 
 lived together. What did you say ? Yes, that s what 
 I call love. Don t cry! Don t cry! " 
 
 An imprecation hurled itself from Murray s lips, 
 for he saw that Allyria was weeping quietly. 
 
 "They are playing on her sensibilities," he mut 
 tered. "I will take her right away." 
 
 He made two steps towards his car, but fell back, 
 staggering against the side of the house. He thought 
 for an instant that he had gone black-blind, and 
 should never see again. A bolt of beautiful death- 
 white lightning, like a bomb in a bouquet, was fol 
 lowed by a report which shattered the skies. 
 
 The voices of the two women within rose in terror. 
 The minister flung open the front door and ran down 
 the steps. 
 
 "Are you hurt?" he called. "Thank God! No - 
 no! the house has not been struck. It is the 
 tree." 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 "God!" cried Murray, "there are fifteen gallons of 
 gasoline in that tank!" 
 
 With the crude impulse of a man to save his ma 
 chine, he dashed towards it, but the minister gripped 
 him by the shoulder and held him back. Before the 
 two women could get out of the house, the automo 
 bile flared, and exploded where it stood under the 
 stricken tree. Murray and the minister ran for water 
 and the garden hose, but the doomed car hissed sul 
 lenly and blazed on. 
 
 "Let it burn! " said Murray, coldly. "Water isn t 
 much use with gasoline. It won t last long. It s 
 too inflammable. I am sorry you have lost your 
 tree." He stood apart, with his hands in his pockets, 
 and said no more. He thought, " I never can take her 
 to ride again in that car." 
 
 The minister came up and touched him gently on 
 the arm. "You had a narrow escape. Do you know 
 it?" His kindly voice was agitated. 
 
 "Had I?" asked Murray. 
 
 Allyria had made one mad movement towards him, 
 but checked herself. She stood stolidly in the storm. 
 She did not seem to know that it was raining. He 
 did not look at her. He did not dare. 
 
 The fire in the parsonage parlor burned as if no 
 thing had happened, and the four gathered about it 
 with the instinct of chill and wet and danger for the 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 human hearth. The Reverend Mr. Titus had his 
 Bible in his hand. 
 
 " We are accustomed," he said, "at this hour of the 
 evening, to hold family prayers. If you and the lady 
 would like to join with us sir, do you object?" 
 
 " We are your guests," said Murray, in his critical, 
 cynical voice. "We will not interfere with the habit 
 of your household." 
 
 He sat down beside Mrs. Grenfell on the brown 
 rep sofa. They did not look at each other. The min 
 ister read something from the New Testament - 
 they could not have told what and then he knelt. 
 Allyria fixed her eyes upon the fire. But Murray 
 looked at the wedded lovers who clung above it. 
 
 The minister began to pray: 
 
 "Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all 
 generations, and in Thy hands are the hearts and fates 
 of men. Life is a straight and narrow way. How 
 shall we walk in it ? Death is a gulf beneath our 
 stumbling feet. We have tottered upon its edge to 
 night, and Thou hast remembered us, and Thy 
 mighty arm has caught us back. Teach us why! 
 Make us fit to learn for what reason we have been 
 spared from the arrows of the storm. We perceive 
 that life is a great energy, and that its decisions, and 
 the consequences of its elections, are still within our 
 control. We thank Thee for life, and for that sacred 
 thing, a man s free will. We thank Thee for love, 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 which is the breath of life, and for the symbol of love, 
 our human homes for their sanctity, and their 
 delicate ideals; for the tenderness of women, and the 
 honor of men, and the memories of dead children. 
 We bless Thee for the high mystery of marriage, 
 whose sacred fire is an altar fire, and must be fed by 
 sacrifice. We thank Thee for the chance to do the 
 hard, right thing." 
 
 The minister s voice faltered. He was unaccount 
 ably moved. His prayer came to an abrupt termina 
 tion, and without a word he left the room. His lame 
 wife followed him; she shut the study door and flung 
 herself and her crutches into his arms. 
 
 "Abel, I told her everything that ever happened 
 
 almost. I feel such a goneness you can t know ! " 
 "I think you have won," said the Reverend Abel 
 
 Titus, wearily. "But I don t know I don t know! 
 They are sore bestead, God help them! " 
 
 Murray and Allyria were alone in the parsonage 
 parlor. Both had risen, and stood facing one another. 
 He looked very tall in his wet coat. Their eyes clung 
 with the candor of an immeasurable misery. Allyria 
 seemed to herself for a terrible instant to be groping 
 on a foothold s width between a wall and an abyss 
 
 her unhappy marriage, and her impending desola 
 tion. Then she spoke: "I am sorry you have lost 
 your machine. It was such a beauty! " 
 
 316 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 As if they had been chatting at some function, and 
 automobiles were the uppermost subject, Cecil Mur 
 ray bowed. 
 
 "I shall go on to Anna Joselyn s," observed Mrs. 
 Grenfell. "She will telephone to Janet. Mr. Titus 
 will drive me over with the old horse that is afraid 
 of thunder." 
 
 "Very well," said Murray. 
 
 "And you?" cried Allyria, with an uncontrollable 
 break in the poise of her voice and manner. "What 
 will you do?" 
 
 "Whatever you command," replied Murray, 
 dully. "There are late trains. I can send Stokes 
 for the machine; he can take the remains to 
 
 morrow." 
 
 "Very well," said Allyria, in her turn. "I have 
 been thinking," she added, "that I may try California 
 myself before the winter is over." 
 
 "To join Mr. Grenfell?" 
 
 "In that case, I should join Mr. Grenfell. I 
 might not " - she stopped, and began again - "if I 
 should start suddenly not have a chance to say 
 good -by- She held out her hand. 
 
 "I might hurt it," he argued, "if that is the burned 
 one." He did not take it, and she let it drop with a 
 wounded expression. 
 
 "Is there any harm in my having this? " he asked 
 with his melancholy smile. He caught the vine from 
 
THE SACRED FIRE 
 
 her wrist, and lifted it to his lips. Then he unbuttoned 
 his coat, and put the bruised tendrils in his breast 
 pocket. 
 
 The minister brought the old horse to the door, and 
 Murray helped Mrs. Grenfell into the shabby buggy. 
 Mrs. Titus stood leaning on her crutches. 
 
 "There! " she said, "she s forgotten that beautiful 
 veil." 
 
 "If you will entrust it to me " began Murray, 
 eagerly. "I could return it to her." 
 
 The minister s wife hesitated perceptibly. 
 
 "Mr. Titus might drive me over with it in the 
 morning. I should like to see her again if I had any 
 reason to." 
 
 Murray lifted his hat without remark, and strode 
 away. 
 
 Allyria looked through the back of the buggy, 
 where the curtain was rolled up. She watched him 
 walking heavily down the dark, wet road. Above the 
 tunnel of willows the clouds stirred, and she saw the 
 forehead of a tragic moon. The minister did not 
 speak. Allyria s burned hand crept to her pocket 
 and closed upon the little silver key. 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 SOME years ago there appeared in a considerable 
 mountain town of New England a remarkable man. 
 Call the place Hillcrest, the State New Hampshire, 
 and the man Herman Strong. To the still living is 
 due all possible consideration, and, whether living or 
 dead, the identity of the actors in this story will not 
 be betrayed. 
 
 He was a clergyman or a minister his parish 
 ioners never felt quite sure which. He was first ob 
 served among the summer people, as a boarder in an 
 ancient gray house set closely against the river, and 
 occupied by an old and irritable deaf woman, who, 
 being hopelessly mortgaged, patronized a few lodgers, 
 but had hitherto drawn the line of fate at "mealers." 
 
 This elderly person her name was Rock suc 
 cumbed unexpectedly to the personal persuasions of 
 the clerical stranger, and accepted him, if without 
 cordiality, at least without protest, as a member of 
 her household. A home, such as it was, she sourly 
 provided for him. 
 
 There was a vacancy at that time in the pulpit of 
 the leading church, and Herman Strong preached now 
 and then, as a matter of courtesy, to the unshepherded 
 
 319 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 flock. An astonished and increasing audience began 
 to follow him. It was a Congregational church of the 
 elder New England type, and it developed that the 
 preacher was not to the denomination born or bound. 
 It was supposed that he had been trained to the 
 Episcopal liturgy, of which he made use when he 
 chose, and it was suspected that he had cultivated 
 a certain freedom of religious thought or belief such 
 as would have made it difficult for him to fetter him 
 self to any one of the stricter sects. He frankly told 
 the committee as much, when the warming interest 
 of the people developed that autumn into a formal 
 call. 
 
 "Your thoughts are not my thoughts, nor your 
 ways my ways," he said. "But your Christ is my 
 Christ. I will consider your wishes, and deal with 
 you again about this matter. If you would like a 
 stated interval in which to change your own minds 
 pray feel at liberty to mention one. You and I cannot 
 work together with reservations on either side. Our 
 relation must be that of a great attachment, or none 
 at all. It will be outside the ecclesiastical convention 
 alities, any how you look at it," observed the minister, 
 dreamily. 
 
 The committee stared. 
 
 "Our people are set upon you," said the chairman, 
 slowly. "And it appears to be the impression in this 
 community that you are a child of God. We ain t 
 
 320 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 given to unmaking our minds round these parts. We 
 don t want any opportunity for reconsidering our 
 views. We want you, sir." 
 
 "But an ordination an installation the usual 
 ecclesiastical ceremonies these are impracticable 
 under your polity and on my basis," argued the 
 minister. "And your people value such things - 
 frankly more than I do." 
 
 " We ain t valuing anything just about now more n 
 we value you, sir," persisted the chairman. "There s 
 those that have been in affliction. And there ? s those 
 that have sat under your preaching. We are in 
 structed, sir, not to take no for an answer from you, 
 Mr. Strong." 
 
 "I will become your pastor for a year," said the 
 young clergyman, suddenly. "You shall not ordain 
 nor install me, nor play the heretic for my sake. I 
 will fill your pulpit, since you wish it, and I will com 
 fort your afflicted if I can." 
 
 Thus it befell that Herman Strong became in this 
 candid and unusual manner the spiritual leader of the 
 Hillcrest people a relation which, begun without 
 ecclesiastical formality, continued from ploughing to 
 harvest, from maple-leaf to maple-blossom one 
 might say, from heart -beat to heart -beat ; for whether 
 he were heretic or whether he were "sound," the 
 people loved the man, and indeed, as time revealed, 
 he grew so dear to them that had he been a Boston 
 
 321 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 Unitarian they would not have yielded him to any 
 council and more cannot be said. 
 
 From old photographs in parish albums, and from 
 still vivid traditions cherished in Hillcrest homes, it is 
 to be gathered that Herman Strong was possessed of a 
 certain memorable personal beauty. He was not mas 
 sively built, but tall ; he showed the physique of a stu 
 dent who had dabbled in athletics the strong head, 
 the long, thin, muscular hands. He had a nervous 
 gait, a manly laugh, and supple motions. 
 
 His coloring was dark, but not swarthy; his fore 
 head balanced, and an eye as direct as an N ray 
 blazed into the soul. His mouth, which was delicate, 
 though full, gave the impression of singular moral 
 purity; it held a cool gravity, while melting into warm, 
 sudden smiles. The man carried in feature and figure 
 and manner the unworldliness possible only to one 
 who has known the world. 
 
 If he had known the world, he had left it; and if 
 he had weighed it, he had not overmeasured it; for 
 he sank himself in the plain life of the Hillcrest par 
 ish like a diver who was drowned in content. He 
 preached, he prayed, he visited, he rebuked, he con 
 soled, like any ordinary country pastor; while yet it 
 was always felt that he did none of these things in the 
 ordinary ways. Particularly was it said of the last of 
 them that he exercised the consoling function of the 
 Protestant priest as no other preacher known to the 
 
 322 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 town or to the hills had ever done. Old persons with 
 old familiar griefs so heavy that their bent shoulders 
 had become crooked beneath the load, and straight 
 young people with new griefs that they had not had 
 time to learn how to bear, stole to the now thronged 
 church to hear the preacher reaching for their heart 
 strings that he might untie these and loose the burden, 
 as he did who knew how he did it ? 
 
 Before he had been with them for six months, the 
 Hillcrest parish had divined a beautiful word by 
 which to name him among themselves. They called 
 him half timidly, as if not sure whether they in 
 fringed upon some iron doctrine or offended some 
 gentle sanctity they called him the comforter. It 
 used to seem to the young preacher sometimes that 
 his intellect, his education, his experience of life, all 
 had gone for little, except to train his heart. The fires 
 of this were strong, and everything fed them. He had 
 the greatest gift with which Heaven can endow a hu 
 man spirit a powerful and sensitive sympathy regu 
 lated by good sense. He perceived, he suffered, the 
 pangs that were not his own not disdaining false 
 miseries because they were the consequence of igno 
 rance or vanity, or some remediable weakness, but 
 proving himself swift as a cherishing angel to recog 
 nize true pain. Hurt souls crawled to him like 
 wounded dogs to a master. He had but to extend a 
 hand, and they crept to his feet. 
 
 323 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the 
 preacher was, that while the sad sought him, the glad 
 did not shun him. He was the confidant of every col 
 lege boy, the friend of clerks and apprentices, the ad 
 viser of girls whose emotions he held at wing s length 
 from his personality. In truth, it was said of him that 
 he had no personal relations with women. Many 
 doubted if he had ever cultivated such; at all events he 
 found neither space nor inclination for them at this 
 period of his life; and his influence grew accordingly. 
 
 It rapidly became, in fact, the most powerful influ 
 ence ever known in the hill country, and time dimin 
 ished nothing of its force. Spiritual energy has her 
 experts, as well as matter, and perhaps, like science, 
 tends in the later times to specialization. Herman 
 Strong loved boys and golf, music and skates, a good 
 clean story and a good time. But he loved more to 
 ease the unhappy if he might. This was his spiritual 
 passion. He was as familiar with the miseries of his 
 people as the doctor was with their tongues and pulses. 
 
 He had pursued for some time I think it was for 
 nearly a year the path of least resistance in useful 
 ness, as we all do ; pouring the flame of his fine nature 
 where it most naturally went, and offering anywhere 
 and everywhere, and to any soul that claimed it, the 
 white fire of his consolation when there occurred 
 an incident which caused him deep reflection, and to 
 a certain extent some readjustment of his noble and 
 
 324 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 tender instincts. At all events it guided these for the 
 first time in a direction where his heart had not 
 hitherto traveled. 
 
 The gray house of Mrs. Rock, as we said, stood 
 close to a river; so close that it scarcely missed of 
 being a pier. In the rectangle formed by the main 
 house and the ell in which the minister had his study, 
 a neglected garden huddled timidly like a forsaken 
 old person. Most of the flowers and shrubs had 
 ceased to bloom; the place crept down into a scanty 
 slope of grass and flags which lapped the water sadly. 
 A few gray planks, once a boat -landing, crumbled 
 among the flags. The minister had put a boat out for 
 his own unprofessional recreation ; but he found small 
 time to use it. He was sitting at his study window one 
 August night, at the full of the moon. It was a Sunday 
 night, and he had preached twice, and was tired. The 
 hour was late, and the house was as still as the shadows 
 of the trees which sentineled the river. These were 
 chiefly maple or birch, and cast a thick shadow like 
 carved bronze, or a fine one, delicately trembling. 
 
 The river moved stealthily, flung out by the moon 
 like a banner that had been dropped from some height 
 and caught between the two dark wooded banks, 
 where it lay tangled in the unrealities of leaves. 
 In a fold of light the minister s boat swung sleepily. 
 
 The flags that indicated the dip of meadow-land 
 into which the garden suddenly sank had a sharp look 
 
 325 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 like spears, and took the moonlight on their points. 
 The old landing, whose gray surface was streaked 
 here and there by the yellow of a fresh pine plank, had 
 the observant air of deserted things; as if it awaited 
 action or incident of which it was defrauded. 
 
 As the preacher sat, with his elbows on his study 
 window-sill, watching the river, he was made sud 
 denly aware that he was not alone in doing so. A 
 figure, darkly draped, rose between his eyes and the 
 water, and he perceived from her motions for it 
 was the figure of a woman that she was wading 
 through the resistance of the flags. After a little hesi 
 tation, in which he could suppose that she paused to 
 glance at the house, or, more particularly, at the wing, 
 she climbed upon the landing from the side, and 
 stood revealed and distinct in the unreal light a 
 young woman, dressed in translucent black, through 
 which her arms and neck gleamed faintly. Her hands, 
 knotted in front of her, began to swing up and down 
 with the preparatory movements of a diver. Other 
 wise she was perfectly still. She made no motion 
 towards the boat that would have reassured him 
 but disregarded it. 
 
 The preacher hesitated no longer, but quietly 
 opened the outside door of his study, and, without 
 sound, crossed the ruined garden and made his way 
 towards the landing. The woman had not heard him, 
 and he was within a few feet of her, when she leaped. 
 
 326 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 It was all so swiftly done that it took away the 
 breath of his brain. He was a quick-witted man in 
 practical emergencies, more so than men of thought 
 are apt to be, but the adroitness of the woman had 
 countermarched. He felt that he was beaten in his 
 beneficent tactics, and now understood that the ears 
 of the suicide finer than those of the lovers of life - 
 had betrayed his approach to her. Thinking to save 
 her, he had, in fact, hurried her to her fate. 
 
 Before his eyes she leaped and plunged. Her trans 
 parent sleeves fell to her shoulders over her bare arms 
 as she flung these above her head. A darkened but a 
 glowing shape, she swept his vision by and sank. 
 
 The preacher s half-stunned wits had returned to 
 intelligence within him by this, and he sprang into the 
 boat and got the oars. 
 
 The woman had not reappeared. He drove a few 
 iron strokes above the spot where she had sunk. The 
 river had never looked to him so black, it had never 
 run so swiftly, he was sure that it had never been so 
 deep. It occurred to him that she might be holding 
 herself under water deliberately, as some wretched 
 animals have been known to do when weary of life. 
 While he was instinctively peering down into the 
 river, more to keep his own hope afloat than from any 
 real expectation that he could grapple the sinking 
 figure with his eyes, he heard a slight rippling noise 
 some fifty feet away from him down-stream. As he 
 
 327 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 put about, rowing mightily in the direction of the 
 sound, the simple fact first presented itself to him 
 that the woman had been carried by the current of 
 the mountain stream for it was strong. 
 
 "She must be swirled up," he thought, " whether 
 she wants to or not." 
 
 In a moment he had swung the boat down -stream. 
 He had calculated so well that as she rose she struck 
 the planking. His arms shot down as hers came up. 
 He thanked Heaven for every brassy and driver that 
 he had ever held, for every bat and bridle, each rudder 
 and oar. His manly muscle served him, as a man s 
 should, and he gripped the woman whether she 
 would or no and lifted her into his boat, with or 
 without her leave, and saved her in her own despite. 
 
 She was by now well spent, and nearly if not quite 
 unconscious. His arms clung to her with the fierce 
 instincts of salvation, which are mightier than those of 
 destruction ; and did not at once release her when they 
 had laid her on the bottom of the boat at his feet. 
 The man s pulse of him knew that she was a young 
 woman, and formed with a certain sumptuous deli 
 cacy. The preacher s conscience of him perceived 
 that she had, to all intents, sinned a great sin, and he 
 wondered how he should deal with her when she 
 should have recovered herself. 
 
 She did not immediately do so, although as he put 
 the boat about she gasped and slightly stirred. No 
 
 328 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 other course occurred to him, and he rowed rapidly 
 back to his own landing. He had recognized her by 
 that time for a member of his own congregation, a 
 " summer lady"; he had seen her sometimes at his 
 church, but it could scarcely be said that he had 
 acquaintance with her. In his efforts to arouse her 
 he called her by name : 
 
 "Mrs. Devon! Mrs. Devon!" 
 
 The boat, swinging at its painter, drifted into a 
 whirlpool of moonlight, in whose eddies she showed 
 so white and still that the preacher felt alarmed. 
 
 "Mrs. Devon! Aldeth Devon!" he called her, 
 with the tinge of authority natural to his profession. 
 An inarticulate sound replied to him. She struggled 
 a little when he lifted her, and her hands defied him, 
 but he made mockery of their protest, and took 
 her in his arms; these, for a man of his build, 
 were powerful enough, and, half lifting, half dragging 
 her, he got her upon the landing, across the ruined 
 garden, and to his study door. At its threshold he 
 felt her limp body stiffen and rebel, and saw that her 
 half -drowned eyes were wide and reproachful of him. 
 
 "There is nothing else to do," he said. "I will call 
 Mrs. Rock." 
 
 Without further speech he laid her on his study 
 sofa, and put his hand upon the old-fashioned bell- 
 rope it was a crocheted bell -rope which hung 
 by his door. 
 
 329 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 "She can t hear it," came unexpectedly from the 
 sofa. "She s too deaf." 
 
 "I can go and call her," urged the preacher, stoutly. 
 
 "I tell you I won t have her! " cried the woman. 
 
 "I tell you you must! " insisted the man. 
 
 "Oh, please oh, please!" entreated the voice 
 from the sofa. "She may be deaf, but she is n t dumb. 
 Think of the talk it would make." 
 
 If the preacher s lips framed the quick words, 
 "Think of the talk this would make!" they did not 
 form these, but pressed together hard in a chivalrous 
 silence. He stood before the dripping sofa, where the 
 drenched figure of his guest, struggling to her feet, 
 confronted him. He could hear the little sop-sopping 
 of her silk stockings against her soaked slippers as 
 she staggered towards the garden door. Her thin 
 dress, black and clinging, wound about her. Pools 
 of water followed her movements; she stretched her 
 bare arms, groping to the door-jamb; her drenched 
 gauze sleeves were twisted above her elbows. 
 
 "I must go right back," she said feebly, "and I 
 must go alone." 
 
 "I don t know what kind of man you take me to 
 be ! " exploded the minister, " but if you suppose I shall 
 allow anything of the kind Here. Do as I bid you. 
 Swallow this. We will decide what you shall do 
 afterwards." 
 
 She perceived that he was putting brandy to her 
 330 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 lips, and swallowed it obediently; but she did not 
 recede from her position where she stood dizzily 
 swaying on the threshold of his door. 
 
 "Now I am perfectly able," she pleaded, with a 
 pretty, feminine overemphasis. "And I shall go. I 
 will not have Mrs. Rock called. And I will go." 
 
 "Where will you go?" demanded Mr. Strong. 
 "Back to the river, for instance?" 
 
 "Not to-night. No. I give you my word no." 
 
 "Very well, then," replied the minister, after a 
 moment s hesitation. "You run the risk of pneu 
 monia, of course." 
 
 "It is a hot night," urged the shivering woman. 
 "And I am very well terribly strong. I can t die - 
 of anything. That s certain. What are you doing? 
 Your rain-coat ? But it will get so wet ! Yes, I know. 
 It would cover me and nobody at the Crowe s 
 might notice. I you see. Don t you see?" 
 
 "I see that you must be got to your boarding-house 
 without another word," observed the minister, whose 
 quiet peremptoriness now began to have some effect 
 upon her. "Obey me, and I will get you there in the 
 quickest and the least noticeable way I can think of. 
 Trust me if you can." 
 
 "I will try," replied Mrs. Devon, tremulously. He 
 wrapped his long water -proof coat about her soaked 
 dress, and helped her, half leaning, half refusing, 
 across the garden to the landing; thence without a 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 word into the boat. Still in silence he took the oars 
 and rowed her rapidly down-stream. At the rear of 
 the boarding-house (known to the summer people as 
 Crowe s Nest) he brought the boat up among some 
 muttering flags and laid down his oars. 
 
 Then, not till then, he regarded her with a stern 
 solemnity. She had now quite regained herself, and 
 sat erect and strong. The wind had risen, and moon 
 light shattered by shadows broke and formed upon 
 her. She was yet very pale. But her eyes had a 
 sardonic, half -contemptuous gleam, as if she recog 
 nized the full nature of her position, and dared him 
 perhaps dared the world to condemn her for it. 
 
 "She is perfectly sane," he thought. 
 
 "I suppose I am expected to thank you/ she 
 observed, with a biting intonation. She did not under 
 score her words any more, he noticed. 
 
 "But you do not?" he asked, kindly enough. 
 
 "No, I do not no. By this time I should have 
 been - She glanced at the river. 
 
 "Why did you do it?" interrupted the preacher. 
 
 "Why does anybody do it? The power to suffer 
 is greater than the power to endure. You ought to 
 know that. Perhaps you don t know it. You were 
 never married, were you?" 
 
 "Your husband is dead ?" queried Mr. Strong, with 
 a delicate hesitation. He remembered that he had 
 never seen the man in Hillcrest. 
 
 332 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 "If it were that ! " exclaimed the wife. She turned 
 without a word of gratitude or courtesy and left him. 
 He watched her swaying up the grass-grown path to 
 the boarding-house. Little as he knew her, he felt 
 that it was like her to choose this plain place. She 
 would abhor the hotel. Midway of the path she 
 paused as if too weak to proceed, and wavered into 
 an old arbor, heavy with half -ripe grapes and shrivel 
 ing leaves. The garden was deserted, and a tangle 
 of tall shrubbery protected the arbor from the house. 
 The preacher took a few steps and joined her. 
 
 "You must allow me," he began. "Whatever the 
 consequences, I shall not leave you in this way." 
 
 "You will leave me in any way that I direct," re 
 plied the lady, coldly. She struggled to her feet; he 
 bowed and turned, but retraced a step. 
 
 "I must speak with you," he said, with determina 
 tion. "And I shall make an opportunity of doing so 
 as soon as possible." 
 
 Her hands made a forbidding gesture, but her lips 
 said nothing audible. As he walked back to the river 
 he heard the swashing of her wet slippers against her 
 feet. Presently the little sopping sound ceased, and 
 he knew that she had reached the shelter of the house. 
 
 Within a few days Herman Strong made as good as 
 his word, and boldly called at the boarding-house 
 and requested Mrs. Devon. 
 
 " If you don t mind, sir, maybe you 11 look her up ?" 
 333 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 said Mrs. Crowe, hazily. " She s never any where in 
 particular. Unless it s at the river. She s terrible 
 fond of the river. And there s such a lot of cats and 
 hens if they are my boarders crochetin and 
 clackin on the piazza, sir." 
 
 Grateful for this zoological hint, the preacher 
 sought the garden, and in the grape arbor he found 
 her sitting idly, with listless hands, with lustreless 
 eyes, out of which even the sense of desolation had 
 ceased to look. Seen in the fire of an August noon, 
 Mrs. Devon looked younger than he had thought her, 
 and more attractive. But the minister did not con 
 cern himself with the attractions of women. He dis 
 regarded her pathetic charm, pausing only in his 
 own mind to think that she had a subtlety of organi 
 zation rarely to be found among women of her type, 
 and shot his errand at her like an arrow of the 
 Lord. 
 
 "Why," he demanded, "did you try to kill your 
 self ?" " 
 
 "How," she retorted, "am I to get your rain-coat 
 back to you?" 
 
 The preacher set his lips and regarded her without 
 the tolerance of a smile. 
 
 "It s wet yet," complained Mrs. Devon. "I have 
 to dry it an inch at a time, when Mrs. Crowe won t 
 see. The whole State of New Hampshire would be 
 gossiping about it. I have concluded to send it to 
 
 334 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 town to my tailor s, and express it out to you when 
 I ve got home. Will that do?" 
 
 She lifted her defiant smile, but her mouth and chin 
 quivered in spite of herself. 
 
 "You are pleased to mock me/ said the preacher, 
 gravely. " And yet I came here upon a serious errand. 
 I came to save you if I could." 
 
 "You can t," replied Aldeth Devon, with convic 
 tion. 
 
 "Perhaps not," he sighed. "But I wanted to try, 
 that s all." 
 
 "You are a good man," she said, with a certain 
 contrition of manner. "I will remember what you 
 said and what you did." 
 
 "I have done no more than any decent man would 
 do; and I have said so far nothing at all," he 
 urged eagerly. 
 
 "Say it, then," she commanded, half petulantly,, 
 " Preach me my personally conducted sermon. I will 
 listen yes, I will. But I tell you beforehand I 
 think I had the right to do it. My life is my own." 
 
 "Your life is your God s," he answered solemnly. 
 
 "My what?" she cried. 
 
 "Nothing that you suffer nothing that you can 
 suffer would justify you in hurling your soul back 
 at your Maker before He calls it," argued the minister, 
 if with some professional commonplace, at least with 
 much personal gentleness. 
 
 335 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 "What do you know about suffering ? " she taunted. 
 
 "A little," said Herman Strong. "Not much, per 
 haps, by your standards. At least," he added man 
 fully, "I know right from wrong. And I know that 
 the deed you did that you meant to do why, it is 
 a deadly sin ! I was sorry to see you commit it. You 
 seemed to me above that kind of weakness. I thought 
 you were more of a woman." 
 
 She set her beautiful teeth. "Have you anything 
 more to say?" came from them in bitten breaths. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Except to ask you, if you are ever in such extrem 
 ity again (I realize that it must be a very great and 
 cruel one) will you come to me ? Will you let me 
 try to help you, if I can?" 
 
 She hesitated with her answer would she yield ? 
 would she rebel ? and before her lips had decided 
 it she felt that he had removed their opportunity. He 
 had lifted his hat gravely, and passed from the arbor 
 where the shriveled leaves and half-ripe fruit hung 
 above the woman. He did not return by way of the 
 too feminine piazzas of the Crowe s Nest, but took the 
 grass path to the river, and waded home laboriously 
 through the reeds. 
 
 A smaller incident than this has set the cast of many 
 a history, and it would not be easy to overestimate the 
 effect upon Herman Strong of his brief experience 
 
 336 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 with the woman whom he had saved. She passed out 
 of his life as quickly and quietly as she had crossed it; 
 and that without a sign to indicate that she was con 
 scious of her tremendous indebtedness to him. If he 
 ever wondered at this, it was with that meagre atten 
 tion given by an absorbed and overworked man to 
 feminine whims. In fact, the episode in which Mrs. 
 Devon had figured, in itself so intensified his pre 
 occupation with a class of deeds and motives beyond 
 reach of her interest, perhaps even of her respect, 
 that neither his thought nor his feeling had room to 
 speculate upon any vagaries of hers. But their con 
 sequences remained within him. 
 
 In the course of the following winter her personality 
 was forcibly recalled to his attention by an item in the 
 daily press, setting forth the fact that one Jasper 
 Devon, club-man and sporting-man, had been hurled 
 by his touring-car (it was sixty miles an hour, at mid 
 night, and on a strange road) down a twenty-foot 
 embankment. The car turned turtle, the chauffeur 
 crawled out with a broken leg, but Devon did not 
 crawl out at all. The machine took fire. 
 
 It occurred to the minister to write to Mrs. Devon 
 in the face of this dreadful event, but on careful 
 thought he refrained from doing so. What could he 
 say? He perceived that he and she had met for one 
 great moment, like submarine navigators, too deep 
 down the sea of truth to assume an unreal attitude. 
 
 337 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 He could not play with the foam of things, and insult 
 by conventional condolence the terrible facts either 
 those known or those unknown to him of her life. 
 He passed her tragic experience by, as she had passed 
 his rescue of her, in that strong silence which may 
 build or shatter comprehension between two persons 
 whom fate has brought together only to drive apart. 
 To most of us this kind of massive muteness is a wall 
 which the soul never climbs. 
 
 But the preacher, whose high nature received more 
 powerful impressions from the contact of spirit with 
 spirit than from the impact of event upon event, took 
 to heart the moral impulse that he had gained (admit 
 ting that he had gained it) from Aldeth Devon. He 
 had never before dealt with the suicidal temptation in 
 any of its genuine forms; having scarcely gone beyond 
 the knowledge of that coquetry with death by which 
 the young and the lightly stricken sometimes divert 
 themselves. He now set himself seriously, as a scholar 
 does who selects a new language, to understand this 
 mystery of despair the deepest, the darkest of them 
 all. Hitherto he had been impatient with it, as we are 
 apt to be with the moral danger most removed from 
 our own temperaments. He was so healthy, so happy, 
 so busy, so dedicated, he was so utterly in earnest at 
 living, that he had found it hard to tolerate the fraud 
 ulent emotion which plays with the supreme reality of 
 death. 
 
 338 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 But she she had solemnly hurled herself from 
 the air-ship of life into unappeasable space; and he - 
 a dangling rope in the blind abyss only he had in 
 terposed. Now the ether began to seem to him peo 
 pled with poor souls that he had never understood how 
 to treat souls clinging to strands, and swaying 
 above destruction for lack of a human hand the 
 falling aviators of the moral world. His exquisite 
 sympathy, now fastened upon these, clutched them 
 with a grip of iron and fire. Their weakness and 
 piteousness everything about them weak but their 
 peril began to appeal to him more than almost any 
 other kind of helplessness that he had wished to sus 
 tain. He thought, in a word, profoundly, at times dis 
 proportionately, about the thing. It had changed for 
 him from melodrama to tragedy. 
 
 Whether this psychic condition attracted them to 
 himself, or whether such spiritual emergencies had, in 
 fact, multiplied within his reach, it became certain 
 that he had never before met with anything like the 
 number of the life-weary that now craved his stronger 
 and healthier nature. They came to his knowledge 
 from the most unexpected quarters, and flung them 
 selves upon his sensitiveness from the most unsus 
 pected causes. He gathered them all to his heart, the 
 real and the unreal, the grave and the light. He 
 learned when to console the victims of a severe and 
 manifest fate, and how to startle the self-tormented 
 
 339 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 into shame or noble fear. In his own purpose he ante 
 dated by several years the departure of the Salvation 
 Army that deals with those to whom life has become 
 intolerable. More often than one would have believed 
 possible, he was sought by men whom the world had 
 tempted into dishonor that no one knew. Women 
 sobbed their danger into his ears young, deserted 
 girls, and middle-aged, neglected wives who were 
 ready to drop life down as a weight too cruel to be 
 lifted; the incurable sick, and the tortured for sleep; 
 the overborne of this misery, the under-strong for that ; 
 people who had never before let their dark secret es 
 cape their lips these confessed it to him, or he sur 
 prised it in them who could say which ? and he 
 moved before them as Jehovah did before the Israel 
 ites in the Bible story a pillar of fire by night, a 
 pillar of cloud by day: always visible, and always lead 
 ing. The beautiful name that his people had given 
 him was never so often upon their lips as at this time : 
 "The comforter has gone to her." "He has asked 
 for the comforter." "Go tell it to the comforter." 
 Now the curious thing about this was that the 
 loving title began to disturb the minister a little, as if 
 it had been a small thorn from the rose of his ideal of 
 himself. Was it possible that he had comforted too 
 much? Too easily or too indiscriminately? Had he 
 stimulated his people too little ? Had he indulged the 
 sense of sorrow at the expense of the consciousness of 
 
 340 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 sin ? This way of phrasing the idea was a clergyman s 
 way; he did not always escape the terminology of his 
 calling; but in this as in other instances there was 
 something in the phrase broader and more human 
 than pulpit or parish understands. 
 
 It occurred to him that he might have chanced upon 
 a matter of some vitality to a spiritual teacher, and he 
 put it aside for he was too busy a man to answer 
 his own questions as he went along until he should 
 find leisure to think of it further. Meanwhile he had 
 his people; and they, thanking God, had him. They 
 found no adequate expression of the feeling that he 
 aroused in them at this time, and used to sit before 
 him in a kind of dumb adoration more flattering than 
 speech or language. 
 
 But Herman Strong could not be flattered. This 
 was perhaps his greatest peculiarity. He went about 
 his Master s business too eagerly for personal vanity. 
 He preached, he prayed, he loved, he lifted, like a man 
 whose time was too short to lose a chance at a human 
 soul. His church was thronged to the vestibules. 
 Young men crowded the aisles and defied the fire laws. 
 He had never preached in his life as he did then. This 
 he did extemporaneously, and most of his remarkable 
 pulpit work is lost to the treasury of the church. Cer 
 tain of his people cherished fragments of it in note 
 books, and from glimpses of these cne may know how 
 extraordinary he was. The whole hill country hon- 
 
 34i 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 ored the man. He moved before them with a spiritual 
 splendor which they had never seen. They had read 
 now and then of such a preacher; but outside the 
 biographies, who looks to find a soul so choice ? 
 
 He who was the object of this parish worship waved 
 it aside indifferently, and rose into the ether of his own 
 consecration, as the consecrated do himself the last 
 to be concerned about himself. His passion for the 
 salvation or the consolation of other souls had well- 
 nigh made him forget that he had one of his own. An 
 aged man of the people, who had outlived many Hill- 
 crest pastorates, said to his wife : 
 
 "Parson s a balloon on fire. He s got to come 
 down or blaze to cinders." 
 
 " Soda biscuit," said the elderly wife. " And canned 
 soup. That s the matter of parson. He s put up at 
 Mis Rock s too continual. Her cookin s chicken- 
 feed. I used to send him jells and meat pies. But he 
 said it hurt her feelin s." 
 
 Who shall say how it was, or why, or when, that the 
 subtle change, imperceptible to any but himself, over 
 took the preacher ? At first he thought it was wholly 
 a physical one : he perceived that he was tired ; that he 
 needed rest; that it was distasteful to him to seek it 
 and impossible to obtain it. It occurred to him that 
 his boarding-house was dismal ; that his landlady was 
 deaf and deafer; that the table was poor and poorer. 
 
 342 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 "Mrs. Rock," he said one day, with the pathetic 
 patience of an ill-nourished but considerate man, 
 "is n t there any other way of cooking potatoes but 
 to boil them?" 
 
 He began to push away his canned soups and ignore 
 his soda biscuits. He took a book to the dining-room, 
 and another to bed. He read much and feverishly - 
 often half the night, for he found that he did not sleep 
 as he used to do but he forgot what he had read and 
 sat musing. He brooded a good deal over his parish 
 ioners their sorrows and their errors, their failure 
 to do or to be the thing that he had hoped they would. 
 Drinking boys who had broken their pledges; giddy 
 girls who had drifted back to the city; surly men who, 
 after forced attacks of good nature, had relapsed 
 into household tyrants these moral cripples fell be 
 fore him like his own shadow when he walked away 
 from the sun: he could not escape the presence of 
 them. 
 
 It began, indeed, to seem to him that he himself 
 was the cripple, that the faults of his people must be 
 his own. He began for the first time for many busy, 
 happy years to think of himself. That he thought of 
 himself to reproach himself did not help the matter 
 very much. His joyous nature had declined into a cer 
 tain sadness so foreign to him that he hardly knew it 
 to be sadness, and called it by other names dyspep 
 sia, nervousness, brain-fag, or what not. He drove 
 
 343 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 himself mightily, as sacrificial souls do, flogging his 
 spirits and taking the bit of energy between his teeth, 
 plunging into every generous deed that he could think 
 of, doing the hardest things that he could find to do. 
 He was startled to find that no invention of the con 
 science helped him any. 
 
 He had reached, but he did not know that he had 
 reached, the subtlest peril that can beset the dedicated 
 
 the impulse to doubt the value of their own or in 
 deed of any consecration. The great reaction of spir 
 itual overstrain had come upon the man the finest, 
 one might say the shrewdest, of moral emergencies. 
 He began to consider the ingratitude, the un worthi 
 ness, of many persons for whom he had lighted the 
 altar of his life. He began to ask the most dangerous 
 question that any religious teacher can ask himself 
 "Is it all worth while?" He felt himself bowed be 
 neath the ache and the evil of the souls that he had 
 lifted. He waded like Christophorus into the river of 
 confusion, carrying the sins and sorrows of the earth 
 
 bent under the load that belongs only to the Saviour 
 of the world. 
 
 Now that which disturbed him most was that which 
 he had borne most tenderly and frequently the 
 dead weight of those who were weary of life. These 
 tragic histories haunted his heart and taunted his 
 imagination. He wished he had known less about 
 them. He wished he did not understand their plight 
 
 344 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 so well. He began to dread his simple and holy memo 
 ries. He had in his library a French book called La 
 Contagion sacree. The phrase recurred to him with a 
 sinister change in the adjective. Was the contagion 
 damnee upon him ? Had he been infected by the souls 
 that he had saved? As a physician may be by the 
 taint of a patient ? As an alienist sometimes is by the 
 mental atmosphere of an asylum? 
 
 That summer was a hot and hard one, and he 
 worked through it without respite fiercely, one 
 might have said; as if he dared not fall below 
 the highest flights of self -obliteration. His church 
 brimmed over. The summer people and the winter 
 people united in their tender idealization of the man. 
 He walked in a mist of love and loyalty. 
 
 One Sunday he preached a sermon which is well 
 remembered in Hillcrest to this day. He chose a sim 
 ple enough topic, one that any of a hundred ministers 
 might have selected at that very hour the beauty 
 and glory of life. These optimistic subjects are com 
 mon in our pulpits; but, while Herman Strong spoke, 
 it seemed to his audience that he spoke in unknown 
 tongues, which suddenly as they listened became 
 translated for them, but only in part ; as if the preacher 
 used spiritual idioms that they had never learned. He 
 knew quite well that he should not be altogether un 
 derstood, only affectionately followed; so he felt safe, 
 and rashly poured out his soul before his people. As 
 
 345 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 it has been said that a poet sometimes reveals in a 
 lyric to the whole world the secret of his heart which 
 he would refuse to his dearest friend, so the preacher, 
 overworn with that solitude of the strong which the 
 weak cannot companion, flung from his pulpit the 
 secret of his innermost, his deadliest temptation. 
 
 Out of his entire audience only one person inter 
 preted him. He perceived in due time that one did. 
 She was a stranger, a lady, darkly dressed, and veiled. 
 At first she had reminded him indefinitely of the 
 woman whom he saved from the river. But Mrs. 
 Devon had never returned to Hillcrest since the vio 
 lent death of her husband, two years before. He had 
 been told that she was abroad in Venice, Florence, 
 Paris, or wherever and likely to remain there, and, 
 in fact, he found difficulty in believing that it was she 
 who sat before him, "stone-silent and stone-still." 
 But when at last she raised the strip of black chiffon 
 which concealed her face, he felt that he was de 
 tected by her eyes. These had a solemn energy 
 half compassion, half rebuke which seemed to 
 grasp him. He returned her look sturdily. But 
 he knew that his secret was his own no longer. 
 
 He spoke on, quietly enough: 
 
 "Most of us have found it possible in sleep to 
 redream favorite dreams from which we had awak 
 ened. Are you disillusioned of life? Regain the 
 dream ! All of us know how often a man s existence 
 
 346 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 depends upon his power to grip a chance at the 
 moment when it is thrown to him. Is the rope of 
 courage sliding between your trembling fingers? 
 Hold to it ! Do not look down ; that will bring a mortal 
 giddiness. Look up, and hold! There is no moral 
 peril too acute, there is none too imminent to be 
 escaped. You know how it is when we have a great 
 love and lose it; we begin to understand what it was 
 worth to us we never did before. So it is with the 
 splendid treasure which we call life hard, familiar, 
 common life. If a man in a moment of distaste and 
 weariness should hurl it away what would he offer, 
 what would he endure, to recall the scorned and 
 precious thing?" 
 
 The preacher s voice sank suddenly into low, 
 impassioned prayer. 
 
 "Lord," he said, " teach us how great life is; how 
 dear it ought to be. Hold us we are not always 
 strong. Comfort us we sometimes sorely need it." 
 
 His faltering accents fell. He heard the sobbing of 
 some women in the church, and saw the faces of men, 
 confused and dull, staring at him. He finished the 
 service with composure and left the pulpit. He felt 
 the gaze of Mrs. Devon upon him, trembling but 
 determined, like the movements of search-light upon 
 water. But he did not look at her, and disappeared 
 within the pastor s room. 
 
 The people watched him stupidly. Something in 
 
 347 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 his appearance perplexed them; as a canto of Dante s 
 would, or a stanza from Omar Khayya*m. 
 
 "Pastor s off his feed," said the old wife who sent 
 him "jells" and meat pies. But the aged parishioner, 
 her husband, shook his head. 
 
 " J T ain t alwers what a man s et" he answered 
 slowly. "Pastor he ain t happy see?" 
 
 It was an August night, and sultry as a dying world. 
 Forest fires in the hills had choked the lungs of the 
 air to paralysis. There was no moon, and the river 
 ran like one of those pit-black streams on whose banks 
 we struggle in our troubled sleep. The scanty flowers 
 in the old garden were brown with drought. The 
 boat at the landing lapped the water so lightly that 
 one could scarcely hear it by listening. Mrs. Rock 
 had cleared away her Sunday supper (always the 
 worst of the week), and gone long since to bed. The 
 minister s study was as still as the tropics before a 
 hurricane. Herman Strong sat before his desk with 
 his eyes fixed straight before him. These, for want 
 of anything more inspiring to look at, were fastened 
 upon the old crocheted bell-rope. The bell-rope was 
 worked in wheels of red and blue; he followed the 
 pattern idly from blue to red, from red to blue. 
 
 He felt it to be important that he should fix his 
 attention on something definite. When he had ob 
 served the bell-rope as long as he could, he got 
 up with a quick, determined motion and went out. 
 
 348 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 When he had crossed the garden he returned and 
 took a small Testament from his desk, and put it in 
 his vest pocket over his heart. As he did this he 
 stroked the Testament caressingly. But he went 
 immediately back again across the garden and down 
 to the landing. The smoke from the forests stifled 
 him. High on the hills he could see a sword of flame. 
 
 On the brink of the water he paused, and stood for 
 some time. The clock of his church struck, and he 
 counted the call of midnight. He fixed his mind upon 
 the voice of his clock as he had done upon the cro 
 cheted pattern of the bell-rope. When the last stroke 
 ceased he felt unprotected. His fingers wandered to 
 the Testament above his heart, but slid away from 
 it. He pulled upon the painter, and the boat leaped 
 towards him; half-way it stuck, for some reason, and 
 refused. He persisted, and the boat regretfully, it 
 seemed obeyed. He stooped and urged the rope. 
 
 Did it rebel or yield ? Did he slip or not ? Was it 
 merciful accident or piteous intent? No one knows, 
 or will know, and the only person who might have 
 asked has scorned to do so. As he tottered, he felt 
 himself grasped. Two arms clasped him, and with a 
 strength which seemed to him more than man s as 
 assuredly it was more than woman s sustained him. 
 Soft lips sought his ear, and a low cry thrilled his 
 being: 
 
 "You shall live! I say, you shall livel" 
 
 349 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 Upon the landing, yielding, confused, he found 
 himself staggering. The woman s arms did not 
 release him. It seemed to him as if the essence of 
 human need and succor were in her clasp. It was 
 as if all weakness that he had ever lifted, all misery 
 that he had consoled, all error that he had prevented 
 in his whole patient, compassionate life, had returned 
 to him and clung to him to clutch him from despair. 
 Aldeth Devon s arms were the arms of the suffering, 
 erring world which had always been the nobler for his 
 being in it until now. Ah, God, until now! 
 
 His head dropped upon his breast. His wet hand, 
 shaking, sought his little Testament, and reverently 
 put it to his lips. By this he had sunk to his knees 
 upon the landing, but the woman had not let him go. 
 As he knelt, she knelt. Then he perceived that she 
 was sobbing on his heart. 
 
 A moment gone, and she was impersonal, salvatory, 
 influence or angel something half celestial. Now 
 what was she now? All woman and all love. 
 
 The delicacy of her beautiful body, impassioned as 
 no ruder organization could be, shrank from the 
 revelation which her natural and noble impulse had 
 opened, like the windows of heaven, before the 
 devotee. In the darkness the crimson drove across 
 her averted face, and she made as if she would have 
 freed herself from the crisis which she had brought 
 upon them both. 
 
 350 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 But now his were the arms to clasp, and his the 
 voice to cry with the astonishment of ecstasy: 
 
 "Why, I love you! I love you! I believe I 
 always have." 
 
 They had risen to their feet and stood solemnly 
 enclasped, heart to heart, breath to breath. But, with 
 the simplicity of a devout boy, the lover said, - 
 
 "Before I kiss you let me pray." She heard 
 him whisper, "God forgive me! God forgive me!" 
 twice. Then she lifted her lips. 
 
 Thus he loved, and hence he lived. No lesser man 
 can know how it fares with one of the sons of God 
 when he enters the kingdom of human joy. For that 
 is larger than the province of pain. But the citizens 
 thereof are of another race, and their spiritual teachers 
 wear the order of a differing mystery. The preacher 
 looked far down the vistas of a blinding happiness, 
 and said to his forecasting soul:- 
 
 "Will they lose their comforter?" 
 
 It is in the nature of fire to consume that on which 
 it feeds, and it is the essence of ignorance that we do 
 not know when we are ignorant. To this day the 
 Hillcrest people wonder why the minister left them, 
 or how they ever could have let him go. The old 
 parishioner with the wife who made "jells" said:- 
 
 " Pastor s too happy see?" 
 
 Joy, like death, is a river wide and deep, and can 
 
CHRISTOPHORUS 
 
 sunder hearts as truly as that other. From whatever 
 cause, this, at least, occurred: The man came to 
 feel that his own received him not, or that he could 
 not claim them as he used to do ; as if he had grown 
 dull in the beautiful art of soul attraction; and with 
 characteristic humility he believed that he had de 
 served this consequence God and the river and 
 one woman knowing why; that he was not worthy 
 to be understood by those on whom he had lavished 
 the young, the sensitive years of his life. Half in 
 repentance, half in resolve, he sought the hardest 
 post that he could fill among the outcasts of a great 
 town, and Aldeth his wife followed him, wondering 
 a little in her turn, but content not to understand 
 so long as she may love him. For she has learned 
 already that he who has consoled so many comfort 
 less, himself needs cherishing more than other men. 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 EXCEPT for the noise of the storm the exchange was 
 noticeably quiet. For an hour calls had been few; 
 when they came they tangled and overlapped as if 
 from some general cause affecting particular cases. 
 Men were occupied with facing the weather, or hur 
 rying home from it. Many mothers had gone out with 
 umbrellas and little coats to bring children back from 
 school. There was a lull in the demands upon the 
 wire, which for a small country exchange was rather a 
 busy one. Now and then a drop fell, or a young voice 
 called, " Number ?" and between whiles the girls chat 
 tered disjointedly as girls do when they have half a 
 chance; or looked dismally out upon the rain from the 
 drowning windows. There were two girls, known as 
 Molly and Mary, and the chief operator, held in re 
 spect by them not only for a certain power to enforce 
 official authority, but because she was a married 
 woman; and Molly and Mary were at the age when 
 this circumstance appeared of more importance than 
 it ever does before or after. The effect was depleted a 
 little by the fact that Mrs. Raven was a widow; but 
 she was quite a young widow, and still attractive - 
 who could have said why ? Of beauty she had little or 
 
 353 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 none; but the eye remained upon and returned to her. 
 The girls thought it was an "air" she had, the fit of a 
 shirt-waist, the hang of a skirt, the way of braiding her 
 bright hair below the head-receiver. An older or finer 
 observer would have said, "It is her expression." 
 
 This was self-possessed, but gentle; the old-fash 
 ioned word modest might have said it better than any 
 of the newer feminine adjectives. There was a firm 
 curve to her full, irregular lip which every operator 
 knew and regarded, but her clear eyes, wide and 
 warm, found it more natural to plead than to com 
 mand. Her features, her gestures, her voice, appealed. 
 She was without self-assertion. This, one would soon 
 have determined, was not from deficiency in force, but 
 from the acquisition of a quality which is the essence 
 of force, although it may seem at first to be antagonis 
 tic to it. In some way, in some form, life had taught 
 her to disregard herself. Even the girls perceived that 
 their young chief was not uppermost in her own 
 thoughts. They supposed it was because she was a 
 widow. 
 
 It had rained continuously for three days and 
 nights, and the river was swollen and perturbed. It 
 was not a very broad river in its normal condition, but 
 a deep one, and swung upon a powerful current. Now 
 it had risen, and looked unnaturally large; the banks, 
 at that point, were low, and the exchange stood within 
 
 354 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 a hundred feet of the water. This gave a cool, agree 
 able outlook, which the chief operator liked in sum 
 mer, and at which she glanced gratefully whenever 
 she could. It was August the scorching August of 
 1908. She sat at her desk apart from her staff of two, 
 beside the large, low window. The exchange stood 
 by itself a wooden building well put together; 
 there was a small grocery-store upon the first floor; 
 the telephone occupied the second story; the grocer 
 was an old man, and sometimes walked a part of the 
 way to protect Mrs. Raven when she went home to her 
 stepmother s house, two miles down the desolate river 
 side, at half -past nine at night; after that no woman 
 remained in the exchange, and the night operator 
 came on duty. 
 
 The town had the wide spaces and uncertain com 
 forts of the territory. The telephone was cherished 
 accordingly. It was still treated like a miracle. 
 
 Sarah Raven sat at her desk and looked thought 
 fully into the storm. It was towards the end of the 
 month, and the great drought had broken, only to be 
 renewed in a fiercer form after passing relief. Mean 
 while the dark weather had something of the effect 
 which the interruption of drought always has; finding 
 one less grateful than one should be because one has 
 become so accustomed to sunshine that its absence 
 influences the spirits to the defiance of the season. 
 Mrs. Raven was tired with the season s work, and 
 
 355 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 somewhat pale. She was a compact little figure of a 
 woman; her black skirt and white waist with the 
 black tie at her throat looked like a uniform or a 
 habit upon her. She sat a trifle averted from the girls, 
 the profile of her face and delicate bust against the 
 long window set in a mist of rain and river. The 
 head-receiver gave a Greek look to the American 
 working-woman . 
 
 More than the sadness of storm was on her that, 
 afternoon, and as the day declined this increased. 
 She attended listlessly to her duties when the girls 
 called: "Number? What number?" and her eyes re 
 turned to the bloated river. What mattered a creeping 
 tear if the river alone could see? This was August 
 the 28th. To-morrow would be one of the anniversa 
 ries of which people who know life say that they are 
 "days to be got over." To-morrow would be 
 From the pang of it she tried to forget, and then for 
 the love of it she determined to remember, and then 
 she dashed forgetting and remembering from her, and 
 whirled upon her revolving-chair. 
 
 There was a sudden acceleration of demands upon 
 the exchange. Calls came in from everywhere most 
 of them were impatient, and many irritable. Wives 
 were summoning husbands, and husbands reassuring 
 wives. "The storm is so bad do get home! The 
 house shakes, and the river frightens me. Hurry 
 home, Harry; do!" "Don t be anxious, Sue, if I am 
 
 356 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 late to-night. It s pretty bad, and hard going. I 11 get 
 there some time." Messages rained as hard as the 
 storm. The drops upon the switchboard clattered fast. 
 
 "What number?" asked Molly. 
 
 "Chief operator?" called Mary. 
 
 "Chief operator," said Mrs. Raven, instantly. 
 
 The wind had mounted in the last half -hour and 
 buffeted the exchange, which shook in the grip of it. 
 The river ran angrily, and took on a frown as the 
 early twilight of the storm descended. Between the 
 three sounds the threat of the water, the onset of 
 the wind, and the complaining of the rain it was 
 hard to hear the slender cry of the wire. The girls had 
 ceased to chatter, and listened sedulously. 
 
 The electric bulbs, staring with their indifferent 
 eyes behind their softening shades, brightened as the 
 room darkened ; for an unnatural dusk had set in upon 
 the place. The switchboard itself wore a curious look, 
 almost an expression, like that of a face a con 
 sciousness; it had the air of power before which the 
 girlish figures playing upon it were trivial and ineffi 
 cient the puppets of a mystery which might turn 
 master when it appeared to be most slave. Somehow 
 the rage of the river and the storm added to this im 
 pression ; as if the elemental forces water, wind and 
 electricity had combined into insurrection against 
 human control. 
 
 If Mrs. Raven felt this, she had not time to think it; 
 357 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 she had no time to think at all before there came 
 quivering down the wire from her chief at headquar 
 ters, some fifteen miles up-stream, an order before 
 which she stiffened into military attention. Now her 
 voice rose like a thing that was trying to fly, and grew 
 a trifle shrill; then it fell into the low, sustained tele 
 phone tones. 
 
 "What did you say? Please repeat. It is very 
 noisy here. The storm Please repeat, I say 
 More distinctly 
 
 " What? I don t get it all. Something ails your 
 transmitter. I can t make it all out only a few 
 words. What?" 
 
 She had begun to tremble now; her bright head, 
 with its Greek headpiece like a fillet, shook, and 
 her hands. The operators at the switchboard had 
 snatched at the sense of the message, and she could 
 hear them crying out between disjointed fragments. 
 Now the disability in the current or perhaps it 
 was the interference of the storm had for the 
 moment succumbed, and the call from headquar 
 ters, peremptory and clear as cut glass, came to 
 her ears with the insistence of irrevocable catas 
 trophe. 
 
 "The dam is going down. The river is breaking 
 loose. Run for your lives ! You have no time to spare. 
 Notify anybody you can, but fly for your life ! Do you 
 hear me? Good-by." 
 
 358 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 "I hear you perfectly," said Sarah Raven. "I 
 thank you for notifying me. Good -by." 
 
 Her chair whirled, but she did not leave it. 
 
 "Girls " she began. But the girls had already 
 plucked the danger from the wire and had melted 
 from the switchboard madly; they were flitting and 
 screaming like the flock of birds swaying outside the 
 window little beings seeking shelter from fate, and 
 fussily complaining of it. 
 
 "You can go, Molly and Mary," said the chief 
 operator, quietly. She put out her hand for her offi 
 cial directory. 
 
 "Mrs. Raven! Mrs. Raven!" cried Molly. "Why 
 don t you come, too?" 
 
 "Mrs. Raven!" called Mary. "Dear Mrs. Raven! 
 Hurry! Mrs. Raven, ain t you coming with us?" 
 
 "No, I am not coming not yet. Don t talk to 
 me, girls. I have my subscribers to think of first. 
 Good -by, girls." 
 
 The girls dashed at her and kissed her and pleaded 
 with her; but she repeated obstinately, "Good -by, 
 girls," and so they turned, sobbing childishly, thinking 
 of themselves, as girls do, and started for the stairs. 
 At the top of the long flight Mary looked back and 
 cried out once more : - 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Raven! Don t you want me to stay, 
 too?" But Sarah Raven did not answer. It was 
 doubtful if she heard. Her record of listed subscribers 
 
 359 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 wavered in her hand, but her voice did not shake at 
 all. As Mary went down the stairs she heard it echo 
 ing through the empty exchange. 
 
 "Is this 122 ring 2?" 
 
 The young chief was calling her subscribers. She 
 was about to warn them. Mary knew that Mrs. 
 Raven meant to warn them all all who were in 
 danger and had not been notified. There were forty 
 of them in the lower valley. At the foot of the stairs, 
 tumbling out pellmell, the girls heard one authorita 
 tive order their last from the exchange above : 
 
 "Tell the grocer. Tell Mr. Rice. He s old. He 
 needs plenty of time." 
 
 Sarah Raven left her desk and went to the deserted 
 switchboard. She had removed her head-receiver to 
 do so, and put on one belonging to the girls. She sat 
 at her post with a composure which affected every 
 muscle; if it did not reach the nerve, one watching 
 her would not have known it. But there was no one 
 to watch. She heard the hysterical flurry of the girls 
 cease upon the stairs, but scarcely with attention to 
 the circumstance. She was too much alone to think 
 about it. She was not thinking of herself at all not 
 yet. She felt in some subterranean corridor of her be 
 ing that the moment would come when she should; 
 but dismissed the idea as an interruption to her duty. 
 To this she set herself with a passion that obliterated 
 
 360 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 everything else gloriously; as passion does when it is 
 high enough. 
 
 If anything that she did in that whirlwind of mind 
 and heart could be called deliberate, she had deliber 
 ately chosen to call 122, ring 2, the first of all. It 
 seemed to her that she had the right to so much - 
 and the house was very near the water. 
 
 "For Father s sake," she thought. "She was 
 Father s wife. And she s been a good stepmother 
 to me." 
 
 Flashing, and fading as soon as they had flashed, she 
 saw the comfortable commonplace things that signi 
 fied home to her an orderly sitting-room with a hot 
 Rochester burner on the centre-table ; a red silk shade ; 
 a light -wood blaze sparkling on the hearth for her 
 when she should drag herself in, drenched and tired ; 
 the table set for supper with willow ware in the dining- 
 room beyond; a portly, kindly figure trundling in a 
 blue cotton dress and white apron across the room to 
 say: "Land! You must be frazzled out." As the 
 door swung back she could see her husband s crayon 
 portrait above the mantelpiece. 
 
 Her voice pierced the turmoil of water and wind 
 with an astonishing self-possession :- 
 
 "Mother! Run for your life! The dam is broken. 
 Don t wait for anything run ! No, I can t come 
 yet No, it doesn t matter about me not till I ve 
 warned my subscribers Oh, I must take time to say 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 - you ve been a good mother to me No, no, no, 
 I can t do it. Good-by." 
 
 She was surprised to find, when she had rung off 
 her stepmother s agitated cries and entreaties, that 
 she did not know for a wild moment what to do next ; 
 which of all the human homes dependent upon her 
 to warn first. She perceived that they depended no 
 more upon her heroism than upon her good sense, and 
 yet that seemed to be the very quality which was 
 deserting her. She sat drenched in the cold sweat of 
 indecision, and for a few minutes she rang up her 
 subscribers mechanically, by order of their number: 
 123 123, ring i --124 125. 
 
 But she quickly collected herself and began to select 
 from the unconscious families upon which the doom 
 of the river was bearing down. With the swiftness 
 of a sympathetic operator in a country exchange where 
 she knew everybody and everybody knew her, she 
 recalled the circumstances of her subscribers who 
 was sick, who was incompetent, who was hysterical, 
 who had no man in the house. 
 
 She had rung up the daughter of a bed-ridden 
 mother; they two lived alone at the bend of the stream 
 where the flood must double upon itself and leave but 
 half a chance, if any, even now; she was calling: 
 
 "128? Fanny! The river is rising. Run for the 
 neighbors to lift her. You have n t a minute. Run ! " 
 
 She was still crying : " Fanny ! Get the neighbors 
 362 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 to lift her!" when the old grocer stumbled up the 
 stairs and stood wheezing behind her. He had 
 grasped her by the arm and shoulder. 
 
 " You get out o here! " he screamed. 
 
 She shook her head without a glance. 
 
 "I won t have it. I tell you I won t stand by and 
 see it! " shouted the grocer. "You come along o me. 
 There s time ef you re spry. Lord! Feel this damn 
 building rock! You drop them there wires and get 
 out o here, I say ! Won t, hey ? Well, Sarah Raven, 
 I 11 jest set here till you will." 
 
 The grocer sat down and looked at her obstinately; 
 he was shriveled with terror. The flood had yet a 
 considerable distance to come; the dam was six or 
 seven miles above the telephone headquarters in the 
 country town; but the writhing valley helped the 
 advance of the torrent, and it was impossible either 
 then or after to time that terrible race. 
 
 The old grocer stamped up and down the room; 
 he had begun to gibber. 
 
 "Mr. Rice," said the operator, "this room is the 
 property of the Southwestern Telephone Company, 
 and I am their officer. I order you to leave the place. 
 Oh, go! " she broke into a womanish cry, "there may 
 be somebody something - 
 
 At this he went, as she had thought he would; she 
 did not turn her head to see ; she felt that she was alone 
 with her duty. She glanced out of the long window. 
 
 363 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 She saw foam and heard thunder. The stream, 
 frenzied by rain, had already acquired a terrible 
 breadth. It was not yet quite dark. 
 
 "It looks like the River of Death," she thought. 
 She did not look at it again. Her eyes, burned dry, 
 smarted as if they had been fastened to her task with 
 hot wax. The electric jets beneath their green shades 
 winked and dimmed about her. The building quiv 
 ered through every oaken sinew. A man might have 
 been pardoned had he shaken with sheer physical 
 terror. A soldier might have fled and been forgiven. 
 The young woman sat at her post like a figure carved 
 from the switchboard, a creature born of the thrill and 
 power of modern life, whose opportunities replace the 
 old brutal heroisms by as much as its ingenuities are 
 finer. She rang to her task as truly as the call -bells, 
 and clung to it as simply as the plugs and levers. She 
 could easily have escaped from the building ; there was 
 still plenty of time; but it did not occur to her to do so. 
 
 Her mind worked swiftly now, and very clearly. 
 Yet down the list of her subscribers her feeling ran 
 ahead of her thought. Her instinct to save was 
 quicker than electricity. It leaped before the current 
 could, and melted with pity into forty homes. She 
 set her white teeth and glanced over her shoulder at 
 the advancing terror. 
 
 "you you!" she defied it. "I ll warn them all 
 in spite of you." 
 
 364 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 Then she grew abject, and humbly entreated the 
 river:- 
 
 "Just give me time, won t you? I need more 
 time." 
 
 There was a little boy down with scarlet fever at 
 116, ring 3. The house stood too near the banks. 
 Oh, they all did, for that matter. It would be hard 
 to get the little fellow out and in the storm ! There 
 seemed to be as much water falling from above as 
 there was rising from below. Her name ? What was 
 her name ? Was the operator s reason going with all 
 the rest? 
 
 . . . "Mrs. Penney! Run for your life and 
 Johnny s! The dam is broken. Wrap Johnny up in 
 something your water-proof. Leave everything 
 else only Johnny. Somebody will take him in. 
 Oh, I am sure they will. You haven t a minute. 
 Good-by." 
 
 . . . "Miss Gregory? Is that Maria Gregory? 
 There s a flood coming. Keep your head, Maria - 
 you re the only person in the house that has one - 
 and get your mother and sister out. Good-by." 
 
 . . . "Mr. Cole? That you, Mr. Cole? The dam 
 is broken. Run for your lives! The nurse will help 
 lift her and the new baby - You have time if 
 you re quick. Good-by." 
 
 ..." Mrs. Bassett ? There s a flood coming down 
 the valley. Count your children and run for their 
 
 365 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 lives Don t stop to ask a question. Do as I tell 
 you. Run! Good -by." 
 
 . . . "Mary Brown! Mary Brown! The river is 
 rising. Don t stop for anything. Get out of the 
 house with your father. Is he sober to-night? Can 
 he walk ? Then roll him out. You 11 drown if you 
 don t. Good-by." 
 
 . . . "Mr. Henshaw? Mr. Henshaw, that you? 
 There s a flood coming. Run and intercept Jenny on 
 her way from the office. Don t go back home. Run ! " 
 
 . . . "Helen Patterson? Helen Patterson! Isn t 
 this 126, ring 3? Mrs. Patterson? 126 ring 3? 
 Helen Patterson?" 
 
 The call -bell at 126, ring 3, remained unanswered. 
 The operator s fingers flew along her plugs: 126, 
 ring 4 ? But 1 26, ring 4, was silent, too. 
 
 "112? Is this 112? Are n t you there, 112? Why 
 don t you answer me? I am Mrs. Raven. The dam 
 is broken. Can t you speak ? 112? Can t you hear ? " 
 
 She rebuffed the truth from her as long as she could. 
 She played upon the board bravely. She piled num 
 ber upon number, selecting here and there, testing 
 every wire on her map. She kept her head and her 
 courage till this was done. Then for a moment her 
 hands fell upon her lap, and her chin upon her breast. 
 
 But she collected herself quickly, and recalled with 
 a dash of shame at her passing confusion that the 
 up-stream wires still hung between herself and her 
 
 366 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 headquarters. She rang up her manager, nervously 
 now, without waiting for him to answer. 
 
 "I have to report that my lower wires are down. 
 They are all down. I can t notify my subscribers - 
 any more. I have done the best I could, sir. I 
 can t do anything more." 
 
 She thought he tried to say " Escape!" But if 
 he replied at all, and she was not sure that he did, the 
 word was cut off as if it had been slashed with a knife. 
 At the same instant, suddenly and utterly the lights 
 went out. 
 
 The operator s voice trailed away into beaten 
 silence, and she stared about her into the oscillating 
 darkness. The wires to headquarters were disabled, 
 too. Nothing would be done about it; nothing could 
 be; the trouble men could not work in the flood; 
 probably the poles were going or gone. The last 
 strand that connected her with the living world had 
 snapped. The electric fire, so long her servant, had 
 betrayed her. Up to now she had comforted herself 
 by the sense of contact with humankind, with the 
 living voices in the human homes for the sake of which 
 she had ceased to think of herself or her young life. 
 So profound and so absorbing was her sense of solitude 
 that at first it half displaced from her consciousness 
 what it signified to her. The ruin of the wires gave her 
 the right to think of herself to save herself, after all. 
 
 She sprang, but the head-receiver the signal of 
 367 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 her official duty held her. She removed it and 
 went to the window. The floor, as she crossed it, 
 swayed like a reeling bridge. She glanced at the 
 river. It was an ocean of blackness, flogged by foam. 
 She ran to the head of the stairs, but stopped to look 
 out of the front window. She could swim all the 
 river girls could and it suggested itself to her that, 
 if the water were only quiet enough, she might yet 
 make her way to land. 
 
 One look sufficed her. There was no longer any 
 river; it had become a raving sea. The exchange 
 stood, an island in a whirlpool. Perhaps it would 
 continue to stand it was a sturdy building. That 
 was a reasonable chance, she thought, and she clung 
 to it sensibly. 
 
 She felt her way to her seat at her switchboard, and 
 from long habit, perhaps, put on her head-receiver, 
 or it might have been that she still cherished a hope 
 that the trouble men would be able to do something 
 and repair the trunk wire. It was impossible for her 
 to judge of this, and at all events she chose to keep to 
 her post. 
 
 In the dark she began to grope for her plugs and 
 drops, feeling for the numbers that she knew almost 
 as well by sense of touch as by sense of sight. There 
 might still be a chance to warn some helpless family 
 some foolish, incompetent woman, or disabled person. 
 She reviewed her list of subscribers, name by name, 
 
 368 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 asking whom she had omitted. It comforted her to 
 believe that all the sick people had been told in time. 
 She sat before her switchboard and thought of this. 
 She had not found time yet to think of herself. 
 
 Every one who has listened much to electric systems 
 knows how impressive is their capacity for rhythmical 
 sound. Wild weather strikes strange concords or dis 
 cords from the local labyrinth. He could not have 
 known the burden of his words who told us of "the 
 music of the spheres " centuries before electricity was 
 named or tamed. 
 
 The operator with her metal fillet on her head 
 hears nothing of this inchoate harmony; only the 
 obedient hum or the rebellious roar of her working- 
 line. But as she walks home on bitter nights beneath 
 the frosted wires, or lies hearing their thrilling cry 
 upon the roof above her tired head, she listens with 
 the acute sentience of her calling. She cannot deafen 
 to the overmastering voices as another might. Her 
 auditory nerves are never at rest. Sleep scarcely 
 assuages them. She longs for silence which she may 
 not find. If she be at all a sensitive woman, or espe 
 cially if she be a music-loving one, she fancies curious 
 harmonies or dissonances even in the monotonous 
 and maddening buzz of the wire whose bond -slave 
 she is. The world to her is never still; it is an 
 autocracy of electric sound. 
 
 Sarah Raven had been, in a simple, country fashion, 
 369 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 a musical girl, and she had been used to imagine 
 sometimes that the current and the weather, united or 
 apart, played accompaniments or struck melodies to 
 the hymns and sacred songs by which the musical 
 education of the village was chiefly bounded: little 
 tinkling things that she had heard in churches and at 
 weekly meetings Shall we gather at the river? was 
 one of them. There was another that she used to like : 
 
 " Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, 
 Stand dressed in living green." 
 
 Now the wires were rent and snarled and flung 
 dashed and drowned in air and water. Yet how 
 was this ? the great choral seemed to her to sweep 
 along outside the rocking building, as sounds that 
 have actually ceased continue to repeat themselves to 
 overstrained ears. As she sat at her post awaiting her 
 fate this was now a matter of moments, but her 
 thoughts and sensations seemed to cover a long time 
 as she sat there, patient and grand, she remembered 
 that she had meant to pray for herself as she had been 
 taught in her religiously trained childhood. There 
 had not been any time to think of that. Who, with 
 forty human homes to warn, could stop for such a 
 thing? 
 
 Plainly, it had been impossible. She wondered if 
 God would blame her because she had forgotten her 
 own soul. 
 
 Now, stealing upon the brutal uproar in whose 
 370 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 central cell she was imprisoned, there came to her 
 consciousness the strains of one of the great hymns by 
 the power of which men have lived and died for more 
 than a hundred and fifty years of human struggle. 
 
 Upon the wings of many waters she could hear this 
 borne past the tottering building. It seemed to her 
 as if it had stopped to take her up and sweep her on 
 with it; as a phalanx of soldiers with their bugles and 
 drums might gather up some defenseless creature in 
 a riot, and so protect him. 
 
 " Jesus, Lover of my soul! . . . 
 
 " While the billows near me roll, 
 While the tempest still is high. . . . 
 
 "Jesus, Lover of my soul! . . . 
 Let me to Thy bosom fly." 
 
 The morning wore a wicked glitter. It showed a 
 blazing, almost a blasting, sun, and there was no 
 wind. But for the river it would have been a very 
 quiet, cheerful day; one of the mornings when people 
 hurry out-of-doors, laughing, and make up little 
 picnics, and play with children, and smile at neighbors 
 passing, and wish them good-day with cheery hearts. 
 
 But no one smiled that day throughout the valley. 
 Tragic searching-parties followed the river s new and 
 fatal banks. Boats went down as soon as the torrent 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 would hold them, and, swirling on snapping oars, 
 hunted for signs of death or life. All the stalwart citi 
 zens offered themselves, and every man who could row 
 or swim volunteered to leave no snag untouched, no 
 eddy unexamined. A few persons floating on trees or 
 roofs had been saved at dawn. More whom it was too 
 late to save had been silently lifted and covered from 
 sight. The old grocer ran to and fro calling shrilly. 
 
 "Where is Sarah Raven ? Can t anybody find Mrs. 
 Raven? Mebbe she s a livin woman somewheres 
 yet." 
 
 "He tried to put out in a boat for her last night," 
 a compassionate neighbor said, "but he was oversot, 
 and it s kinder crazed him." 
 
 Mary and Molly had followed the grocer, and stood 
 childishly wringing their hands. For once in their 
 little lives they did not talk. They felt ashamed to. 
 
 Midway of the morning there appeared a few men 
 on horseback from the county town. These were the 
 officials of the Southwestern Telephone Company 
 the manager, the superintendent of construction, and 
 one or two subordinates. Their rigid faces wore the 
 look of overwrought and sleepless men who are 
 divided between grief and action. They were silent 
 as men are in such a case, but they worked with the 
 more formidable determination for that. 
 
 Six miles eight miles ten miles down the 
 stream, ahorse and afoot, and by spinning boats, the 
 
 372 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 search went past the people. But the river vindic 
 tively refused to them their heroine. 
 
 It was hot, still noon when a man, wading waist- 
 deep beneath a flooded orchard, called loudly for help, 
 and twenty ran and dashed into the water at his side. 
 
 Twelve miles below her own exchange the young 
 operator lay among the trees; so quietly, one might 
 have said, from the smile of her so happily, that it 
 seemed half a pity to intrude upon her dream. What 
 ever it was, it had the sense of security that our 
 dreams never know ; and it would have been difficult 
 to suppose, as one regarded her mercifully unmarred 
 face, that she had ever suffered. 
 
 A mud -bespattered wagon with a limping horse that 
 had followed the search since daylight stopped oppo 
 site the mute, bareheaded group. A large woman 
 climbed down a woman in a drabbled blue cotton 
 dress with a soaked white apron; she plodded labo 
 riously through the mud at the orchard s edge; she 
 was sobbing without restraint. 
 
 " Gentlemen," she said, "bein men-folks, I don t 
 know s you 11 feel to care so much to know it, but if 
 she d been my own I never knew she warn t - 
 and, gentlemen, it is the 29th of August and that s 
 her wedding-day." 
 
 The manager of the Telephone Company, her 
 chief from the upper town, rode splashing through the 
 water and stood uncovered before Sarah Raven. 
 
 373 
 
THE CHIEF OPERATOR 
 
 "She saved a good many," he said, speaking with 
 difficulty. "She s got that comfort. It s more than 
 most of us will ever get in this world. As nearly as we 
 can tell there are fifty persons alive to-day that if 
 it had n t been for her " 
 
 He could not finish what he was saying, but the old 
 grocer, half crazed, fell upon his knees in the water. 
 
 "Lord," he cried, "forgive us our trespasses! 
 Question is whether we re wuth it, Lord!" 
 
 Now it was seen that the manager had asked leave 
 to help carry her through the flooded trees. He looked 
 down upon her proudly as he waded at her side. 
 
 "For the honor of the company," he thought. 
 
 But her stepmother babbled as she sobbed : 
 
 "She d oughter been buried in her wedding-dress. 
 But it s gone with everything else. She ain t even a 
 home to her dear body to be laid out in." 
 
 "Every home left standing is hers to-day, madam," 
 the chief answered, with emotion. "But that is the 
 company s privilege. She is not yours any longer, 
 madam; she is ours. No, she is not ours she is the 
 world s." 
 
 He stooped and touched her with a solemn rever 
 ence. The head-receiver, with its Greek look, was 
 still fastened upon her bright hair. When some one 
 would have removed it, the chief refused. 
 
 "We will not disturb that crown," he said. 
 
(tfte 0itoer?ibe 
 
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