The Spinners' Book of Fiction (2024)

THE

With a dedicatory poem by
George Sterling

COLLECTED BY THE
BOOK COMMITTEE OF THE
SPINNERS' CLUB

Illustrated by
Lillie V. O'Ryan, Maynard Dixon
Albertine RandallWheelan, Merle Johnson
E. Almond Withrow and Gordon Ross
Initials anddecorations by
Spencer Wright

PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
SAN FRANCISCO AND NEW YORK

Published in behalf
of The Spinners' Benefit Fund
Ina D. Coolbrith
First Beneficiary
———
Copyright, 1907
by Paul Elder and Company

TO INA D. COOLBRITH

George Sterling.

THE STORIES

THE ILLUSTRATIONS

WHEREFORE?

Wherefore this book of fiction by Californian writers? And why itsappeal otherwise than that of obvious esthetic and literary qualities?They who read what follows will know.

The fund, which the sale of this book is purposed to aid, was plannedby The Spinners soon after the eighteenth of April, 1906, and wasstarted with two hundred dollars from their treasury. To this, Mrs.Gertrude Atherton added another two hundred dollars. Several women'sclubs and private individuals also generously responded, so that nowthere is a thousand dollars to the credit of the fund. A bond has beenbought and the interest from it will be paid to Ina D. Coolbrith, thepoet, and first chosen beneficiary of the fund. The Spinners feelassured that this book will meet with such a ready sale as to makepossible the purchase of several bonds, and so render the accruinginterest a steady source of aid to Miss. Coolbrith.

All who have read and fallen under the charm of her "Songs from theGolden Gate," or felt the beauty and tenderness of the verses "When theGrass Shall Cover Me," will, without question, unite in making"assurance doubly sure" to such end.

From the days of the old Overland Monthly, when she worked side byside with Bret Harte and Charles Warren Stoddard, to the present moment,Miss. Coolbrith's name has formed a part of the literary history of SanFrancisco.

The eighteenth of April, 1906, and the night which followed it, lefther bereft of all literary, and other, treasures; but her poem bearingthe refrain, "Lost city of my love and my desire," rings with the oldgenius, and expresses the feeling of many made desolate by thedestruction of the city which held their most cherished memories.

When Miss. Coolbrith shall no longer need to be a beneficiary of thefund, it is intended that it shall serve to aid some other writer,artist or musician whose fortunes are at the ebb.

To the writers, artists and publishers who have so heartily andgenerously made this book possible, The Spinners return unmeasuredthanks.

San Francisco, June 22, 1907.

CONCHAARGÜELLO, SISTERDOMINICA

BY

GERTRUDE ATHERTON

Dedicated To Carolina Ximéno
Written for The Spinners' Book of Fiction
All Rights Reserved

ISTERTERESA had wept bitterly for two days. The vanity for which shedid penance whenever her madonna loveliness, consummated by the whiterobe and veil of her novitiate, tempted her to one of the little mirrorsin the pupil's dormitory, was powerless to check the blighting flow.There had been moments when she had argued that her vanity had itsrights, for had it not played its part in weaning her from theworld?—that wicked world of San Francisco, whose very breath,accompanying her family on their monthly visits to Benicia, made hercross herself and pray that all good girls whom fate had stranded thereshould find the peace and shelter of Saint Catherine of Siena. It wastrue that before Sister Dominica toiled up Rincon Hill on that wonderfulday—here her sobs became so violent that Sister María Sal, prayingbeside her with a face as swollen as her own, gave her a sharp poke inthe ribs, and she pressed her hands to her mouth lest she be marchedaway. But her thoughts flowed on; she could pray no more. SisterDominica, with her romantic history and holy life, her halo of fame inthe young country, and her unconquerable beauty—she had never seen sucheyelashes, never, never!—what was she thinking of at such a time?She had never believed that such divine radiance could emanate from anymortal; never had dreamed that beauty and grace could be so enhanced bya white robe and a black veil——Oh, well! Her mind was in a rebelliousmood; it had been in leash too long. And what of it for once in a way?No ball dress she had ever seen in the gay disreputable littlecity—where the good citizens hung the bad for want of law—was half asbecoming as the habit of the Dominican nun, and if it played a part inweaning frivolous girls from the world, so much more to the credit ofRome. God knew she had never regretted her flight up the bays, and evenhad it not been for the perfidy of—she had forgotten his name; that atleast was dead!—she would have realized her vocation the moment SisterDominica sounded the call. When the famous nun, with that passionatehumility all her own, had implored her to renounce the world, protestedthat her vocation was written in her face—she really looked like ajuvenile mater dolorosa, particularly when she rolled up hereyes—eloquently demanded what alternative that hideous embryo of a citycould give her—that rude and noisy city that looked as if it had beentossed together in a night after one of its periodical fires, where theill-made sidewalks tripped the unwary foot, or the winter mud was like aswamp, where the alarm bell summoned the Vigilance Committee day andnight to protect or avenge, where a coarse and impertinent set ofadventurers stared at and followed an inoffensive nun who only left theholy calm of the convent at the command of the Bishop to rescue brandsfrom the burning; then had Teresa, sick with the tragedy of youth, anenchanting vision of secluded paths, where nuns—in white—walked withdowncast eyes and folded hands; of the daily ecstasy of prayer in theconvent chapel misty with incense.

And in some inscrutable way Sister Dominica during that longconversation, while Mrs. Grace and her other daughters dispensed egg-nogin the parlor—it was New Year's Day—had made the young girl a part ofher very self, until Teresa indulged the fancy that without and withinshe was a replica of that Concha Argüello of California's springtime;won her heart so completely that she would have followed her not onlyinto the comfortable and incomparably situated convent of the saint ofSiena, but barefooted into that wilderness of Soledad where the Indiansstill prayed for their lost "Beata." It was just eight months tonightsince she had taken her first vows, and she had been honestly aware thatthere was no very clear line of demarcation in her fervent young mindbetween her love of Sister Dominica and her love of God. Tonight, almostprostrate before the coffin of the dead nun, she knew that so far atleast all the real passion of her youth had flowed in an undeflectedtide about the feet of that remote and exquisite being whose personalcharm alone had made a convent possible in the chaos that followed thediscovery of gold. All the novices, many of the older nuns, the pupilsinvariably, worshipped Sister Dominica; whose saintliness withoutausterity never chilled them, but whose tragic story and the impressionshe made of already dwelling in a heaven of her own, notwithstandingher sweet and consistent humanity, placed her on a pinnacle where anydisplay of affection would have been unseemly. Only once, after thebeautiful ceremony of taking the white veil was over, and Teresa'ssenses were faint from incense and hunger, ecstasy and a new andexquisite terror, Sister Dominica had led her to her cell and kissingher lightly on the brow, exclaimed that she had never been happier in aconquest for the Church against the vileness of the world. Then she haddropped the conventional speech of her calling, and said with anexpression that made her look so young, so curiously virginal, that thenovice had held her breath: "Remember that here there is nothing tointerrupt the life of the imagination, nothing to change its course,like the thousand conflicting currents that batter memory and characterto pieces in the world. In this monotonous round of duty and prayer themind is free, the heart remains ever young, the soul unspotted; so thatwhen——" She had paused, hesitated a moment, then abruptly left theroom, and Teresa had wept a torrent in her disappointment that thisfirst of California's heroines—whose place in history and romance wasassured—had not broken her reserve and told her all that story of manyversions. She had begged Sister María Sal—the sister of Luis Argüello'sfirst wife—to tell it her, but the old nun had reproved her sharply forsinful curiosity and upon one occasion boxed her ears. But tonight shemight be in a softer mood, and Teresa resolved that when the last riteswere over she would make her talk of Concha Argüello.

A few moments later she was lifted to her feet by a shaking but stillpowerful arm.

"Come!" whispered Sister María. "It is time to prepare. The others havegone. It is singular that the oldest and the youngest should have lovedher best. Ay! Dios de mi alma! I never thought that Concha Argüellowould die. Grow old she never did, in spite of the faded husk. We willlook at her once more."

The dead nun in her coffin lay in the little parlor where she had turnedso many wavering souls from fleeting to eternal joys. Her features,wasted during years of delicate health, seemed to regain something oftheir youth in the soft light of the candles. Or was it the long blackeyelashes that hid the hollows beneath the eyes?—or the faintmysterious almost mocking smile? Had the spirit in its eternal youthpaused in its flight to stamp a last sharp impress upon the prostrateclay? Never had she looked so virginal, and that had been one of themost arresting qualities of her always remarkable appearance; but therewas something more—Teresa held her breath. Somehow, dead and in hercoffin, she looked less saintly than in life; although as pure andsweet, there was less of heavenly peace on those marble features than ofsome impassioned human hope. Teresa excitedly whispered her unrulythoughts to Sister María, but instead of the expected reproof the oldnun lifted her shoulders.

"Perhaps," she said. "Who knows?"

***

It was Christmas eve and all the inmates of the convent paused in theirsorrow to rejoice in the happy portent of the death and burial of onewhom they loyally believed to be no less entitled to beatification thanCatherine herself. Her miracles may not have been of the irreducibleprotoplastic order, but they had been miracles to the practicalCalifornian mind, notwithstanding, and worthy of the attention ofconsistory and Pope. Moreover, this was the season when all the vivacityand gaiety of her youth had revived, and she made merry, not only forthe children left at the convent by their nomadic parents, but for allthe children of the town, whatever the faith of their somewhat anxiouselders.

An hour after sundown they carried the bier on which her coffin restedinto the chapel. It was a solemn procession that none, taking part, waslikely to forget, and stirred the young hearts at least with an ecstaticdesire for a life as saintly as this that hardly had needed the crown ofdeath.

Following the bier was the cross-bearer, holding the emblem so high itwas half lost in the shadows. Behind her were the young scholars dressedin black, then the novices in their white robes and veils, carryinglighted tapers to symbolize the eternal radiance that awaited the purein spirit. The nuns finished the procession that wound its way slowlythrough the long ill-lighted corridors, chanting the litany of the dead.From the chapel, at first almost inaudible, but waxing louder everymoment, came the same solemn monotonous chant; for the Bishop and hisassistants were already at the altar....

Teresa, from the organ loft, looked eagerly down upon the beautifulscene, in spite of the exaltation that filled her: her artistic sensewas the one individuality she possessed. The chapel was aglow with thesoft radiance of many wax candles. They stood in high candelabra againstthe somber drapery on the walls, and there were at least a hundred aboutthe coffin on its high catafalque before the altar; the Argüellos wereas prodigal as of old. About the catafalque was an immense mound ofroses from the garden of the convent, and palms and pampas from theranch of Santiago Argüello in the south. The black-robed scholars knelton one side of the dead, the novices on the other, the relatives andfriends behind. But art had perfected itself in the gallery above thelower end of the chapel. This also was draped with black which seemed toabsorb, then shed forth again the mystic brilliance of the candles; andkneeling, well apart, were the nuns in their ivory white robes and blackveils, their banded softened features as composed and peaceful as iftheir own reward had come.

The Bishop and the priests read the Requiem Mass, the little organpealed the De Profundis as if inspired; and when the imperioustriumphant music of Handel followed, Teresa's fresh young sopranoseemed, to her excited imagination, to soar to the gates of heavenitself. When she looked down again the lights were dim in the incense,her senses swam in the pungent odor of spices and gum. The Bishop waswalking about the catafalque casting holy water with a brush against thecoffin above. He walked about a second time swinging the heavy coppercenser, then pronounced the Requiescat in pace, "dismissing," as wefind inscribed in the convent records, "a tired soul out of all thestorms of life into the divine tranquillity of death."

The bier was again shouldered, the procession reformed, and marched,still with lighted tapers and chanting softly, out into the cemetery ofthe convent. It was a magnificent, clear night and as mild as spring.Below the steep hill the little town of Benicia celebrated the eve ofChristmas with lights and noise. Beyond, the water sparkled like runningsilver under the wide beams of the moon poised just above the peak ofMonte Diablo, the old volcano that towered high above this romantic andbeautiful country of water and tule lands, steep hillsides and canons,rocky bluffs overhanging the straits. In spite of the faint discordsthat rose from the town and the slow tolling of the convent bell, it wasa scene of lofty and primeval grandeur, a fit setting for the lastearthly scene of a woman whose lines had been cast in the wilderness,but yet had found the calm and the strength and the peace of the oldmountain, with its dead and buried fires.

The grave closed, the mourners returned to the convent, but not inorder. At the door Teresa felt her arm taken possession of by a stronghand with which she had had more than one disconcerting encounter.

"Let us walk," said Sister María Sal in her harsh but strong old voice."I have permission. I must talk of Concha tonight or I should burst. Itis not for nothing one keeps silent for years and years. I at least amstill human. And you loved her the best and have spoiled your prettyface with weeping. You must not do that again, for the young love apretty nun and will follow her into the one true life on earth farsooner than an ugly old phiz like mine."

Sister María, indeed, retained not an index of the beauty with whichtradition accredited her youth. She was a stout unwieldy old woman witha very red face covered half over with black down, and in the brightmoonlight Teresa could see the three long hairs that stood out straightfrom a mole above her mouth and scratched the girls when she kissedthem. Tonight her nose was swollen and her eyes looked like appleseeds.Teresa hastily composed her features and registered a vow that in herold age she would look like Sister Dominica, not like that. She hadheard that Concha, too, had been frivolous in her youth, and had not sheherself a tragic bit of a story? True, her youthful love-tides hadturned betimes from the grave beside the Mission Dolores to the lovelynun and the God of both, and she had heard that Doña Concha had provedher fidelity to a wonderful Russian throughout many years before shetook the veil. Perhaps—who knew?—her more conformable pupil might haverestored the worthless to her heart before he was knifed in the fulllight of day on Montgomery Street by one from whom he had won more thanthousands the night before; perhaps have consoled herself with anotherless eccentric, had not Sister Dominica sought her at the right momentand removed her from the temptations of the world. Well, never mind, shecould at least be a good nun and an amiable instructor of youth, and ifshe never looked like a living saint she would grow soberer and noblerwith the years and take care that she grew not stout and red.

For a time Sister María did not speak, but walked rapidly and heavily upand down the path, dragging her companion with her and staring out atthe beauty of the night. But suddenly she slackened her pace and burstinto speech.

"Ay yi! Ay de mi! To think that it is nearly half a century—forty-twoyears to be precise—for will it not be 1858 in one more week?—sinceRezánov sailed out through what Frémont has called 'The Golden Gate'!And forty-one in March since he died—not from the fall of a horse, asSir George Simpson (who had not much regard for the truth anyway, for hegave a false picture of our Concha), and even Doctor Langsdorff, whoshould have known better, wrote it, but worn out, worn out, afterterrible hardships, and a fever that devoured him inch by inch. And hewas so handsome when he left us! Dios de mi alma! never have I seen aman like that. If I had I should not be here now, perhaps, so it is aswell. But never was I even engaged, and when permission came from Madridfor the marriage of my sister Rafaella with Luis Argüello—he was anofficer and could not marry without a special license from the King, andthrough some strange oversight he was six long years getting it—; well,I lived with them and took care of the children until Rafaella—Ay yi!what a good wife she made him, for he 'toed the mark,' as the Americanssay—; well, she died, and one of those days he married another; forwill not men be men? And Luis was a good man in spite of all, a fineloyal clever man, who deserves the finest monument in the cemetery ofthe Mission Dolores—as they call it now. The Americans have no respectfor anything and will not say San Francisco de Assisi, for it is toolong and they have time for nothing but the gold. Were it not a sin,how I should hate them, for they have stolen our country from us—butno, I will not; and, to be sure, if Rezánov had lived he would have hadit first, so what difference? Luis, at least, was spared. He died in1830—and was the first Governor of Alta California after Mexico threwoff the yoke of Spain. He had power in full measure and went beforethese upstart conquerors came to humble the rest of us into the dust.Peace to his ashes—but perhaps you care nothing for this dear brotherof my youth, never heard of him before—such a giddy thing you were;although at the last earthquake the point of his monument flew straightinto the side of the church and struck there, so you may have heard thetalk before they put it back in its place. It is of Sister Dominica youthink, but I think not only of her but of those old days—Ay, Dios demi! Who remembers that time but a few old women like myself?

"Concha's father, Don José Dario Argüello, was Commandante of thePresidio of San Francisco then; and there was nothing else to call SanFrancisco but the Mission. Down at Yerba Buena, where the Americansflaunt themselves, there was but a Battery that could not give even adance. But we had dances at the Presidio; day and night the guitartinkled and the fiddles scraped; for what did we know of care, or oldage, or convents or death? I was many years younger than Rafaella anddid not go to the grand balls, but to the little dances, yes, many andmany. When the Russians came—it was in 1806—I saw them every day, andone night danced with Rezánov himself. He was so gay—ay de mi! Iremember he swung me quite off my feet and made as if he would throw mein the air. I was angry that he should treat me like a baby, and then hebegged me so humbly to forgive him, although his eyes laughed, that ofcourse I did. He had come down from Sitka to try and arrange for atreaty with the Spanish government that the poor men in the employ ofthe Russian-American Company might have breadstuffs to eat and not dieof scurvy, nor toil through the long winter with no flesh on theirbones. He brought a cargo with him to exchange for our corn and flourmeanwhile. We had never seen any one so handsome and so grand and heturned all our heads, but he had a hard time with the Governor and DonJosé—there are no such Californians now or the Americans would neverhave got us—and it took all his diplomacy and all the help Concha andthe priests could give him before he got his way, for there was a lawagainst trading with foreigners. It was only when he and Concha becameengaged that Governor Arillaga gave in—how I pick up vulgar expressionsfrom these American pupils, I who should reform them! And did I notstand Ellen O'Reilley in the corner yesterday for calling San Francisco'Frisco'?—San Francisco de Assisi! But all the saints have fled fromCalifornia.

"Where was I? Forgive an old woman's rambling, but I have not toldstories since Rafaella's children grew up, and that was many years ago.What do I talk here? You know. And I that used to love to talk. Ay yi!But no one can say that I am not a good nun. Bishop Alemany has said itand no one knows better than he, the holy man. But for him I might besitting all day on a corridor in the south sunning myself like an oldcrocodile, for we had no convent till he came eight years ago; andperhaps but for Concha, whom I always imitated, I might have a dozenbrats of my own, for I was pretty and had my wooers and might have beenpersuaded. And God knows, since I must have the care of children, Iprefer they should be mothered by some one else for then I have alwaysthe hope to be rid of them the sooner. Well, well! I am not a saint yet,and when I go to heaven I suppose Concha will still shake her finger atme with a smile. Not that she was ever self-righteous, our Concha. Not abit of it. Only after that long and terrible waiting she just naturallybecame a saint. Some are made that way and some are not. That is all.

"Did I tell you about the two young lieutenants that came with BaronRezánov? Davidov and Khostov their names were. Well, well, I shall tellall tonight. I was but fourteen, but what will you? Was I not, then,Spanish? It was Davidov. He always left the older people to romp withthe children, although I think there was a flame in his heart forConcha. Perhaps had I been older—who knows? Do not look at my whiskers!That was forty-two years ago. Well, I dreamed of the fair kind youngRussian for many a night after he left, and when my time came to marry Iwould look at none of the caballeros, but nursed Rafaella's babies andthought my thoughts. And then—in 1815 I think it was—the good—andugly—Dr. Langsdorff sent Luis a copy of his book—he had been surgeonto his excellency—and alas! it told of the terrible end of both thosegay kind young men. They were always too fond of brandy; we knew that,but we never—well, hear me! One night not so many years after theysailed away from California, they met Dr. Langsdorff and another friendof their American days, Captain D'Wolf, by appointment in St. Petersburgfor a grand reunion. They were all so happy! Perhaps it was that madethem too much 'celebrate,' as the Americans say in their dialect. Well,alas! they celebrated until four in the morning, and then my two dearyoung Russians—for I loved Khostov as a sister, so devoted he was to myfriend—well, they started—on foot—for home, and that was on the otherside of the Neva. They had almost crossed the bridge when they suddenlytook it into their heads that they wanted to see their friends again,and started back. Alas, in the middle of the bridge was a section thatopened to permit the passage of boats with tall masts. The night wasdark and stormy. The bridge was open. They did not see it. The river wasroaring and racing like a flood. A sailor saw them fall, and then strikeback for the coming boat. Then he saw them no more. That was the last ofmy poor friends.

"And we had all been so gay, so gay! For how could we know? All theRussians said that never had they seen a people so light-hearted andfrolicking as the Californians, so hospitable, so like one great family.And we were, we were. But you know of that time. Was not your motherConchitita Castro, if she did marry an American and has not taught youten words of Spanish? It is of Concha you would hear, and I ramble.Well, who knows? perhaps I hesitate. Rezánov was of the Greek Church. Nopriest in California would have married them even had Don José—elsanto we called him—given his consent. It was for that reason Rezánovwent to obtain a dispensation from His Holiness and a license from theKing of Spain. Concha knew that he could not return for two years ornearly that, nor even send her a letter; for why should ships come downfrom Sitka until the treaty was signed? Only Rezánov could get what hewanted, law or no law. And then too our Governor had forbidden theBritish and Bostonians—so we called the Americans in those days—toenter our ports. This Concha knew, and when one knows one can think instoreys, as it were, and put the last at the top. It is not so bad asthe hope that makes the heart thump every morning and the eyes turn intofountains at night. Dios! To think that I should ever have shed a tearover a man. Chinchosas, all of them. However—I think Concha, who wasnever quite as others, knew deep down in her heart that he would notcome back, that it was all too good to be true. Never was a man seen ashandsome as that one, and so clever—a touch of the devil in hiscleverness, but that may have been because he was a Russian. I know not.And to be a great lady in St. Petersburg, and later—who cantell?—vice-Tsarina of all this part of the world! No, it could not be.It was a fairy tale. I only wonder that the bare possibility came intothe life of any woman,—and that a maiden of New Spain, in an unknowncorner, that might as well have been on Venus or Mars.

"But Concha had character. She was not one to go into adecline—although I am woman enough to know that her pillow was wet manynights; and besides she lost the freshness of her beauty. She was oftenas gay as ever, but she cared less and less for the dance, and foundmore to do at home. Don José was made Commandante of the Santa BarbaraCompany that same year, and it was well for her to be in a place wherethere were no memories of Rezánov. But late in the following year as thetime approached for his return, or news of him, she could not containher impatience. We all saw it—I was visiting the Pachecos in thePresidio of Santa Barbara. She grew so thin. Her eyes were never still.We knew. And then!—how many times she climbed to the fortress—it wason that high bluff beside the channel—and stared out to sea—when 1808and the Spring had come—for hours together: Rezánov was to return byway of Mexico. Then, when I went back to San Francisco soon after, shewent with me, and again she would watch the sea from the summit of LoneMountain, as we call it now. In spite of her reason she hoped, Isuppose; for that is the way of women. Or perhaps she only longed forthe word from Sitka that would tell her the worst and have done with it.Who knows? She never said, and we dared not speak of it. She was alwaysvery sweet, our Concha, but there never was a time when you could take aliberty with her.

"No ship came, but something else did—an earthquake! Ay yi, what anearthquake that was! Not a temblor but a terremoto. The wholePresidio came down. I do not know now how we saved all the babies,but we always flew to the open with a baby under each arm the moment anearthquake began, and in the first seconds even this was not so bad. Thewall about the Presidio was fourteen feet high and seven feet thick andthere were solid trunks of trees crossed inside the adobe. It lookedlike a heap of dirt, nothing more. Luis was riding up from the Batteryof Yerba Buena and his horse was flung down and he saw the sand-dunesheaving toward him like waves in a storm and shiver like quicksilver.And there was a roar as if the earth had dropped and the sea gone after.Ay California! And to think that when Luis wrote a bitter letter toGovernor Arillaga in Monterey, the old Mexican wrote back that he hadfelt earthquakes himself and sent him a box of dates for consolation!Well—we slept on the ground for two months and cooked out-of-doors, forwe would not go even into the Mission—which had not suffered—until theearthquakes were over; and if the worst comes first there are plentyafter—and, somehow, harder to bear. Perhaps to Concha that terribletime was a God-send, for she thought no more of Rezánov for a while. Ifthe earthquake does not swallow your body it swallows your little self.You are a flea. Just that and nothing more.

"But after a time all was quiet again; the houses were rebuilt andConcha went back to Santa Barbara. By that time she knew that Rezánovwould never come, although it was several years before she had a word.Such stories have been told that she did not know of his death forthirty years! Did not Baránhov, Chief-manager of the Russian-AlaskanCompany up there at Sitka, send Koskov—that name was so like!—toBodega Bay in 1812, and would he fail to send such news with him? Wasnot Dr. Langsdorff's book published in 1814? Did not Kotzbue, who was onhis excellency's staff during the embassy to Japan, come to us in 1816,and did we not talk with him every day for a month? Did not Rezánov'sdeath spoil all Russia's plans in this part of the world—perhaps, whoknows? alter the course of her history? It is likely we were longwithout hearing the talk of the North! Such nonsense! Yes, she knew itsoon enough, but as that good Padre Abella once said to us, she had themaking of the saint and the martyr in her, and even when she could hopeno more she did not die, nor marry some one else, nor wither up and spitat the world. Long before the news came, indeed, she carried out a planshe had conceived, so Padre Abella told us, even while Rezánov was yethere. There were no convents in California in those days—you may knowwhat a stranded handful we were—but she joined the Tertiary or ThirdOrder of Franciscans, and wore always the grey habit, the girdle, andthe cross. She went among the Indians christianizing them, remaining along while at Soledad, a bleak and cheerless place, where she was also agreat solace to the wives of the soldiers and settlers, whose childrenshe taught. The Indians called her 'La Beata,' and by that name she wasknown in all California until she took the veil, and that was more thanforty years later. And she was worshipped, no less. So beautiful shewas, so humble, so sweet, and at the same time so practical; she hadwhat the Americans call 'hard sense,' and something of Rezánov's ownway of managing people. When she made up her mind to bring a sinner or asavage into the Church she did it. You know.

"But do not think she had her way in other things without a struggle.Don José and Doña Ignacia—her mother—permitted her to enter upon thereligious life, for they understood; and Luis and Santiago made noprotest either, for they understood also and had loved Rezánov. But therest of her family, the relations, the friends, the young men—thecaballeros! They went in a body you might say to Don José and demandedthat Concha, the most beautiful and fascinating and clever girl in NewSpain, should come back to the world where she belonged,—be given inmarriage. But Concha had always ruled Don José, and all the protestswent to the winds. And William Sturgis—the young Bostonian who livedwith us for so many years? I have not told you of him, and your motherwas too young to remember. Well, never mind. He would have taken Conchafrom California, given her just a little of what she would have had asthe wife of Rezánov—not in himself; he was as ugly as my whiskers; butenough of the great world to satisfy many women, and no one could denythat he was good and very clever. But to Concha he was a brother—nomore. Perhaps she did not even take the trouble to refuse him. It was away she had. After a while he went home to Boston and died of theclimate. I was very sorry. He was one of us.

"And her intellect? Concha put it to sleep forever. She never readanother book of travel, of history, biography, memoirs, essays,poetry—romance she had never read, and although some novels came toCalifornia in time she never opened them. It was peace she wanted, notthe growing mind and the roving imagination. She brought herconversation down to the level of the humblest, and perhaps—whoknows?—her thoughts. At all events, although the time came when shesmiled again, and was often gay when we were all together in thefamily—particularly with the children, who came very fast, ofcourse—well, she was then another Concha, not that brilliantdissatisfied ambitious girl we had all known, who had thought thegreatest gentleman from the Viceroy's court not good enough to throwgold at her feet when she danced El Son.

"There were changes in her life. In 1814 Don José was made GobernadorPropietario of Lower California. He took all of his unmarried childrenwith him, and Concha thought it her duty to go. They lived in Loretountil 1821. But Concha never ceased to pray that she might return toCalifornia—we never looked upon that withered tongue of Mexico asCalifornia; and when Don José died soon after his resignation, and hermother went to live with her married daughters, Concha returned with thegreatest happiness she had known, I think, since Rezánov went. Was notCalifornia all that was left her?

"She lived in Santa Barbara for many years, in the house of Don José dela Guerra—in that end room of the east wing. She had many relations, itis true, but Concha was always human and liked relations better when shewas not surrounded by them. Although she never joined in any of thefestivities of that gay time she was often with the Guerra family andseemed happy enough to take up her old position as Beata among theIndians and children, until they built a school for her in Monterey. Howwe used to wonder if she ever thought of Rezánov any more. From the daythe two years were over she never mentioned his name, and everybodyrespected her reserve, even her parents. And she grew more and morereserved with the years, never speaking of herself at all, except justafter her return from Mexico. But somehow we knew. And did not the verylife she had chosen express it? Even the Church may not reach the secretplaces of the soul, and who knows what heaven she may have found inhers? And now? I think purgatory is not for Concha, and he was not badas men go, and has had time to do his penance. It is true the Churchtells us there is no marrying in heaven—but, well, perhaps there is aunion for mated spirits of which the Church knows nothing. You saw herexpression in her coffin.

"Well! The time arrived when we had a convent. Bishop Alemany came in1850, and in the first sermon he preached in Santa Barbara—I think itwas his first in California—he announced that he wished to found aconvent. He was a Dominican, but one order was as another to Concha; shehad never been narrow in anything. As soon as the service was over,before he had time to leave the church, she went to him and asked to bethe first to join. He was glad enough, for he knew of her and that noone could fill his convent as rapidly as she. Therefore was she thefirst nun, the first to take holy vows, in our California. For alittle, the convent was in the old Hartnell house in Monterey, but DonManuel Ximéno had built a great hotel while believing, with all therest, that Monterey would be the capital of the new California as of theold, and he was glad to sell it to the Bishop. We were delighted—ofcourse I followed when Concha told me it was my vocation—that theAmericans preferred Yerba Buena.

"Concha took her first vows in April, soon after the Bishop's arrival,choosing the name Sister María, Dominica. On the 13th of April 1852 shetook the black veil and perpetual vows. Of course the convent had aschool at once. Concha's school had been a convent of a sort and theBishop merely took it over. All the flower of California have beeneducated by Concha Argüello, including Chonita Estenega who is so greata lady in Mexico today. Two years later we came here, and here we shallstay, no doubt. I think Concha loved Benicia better than any part ofCalifornia she had known, for it was still California without toopiercing reminders of the past: life at the other Presidios and Missionswas but the counterpart of our San Francisco, and here the priests andmilitary had never come. In this beautiful wild spot where the elk andthe antelope and the deer run about like rabbits, and you meet a bear ifyou go too far—Holy Mary!—where she went sometimes in a boat among thetules on the river, and where one may believe the moon lives in a silverlake in the old crater of Monte Diablo—Ay, it was different enough andmight bring peace to any heart. What she must have suffered for yearsin those familiar scenes! But she never told. And now she lies hereunder her little cross and he in Krasnoiarsk—under a stone shaped likean altar, they say. Well! who knows? That is all. I go in now; my oldbones ache with the night damp. But my mind is lighter, although never Ishall speak of this again. And do you not think of it any more.Curiosity and the world and such nonsense as love and romance are notfor us. Go to bed at once and tie a stocking round your throat that youhave not a frog in it tomorrow morning when you sing 'Glory be to God onHigh.' Buen Dias!"

THE FORD OFCRÈVECŒUR

BY

MARY AUSTIN

Reprinted from Out West by permission.

ES. I understand; you are M'siu the Notary, M'siu the Sheriff has toldme. You are come to hear how by the help of God I have killed FilonGeraud at the ford of Crèvecœur. By the help of God, yes. Think you ifthe devil had a hand in it, he would not have helped Filon? For he wasthe devil's own, was Filon. He was big, he was beautiful, he had away—but always there was the devil's mark. I see that the first timeever I knew him at Agua Caliente. The devil sit in Filon's eyes andlaugh—laugh—some time he go away like a man at a window, but he comeagain. M'siu, he live there! And Filon, he know that I see, so he makelike he not care; but I think he care a little, else why he make fortorment me all the time? Ever since I see him at that shearing at AguaCaliente eight, ten year gone, he not like for let me be. I have beenthe best shearer in that shed, snip—snip—quick, clean. Ah, it isbeautiful! All the sheepmen like for have me shear their sheep. Filon isnew man at that shearing, Lebecque is just hire him then; but yes,M'siu, to see him walk about that Agua Caliente you think he own allthose sheep, all that range. Ah—he had a way! Pretty soon that dayFilon is hearing all sheepmen say that Raoul is the best shearer; thenhe come lean on the rail by my shed and laugh softly like he talk withhimself, and say, "See the little man; see him shear." But me, I can nomore. The shears turn in my hand so I make my sheep all bleed same likeone butcher. Then I look up and see the devil in Filon Geraud's eye. Itis always so after that, all those years until I kill Filon. If I make alittle game of poker with other shepherds then he walks along and say:

"Ah, you, Raoul, you is one sharp fellow. I not like for play with you."Then is my play all gone bad.

But if Filon play, then he say, "Come, you little man, and bring me thegood luck."

It is so, M'siu! If I go stand by that game, Filon is win, win all thetime. That is because of the devil. And if there are women—no, M'siu,there was never one woman. What would a shepherd, whose work is alwaystoward the hills, do with a woman? Is it to plant a vineyard that othersmay drink wine? Ah, non! But me, at shearings and at Tres Piños where wepay the tax, there I like to talk to pretty girl same as othershepherds, then Filon come make like he one gran' friend. All the timehe make say the compliments, he make me one mock. His eyes they laughalways, that make women like to do what he say. But me, I have nochance.

It is so, M'siu, when I go out with my sheep. This is my trail—I go outafter the shearing through the Cañada de las Viñas, then across theLittle Antelope, while the grass is quick. After that I go up toward thehills of Olancho, where I keep one month; there is much good feed andno man comes. Also then I wait at Tres Piños for the sheriff that I paythe tax. Sacre! it is a hard one, that tax! After that I am free ofthe Sierras, what you call Nieve—snowy. Well I know that country. Igo about with my sheep and seek my meadows—mine, M'siu, that I haveclimbed the great mountains to spy out among the pines, that I havefound by the grace of God, and my own wit: La Crevasse, Moultrie,Bighorn, Angostura. Also, I go by other meadows where other shepherdsfeed one month with another; but these these are all mine. I goabout and come again when the feed is grown.

M'siu, it is hard to believe, but it is so—Filon finds my meadows oneby one. One year I come by La Crevasse—there is nothing there; I go onto Moultrie—here is the grass eaten to the roots, and the little pineshave no tops; at Bighorn is the fresh litter of a flock. I think maybemy sheep go hungry that summer. So I come to Angostura. There is Filon.He laugh. Then it come into my mind that one day I goin' kill that FilonGeraud. By the help of God. Yes. For he is big that Filon, he is strong;and me, M'siu, I am as God made me.

So always, where I go on the range there is Filon; if I think to changemy trail, he change also his. If I have good luck, Filon has better. Ifto him is the misfortune—ah—you shall hear.

One year Gabriel Lausanne tell me that Filon is lose all his lambs inthe Santa Ana. You know that Santa Ana, M'siu? It is one mighty wind. Itcomes up small, very far away, one little dust like the clouds, creep,creep close by the land. It lies down along the sand; you think it isdone? Eh, it is one liar, that Santa Ana. It rise up again, it is palegold, it seek the sky. That sky is all wide, clean, no speck. Ah, itknows, that sky; it will have nothing lying about when the Santa Anacomes. It is hot then, you have the smell of the earth in your nostrils.That, M'siu, is the Santa Ana. It is pale dust and the great push ofthe wind. The sand bites, there is no seeing the flock's length. Theyhuddle, and the lambs are smothered; they scatter, and the dogs cannothing make. If it blow one day, you thank God; if it blow two days,then is sheepman goin' to lose his sheep. When Gabriel tell me thatabout Filon, I think he deserve all that. What you think, M'siu? Thatsame night the water of Tinpah rise in his banks afar off by the hillswhere there is rain. It comes roaring down the wash where I make mycamp, for you understand at that time of year there should be no waterin the wash of Tinpah, but it come in the night and carry away one-halfof my sheep. Eh, how you make that, M'siu; is it the devil or no?

Well, it go like this eight, ten year; then it come last summer, and Imeet Filon at the ford of Crèvecœur. That is the water that comes downeastward from Mineral Mountain between Olancho and Sentinel Rock. It iswhat you call Mineral Creek, but the French shepherds call itCrèvecœur. For why; it is a most swift and wide water; it goes darklybetween earthy banks upon which it gnaws. It has hot springs which comeup in it without reason, so that there is no safe crossing at any time.Its sands are quick; what they take, they take wholly with the life init, and after a little they spew it out again. And, look you, it makesno singing, this water of Crèvecœur. Twenty years have I kept sheepbetween Red Butte and the Temblor Hills, and I say this. Make no fear ofsinging water, for it goes not too deeply but securely on a rockybottom; such a one you may trust. But this silent one, that is hot orcold, deep or shallow, and has never its banks the same one season withanother, this you may not trust, M'siu. And to get sheep acrossit—ah—it breaks the heart, this Crèvecœur.

Nevertheless, there is one place where a great rock runs slantwise ofthe stream, but under it, so that the water goes shallowly with awhisper, ah, so fast, and below it is a pool. Here on the rocks theshepherds make pine logs to lie with stones so that the sheep crossover. Every year the water carries the logs away and the shepherds buildagain, and there is no shepherd goes by that water but lose some sheep.Therefore, they call it the ford of Crèvecœur [Break-heart].

Well, I have been about by the meadow of Angostura when it come lastJuly, and there I see Narcisse Duplin. He is tell me the feed is goodabout Sentinel Rock, so I think me to go back by the way of Crèvecœur.There is pine wood all about eastward from that place. It is all shadowthere at midday and has a weary sound. Me, I like it not, that pinewood, so I push the flock and am very glad when I hear toward the fordthe bark of dogs and the broken sound of bells. I think there is othershepherd that make talk with me. But me, M'siu, sacre! damn! when Icome out by the ford there is Filon Geraud. He has come up one sideCrèvecœur, with his flock, as I have come up the other. He laugh.

"Hillo, Raoul," say Filon, "will you cross?"

"I will cross," say I.

"After me," say Filon.

"Before," say I.

M'siu does not know about sheep? Ah, non. It is so that the sheep ismost scare of all beasts about water. Never so little a stream will hecross, but if the dogs compel him. It is the great trouble of shepherdsto get the flock across the waters that go in and about the Sierras. Forthat it is the custom to have two, three goats with the flocks to gofirst across the water, then they will follow. But here at Crèvecœur itis bad crossing any way you go; also that day it is already afternoon.Therefore I stand at one side that ford and make talk with Filon at theother about who goes first. Then my goat which leads my flock come pushby me and I stand on that log while we talk. He is one smart goat.

"Eh, Raoul, let the goats decide," cries Filon, and to that I haveagree. Filon push his goat on the log, he is one great black one that iscall Diable—I ask you is that a name for a goat? I have call mine Noé.So they two walk on that log very still; for they see what they have todo. Then they push with the head, Diable and Noé, till that log it rockin the water; Filon is cry to his goat and I to mine. Then because ofthat water one goat slip on the log, and the other is push so hard thathe cannot stop; over they go into the pool of swift water, over and overuntil they come to the shallows; then they find their feet and come up,each on his own side. They will not care to push with the heads again atthat time. Filon he walk out on the log to me, and I walk to him.

"My goat have won the ford," says he.

"Your goat cannot keep what he wins."

"But I can," say Filon. Then he look at me with his eyes like—like Ihave told you, M'siu.

"Raoul," he say, "you is one little man."

With that I remember me all the wrong I have had from this one.

"Go you after your goat, Filon Geraud," say I.

With that I put my staff behind his foot, so, M'siu, and send him intothe water, splash! He come to his feet presently in the pool with thewater all in his hair and his eyes, and the stream run strong and darkagainst his middle.

"Hey, you, Raoul, what for you do that?" he say, but also he laugh. "Ah,ha, little man, you have the joke this time."

M'siu, that laugh stop on his face like it been freeze, his mouth isopen, his eyes curl up. It is terrible, that dead laugh in the midst ofthe black water that run down from his hair.

"Raoul," he say, "the sand is quick!"

Then he take one step, and I hear the sand suck. I see Filon shiver likea reed in the swift water.

"My God," he say, "the sand is quick!"

M'siu, I do not know how it is with me. When I throw Filon in the pool,I have not known it is quick-sand; but when I hear that, I think I amglad. I kneel down by that log in the ford and watch Filon. He speak tome very quiet:

"You must get a rope and make fast to that pine and throw the end to me.There is a rope in my pack."

"Yes," say I, "there is a rope."

So I take my flocks across the ford, since Filon is in the water, andtake all those silly ones toward La Crevasse, and after I think aboutthat business. Three days after, I meet P'tee Pete. I tell him I findthe sheep of Filon in the pine wood below Sentinel Rock. Pete, he saythat therefore Filon is come to some hurt, and that he look for him.That make me scare lest he should look by the ford of Crèvecœur. Soafter that, five or six days, when Narcisse Duplin is come up with me, Itell him Filon is gone to Sacramento where his money is; therefore Ikeep care of his sheep. That is a better tale—eh, M'siu,—for I have tosay something. Every shepherd in that range is know those sheep ofFilon. All this time I think me to take the sheep to Pierre Jullien inthe meadow of Black Mountain. He is not much, that Pierre. If I tell himit is one gift from Le bon Dieu, that is explain enough for PierreJullien. Then I will be quit of the trouble of Filon Geraud.

So, M'siu, would it have been, but for that dog Helène. That is Filon'sshe-dog that he raise from a pup. She is—she is une femme, that dog!All that first night when we come away from the ford, she cry, cry inher throat all through the dark, and in the light she look at me withher eyes, so to say:

"I know, Raoul! I know what is under the water of Crèvecœur." M'siu, isa man to stand that from a dog? So the next night I beat her, and in themorning she is gone. I think me the good luck to get rid of her. ThatHelène! M'siu, what you think she do? She have gone back to look in thewater for Filon. There she stay, and all sheepmen when they pass thatway see that she is a good sheepdog, and that she is much hungry; sothey wonder that she will not leave off to look and go with them. Afterwhile all people in those parts is been talkin' about that dog ofFilon's that look so keen in the water of Crèvecœur. Mebbe four, fiveweeks after that I have killed Filon, one goes riding by that place andsees Helène make mourn by the waterside over something that stick in thesand. It is Filon. Yes. That quick-sand have spit him out again. So yousay; but me, I think it is the devil.

For the rest the sheriff has told you. Here they have brought me, andthere is much talk. Of that I am weary, but for this I tell you all howit is about Filon; M'siu, I would not hang. Look you, so long as I stayin this life I am quit of that man, but if I die—there is Filon. Sowill he do unto me all that I did at the ford of Crèvecœur, and more;for he is a bad one, Filon. Therefore it is as I tell you, M'siu, I,Raoul. By the help of God. Yes.

A CALIFORNIAN

BY

GERALDINE BONNER

From Harper's Magazine Copyright, 1905, by Harper and Brothers

T WAS nearly ten o'clock when Jack Faraday ascended the steps of MadameDelmonti's bow-windowed mansion and pressed the electric bell. He was alittle out of breath and nervous, for, being young and a stranger to SanFrancisco, and almost a stranger to Madame Delmonti, he did not exactlyknow at what hour his hostess's conversazione might begin, and hadupon him the young man's violent dread of being conspicuously early orconspicuously late.

It did not seem that he was either. As he stood in the doorway andsurveyed the field, he felt, with a little rising breath of relief, thatno one appeared to take especial notice of him. Madame Delmonti's roomswere lit with a great blaze of gas, which, thrown back from many longmirrors and the gold mountings of a quantity of furniture and pictureframes, made an effect of dazzling yellow brightness, as brilliantlyglittering as the transformation scene of a pantomime.

In the middle of the glare Madame Delmonti's company had disposedthemselves in a circle, which had some difficulty in accommodatingitself to the long narrow shape of the drawing-room. Now and then anobstinate sofa or extra large plush-covered arm-chair broke theharmonious curve of the circle, and its occupant looked furtively ill atease, as if she felt the embarrassment of her position in not conformingto the general harmony of the curving line.

The eyes of the circle were fixed on a figure at the piano, near the endof the room—a tall dark Jewess in a brown dress and wide hat, who wassinging with that peculiar vibrant richness of tone that is so oftenheard in the voices of the Californian Jewesses. She was perfectlyself-possessed, and her velvet eyes, as her impassioned voice rose alittle, rested on Jack Faraday with a cheerful but not very livelyinterest. Then they swept past him to where on a sofa, quite out of thecircle, two women sat listening.

One was a young girl, large, well-dressed, and exceedingly handsome; theother a peaked lady, passée and thin, with her hair bleached to a canaryyellow. The Jewess, still singing, smiled at them, and the girl gaveback a lazy smile in return. Then as the song came to a deep and mellowclose, Madame Delmonti, with a delicate rustling of silk brushingagainst silk, swept across the room and greeted her guest.

Madame Delmonti was an American, very rich, a good deal made up, butstill pretty, and extremely well preserved. Signor Delmonti, an Italianbaritone, whom she had married, and supported ever since, was usefulabout the house, as he now proved by standing at a little table andladling punch into small glasses, which were distributed among theguests by the two little Delmonti girls in green silk frocks. MadameDelmonti, with her rouged cheeks and merry grey eyes, as full of sparkleas they had been twenty years ago, was very cordial to her guest, askinghim, as they stood in the doorway, whom he would best like to meet.

"Maud Levy, who has been singing," she said, "is one of the belles inHebrew society. She has a fine voice. You have no objection, Mr.Faraday, to knowing Jews?"

Faraday hastily disclaimed all race prejudices, and she continued,discreetly designating the ladies on the sofa:

"There are two delightful girls. Mrs. Peck, the blonde, is the societywriter for the Morning Trumpet. She is an elegant woman of a very fineSouthern family, but she has had misfortunes. Her marriage was unhappy.She and Peck are separated now, and she supports herself and her twochildren. There was no hope of getting alimony out of that man."

"And that is Genevieve Ryan beside her," Madame Delmonti went on. "Ithink you'd like Genevieve. She's a grand girl. Her father, you know, isBarney Ryan, one of our millionaires. He made his money in a quick turnin Con. Virginia, but before that he used to drive the Marysville coach,and he was once a miner. He's crazy about Genevieve and gives her fivehundred a month to dress on. I'm sure you'll get on very well together.She's such a refined, pleasant girl"——and Madame Delmonti, chatteringher praises of Barney Ryan's handsome daughter, conducted the strangerto the shrine.

Miss. Genevieve smiled upon him, much as she had upon the singer, andbrushing aside her skirts of changeable green and heliotrope silk,showed him a little golden-legged chair beside her. Mrs. Peck and MadameDelmonti conversed with unusual insight and knowledge on the singing ofMaud Levy, and Faraday was left to conduct the conversation with theheiress of Barney Ryan.

She was a large, splendid-looking girl, very much corseted, with anivory-tinted skin, eyes as clear as a young child's and smooth freshlyred lips. She was a good deal powdered on the bridge of her nose, andher rich hair was slightly tinted with some reddish dye. She was apicture of health and material well being. Her perfectly fitting clothessat with wrinkleless exactitude over a figure which in its generousbreadth and finely curved outline might have compared with that of theVenus of Milo. She let her eyes, shadowed slightly by the white laceedge of her large hat, whereon two pink roses trembled on large stalks,dwell upon Faraday with a curious and frank interest entirely devoid ofcoquetry. Her manner, almost boyish in its simple directness, showed thesame absence of this feminine trait. While she looked like a goddessdressed by Worth, she seemed merely a good-natured, phlegmatic girl justemerging from her teens.

Faraday had made the first commonplaces of conversation, when she asked,eyeing him closely, "Do you like it out here?"

"Oh, immensely," he responded, politely. "It's such a fine climate."

"It is a good climate," admitted Miss. Ryan, with unenthusiasticacquiescence; "but we are not so proud of that as we are of the goodlooks of the Californian women. Don't you think the women are handsome?"

Faraday looked into her clear and earnest eyes.

"Oh splendid," he answered, "especially their eyes."

Miss. Ryan appeared to demur to this commendation. "It's generally saidby strangers that their figures are unusually handsome. Do you thinkthey are?"

Faraday agreed to this too.

"The girls in the East," said Miss. Ryan, sitting upright with acreaking sound, and drawing her gloves through one satin-smooth,bejeweled hand, "are very thin, aren't they? Here, I sometimesthink"—she raised her eyes to his in deep and somewhat anxiousquery—"that they are too fat?"

Faraday gallantly scouted the idea. He said the California woman was agoddess. For the first time in the interview Miss. Ryan gave a littlelaugh.

"That's what all you Eastern men say," she said. "They're always tellingme I'm a goddess. Even the Englishmen say that."

"Well," answered Faraday, surprised at his own boldness, "what they sayis true."

Miss. Ryan silently eyed him for a speculating moment; then, avertingher glance, said, pensively: "Perhaps so; but I don't think it's sostylish to be a goddess as it is to be very slim. And then, youknow——" Here she suddenly broke off, her eyes fixed upon the crowd ofladies that blocked an opposite doorway in exeunt. "There's mommer. Iguess she must be going home, and I suppose I'd better go too, and notkeep her waiting."

She rose as she spoke, and with a pat of her hand adjusted herglimmering skirts.

"Oh, Mr. Faraday," she said, as she peered down at them, "I hope you'llgive yourself the pleasure of calling on me. I'm at home almost anyafternoon after five, and Tuesday is my day. Come whenever you please.I'll be real glad to see you, and I guess popper'd like to talk to youabout things in the East. He's been in Massachusetts too."

She held out her large white hand and gave Faraday a vigoroushand-shake.

"I'm glad I came here tonight," she said, smiling. "I wasn't quitedecided, but I thought I'd better, as I had some things to tell Mrs.Peck for next Sunday's Trumpet. If I hadn't come, I wouldn't have metyou. You needn't escort me to Madame Delmonti. I'd rather go by myself.I'm not a bit a ceremonious person. Good-by. Be sure and come and seeme."

She rustled away, exchanged farewells with Madame Delmonti, and, by amovement of her head in his direction, appeared to be speaking ofFaraday; then joining a fur-muffled female figure near the doorway,swept like a princess out of the room.

For a week after Faraday's meeting with Miss. Genevieve Ryan, he had notime to think of giving himself the pleasure of calling upon that fairand flattering young lady. The position which he had come out fromBoston to fill was not an unusually exacting one, but Faraday, who wastroubled with a New England conscience, and a certain slowness inadapting himself to new conditions of life, was too engrossed inmastering the duties of his clerkship to think of loitering about thechariot wheels of beauty.

By the second week, however, he had shaken down into the new rut, and afavorable opportunity presenting itself in a sunny Sunday afternoon, hedonned his black coat and high hat and repaired to the mansion of BarneyRyan, on California Street.

When Faraday approached the house, he felt quite timid, so imposinglydid this great structure loom up from the simpler dwellings whichsurrounded it. Barney Ryan had built himself a palace, and ever sincethe day he had first moved into it he had been anxious to move out. Theladies of his family would not allow this, and so Barney endured hisgrandeur as best he might. It was a great wooden house, with immense baywindows thrown out on every side, and veiled within by long curtains ofheavy lace. The sweep of steps that spread so proudly from the porticowas flanked by two sleeping lions in stone, both appearing, by thesavage expressions which distorted their visages, to be suffering fromterrifying dreams. In the garden the spiked foliage of the dark, slenderdracænas and the fringed fans of giant filamentosas grew luxuriantlywith tropical effect.

The large drawing-room, long, and looking longer with its wide mirrors,was even more golden than Mrs. Delmonti's. There were gold moldingsabout the mirrors and gold mountings to the chairs. In deserts of goldframes appeared small oases of oil-painting. Faraday, hat in hand, stoodsome time in wavering indecision, wondering in which of the brocaded andgilded chairs he would look least like a king in an historical play. Hewas about to decide in favor of a pale blue satin settee, when a rustlebehind him made him turn and behold Miss. Genevieve magnificent in atrailing robe of the faintest rose-pink and pearls, with diamondear-rings in her ears, and the powder that she had hastily rubbed on herface still lying white on her long lashes. She smiled her rare smile asshe greeted him, and sitting down in one of the golden chairs, leanedher head against the back, and said, looking at him from under loweredlids:

"Well, I thought you were never coming!"

Faraday, greatly encouraged by this friendly reception, made hisexcuses, and set the conversation going. After the weather had beenexhausted, the topic of the Californian in his social aspect came up.Faraday, with some timidity, ventured a question on the fashionable lifein San Francisco. A shade passed over Miss. Ryan's open countenance.

"You know, Mr. Faraday," she said, explanatorily, "I'm not exactly insociety."

"No?" murmured Faraday, mightily surprised, and wondering what she wasgoing to say next.

"Not exactly," continued Miss. Ryan, moistening her red under lip in apondering moment—"not exactly in fash'nable society. Of course we haveour friends. But gentlemen from the East that I've met have always beenso surprised when I told them that I didn't go out in the mostfash'nable circles. They always thought any one with money could getright in it here."

"Yes?" said Faraday, whose part of the conversation appeared to bedeteriorating into monosyllables.

"Well, you know, that's not the case at all. With all popper's money,we've never been able to get a real good footing. It seems funny tooutsiders, especially as popper and mommer have never been divorced oranything. We've just lived quietly right here in the city always. But,"she said, looking tentatively at Faraday to see how he was going to takethe statement, "my father's a Northerner. He went back and fought in thewar."

"You must be very proud of that," said Faraday, feeling that he couldnow hazard a remark with safety.

This simple comment, however, appeared to surprise the enigmatic Miss.Ryan.

"Proud of it?" she queried, looking in suspended doubt at Faraday. "Oh,of course I'm proud that he was brave, and didn't run away or getwounded; but if he'd been a Southerner we would have been in societynow." She looked pensively at Faraday. "All the fashionable people areSoutherners, you know. We would have been, too, if we'd have beenSoutherners. It's being Northerners that really has been such adrawback."

"But your sympathies," urged Faraday, "aren't they with the North?"

Miss. Ryan ran the pearl fringe of her tea-gown through her large,handsome hands. "I guess so," she said, indifferently, as if she wasconsidering the subject for the first time; "but you can't expect me tohave any very violent sympathies about a war that was dead and buriedbefore I was born."

"I don't believe you're a genuine Northerner, or Southerner either,"said Faraday, laughing.

"I guess not," said the young lady, with the same placid indifference."An English gentleman whom I knew real well last year said the sympathyof the English was all with the Southerners. He said they were the mostrefined people in this country. He said they were thought a great dealof in England?" She again looked at Faraday with her air of deprecatingquery, as if she half expected him to contradict her.

"Who was this extraordinarily enlightened being?" asked Faraday.

"Mr. Harold Courtney, an elegant Englishman. They said his grandfatherwas a Lord—Lord Hastings—but you never can be sure about those things.I saw quite a good deal of him, and I sort of liked him, but he wasrather quiet. I think if he'd been an American we would have thought himdull. Here they just said it was reserve. We all thought——"

A footstep in the hall outside arrested her recital. The door of theroom was opened, and a handsome bonneted head appeared in the aperture.

"Oh, Gen," said this apparition, hastily—"excuse me; I didn't know youhad your company in there?"

"Come in, mommer," said Miss. Ryan, politely; "I want to make youacquainted with Mr. Faraday. He's the gentleman I met at MadameDelmonti's the other evening."

Mrs. Ryan, accompanied by a rich rustling of silk, pushed open the door,revealing herself to Faraday's admiring eyes as a fine-looking woman,fresh in tint, still young, of a stately figure and imposing presence.She was admirably dressed in a walking costume of dark green, and wore alittle black jet bonnet on her slightly waved bright brown hair. She metthe visitor with an extended hand and a frank smile of open pleasure.

"Genevieve spoke to me of you, Mr. Faraday," she said, settling downinto a chair and removing her gloves. "I'm very glad you managed to getaround here."

Faraday expressed his joy at having been able to accomplish the visit.

"We don't have so many agreeable gentlemen callers," said Mrs. Ryan,"that we can afford to overlook a new one. If you've been in society,you've perhaps noticed, Mr. Faraday, that gentlemen are somewhatscarce."

Faraday said he had not been in society, therefore had not observed thedeficiency. Mrs. Ryan, barely allowing him time to complete hissentence, continued, vivaciously:

"Well, Mr. Faraday, you'll see it later. We entertainers don't know whatwe are going to do for the lack of gentlemen. When we give parties weask the young gentlemen, and they all come; but they won't dance, theywon't talk, they won't do anything but eat and drink and they neverthink of paying their party calls. It's disgraceful, Mr. Faraday," saidMrs. Ryan, smiling brightly—"disgraceful!"

Faraday said he had heard that in the East the hostess made the samecomplaint. Mrs. Ryan, with brilliant fixed eyes, gave him abreathing-space to reply in, and then started off again, with aconfirmatory nod of her head:

"Precisely, Mr. Faraday—just the case here. At Genevieve's débutparty—an elegant affair—Mrs. Peck said she'd never seen a finerentertainment in this city—canvas floors, four musicians, champagneflowing like water. My husband, Mr. Faraday believes in giving the bestat his entertainments; there's not a mean bone in Barney Ryan's body.Why, the men all got into the smoking-room, lit their cigars, and smokedthere, and in the ballroom were the girls sitting around the walls, andnot more than half a dozen partners for them. I tell you, Mr. Ryan wasmad. He just went up there, and told them to get up and dance or get upand go home——he didn't much care which. There's no fooling with Mr.Ryan when he's roused. You remember how mad popper was that night, Gen?"

Miss. Ryan nodded an assent, her eyes full of smiling reminiscence. Shehad listened to her mother's story with unmoved attention and evidentappreciation. "Next time we have a party," she said, looking smilinglyat Faraday, "Mr. Faraday can come and see for himself."

"I guess it'll be a long time before we have another like that," saidMrs. Ryan, somewhat grimly, rising as Faraday rose to take his leave."Not but what," she added, hastily, fearing her remark had seemedungracious, "we'll hope Mr. Faraday will come without waiting forparties."

"But we've had one since then," said Miss. Ryan, as she placed her handin his in the pressure of farewell, "that laid all over that first one."

Having been pressed to call by both mother and daughter, and having toldhimself that Genevieve Ryan was "an interesting study," Faraday, aftersome hesitation, paid a second visit to the Ryan mansion. Upon thisoccasion the Chinese servant, murmuring unintelligibly, showed a rootedaversion to his entering. Faraday, greatly at sea, wondering vaguely ifthe terrible Barney Ryan had issued a mandate to his hireling to refusehim admittance, was about to turn and depart, when the voice of Mrs.Ryan in the hall beyond arrested him. Bidden to open the door, theMongolian reluctantly did so and Faraday was admitted.

"Sing didn't want to let you in," said Mrs. Ryan when they had gainedthe long gold drawing-room, "because Genevieve was out. He never letsany gentlemen in when she's not at home. He thinks I'm too old to havethem come to see me."

Then they sat down, and after a little preliminary chat on the Chinesecharacter and the Californian climate, Mrs. Ryan launched forth into herfavorite theme of discourse.

"Genevieve will be so sorry to miss you," she said; "she's always sotaken by Eastern gentlemen. They admire her, too, immensely. I can'ttell you of the compliments we've heard directly and indirectly thatthey've paid her. Of course I can see that she's an unusuallyfine-looking girl, and very accomplished. Mr. Ryan and I have sparednothing in her education—nothing. At Madame de Vivier's academy foryoung ladies—one of the most select in the State—Madame's husband'sone of the French nobility, and she always had to support him—Genevievetook every extra—music, languages, and drawing. Professor Rodriguez,who taught her the guitar, said that never outside of Spain had he heardsuch a touch. 'Señora,' he says to me—that's his way of expressinghimself, and it sounds real cute the way he says it—'Señora, is therenot some Spanish blood in this child? No one without Spanish bloodcould touch the strings that way.' Afterwards when Demaroni taught herthe mandolin, it was just the same. He could not believe she had not hadteaching before. Then Madame Mezzenott gave her a term's lessons on thebandurria, and she said there never was such talent; she might have madea fortune on the concert stage."

"Yes, undoubtedly," Faraday squeezed in, as Mrs. Ryan drew a breath.

"Indeed, Mr. Faraday, everybody has remarked her talents. It isn't youalone. All the Eastern gentlemen we have met have said that the musicaltalents of the Californian young ladies were astonishing They all agreethat Genevieve's musical genius is remarkable. Everybody declares thatthere is no one—not among the Spaniards themselves—who sings LaPaloma as Gen does. Professor Spighetti instructed her in that. He wasa wonderful teacher. I never saw such a method. But we had to give himup because he fell in love with Gen. That's the worst of it—theteachers are always falling in love with her; and with her prospects andposition we naturally expect something better. Of course it's been veryhard to keep her. I say to Mr. Ryan, as each winter comes to an end,'Well, popper, another season's over and we've still got our Gen.' Wefeel that we can't be selfish and hope to keep her always, and, with somany admirers, we realize that we must soon lose her, and try to getaccustomed to the idea."

"Of course, of course," murmured Faraday, sympathetically, mentallypicturing Mrs. Ryan keeping away the suitors as Rizpah kept the eaglesand vultures off her dead sons.

"There was a Mr. Courtney who was very attentive last year. Hisgrandfather was an English lord. We had to buy a Peerage to find outif he was genuine, and, as he was, we had him quite often to the house.He paid Genevieve a good deal of attention, but toward the end of theseason he said he had to go back to England and see his grandfather—hisfather was dead—and left without saying anything definite. He told methough, that he was coming back. I fully expect he will, though Mr. Ryandoesn't seem to think so. Genevieve felt rather put out about it for atime. She thought he hadn't been upright to see her so constantly andnot say anything definite. But she doesn't understand the subserviencyof Englishmen to their elders. You know, we have none of that in thiscountry. If my son Eddie wanted to marry a typewriter, Mr. Ryan couldnever prevent it. I fully expect to see Mr. Courtney again. I'd like youto meet him, Mr. Faraday. I think you'd agree very well. He's just sucha quiet, reserved young man as you."

When, after this interview, Faraday descended the broad steps betweenthe sleeping lions, he did not feel so good-tempered as he had doneafter his first visit. He recalled to mind having heard that Mrs. Ryan,before her marriage, had been a schoolteacher, and he said to himselfthat if she had no more sense then than she had now, her pupils musthave received a fearful and wonderful education.

At Madame Delmonti's conversazione, given a few evenings later,Faraday again saw Miss. Ryan. On the first of these occasions thisindependent young lady was dressed simply in a high-necked gown and ahat. This evening with her habitual disregard of custom and convention,some whim had caused her to array herself in full gala attire, and,habited in a gorgeous costume of white silk and yellow velvet, with aglimmer of diamonds round the low neck, she was startling in her largemagnificence.

Jack Faraday approached her somewhat awe-stricken, but her gravelyboyish manner immediately put him at his ease. Talking with her overcommonplaces, he wondered what she would say if she knew of her mother'sconversation with him. As if in answer to the unspoken thought, shesuddenly said fixing him with intent eyes:

"Mommer said she told you of Mr. Courtney. Do you think he'll comeback?"

Faraday, his breath taken away by the suddenness of the attack, felt theblood run to his hair, and stammered a reply.

"Well, you know," she said, leaning toward him confidentially, "Idon't. Mommer is possessed with the idea that he will. But neitherpopper nor I think so. I got sort of annoyed with the way heacted—hanging about for a whole winter, and then running away to seehis grandfather, like a little boy ten years old! I like men that aretheir own masters. But I suppose I would have married him. You see, hewould have been a lord when his grandfather died. It was genuine—we sawit in the Peerage."

She looked into Faraday's eyes. Her own were as clear and deep asmountain springs. Was Miss. Genevieve Ryan the most absolutely honestand outspoken young woman that had ever lived, or was she some subtleand unusual form of Pacific Slope coquette?

"Popper was quite mad about it," she continued. "He thought Mr. Courtneywas an ordinary sort of person, anyway. I didn't. I just thought himdull, and I suppose he couldn't help that. Mommer wanted to go over toEngland last summer. She thought we might stumble on him over there. Butpopper wouldn't let her do it. He sent us to Alaska instead." Shepaused, and gave a smiling bow to an acquaintance. "Doesn't Mrs. Pecklook sweet tonight?" She designated the society editress of the MorningTrumpet, whose fragile figure was encased in a pale blue Empirecostume. "And that lady over by the door, with the gold crown in herhair, the stout one in red, is Mrs. Wheatley, a professional Delsarteteacher. She's a great friend of mine and gives me Delsarte twice aweek."

And Miss. Genevieve Ryan nodded to the dispenser of "Delsarte," a largeand florid woman, who, taking her stand under a spreading palm tree,began to declaim "The Portrait" of Owen Meredith, and in the recital ofthe dead lady's iniquitous conduct the conversation was brought to aclose.

From its auspicious opening, Faraday's acquaintance with the Ryansripened and developed with a speed which characterizes the growth offriendship and of fruit in the genial Californian atmosphere. Almostbefore he felt that he had emerged from the position of a stranger hehad slipped into that of an intimate. He fell into the habit of visitingthe Ryan mansion on California Street on Sunday afternoons. It became acustom for him to dine there en famille at least once a week. Thesimplicity and light-hearted good-nature of these open-handed andkindly people touched and charmed him. There was not a trace of the snobin Faraday. He accepted the lavish and careless hospitality of BarneyRyan's "palatial residence," as the newspapers delighted to call it,with a spirit as frankly pleased as that in which it was offered.

He came of an older civilization than that which had given Barney Ryan'sdaughter her frankness and her force, and it did not cross his mind thatthe heiress of millions might cast tender eyes upon the penniless sonsof New England farmers. He said to himself with impatient recklessnessthat he ought not to and would not fall in love with her. There was toogreat a distance between them. It would be King Cophetua and thebeggar-maid reversed. Clerks at one hundred and fifty dollars a monthwere not supposed to aspire to only daughters of bonanza kings in thecircle from which Faraday had come. So he visited the Ryans, assuringhimself that he was a friend of the family, who would dance at MissGenevieve's wedding with the lightest of hearts.

The Chinese butler had grown familiar with Faraday's attractivecountenance and his unabbreviated English, when late one warm and sunnyafternoon the young man pulled the bell of the great oaken door of theRyans' lion-guarded home. In answer to his queries for the ladies, helearned that they were out; but the Mongolian functionary, aftersurveying him charily through the crack of the door, admitted that Mr.Ryan was within, and conducted the visitor into his presence.

Barney Ryan, suffering from a slight sprain in his ankle, sat at ease ina little sitting-room in the back of the house. Mr. Ryan, beingirritable and in some pain, the women-folk had relaxed the severity oftheir dominion, and allowed him to sit unchecked in his favorite costumefor the home circle—shirt sleeves and a tall beaver hat. Beside him onthe table stood bare and undecorated array of bottles, a glass, and asilver water-pitcher.

Mr. Ryan was now some years beyond sixty, but had that tremendous vigorof frame and constitution that distinguished the pioneers—an attributestrangely lacking in their puny and degenerate sons. This short andchunky old man, with his round, thick head, bristling hair and beard,and huge red neck, had still a fiber as tough as oak. He looked coarse,uncouth, and stupid, but in his small gray eyes shone the alert andunconquerable spirit which marked the pioneers as the giants of theWest, and which had carried him forward over every obstacle to thesummit of his ambitions. Barney Ryan was restless in his confinement;for, despite his age and the completeness of his success, his life wasstill with the world of men where the bull-necked old miner was a king.At home the women rather domineered over him, and unconsciously made himfeel his social deficiencies. At home, too, the sorrow and the pride ofhis life were always before him—his son, a weak and dissipated boy; andhis daughter, who had inherited his vigor and his spirit with a beautythat had descended to her from some forgotten peasant girl of the Irishbogs.

Faraday, with his power of listening interminably, and his intelligentcomments, was a favorite of old Ryan's. He greeted him with a growlingwelcome; and then, civilities being interchanged, called to theChinaman for another glass. This menial, rubbing off the long mirrorsthat decorated the walls, would not obey the mandate till it had beenroared at him by the wounded lion in a tone which made the chandelierrattle.

"I never can make those infernal idiots understand me," said old Ryan,plaintively. "They won't do a thing I tell them. It takes the old ladyto manage 'em. She makes them skip."

Then after some minutes of discourse on more or less uninterestingmatters, the weary old man, glad of a listener, launched forth intodomestic topics.

"Gen and the old lady are out buying new togs. I got a letter herethat'll astonish them when they get back. It's from that English cuss,Courtney. D'ye ever hear about him? He was hanging about Genevieve alllast winter. And this letter says he's coming back, that hisgrandfather's dead, and he's a lord now, and he's coming back. Do youmind that now, Faraday?" he said, looking with eyes full of humor at theyoung man.

Faraday expressed a sharp surprise.

"You know, Jack," continued the old man, "we're trained up to havingthese high-priced Englishmen come out here and eat our dinners, andsleep in our spare rooms, and drink our wines and go home, and when theymeet us there forget they've ever seen us before; but we ain't trainedup to havin' 'em come back this way, and it's hard to get accustomed toit."

"It's not surprising," said Faraday, coldly.

"I'm not so dead sure of that. But I can tell you the old lady'll bewild about this."

"Does Mrs. Ryan like him so much?" said the visitor, still coldly.

"All women like a lord, and Mrs. Ryan ain't different from the rest ofher sex. She's dead stuck on Gen marrying him. I'm not myself, Jack. I'mno Anglomaniac; an American's good enough for me. I'm not spoiling tosee my money going to patch up the roof of the ancestral castle of theCourtneys, or pay their ancestral debts—not by a long chalk."

"Do you think he's coming back to borrow money from you to pay off theancestral debts?" asked Faraday.

"Not to borrow, Jack. Oh no, not to borrow—to get it for keeps—it, andGenevieve with it. And I don't just see how I'm to prevent it. Gen don'tseem to care much, but the old lady's got it on her mind that she'd liketo have a lord in the family, no matter how high they come; and she canwork on Gen. Last summer she wanted to go after him—wanted to track himto his lair; but I thought she might's well stop there, and put m' footdown. Gen don't seem to care about him one way or the other, but then'Lady Genevieve' sounds pretty nice——"

Here a rustle of millinery, approaching through the drawing-room beyond,cut short old Ryan's confidences. Faraday stood up to receive theladies, who entered jubilant and unwearied from an afternoon's shopping.Genevieve, a magnificent princess, with the air of fashion given byperfectly setting clothes, much brown fur and velvet, a touch of yellowlace, and a quantity of fresh violets pinned to her corsage, looked asif she would make a very fine Lady Genevieve.

As soon as she heard the news she demanded the letter, and perused itintently, Faraday covertly watching her. Raising her eyes, she met hisand said, with a little mocking air, "Well, Mr. Faraday, and what do youthink of that?"

"That your mother seems to have been right," said Faraday, steadilyeyeing her. An expression of chagrin and disappointment, rapid butunmistakable, crossed her face, dimming its radiance like a breath on amirror. She gave a little toss to her head, and turning away toward anadjacent looking-glass, took off her veil and settled her hat.

Mrs. Ryan watched her with glowing pride already seeing her in fancy amember of the British aristocracy; but old Ryan looked rather downcast,as he generally did when confronted by the triumphant gorgeousness ofthe feminine members of his household. Faraday, too, experienced asudden depression of spirits so violent and so uncalled for that if hehad had room for any other feeling he would have been intenselysurprised. Barney Ryan, at the prospect of having to repair the breachesin the Courtney exchequer and ancestral roof-tree, may have experienceda pardonable dejection. But why should Faraday, who assured himself adozen times a day that he merely admired Miss. Genevieve, as any manmight admire a charming and handsome girl, feel so desperate adespondency?

To prove to himself that his gloom did not rise from the cause that heknew it did rise from, Faraday continued to be a constant guest at theRyan mansion, continued to see Miss. Genevieve at Madame Delmonti's andat the other small social gatherings, where the presentable young NewEnglander found himself quite a lion. When Mrs. Ryan saw him alone sheflattered his superior intelligence and experience of the world byasking his opinion of the approaching Lord Hastings's matrimonial plans.This frank and outspoken lady was on the thorns of uncertainty, LordHastings's flight on his former visit having shaken her faith in him.Quite unconsciously she impressed upon Faraday how completely both sheand Genevieve had come to trust him as a tried friend.

With the exaltation of a knight of old, Faraday felt that their trustwould never be misplaced. He answered Mrs. Ryan's anxious queries withall the honesty of the calmest friendship. Alone in the great golddrawing-room, he talked to Genevieve on books, on music, on fashion, onsociety—on all subjects but that of love. And all the while he feltlike the nightingale who sings its sweetest music while pressing itsbreast against a thorn.

Lord Hastings seemed to have lost no time in repairing to the side ofthe fair lady who was supposed to be the object of his fondestdevotions, and whom destiny appeared to have selected as the renovatorof Courtney Manor. Four weeks from the day Faraday had heard of hisintended visit, the Bostonian received a letter from Mrs. Ryan biddinghim to dinner to meet the illustrious guest. It seemed to Faraday thatto go to see the newcomer in converse with Genevieve, beautiful in hercostliest robes, to view the approving smiles of Mrs. Ryan, and perhapsthe happy blushes of Miss. Ryan, was the manly upright course for onewho could never be more than the avowed friend and silent worshipper ofBarney Ryan's only daughter.

Arriving ten minutes late, he found the party already at the table. Itwas an inflexible rule of Barney Ryan's to sit down to dinner at thestroke of half-past six, whether his guests were assembled or not—arule which even his wife's cajoleries and commands were powerless tocombat.

Tonight the iron old man might well regard with pride the luxury andsplendor that crowned a turbulent career begun in nipping poverty. Theround table, glowing beneath the lights of the long crystal chandeliers,sparkled with cut-glass, and shone with antique silverware, while in thecenter a mass of pale purple orchids spread their fragile crêpe-likepetals from a fringe of fern. Opposite him, still unfaded, superblydressed, and admirably self-possessed, was his smiling consort, towardwhom, whatever his pride in her might have been, his feelings thisevening were somewhat hostile, as the ambitious and determined lady hadforced him to don regulation evening dress, arrayed in which Barney'speace of mind and body both fled.

On either side of the table sat his son and daughter, the latterhandsomer than Faraday had ever seen her, her heavy dress ofivory-tinted silk no whiter than her neck, a diamond aigret tremblinglike spray in her hair. Her brother Eddie, a year and a half her senior,looked as if none of the blood of this vigorous strong-thewed, sturdystock could run in his veins. He was a pale and sickly looking lad, witha weak, vulgar face, thin hair and red eyelids. Faraday had only seenhim once or twice before, and judged from remarks made to him byacquaintances of the family that Eddie did not often honor the parentalroof with his presence. Eddie's irregular career appeared to be the onesubject on which the family maintained an immovable and melancholyreserve. The disappointment in his only son was the bitter drop inBarney Ryan's cup.

There were other guests at the table. Faraday received a coy bow fromMrs. Peck, who had given her hair an extra bleaching for this occasion,till her pinched and powdered little face looked out from under anorange-colored thatch; Mrs. Wheatley was there too, with a suggestion oflarge white shoulders shining through veilings of black gauze; and withan air of stately pride, Mrs. Ryan presented him to Lord Hastings. Thisyoung man, sitting next Genevieve, was a tall, fair, straight-featuredEnglishman of gravely unresponsive manners. In the severe perfection ofhis immaculate evening dress he looked a handsome, well-bred youngfellow of twenty-five or six.

As the late guest dropped into his seat, the interrupted conversationregathered and flowed again. Barney Ryan said nothing. He never spokewhile eating, and rarely talked when women were present. Genevieve toowas quiet, responding with a gently absent smile, when her cavalier,turning upon her his cold and expressionless steely-blue eyes, addressedto her some short regulation remark on the weather, or the boredom ofhis journey across the plains. The phlegmatic calm of his demeanorremained intact even under the coquettish onslaughts of Mrs. Peck andMrs. Wheatley, who extracted from him with wheedling perseverance hisopinions on the State, the climate, and the country. Lord Hastingsreplied with iron-bound and unsmiling brevity, his wide cold glanceresting with motionless attention upon the painted physiognomy of Mrs.Peck and the broad and buxom one of Mrs. Wheatley, and his head turningwith dignified difficulty in his exceedingly high and tight collar, asone and the other assailed him with queries. Meanwhile the object of hisjourney, slowly moving her great fan of white ostrich feathers, lookedacross the table at Faraday and made a little surreptitious moue.

The conversation soon became absorbed by the two married ladies,Faraday, and Lord Hastings. Only the Ryans were silent, Genevieve nowand then throwing a lazy sentence into the vortex of talk, and Mrs. Ryanbeing occupied in lending a proud ear to the coruscations of wit thatsparkled around the board, or in making covert gestures to thesoft-footed Mongols, who moved with deft noiselessness about the table.Eddie Ryan, like his father, rarely spoke in society. In the glare ofthe chandelier he sat like a strange uncomfortable guest, taking nonotice of any one. Toward the end of the feast he conversed in urgentwhispers with his mother—a conversation which ended in hersurreptitiously giving him her keys under the edge of the table. Beforecoffee, Eddie left, on the plea of an important engagement, retiringthrough the drawing-room, softly jingling the keys.

After this dinner, when Lord Hastings's presence had banished all hisdoubts, when the young Englishman's attractive appearance had impresseditself upon his jealous eye, and Genevieve's gentle indifference hadseemed to him but a modest form of encouragement. Faraday found butlittle time to pay visits to the hospitable home of Barney Ryan.

The family friend that they had all so warmly welcomed and taken totheir hearts withdrew himself quietly but firmly from their cheerfulcircle. When, at rare intervals, he did drop in upon them, he pleadedimportant business engagements as the reason of his inability to accepttheir numerous invitations to dinners and theater parties. After thesem*ndacious statements he would wend a gloomy way homeward to his PineStreet boarding-house, and there spend the evening pretending to read,and cursing the fate which had ever brought him within the light ofGenevieve's beaux yeux. The fable of being the family friend was quiteshattered. Faraday had capitulated.

Nearly two months after the dinner, when rumors of Genevieve Ryan'sengagement to Lord Hastings were in lively circulation, Faraday calledat the lion-guarded mansion on California Street, and, in answering tohis regulation request for the ladies, received the usual unintelligibleChinese rejoinder, and was shown into the gold drawing-room. There,standing in front of a long mirror, looking at her skirts with an eye ofpondering criticism, was Miss Genevieve, dressed to go out. She caughtsight of him in the glass, turned abruptly, and came forward, a color inher face.

"Is that you?" she said, holding out her hand. "I am so glad. I thoughtit was somebody else." Having thus, with her customary candor,signified to Faraday that she was expecting Lord Hastings, she sat downfacing him, and said, abruptly, "Why haven't you been here for so long?"

Faraday made the usual excuses, and did quail before her cold and steadyeyes.

"That's rather funny," she said, as he concluded "for now you're used toyour new position, and it must go more easily, and yet you have lesstime to see your friends than you did at first."

Faraday made more excuses, and wondered that she should take a cruelpleasure in such small teasing.

"I thought p'r'aps," she said, still regarding him with an unflinchingscrutiny, her face grave and almost hard, "that you'd begun to find ustoo Western, that the novelty had worn off, that our ways weretoo—too—what shall I say?—too wild and woolly."

A flush of anger ran over Faraday's face. "Your suppositions wereneither just nor true," he said, coldly.

"Oh, I don't know," she continued, with a careless movement of her head,and speaking in the high, indifferent tone that a woman adopts when shewishes to be exasperating; "you needn't get mad. Lots of Eastern peoplefeel that way. They come out here and see us constantly, and makefriends with us, and then go back and laugh at us, and tell theirfriends what barbarians we are. It's customary, and nothing to beashamed of."

"Do you suppose that I am that sort of an Eastern person?" askedFaraday, quietly.

"I don't know," she said, doubtfully. "I didn't think you were at first,but now——"

"But now you do. Why?"

"Because you don't come here any more," she said, with a little air oftriumph. "You're tired of us. The novelty is over and so are thevisits."

Faraday arose, too bitterly annoyed for speech. Genevieve, rising too,and touching her skirts with arranging hand, continued, apparentlyunconscious of the storm she was rousing:

"And yet it seems odd that you should find such a difference. LordHastings, now, who's English, and much more conventional, thinks thepeople here just as refined and particular as any other Americans."

"It's evident," said Faraday, in a voice roughened with anger, "thatLord Hastings's appreciation of the refinement of the Americans is onlyequaled by your admiration for the talents of the English."

"I do like them," said Genevieve, dubiously, shaking her head, as if shewas admitting a not entirely creditable taste, and looking away fromhim.

There was a moment's silence. Faraday fastened his eyes upon her in alook of passionate confession that in its powerful pleading drew her ownback to his.

"You're as honest as you are cruel," he said, almost in a whisper.

She made no reply, but turned her head sharply away, as if in suddenembarrassment. Then, in answer to his conventionally murmured good-byes,she looked back, and he saw her face radiant, alight, with the mostbeautiful smile trembling on the lips. The splendor of this look seemedto him a mute expression of her happiness—of love reciprocated,ambition realized—and in it he read his own doom. He turned blindlyround to pick up his hat; the door behind him was opened, and there,handsome, debonair, fresh as a May morning, stood Lord Hastings, hat inhand.

"I hope you're not vexed, Miss. Ryan," said this young man, "but I'mvery much afraid I'm just a bit late."

After this Faraday thought it quite unnecessary to visit Barney Ryan's"palatial mansion" for some time. Genevieve's engagement would soon beannounced, and then he would have to go and offer his congratulations.As to whether he would dance at her wedding with a light heart—that wasanother matter. He assured himself that she was making a splendid andeminently suitable marriage. With her beauty and money and true simpleheart she would deck the fine position which the Englishman could giveher. He wished her every happiness, but that he should stand by andwatch the progress of the courtship seemed to him an unnecessarytwisting of the knife in the wound. Even the endurance of New Englandhuman nature has its limits, and Faraday could stand no more. So herefused an invitation to a tea from Mrs. Ryan, and one to a dinner andanother to a small musical from Miss. Ryan, and alone in his Pine Streetlodgings, for the first time in his life, read the "social columns" witha throbbing heart.

One Saturday afternoon, two weeks from the day that he had last seenGenevieve, he sat in his room trying to read. He had left the officeearly, and though it was still some hours before dark, a heavyunremitting rain had enveloped the afternoon in a premature twilight.The perpetual run of water from a break in the gutter near his windowsounded drearily through the depressing history of the woes anddisappointments of David Grieve. The gloom of the book and the afternoonwas settling upon Faraday with the creeping stealthiness of a chill,when a knock sounded upon his door, and one of the servants withoutacquainted him with the surprising piece of intelligence that a lady waswaiting to see him in the sitting-room below.

As he entered the room, dim with the heavy somberness of the leadenatmosphere, he saw his visitor standing looking out of the window—atall, broad-shouldered, small-waisted striking figure, with a neat blackturban crowning her closely braided hair. At his step she turned, andrevealed the gravely handsome face of Genevieve Ryan. He made no attemptto take her hand, but murmured a regulation sentence of greeting; then,looking into her eyes, saw for the first time that handsome face markedwith strong emotion. Miss. Ryan was shaken from her phlegmatic calm; herhand trembled on the back of the chair before her; the little knot ofviolets in her dress vibrated to the beating of her heart.

"This is not a very conventional thing to do," she said, with her usualignoring of all preamble, "but I can't help that. I had something totalk to you about, Mr. Faraday, and as you would not come to see me, Ihad to come to see you."

"What is it that you wanted to see me about?" asked Faraday, standingmotionless, and feeling in the sense of oppression and embarrassmentthat seemed to weigh upon them both the premonition of an approachingcrisis.

She made no answer for a moment, but stood looking down, as if in aneffort to choose her words or collect her thoughts, the violets in herdress rising and falling with her quickened breathing.

"It's rather hard to know how to say—anything," she said at length.

"If I can do anything for you," said the young man, "you know it wouldalways be a happiness to me to serve you."

"Oh, it's not a message or a favor," she said, hastily. "I only wantedto say something"—she paused in great embarrassment—"but it's evenmore queer more unusual, than my coming here."

Faraday made no response, and for a space both were silent. Then shesaid, speaking with a peculiar low distinctness:

"The last time I saw you I seemed very disagreeable. I wanted to makesure of something. I wanted to make sure that you were fond of me—tosurprise it out of you. Well—I did it. You are fond of me. I made youshow it to me." She raised her eyes, brilliant and dark, and looked intohis. "If you were to swear to me now that I was wrong I would know youwere not telling the truth," she said, with proud defiance. "You loveme."

"Yes," said Faraday, slowly, "I do. What then?"

"What then?" she repeated. "Why do you go away—go away from me?"

"Because," he answered, "I am too much of a man to live within sight ofthe woman I love and can never hope for."

"Can never hope for?" she exclaimed, aghast. "Are you—are you married?"

The sudden horror on her face was a strange thing for Faraday to see.

"No," he said, "I am not married."

"Then, did she tell you that you never could hope for her?" said Miss.Genevieve Ryan, in a tremulous voice.

"No. It was not necessary. I knew myself."

"You did yourself a wrong, and her too," she broke out, passionately."You should have told her, and given her a chance to say—to say whatshe has a right to say, without making her come to you, with her love inher hand, to offer it to you as if she was afraid you were going tothrow it back in her face. It's bad enough being a woman anyway, but tohave the feelings of a woman, and then have to say a thing likethis—it's—it's—ghastly."

"Genevieve!" breathed Faraday.

"Why don't you understand?" she continued, desperately. "You won't seeit. You make me come here and tell it to you this way. I may be badlymannered and unconventional, but I have feelings and pride like otherwomen. But what else could I do?"

Her voice suddenly broke into soft appeal, and she held out her handstoward him with a gesture as spontaneous in its pleading tenderness asthough made by a child. Faraday was human. He dashed away the chair thatstood between them and clasped the trembling hands in his.

"Why is it," she asked, looking into his face with shining troubledeyes—"why is it you acted this way? Was it Lord Hastings? I refusedhim two weeks ago. I thought I'd marry him once, but that was before Iknew you. Then I waited for you, and you didn't come, and I wrote toyou, and you wouldn't come. And so I had to come and tell you myself,and it's been something dreadful."

Faraday made no response, but feeling the smooth hands curled warminside his, he stood listening to those soft accents that issued withthe sweetness that love alone lends to women's voices from lips he hadthought as far beyond his reach as the key of the rainbow.

"Do you think it was awful for me to do it?" she queried, in whisperinganxiety.

He shook his head.

"Well," she said, laughing a little and turning her head half away, asher former embarrassment began to reassert itself over her subsidingnervousness, "I've often wished I was a man, but if it's always as awfulas that to propose to a person, I'm quite content to be a woman."

GIDEON'S KNOCK

BY

MARY HALLECK FOOTE

Written for The Spinners' Book of Fiction

All Rights Reserved

Y A curious coincidence, whenever George Fleming was translated to awider berth, it was my luck to succeed him in the job he had justquitted. This had happened more than once, in the chances and changesthat befall the younger men in the mining profession, before we began tojolly each other about it—always at long range.

When I heard he had resigned from the Consolidated Resumption, toeverybody's surprise, at a time of great prosperity to the mine, Ihailed my chance and congratulated myself that I should speedily beasked to fill his place: and I was!

I wrote him on the spot a playful letter, alluding to my long, sternchase and begging him to hold on this time till I could shake him by thehand; I had come to have a personal sentiment toward him apart from thenatural desire to meet face to face the author of my continuedadvancement. But to this letter I received no word of reply.

His silence haunted me, rather—I thought about him a good deal while Iwas closing up my affairs in other directions before taking over theConsolidated Resumption. Meanwhile the company's cashier, Joshua Dean,a man of trust but small initiative, was filling the interregnum.

I found him living alone in the manager's house with the Flemings'Chinese cook as man of all work. The Resumption has never tolerated aboarding-house or a village or compound within sight of its officialwindows. Its first manager was a son of the chief owner, who built hishouse in the style of a gentleman's country-seat, small but exclusiveand quite apart from the work. I liked the somber seclusion of theplace, planted deep with trees of about twenty years' growth, showingtheir delicate, changing greens against the darker belt of pines. Butit* aspect increased, if anything, that uneasy sensation, like a coldwind in my back, which I still had in thinking of Fleming.

I had driven out to dine with Dean on the evening of my arrival. It wasthe last week in January; there had been much rain already for thefoot-hills. Wet sprays from the untrimmed rose hedges disputed mypassage through the inner gate. Discolored pine-needles lay in soddendrifts on the neglected grass. The hydrant leaked frozen puddles downthe brick-paved walk. Mounting the veranda steps I laid my hand on theknocker, when an old Chinese servant popped his head out at a side-doorand violently beckoned me in that way.

Dean, as I knew, had made his home with the Flemings for some timebefore their departure. After a few talks with him and a survey of thehouse I decided we might venture to continue the arrangement withoutgetting in each other's way. It was a house peculiarly adapted to asolitude à deux. There was no telephone nearer than the office. Iargued that Fleming was a man who could protect himself from frivolousintrusions, and his wife could have had but little in common with herneighbors in the village.

He had resigned on account of her health, I was told. It must have beena hasty flitting or an inconclusive one. The odd, attractive rooms werefull of their belongings still. We two casual bachelors with ourcirc*mspect habits could make no impression on the all but speakingsilence of those empty rooms. They filled me at times with a curiousemotion of sadness and unrest.

Joshua seldom talked of the Flemings, though I knew he received lettersfrom them. That he was deeply attached to their memory, hoarded it andbrooded over it, I could not doubt. I even suspected some jealoussentiment on his part which made it hard for him to see me using theirchairs, planting myself amongst their cushions and investigating theirbook-shelves. I thought it strange they had left so many things behindthem of a personal nature. They seemed to have ceased to care for whatmost of us rolling stones are wont to cling to. Their departure hadsomething unspeakable in it—akin to sudden death, or a sickness of theheart that made life indifferent to them.

"They must have loved this room!" I said to him one evening. It wasduring the black rains of February—Dean and I with our chairs to thefire, waiting for the Eastern mail. The night watchman's orders were tostop for it if the trains were anywhere near on time. At this stormseason the Westbound was frequently behind and the road to town aquagmire. We never looked for Fahey—he was the man I found there asnight watchman—before eight o'clock. It had rained and snowed off andon since the month began. In the dark, low rooms the fire burned allday. The dining-room, which had blue-green walls in imitation of Flemishtapestry and weathered-oak furniture, was darkened still more by thepines that gave a cloistered look to the view from our back windows intoa small, square court, high-walled and spread with pine-needles. Therooms we used were two small ones united, done in white and yellow andwith slim curtains which we could crush back upon the rods; but eventhere one could not see to read by daylight. This continuous, arcticgloom added, no doubt, to the melancholy spell of the house, whichnevertheless charmed me, and held me almost with a sense of impalpablepresences sharing with Joshua and me our intimate, wistful seclusion. IfI was happy, in a luxuriously mournful sort of way, I knew that he wasnot—that he grieved persistently over something that cast a greynessover his thoughts in keeping with the atmosphere. I knew that he knewwithout any names whom I meant whenever I spoke of they.

"Yes, they loved it," he said, answering my exclamation. "They made it,somehow, as character is said to shape its own set of features."

"Had they lived here long?"

"For a mine house, yes. It was, of course, a home. They had no other."

"A happy one?" I ventured.

"Can any one be called happy who has the gift of strong feeling, andtwo children at stake, in this world?" I had never heard him speak withsuch bitterness.

"But to have any one to feel for—that is life," I said. "I wish I hadmore of it myself."

"Life, then, is not happiness."

I left him the last word, and sitting so, both silent, we heard ascreen-door at the kitchen-end blow to with a bang and a clatter oftinware that sent the blood to my face in wrath. I said something—aboutJim and his fly-doors (Jim believed that flies or their ghosts besiegedthat house all winter)—when the old heathen himself came boiling intothe room like a whole United States mail service delayed.

"Hoo! Heap bad ou'si'! Heap snow!" he panted, wiping drops from the lockof the mail-pouch with his apron.

My wrath increased, because once more Fahey had got past the front doorwith the mail, whereas each night I had promised myself to waylay himand change his roundabout method of delivery. "If I live till tomorrow,"I said crossly, "I'll see if he can't climb those steps and hand us thebag himself."

Jim stood listening. "We might be at dinner," Joshua suggested.

"What's the matter with knocking?—what is the knocker for?" It struckme, as I spoke, that I had not heard the sound of the knocker since theday Jim stayed my own hand and shunted me in at the side; it seemed hemust have practised the same vigilance with subsequent comers, for Icould not recall one person who had entered the house announced by thebrass lion's head on the door.

"He no lock!" Jim planted himself in front of me; his voice quaverednervously. "All time I un-lock! Fi' 'tlock whistle blow—I go quick!Nobody wait. I all time run."

"Why should you run? What is the knocker for?" I repeated. At this Istepped past him startling him somewhat, and hurled open the front door.I had heard our coy watchman going down the path.

"Tomorrow night, Fahey," I shouted, "you bring the bag in this way.Knock, man! There's the knocker—see?"

Jim looked at me with eyes aghast. He gathered himself for speech,breathing deeply.

"Mis' Oth' (my name is Othet), I tell you: Long time-long time, no manknock flon' do'. In this house, no good. No good knock. Sometimesome-come-you no man see!" He lowered his voice to a rapid whisper,spreading his yellow palms tremulously. "You tell man come knock flon'do'—I go 'way. Too much bad thing!"

Muttering to himself he retreated. "Now what has he got on his mind doyou suppose? Could you make out what he was driving at?"

Dean smiled, a non-committal smile. "It would be rather awkward for us,wouldn't it, if Jim should leave? We are too far from the coast for cityservants in winter. I doubt if any of the natives could be persuaded tostay in this house alone."

"You think Jim would leave if I made Fahey knock at that door everynight?"

Joshua answered me obliquely. "If I could ever quote anything straight,I would remind you of a saying in one of George Eliot's novels that'we've all got to take a little trouble to keep sane and call things bythe same names as other people.' Perhaps Jim doesn't take quite troubleenough. I have difficulty sometimes myself to find names for things. Ishould like to hear you classify a certain occurrence I have in mind,not unconnected, I think, with Jim's behavior tonight. I've neverdiscussed it, of course. In fact, I've never spoken of it before." Hesmiled queerly. "It's very astonishing how they know things."

"The menials?"

He nodded. "Jim was in the house at the time. No one knows that he heardit,—no one ever told him. But he is thinking of it tonight just as Iam. He's never forgotten it for a moment, and never will."

Joshua dragged the charred logs forward and stooped amid their sparks tolay a fresh one with its back to the chimney. Then he rose and lookedout; as he stood in the door, I could hear the hissing of fine snowturning to rain and the drenched bamboo whipping the piazza posts; overall, the larger lament of the pines, and, from the long rows of lightsin the gulch, the diapason of the stamp-heads thundering on through thenight.

"'Identities of sensation,'" said Joshua, quoting again as he shut thedoor, "are strong with persons who live in lonely places! Jim and I havelived here too long."

"Well, I hope you won't live here another moment till you have told methat story," I urged, and we drew again to the fire.

"There was a watchman here before Fahey," he began, "an old plainsman,with a Bible name, Gideon. He looked like the pictures of oldOssawattamie Brown, and he had for the Flemings a most unusual regard.It was as strong as his love for his family. It was because of whatFleming did for his son, young Gid, when they caught him stealingspecimens with a gang of old offenders. Gid was nineteen, and a prettygood boy, we thought. Such things happen between men of the right sortevery day, I suppose,—Fleming would say so. But it was his opportunityto do it for a man who could feel and remember, and he made a friend forlife right there. It is too long a story to tell, but young Gid's allright—working in the city, married and happy,—trusted like any otherman. It wasn't in the blood, you see.

"Before his boy got into trouble, Fleming used to call the old man'Gideon,' talked to him any old way; but after his pride fell down itwas always 'Mr. Gideon,' and a few words when he brought the mail, aboutthe weather or the conduct of the trains. The old man appeared to standtaller in those moments at the door, when he brought to the house thevery food of its existence. They lived upon their letters, for both thechildren were away. The army boy in the Philippines; it was during theMindanao campaign; and Constance (Joshua, I noticed, took a deep breathbefore the name), the daughter, was at school in the East. Gideon couldgauge the spirits of the two, waiting here for what he brought them. Hekept tally of the soldier's letters, the thin blue ones that camestrolling in by the transport lines. But hers—her letters were hispride.

"'It's there all right,' he would say—'she never misses a Monday mail,the little one!' or, as the winter months wore on—'you'll be countingthe weeks now, madam. Six more letters and then the telegram from Ogden,and I hope it's my privilege to bring it, madam.' For as Fleming gavehim his title, the old man passed it back with a glow of emphasis,putting devotion into the 'madam' and life service into the 'Mr.Fleming, sir.'

"Then she came home—Constance—she was no longer the little one. Tallerthan her mother, and rather silent, but her looks were a language, andher motions about the house—I suppose no words could measure theirpride in her, or their shrinking when they thought of her in contactwith the world. People laughed a little, looking at her, when her mothertalked of the years they were going to have together. And she wouldrebuke the laugh and say, 'We do not marry early in my family, nor theFlemings either.' When the August heat came on, they thought she was toopale—they spared her for a visit to some friends who had a houseboatoff Belvedere, or some such place. It was an ambush of fate. She camehome, thin, brown, from living on the water,—happy! too happy forsafety. She brought her fate with her, the last man you'd suppose couldever cross her path. He was from Hawaii, an Englishman—not all English,some of us thought. Handsome as a snake; a face that kept no marks. Eyesall black—nothing of the pupil showing. They say such eyes are not tobe trusted. I never liked him. I'd better not try to describe him.

"It seemed madness to me, but I suppose they were no more helpless thanother fathers and mothers. He had plenty to say for himself, andintroductions—all sorts of credentials, except a pair of eyes. They hadto let it go on; and he took her away from them six months after she sawhim first. That's happiness, if you call it so!"

Again I added, "It is life."

"There was not much left of it in this house after she went," Joshuamused. "It was then they asked me to come up and stay with them. Asilence of three does not press quite so close as a silence of two. Andwe talked sometimes. The mine had taken a great jump; it was almost amockery the way things boomed. The letters, I noticed, were not what theschoolgirl letters had been to her mother. They came all right, theywere punctual, but something I felt sure was wrong. Mrs. Fleming wouldnot have missed a mail for anything in the world—every hour's delaywore upon her. She would play her game of solitaire, long after bedtime,at that desk by the drop-light. It seemed she could not read; nothingheld her. She was irritable with Fleming, and then she would pet himpiteously to make up. He was always gentle. He would watch her over hisbook as she walked up and down in the back room in the light between thedining-room curtains. If he saw I noticed, he'd look away and begin totalk.

"I have gone a little ahead of my story, for this was after the darkweather came on and the mails were behind; we knew there was some newstrain on her spirits. You could see her face grow small and her fleshwaste away.

"One night we sat here, Fleming and I, and she was pacing in her soft,weary way in the back of the room. There came a knock. It was Gideon's,yet none of us heard the gate click nor any step outside. She stoodback, for she never showed any impatience—she tried to pretend that sheexpected nothing. Fleming opened the door; he stood there an instantlooking out.

"'Didn't you hear a knock?' he asked me. Before I could answer he wentoutside, closing the door, and we heard him go down the steps slowly.

"When he came in he merely said, 'A jar of wind.

"'A jar of wind!' Mrs. Fleming mocked him. The knock came again as shespoke. Once, twice, then the light tap: I have described Gideon's knock.We did not pretend again it was the wind.

"'You go this time;' Fleming tried to laugh. 'See if there is anythingdoing.'

"There was nothing doing whatever, and nothing to be seen. I turned onthe electrics outside, and Fleming, seeing the light, came out to joinme. I asked him if those were his tracks—a man's footsteps could beseen printed in the fresh, light snow as far as the lowest step andback. All beyond, where the light streamed down the path to the gate,was sky-fresh snow softly laid without wind. 'Those are my tracks,' hesaid. 'There were no others before—sure,' he repeated, 'and there is noone down at the gate. You need not go down there. Say nothing to her,'he continued as we re-opened the door.

"She was expecting us. She was very pale but half smiling, braving itout. She fixed her eyes on Fleming and then on me. 'Did you not bothhear that knock?' As she spoke it came again. I stood nearest the door;I hurled it open. Absolutely nothing. The lights, burning in a sillyway, made shadows on the steps. Not a mark, not even a leaf-track on thepath we could see below.

"I went over to the telephone and called up the post-office. Whathappened at the house in absence I do not know. I found the drawing-roomempty; Fleming joined me coming from his wife's room.

"'She is fearfully upset by that knocking,' he said. 'Can't we think upsome explanation?'

"I feared he would have less courage for inventing explanations afterwhat I had to tell him.

"I had followed the track of a horse and cart to the stable and foundGideon's old mare at her hitching-post; the cart was empty, the muddylap-robe dragging over the wheel. At the post-office they told me Gideonhad started for the mine an hour and a half ago. 'Hasn't he got outthere with that telegram yet?' they added. From the telegraph office,where they knew Gideon's hours, they had sent a message across to thepost-office to be carried out by him with the mail. The voice on thetelephone remarked, 'I guess they ought to get that wire pretty soon. Itwas marked Important.'

"Fleming was cold and shaking as he listened. 'Drive back along the roadthrough the woods, Joshua'—he seldom called me by that name. 'I thinksomething has happened to the old man. His knock is on duty tonight, butwhere is he?'

"It came again, and following it a low cry from passage behind closeddoors. 'She heard it too,' said Fleming. And he went to his wife.

"I called up the landing-man to help me—Tommy Briscoe; I knew hewouldn't spread any talk about. The search was not long. A lanternburning by itself in the woods showed us where he had stopped the cartand half turned and tramped around in the snow. He'd dropped the bagout, probably, missed it and looked for it on foot, setting his lanterndown. He'd gone back quite a bit along the road, and, coming back withit, the light in his eyes, he had made a misstep, and the shaft—the oldGranite Hill shaft, you know—it's close to the road. We found him inthe sump at the bottom. There had been too much rain, but it is a deepshaft anyway. He kept his hold on the bag, and he kept his senses longenough to hook it onto a poor little stray pine-root above the water,where he died. It was a cruel death, but his face was good to look at."

"And the telegram?" I asked.

"It was safe. He'd saved everything, except himself. They were drivenover to Colfax that night, with not a moment to spare——"

"But you haven't told me what it was."

"The message? Yes, it was from her, Constance—sent from an address inthe city. It said—I suppose I may repeat it. It is part of the night'swork.

"'Come to me, mother,' it said. 'I am here. I need you.'"

"And they were in time?"

"To bid her good-by," said Joshua. "There was no hope for her but indeath. Of course, they never explained. She simply fled from—we don'tknow what. As long as she could she bore it without complaint, and thenshe came home. She had them both with her and she knew them.

"I believe they were willing to give her up. It was the only solutionleft. They were very fixed in their ideas about divorce, and what comesafter. They believed in staking all or nothing and abiding the result.The logic of her choice was death. They saw her free, without a stain,without an obligation in this life even to her child, for it lay deadbeside her. They did grieve for that. They wanted it to live. It wouldhave been something—yet, I believe, even that was best.

"They lived on here for a while, if you call it living; but the silencein these rooms was more than she could endure. And I need not tell youthat the watchman, who was put on after Gideon, had orders to leave thatknocker alone."

"And you think," I asked, "that while Gideon lay dead at the bottom ofthe shaft, his knock was 'marching on'?" I regretted instantly the turnof my last sentence. Joshua stiffened as he replied:

"No; I cannot assert that he was dead, but I am convinced that what wasleft of him, of his mortal—or immortal—consciousness, was notconcerned with himself. What may happen to us at that last boundary postis one of the mysteries no man can solve till he gets there."

"Joshua," I said, "the drift of your conclusion is a tribute to Gideon'sfaithfulness—well deserved I have no doubt. But if you'll allow me tosay so, it is not a tribute to the healthy state of your mind. I regretto say it, but I fear that I agree with you: I think you have lived inthis house too long."

"If I had lived here too long for any other reason," he answered gently,"enough has been said. It is better we should understand each other.But, as to my mind—I prefer to keep it unhealthy, if by that you meanthe tendency to project it a little further than reason, founded on suchlaws of the universe as we know, can help us. Healthy minds are such asaccept things—endeavor to forget what gives immeasurable pain. I preferthe pain."

A YELLOW MAN ANDA WHITE

BY

ELEANOR GATES

Reprinted from Scribner's Magazine of June, 1905 by permission

ONG WU sat on the porch of his little square-fronted house, chantinginto the twilight. Across his padded blouse of purple silk lay hissam-yen banjo. And as, from time to time, his hymn to the Three PureOnes was prolonged in high, fine quavers, like the uneven, squeaky notesof a woman's voice, he ran his left hand up the slender neck of theinstrument, rested a long nail of his right on its taut, snake's-skinhead, and lightly touched the strings; then, in quick, thin tones, theyfollowed the song to Sang-Ching.

The warm shadows of a California summer night were settling down overthe wooded hills and rocky gulches about Fong Wu's, and there was littlebut his music to break the silence. Long since, the chickens hadsleepily sought perches in the hen yard, with its high wall of rootystumps and shakes, and on the branches of the Digger pine that toweredbeside it. Up the dry creek bed, a mile away, twinkled the lights ofWhiskeytown; but no sounds from the homes of the white people came downto the lonely Chinese. If his clear treble was interrupted, it was bythe cracking of a dry branch as a cottontail sped past on its way to astagnant pool, or it was by a dark-emboldened coyote, howling,dog-like, at the moon which, white as the snow that eternally coifs theSierras, was just rising above their distant, cobalt line.

One year before, Fong Wu, heavily laden with his effects, had slippedout of the stage from Redding and found his way to a forsaken,ramshackle building below Whiskeytown. His coming had proved of smallinterest. When the news finally got about that "a monkey" was living in"Sam Kennedy's old place," it was thought, for a while, that laundering,thereafter, would be cheaply done. This hope, however, was soondispelled. For, shortly after his arrival, as Fong Wu asked at thegrocery store for mail, he met Radigan's inquiry of "You do my washee,John?" with a grave shake of the head. Similar questions from otherswere met, later, in a similar way. Soon it became generally known thatthe "monkey at Sam Kennedy's" did not do washing; so he was troubled nofurther.

Yet if Fong Wu did not work for the people of Whiskeytown, he was not,therefore, idle. Many a sunrise found him wandering through thechaparral thickets back of his house, digging here and there in the redsoil for roots and herbs. These he took home, washed, tasted, and,perhaps, dried. His mornings were mainly spent in cooking for hisabundantly supplied table, in tending his fowls and house, and in makingspotless and ironing smooth various undergarments—generous of sleeveand leg.

But of an afternoon, all petty duties were laid aside, and he sortedcarefully into place upon his shelves numerous little bunches and boxesof dried herbs and numerous tiny phials of pungent liquid that had cometo him by post; he filled wide sheets of foolscap with vertical lines ofqueer characters and consigned them to big, plainly addressed,well-stamped envelopes; he scanned closely the last newspapers from SanFrancisco, and read from volumes in divers tongues, and he poured overthe treasured Taoist book, "The Road to Virtue."

Sunday was his one break in the week's routine. Then, the coolies whopanned or cradled for gold in tailings of near-by abandoned mines,gathered at Fong Wu's. On such occasions, there was endless, livelychatter, a steady exchange of barbering—one man scraping another clean,to be, in turn, made hairless in a broad band about the poll and oncheek and chin—and much consuming of tasty chicken, dried fish, pork,rice, and melon seeds. To supplement all this, Fong Wu recounted thenews: the arrival of a consul in San Francisco, the raid on a slave—orgambling-den, the progress of a tong war under the very noses of thebaffled police, and the growth of Coast feeling against the continued,quiet immigration of Chinese. But of the social or political affairs ofthe Flowery Kingdom—of his own land beyond the sea—Fong Wu wasconsistently silent.

Added to his Sunday responsibilities as host and purveyor of news, FongWu had others. An ailing countryman, whether seized with malaria orsuffering from an injury, found ready and efficient attention. The barkof dogwood, properly cooked, gave a liquid that killed the ague; and oilfrom a diminutive bottle, or a red powder whetted upon the skin with asilver piece, brought out the soreness of a bruise.

Thus, keeping his house, herb-hunting, writing, studying, entertaining,doctoring, Fong Wu lived on at Whiskeytown.

Each evening, daintily manipulating ivory chopsticks, he ate his supperof rice out of a dragon-bordered bowl. Then, when he had poured tea froma pot all gold-encrusted—a cluster of blossoms nodding in a vase at hisshoulder the while—he went out upon the porch of the square-frontedhouse.

And there, as now, a scarlet-buttoned cap on his head, his black eyessoft with dreaming, his richly wrought sandals tapping the floor intime, his long queue—a smooth, shining serpent—in thick coils abouthis tawny neck, Fong Wu thrummed gently upon the three-stringed banjo,and, in peace, chanted into the twilight.

***

Flying hoofs scattered the gravel on the strip of road before Fong Wu's.He looked through the gloom and saw a horse flash past, carrying askirted rider toward Whiskeytown. His song died out. He let his banjoslip down until its round head rested between his feet. Then he turnedhis face up the gulch.

Despite the dusk, he knew the traveler: Mrs. Anthony Barrett, who, withher husband, had recently come to live in a house near Stillwater. Everyevening, when the heat was over, she went by, bound for the day's mailat the post-office. Every evening, in the cool, Fong Wu saw her go, andsometimes she gave him a friendly nod.

Her mount was a spirited, mouse-dun mustang, with crop-ears, a roachedmane, and the back markings of a mule. She always rode at a run,sitting with easy erectness. A wide army hat rested snugly on her fairhair, and shaded a white forehead and level-looking eyes. Butnotwithstanding the sheltering brim, on her girlish face were set theglowing, scarlet seals of wind and sun.

As he peered townward after her, Fong Wu heard the hurrying hoof-beatsgrow gradually fainter and fainter—and cease. Presently the moon toppedthe pines on the foot-hills behind him, bathing the gulch in light. Theroad down which she would come sprang into view. He watched its farthestopen point. In a few moments the hoof-beats began again. Soon the glintof a light waist showed through the trees. Next, horse and rider roundeda curve at hand. Fong Wu leaned far forward.

And then, just as the mustang gained the strip of road before thesquare-fronted house, it gave a sudden, unlooked-for, outward leap,reared with a wild snort, and, whirling, dashed past theporch—riderless.

With an exclamation, Fong Wu flung his banjo aside and ran to the road.There under a manzanita bush, huddled and still, lay a figure. He caughtit up, bore it to the porch, and put it gently down.

A brief examination, made with the deftness practise gives, showed himthat no bones were broken. Squatting beside the unconscious woman, henext played slowly with his long-nailed fingers upon her pulse. Its beatreassured him. He lighted a lamp and held it above her. The scarlet ofher cheeks was returning.

The sight of her, who was so strong and active, stretched weak andfainting, compelled Fong Wu into spoken comment. "The petal of a plumblossom," he said compassionately, in his own tongue.

She stirred a little. He moved back. As, reviving, she opened her eyes,they fell upon him. But he was half turned away, his face as blank andlifeless as a mask.

She gave a startled cry and sat up. "Me hurtee?" she asked him, adoptingpidgin-English "Me fallee off?"

Fong Wu rose. "You were thrown," he answered gravely.

She colored in confusion. "Pardon me," she said, "for speaking to you asif you were a coolie." Then, as she got feebly to her feet—"I believemy right arm is broken."

"I have some knowledge of healing," he declared; "let me look at it."Before she could answer, he had ripped the sleeve away. "It is only asprain," he said. "Wait." He went inside for an amber liquid andbandages. When he had laved the injured muscles, he bound them round.

"How did it happen?" she asked, as he worked. He was so courteous andprofessional that her alarm was gone.

"Your horse was frightened by a rattler in the road. I heard it whir."

She shuddered. "I ought to be thankful that I didn't come my cropper onit," she said, laughing nervously.

He went inside again, this time to prepare a cupful of herbs. When heoffered her the draught, she screwed up her face over its nauseatingfumes.

"If that acts as strongly as it tastes," she said, after she had drunkit, "I'll be well soon."

"It is to keep away inflammation."

"Oh! Can I go now?"

"Yes. But tomorrow return, and I will look at the arm." He took the lampaway and replaced his red-buttoned cap with a black felt hat. Then hesilently preceded her down the steps to the road. Only when the light ofher home shone plainly ahead of them, did he leave her.

They had not spoken on the way. But as he bowed a good night, sheaddressed him. "I thank you," she said. "And may I ask your name?"

"Kwa"—he began, and stopped. Emotion for an instant softened hisimpassive countenance. He turned away. "Fong Wu," he added, and wasgone.

The following afternoon the crunch of cart wheels before thesquare-fronted house announced her coming. Fong Wu closed "The Book ofVirtue," and stepped out upon the porch.

A white man was seated beside her in the vehicle. As she sprang from it,light-footed and smiling, and mounted the steps, she indicated himpolitely to the Chinese.

"This is my husband," she said. "I have told him how kind you were to melast night."

Fong Wu nodded.

Barrett hastened to voice his gratitude. "I certainly am very muchobliged to you," he said. "My wife might have been bitten by therattler, or she might have lain all night in pain if you hadn't foundher. And I want to say that your treatment was splendid. Why, her armhasn't swollen or hurt her. I'll be hanged if I can see—you're such agood doctor—why you stay in this——"

Fong Wu interrupted him. "I will wet the bandage with medicine," hesaid, and entered the house.

They watched him with some curiosity as he treated the sprain andstudied the pulse. When he brought out her second cup of steaming herbs,Mrs. Barrett looked up at him brightly.

"You know we're up here for Mr. Barrett's health," she said. "A year orso after we were married, he was hurt in a railway collision. Sincethen, though his wounds healed nicely, he has never been quite well. Dr.Lord, our family physician, prescribed plenty of rough work, and a quietplace, far from the excitement of a town or city. Now, all this morning,when I realized how wonderful it was that my arm wasn't aching, I'vebeen urging my husband—what do you suppose?—to come and be examined byyou!"

Fong Wu, for the first time, looked fully at the white man, marking thesallow, clayey face, with its dry, lined skin, its lusterless eyes anddrooping lids.

Barrett scowled at his wife. "Nonsense, dear," he said crossly; "youknow very well that Lord would never forgive me."

"But Fong Wu might help you," she declared.

Fong Wu's black eyes were still fixed searchingly upon the white man.Before their scrutiny, soul-deep, the other's faltered and fell.

"You might help him, mightn't you, Fong Wu?" Mrs. Barrett repeated.

An expression, curious, keen, and full of meaning, was the answer. Then,"I might if he——" Fong Wu said, and paused.

Past Mrs. Barrett, whose back was toward her husband, the latter hadshot a warning glance. "Come, come, Edith," he cried irritably; "let'sget home."

Mrs. Barrett emptied her cup bravely. "When shall we call again?" sheasked.

"You need not come again," Fong Wu replied. "Each day you have only todampen the bandages from these." He handed her a green-flowered boxcontaining twelve tiny compartments; in each was a phial.

"And I sha'n't have to take any more of this—this awful stuff?" shedemanded gaily, giving back the cup.

"No."

"Ah! And now, I want to thank you again, with all my heart. Here,"—shereached into the pocket of her walking-skirt,—"here is something foryour trouble." Two double-eagles lay on her open palm.

Fong Wu frowned at them. "I take no money," he said, a trifle gruffly.And as she got into the cart, he closed the door of his home behind him.

It was a week before Mrs. Barrett again took up her rides for the mail.When she did, Fong Wu did not fail to be on his porch as she passed. Foreach evening, as she cantered up the road, spurring the mustang to itsbest paces, she reined to speak to him. And he met her greetings withunaccustomed good humor.

Then she went by one morning before sunrise, riding like the wind. Alittle later she repassed, whipping her horse at every gallop. Fong Wu,called to his door by the clatter, saw that her face was white anddrawn. At noon, going up to the post-office, he heard a bit of gossipthat seemed to bear upon her unwonted trip. Radigan was rehearsing itexcitedly to his wife, and the Chinese busied himself with his mail andlistened—apparently unconcerned.

"I c'n tell you she ain't afraid of anythin', that Mrs. Barrett," thepost-master was saying; "neither th' cayuse she rides or a critter ontwo legs. An' that fancy little drug-clerk from 'Frisco got it straightfrom th' shoulder."

"S-s-sh!" admonished his wife, from the back of the office. "Isn't theresome one outside?"

"Naw, just th' chink from Kennedy's. Well, as I remarked, she did jus'light into that dude. 'It was criminal!' she says, an' her eyes snappedlike a whip; 'it was criminal! an' if I find out for sure that you areguilty, I'll put you where you'll never do it again.' Th' young gentsmirked at her an' squirmed like a worm. 'You're wrong, Mrs. Barrett,'he says, lookin' like th' meek puppy he is, 'an' you'll have t' looksome place else for th' person that done it.' But she wouldn't talk nolonger—jus' walked out, as mad as a hornet."

"Well, well," mused Mrs. Radigan. "I wonder what 'twas all about.'Criminal,' she said, eh? That's funny!" She walked to the front of theoffice and peeked through the wicket. But no one was loitering nearexcept Fong Wu, and his face was the picture of dull indifference.

That night, long after the hour for Mrs. Barrett's regular trip, andlong past the time for his supper-song, Fong Wu heard slow, shufflingsteps approach the house. A moment afterward, the knob of his door wasrattled. He put out his light and slipped a knife into his loose sleeve.

After some fumbling and moving about on the porch, a man called out tohim. He recognized the voice.

"Fong Wu! Fong Wu!" it begged. "Let me in. I want to see you; I want toask you for help—for something I need. Let me in; let me in."

Fong Wu, without answering, relit his lamp, and, with the air of one whois at the same time both relieved and a witness of the expected, flungthe door wide.

Then into the room, writhing as if in fearful agony, his hands palsied,his face a-drip and, except for dark blotches about the mouth,green-hued, his eyes wild and sunken, fell, rather than tottered,Anthony Barrett.

"Fong Wu," he pleaded, from the floor at the other's feet, "you helpedmy wife when she was sick, now help me. I'm dying! I'm dying! Give it tome, for God's sake! give it to me." He caught at the skirt of Fong Wu'sblouse.

The Chinese retreated a little, scowling. "What do you want?" he asked.

A paroxysm of pain seized Barrett. He half rose and stumbled forward."You know," he panted, "you know. And if I don't have some, I'll die. Ican't get it anywhere else. She's found me out, and scared thedrug-clerk. Oh, just a little, old man, just a little!" He sank to thefloor again.

"I can give you nothing," said Fong Wu bluntly. "I do not keep—what youwant."

With a curse, Barrett was up again. "Oh, you don't," he screamed,leering frenziedly. "You yellow devil! You almond-eyed pigtail! But Iknow you do! And I must have it. Quick! quick!" He hung, clutching, onthe edge of Fong Wu's wide ironing-table, an ashen wreck.

Fong Wu shook his head.

With a cry, Barrett came at him and seized his lean throat. "You damnedhighbinder!" he gasped. "You saddle-nosed monkey! You'll get me what Iwant or I'll give you away. Don't I know why you're up here in thesewoods, with your pretty clothes and your English talk? A-ha! You bet Ido! You're hiding, and you're wanted,"—he dropped his voice to awhisper,—"the tongs would pay head-money for you. If you don't give itto me, I'll put every fiend in 'Frisco on your trail."

Fong Wu had caught Barrett's wrists. Now he cast him to one side."Tongs!" he said with a shrug, as if they were beneath his notice. And"Fiends!" he repeated contemptuously, a taunt in his voice.

The white man had fallen prone and was grovelling weakly. "Oh, I won'ttell on you," he wailed imploringly. "I won't, I won't, Fong Wu; I swearit on my honor."

Fong Wu grunted and reached to a handy shelf. "I will make a bargainwith you," he said craftily; "first, you are to drink what I wish."

"Anything! anything!" Barrett cried.

From a box of dry herbs, long untouched, the Chinese drew out a handful.There was no time for brewing. Outraged nature demanded instant relief.He dropped them into a bowl, covered them with water, and stirredswiftly. When the stems and leaves were broken up and well mixed, hestrained brown liquid from them and put it to the other's lips.

"Drink," he commanded, steadying the shaking head.

Barrett drank, unquestioningly.

Instantly the potion worked. Calmed as if by a miracle, made drowsy to apoint where speech was impossible, the white man, tortured but a momentbefore, tipped sleepily into Fong Wu's arms. The Chinese waited until afull effect was secured, when he lifted his limp patient to theblanket-covered ironing-table. Then he went out for fuel, built a fire,and, humming softly—with no fear of waking the other—sat down to watchthe steeping of more herbs.

***

What happened next at the square-fronted house was the unexpected. Againthere was a sound of approaching footsteps, again some one gained theporch. But this time there was no pausing to ask for admission, therewere no weak requests for aid. A swift hand felt for the knob and foundit; a strong arm pushed at the unlocked door. And through it,bare-headed, with burning eyes and blanched cheeks, her heavyriding-whip dangling by a thong from her wrist, came the wife of AnthonyBarrett.

Just across the sill she halted and swept the dim room. A moment, andthe burning eyes fell upon the freighted ironing-table. She gave apiercing cry.

Fong Wu neither spoke nor moved.

After the first outburst, she was quiet—the quiet that is deliberative,threatening. Then she slowly closed her fingers about the whip butt.Fixing her gaze in passionate anger upon him, she advanced a few steps.

"So it was you," she said, and her voice was hollow.

To that he made no sign, and even his colorless face told nothing.

She came forward a little farther, and sucked in a long, deep breath."You dog of a Chinaman!" she said at last, and struck herriding-skirt.

Fong Wu answered silently. With an imperative gesture, he pointed outthe figure on the ironing-table.

She sprang to her husband's side and bent over him. Presently she beganto murmur to herself. When, finally, she turned, there were tears on herlashes, she was trembling visibly, and she spoke in whispers.

"Was I wrong?" she demanded brokenly. "I must have been. He's not hadit; I can tell by his quick, easy breathing. And his ear has a faintcolor. You are trying to help him! I know! I know!"

A gleaming white line showed between the yellow of Fong Wu's lips. Hepicked up a rude stool and set it by the table. She sank weakly upon it,letting the whip fall.

"Thank God! thank God!" she sobbed prayerfully, and buried her face inher arms.

Throughout the long hours that followed, Fong Wu, from the room'sshadowy rear, sat watching. He knew sleep did not come to her. For nowand then he saw her shake from head to heel convulsively, as he had seenmen in his own country quiverbeneath the scourge of bamboos. Now and then, too, he heard her give astifled moan, like the protest of a dumb creature. But in no other waysdid she bare her suffering. Quietly, lest she wake her husband, shefought out the night.

Only once did Fong Wu look away from her. Then, in anger and disgust hiseyes shifted to the figure on the table. "The petal of a plumblossom"—he muttered in Chinese—"the petal of a plum blossom beneaththe hoofs of a pig!" And again his eyes dwelt upon the grief-bowed wife.

But when the dawn came stealing up from behind the purple Sierras, andMrs. Barrett raised her wan face, he was studiously reviewing his rowsof bottles, outwardly unaware of her presence.

"Fong Wu," she said, in a low voice, "when will he wake?"

"When he is rested; at sunrise, maybe, or at noon."

"And then?"

"He will be feeble. I shall give him more medicine, and he will sleepagain."

He rose and busied himself at the fire. Soon he approached her, bringingthe gold-encrusted teapot and a small, handleless cup.

She drank thirstily, filling and emptying the cup many times. When shewas done, she made as if to go. "I shall see that everything is allright at home," she told him. "After that, I shall come back." Shestooped and kissed her husband tenderly.

Fong Wu opened the door for her, and she passed out. In the road,unhitched, but waiting, stood the mustang. She mounted and rode away.

When she returned, not long afterward, she was a new woman. She hadbathed her face and donned a fresh waist. Her eyes were alight, and thescarlet was again flaming in her cheeks. Almost cheerfully, andaltogether hopefully, she resumed her post at the ironing-table.

It was late in the afternoon before Barrett woke. But he made no attemptto get up, and would not eat. Fong Wu administered another dose ofherbs, and without heeding his patient's expostulations. The latter,after seeking his wife's hand, once more sank into sleep.

Just before sunset, Fong Wu, who scorned to rest, prepared supper.Gratefully Mrs. Barrett partook of some tender chicken and rice cakes.When darkness shut down, they took up their second long vigil.

But it was not the vigil of the previous night. She was able to think ofother things than her husband's condition and the doom that, of asudden, had menaced her happiness. Her spirits having risen, she wascorrespondingly impatient of a protracted, oppressive stillness, andlooked about for an interruption, and for diversion. Across from her, acelestial patrician in his blouse of purple silk and his red-buttonedcap, sat Fong Wu. Consumed with curiosity—now that she had time toobserve him closely—she longed to lift the yellow, expressionless maskfrom his face—a face which might have patterned that of an orientalsphinx. At midnight, when he approached the table to satisfy himself ofBarrett's progress, and to assure her of it, she essayed a conversation.

Glancing up at his laden shelves, she said, "I have been noticing yourmedicines, and how many kinds there seem to be."

"For each ailment that is visited upon man, earth offers a cure," heanswered. "Life would be a mock could Death, unchallenged, take it."

"True. Have you found in the earth, then, the cure for each ailment ofman?"

"For most, yes. They seek yet, where I learned the art of healing, anantidote for the cobra's bite. I know of no other they lack."

"Where you were taught they must know more than we of this countryknow."

Fong Wu gave his shoulders a characteristic shrug.

"But," she continued, "you speak English so perfectly. Perhaps you weretaught that in this country."

"No—in England. But the other, I was not."

"In England! Well!"

"I went there as a young man."

"But these herbs, these medicines you have—they did not come fromEngland, did they?"

He smiled. "Some came from the hills at our back." Then, crossing to hisshelves and reaching up, "This"—he touched a silk-covered package—"isfrom Sumbawa in the Indian Sea; and this"—his finger was upon the corkof a phial—"is from Feng-shan, Formosa; and other roots are taken inwinter from the lake of Ting-ting-hu, which is then dry; and stillothers come from the far mountains of Chamur."

"Do you know," Mrs. Barrett said tentatively, "I have always heard thatChinese doctors give horrid things for medicine—sharks' teeth, frogs'feet, lizards' tails, and—and all sorts of dreadful things."

Fong Wu proffered no enlightenment.

"I am glad," she went on, "that I have learned better."

After a while she began again: "Doubtless there is other wonderfulknowledge, besides that about doctoring, which Chinese gentlemenpossess."

Fong Wu gave her a swift glance. "The followers of Laou-Tsze know manythings," he replied, and moved into the shadows as if to close theirtalk.

Toward morning, when he again gave her some tea, she spoke of somethingthat she had been turning over in her mind for hours.

"You would not take money for helping me when I was hurt," she said,"and I presume you will refuse to take it for what you are doing now.But I should like you to know that Mr. Barrett and I will always, alwaysbe your friends. If"—she looked across at him, no more a part of hisrude surroundings than was she—"if ever there comes a time when wecould be of use to you, you have only to tell us. Please remember that."

"I will remember."

"I cannot help but feel," she went on, and with a sincere desire toprove her gratitude, rather than to pry out any secret of his, "that youdo not belong here—that you are in more trouble than I am. For what cana man of your rank have to do in a little town like this!"

He was not displeased with her. "The ancient sage," he said slowly,"mounted himself upon a black ox and disappeared into the westernwilderness of Thibet. Doubtless others, too, seek seclusion for muchthinking."

"But you are not the hermit kind," she declared boldly. "You belong tothose who stay and fight. Yet here you are, separated from your peopleand your people's graves—alone and sorrowful."

"As for my living people, they are best without me; as for my peopledead, I neither worship their dust nor propitiate devils. The wise onesaid, 'Why talk forever on of men who are long gone?'"

"Yet——" she persisted.

He left the stove and came near her. "You are a woman, but you knowmuch. You are right. My heart is heavy for a thing I cannot do—for theshattered dreams of the men of Hukwang." He beat his palms togethernoiselessly, and moved to and fro on soft sandals. "Those dreams were ofa young China that was to take the place of the old—but that diedunborn."

She followed his words with growing interest. "I have heard of thosedreams," she answered; "they were called 'reform.'"

"Yes. And now all the dreamers are gone. They had voyaged to glean atHarvard, Yale, Cornell, and in the halls of Oxford. There were 'fiveloyal and six learned,' and they shed their blood at the Chen Chih Gate.One there was who died the death that is meted a slave at the court ofthe Son of Heaven. And one there was"—his face shrank up, as if swiftlyaging; his eyes became dark, upturning slits; as one who fears pursuit,he cast a look behind him—"and one there was who escaped beyond theblood-bathed walls of the Hidden City and gained the Sumatra Coast.Then, leaving Perak, in the Straits Settlements, he finally set footupon a shore where men, without terror, may reach toward higher things."

"And was he followed?" she whispered, comprehending.

"He fled quietly. For long are the claws of the she-panther crouched onthe throne of the Mings."

Both fell silent. The Chinese went back to the stove, where the fire wasdying. The white woman, wide awake, and lost in the myriad of scenes histale had conjured, sat by the table, for once almost forgetful of hercharge.

The dragging hours of darkness past, Anthony Barrett found saneconsciousness. He was pale, yet strengthened by his long sleep, and hewas hungry. Relieved and overjoyed, Mrs. Barrett ministered to him. Whenhe had eaten and drunk, she helped him from the table to the stool, andthence to his feet. Her arm about him, she led him to the door. Fong Wuhad felt his pulse and it had ticked back the desired message, so he wasgoing home.

"Each night you are to come," Fong Wu said, as he bade them good-by."And soon, very soon, you may go from here to the place from which youcame."

Mrs. Barrett turned at the door. A plea for pardon in misjudging him,thankfulness for his help, sympathy for his exile—all these shone fromher eyes. But words failed her. She held out her hand.

He seemed not to see it; he kept his arms at his sides. A "dog of aChinaman" had best not take a woman's hand.

She went out, guiding her husband's footsteps, and helped him climb uponthe mustang from the height of the narrow porch. Then, taking the horseby the bridle, she moved away down the slope to the road.

Fong Wu did not follow, but closed the door gently and went back to theironing-table. A handkerchief lay beside it—a dainty linen square thatshe had left. He picked it up and held it before him by two corners.From it there wafted a faint, sweet breath.

Fong Wu let it flutter to the floor. "The perfume of a plum petal," hesaid softly, in English; "the perfume of a plum petal."

THE JUDGMENT OF MAN

BY

JAMES HOPPER

Copyright, 1906, by McClure, Phillips and Company

Reprinted from Caybigan by permission

E WERE sitting around the big center table in the sala of the "Houseof Guests" in Ilo-Ilo. We were teachers from Occidental Negros. It wasnear Christmas; we had left our stations for the holidays—the cholerahad just swept them and the aftermath was not pleasant tocontemplate—and so we were leaning over the polished narra table,sipping a sweet, false Spanish wine from which we drew, not a convivialspirit, but rather a quiet, reflective gloom. All the shell shutterswere drawn back; we could see the tin-roofed city gleam and crackle withthe heat, and beyond the lithe line of cocoanuts, the iridescent sea,tugging the heart with offer of coolness. But, all of us, we knew thepromise to be Fake, monumental Fake, knew the alluring depths to be hotas corruption, and full of sharks.

Somebody in a monotonous voice was cataloguing the dead, enumeratingthose of us who had been conquered by the climate, by the work, orthrough their own inward flaws. He mentioned Miller with some sort ofdisparaging gesture, and then Carter of Balangilang, who had been verysilent, suddenly burst into speech with singular fury.

"Who are you, to judge him?" he shouted. "Who are you, eh? Who are we,anyway, to judge him?"

Headlong outbursts from Carter were nothing new to us, so we took nooffense. Finally some one said, "Well, he's dead," with that tone thatsignifies final judgment, the last, best, most charitable thing whichcan be said of the man being weighed.

But Carter did not stop there. "You didn't know him, did you?" he asked."You didn't know him; tell me now, did you know him?" He was stillextraordinarily angry.

We did not answer. Really, we knew little of the dead man—exceptingthat he was mean and small, and not worth knowing. He was mean, and hewas a coward; and to us in our uncompromising youth these were just theunpardonable sins. Because of that we had left him alone; yes, come tothink of it, very much alone. And we knew little about him.

"Here, I'll tell you what I know," Carter began again, in a moreconciliatory tone; "I'll tell you everything I know of him." He lit acheroot.

"I first met him right here in Ilo-Ilo. I had crossed over for supplies;he was fresh from Manila and wanted to get over to Bacolod to report tothe Sup. and be assigned to his station. When I saw him he was on themuelle, surrounded by an army of bluffing cargadores. About twelveof them had managed to get a finger upon his lone carpet-bag while itwas being carried down the gang-plank, and each and all of them wantedto get paid for the job. He was in a horrible pickle; couldn't speak aword of Spanish or Visayan. And the first thing he said when I hadextricated him, thanks to my vituperative knowledge of these sweettongues, was: 'If them nigg*hs, seh, think Ah'm a-goin' to learn theircussed lingo, they're mahtily mistaken, seh!'

"After that remark, coming straight from the heart, I hardly needed tobe told that he was from the South. He was from Mississippi. He wasgaunt, yellow, malarial, and slovenly. He had 'teached' for twentyyears, he said, but in spite of this there was about him somethingindescribably rural, something of the sod—not the dignity, thesturdiness of it, but rather of the pettiness, the sordidness of it. Itshowed in his dirty, flapping garments, his unlaced shoes, his stubblebeard, in his indecent carelessness in expectorating the tobacco he wasceaselessly chewing. But these, after all, were some of his minortraits. I was soon to get an inkling of one of his major ones—hisprodigious meanness. For when I rushed about and finally found a lorchathat was to sail for Bacolod and asked him to chip in with me onprovisions, he demurred.

"'Ah'd like to git my own, seh,' he said in that decisive drawl of his.

"'All right,' I said cheerfully, and went off and stocked up for two. Myinstinct served me well. When, that evening, Miller walked up thegang-plank, he carried only his carpet-bag, and that was flat andhungry-looking as before. The next morning he shared my provisionscalmly and resolutely, with an air, almost, of conscious duty. Well, letthat go; before another day I was face to face with his other flamingcharacteristic.

"Out of Ilo-Ilo we had contrary winds at first; all night the lorcha—anold grandmother of a craft, full of dry-rot spots as big aswoodpeckers' nests—flapped heavily about on impotent tacks, and whenthe sun rose we found ourselves on the same spot from which we hadwatched its setting. Toward ten o'clock, however, the monsoon veered,and, wing-and-wing, the old boat, creaking in every joint as if she hadthe dengue, grunted her way over flashing combers with a speed thatseemed almost indecent. Then, just as we were getting near enough tocatch the heated glitter of the Bacolod church-dome, to see the goldenthread of beach at the foot of the waving cocoanuts, the wind fell,slap-bang, as suddenly as if God had said hush—and we stuck there,motionless, upon a petrified sea.

"I didn't stamp about and foam at the mouth; I'd been in these climestoo long. As for Miller, he was from Mississippi. We picked out acomparatively clean spot on the deck, near the bow; we lay down on ourbacks and relaxed our beings into infinite patience. We had been thusfor perhaps an hour; I was looking up at a little white cloud thatseemed receding, receding into the blue immensity behind it. Suddenly anoise like thunder roared in my ears. The little cloud gave a great leapback into its place; the roar dwindled into the voice of Miller, inplaintive, disturbed drawl. 'What the deuce are the nigg*hs doing?' hewas saying.

"And certainly the behavior of that Visayan crew was worthy of question.Huddled quietly at the stern, one after another they were springing overthe rail into the small boat that was dragging behind, and even as Ilooked the last man disappeared with the painter in his hand. At thesame moment I became aware of a strange noise. Down in the bowels ofthe lorcha a weird, gentle commotion was going on, a multitudinous'gluck-gluck' as of many bottles being emptied. A breath of hot, mustyair was sighing out of the hatch. Then the sea about the poop began torise,—to rise slowly, calmly, steadily, like milk in a heated pot.

"'By the powers,' I shouted, 'the old tub is going down!'

"It was true. There, upon the sunlit sea, beneath the serene sky,silently, weirdly, unprovoked, the old boat, as if weary, was sinking inone long sigh of lassitude. And we, of course, were going with it. A fewyards away from the stern-post was the jolly-boat with the crew. Ilooked at them, and in my heart I could not condemn them for their slydeparture; they were all there, arraiz, wife, children, and crew, soheaped together that they seemed only a meaningless tangle of arms andlegs and heads; the water was half an inch from the gunwale, and the oneman at the oars, hampered, paralyzed on all sides, was splashinghelplessly while the craft pivoted like a top. There was no anger in myheart, yet I was not absolutely reconciled to the situation. I searchedthe deck with my eyes, then from the jolly-boat the arraiz obliginglyyelled, 'El biroto, el biroto!'

"And I remembered the rotten little canoe lashed amidships. It didn'ttake us long to get it into the water (the water by that time was veryclose at hand). I went carefully into it first so as to steady it forMiller, and then, both of us at once, we saw that it would hold onlyone. The bottom, a hollowed log, was stanch enough, but the sides, madeof pitched bamboo lattice, were sagging and torn. It would hold onlyone.

"'Well, who is it?' I asked. In my heart there was no craven panic, butneither was there sacrifice. Some vague idea was in my mind, of decidingwho should get the place by some game of chance, tossing up a coin, forinstance.

"But Miller said, 'Ah cain't affawd to take chances, seh; you must gitout.'

"He spoke calmly, with great seriousness, but without undue emphasis—asone enunciating an uncontrovertible natural law. I glanced up into hisface, and it was in harmony with his voice. He didn't seem particularlyscared; he was serious, that's all; his eyes were set in that peculiar,wide-pupiled stare of the man contemplating his own fixed idea.

"'No, seh; Ah cain't affawd it,' he repeated.

"The absurdity of the thing suddenly tingled in me like wine. 'Allright!' I shouted, in a contagion of insanity; 'all right, take thedarned thing!'

"And I got out. I got out and let him step stiffly into the boat, whichI obligingly sent spinning from the lorcha with one long, strong kick.Then I was alone on the deck, which suddenly looked immense, stretchedon all sides, limitless as loneliness itself. A heavy torpor fell fromthe skies and amid this general silence, this immobility, the cabin dooralone seemed to live, live in weird manifestation. It had been leftopen, and now it was swinging and slamming to and fro jerkily, andshuddering from top to bottom. Half in plan, half in mere irritation atthis senseless, incessant jigging, I sprang toward it and with onenervous pull tore it, hinge and all, from the rotten woodwork. I heavedit over the side, went in head first after it, took a few strokes andlay, belly down, upon it. Just then the lorcha began to rise by thehead; the bowsprit went up slowly like a finger pointing solemnly toheaven; then, without a sound, almost instantaneously, the whole fabricdisappeared. Across the now unoccupied space Miller and I rushedsmoothly toward each other, as if drawn by some gigantic magnet; ourcrafts bumped gently, like two savages caressingly rubbing noses; theyswung apart a little and lay side by side, undulating slightly.

"And we remained there, little black specks upon the flashing sea. Twohundred yards away was the lorcha's boat; they had reshuffled themselvesmore advantageously and were pulling slowly toward land. Not twenty feetfrom me Miller sat upright in his canoe as if petrified. I was not sobadly off. The door floated me half out of water, and that was lukewarm,so I knew that I could stand it a long time. What bothered me, though,was that the blamed raft was not long enough; that is, the upper part ofmy body being heavier, it took more door to support it, so that my feetwere projecting beyond the lower edge, and every second or so thenibbling of some imaginary shark sent them flying up into the air inundignified gymnastics. The consoling part of it was that Miller waspaying no notice. He still sat up, rigid, in his canoe, clutching thesides stiffly and looking neither to right nor left. From where I lay Icould see the cords of his neck drawn taut, and his knuckles showingwhite.

"'Why the deuce don't you paddle to shore?' I shouted at length, takinga sudden disgust of the situation.

"He did not turn his head as he answered, 'Ah—Ah,' he stammered, thewords coming hard as hiccoughs out of his throat, 'Ah don't know haow.'

"'Drop the sides of your boat and try,' I suggested.

"He seemed to ponder carefully over this for a while. 'Ah think it'ssafer to stay this-a-way,' he decided finally.

"'But, good Lord, man,' I cried, angry at this calm stupidity, 'ifthat's what you're going to do, you'd better get on this door here andlet me take the boat. I'll paddle ashore and come back for you.'

"He turned his head slowly. He contemplated my raft long, carefully,critically.

"'Ah think Ah'll be safer heyah, seh,' he decided. 'It's a little bit o'old door, and Ah reckon they's a heap of sharks around.'

"After that I had little to say. Given the premises of the man, hisconclusions were unquestionable. And the premises were a selfishness sotranquil, so ingenuous, so fresh, I might say, that I couldn't work upthe proper indignation. It was something so perfect as to challengeadmiration. On the whole, however, it afforded a poor subject forconversation; so we remained there, taciturn, I on my door,half-submerged in the tepid water, my heels flung up over my back, he inhis dugout, rigid, his hands clutching the sides as if he were trying tohold up the craft out of the liquid abyss beneath.

"And thus we were still when, just as the sun was setting somberly, avelos full of chattering nativespicked us up. They landed us at Bacolod, and Miller left me to report tothe Sup. I departed before sun-up the next morning for my station. Ididn't want to see Miller again.

"But I did. One night he came floundering through my pueblo. It was inthe middle of the rainy season. He wasn't exactly caked with mud;rather, he seemed to ooze it out of every pore. He had been assigned toBinalbagan, ten miles further down. I stared when he told me this.Binalbagan was the worst post on the island, a musty, pestilential holewith a sullenly hostile population, and he—well, inefficiency wasbranded all over him in six-foot letters. I tried to stop him overnight,but he would not do it, and I saw him splash off in the darkness, gaunt,yellow, mournful.

"I saw little of him after that. I was busy establishing newbarrio-schools, which were to give me excuses for long horseback ridesof inspection. I felt his presence down there in that vague way by whichyou are aware of a person behind your back without turning around.Rumors of his doings reached me. He was having a horrible time. On thenight of his arrival he had been invited to dinner by the Presidente, akind old primitive soul, but when he found that he was expected to sitat the table with the family, he had stamped off, indignant, saying thathe didn't eat with no nigg*rs. As I've said before, the town washostile, and this attitude did not help matters much. He couldn't getthe school moneys out of the Tesorero—an unmitigated rascal—but thatdid not make much difference, for he had no pupils anyhow. He couldn'tspeak a word of Spanish; no one in the town, of course, knew anyEnglish—he must have been horribly lonely. He began to wear camisas,like the natives. That's always a bad sign. It shows that the man hasdiscovered that there is no one to care how he dresses—that is, thatthere is no longer any public opinion. It indicates something subtlyworse—that the man has ceased looking at himself, that the I hasceased criticising, judging, stiffening up the me,—in other words,that there is no longer any conscience. That white suit, I tell you, isa wonderful moral force; the white suit, put on fresh every morning,heavily starched, buttoned up to the chin, is like an armor,ironcladding you against the germ of decay buzzing about you,ceaselessly vigilant for the little vulnerable spot. Miller worecamisas, and then he began to go without shoes. I saw that myself. Iwas riding through his pueblo on my way to Dent's, and I passed hisschool. I looked into the open door as my head bobbed by at the heightof the stilt-raised floor. He was in his camisa and barefooted; hislong neck stretched out of the collarless garment with a mournful,stork-like expression. Squatting on the floor were three trouserless,dirt-incrusted boys; he was pointing at a chart standing before theireyes, and all together they were shouting some word that exploded awaydown in their throats in tremendous effort and never seemed to reachtheir lips. I called out and waved my hand as I went by, and when Ilooked back, a hundred yards farther, I saw that he had come out uponthe bamboo platform outside of the door, gaping after me with his chinthrown forward in that mournful, stork-like way—I should have goneback.

"With him, I must say, the camisa did not mean all that I havesuggested, not the sort of degradation of which it is the symbol inother men. The most extravagant imagination could not have linked himwith anything that smacked of romance, romance however sordid. Hisvices, I had sized it, would come rather from an excess of calculationthan from a lack of it. No, that camisa was just a sign of hismeanness, his prodigious meanness. And of that I was soon given anextraordinary example.

"I had with me a young fellow named Ledesma, whom I was training to beassistant maestro. He was very bright, thirsty to learn, and extremelycurious of us white men. I don't believe that the actions of one ofthem, for fifty miles around, ever escaped him, and every day he came tome with some talk, some rumor, some gossip about my fellow-exiles whichhe would relate to me with those strange interrogative inflections thathe had brought from his native dialect into English—as if perpetuallyhe were seeking explanation, confirmation. One morning he said to me:'The maestro Miller, he does not eat.'

"'No?' I answered, absent-mindedly.

"'No, he never eats,' he reiterated authoritatively, although thatpeculiar Visayan inflection of which I have spoken gave him the air ofasking a question.

"'Oh, I suppose he does,' I said, carelessly.

"'He does not eat,' he repeated. 'Every one in Binalbagan say so. Sincehe there, he has not bought anything at the store.'

"'His muchachos bring him chicken,' I suggested.

"No, señor; he very funny; he has no muchachos; not one muchacho hashe.'

"'Well, he probably has canned provisions sent him.'

"'No, señor; the cargadores they say that never never have theycarried anything for him. He does not eat.'

"'Very well,' I concluded, somewhat amused; 'he does not eat.'

"The boy was silent for a minute, then, 'Señor Maestro,' he asked withsuspicious ingenuousness 'can Americans live without eating?'

"So that I was not able to drop the subject as easily as I wished. Andcoming to a forced consideration of it, I found that my anxiety to do sowas not very beautiful after all. A picture came to me—that of Milleron his bamboo platform before his door, gazing mournfully after me, hischin thrown forward. It did not leave me the day long, and at sundown Isaddled up and trotted off toward Binalbagan.

"I didn't reach the pueblo that night, however. Only a mile from it Iplunged out of the moonlight into the pitch darkness of a hollow lanecutting through Don Jaime's hacienda. Banana palms were growing thick toright and left; the way was narrow and deep—it was a fine place forcutthroats, but that avocation had lost much of its romantic charm fromthe fact that, not three weeks before, an actual cutthroating had takenplace, a Chinese merchant having been boloed by tusilanes. Well, I wastrotting through, my right hand somewhat close to my holster, when fromthe right, close, there came a soft, reiterated chopping noise. I pulledup my pony. The sound kept up—a discreet, persistent chopping; then Isaw, up above, the moonlit top of a palm shuddering, though all about itthe others remained motionless, petrified as if of solid silver. It wasa very simple thing after all: some one in there was cutting down a palmto get bananas, an occupation very common in the Philippines, and verypacific, in spite of the ominous air given to it by the gigantic boloused. However, something prompted me to draw the midnight harvester out.

"'Heh, ladron, what are you doing there?' I shouted in dialect.

"'There was a most sudden silence. The chopping ceased, the palm stoppedvibrating. A vague form bounded down the lane, right up against myhorse's nose, rolled over, straightened up again, and vanished into thedarkness ahead. Unconsciously I spurred on after it. For a hundred yardsI galloped with nothing in sight. Then I caught a rapid view of thething as it burst through a shaft of moonlight piercing the glade, andit showed as a man, a grotesque figure of a man in loose whitepantaloons. He was frightened, horribly frightened, all hunched up withthe frenzy to escape. An indistinct bundle was on his right shoulder.Like a curtain the dark snapped shut behind him again, but I urged onwith a wild hallo, my blood all a-tingle with the exultation of thechase. I gained—he must have been a lamentable runner, for my poorlittle pony was staggering under my tumultuous weight. I could hear himpant and sob a few yards in advance; then he came into sight, a dim,loping whiteness ahead. Suddenly the bundle left his shoulder; somethingrolled along the ground under my horse's hoofs—and I was standing onmy head in a soft, oozy place. I was mad, furiously mad. I picked myselfup, went back a few yards, and taking my pony by the nose picked himup. A touch of his throbbing flanks, however, warned me as I was puttingmy foot into the stirrup. I left him there and thundered on foot downthe lane. I have said I was mad. 'Yip-yip-yah-ah, yip-yip-yah-ah!' Iyelled as I dashed on—a yell I had heard among California cattlemen. Itmust have paralyzed that flying personage, for I gained upon himshockingly. I could hear him pant, a queer, patient panting, a sighrather, a gentle, lamenting sighing, and the white camisa flappedghostily in the darkness. Suddenly he burst out of obscurity, past theplantation, into the glaring moonlight. And I—I stopped short, wentdown on my hands and knees, and crouched back into the shadow. For theman running was Miller; Miller, wild, sobbing, disheveled, his shouldersdrawn up to his ears in terrible weariness, his whole body taut withfear, and scudding, scudding away, low along the ground, his chinforward, mournful as a stork. Soon he was across the luminous space, andthen he disappeared into the darkness on the other side, flopped headfirst into it as if hiding his face in a pillow.

"I returned slowly to my horse. He was standing where I had left him,his four legs far apart in a wide base. Between them was the thing castoff by Miller which had thrown us. I examined it by the light of a boxof matches. It was a bunch of bananas, one of those gigantic clusterswhich can be cut from the palms. I got on my horse and rode back home.

"I didn't go to see him any more. A man who will steal bananas in acountry where they can be bought a dozen for one cent is too mean to beworth visiting. I had another reason, too. It had dawned on me thatMiller probably did not care to see any of us, that he had come down toa mode of life which would not leave him appreciative of confrontationswith past standards. It was almost charity to leave him to himself.

"So I left him to himself, and he lived on in his pestilential littlehole, alone—lived a life more squalid every day. It wasn't at all ahealthy life, you can understand, no healthier physically than morally.After a while I heard that he was looking bad, yellow as a lemon, andthe dengue cracking at his bones. I began to think of going to him afterall, of jerking him out of his rut by force, if necessary, making himrespect the traditions of his race. But just then came that Nicholsaffair, and flaring, his other bad side—his abjectcowardice—reappeared to me. You remember the Nichols thing—boloed inthe dark between my town and Himamaylan. His muchacho had jumped intothe ditch. Afterward he got out and ran back the whole way, fifteenmiles, to my place. I started down there. My idea was to pick up Milleras I passed, then Dent a little further down, find the body, and perhapsindications for White of the constabulary, to whom I had sent amessenger and who could not reach the place till morning. Well, Millerrefused to go. He had caught hold of some rumor of the happening; he wasbarricaded in his hut and was sitting on his bed, a big Colt's revolveracross his knees. He would not go, he said it plainly. 'No, seh; Ahcain't take chances; Ah cain't affawd it.' He said this without muchfire, almost tranquilly, exactly as he had, you remember, at the time ofour shipwreck. It was not so amusing now, however. Here, on land, amidthis swarming, mysterious hostility, at this crisis, it seemed ashocking betrayal of the solidarity that bound all us white men. A redrage took possession of me. I stood there above him and poured outvituperation for five good minutes. I found the most extraordinaryepithets; I lowered my voice and pierced him with venomous thrusts. Hetook it all. He remained seated on his bed, his revolver across hisknees, looking straight at some spot on the floor; whenever I'd becomeparticularly effective he'd merely look harder at the spot, as if forhim it contained something of higher significance—a command, a rule, aprecept—I don't know what, and then he'd say, 'No, Ah cain't; Ah cain'taffawd it.'

"I burst out of there, a-roar like a bombshell. I rode down to Dent; werode down to the place and did—what there was to be done. Miller Inever wanted to see again.

"But I did. Some three weeks later a carrier came to me with a note—apenciled scrawl upon a torn piece of paper. It read:

"'I think I am dying. Can you come see me? 'Miller.'

"I went down right away. He was dead. He had died there, alone, in hisfilthy little hut, in that God-forsaken pueblo, ten miles from thenearest white man, ten thousand miles from his home.

"I'll always remember our coming in. It was night. It had been rainingfor thirty-six hours, and as we stepped into the unlighted hut, mymuchacho and I, right away the floor grew sticky and slimy with themud on our feet, and as we groped about blindly, we seemed ankle-deep insomething greasy and abominable like gore. After a while the boy got atorch outside, and as he flared it I caught sight of Miller on his cot,backed up into one corner. He was sitting upright, staring straightahead and a little down, as if in careful consideration. As I steppedtoward him the pliable bamboo floor undulated; the movement was carriedto him and he began to nod, very gently and gravely. He seemed to besaying: 'No, Ah cain't affawd it.' It was atrocious. Finally I was byhis side and he was again motionless, staring thoughtfully. Then I sawhe was considering. In his hands, which lay twined on his knees, were alot of little metallic oblongs. I disengaged them. The muchacho drewnearer, and with the torch over my shoulder I examined them. They werephotographs, cheap tintypes. The first was of a woman, a poor being,sagging with overwork, a lamentable baby in her arms. The other pictureswere of children—six of them, boys and girls, of all ages from twelveto three, and under each, in painful chirography, a name waswritten—Lee Miller, Amy Miller, Geraldine Miller, and so on.

"You don't understand, do you? For a moment I didn't. I stared stupidlyat those tintypes, shuffled and reshuffled them; the torch roared in myear. Then, suddenly, understanding came to me, sharp as a pang. He had awife and seven children.

"A simple fact, wasn't it, a commonplace one, almost vulgar, you mightsay. And yet what a change of view produced by it, what a dislocation ofjudgment! I was like a man riding through a strange country, in a storm,at night. It is dark, he cannot see, he has never seen the country, yetas he rides on he begins to picture to himself the surroundings, hisimagination builds for him a landscape—a mountain there, a river here,wind-streaming trees over there—and right away it exists, it is, ithas solidity, mass, life. Then suddenly comes a flash of lightning, asecond of light, and he is astounded, absolutely astounded to see thereal landscape different from that indestructible thing that his mindhad built. Thus it was with me. I had judged, oh, I had judged himthoroughly, sized him up to a certainty, and bang, came the flare ofthis new fact, this extremely commonplace fact, and I was all off. Imust begin to judge again, only it would never do that man any good.

"A hundred memories came back to me, glared at me in the illumination ofthat new fact. I remember the camisa, the bare feet. I saw him runningdown the lane with his bunch of stolen bananas. I recalled that absurdscene on the waters; I heard him say: 'No, seh; Ah cain't affawd to takechances; Ah cain't affawd it.'

"Of course he couldn't afford it. Think—a wife and seven children!

"That night I went through his papers, putting things in order, and fromevery leaf, every scrap, came corroboration of the new fact. He was oneof those pitiful pedagogues of the rural South, shiftless,half-educated, inefficient. He had never been able to earn much, andhis family had always gently starved. Then had come the chance—thegolden chance—the Philippines and a thousand a year. He had taken thebait, had come ten thousand miles to the spot of his maximum value.Only, things had not gone quite right. Thanks to the beautiful red-tapeof the department, three months had gone before he had received hisfirst month's pay. Then it had come in Mex., and when he had succeededin changing it into gold it had dwindled to sixty dollars. Of course, hehad sent it all back, for even then it would take it six more weeks toreach its destination, and sixty dollars is hardly too much to tide overfive months for a family of eight. These five months had to be caught upin some way, so every month his salary, depreciated ten per cent by thechange, had gone across the waters. He wore camisas and no shoes, hestole bananas. And his value, shoeless, camisa-clothed, was sixtydollars a month. He was just so much capital. He had to be careful ofthat capital.

"'Ah cain't affawd to take chances; Ah cain't affawd it.' Of course hecouldn't.

"And so he had fought on blindly, stubbornly, and, at last, with thatpitiful faculty we have, all of us, of defeating our own plans, he hadkilled himself, he had killed the capital, the golden goose.

"Yes, I found confirmation, but, after all, I did not need it. I hadlearned it all; understanding had come to me, swift, sharp, vital as apang, when in the roaring light of the torch I had looked upon the palelittle tintypes, the tintypes of Lee and Amy and Jackson andGeraldine."

THE LEAGUE OF THEOLD MEN

BY

JACK LONDON

Copyright, 1902, by the Macmillan Company Reprinted from Children ofthe Frost by permission

T THE Barracks a man was being tried for his life. He was an old man, anative from the Whitefish River, which empties into the Yukon below LakeLe Barge. All Dawson was wrought up over the affair, and likewise theYukon-dwellers for a thousand miles up and down. It has been the customof the land-robbing and sea-robbing Anglo-Saxon to give the law toconquered peoples, and ofttimes this law is harsh. But in the case ofImber the law for once seemed inadequate and weak. In the mathematicalnature of things, equity did not reside in the punishment to be accordedhim. The punishment was a foregone conclusion, there could be no doubtof that; and though it was capital, Imber had but one life, while thetale against him was one of scores.

In fact, the blood of so many was upon his hands that the killingsattributed to him did not permit of precise enumeration. Smoking a pipeby the trail-side or lounging around the stove, men made rough estimatesof the numbers that had perished at his hand. They had been whites, allof them, these poor murdered people, and they had been slain singly, inpairs, and in parties. And so purposeless and wanton had been thesekillings, that they had long been a mystery to the mounted police, evenin the time of the captains, and later, when the creeks realized, and agovernor came from the Dominion to make the land pay for its prosperity.

But more mysterious still was the coming of Imber to Dawson to givehimself up. It was in the late spring, when the Yukon was growling andwrithing under its ice, that the old Indian climbed painfully up thebank from the river trail and stood blinking on the main street. Men whohad witnessed his advent, noted that he was weak and tottery, and thathe staggered over to a heap of cabin-logs and sat down. He sat there afull day, staring straight before him at the unceasing tide of white menthat flooded past. Many a head jerked curiously to the side to meet hisstare, and more than one remark was dropped anent the old Siwash with sostrange a look upon his face. No end of men remembered afterward thatthey had been struck by his extraordinary figure, and forever afterwardprided themselves upon their swift discernment of the unusual.

But it remained for Dickensen, Little Dickensen, to be the hero of theoccasion. Little Dickensen had come into the land with great dreams anda pocketful of cash; but with the cash the dreams vanished, and to earnhis passage back to the States he had accepted a clerical position withthe brokerage firm of Holbrook and Mason. Across the street from theoffice of Holbrook and Mason was the heap of cabin-logs upon which Imbersat. Dickensen looked out of the window at him before he went to lunch;and when he came back from lunch he looked out of the window, and theold Siwash was still there.

Dickensen continued to look out of the window, and he, too, foreverafterward prided himself upon his swiftness of discernment. He was aromantic little chap, and he likened the immobile old heathen the geniusof the Siwash race, gazing calm-eyed upon the hosts of the invadingSaxon. The hours swept along, but Imber did not vary his posture, didnot by a hair's-breadth move a muscle; and Dickensen remembered the manwho once sat upright on a sled in the main street where men passed toand fro. They thought the man was resting, but later, when they touchedhim, they found him stiff and cold, frozen to death in the midst of thebusy street. To undouble him, that he might fit into a coffin, they hadbeen forced to lug him to a fire and thaw him out a bit. Dickensenshivered at the recollection.

Later on, Dickensen went out on the sidewalk to smoke a cigar and cooloff; and a little later Emily Travis happened along. Emily Travis wasdainty and delicate and rare, and whether in London or Klondike, shegowned herself as befitted the daughter of a millionaire miningengineer. Little Dickensen deposited his cigar on an outside windowledge where he could find it again, and lifted his hat.

They chatted for ten minutes or so, when Emily Travis, glancing pastDickensen's shoulder, gave a startled little scream. Dickensen turnedabout to see, and was startled, too. Imber had crossed the street andwas standing there, a gaunt and hungry-looking shadow, his gaze rivetedupon the girl.

"What do you want?" Little Dickensen demanded, tremulously plucky.

Imber grunted and stalked up to Emily Travis. He looked her over, keenlyand carefully, every square inch of her. Especially did he appearinterested in her silky brown hair, and in the color of her cheek,faintly sprayed and soft, like the downy bloom of a butterfly wing. Hewalked around her, surveying her with the calculating eye of a man whostudies the lines upon which a horse or a boat is builded. In the courseof his circuit the pink shell of her ear came between his eye and thewestering sun, and he stopped to contemplate its rosy transparency. Thenhe returned to her face and looked long and intently into her blue eyes.He grunted and laid a hand on her arm midway between the shoulder andelbow. With his other hand he lifted her forearm and doubled it back.Disgust and wonder showed in his face, and he dropped her arm with acontemptuous grunt. Then he muttered a few guttural syllables, turnedhis back upon her, and addressed himself to Dickensen.

Dickensen could not understand his speech, and Emily Travis laughed.Imber turned from one to the other, frowning, but both shook theirheads. He was about to go away, when she called out:

"Oh, Jimmy! Come here!"

Jimmy came from the other side of the street. He was a big, hulkingIndian clad in approved white-man style, with an Eldorado king'ssombrero on his head. He talked with Imber, haltingly, with throatyspasms. Jimmy was a Sitkan, possessed of no more than a passingknowledge of the interior dialects.

"Him Whitefish man," he said to Emily Travis. "Me savve um talk no verymuch. Him want to look see chief white man."

"The Governor," suggested Dickensen.

Jimmy talked some more with the Whitefish man, and his face went graveand puzzled.

"I t'ink um want Cap'n Alexander," he explained. "Him say um kill whiteman, white woman, white boy, plenty kill um white people. Him want todie."

"'Insane, I guess," said Dickensen.

"What you call dat?" queried Jimmy.

Dickensen thrust a finger figuratively inside his head and imparted arotary motion thereto.

"Mebbe so, mebbe so," said Jimmy, returning to Imber, who still demandedthe chief man of the white men.

A mounted policeman (unmounted for Klondike service) joined the groupand heard Imber's wish repeated. He was a stalwart young fellow,broad-shouldered, deep-chested, legs cleanly built and stretched wideapart, and tall though Imber was, he towered above him by half a head.His eyes were cool, and gray, and steady, and he carried himself withthe peculiar confidence of power that is bred of blood and tradition.His splendid masculinity was emphasized by his excessive boyishness,—hewas a mere lad,—and his smooth cheek promised a blush as willingly asthe cheek of a maid.

Imber was drawn to him at once. The fire leaped into his eyes at sightof a sabre slash that scarred his cheek. He ran a withered hand down theyoung fellow's leg and caressed the swelling thew. He smote the broadchest with his knuckles, and pressed and prodded the thick muscle-padsthat covered the shoulders like a cuirass. The group had been added toby curious passers-by—husky miners, mountaineers, and frontiersmen,sons of the long-legged and broad-shouldered generations. Imber glancedfrom one to another, then he spoke aloud in the Whitefish tongue.

"What did he say?" asked Dickensen.

"Him say um all the same one man, dat p'liceman," Jimmy interpreted.

Little Dickensen was little, and what of Miss Travis, he felt sorry forhaving asked the question.

The policeman was sorry for him and stepped into the breach. "I fancythere may be something in his story. I'll take him up to the captain forexamination. Tell him to come along with me, Jimmy."

Jimmy indulged in more throaty spasms, and Imber grunted and lookedsatisfied.

"But ask him what he said, Jimmy, and what he meant when he took hold ofmy arm."

So spoke Emily Travis, and Jimmy put the question and received theanswer.

"Him say you no afraid," said Jimmy.

Emily Travis looked pleased.

"Him say you no skookum, no strong, all the same very soft like littlebaby. Him break you, in um two hands, to little pieces. Him t'ink muchfunny, very strange, how you can be mother of men so big, so strong,like dat p'liceman."

Emily Travers kept her eyes up and unfaltering, but her cheeks weresprayed with scarlet. Little Dickensen blushed and was quiteembarrassed. The policeman's face blazed with his boy's blood.

"Come along, you," he said gruffly, setting his shoulder to the crowdand forcing a way.

Thus it was that Imber found his way to the Barracks, where he made fulland voluntary confession, and from the precincts of which he neveremerged.

***

Imber looked very tired. The fatigue of hopelessness and age was in hisface. His shoulders drooped depressingly, and his eyes were lack-luster.His mop of hair should have been white, but sun—and weather-beat hadburned and bitten it so that it hung limp and lifeless and colorless. Hetook no interest in what went on around him. The court-room was jammedwith the men of the creeks and trails, and there was an ominous note inthe rumble and grumble of their low-pitched voices, which came to hisears like the growl of the sea from deep caverns.

He sat close by a window, and his apathetic eyes rested now and again onthe dreary scene without. The sky was overcast, and a gray drizzle wasfalling. It was flood-time on the Yukon. The ice was gone, and the riverwas up in the town. Back and forth on the main street, in canoes andpoling-boats, passed the people that never rested. Often he saw theseboats turn aside from the street and enter the flooded square thatmarked the Barracks' parade-ground. Sometimes they disappeared beneathhim, and he heard them jar against the house-logs and their occupantsscramble in through the window. After that came the slush of wateragainst men's legs as they waded across the lower room and mounted thestairs. Then they appeared in the doorway, with doffed hats anddripping sea-boots, and added themselves to the waiting crowd.

And while they centered their looks on him, and in grim anticipationenjoyed the penalty he was to pay, Imber looked at them, and mused ontheir ways, and on their Law that never slept, but went on unceasing, ingood times and bad, in flood and famine, through trouble and terror anddeath, and which would go on unceasing, it seemed to him, to the end oftime.

A man rapped sharply on a table, and the conversation droned away intosilence. Imber looked at the man. He seemed one in authority, yet Imberdivined the square-browed man who sat by a desk farther back to be theone chief over them all and over the man who had rapped. Another man bythe same table uprose and began to read aloud from many fine sheets ofpaper. At the top of each sheet he cleared his throat, at the bottommoistened his fingers. Imber did not understand his speech, but theothers did, and he knew that it made them angry. Sometimes it made themvery angry, and once a man cursed him, in single syllables, stinging andtense, till a man at the table rapped him to silence.

For an interminable period the man read. His monotonous, sing-songutterance lured Imber to dreaming, and he was dreaming deeply when theman ceased. A voice spoke to him in his own Whitefish tongue, and heroused up, without surprise, to look upon the face of his sister's son,a young man who had wandered away years agone to make his dwelling withthe whites.

"Thou dost not remember me," he said by way of greeting.

"Nay," Imber answered. "Thou art Howkan who went away. Thy mother bedead."

"She was an old woman," said Howkan.

But Imber did not hear, and Howkan, with hand upon his shoulder, rousedhim again.

"I shall speak to thee what the man has spoken, which is the tale of thetroubles thou hast done and which thou hast told, O fool, to the CaptainAlexander. And thou shalt understand and say if it be true talk or talknot true. It is so commanded."

Howkan had fallen among the mission folk and been taught by them to readand write. In his hands he held the many fine sheets from which the manhad read aloud and which had been taken down by a clerk when Imber firstmade confession, through the mouth of Jimmy, to Captain Alexander.Howkan began to read. Imber listened for a space, when a wonderment roseup in his face and he broke in abruptly.

"That be my talk, Howkan. Yet from thy lips it comes when thy ears havenot heard."

Howkan smirked with self-appreciation. His hair was parted in themiddle. "Nay, from the paper it comes, O Imber. Never have my earsheard. From the paper it comes, through my eyes, into my head, and outof my mouth to thee. Thus it comes."

"Thus it comes? It be there in the paper?" Imber's voice sank inwhisperful awe as he crackled the sheets 'twixt thumb and finger andstared at the charactery scrawled thereon. "It be a great medicine,Howkan, and thou art a worker of wonders."

"It be nothing, it be nothing," the young man responded carelessly andpridefully. He read at hazard from the document: "In that year, beforethe break of the ice, came an old man, and a boy who was lame of onefoot. These also did I kill, and the old man made much noise——"

"It be true," Imber interrupted breathlessly, "He made much noise andwould not die for a long time. But how dost thou know, Howkan? The chiefman of the white men told thee, mayhap? No one beheld me, and him alonehave I told."

Howkan shook his head with impatience. "Have I not told thee it be therein the paper, O fool?"

Imber stared hard at the ink-scrawled surface. "As the hunter looks uponthe snow and says, Here but yesterday there passed a rabbit; and here bythe willow scrub it stood and listened, and heard, and was afraid; andhere it turned upon its trail; and here it went with great swiftness,leaping wide; and here, with greater swiftness and wider leapings, camea lynx; and here, where the claws cut deep into the snow, the lynx madea very great leap; and here it struck, with the rabbit under and rollingbelly up; and here leads off the trail of the lynx alone, and there isno more rabbit,—as the hunter looks upon the markings of the snow andsays thus and so and here, dost thou, too, look upon the paper and saythus and so and here be the things old Imber hath done?"

"Even so," said Howkan. "And now do thou listen, and keep thy woman'stongue between thy teeth till thou art called upon for speech."

Thereafter, and for a long time, Howkan read to him the confession, andImber remained musing and silent. At the end, he said:

"It be my talk, and true talk, but I am grown old, Howkan, and forgottenthings come back to me which were well for the head man there to know.First, there was the man who came over the Ice Mountains, with cunningtraps made of iron, who sought the beaver of the Whitefish. Him I slew.And there were three men seeking gold on the Whitefish long ago. Themalso I slew, and left them to the wolverines. And at the Five Fingersthere was a man with a raft and much meat."

At the moments when Imber paused to remember, Howkan translated and aclerk reduced to writing. The court-room listened stolidly to eachunadorned little tragedy, till Imber told of a red-haired man whose eyeswere crossed and whom he had killed with a remarkably long shot.

"Hell," said a man in the forefront of the onlookers. He said itsoulfully and sorrowfully. He was red-haired. "Hell," he repeated. "Thatwas my brother Bill." And at regular intervals throughout the session,his solemn "Hell" was heard in the court-room; nor did his comradescheck him, nor did the man at the table rap him to order.

Imber's head drooped once more, and his eyes went dull, as though a filmrose up and covered them from the world. And he dreamed as only age candream upon the colossal futility of youth.

Later, Howkan roused him again, saying: "Stand up, O Imber. It becommanded that thou tellest why you did these troubles, and slew thesepeople, and at the end journeyed here seeking the Law."

Imber rose feebly to his feet and swayed back and forth. He began tospeak in a low and faintly rumbling voice, but Howkan interrupted him.

"This old man, he is damn crazy," he said in English to thesquare-browed man. "His talk is foolish and like that of a child."

"We will hear his talk which is like that of a child," said thesquare-browed man. "And we will hear it, word for word, as he speaks it.Do you understand?"

Howkan understood, and Imber's eyes flashed for he had witnessed theplay between his sister's son and the man in authority. And then beganthe story, the epic of a bronze patriot which might well itself bewrought into bronze for the generations unborn. The crowd fell strangelysilent, and the square-browed judge leaned head on hand and pondered hissoul and the soul of his race. Only was heard the deep tones of Imber,rhythmically alternating with the shrill voice of the interpreter, andnow and again, like the bell of the Lord, the wondering and meditative"Hell" of the red-haired man.

"I am Imber of the Whitefish people." So ran the interpretation ofHowkan, whose inherent barbarism gripped hold of him, and who lost hismission culture and veneered civilization as he caught the savage ringand rhythm of old Imber's tale. "My father was Otsbaok, a strong man.The land was warm with sunshine and gladness when I was a boy. Thepeople did not hunger after strange things, nor hearken to new voices,and the ways of their fathers were their ways. The women found favor inthe eyes of the young men, and the young men looked upon them withcontent. Babes hung at the breasts of the women, and they wereheavy-hipped with increase of the tribe. Men were men in those days. Inpeace and plenty, and in war and famine, they were men.

"At that time there was more fish in the water than now, and more meatin the forest. Our dogs were wolves, warm with thick hides and hard tothe frost and storm. And as with our dogs, so with us, for we werelikewise hard to the frost and storm. And when the Pellys came into ourland we slew them and were slain. For we were men, we Whitefish, and ourfathers and our fathers' fathers had fought against the Pellys anddetermined the bounds of the land.

"As I say, with our dogs, so with us. And one day came the first whiteman. He dragged himself, so, on hand and knee, in the snow. And his skinwas stretched tight, and his bones were sharp beneath. Never was such aman, we thought, and we wondered of what strange tribe he was, and ofits land. And he was weak, most weak, like a little child, so that wegave him a place by the fire, and warm furs to lie upon, and we gave himfood as little children are given food.

"And with him was a dog, large as three of our dogs, and very weak. Thehair of this dog was short, and not warm, and the tail was frozen sothat the end fell off. And this strange dog we fed, and bedded by thefire, and fought from it our dogs, which else would have killed him. Andwhat of the moose meat and the sun-dried salmon, the man and dog tookstrength to themselves; and what of the strength, they became big andunafraid. And the man spoke loud words and laughed at the old men andyoung men, and looked boldly upon the maidens. And the dog fought withour dogs, and for all of his short hair and softness slew three of themin one day.

"When we asked the man concerning his people he said, 'I have manybrothers,' and laughed in a way that was not good. And when he was inhis full strength he went away, and with him went Noda, daughter to thechief. First, after that, was one of our bitches brought to pup. Andnever was there such a breed of dogs,—big-headed, thick-jawed, andshort-haired, and helpless. Well do I remember my father, Otsbaok, astrong man. His face was black with anger at such helplessness, and hetook a stone, so, and so, and there was no more helplessness. And twosummers after that came Noda back to us with a man-child in the hollowof her arm.

"And that was the beginning. Came a second white man, with short-haireddogs, which he left behind him when he went. And with him went six ofour strongest dogs, for which, in trade, he had given Koo-So-Tee, mymother's brother, a wonderful pistol that fired with great swiftness sixtimes. And Koo-So-Tee was very big, what of the pistol, and laughed atour bows and arrows. 'Woman's things,' he called them, and went forthagainst the bald-face grizzly, with the pistol in his hand. Now it beknown that it is not good to hunt the bald-face with a pistol, but howwere we to know? and how was Koo-So-Tee to know? So he went against thebald-face, very brave, and fired the pistol with great swiftness sixtimes; and the bald-face but grunted and broke in his breast like itwere an egg and like honey from a bee's nest dripped the brains ofKoo-So-Tee upon the ground. He was a good hunter, and there was no oneto bring meat to his squaw and children. And we were bitter, and we said'That which for the white men is well, is for us not well.' And this betrue. There be many white men and fat, but their ways have made us fewand lean.

"Came the third white man, with great wealth of all manner of wonderfulfoods and things. And twenty of our strongest dogs he took from us intrade. Also, what of presents and great promises, ten of our younghunters did he take with him on a journey which fared no man knew where.It is said they died in the snow of the Ice Mountains where man hasnever been, or in the Hills of Silence which are beyond the edge of theearth. Be that as it may, dogs and young hunters were seen never againby the Whitefish people.

"And more white men came with the years, and ever, with pay andpresents, they led the young men away with them. And sometimes the youngmen came back with strange tales of dangers and toils in the landsbeyond the Pellys, and sometimes they did not come back. And we said:'If they be unafraid of life, these white men, it is because they havemany lives; but we be few by the Whitefish, and the young men shall goaway no more.' But the young men did go away; and the young women wentalso; and we were very wroth.

"It be true, we ate flour, and salt pork, and drank tea which was agreat delight; only, when we could not get tea, it was very bad and webecame short of speech and quick of anger. So we grew to hunger for thethings the white men brought in trade. Trade! trade! all the time was ittrade! One winter we sold our meat for clocks that would not go, andwatches with broken guts, and files worn smooth, and pistols withoutcartridges and worthless. And then came famine, and we were withoutmeat, and two-score died ere the break of spring.

"'Now are we grown weak,' we said; 'and the Pellys will fall upon us,and our bounds be overthrown.' But as it fared with us, so had it faredwith the Pellys, and they were too weak to come against us.

"My father, Otsbaok, a strong man, was now old and very wise. And hespoke to the chief, saying: 'Behold, our dogs be worthless. No longerare they thick-furred and strong, and they die in the frost and harness.Let us go into the village and kill them, saving only the wolf ones, andthese let us tie out in the night that they may mate with the wildwolves of the forest. Thus shall we have dogs warm and strong again.'

"And his word was harkened to, and we Whitefish became known for ourdogs, which were the best in the land. But known we were not forourselves. The best of our young men and women had gone away with thewhite men to wander on trail and river to far places. And the youngwomen came back old and broken, as Noda had come, or they came not atall. And the young men came back to sit by our fires for a time, fullof ill speech and rough ways, drinking evil drinks and gambling throughlong nights and days, with a great unrest always in their hearts, tillthe call of the white men came to them and they went away again to theunknown places. And they were without honor and respect, jeering theold-time customs and laughing in the faces of chief and shamans.

"As I say, we were become a weak breed, we Whitefish. We sold our warmskins and furs for tobacco and whiskey and thin cotton things that leftus shivering in the cold. And the coughing sickness came upon us, andmen and women coughed and sweated through the long nights, and thehunters on trail spat blood upon the snow. And now one, and now another,bled swiftly from the mouth and died. And the women bore few children,and those they bore were weak and given to sickness. And othersicknesses came to us from the white men, the like of which we had neverknown and could not understand. Smallpox, likewise measles, have I heardthese sicknesses named, and we died of them as die the salmon in thestill eddies when in the fall their eggs are spawned and there is nolonger need for them to live.

"And yet, and here be the strangeness of it, the white men come as thebreath of death; all their ways lead to death, their nostrils are filledwith it; and yet they do not die. Theirs the whiskey, and tobacco, andshort-haired dogs; theirs the many sicknesses, the smallpox and measles,the coughing and mouth-bleeding; theirs the white skin, and softness tothe frost and storm; and theirs the pistols that shoot six times veryswift and are worthless. And yet they grow fat on their many ills, andprosper, and lay a heavy hand over all the world and tread mightily uponits peoples. And their women, too, are soft as little babes, mostbreakable and never broken, the mothers of men. And out of all thissoftness, and sickness, and weakness, come strength, and power, andauthority. They be gods, or devils, as the case may be. I do not know.What do I know, I, old Imber of the Whitefish? Only do I know that theyare past understanding, these white men, far-wanderers and fighters overthe earth that they be.

"As I say, the meat in the forest became less and less. It be true, thewhite man's gun is most excellent and kills a long way off; but of whatworth the gun, when there is no meat to kill? When I was a boy on theWhitefish there was moose on every hill, and each year came the caribouuncountable. But now the hunter may take the trail ten days and not onemoose gladden his eyes, while the caribou uncountable come no more atall. Small worth the gun, I say, killing a long way off, when there benothing to kill.

"And I, Imber, pondered upon these things, watching the while theWhitefish, and the Pellys, and all the tribes of the land, perishing asperished the meat of the forest. Long I pondered. I talked with theshamans and the old men who were wise. I went apart that the sounds ofthe village might not disturb me, and I ate no meat, so that my bellyshould not press upon me and make me slow of eye and ear. I sat long andsleepless in the forest, wide-eyed for the sign, my ears patient andkeen for the word thatwas to come. And I wandered alone in the blackness of night to the riverbank, where was wind-moaning and sobbing of water, and where I soughtwisdom from the ghosts of old shamans in the trees and dead and gone.

"And in the end, as in a vision, came to me the short-haired anddetestable dogs, and the way seemed plain. By the wisdom of Otsbaok, myfather and a strong man, had the blood of our own wolf-dogs been keptclean, wherefore had they remained warm of hide and strong in theharness. So I returned to my village and made oration to the men. 'Thisbe a tribe, these white men,' I said. 'A very large tribe, and doubtlessthere is no longer meat in their land, and they are come among us tomake a new land for themselves. But they weaken us, and we die. They area very hungry folk. Already has our meat gone from us, and it were well,if we would live, that we deal by them as we have dealt by their dogs.'

"And further oration I made, counseling fight. And the men of theWhitefish listened, and some said one thing, and some another, and somespoke of other and worthless things, and no man made brave talk of deedsand war. But while the young men were weak as water and afraid, Iwatched that the old men sat silent, and that in their eyes fires cameand went. And later, when the village slept and no one knew, I drew theold men away into the forest and made more talk. And now we were agreed,and we remembered the good young days, and the free land, and the timesof plenty, and the gladness and sunshine; and we called ourselvesbrothers, and swore great secrecy, and a mighty oath to cleanse theland of the evil breed that had come upon it. It be plain we were fools,but how were we to know, we old men of the Whitefish?

"And to hearten the others, I did the first deed. I kept guard upon theYukon till the first canoe came down. In it were two white men, and whenI stood upright upon the bank and raised my hand they changed theircourse and drove in to me. And as the man in the bow lifted his head,so, that he might know wherefore I wanted him, my arrow sang through theair straight to his throat, and he knew. The second man, who held paddlein the stern, had his rifle half to his shoulder when the first of mythree spear-casts smote him.

"'These be the first,' I said, when the old men had gathered to me.'Later we will bind together all the old men of all the tribes, andafter that the young men who remain strong, and the work will becomeeasy.'

"And then the two dead white men we cast into the river. And of thecanoe, which was a very good canoe, we made a fire, and a fire, also, ofthe things within the canoe. But first we looked at the things, and theywere pouches of leather which we cut open with our knives. And insidethese pouches were many papers, like that from which thou hast read, OHowkan, with markings on them which we marveled at and could notunderstand. Now, I am become wise, and I know them for the speech of menas thou hast told me."

A whisper and buzz went around the court-room when Howkan finishedinterpreting the affair of the canoe, and one man's voice spoke up:"That was the lost '91 mail, Peter James and Delaney bringing it in andlast spoken at Le Barge by Matthews going out." The clerk scratchedsteadily away, and another paragraph was added to the history of theNorth.

"There be little more," Imber went on slowly. "It be there on the paper,the things we did. We were old men, and we did not understand. Even I,Imber, do not now understand. Secretly we slew, and continued to slay,for with our years we were crafty and we had learned the swiftness ofgoing without haste. When white men came among us with black looks andrough words, and took away six of the young men with irons binding themhelpless, we knew we must slay wider and farther. And one by one we oldmen departed up river and down to the unknown lands. It was a bravething. Old we were, and unafraid, but the fear of far places is aterrible fear to men who are old.

"So we slew, without haste, and craftily. On the Chilkoot and in theDelta we slew, from the passes to the sea, wherever the white men campedor broke their trails. It be true, they died, but it was without worth.Ever did they come over the mountains, ever did they grow and grow,while we, being old, became less and less. I remember, by the CaribouCrossing, the camp of a white man. He was a very little white man, andthree of the old men came upon him in his sleep. And the next day I cameupon the four of them. The white man alone still breathed, and there wasbreath in him to curse me once and well before he died.

"And so it went, now one old man, and now another. Sometimes the wordreached us long after of how they died, and sometimes it did not reachus. And the old men of the other tribes were weak and afraid, and wouldnot join with us. As I say, one by one, till I alone was left. I amImber, of the Whitefish people. My father was Otsbaok, a strong man.There are no Whitefish now. Of the old men I am the last. The young menand young women are gone away, some to live with the Pellys, some withthe Salmons, and more with the white men. I am very old, and very tired,and it being vain fighting the Law, as thou sayest, Howkan, I am comeseeking the Law."

"O Imber, thou art indeed a fool," said Howkan.

But Imber was dreaming. The square-browed judge likewise dreamed, andall his race rose up before him in a mighty phantasmagoria—hissteel-shod, mail-clad race, the law-giver and world-maker among thefamilies of men. He saw it dawn red-flickering across the dark forestsand sullen seas; he saw it blaze, bloody and red, to full and triumphantnoon; and down the shaded slope he saw the blood-red sands dropping intonight. And through it all he observed the Law, pitiless and potent, everunswerving and ever ordaining, greater than the motes of men whofulfilled it or were crushed by it, even as it was greater than he, hisheart speaking for softness.

DOWN THEFLUME WITH THESNEATH PIANO

BY

BAILEY MILLARD

Reprinted from The Century Magazine by permission

HAD halted at Camp Five to catch my breath. This flying down a Sierranlumber-flume, scurrying through the heady air like another Phaeton, wastoo full of thrills to be taken all in one gasp. I dropped limply intothe rawhide-bottomed chair under the awning in front of the big boardshanty which was on stilts beside the airy flume, and gazed on down thelong, gleaming, tragic, watery way to the next steep slide. Then Ilooked at the frail little flume-boat which had borne Oram Sheets and methus far on our hazardous journey to the valley. Perhaps I shivered abit at the prospect of more of this hair-raising adventure. At any rate,Oram, the intrepid flume-herder, laughed, dug his picaroon into a log,and asked:

"Sorry yeh come? Wal, it does git onto a man's nerve the first trip.Strange so many brash ones like you wanter try, but few on 'em ever dastgit in ag'in. But I've be'n down so often." Then he peered about thecabin. "Looks like none o' the boys was to home. Wish they was; theymight git us up a little dinner. It's jest twelve."

He went inside the open door, and I heard him foraging about, theshanty echoing hollowly to the clumping of his big boots. By and by hisnasal note was resumed:

"Come in, pardner! Here's a great find: a big can o' green gages an' ahunk o' jerk an' a lot o' cold biscuits."

Inside, with my legs under the greasy, coverless table, I chewed thejerk like one who was determined to give his jaws the benefit ofstrenuous physical culture, and listened while Oram rattled on, with hismouth full of the sodden, half-baked biscuits.

"You mightn't think it," said he, "but three years ago this here was themost scrumptious camp on the hull flume. Ol' man Hemenway lived herethen with his daughter Jess. She kep' house fer him. Jess was a greatgal. Every man along the flume, from Skyland to Mill Flat, was in lovewith her. Shape? You couldn't beat that there gal for figger if yeh wasto round up every actress in the country. She had a pair o' big roundbaby-blue eyes, an' was as pretty as any o' them there cigarettepicters. A little on the strawbary-blonde, but not too much red in herhair, an' yet spunky as a badger when yeh teased her.

"The boys down this way didn't have much show. It looked like Jess hadhit it off with Jud Brusie, a big, husky, clean-lookin' chap up to theh'ist. Jud used ter send her down notes stuck in sticks wedged inter theclamps, an' he used ter sneak down this way on Sundays when he'd git achanst. She'd meet him up to the Riffles there by that big bunch o'yaller pines we passed. He didn't dast come down here nary time till ol'man Hemenway he got laid up with a busted laig from slippin' off thetrestle in the snow. That there was Jud's show ter git in his fine work.Used ter bring down deer-meat for the ol' man, an' sody-water from thatthere spoutin' spring up ter Crazy Cañon; an' it begun to look likeHemenway'd give in an' let him have her. But he seemed to hold off.

"The boys used ter nearly josh the life out o' Jud. One fellow—his namewas Phil Pettis—was skunkin' mean enough to read a note Jud sent downoncet an' tell about it roun' Skyland; but that was the only time any of'em ever done anything like that, fer Jud jest laid fer Phil an' wentthrough him like a buzz-saw an' chucked him inter the flume.

"No, it didn't kill Phil, but he got tol'able well used up. His clotheswas nearly all tore off, an' his hands got some bruised where he caughton to the aidges before he got a holt an' lifted himself out in a stillplace. He'd be'n all right only he got mixed up with a string o' lumberthat was a-comin' down, an' so he had to go to the hospital.

"One thing about Jess—she was a singer all right. I ain't never heer'dary one o' them there the-ay-ter gals that could beat her singin'. Shewarbled like a lark with his belly full o' grubworms. It was wuth ridin'a clamp from here to Mill Flat to hear her sing. She had a couple o'hymn-books an' a stack o' them coon songs the newspapers gives away, an'I tell yeh, she'd sing them there songs like she'd knowed 'em all herlife. Picked out the tunes some ways on a little string-thing like asawed-off guitar. Sounds like muskeeters hummin' aroun'. Yes, amandy-linn—that's it. But that there mandy-linn didn't soot her alittle bit. She was crazy ter have a pianner. I heer'd her tell her paw,who was aroun' ag'in workin' after his busted laig got well, she'd giveten years o' her life for any ol' cheap pianner he could skeer up ferher.

"'Wal,' says he, 'how in tunket am I a-goin' ter git anything likethat—thirty miles off'n the road, an' nary way o' freightin' it up ordown the cañon to this camp?'

"'Couldn't yeh have it brung up to Skyland by the stage road,' asts she,'an' then have it rafted down the flume? Jest a little one?' she astsvery earnest-like.

"'Gee whittaker!' says he, laughin' all over. 'You'll be a-wantin' 'emto send yeh down a parlor-keer nex'.'

"Then she gits hot in the collar an' cries an' takes on, an' Jud, whowas a-hangin' aroun', has to walk her up to the Riffles; an' he must 'a'comforted her a heap, fer she comes back alone, singin,' 'Nearer, myGod, to Thee,' like a angel.

"The' was a big spill up to the Devil's Gate,—one o' them places backthere where the flume hangs onto the side o' the cliff, about half amile above the bottom o' the gulch,—an' Jud Brusie an' all hands has towork there three days an' nights ter git things straightened out. Judworked so derned hard, up all night an' hangin' on ter the ropes he waslet up an' down by till yeh'd think he was ready to drop, that thesoop'rintendent said he'd make Jud flume boss when he got back from NooYork, where he was a-goin' fer a few months. The soop'rintendent—that'sMr. Sneath—went over the hull flume with Jud a little while before helit out for the East, p'intin' things out ter him that he wanted didwhen he got back. I was down here flume-herdin' at Five when him an' Judcome along in a dude-lookin' flume-boat, rigged out in great style. Istopped 'em back there a ways with my picaroon, when they sung out, an'they walked down here on the side planks. Jest as they got near the campthe soop'rintendent he stopped like he'd struck a rotten plank an'stared at the house.

"'Who's that singin'?' says he.

"'Miss. Hemenway,' says Jud, proud-like.

"'She's got an awful sweet voice,' says the ol' man. 'It oughter betrained. She ought to go to a hot-house'—or something like that.'Conservatory?' Yes, that's it.

"'She's mighty anxious to l'arn,' says Jud. 'She wants a pianner awfulbad.'

"'Does she?' says the soop'rintendent. 'She oughter have one.'

"When he come along to the house he says to Jess, who stuck her headouter the door an' looked kinder skeer'd-like, says he, 'I wish yeh'dsing a few songs fer me.'

"Wal, yeh could see wal enough that Jess's knees was a-knockin'together, but she tunes up her mandy-linn, scratches at the strings witha little chip, an' gits started all right on 'Rock o' Ages,' an' gits togoin' along kinder quavery-like fer a while, an' then she busts rightinter, 'He'r dem Bells,' so strong an' high an' wild that it takes theol' man right out o' his boots.

"He claps his hands an' yells, 'Hooray! Give us another!'

"Then she saws along on, 'Gather at the River,' an' chops inter, 'AllCoons Looks Alike ter Me,' in a way to stop the mill.

"Her paw stan's aroun' all the while, tickled t' death an' smilin' allover.

"'Wal,' says the soop'rintendent, when Jess she stops ter git her wind,'yer all right, Miss. Hemenway. Yer as full o' music as a wind-harp in atornado.' Then he says to her paw on the Q. T., 'If yeh was ter let thatgal go ter the city an' l'arn some o' them high-toned op'ry songs, yehwouldn't have to be picaroonin' lumber strings much longer.'

"'Yes,' says Hemenway, bloated up like a gobbler an' lookin' at Jesswhere she stan's with her face red an' still a-puffin' for breath; 'an'she thinks she could l'arn right here if she only had a pianner.'

"'She'd oughter have one,' says Mr. Sneath. 'I wish——' he says, an'then he breaks off like a busted log-chain. 'But we couldn't git it downhere.'

'"What's that?' asts Hemenway.

"'We got a pianner up to our place, an' Mrs. Sneath won't be a-fingerin'on it fer five months. She's a-goin' East with me. If we could only gitit down here an' back all right. If the' 's only a road from Skylanddown here or from Mill Flat up, but the' ain't, so the' 's no usetalkin'. Couldn't ship it down to the Flat an' up on mule-back, ornothin', either; so I guess it can't be did.'

"'Why not send it down the flume?' asts Jess, timid-like. I could seeshe was jest crazy about gittin' it.

"'Oh, the flume is old, an' it's rotten in places, an' such a heavy loadmight go through.'

"'Why, it holds up the grub-boat all right,' says Jess 'Oh, if I couldonly have that pianner down here! I can play a little already, an' I'dl'arn a lot. I'd practise eight hours a day.'

"'How about gittin' the meals?' asts Hemenway.

"'Wal, I'd set up, then, an' practise all night,' says she.

"'I'm afeard that 'u'd be pretty hard on yer paw,' says Mr. Sneath,smilin'. 'Wal, Jud, we got ter be goin'.'

"So they gits inter their dude boat, an' Jess she skips along after 'em,an' jest as they's about to ontie she yells out to the soop'rintendent:

"'Cain't I have it? Cain't I have it? Cain't yeh send it down the flume?Please say yeh will. I'll take the best kind o' keer of it. It sha'n'tgit a single scratch.'

"Mr. Sneath he looks at her a minute kinder tender-like, an' I knowedthem big eyes o' hern was a-doin' their work. Them big soft baby eyeswould 'a' drawed sap outer a dead log.

"'Wal,' says he, 'we'll see. If Mrs. Sneath's willin' I guess it'll beall right.'

"'Thank you, thank you, thank you!' she yells as the boat flies down theflume.

"I seed Jud blow a kiss to her, an' I knowed she was happy as a bird.She was a-singin' aroun' the shanty all day, an' at supper she donenothin' but talk, talk, talk about that there pianner.

"'Don't be so awful gay, Miss. Hemenway,' says I, for I was afeard shemight be disapp'inted. 'Yeh ain't got it yet. Yeh know, Mr. Sneath's a'awful busy man, an' he may fergit it.'

"'Oh, he won't fergit! Jud'll poke him up on it,' says she. 'An' I thinkI'll have it put right over there in that corner. No, that's on theflume side, an' it might draw dampness there. Over there by the winder'sthe place, an' plenty o' light, too. Wonder if they'll think to senddown a stool.'

"I had to skin up to Skyland nex' day. Jud says the soop'rintendent hasto light out quicker'n he'd thought, but he didn't fergit about thepianner. Mis' Sneath was as easy as greased skids, but Mr. Sneath hedidn't know exactly. He sends the pianner over to the warehouse there'longside the flume an' has the men slap together a stout boat to runher down in; but at the las' minute he backs out. He was a-lookin' atthe pianner standin' there in the warehouse, an' he says to Jud, sayshe:

"'That there pianner has be'n in our family ever sence we was married.Marthy allus sot a heap o' store by that pianner. It was my firstpresent to her, an' I know she thinks a hull lot of it, even if shedon't seem ter keer. Trouble is, she don't know what sendin' it down theflume means. Yeh see, it ain't like a long string o' lumber—weight'sall in one place, an' she might break through. This flume ain't what itwas thirteen years ago, yeh know.'

"Jud he argies with him, 'cos he knows Jess's heart'll be broke if shedon't git the pianner; an' after a while he thinks he's got it allfixed; but jest afore Sneath an' his wife takes the stage he telaphonesdown to the warehouse to let the pianner stay there till he comes back.Then he goes away, an' Jud is as down in the mouth as if he'd run hisfist ag'in' a band-saw. He mopes aroun' all day, an' he's afeard totell Jess; but as I was a-goin' back to Five that night, he tells me tobreak it to her gentle-like an' say he'd done his best. Which I did.Wal, that gal jest howls when I tells her, an' sobs an' sobs an' takeson like a baby coyote with the croup. But her dad he quiets her at last.

"Jud he hardly dasts to show up on Sunday, but when he does, she won'tlook at him fer quite a while. Then some o' that strawbary-blonde in hercomes out in some o' the dernedest scoldin' yeh ever heer'd.

"'It's too bad, Jessie,' says he, 'but it ain't my fault. I done mybest. He backed out at the las' minute; he backed out, an' I couldn't dono more than if a tree dropped on me. He backed out.'

"After a while he takes her off up the flume a piece, an' they staysthere a long time, but she don't seem satisfied much when she comesback. There is hell a-poppin' there for about three days over that therepianner, an' the ol' man he gits so sick of it he gives her warnin'he'll light out if she don't quit. Wal, she quiets down some after that,but she makes Jud as mis'able as a treed coon fer over a week. She keepsa-tryin' an' a-tryin' to git him to send the pianner down anyway. Shetells him she'll send it back afore the Sneaths gits home.

"'He told me I could have it; he promised me,' says she, 'he promisedme, an' I'll never marry you unless you send it down. You can do it;you're goin' to be boss, an' you know it will be all right. I'll seethat they ain't a scratch on it; an' you can put it in the warehouse,an' they'll never know it's be'n away.'

"An' so she keeps a-teasin' an' a-teasin', till finally Jud he gitsdesperate.

"'Oram,' says he to me one day, 'Oram, you're an ol' flume man. What doyou think o' runnin' that pianner down to Five?'

"I shakes my head. I likes the boy, an' I don't want ter see him takesech big chances o' gittin' inter trouble. Somebody might tell Sneath,an' then it might be all off about his bein' flume boss. Besides, nobodyhad never run no pianner down no flume before, an' yeh couldn't tellwhat might happen.

"'D' yeh think, honest, Oram,' says he, 'the ol' flume's likely ter giveway anywheres?'

"'No,' says I; 'she's strong as a railroad-track.'

"'Wal, then,' says he, 'I'm a-goin' to do it. You come down Sunday an'we'll take her out afore anybody's out o' the bunk-house.'

"I tries to argy him out of it, but he won't listen. So Sunday, aboutfive in the mornin', I goes up to Skyland, an' we slides the big boatinter the flume an' gits the pianner onto the rollers, an' 't ain't muchtrouble to load her all right; fer, yer know, them big boats has flattops like decks, an' things sets up on top of 'em. But while we wasa-doin' that an' the boat is hitched tight to a stanchion 'longside o'the flume, the water backs up behind so high that it looks as though thepianner is a-goin' ter git wet. This skeers Jud, an' he seems to losehis head someways.

"'Hustle up, Oram!' says he, very nervous-like. 'The boat's crowdin'down so it won't let any water past. Ontie that rope.'

"I takes a good notice o' the pianner, an' I don't like her looks,sittin' up there so high on that little deck.

"'We oughter tie her on good an' tight,' says I.

"She's a upright, yeh see, an' she's as top-heavy as a pile-driver. Iwas afeard she'd strike a low limb or somethin' an' git smashed. So Igoes to settle her a bit an' lay her down on her back an' tie her on;but he says he don't know about that layin'-down business, an' declaresshe'll ride all right. He speaks pretty sharp, too. So I gits a littlehuffy an' onties the rope, an' we starts.

"Wal, she don't go very fast at first, 'cos she's heavy an' they ain'tnone too much water in front; but after a while we comes to the Devil'sSlide,—you remember the place,—an' we scoots down there like themill-tails o' hell.

"'Gee-whiz!' says Jud. 'She's a-rockin' like a teeter. I hope she'llstay on all right.' He was settin' back with me, behind the pianner, an'we both tries to holt on to her an' keep her stiddy, but we cain't domuch more'n set down an' cuss haff the time, we're so afeard we'll gitthrowed out. Wal, after we come to the foot of the slide, we breatheseasy-like, an' Jud he says it's all right, for that there was the wustplace. For about three miles the pianner set on that boat as stiddy as achurch, an' from there on down to Four it was pretty good sailin'. Ofcourse we went a good deal faster in the steep places than any otherboat ever sent down the flume, because the heft o' the thing, when shegot started, was bound to make her fly, water or no water. In a goodmany places we run ahead o' the stream, an' then in the quiet spots thewater would catch up to us an' back up behind us an' shove us along.

"Between Four an' Five there's a place we used ter call Cape Horn. Theflume is bracketed onto a cliff, yeh know, fer about a mile, an' it's askeery place any way yeh shoot it; yeh scoot aroun' them there sharpcurves so lively, an' yeh look down there four or five hundred feetinter the bottom o' the cañon. That's where yeh shut yer eyes. Yehremember? Wal, when I sees Cape Horn ahead I gits a little skeer'd whenI thinks how she might rock. We run onto a place where I could look awayahead, an' there, wavin' her apron or somethin', is a gal, an' I knowsit's Jess, out from Five to see the pianner come down. Jud he knows,too, an' waves back.

"We runs out onto the brackets, turns a sharp curve, an' she begins towabble an' stagger like a drunken man, floppin' back an' forth, an' thestrings an' things inside is a-hummin' an' a-drummin'.

"'Slow her down!' yells Jud. 'Slow her down, or we'll never git past theHorn!'

"I claps on the brake, but she's so heavy she don't pay no 'tention toit, though I makes smoke 'long them planks, I tell yer. She scoots aheadfaster'n ever, an' bows to the scenery, this way an' that, like she wascrazy, an' a-hummin' harder than ever.

"'Slow her down! Ease her down!' hollers Jud, grittin' his teeth an'holdin' onto her with all his hundred an' eighty pounds weight. But 'tain't no good. I gits a holt oncet, but the water backs up behind us an'we goes a-scootin' down on a big wave that sloshes out o' the flume onboth sides an' sends us flyin' toward that Horn fer further orders.

"When we gits to the sharpest curve we knows we're there all right. Shewabbles on one side an' then on the other, so I can see chunks o' skyahead right under her. An' then, all of a sudden, she gives a whoopin'big jump right off the top o' the boat, an' over the side o' the flumeshe goes, her strings all a-singin' like mad, an' sailin' down fourhundred feet. Jud had a holt of her before she dropped, an' if I hadn't'a' grabbed him he'd 'a' gone over, too.

"You might not believe it, pardner, but we run a quarter of a mile downthat there flume before we hears her strike. Jeroosalem! What a crash! Iever heer'd one o' them big redwoods that made half so much noise whenshe dropped. How she did roar! An' I tell yeh what was strange aboutthat there noise: it seemed like all the music that everybody had everexpected to play on that pianner for the nex' hundred years comea-boomin' out all to oncet in one great big whoop-hurray that echered upan' down that cañon fer half an hour.

"'We've lost somethin',' says I, cheerful-like, fer I thinks the' 's nouse cryin' over spilt pianners.

"But Jud he never says nothin',—jest sets there like he was froze plumbstiff an' couldn't stir a eyelid—sets there, starin' straight aheaddown the flume. Looks like his face is caught in the air and held thatway.

"Of course, now our load's gone, the brake works all right, an' I hooksa-holt onto the side about a hundred feet from where Jess stands like amarble statute, lookin' down inter the gulch.

"'Come on, Jud,' says I, layin' my hand onto his arm soft-like; 'we gitsout here.'

"He don't say nothin', but tries to shake me off. I gits him out atlast, an' we goes over to where poor Jess stands, stiff an' starin' downinter the gulch. When she hears our feet on the side planks, she startsup an' begins to beller like a week-old calf; an' that fetches Jud outerhis trance for a while, an' he puts his arm aroun' her an' he helps herback along the walk till we comes to a place where we gits down an' goesover to view the wreck.

"Great snakes, pardner, but it was a sight! The pianner had flew downan' lit onto a big, flat rock, an' the' wasn't a piece of her left asbig as that there plate. There was all kinds o' wires a-wrigglin' aroun'on the ground an' a-shinin' in the sun, an' the' was white keys an'black keys an' the greatest lot o' them little woolly things thatstrikes the strings all mixed up with little bits o' mahogany an' nutsan' bolts an' little scraps o' red flannel an' leather, an' pegs an'bits o' iron that didn't look as if it had ever been any part o' themachine. It was the dernedest mess! I picked up somethin' Jess said wasa pedal,—a little piece o' shiny iron about as long as that,—'n' thatwas the only thing that seemed to have any shape left to it. The litterdidn't make any pile at all—jest a lot o' siftin' sawdust-stuffscattered aroun' on the rocks.

"'She struck tol'able hard,' says I, lookin' at Jud. But he don't saynothin'; jest stan's over there on the side o' the rock an' looks as ifhe'd like to jump off another fifty feet the' was there.

"'Don't take it like that, Jud,' says Jess, grabbin' holt o' him an' notpayin' any 'tention to my bein' there. 'Cry, cuss, swear—anything, butdon't be so solemn-like. It's my fault, Juddie dear—all my fault. Canyeh ever, ever fergive me? Yeh said yeh didn't think it was safe, an' Ikep' a-goadin' yeh to it; an' now——' She broke out a-blubberin' an'a-bellerin' again, an' he puts his arm aroun' her an' smiles, an' sayssoft-like:

"'It don't matter much. I can raise the money an' buy a new one fer Mis'Sneath. How much do they cost?' says he.

"'Oh, I dunno! Five hundred dollars, I think. It's an awful lot o'money!'

"'Wal, I got three-fifty saved up,—you know what fer,—an' I can raisethe rest an' put a new pianner in the place o' that one,' says he.

"He looks at the wreck, an' fer the first time I sees his eyes is jest alittle damp.

"They didn't either of 'em seem to take any notice o' me, an' I didn'tfeel that I counted, nohow.

"'An' we cain't git married,' says Jud, sorrowful-like, 'fer ever solong. There'll be nothin' to house-keep on till I can save up somemore.'

"'Yes, we can, too,' says she. 'I don't keer if yeh ain't got so much asa piece o' bale-rope.'

"'But yer paw?'

"'I don't keer,' says she, very hard-like, a-stampin' her foot. 'He canlike it or lump it.'

"Wal, I sneaks away an' leaves 'em there, an' by an' by they comes up towhere I sets on top o' the boat, an' Jud isn't so plumb gloomy as Ithinks he'd be.

"Him an' her goes down ter Fresno nex' day an' buys one o' that sameidentical make o' pianners an' has it shipped up on the firstfreight-wagon to Skyland. An' they puts it inter the warehouse, an'there she stands till Mr. Sneath comes home with his wife.

"When Mis' Sneath she sees the pianner brung inter her house she don'tnotice any difference fer a while; but one day she sets down ter play,an' she pounds out a few music, an' then she gives a jump an' looks allover the machine an' she says, 'Good Lord!' An' Sneath he comes in, an'they has a great time over how the' 's be'n sech a change in thatpianner. She finally makes up her mind it's a bran'-new one, an' sendsfer Jud an' asts him what he knows about it. An' he cain't lie a littlebit, so he up an' tells her that her pianner is all inter sawdust an'scrap-iron down on the rocks, an' that this is a new one that he owes ahundred an' fifty dollars on down ter Fresno.

"Then she busts out a-laughin', an' says:

"'Why, that old tin-pan! I'm glad it flew the flume. It wasn't wuthtwenty dollars. I got a noo grand pianner on the way here that I orderedin Noo York. I'll make this here one a weddin' present to you an' Jess.'

"And the soop'rintendent he writes out his check an' sends it down toFresno to pay off the hundred an' fifty, an' when the weddin' it comesoff he gives 'em a set o' chiny dishes besides.

"Jud's flume boss now, an' Jess she plays that pianner an' sings like abird. When we gits down ter Mill Flat I'll show yeh their house. It's awhite one up on the side o' the hill, jest across the gulch from themill.

"Wal, yeh had all the grub yeh want, pardner? Say, ain't them greengages sour? They sets yer teeth on aidge all right. An' I couldn't findthe boys' sugar-can. If yer full up, I guess we'd better git inter theboat."

I took my seat behind Oram and a particularly offensive pipe he hadjust lighted. Looking down the long, swift-running, threatening flume, Ishuddered; for since Oram's recital the native hue of my resolution hadbeen "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." I remarked that ifhe saw any of those Cape Horn curves ahead to let me know and I wouldget out and walk.

"Don't yeh be skeer'd by what I told yeh," said he. "Yeh got a prettyfair-sized head, but yeh ain't quite so top-heavy as Mis' Sneath's bigupright. An', besides, the' ain't no more Cape Horn on this flume; theycalls that place Pianner P'int now."

THE CONTUMACY OFSARAH L. WALKER

BY

MIRIAM MICHELSON

Reprinted from Munsey's Magazine of April, 1904 by permission

HE BOARD will now pass to consideration of the case of Mrs.—Mrs.Walker."

The president looked from the report in front of her to thesuperintendent sitting opposite.

The Rev. Alexander McCaleb rose slowly to his feet.

"I regret exceedingly," he said, "to have to report this case to theboard. I need not say that if it had been possible to convince Mrs.Walker of the error of her ways, no pains or time would have beenspared. But I have done all that I could. Mrs. Walker persists.She—ah!—she flouts all authority, and—ah!—sets such an example ofrebellious conduct that I fear the discipline of the home may be gravelycompromised."

The president knitted her pretty, dark brows. Her hair was white, with asoft, youthful whiteness that haloed her head as if it was a joke of oldTime's. She was new to her office, and was conscious of a criticalatmosphere that subtly underlined the formality of the proceedings—anofficial formality that made the meeting of the lady managers of thisOld People's Home a formidable affair.

"I see no record of any case of disciplining heretofore," she said,troubled. "There is no precedent by which the chair can be——"

"But there are the by-laws," suggested the superintendent. He reachedover to his own desk, and read from a pamphlet that had lain open there:"If any inmate of the home shall persistently and willfully disobey therules, the superintendent shall report such case to the board ofmanagers. If, after full and complete investigation, and a notice tothat effect having been duly served, said inmate shall continue topersist in contumacy, the board is by a majority vote empowered toexpel."

A little hush fell upon the assemblage at this invocation of its dreadpowers.

"It seems rather hard on the old bodies, doesn't it?" the president wasencouraged to remark.

"But it is plainly stated in the by-laws," said the recording secretary,a bright-eyed, business-like matron.

"And dear Mr. McCaleb is so patient and tactful that it is seldomnecessary," remarked the single member of this week's visitingcommittee.

"I thank you, Mrs. Davis." The superintendent bowed in his stateliestmanner. "I do my best—I try always to do my best. Old people aretrying, we all know."

The president looked up from her perusal of the by-laws.

"Suppose we have the old lady in," she said. "Mr. McCaleb, will you sendfor Mrs. Walker?"

The old lady held her head haughtily as she walked into the handsomelyfurnished office. The president, mindful of her official capacity,looked severely upon Mrs. Walker—Sarah Lucinda Walker, according to thecramped signature of the home's register, widow, native of Maine, agedsixty-seven on her entrance into the home five years ago. And Mrs.Walker—a miracle of aged neatness, trim, straight, little, in hersomber black and immaculate cap—looked severely back.

"Be seated, Mrs. Walker," said the president.

"Thank you." Mrs. Walker crossed with a formal "Good morning, ladies,"and took the chair indicated.

"Now, Mr. McCaleb, if you please——" said the president.

The superintendent rose.

"Ladies," he began with a solemnity that made the offender quake within,though outwardly she was calm as the president herself, "it is withpositive pain that I have to report to you the case of Mrs. SarahLucinda Walker. It is now fully three months since I began to labor withher—three months since I warned her of this very thing that has come topass, an investigation by your honorable board. On the 9th ofJanuary"—he glanced methodically at a note-book—"I sent her a copy ofthe by-laws, with the section referring to insubordination underscoredin red ink. On the 23d I made a personal call upon her, and sought toconvince her how impossible it was that such conduct could be tolerated.On February 7th I publicly reprimanded her. On the 13th—five daysago—I informed her that, after considering it prayerfully, I had laidthe matter before your honorable body, and that she should hold herselfin readiness to be summoned before you to meet the following charges:

"First, insubordination; second, breaking Rule VIII of the houseregulations; third, taking food from the table; fourth, disturbingneighbors in early morning; and fifth, defacing the building."

Mr. McCaleb took his seat. The shocked gaze of the board bent itselfupon the criminal. The bad little old lady's far-sighted eyes sweptinsolently past them all and met the president's—twenty years youngerthan her own.

"Do you like birds, ma'am?" she asked, herself in an eager, bird-likeway. And then, without waiting for an answer, she went on: "I love'em—anything that's got wings. Old Cap'n Walker used to say, 'SaryLucindy, they was a moughty fine ornithologist spiled when God A'mightymade you a woman 'stead of a man.' He was a free-spoken man, Cap'nWalker, not so pious-mouthed as some, but he had charity in his soul,which is more than some others has."

She swept a superbly disdainful look toward the Rev. McCaleb. Therecording secretary tapped reprovingly with her pencil, but thepresident only listened.

"Now, ma'am, we ain't paupers, we old folks. Every one of us, as youknow, has paid our thousand dollars in. An' we ain't bad children asneeds disciplinin'; an' they's no use treatin' grandmothers an'great-grandmothers as though they was. It's in me to love birds, an' no'mount of rules and regulations is goin' to change me. My canary birddied the same year Cap'n Walker saved every other soul on board hisship and went down alone to the bottom with her. Since then I've sort o'adopted the sparrers. Why, haven't I spent every afternoon through thesummer out in the park a-feedin' them my lunch? An' now that winter'scome, d'ye think I'd have the face to desert them?

"'Not one of them is forgotten before God'—do you remember, ma'am? Oneof 'em seemed to be in the early winter. It was before my rheumatism gotso bad. I was out in the park the afternoon the first snow fell, an'this poor little crittur with a wing broke kep' a trailin' an' chirpin'an' scuttlin' in front o' me. It'd fell out o' the nest; hardly coveredwith feathers, it was. I picked it up an' carried it to my room in myapron. Poor little mite—how it fluttered an' struggled! I kep' itovernight in my spool-box. In the mornin' I fed it; by noon the sun comeout, an' I let it out on the window-sill, where I keep my house plants;just a bit o' musk—the cap'n liked musk—an' a pot o' bergamot. Do youknow, ma'am, that little thing was that contented by the end of the weekthat I could leave the windows open an' nary a wing's stroke away wouldit go? That was in December, 'fore it got to be known that I kep' a birdin my room. That mild spell we had 'fore Christmas it did fly away onemorning, but at sundown there it was back again; an' when it came on tosnow that night I felt same's I used to 'tween voyages, when I couldhear how the ocean'd get lashed to a fury, an' Cap'n Walker'd be fastasleep safe beside me.

"Of course it was a pity that when the bird came back it showed othersthe way—but wasn't it cute of it, ma'am? An' wasn't it just like a loto' children hangin' 'round at maple-syrup time? They did make a clatteran' a racket in the early mornin' when I wouldn't be up an' they'd beready for breakfast. But wasn't it for all the world like children withempty little stummicks an' chatterin' tongues? When Mis' Pearsoncomplained of me an' the noise, I didn't take it kind of her. Take foodfrom the table? Course I did. But it was my own lunch, that I'd a rightto go hungry for ef I wanted to, an' nobody's affair.

"But I tell you, ma'am, one day—it was that day Mr. McCaleb sent methat printed notice, an' everybody on my floor see it comin' an' knew itwas something shameful an' legal—that evening I tried honestly to keep'em out. I pulled down the shade—it was a bitter cold day, a regularblizzard blowing—an' I sat with my back to the window an' tried to readmy Bible while them birds jest shrieked themselves hoarse outside. Well,guess where that Bible opened to! 'Yea, the sparrow hath found a houseand the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young.' Thatwas a message, ma'am, a straight, sure message. I opened the window an'scattered their bread-crumbs out on the sill, which I had made jest theleast bit wider for them—that's what he calls 'defacin' the buildin'.'After that, I told Mr. McCaleb flat-footed that if he had the heart tostarve them innocent critturs in the dead o' winter, it was more than Ihad. I told him if he'd wait till spring, I'd promise never to open thewindow that faces south after that; but till they could shift forthemselves, I'd shift for them. That's all. Thank you, ma'am, forletting me have my say."

She smiled into the president's soft eyes, and rose, looking like atrim, saucy, gray-haired sparrow about to take flight. The president'ssmile started back to her, but on the way it had to pass the recordingsecretary, the visiting committee, and the Rev. Alexander McCaleb. Bythe time it had made the journey it was shorn of half its sympatheticunderstanding.

"You admit then, Mrs. Walker, that you have broken the rule againsthaving pets in the room?" the president asked with gravity. "It is anecessary rule. Fancy what would be the condition of the place if a ladyin No. 117 had a tame sparrow, a gentleman in No. 120 a monkey, hisneighbor a spaniel, the lady across the way a cat, and so on! Iappreciate—we all do, and Mr. McCaleb more than all of us—how tenderand charitable a nature yours is, but"—she looked at the recordingsecretary to gain courage—"but we simply must enforce the rules. I knowso good a housekeeper as you must have been will understand this, andagree with me when I say that such a disciplinarian as Captain Walker nodoubt was—unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of hisacquaintance—would have been the first to counsel you to obey therules. Won't you think it over from our point of view, Mrs. Walker, whenyou go back to your room? Do! Good afternoon."

It was a very dejected Sarah Lucinda Walker that returned to her room.Her depression was noted and audibly commented upon by Mrs. Pearson, hernext-door neighbor and arch-enemy. In fact, the whole corridor was alivewith the news of her defeat. At the lunch-table it was the sole topicof conversation, and in the library old Colonel Rockwell—in the pausesof a quavering rendition of "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep"—bet Mr.Patterson three of the cigars his nephew always sent him on Fridays thatMrs. Walker, being a woman of spirit, would not yield even though theultimatum were expulsion.

Mrs. Walker heard of the wager, of course, that afternoon. They were ahundred or more antiquated and unseaworthy vessels, all anchored in asemi-genteel haven; and from morning till night, till sun should ceasefor them to shine and water to flow they had nothing to do but to listento the whispering tide that told of the great ocean of life beyond, orto gossip among themselves of their own voyages dead and done.

The incorrigible Mrs. Walker's spotless little room, with its bag ofdried crusts on the window-sill, saved for her pet, became the stormcenter that afternoon. Every old lady who could possibly claimacquaintance called to inquire her intentions; every old gentlemanleaned hard upon his cane as he lifted his hat to her in the halls withthe deference due a gallant rebel. They loved a rebel, these oldchildren, at the end of their lives fallen again into the domain of "youmust" and "you must not."

Sarah Lucinda Walker's world rocked beneath her. She intended, shebelieved, to obey the rules, to cast off the one creature on earth towhich she could still play Lady Bountiful; to shut her hospitable windowand her loving old heart on all these fluttering, visiting strangers whohad heard of her generosity, and with every hour carried the news of itfurther.

She intended all this, but when the time came she did simply as oldColonel Rockwell had wagered she would. She opened wide her windows andfed the hungry throng that whirred about her, scattering crumbs andfloating feathers over the immaculate marble of Mr. McCaleb's frontdoor-step.

A knock at the door brought her to her senses. She put a withered littleold hand, very like a sparrow's claw, upon the window-sash to shut ithastily, and then, too proud to deceive, turned boldly to meet her fate.

Mrs. Pearson, on the lookout at her half-open door saw theofficial-looking document handed to her.

"It's her notice to leave," she said in an awed whisper to herself.

In the face of so great a calamity she felt, not triumph, but a shockedsense of loss, of self-reproach. Five minutes after she was in herenemy's room.

"You mustn't—you mustn't cry, dear Mrs. Walker," she sobbed, puttingher arms about the slender old shoulders.

"Am I crying?" the little old lady answered. "I can't help it—I'm sohappy!"

"Happy!" Mrs. Pearson's dazed old eyes turned bewildered from theenvelope with the home's letterhead on it to the bird-like creature inher arms. "And you've got your notice to leave?"

"Did you think it was that? So did I for a minute, an' it 'most killedme. But I opened it, an' found a note from the president—that dear,dear president! She wants to know if I'll take care of her summercottage till the spring comes. An', Marthy Pearson, they's chickens upthere—fancy breeds—a whole yard of 'em—an' I'm to have the feedin' of'em. Ain't it enough to make a body cry for joy? Say, Marthy, wouldyou—would you mind feedin' the sparrers?—only on the very stormiestdays—McCaleb would never suspect you, an' spring's near!"

BREAKING THROUGH

BY

W. C. MORROW

Reprinted from Success Magazine of September, 1906 by permission

AY," SAID his mother, whom he shyly and secretly worshipped, withouther ever suspecting the least of it beneath his cautious reserve andoccasional outbursts of temper, "my son, I hope you will remember,tonight. You are nearly a man."

She was a wise woman, and said it kindly and meant it well; but his faceflamed, his eyes hardened, and he sullenly walked away. Mrs. Gilbertsighed, and went about the preparations for the young people's partywhich her daughters, aged sixteen and eighteen, were to give thatevening. She could not foresee what her son would do. Would her gentlewarning, filled with the tender pride of a mother's love for her oneman-child, drive him with his dog to the woods, whither many a timebefore this day a word less pointed had sent him, there to live for aweek or longer at a time, in a manner that he had never disclosed?—orwould the disjointed thing within him which harried his somber, lonelylife force him in a blind moment to make a disgraceful scene at thegathering? She prayed that neither would happen, and that the sunshinefighting for egress through his darkness would come forth soft andgenial and very fine and sweet, as it did sometimes, and alwaysunaccountably....

The worst had happened at the party. No doubt it was intolerable,—butnot so bad as when (he was then only four) he had tried to kill a boyfor lying about him and was whipped mercilessly by his father,—forhere, in the library, he was sitting before Mr. Gilbert, who was paleand whose eyes had a deep, inscrutable look. He was a large and powerfulman, and had a genial nature, with force and sternness. The lad hadnever seen him looking thus, and so evidently guarding a prisoner, andthe boy felt a strange weight within.

Whatever had happened must have left a shadow on the assemblage, for,though faint sounds came through the closed doors, they were somewhatlacking in the robustness of youth. Ray did not deign an effort toremember. More than that, he hoped that it never would come back, for itmight be disturbing to his solitudes. Of his attempts to remember theattack on the boy ten years ago, there had never come any result but therecollection of a wholly disconnected event,—when he was enveloped in aswirl of flame and smoke from a fierce grass fire, and had to fight hisway through to life. He did not try to think what his father's purposewas in holding him a prisoner tonight. Was it to give him a lecture?Pshaw! The beautiful, peaceful woods would make him forget thatchild's-play, and he would steal away to them with Cap this very night,as soon as all were asleep.

Thus, motionless and in silence, sat he and his father, seeminglythrough an endless, aching time. After a while the guests quietly left.His sisters omitted their customary good night to their father. Allsounds from the servants ended. Then entered his mother, uncommonlypale, and in silence looked from her son to her husband. She was smalland dainty, and very, very pretty, the boy reflected. It was a pity thather bright eyes should be dim tonight and her sweet mouth drawn. Shelooked worn and as though she dreaded something.

"Are you ready?" Mr. Gilbert asked, regarding her fixedly.

Her lip trembled, but there came a flash from her eyes. "Do you reallymean it?" she asked.

"Certainly. It must be done."

"My dear, dear, he's too large for——"

"He'll never be too large for it so long as he is a boor and coward,insults our guests, scandalizes us all, shames his sisters, and treatshis parents with open scorn. He won't try to be like other people andaccept his world as he finds it. His inordinate conceit is a disease. Itis eating up his own life and making our lives miserable. We will cureit."

He had spoken calmly, but with a low vibration of tone; and as he cameto his feet he looked very tall and terrible. Ray's blood began to rise,and as he looked about for something undefined he felt the heat andsmelled the smoke of the grass fire of ten years ago.

He knew he was a coward. That was the shame and the curse of his life.He did not think it had always been so, but believed it had come aboutgradually. At first he had not minded the whippings that other boys gavehim because of his temper and his physical inadequacy, for he hadinvited the punishment; but when they all learned that his fightingspirit had weakened, that they could whip him easily, that they need notwait for provocation, and that he would never tell, they bullied andhounded and beat him until he had come to know a craven, sordid fear,which spread from the boys to the whole terrible world in which themasculine entity must fight for a place.

"I am ready," said Mrs. Gilbert, trying to hide a sigh.

"Come," Mr. Gilbert ordered the boy, looking at him for the first timein two hours.

The boy quailed before that look, the most dreadful thing he had everseen. It made him numb and sick, and when he rose he staggered; for,though tall, he was slender and had little strength. The weight on hischest became a pain and fixed on his throat, to choke and torment him.

His mother had gone out. He followed his father, and the three went outinto the back yard, the boy bare-headed. The night was sharp and themoon very bright. All the boy's power of thought was suspended.

In silence they walked down the terraces of the park-like yard in therear. Cap, Ray's dog, his only intimate, came bounding forward for hisyoung master's unfailing good night, but Mr. Gilbert angrily ordered himaway. The animal, astonished and hurt, slunk away, keeping a watchfulview of the group, and sat down at a distance and gazed in wonder. Theypassed through a gate into an orchard, and shut the dog out.

Mr. Gilbert selected an apple tree, because the wood was tougher thanthat of a peach. From it he cut two switches a yard long, and carefullypared the knots, his wife observing without a word or a movement, andthe boy looking away into the distance. When Mr. Gilbert had done, heordered his son to prepare.

The lad numbly, dumbly removed his coat and waistcoat, slipped hissuspenders down, tightened the strap at the back of his trousers,clasped his hands in front, and bowed his head. The dog, which had creptto the fence and was peering through the pickets, whined anxiously andwas quivering. When roughly ordered away by Mr. Gilbert, he went upon aterrace that overlooked the fence, and trembled as he watched. The boydid not once look toward him. He was struggling with the pain in histhroat.

Mr. Gilbert offered one of the switches to his wife.

"Oh, how can you!" she pleaded.

"You must," he firmly said. "I'll relieve you when you are tired."

The boy's mind suddenly cleared, and he comprehended. A whipping fromhis father would be frightful enough,—not for the blows; they werenothing. The plan was not alone to humiliate him beyond all measure, butto scourge his soul, ravage the sanctuary of his mother there, rend himasunder, and cast him into an unthinkable hell of isolation; for she wasthe bond that held him to the world, she was the human comfort andsweetness of his life.

Since his tenth year his discipline had been solely in her hands, hisfather having given him up as worthless, hopeless. She had whipped himmany a time, but not for two years; and he had felt no pain, no shame,no outrage, no resentment. The case of the teacher was different. Rayhad solemnly sworn, renewing the oath every day, that when he came tomanhood he would beat his teacher to death for whipping him so often andseverely because of his dulness, his apathy, or his rebellion; thewhippings from his mother had only increased his tenderness for her,and, in some way that he could not understand, his pity also. Perhaps itwas because he vaguely felt that she was impairing something in herselfthat was precious to him. Never had she conquered him; never had hecried out in pain, never pleaded for mercy, never confessed penitencenor promised reform.

Mrs. Gilbert shut her teeth hard, and, deathly white in the moonlight,raised the switch. It was poised a moment, and then her arm fell limp toher side; but the look that her son had seen in his father's eyes heldher and steeled her with a sort of desperate madness, and her arm againrose.

A long cry, an anguished wail, almost superhuman in its power to shatterthe silence of the night, and more startling than any human cry couldbe, struck disorganizingly through the drama. It may have hastened thecatastrophe. Mr. Gilbert was unnerved for a moment, and in exasperationpicked up a clod and threw it at the offending dog trembling on theterrace. When he turned again, his son was kneeling beside hisunconscious mother, peering anxiously into her pallid face, and callingher softly.

In a stride Mr. Gilbert was upon him. A hand armed with strength andfury caught up the shirt on the lad's shoulder, raised him, and flunghim away with so great violence that the slender body struck the groundas a log. Mr. Gilbert tenderly picked up his wife and bore her into thehouse.

The fall had half stunned the boy. As he slowly struggled to a sittingposture the moon danced fantastically, and some black trees crowning anear hill bowed and rose, and walked sidewise to and fro. A whine, low,cautious, packed with sympathy and solicitude, pleaded at the pickets,but the boy gave it no attention. He sat for a time, rose giddily,swayed as he dressed himself, and with deliberation walked to the gate.The dog, whining, trembling, crawled to meet him; but the boy, insteadof caressing him, ordered him quietly but firmly to the kennel.Obedience was slow, and the animal looked up incredulous, wondering. Theorder had to be repeated. Finally the dog obeyed, frequently pausing tolook back, but his master stood inflexible.

Passing round the house, and without thinking or caring about hat andovercoat, he noiselessly passed out the front gate, for a moment studiedthe big house that had cradled him, bred much of his anguish, and heldall of his love, and firmly stepped out into the road. There was agnawing ache somewhere. Assuredly that one blow,—and from her,—couldnot have caused it. After finding it in his throat, he was muchrelieved, and struck out on secure legs.

It did not occur to him that he was an outlaw and outcast. He did notthink at all. Hence there was no plan in his going. He did not evenunderstand that something deeper within him than had ever operatedbefore had assumed, in the disqualification of his ordinary rulingpowers, an imperious regency, and that it was infinitely greater orinfinitely less than his usual intelligence. He simply went on, thinkingnothing, remembering nothing. The beautiful highway, arched by greattrees, above which rode the moon in keeping pace with him, was a tunnelunder a luminous sea; he half walked, half floated, in the crystalwater, and had no wonder that he breathed it. The houses along the waywere the palaces of lordly gnomes that inhabited the deep.

Whatever was leading him turned him out of the avenue at last anddrifted him along a winding road that was as beautiful in its lessconventional way. He did not reflect that all of this was familiar,shamefully familiar. It was the road to his grandmother's but he had notvisited her for a year.

Her great wisdom and tact had gone to a study of the strange, unhappychild; she had been kind to him in every cautious, delicate fashion thatshe could devise; but he had ceased coming, and avoided her when shevisited his home, and she had never known why. She was a patient womanand good; she knew prayer, and in her peaceful twilight she walked withGod; yet no revelation had come at her appeals, for the times were notready; and the boy went his way alone and silent, forever alone andsilent, and unhappy, unhappy!

A white picket fence was presently marching with him alongside theshining road. He did not consciously recognize it, and it brought norekindling of an old terror, an old shame; but soon, on the other sideof it, a distance away, there broke on the stillness a challenge that heremembered, and its tone was contempt. He understood it, and woke witha start because of a sudden fluff of flame and a whiff of smoke from thegrass fire of ten years ago, and the ache in his throat gave him astrangling wrench. His head rolled; the moon swung through an arc ofalarming length. That call beyond the fence struck the dominant note ofhis life, and it was Fear. Yet it came from a mere animal,—hisgrandmother's old buckskin horse, the most docile of creatures.

Ray had never feared the wild things of the woods. The cry of thepanther in the dead of night is dreadful but it had no terrors for theboy in the forest solitude. Other fierce pad-footed members of the cattribe had come and sniffed him as he lay under the stars, and experiencehad taught him to feign sleep, for a suspicion of his wakefulness wouldsend them bounding away, and he was lonely, always lonely. One night,roused from slumber, he sleepily put his hand on the shaggy head of abear that was curiously rummaging him, and he was sorry that the beasttook alarm and trotted away,—he would have been comfortable to hug.That was before the dog had come into his life. He could neverunderstand why he was not afraid of anything whatever—not even of theterrific lightning and thunder that sometimes flamed and crashed andbellowed all about him,—except human beings and the forces that theycontrolled; and at times he wondered why Cap loved him and the buckskinhorse would kill him from hate if he could.

Here, then, beyond the picket fence, was the proclamation of hisshame,—coming from a gentle, superannuated horse with no more spiritthan a snail's. By some means, perhaps instinctive,—for all the world,when it finds out, will hunt down and destroy whatsoever fears it(although the boy had not reasoned it out thus),—the beast had learnedthat the boy was afraid, and had then found an interest in life. Let himbut have a glimpse of Ray, and, ears back, lips drawn from hideousyellow teeth, and head thrust horribly forward, he would snort,charge,—and the boy would run abjectly. The horse had never thustreated another living thing. So the boy had stayed away from hisgrandmother's, and she had never suspected, and her love and prayers hadbrought no revelation.

As the fence intervened, the horse knew that a charge would be useless;but when, with a neat leap the boy nimbly caught his feet on the groundwithin the pasture, the buckskin advanced in his minatory way. Ray didnot know why he had leaped the fence, unless the wrench in his throathad hurled him over or the flame and smoke of the grass fire had drivenhim; nor did he know why he went steadily to meet the horse, nor why hisnostrils stretched and his arms strained and his hands clenched, nor whythere was a fierce eagerness in him; a rasping thirst for somethingdried his tongue. The horse came on, and the boy, perfectly calm, asfatally went to meet him. There was no calculation of results, yet thelad knew that a horse's teeth and hoofs may be deadly. He knew only thathe was not going forward to end all his wretchedness, as, last year, theshoemaker who drank had done with a shotgun, and young Corson, thethieving clerk, with poison. It occurred to the boy that he carednothing about the teeth and hoofs of any horse, and nothing about whatthey might do.

So ridiculous was the fiasco that he would have laughed had he notbeen sorry for the beast; for to see any rampant thing so suddenlystricken with fear, when there was not the least danger nor any intentof harm, was pitiful to see. He wished to assure the buckskin that hewas only a boy, a frail boy at that, and not what the animal hadapparently taken him to be,—a spawn of Darkness and Terror. He followedup the trembling beast, trying to reassure him and to get near and pethim; but the creature fled wildly at every advance, and when not pursuedstood with head aloft, ears co*cked, and nostrils vibrant, quivering infear.

Seeing the uselessness of further pacific effort, the boy sprang overthe fence, went back to the main highway, and by the unseen Hand was ledinto the short cut past Mr. Elderby's house, where the greatest terrorof his life—human excepted—had months ago driven him to use the longway round. He did not know, nor for a moment consider, why he chose theshort cut tonight. He turned into it, walking free and strong.

Girls had meant nothing in the boy's life. That was because they did notseem members of his species, but something fragile, mysterious, andranking somewhere between flowers and angels. Thus his feeling for themwas composed of a little awe, more reverence, and a sense of greatremoteness. Never had he observed them thoughtfully without reflectingthat they were, in a general way, much like his mother, or at least ofher species; therefore they must be sweet and dainty and gentle andkind. His only large swellings of the heart had come from his thinkingabout them, particularly Grace Elderby, now twelve years old. Nothingcould have been so grand, for instance, as an opportunity to rescue hersingle-handed, from wild savages that had her tied to a tree and werepiling fa*gots about her; then to dance in fiendish glee about her as theflames rose. He would dash up on a splendid charger, his sword flashingin the sun; savage heads would roll in the dust, or fall open, cleavedin twain; there would be wild yells of fright and a wilder flight forlife; he would leap from his horse, speak reassuring words while hesevered her bonds, mount with her in his arms, and fly away, away, away.

Twice had Grace seen his shame. She had seen him pale, and run when herfather's big, noisy dog had made a flamboyant show of rage, and she hadseen him stand mute and white when Andy Carmichael, older and larger andmuch stronger than Ray, grossly insulted him in her presence. TheElderby dog was the terror that had closed the short cut,—closed it toRay alone.

Thus into the short cut swung Ray, walking strong and free, the ache inhis throat not so painful as before. The dog would be on guard, and theboy was empty-handed.

The shadows were deep under the trees, or possibly the dog's hate andrage blinded him to what the buckskin had seen, or perhaps he was of adifferent metal. Near the rear of the premises the big brute came in sogreat a fury that he broke through the palings. The ensuingcollision,—for the boy stood his ground,—was so violent that Ray wentdown underneath, and an ecstasy thrilled him when the flame swished andthe smoke stung, and he felt something sink into his shoulder and astifle of hot, foamy breath in his face.

It seemed to have been easily and quickly done. True, when he came erecthe was weak and tired, and swayed dizzily, and wondered why. As, withoutthe least exultation, or even triumph, or even gratification, he lookeddown at his work, and saw with surprise how deeply the ground had beentorn up, two men with sticks came running out,—evidently there had beensome noise, despite all his care for silence. One was Mr. Elderby, theother his coachman. The gentleman stood in astonishment as the boy,controlling his heavy breathing, stepped into the moonlight and calmlyfaced him.

"Ray Gilbert! What are you doing here, at this time of night?"

"I was walking in the path. Your dog attacked me."

"What did you kill him with?"

"My hands."

Mr. Elderby stood in wonder as he studied the lad.

"I'm thankful to God that you are alive. It's a miracle." He noticedthat Ray's clothing was torn nearly to rags. In compassion he laid ahand on Ray's shoulder, quickly withdrew it, and examined it in themoonlight. "You are hurt, my son. Come into the house. I'll put you tobed and send for the doctor and your parents."

"Thank you, sir; I have something to do."

"But you must have attention.—Jake, hitch up the bay to the lightbuggy,—quick,—and drive him home."

"No, sir; but I'm much obliged. I have something to do. Good night." Theshadows enveloped him.

The short cut led him over a sharp hill and into the road again, andthere he sat on the bank till his strength came back. Then he went ontill he arrived at a gate leading into a private avenue. The ache in histhroat was nearly gone. Passing quietly up the driveway and round to therear of the house, he came to a window, which was open at the top, andsharply tapped on the glass.

"Who's that?" came a voice.

"Dress and come out, Andy Carmichael. I'm Ray Gilbert."

The sash was thrown up and the boy glowered in the opening. "RayGilbert!—you cowardly, sneaking puppy! What do you want?"

"I want to see you. Dress and come out. Don't wake anybody."

He spoke quietly, trying to appear his usual self lest this monster,this overshadowing terror of his life, should see whatever it was thathad frightened the horse and slain the dog. This was the boy who hadbeaten him so often and with such merciless, sodden, gluttonousenjoyment; the boy who, when he did not care to give the beatingshimself—no provocation was ever needed,—would stand threateningly byand let the smaller boys, even to the little ones with soft, puny fists,beat the coward as long as they wished, merely for the love of beatingwhat did not resist; the boy whose lies had brought undeserved whippingsfrom the teacher; the boy who openly insulted him whenever he pleased,and, worst of all, had humiliated him before Grace Elderby. It was thepresence of this boy at the party that evening, and the looks that hegave Ray, and the sly tortures he inflicted, that had sent up thecurtain on the night's drama.

In wondering surprise Andy studied the bare-headed, ragged, dirty figurestanding in the moonlight; and as crimson looks a muddy brown in such alight, he mistook the smears on the other's face and the dark splotcheson his clothing. What could the creature want of him at this time ofnight and with that extraordinary appearance? Likely Ray had been setupon and was seeking any refuge. It would be joyous to complete the workthat the others had begun. Andy soon emerged from the house.

"Come this way," said his mysterious visitant, and perplexed Andyfollowed him to the rear of the fowl-house, where the light was clear.The flame and smoke of the old grass fire were strong in the air.

Ray halted, and faced him.

"Take off your coat," he quietly said, removing his own tatteredgarment.

"What for?" with a slight quaver composed of anger—and something else;for there was a touch of the uncanny here.

"We are going to fight."

"Fight, eh! What put that into your fool head?" Under the initialimpulse from the challenge, Andy was all heat and eagerness, and hebristled and swelled; but though, in some vital ways, human sense isless acute than brute sense, Andy did feel something of what thebuckskin had felt, something of what had slain the dog, and his heartthumped with a strange heaviness. "What do you want to fight for? I'dbeat the life out of you."

It failed of the effect intended, and Andy found his head suddenlytwisted to one side by a slap on the cheek. He stepped back, white withfury, tossed his coat aside, and hurled himself upon the slender figurewaiting with such unearthly composure.

***

Dawn was flooding the east, and still the boy lurched and floundered onand on, keeping to the road that led into the wilderness. Occasionallyhe would stop for a minute's rest and to listen for the baying ofFrazier's bloodhound; and he wondered, in a purely detached andscientific way, whether he had sufficient strength and acuteness leftfor another such grapple. It was merely an engaging speculation, and wascomplicated with his determination to perform another task before hiswork was done. It would nearly break his heart to be stopped now. Likelythe dog would not attack him, but merely hold him at bay until thepursuers came to his summons; but if the dog would not attack, then theboy must. Would strength or even life be left for the last and mostimportant of all the tasks to which the Hand was leading him?—for therewas a good distance yet to be covered, and work to be done at the end ofit. He was thankful that the ache had entirely left his throat and thata strange warmth had kindled in his breast.

Perhaps they had not really meant what they said about setting Frazier'sbloodhound to run him down. The remark had come from the yardman, notMr.Carmichael himself, who had appeared too stunned to think of anythingbut his son. If they had wished to kill the outlaw, or take him and sendhim to jail, why had they not seized and bound him instead of staring athim so queerly, and then the yardman foolishly saying, as Ray staggeredaway and they picked up the limp figure, that they would get Frazier'sbloodhound and set him on the trail? They were two strong men against amere boy, who was so exhausted that only with a mighty effort could hestand. It was Andy's final despairing cry that had waked them.

Without either triumph or regret the boy struggled on. The broadening ofday made him partly aware of the savage presence that he made and of thelikelihood that traffic might open on the road at any time. Some of hisclothing was gone, and he had bound the remaining strips and rags abouthim as best he could. He did not know about the aspect of his face andhair, but he realized that should any one encounter him in the road hemight be forced to do something distasteful, and that the urgent taskahead might be interrupted.

A horseman and two market wagons passed at intervals, but the boy washidden at the roadside. So he reeled on and on, and so he came at lastto the great pine. There he turned out and crawled as much as walkedthrough the trees and undergrowth to the summit of a low ridge, where hefelt the sunshine fall on his half-naked back. It was so luxurious thathe paused in the full glare of it, and slowly turned, as one very coldbefore a warming fire, and reveled in it. With every moment he felt itpouring into him, tingling softly as it ran. It was odd with whatcheerful industry it hunted out the coldest places in him and kindledsnug little fires under them. Most of all, it gave attention to the warmplace that had already started in the center, and that one woke to awonderful glow. Thus refreshed, he descended the slope on the fartherside and came to a morass threaded by a friendly stream. At the edge ofthe bog he halted and looked keenly about. It had been two years sincehis last visit to this spot, and, though his memory of the woods wasexcellent, he now found himself dull and his vision bad. Ordinarily hewould have found at once what he was seeking. Up and down along themargin he stumbled, straining his dim eyes, crawling sometimes and usinggroping hands in the search. Surely no one else could have come uponthis remote spot, found the treasure, and taken it away!

At last! It had seemed to him a very long time; but all else wassubmerged in the joy of the first triumph, the first elation, that thelad had felt in many, many a day. Every shadow that had lain on hisconscience vanished, every shame that had cursed his years was sweptaway, all bitterness took flight, and something fine and sweet racedthrough him deliciously.

There was no waste of precious time in hunting for something with whichto dig. Then, too, the glorious sun had mounted, and was pouring itsflood of light and warmth on his work and him. Like the tines of adigging-fork, his fingers sank into the ground.

The precious treasure, hugged gently, reverently, with a fierce sense ofprotection, was balm to every hurt. With it thus clasped, the boylaboriously made the ascent of the ridge on his return, and paused onthe summit. There was something strange in the distance with which thedescending slope to the road stretched so far, so bewilderingly far. Hecontemplated it, and wondered if he could compass it in a lifetime. Theimpulse to go on—for this last task was only half done—overcame thecheck from the illusion, and he started down. His knees developed afoolish way of suddenly flexing and seating him hard on the ground. Atfirst it was annoying, but when it happened the second time theabsurdity of it, and the ridiculous suddenness of the surprise that itcaused, made the boy laugh aloud. It astonished him to hear himselflaugh, for that was very unusual, and he wondered. But he rose,staggered on, and found himself chuckling inside,—a most astonishingthing! He could not imagine why he was doing it. When he dropped thethird time his voice rang in so loud and merry a laugh that two bluejays came and scolded him terrifically, and he laughed at them till histears ran. He was so absurdly happy that he feared he would hug histreasure too hard.

If only his mother were with him, that she might see how funny it allwas, and laugh and be happy with him, and then walk with him hand inhand through the beautiful woods, while he showed her all the wonderfulthings that he knew! But no; his sisters and his father must be withthem,—and Grace, and Andy, too, and the teacher and dear oldgrandmother. What a glorious time they would have!

The boy started, for a sweet, coaxing smother had suddenly fallen onhim. He fought it away and rose with great difficulty and in some alarmlest he should not reach the road. On he lurched, clinging to the bushesas he swayed, trying not to laugh, for he had an idea that he was verycrass and silly. He saw the road, only a rod away, and suddenlyreflected that he was not presentable. Though staying till night woulddelay the completion of his task, there was no help for it, and he wascontent, and laughed because he was. And he knew that he really neededrest; for suppose his legs should practise those grotesqueeccentricities in the road, and somebody should see! He sat down,carefully guarding his treasure, to wait in happy patience. He would notsleep, and so lose something of his conscious peace, something ofthinking about what was going to happen at the end. No, he must notsleep.

The frantically joyous barking of a dog standing over him—not at alllike the deep baying of Frazier's bloodhound,—woke the boy, and hetried to raise his head, but it fell back like lead. He laughed drowsilyin quiet happiness, as he feebly patted the devoted head.

"Dear old Cap," he said. "You came, didn't you?"

Messengers from Elderby's and Carmichael's had brought strange news tothe boy's parents. In alarm they had started out in the surrey, takingCap, in the sure faith that he would find their son. They had seen thatAndy was recovering,—he had been much more frightened than hurt. It wasthey whose crashing through the bushes the boy heard after Cap hadannounced his find. They halted and paled when they saw the torn,bruised, helpless figure smiling at them from the ground, and so fullof loving gladness merely to see them that there was no room forsurprise at their being there. The mother was quicker than the father;she ran forward and fell on her knees beside her son.

"My boy!" she cried in a choke.

He took her hand and smiled into her face. In all her life she had neverseen a smile so sweet, so happy. With his free hand he lifted histreasure.

"Mother," radiantly, "here it is!"

"What, my poor dear?"

"Don't you remember? I told you two years ago that I'd found it, and yousaid you'd be very glad if I'd bring it to you when I came this wayagain."

She opened the parcel, wrapped with so fond care in leaves and dampmoss.

"Why, it's the rare and beautiful fern, and you were taking it to me!Bless your dear heart!" and, much to his surprise, she began to cry.

A LOST STORY

BY

FRANK NORRIS

Reprinted from The Century Magazine of July, 1903 by permission

T NINE o'clock that morning Rosella arrived in her little office on thethird floor of the great publishing house of Conant & Company, andputting up her veil without removing her hat, addressed herself to herday's work.

She went through her meager and unimportant mail, wrote a few replies,and then turned to the pile of volunteer manuscripts which it was herduty to read and report upon.

For Rosella was Conant's "reader," and so well was she acquainted withthe needs of the house, so thorough was she in her work, and so greatwas the reliance upon her judgment, that she was the only one employed.Manuscripts that she "passed up" went direct to Conant himself, whilethe great army of the "declined" had no second chance. For the"unavailables" her word was final.

From the first—which was when her initial literary venture, a littlebook of short tales of Sicily and the Sicilians, was published by thehouse—her relations with the Conants had been intimate. Conant believedin her, and for the sake of the time when her books could be consideredsafe investments, was willing to lose a few dollars during the time ofher apprenticeship. For the tales had enjoyed only a fleeting succèsd'estime. Her style was, like her temperament, delicately constructedand of extreme refinement, not the style to appeal to the masses. It was"searched," a little précieuse, and the tales themselves werediaphanous enough, polished little contes, the points subtle, theaction turning upon minute psychological distinctions.

Yet she had worked desperately hard upon their composition. She was ofthose very few who sincerely cannot write unless the mood be propitious;and her state of mind, the condition of her emotions, was very apt toinfluence her work for good or ill, as the case might be.

But a succès d'estime fills no purses, and favorable reviews in theliterary periodicals are not "negotiable paper." Rosella could not yetlive wholly by her pen, and thought herself fortunate when the houseoffered her the position of reader.

This arrival of hers was no doubt to be hastened, if not actuallyassured, by the publication of her first novel, "Patroclus," upon whichshe was at this time at work. The evening before, she had read the draftof the story to Trevor, and even now, as she cut the string of the firstmanuscript of the pile, she was thinking over what Trevor had said ofit, and smiling as she thought.

It was through Conant that Rosella had met the great novelist andcritic, and it was because of Conant that Trevor had read Rosella'sfirst little book. He had taken an interest at once, and had foundoccasion to say to her that she had it in her to make a niche forherself in American letters.

He was a man old enough to be her grandfather, and Rosella often came tosee him in his study, to advise with him as to doubtful points in herstories or as to ideas for those as yet unwritten. To her his opinionwas absolutely final. This old gentleman, this elderly man of letters,who had seen the rise and fall of a dozen schools, was above theinfluence of fads, and he whose books were among the classics evenbefore his death was infallible in his judgments of the work of theyounger writers. All the stages of their evolution were known tohim—all their mistakes, all their successes. He understood; and a storyby one of them, a poem, a novel, that bore the stamp of his approval,was "sterling." Work that he declared a failure was such in veryearnest, and might as well be consigned as speedily as possible to thegrate or the waste-basket.

When, therefore, he had permitted himself to be even enthusiastic over"Patroclus," Rosella had been elated beyond the power of expression, andhad returned home with blazing cheeks and shining eyes, to lie awakehalf the night thinking of her story, planning, perfecting, consideringand reconsidering.

Like her short stories, the tale was of extreme delicacy in bothsentiment and design. It was a little fanciful, a little elaborate, butof an ephemeral poetry. It was all "atmosphere," and its successdepended upon the minutest precision of phrasing and the nicest harmonybetween idea and word. There was much in mere effect of words; and moreimportant than mere plot was the feeling produced by the balancing ofphrases and the cadence of sentence and paragraph.

Only a young woman of Rosella's complexity, of her extremesensitiveness, could have conceived "Patroclus," nor could she herselfhope to complete it successfully at any other period of her life. Anyearlier she would have been too immature to adapt herself to itsdemands; any later she would have lost the spontaneity, the jeunesse,and the freshness which were to contribute to its greatest charm.

The tale itself was simple. Instead of a plot, a complication, it builtit*elf around a central idea, and it was the originality of this idea,this motif, that had impressed Trevor so strongly. Indeed, Rosella'sdraft could convey no more than that. Her treatment was all to follow.But here she was sure of herself. The style would come naturally as sheworked.

She was ambitious, and in her craving to succeed, to be recognized andaccepted, was all that passionate eagerness that only the artist knows.So far success had been denied her; but now at last she seemed to seelight. Her "Patroclus" would make her claims good. Everything dependedupon that.

She had thought over this whole situation while she removed thewrappings from the first manuscript of the pile upon her desk. Even thenher fingers itched for the pen, and the sentences and phrases of theopening defined themselves clearly in her mind. But that was not to bethe immediate work. The unlovely bread-and-butter business pressed uponher. With a long breath she put the vision from her and turned herattention to the task at hand.

After her custom, she went through the pile, glancing at the titles andfirst lines of each manuscript, and putting it aside in the desk cornerto be considered in detail later on.

She almost knew in advance that of the thirty-odd volunteers of thatday's batch not one would prove available. The manuscripts were taggedand numbered in the business office before they came to her, and thenumber of the first she picked up that morning was 1120, and this sincethe first of the year. Of the eleven hundred she had accepted onlythree. Of these three, two had failed entirely after publication; thethird had barely paid expenses. What a record! How hopeless it seemed!Yet the strugglers persisted. Did it not seem as if No. 1120, Mrs. AllenBowen of Bentonville, South Dakota—did it not seem as if she could knowthat the great American public has no interest in, no use for, "Thoughtson the Higher Life," a series of articles written for the countypaper—foolish little articles revamped from Ruskin and Matthew Arnold?

And 1121—what was this? The initial lines ran: "'Oh, damn everything!'exclaimed Percival Holcombe, as he dropped languidly into a deep-seatedleather chair by the club window which commanded a view of the noisystreet crowded with fashion and frivolity, wherein the afternoon's sun,freed from its enthralling mists, which all day long had jealouslyobscured his beams, was gloating o'er the panels of the carriages ofnoblemen who were returning from race-track and park, and the towhead ofthe little sweeper who plied his humble trade which earned his scantysupper that he ate miles away from that gay quarter wherein PercivalHolcombe, who——" Rosella paused for sheer breath. This sort did notneed to be read. It was declined already. She picked up the next. It wasin an underwear-box of green pasteboard.

"The staid old town of Salem," it read, "was all astir one bright andsunny morning in the year 1604." Rosella groaned. "Another!" she said."Now," she continued, speaking to herself and shutting her eyes—"nowabout the next page the 'portly burgess' will address the heroine as'Mistress,' and will say, 'An' whither away so early?'" She turned overto verify. She was wrong. The portly burgess had said: "Good morrow,Mistress Priscilla. An' where away so gaily bedizened?" She sighed asshe put the manuscript away. "Why, and, oh, why will they do it!" shemurmured.

The next one, 1123, was a story "Compiled from the Memoirs of One PerkinAlthorpe, Esq., Sometime Field-Coronet in His Majesty's Troop of Horse,"and was sown thick with objurgation—"Ods-wounds!" "Body o' me!" "Amurrain on thee!" "By my halidom!" and all the rest of the sweepings andtailings of Scott and the third-rate romanticists.

"Declined," said Rosella, firmly, tossing it aside. She turned to 1124:

"About three o'clock of a roseate day in early spring two fashionablesof the softer sex, elegantly arrayed, might have been observedsauntering languidly down Fifth Avenue.

"'Are you going to Mrs. Van Billion's musicale tonight?' inquired theolder of the two, a tall and striking demi-brunette, turning to hercompanion.

"'No, indeed,' replied the person thus addressed, a blonde of exquisitecoloring. 'No, indeed. The only music one hears there is the chink ofsilver dollars. Ha! ha! ha! ha!'"

Rosella winced as if in actual physical anguish. "And the author callsit a 'social satire'!" she exclaimed. "How can she! How can she!"

She turned to the next. It was written in script that was a model ofneatness, margined, correctly punctuated, and addressed, "HaroldVickers," with the town and State. Its title was "The Last Dryad," andthe poetry of the phrase stuck in her mind. She read the first lines,then the first page, then two.

"Come," said Rosella, "there is something in this." At once she was in alittle valley in Boeotia in the Arcadian day. It was evening. There wasno wind. Somewhere a temple, opalescent in the sunset, suggested ratherthan defined itself. A landscape developed such as Turner in a quietmood might have evolved, and with it a feeling of fantasy, ofremoteness, of pure, true classicism. A note of pipes was in the air,sheep bleated, and Daphne, knee-deep in the grass, surging an answer tothe pipes, went down to meet her shepherd.

Rosella breathed a great sigh of relief. Here at last was apossibility—a new writer with a new, sane view of his world and hiswork. A new poet, in fine. She consulted the name and addressgiven—Harold Vickers, Ash Fork, Arizona. There was something in thatHarold; perhaps education and good people. But the Vickers told hernothing. And where was Ash Fork, Arizona; and why and how had "The LastDryad" been written there, of all places the green world round? How camethe inspiration for that classic paysage, such as Ingres would haveloved, from the sage-brush, and cactus? "Well," she told herself, "Moorewrote 'Lalla Rookh' in a back room in London, among the chimney-pots andsoot. Maybe the proportion is inverse. But, Mr. Harold Vickers of AshFork, Arizona, your little book is, to say the least, well worth itsink."

She went through the other manuscripts as quickly as was consistent withfairness, and declined them all. Then settling herself comfortably inher chair, she plunged, with the delight of an explorer venturing uponnew ground, into the pages of "The Last Dryad."

***

Four hours later she came, as it were, to herself, to find that she satlax in her place, with open, upturned palms, and eyes vacantly fixedupon the opposite wall. "The Last Dryad," read to the final word, wastumbled in a heap upon the floor. It was past her luncheon hour. Hercheeks flamed; her hands were cold and moist; and her heart beat thickand slow, clogged, as it were, by its own heaviness.

But the lapse of time was naught to her, nor the fever that throbbed inher head. Her world, like a temple of glass, had come down dashing abouther. The future, which had beckoned her onward,—a fairy in the pathwherein her feet were set,—was gone, and at the goal of her ambitionand striving she saw suddenly a stranger stand, plucking down the goldenapples that she so long and passionately had desired.

For "The Last Dryad" was her own, her very, very own and cherished"Patroclus."

That the other author had taken the story from a different view-point,that his treatment varied, that the approach was his own, that thewording was his own, produced not the least change upon the finalresult. The idea, the motif, was identical in each; identical in everyparticular, identical in effect, in suggestion. The two tales were one.That was the fact, the unshakable fact, the block of granite that amalicious fortune had flung athwart her little pavilion of glass.

At first she jumped to the conclusion of chicanery. At first thereseemed no other explanation. "He stole it," she cried, rousingvehemently from her inertia—"mine—mine. He stole my story."

But common sense prevailed in the end. No, there was no possible chancefor theft. She had not spoken of "Patroclus" to any one but Trevor. Hermanuscript draft had not once left her hands. No; it was a coincidence,nothing more—one of those fateful coincidences with which thescientific and literary worlds are crowded. And he, this unknownVickers, this haphazard genius of Ash Fork, Arizona, had the priorclaim. Her "Patroclus" must remain unwritten. The sob caught andclutched at her throat at last.

"Oh," she cried in a half-whisper—"oh, my chance, my hopes, my foolishlittle hopes! And now this! To have it all come to nothing—when I wasso proud, so buoyant—and Mr. Trevor and all! Oh, could anything be morecruel!"

And then, of all moments, ex machina, Harold Vickers's card was handedin.

She stared at it an instant, through tears, amazed and incredulous.Surely some one was playing a monstrous joke upon her today. Soon shewould come upon the strings and false bottoms and wigs and masks of thegame. But the office boy's contemplation of her distress was real.Something must be done. The whole machine of things could notindefinitely hang thus suspended, inert, waiting her pleasure.

"Yes," she exclaimed all at once. "Very well; show him in;" and she hadno more than gathered up the manuscript of "The Last Dryad" from thefloor when its author entered the room.

He was very young,—certainly not more than twenty-three,—tall, ratherpoorly dressed, an invalid, beyond doubt, and the cough and the flush onthe high cheek-bone spelled the name of the disease. The pepper-and-saltsuit, the shoe-string cravat, and the broad felt hat were franklyArizona. And he was diffident, constrained, sitting uncomfortably on thechair as a mark of respect, smiling continually, and, as he talked,throwing in her name at almost every phrase:

"No, Miss. Beltis; yes, Miss. Beltis; quite right, Miss. Beltis."

His embarrassment helped her to her own composure, and by the time shecame to question him as to his book and the reasons that brought himfrom Ash Fork to New York, she had herself in hand.

"I have received an unimportant government appointment in the FisheriesDepartment," he explained, "and as I was in New York for the week Ithought I might—not that I wished to seem to hurry you, Miss.Beltis—but I thought I might ask if you had come to—to my little bookyet."

In five minutes of time Rosella knew just where Harold Vickers was to beplaced, to what type he belonged. He was the young man of great talentwho, so far from being discovered by the outside world, had not evendiscovered himself. He would be in two minds as yet about his calling inlife, whether it was to be the hatching of fish or the writing of "LastDryads." No one had yet taken him in hand, had so much as spoken a wordto him. If she told him now that his book was a ridiculous failure, hewould no doubt say—and believe—that she was quite right, that he hadfelt as much himself. If she told him his book was a little masterpiece,he would be just as certain to tell himself, and with equal sincerity,that he had known it from the first.

He had offered his manuscript nowhere else as yet. He was as new as anovernight daisy, and as destructible in Rosella's hands.

"Yes," she said at length, "I have read your manuscript." She paused amoment, then: "But I am not quite ready to pass upon it yet."

He was voluble in his protestations.

"Oh, that is all right," she interrupted. "I can come to the secondreading in a day or two. I could send you word by the end of the week."

"Thank you, Miss. Beltis." He paused awkwardly, smiling in deprecatoryfashion. "Do you—from what you have seen of it—read of it—do you—howdoes it strike you? As good enough to publish—or fit for thewaste-basket?"

Ah, why had this situation leaped upon her thus unawares, and allunprepared! Why had she not been allowed time, opportunity, to fortifyherself!

What she said now would mean so much. Best err, then, on the safe side;and which side was that? Her words seemed to come of themselves, and shealmost physically felt herself withdraw from the responsibility of whatthis other material Rosella Beltis was saying.

"I don't know," said the other Rosella. "I should not care to say—sosoon. You see—there are so many manuscripts. I generally trust to thefirst impression on the second reading." She did not even hear hisanswer, but she said, when he had done speaking, that even in case of anunfavorable report there were, of course, other publishers.

But he answered that the judgment of such a house as the Conants wouldsuffice for him. Somehow he could not peddle his story about New York.If the Conants would not take his work, nobody would.

And that was the last remark of importance he made. During the fewremaining moments of his visit they spoke of unessentials, and beforeshe was aware, he had gone away, leaving with her a memorandum of hisaddress at the time.

***

She did not sleep that night. When she left the office she brought "TheLast Dryad" home with her, and till far into the night she read it andre-read it, comparing it and contrasting it with "Patroclus," searchingdiligently if perhaps there were not some minute loophole of evasion,some devious passage through which she might escape. But amid theshattered panes of her glass pavilion the block of stone persisted,inert, immovable. The stone could not be raised, the little edificecould not be rebuilt.

Then at last, inevitably, the temptation came—came and grew and shutabout her and gripped her close. She began to temporize, to advanceexcuses. Was not her story the better one? Granted that the idea was thesame, was not the treatment, the presentation, more effective? Shouldnot the fittest survive? Was it not right that the public should havethe better version? Suppose "Patroclus" had been written by a thirdperson, and she had been called upon to choose between it and "The LastDryad," would she not have taken "Patroclus" and rejected the other? Ah,but "Patroclus" was not yet written! Well, that was true. But the draftof it was; the idea of it had been conceived eight months ago. Perhapsshe had thought of her story before Vickers had thought of his. Perhaps?No; it was very probable; there was no doubt of it, in fact. That wasthe important thing: the conception of the idea, not the execution. Andif this was true, her claim was prior.

But what would Conant say of such reasoning, and Trevor—would theyapprove? Would they agree?

"Yes, they would," she cried the instant the thought occurred to her."Yes, they would, they would, they would; I know they would. I am sureof it; sure of it."

But she knew they would not. The idea of right persisted and persisted.Rosella was on the rack, and slowly, inevitably, resistlessly thetemptation grew and gathered, and snared her feet and her hands, and,fold on fold, lapped around her like a veil.

A great and feminine desire to shift the responsibility began to possessher mind.

"I cannot help it," she cried. "I am not to blame. It is all very wellto preach, but how would—any one do in my case? It is not my fault."

And all at once, without knowing how or why, she found that she hadwritten, sealed, stamped, and addressed a note to Harold Vickersdeclining his story.

But this was a long way from actually rejecting "The LastDryad"—rejecting it in favor of "Patroclus." She had only written thenote, so she told herself, just to see how the words would look. It wasmerely an impulse; would come to nothing, of course. Let us put itaside, that note, and seriously consider this trying situation.

Somehow it seemed less trying now; somehow the fact of her distressseemed less poignant. There was a way out of it—stop. No; do not lookat the note there on the table. There was a way out, no doubt, but notthat one; no, of course not that one. Rosella laughed a little. Howeasily some one else, less scrupulous, would solve this problem! Well,she could solve it, too, and keep her scruples as well; but not tonight.Now she was worn out. Tomorrow it would look different to her.

She went to bed and tossed wide-eyed and wakeful till morning, thenrose, and after breakfast prepared to go to the office as usual. Themanuscript of "The Last Dryad" lay on her table, and while she waswrapping it up her eye fell upon the note to Harold Vickers.

"Why," she murmured, with a little grimace of astonishment—"why, how isthis? I thought I burned that last night. How could I haveforgotten!"

She could have burned it then. The fire was crackling in the grate; shehad but to toss it in. But she preferred to delay.

"I will drop it in some ash-can or down some sewer on the way to theoffice," she said to herself. She slipped it into her muff and hurriedaway. But on the way to the cable-car no ash-can presented itself. True,she discovered the opening of a sewer on the corner where she took hercar. But a milkman and a police officer stood near at hand inconversation, occasionally glancing at her, and no doubt they would havethought it strange to see this well-dressed young woman furtivelydropping a sealed letter into a sewer-vent.

She held it awkwardly in her hand all of her way down-town, and stillcarried it there when she had descended from her car and took her way upthe cross-street toward Conant's.

She suddenly remembered that she had other letters to mail that morning.For two days the weekly epistles that she wrote home to her mother andyounger sister had been overlooked in her pocket. She found a mail-boxon the corner by the Conant building and crossed over to it, holding hermother's and sister's letters in one hand and the note to Vickers in theother.

Carefully scanning the addresses, to make sure she did not confuse theletters, she dropped in her home correspondence, then stood there amoment irresolute.

Irresolute as to what, she could not say. Her decision had been taken inthe matter of "The Last Dryad." She would accept it, as it deserved.Whether she was still to write "Patroclus" was a matter to beconsidered later. Well, she was glad she had settled it all. If she hadnot come to this conclusion she might have been, at that very instant,dropping the letter to Harold Vickers into the box. She would havestood, thus, facing the box, have raised the cast-iron flap,—this withone hand,—and with the other have thrust the note into the slide—thus.

Her fingers closed hard upon the letter at the very last instant—ah,not too late. But suppose she had, but for one second, opened her thumband forefinger and—what? What would come of it?

And there, with the letter yet on the edge of the drop she called upagain the entire situation, the identity of the stories, thejeopardizing—no, the wrecking—of her future career by thischance-thrown barrier in the way. Why hesitate, why procrastinate? Herthoughts came to her in a whirl. If she acted quickly now,—took theleap with shut eyes, reckless of result,—she could truly be sorry then,truly acknowledge what was right, believe that Vickers had the priorclaim without the hard necessity of acting up to her convictions. Atleast, this harrowing indecision would be over with.

"Indecision?" What was this she was saying? Had she not this moment toldherself that she was resolved—resolved to accept "The Last Dryad"?Resolved to accept it? Was that true? Had she done so? Had she not madeup her mind long ago to decline it—decline it with full knowledge thatit* author would destroy it once the manuscript should be returned?

These thoughts had whisked through her mind with immeasurable rapidity.The letter still rested half in, half out of the drop. She still held itthere.

By now Rosella knew if she let it fall she would do so deliberately,with full knowledge of what she was about. She could not afterwardexcuse herself by saying that she had been confused, excited, actingupon an unreasoned impulse. No; it would be deliberate, deliberate,deliberate. She would have to live up to that decision, whatever it was,for many months to come, perhaps for years. Perhaps,—who couldsay?—perhaps it might affect her character permanently. In a crisislittle forces are important, disproportionately so. And then it was, andthus it was, that Rosella took her resolve. She raised the iron flaponce more, and saying aloud and with a ring of defiance in her voice:"Deliberately, deliberately; I don't care," loosed her hold upon theletter. She heard it fall with a soft rustling impact upon theaccumulated mail-matter in the bottom of the box.

A week later she received her letter back with a stamped legend acrossits face informing her with dreadful terseness that the party to whomthe letter was addressed was deceased. She divined a blunder, but forall that, and with conflicting emotions, sought confirmation in thedaily press. There, at the very end of the column, stood the notice:

Vickers. At New York, on Sunday, November 12, Harold AndersonVickers, in the twenty-third year of his age. Arizona papers pleasecopy. Notice of funeral hereafter.

Three days later she began to write "Patroclus."

***

Rosella stood upon the door-step of Trevor's house, closing her umbrellaand shaking the water from the folds of her mackintosh. It was betweeneight and nine in the evening, and since morning a fine rain had fallensteadily. But no stress of weather could have kept Rosella at home thatevening. A week previous she had sent to Trevor the type-written copy ofthe completed "Patroclus," and tonight she was to call for themanuscript and listen to his suggestions and advice.

She had triumphed in the end—triumphed over what, she had not alwayscared to inquire. But once the pen in her hand, once "Patroclus" begun,and the absorption of her mind, her imagination, her every faculty, inthe composition of the story, had not permitted her to think of or toremember anything else.

And she saw that her work was good. She had tested it by every method,held it up to her judgment in all positions and from all sides, and inher mind, so far as she could see, and she was a harsh critic for herown work, it stood the tests. Not the least of her joys was the pleasurethat she knew Trevor would take in her success. She could foresee justthe expression of his face when he would speak, could forecast just thetones of the voice, the twinkle of the kindly eyes behind the glasses.

When she entered the study, she found Trevor himself, as she hadexpected, waiting for her in slippers and worn velvet jacket, pipe inhand, and silk skullcap awry upon the silver-white hair. He extended aninky hand, and still holding it and talking, led her to an easy-chairnear the hearth.

Even through the perturbation of her mind Rosella could not butwonder—for the hundredth time—at the apparent discrepancy between thegreat novelist and the nature of his books. These latter were, each andall of them, wonders of artistic composition, compared with the hordesof latter-day pictures. They were the aristocrats of their kind, full ofreserved force, unimpeachable in dignity, stately even, at timesveritably austere.

And Trevor himself was a short, rotund man, rubicund as to face,bourgeois as to clothes and surroundings (the bisque statuette of afisher-boy obtruded the vulgarity of its gilding and tinting from themantelpiece), jovial in manner, indulging even in slang. One mighteasily have set him down as a retired groceryman—wholesale perhaps, butnone the less a groceryman. Yet touch him upon the subject of hisprofession, and the bonhomie lapsed away from him at once. Then hebecame serious. Literature was not a thing to be trifled with.

Thus it was tonight. For five minutes Trevor filled the room with theroaring of his own laughter and the echoes of his own vociferous voice.He was telling a story—a funny story, about what Rosella, with herthoughts on "Patroclus," could not for the life of her have said, andshe must needs listen in patience and with perfunctory merriment whilethe narrative was conducted to its close with all the accompaniment ofstamped feet and slapped knees.

"'Why, becoth, mithtah,' said that nigg*r. 'Dat dawg ain' good fo'nothin' ailse; so I jes rickon he 'th boun' to be a coon dawg;'" and theauthor of "Snow in April" pounded the arm of his chair and roared tillthe gas-fixtures vibrated.

Then at last, taking advantage of a lull in the talk, Rosella, unableto contain her patience longer, found breath to remark:

"And 'Patroclus'—my—my little book?"

"Ah—hum, yes. 'Patroclus,' your story. I've read it."

At once another man was before her, or rather the writer—thenovelist—in the man. Something of the dignity of his literary styleimmediately seemed to invest him with a new character. He fell quiet,grave, not a little abstracted, and Rosella felt her heart sink. Herlittle book (never had it seemed so insignificant, so presumptuous asnow) had been on trial before a relentless tribunal, had indeedundergone the ordeal of fire. But the verdict, the verdict! Quietly, butwith cold hands clasped tight together, she listened while the greatestnovelist of America passed judgment upon her effort.

"Yes; I've read it," continued Trevor. "Read it carefully—carefully.You have worked hard upon it. I can see that. You have put your wholesoul into it, put all of yourself into it. The narrative is all there,and I have nothing but good words to say to you about the construction,the mere mechanics of it. But——"

Would he never go on? What was this? What did that "But" mean? What elsebut disaster could it mean? Rosella shut her teeth.

"But, to speak frankly, my dear girl, there is something lacking. Oh,the idea, the motif—that——" he held up a hand. "That is as intact aswhen you read me the draft. The central theme, the approach, thegrouping of the characters, the dialogue—all good—all good. The thingthat is lacking I find very hard to define. But the mood of thestory, shall we say?—the mood of the story is——" he stopped, frowningin perplexity, hesitating. The great master of words for once foundhimself at a loss for expression. "The mood is somehow truculent, whenit should be as suave, as quiet, as the very river you describe. Don'tyou see? Can't you understand what I mean? In this 'Patroclus' theatmosphere, the little, delicate, subtle sentiment, iseverything—everything. What was the mere story? Nothing without theproper treatment. And it was just in this fine, intimate relationshipbetween theme and treatment that the success of the book was to belooked for. I thought I could be sure of you there. I thought that youof all people could work out that motif adequately. But"—he waved ahand over the manuscript that lay at her elbow—"this—it is not thething. This is a poor criticism, you will say, merely a marshaling ofempty phrases, abstractions. Well, that may be; I repeat, it is veryhard for me to define just what there is of failure in your 'Patroclus.'But it is empty, dry, hard, barren. Am I cruel to speak so frankly? If Iwere less frank, my dear girl, I would be less just, less kind. You havetold merely the story, have narrated episodes in their sequence of time,and where the episodes have stopped there you have ended the book. Thewhole animus that should have put the life into it is gone, or, if it isnot gone, it is so perverted that it is incorrigible. To my mind thebook is a failure."

Rosella did not answer when Trevor ceased speaking, and there was a longsilence. Trevor looked at her anxiously. He had hated to hurt her.Rosella gazed vaguely at the fire. Then at last the tears filled hereyes.

"I am sorry, very, very sorry," said Trevor, kindly. "But to have toldyou anything but the truth would have done you a wrong—and, then, noearnest work is altogether wasted. Even though 'Patroclus' is—not whatwe expected of it, your effort over it will help you in something else.You did work hard at it. I saw that. You must have put your whole soulinto it."

"That," said Rosella, speaking half to herself—"that was just thetrouble."

But Trevor did not understand.

HANTU

BY

HENRY MILNER RIDEOUT

Reprinted from The Atlantic Monthly of May, 1906 by permission

HE SCHOONER Fulmar lay in a cove on the coast of Banda. Her sails,half hoisted, dripped still from an equatorial shower, but, aloft, werealready steaming in the afternoon glare. Dr. Forsythe, captain andowner, lay curled round his teacup on the cabin roof, watching thehorizon thoughtfully, with eyes like points of glass set in the puckeredbronze of his face. The "Seventh Officer," his only white companion,watched him respectfully. All the Malays were asleep, stretched prone orsupine under the forward awning. Only Wing Kat stirred in the smother ofhis galley below, rattling tin dishes, and repeating, in endlessfalsetto sing-song, the Hankow ditty which begins,—

"'Yaou-yaou!' remarked the grasshoppers."

Ashore, the coolies on the nutmeg plantations had already brought outtheir mace to dry, and the baskets lay in vermilion patches on thesun-smitten green, like gouts of arterial blood. White vapors round themountain peaks rose tortuously toward the blue; while seaward, rainstill filled the air as with black sand drifting down aslant, throughgaps in which we could descry far off a steel-bright strip of fairweather that joined sea and sky, cutting under a fairy island so that itseemed suspended in the air.

"That's a pretty bit of land," said the doctor lazily. "'Jam medioapparet fluctu nemorosa Zacynthos'. It might be, eh?—Humph!—Virgiland Shakespeare are the only ones who sometimes make poetry endurable.All the others are just little swollen Egos."

This was an unusual excursion, and he quickly returned to practicalmatters.

"There's a better anchorage over there," he drawled, waving the milk-tintoward Zacynthos. "And less danger of our being caught than here. But nouse; we've got to humor the crew, of course. When they say 'puloburrantu,' that settles it. Haunted islands—ghosts—fatal todiscipline. I used to have cruises spoiled by that sort of thing. Wemust stay here and chance being found."

He shot a stream of Java sugar into the tea, and, staring at thesleepers, rubbed his shaven head thoughtfully.

"Oh, yes, 'superstition,' all very easy to say," he muttered, half tohimself. "But who knows, eh? Must be something in it, at times."

His mood this afternoon was new and surprising. Nor was it likely tooccur often in such a man. He had brought the Fulmar round the southof Celebes, making for Ceram; but as the Dutch had forbidden him totravel in the interior, saying that the natives were too dangerous justthen; and as Sidin, the mate, had sighted the Dutch tricolor flyingabove drab hulls that came nosing southward from Amboina way, we haddodged behind the Bandas till nightfall. The crew laughed at the babiblanda—Dutch pigs; but every man of them would have fled ashore hadthey known that among the hampers and bundled spears in our hold lay thedried head of a little girl, a human sacrifice from Engano. If we gotinto Ceram (and got out again), the doctor would reduce the whole affairto a few tables of anthropological measurements, a few more hampers ofbirds, beasts, and native rubbish in the hold, and a score of paragraphscouched in the evaporated, millimetric terms of science. There would bea few duplicates for Raffles, some tin-lined cases, including theclotted head of the little girl, for the British Museum; the totalupshot would attract much less public notice than the invention of a new"part" for a motor car; and the august structure of science, like acoral tree, would increase by another atom. In the meantime, we layanchored, avoiding ironclads and ghosts.

Dinner we ate below, with seaward port-holes blinded, and sweat drippingfrom our chins. Then we lay on the cabin roof again, in breech-clouts,waiting for a breeze, and showing no light except the red coals of twoBurmah cheroots.

For long spaces we said nothing. Trilling of crickets ashore, sleepycooing of nutmeg-pigeons, chatter of monkeys, hiccough of tree lizards,were as nothing in the immense, starlit silence of the night, heavilysweet with cassia and mace. Forward, the Malays murmured now and then,in sentences of monotonous cadence.

"No, you can't blame them," said the captain abruptly, with decision."Considering the unholy strangeness of the world we live in——" Hepuffed twice, the palm of his hand glowing. "Things you can't explain,"he continued vaguely. "Now this—I thought of it today, speaking ofhantu. Perhaps you can explain it, being a youngster without theories.The point is, of what follows, how much, if any, was a dream? Where werethe partition lines between sleep and waking,—between what we callCertainty, and—the other thing? Or else, by a freak of nature, might aman live so long—Nonsense!—Never mind; here are the facts."

***

Eleven years ago, I had the Fulmar a ten months' cruise out ofSingapore, and was finally coming down along Celebes, intending to goover to Batavia. We anchored on just such a day as this has been, off alittle old river-mouth, so badly silted that she had to lie well out. Achief in a campong half a day inland had promised to send somespecimens down that evening,—armor, harps, stone Priapuses, and birdsof paradise. The men were to come overland, and would have no boats. SoI went ashore with three or four Malays, and the Old Boy's time we hadpoking in and out over the silt to find fairway, even for the gig. Atlast we could make round toward a little clearing in the bamboos, with abig canary tree in the middle. All was going well, when suddenly themate grunted, pointing dead ahead. That man Sidin has the mostmagnificent eyes: we were steering straight into a dazzling glare. Icouldn't see anything, neither could the crew, for some time.

"Tuggur!" cried the mate. He was getting nervous. Then all of asudden—"Brenti!"

The crew stopped like a shot. Then they saw, too, and began to backwater and turn, all pulling different ways and yelling: "Prau hantu!...sampar! ...Sakit lepra! Kolera!... hantu!"

As we swung, I saw what it was,—a little carved prau like a child's toyboat, perhaps four feet long, with red fiber sails and red and giltflags from stem to stern. It was rocking there in our swell, innocently,but the crew were pulling for the schooner like crazy men.

I was griffin enough at the time, but I knew what it meant, ofcourse,—it was an enchanted boat, that the priests in somevillage—perhaps clear over in New Guinea—had charmed the cholera orthe plague on board of. Same idea as the Hebrew scapegoat.

"Brenti!" I shouted. The Malays stopped rowing, but let her run.Nothing would have tempted them within oar's-length of that prau.

"See here, Sidin," I protested, "I go ashore to meet the kapala'smen."

"We do not go," the fellow said. "If you go, Tuan, you die: the priesthas laid the cholera on board that prau. It has come to this shore. Donot go, Tuan."

"She hasn't touched the land yet," I said.

This seemed to have effect.

"Row me round to that point and land me," I ordered. "Hantu does notcome to white men. You go out to the ship; when I have met thesoldier-messengers, row back, and take me on board with the gifts."

The mate persuaded them, and they landed me on the point, half a mileaway, with a box of cheroots, and a roll of matting to take my nap on.I walked round to the clearing, and spread my mat under the canary tree,close to the shore. All that blessed afternoon I waited, and smoked, andkilled a snake, and made notes in a pocket Virgil, and slept, and smokedagain; but no sign of the bearers from the campong. I made signals tothe schooner,—she was too far out to hail,—but the crew took nonotice. It was plain they meant to wait and see whether the hantu prauwent out with the ebb or not; and as it was then flood, and dusk, theycouldn't see before morning. So I picked some bananas and chicos, andmade a dinner of them; then I lighted a fire under the tree, to smokeand read Virgil by,—in fact, spent the evening over my notes. Thateditor was a pukkah ass! It must have been pretty late before Istretched out on my matting.

I was a long time going to sleep,—if I went to sleep at all. I lay andwatched the firelight and shadows in the lianas, the bats flutteringin and out across my patch of stars, and an ape that stole down fromtime to time and peered at me, sticking his blue face out from among thecreepers. At one time a shower fell in the clearing, but only patteredon my ceiling of broad leaves.

After a period of drowsiness, something moved and glittered on thewater, close to the bank; and there bobbed the ghost prau, the gilt andvermilion flags shining in the firelight. She had come clear in on theflood,—a piece of luck. I got up, cut a withe of bamboo, and made herfast to a root. Then I fed the fire, lay down again, and watched herback and fill on her tether,—all clear and ruddy in the flame, eventhe carvings, and the little wooden figures of wizards on her deck. Andwhile I looked, I grew drowsier and drowsier; my eyes would close, thenhalf open, and there would be the hantu sails and the fire forcompany, growing more and more indistinct.

So much for Certainty; now begins the Other. Did I fall asleep at all?If so, was my first waking a dream-waking, and the real one only whenthe thing was gone? I'm not an imaginative man; my mind, at home,usually worked with some precision; but this,—there seems to be, youmight say, a blur, a—film over my mental retina. You see, I'm not apsychologist, and therefore can't use the big, foggy terms of man'sconceit to explain what he never can explain,—himself, and Life.

***

The captain tossed his cheroot overboard, and was silent for a space.

"The psychologists forget Æsop's frog story," he said at last. "Littleswollen Egos, again."

Then his voice flowed on, slowly, in the dark.

***

I ask you just to believe this much: that I for my part feel sure(except sometimes by daylight) that I was not more than half asleep whena footfall seemed to come in the path, and waked me entirely. It didn'tsound,—only seemed to come. I believe, then, that I woke, roused up onmy elbow, and stared over at the opening among the bamboos where thepath came into the clearing. Some one moved down the bank, and drewslowly forward to the edge of the firelight. A strange, whispering,uncertain kind of voice said something,—something in Dutch.

I didn't catch the words, and it spoke again:—

"What night of the month is this night?"

If awake, I was just enough so to think this a natural question to beasked first off, out here in the wilds.

"It's the 6th," I answered in Dutch. "Come down to the fire, Mynheer."

You know how bleary and sightless your eyes are for a moment, waking,after the glare of these days. The figure seemed to come a littlenearer, but I could only see that it was a man dressed in black. Eventhat didn't seem odd.

"Of what month?" the stranger said. The voice was what the French call"veiled."

"June," I answered.

"And what year?" he asked.

I told him—or It.

"He is very late," said the voice, like a sigh. "He should have sentlong ago."

Only at this point did the whole thing begin to seem queer. As evidencethat I must have been awake, I recalled afterwards that my arm had beenmade numb by the pressure of my head upon it while lying down, and nowbegan to tingle.

"It is very late," the voice repeated. "Perhaps too late——"

The fire settled, flared up fresh, and lighted the man's face dimly,—along, pale face with gray mustache and pointed beard. He was all inblack, so that his outline was lost in darkness; but I saw that roundhis neck was a short white ruff, and that heavy leather boots hung infolds, cavalier-fashion, from his knees. He wavered there in the dark,against the flicker of the bamboo shadows, like a picture by that Dutchfellow—What's-his-name-again—a very dim, shaky, misty Rembrandt.

"And you, Mynheer," he went on, in the same toneless voice, "from wheredo you come to this shore?"

"From Singapore," I managed to reply.

"From Singapura," he murmured. "And so white men live there now?—Ja,ja, time has passed."

Up till now I may have only been startled, but this set me in a bluefunk. It struck me all at once that this shaky old whisper of a voicewas not speaking the Dutch of nowadays. I never before knew the depths,the essence, of that uncertainty which we call fear. In the silence, Ithought a drum was beating,—it was the pulse in my ears. The fire closeby was suddenly cold.

"And now you go whither?" it said.

"To Batavia," I must have answered, for it went on:—

"Then you may do a great service to me and to another. Go to Jacatra inBatavia, and ask for Pieter Erberveld. Hendrik van der Have tells him tocease—before it is too late, before the thing becomes accursed. Tellhim this. You will have done well, and I—shall sleep again. Give himthe message——"

The voice did not stop, so much as fade away unfinished. And the man,the appearance, the eyes, moved away further into the dark, dissolving,retreating. A shock like waking came over me—a rush of clearconsciousness——

Humph! Yes, been too long away from home; for I know (mind you, know)that I saw the white of that ruff, the shadowy sweep of a cloak, assomething turned its back and moved up the path under the pointed archof bamboos, and was gone slowly in the blackness. I'm as sure of this asI am that the fire gave no heat. But whether the time of it all had beenseconds or hours, I can't tell you.

What? Yes, naturally. I jumped and ran up the path after it. Nothingthere but starlight. I must have gone on for half a mile. Nothing: onlyahead of me, along the path, the monkeys would chatter and break into anuproar, and then stop short—every treetop silent, as they do when apython comes along. I went back to the clearing, sat down on the mat,stayed there by clinching my will power, so to speak,—and watchedmyself for other symptoms, till morning. None came. The fire, when Iheaped it, was as hot as any could be. By dawn I had persuaded myselfthat it was a dream. No footprints in the path, though I mentioned ashower before.

At sunrise, the kapala's men came down the path, little chaps in blackmediæval armor made of petroleum tins, and coolies carrying piculs ofstuff that I wanted. So I was busy,—but managed to dismast the hantuprau and wrap it up in matting, so that it went aboard with the plunder.

Yet this other thing bothered me so that I held the schooner over, andmade pretexts to stay ashore two more nights. Nothing happened. Then Icalled myself a grandmother, and sailed for Batavia.

Two nights later, a very singular thing happened. The mate—this onewith the sharp eyes—is a quiet chap; seldom speaks to me except onbusiness. He was standing aft that evening, and suddenly, without anypreliminaries, said:

"Tuan was not alone the other night."

"What's that, Sidin?" I spoke sharply, for it made me feel quite angryand upset, of a sudden. He laughed a little, softly.

"I saw that the fire was a cold fire," he said. That was all he wouldsay, and we've never referred to it again.

You may guess the rest, if you know your history of Java. I didn't then,and didn't even know Batavia,—had been ashore often, but only for atoelatingskaart and some good Dutch chow. Well, one afternoon, I wasloafing down a street, and suddenly noticed that the sign-board said,"Jacatra-weg." The word made me jump, and brought the whole affair onCelebes back like a shot,—and not as a dream. It became a livequestion; I determined to treat it as one, and settle it.

I stopped a fat Dutchman who was paddling down the middle of the streetin his pyjamas, smoking a cigar.

"Pardon, Mynheer," I said. "Does a man live here in Jacatra-weg namedErberveld?"

"Nej," he shook his big shaved head. "Nej, Mynheer, I do not know."

"Pieter Erberveld," I suggested.

The man broke into a horse-laugh.

"Ja, ja," he said, and laughed still. "I did not think of him. Ja,on this way, opposite the timber yard, you will find his house." And hewent off, bowing and grinning hugely.

The nature of the joke appeared later, but I wasn't inclined to laugh.You've seen the place. No? Right opposite a timber yard in a cocoanutgrove: it was a heavy, whitewashed wall, as high as a man, and perhapstwo perches long. Where the gate should have been, a big tablet was setin, and over that, on a spike, a skull, grinning through a coat ofcement. The tablet ran in eighteenth-century Dutch, about like this:—

By Reason of the Detestable Memory of the Convicted Traitor, PieterErberveld, No One Shall Be Permitted to Build in Wood or Stone orto Plant Anything upon This Ground, from Now till Judgment Day.Batavia, April 14, Anno 1772.

You'll find the story in any book: the chap was a half-caste Guy Fawkeswho conspired to deliver Batavia to the King of Bantam, was caught,tried, and torn asunder by horses. I nosed about and went through a holein a side wall: nothing in the compound but green mould, dried stalks,dead leaves, and blighted banana trees. The inside of the gate wasblocked with five to eight feet of cement. The Dutch hate solidly.

But Hendrik van der Have? No, I never found the name in any of thebooks. So there you are. Well? Can a man dream of a thing before heknows that thing, or——

***

The captain's voice, which had flowed on in slow and dispassionatesoliloquy, became half audible, and ceased. As we gave ear to thesilence, we became aware that a cool stir in the darkness was growinginto a breeze. After a time, the thin crowing of game-co*cks in distantvillages, the first twitter of birds among the highest branches, told usthat night had turned to morning. A soft patter of bare feet came alongthe deck, a shadow stood above us, and the low voice of the mate said:

"Ada kapal api disitu, Tuan—saiah kirah—ada kapal prrang."

"Gunboat, eh?" Captain Forsythe was on his feet, and speaking briskly."Bai, tarek jangcar. Breeze comes just in time."

We peered seaward from the rail; far out, two pale lights, between a redcoal and a green, shone against the long, glimmering strip of dawn.

"Heading this way, but there's plenty of time," the captain saidcheerfully. "Take the wheel a minute, youngster—that's it,—keep herin,—they can't see us against shore where it's still night."

As the schooner swung slowly under way, his voice rose, gay as aboy's:—

"Come on, you rice-fed admirals!" He made an improper gesture, hisprofile and outspread fingers showing in the glow-worm light of thebinnacle. "If they follow us through by the Verdronken Rozengain, we'llshow them one piece 'e navigation. Can do, eh? These old iron-clad junksare something a man knows how to deal with."

MISS JUNO

BY

CHARLES WARREN STODDARD

Copyright, 1903, by A. M. Robertson Reprinted from For the Pleasure ofHis Company

I

HERE was an episode in the life of Paul cl*theroe that may possiblythrow some little light upon the mystery of his taking off; and inconnection with this matter it is perhaps worth detailing.

One morning Paul found a drop-letter in the mail which greeted himdaily. It ran as follows:

The "tomorrow" referred to was the very day on which Paul received thesweet reminder. The reception of the message somewhat disturbed hiscustomary routine. To be sure, he glanced through the morning journal asusual; repaired to the Greek chop-house with the dingy green walls, thesmoked ceiling, the glass partition that separated the guests from akitchen lined with shining copper pans, where a cook in a white papercap wafted himself about in clouds of vapor, lit by occasional flashesof light and ever curling flames, like a soul expiating its sins in aprescribed but savory purgatory. He sat in his chosen seat, ignored hisneighbors with his customary nonchalance, and returned to his room, asif nothing were about to happen. But he accomplished little, for he feltthat the day was not wholly his; so slight a cause seemed to change thewhole current of his life from hour to hour.

In due season Paul entered a street car which ran to the extreme limitof San Francisco. Harry English lived not far from the terminus, and tothe cozy home of this most genial and hospitable gentleman the youthwended his way. The house stood upon the steep slope of a hill; theparlor was upon a level with the street,—a basem*nt dining-room belowit,—but the rear of the house was quite in the air and all of the rearwindows commanded a magnificent view of the North Bay with its islandsand the opposite mountainous shore.

"Infinite riches in a little room," was the expression which cameinvoluntarily to Paul's lips the first time he crossed the threshold ofThespian Lodge. He might have said it of the Lodge any day in the week;the atmosphere was always balmy and soothing; one could sit therewithout talking or caring to talk; even without realizing that one wasnot talking and not being talked to; the silence was never ominous; itwas a wholesome and restful home, where Paul was ever welcome andwhither he often fled for refreshment.

The walls of the whole house were crowded with pictures, framedphotographs and autographs, chiefly of theatrical celebrities; both"Harry," as the world familiarly called him, and his wife, were membersof the dramatic profession and in their time had played many parts inalmost as many lands and latitudes.

There was one chamber in this delightful home devoted exclusively to thepleasures of entomology, and there the head of the house passed most ofthe hours which he was free to spend apart from the duties of hisprofession. He was a man of inexhaustible resources, consummate energy,and unflagging industry, yet one who was never in the least hurried orflurried; and he was Paul's truest and most judicious friend.

The small parlor at the Englishes was nearly filled with guests whenPaul cl*theroe arrived upon the scene. These guests were not sittingagainst the wall talking at each other; the room looked as if it wereset for a scene in a modern society comedy. In the bay window, a bowerof verdure, an extremely slender and diminutive lady was discoursingeloquently with the superabundant gesticulation of the successfulsociety amateur; she was dilating upon the latest production of a minorpoet whose bubble reputation was at that moment resplendent with localrainbows. Her chief listener was a languid beauty of literaryaspirations, who, in a striking pose, was fit audience for the littlelady as she frothed over with delightful, if not contagious, enthusiasm.

Mrs. English, who had been a famous belle—no one who knew her now wouldfor a moment question the fact—devoted herself to the entertainment ofa group of silent people, people of the sort that are not onlycolorless, but seem to dissipate the color in their immediate vicinity.The world is full of such; they spring up, unaccountably, in locationswhere they appear to the least advantage. Many a clever person who woulddelight to adorn a circle he longs to enter, and where he would behailed with joy, through modesty, hesitates to enter it; while others,who are of no avail in any wise whatever, walk bravely in and findthemselves secure through a quiet system of polite insistence. Among thelatter, the kind of people to be merely tolerated, we find, also, thelarge majority.

Two children remarkably self-possessed seized upon Paul the moment heentered the room: a beautiful lad as gentle and as graceful as a girl,and his tiny sister, who bore herself with the dignity of a little ladyof Lilliput. He was happy with them, quite as happy as if they were asold and experienced as their elders and as well entertained by them,likewise. He never in his life made the mistake that is, alas, made bymost parents and guardians, of treating children as if they were littlesimpletons who can be easily deceived. How often they look with scornupon their elders who are playing the hypocrite to eyes which are, forthe most part, singularly critical! Having paid his respects to thosepresent—he was known to all—Paul was led a willing captive into thechamber where Harry English and a brother professional, an eccentriccomedian, who apparently never uttered a line which he had not learnedout of a play-book, were examining with genuine enthusiasm certain casesof brilliantly tinted butterflies.

The children were quite at their ease in this house, and no wonder;California children are born philosophers; to them the marvels of thesomewhat celebrated entomological collection were quite familiar; againand again they had studied the peculiarities of the most rare andbeautiful specimens of insect life under the loving tutelage of theirfriend, who had spent his life and a small fortune in gathering togetherhis treasures, and they were even able to explain in the prettiestfashion the origin and use of the many curious objects that weredistributed about the rooms.

Meanwhile Mme. Lillian, the dramatic one, had left her bower in the baywindow and was flitting to and fro in nervous delight; she had much tosay and it was always worth listening to. With available opportunitiesshe would have long since become famous and probably a leader of hersex; but it was her fate to coach those of meaner capacities who wereultimately to win fame and fortune while she toiled on, in genteelpoverty, to the end of her weary days.

No two women could be more unlike than this many-summered butterfly, asshe hovered among her friends, and a certain comedy queen who was posingand making a picture of herself; the latter was regarded by thesociety-privates, who haunted with fearful delight the receptions atThespian Lodge, with the awe that inspired so many inexperienced peoplewho look upon members of the dramatic profession as creatures of anotherand not a better world, and considerably lower than the angels.

Two hours passed swiftly by; nothing ever jarred upon the guests in thishouse; the perfect suavity of the host and hostess forbade anything likeantagonism among their friends; and though such dissimilar elementsmight never again harmonize, they were tranquil for the time at least.

The adieus were being said in the chamber of entomology, which wassomewhat overcrowded and faintly impregnated with the odor of corrosivesublimate. From the windows overlooking the bay there was visible theexpanse of purple water and the tawny, sunburnt hills beyond, whilepale-blue misty mountains marked the horizon with an undulating outline.A ship under full sail—a glorious and inspiring sight—was bearing downbefore the stiff westerly breeze.

Mme. Lillian made an apt quotation which terminated with a Delsarteangesture and a rising inflection that seemed to exact something fromsomebody; the comedienne struck one of her property attitudes, soirresistibly comic that every one applauded, and Mme. Lillian laughedherself to tears; then they all drifted toward the door. As mankind ingeneral has much of the sheep in him, one guest having got as far as thethreshold, the others followed; Paul was left alone with the Englishesand those clever youngsters, whose coachman, accustomed to waitingindefinitely at the Lodge, was dutifully dozing on the box seat. Thechildren began to romp immediately upon the departure of the last guest,and during the riotous half-hour that succeeded, there was a fresharrival. The door-bell rang; Mrs. English, who was close at hand, turnedto answer it and at once bubbled over with unaffected delight. Harry,still having his defunct legions in solemn review, recognized a cheery,un-American voice, and cried, "There she is at last!" as he hastened tomeet the newcomer.

Paul was called to the parlor where a young lady of the ultra-blondetype stood with a faultlessly gloved hand in the hand of each of herfriends; she was radiant with life and health. Of all the young ladiesPaul could at that moment remember having seen, she was the mostexquisitely clad; the folds of her gown fell about her form like thedrapery of a statue; he was fascinated from the first moment of theirmeeting. He noticed that nothing about her was ever disarranged; neitherwas there anything superfluous or artificial, in manner or dress. Shewas in his opinion an entirely artistic creation. She met him with aperfectly frank smile, as if she were an old friend suddenly discoveringherself to him, and when Harry English had placed the hand of thisdelightful person in one of Paul's she at once withdrew the other, whichMrs. English fondly held, and struck it in a hearty half-boyish mannerupon their clasped hands, saying, "Awfully glad to see you, Paul!" andshe evidently meant it.

This was Miss. Juno, an American girl bred in Europe, now, after yearsof absence, passing a season in her native land. Her parents, who hadtaken a country home in one of the California valleys, found in theironly child all that was desirable in life. This was not to be wonderedat; it may be said of her in the theatrical parlance that she "filledthe stage." When Miss. Juno dawned upon the scene the children grewgrave, and, after a little delay, having taken formal leave of thecompany, they entered their carriage and were rapidly driven homeward.

If Paul and Miss. Juno had been formed for one another and were now, atthe right moment and under the most favorable auspices, broughttogether for the first time, they could not have mated more naturally.If Miss. Juno had been a young man, instead of a very charming woman,she would of course have been Paul's chum. If Paul had been a youngwoman—some of his friends thought he had narrowly escaped it and didnot hesitate to say so—he would instinctively have become herconfidante. As it was, they promptly entered into a sympatheticfriendship which seemed to have been without beginning and wasapparently to be without end.

They began to talk of the same things at the same moment, often utteringthe very same words and then turned to one another with little shouts ofunembarrassed laughter. They agreed upon all points, and aroused eachother to a ridiculous pitch of enthusiasm over nothing in particular.

Harry English beamed; there was evidently nothing wanted to complete hishappiness. Mrs. English, her eyes fairly dancing with delight, couldonly exclaim at intervals, "Bless the boy!" or, "What a pair ofchildren!" then fondly pass her arm about the waist of Miss. Juno—whichwas not waspish in girth—or rest her hand upon Paul's shoulder with ashow of maternal affection peculiarly grateful to him. It was withdifficulty the half-dazed young fellow could keep apart from Miss. Juno.If he found she had wandered into the next room, while he was engagedfor a moment, he followed at his earliest convenience, and when theireyes met they smiled responsively without knowing why, and indeed notcaring in the least to know.

They were as ingenuous as two children in their liking for one another;their trust in each other would have done credit to the Babes in theWood. What Paul realized, without any preliminary analysis of his mindor heart, was that he wanted to be near her, very near her; and that hewas miserable when this was not the case. If she was out of his sightfor a moment the virtue seemed to have gone from him and he fell intothe pathetic melancholy which he enjoyed in the days when he wrote agreat deal of indifferent verse, and was burdened with the convictionthat his mission in life was to make rhymes without end.

In those days, he had acquired the habit of pitying himself. Theemotional middle-aged woman is apt to encourage the romantic young manin pitying himself; it is a grewsome habit, and stands sturdily in theway of all manly effort. Paul had outgrown it to a degree, but there isnothing easier in life than a relapse—perhaps nothing so natural, yetoften so unexpected.

Too soon the friends who had driven Miss. Juno to Thespian Lodge andpassed on—being unacquainted with the Englishes—called to carry heraway with them. She was shortly—in a day or two in fact—to rejoin herparents, and she did not hesitate to invite Paul to pay them a visit.This he assured her he would do with pleasure, and secretly vowed thatnothing on earth should prevent him. They shook hands cordially atparting, and were still smiling their baby smiles in each other's faceswhen they did it. Paul leaned against the door-jamb, while the genialHarry and his wife followed his new-found friend to the carriage, wherethey were duly presented to its occupants—said occupants promising toplace Thespian Lodge upon their list. As the carriage whirled away,Miss. Juno waved that exquisitely gloved hand from the window and Paul'sheart beat high; somehow he felt as if he had never been quite so happy.And this going away struck him as being a rather cruel piece ofbusiness. To tell the whole truth, he couldn't understand why she shouldgo at all.

He felt it more and more, as he sat at dinner with his old friends, theEnglishes, and ate with less relish than common the delicious Yorkshirepudding and drank the musty ale. He felt it as he accompanied hisfriends to the theater, where he sat with Mrs. English, while shewatched with pride the husband whose impersonations she was never wearyof witnessing; but Paul seemed to see him without recognizing him, andeven the familiar voice sounded unfamiliar, or like a voice in a dream.He felt it more and more when good Mrs. English gave him a nudge towardthe end of the evening and called him "a stupid," half in sport and halfin earnest; and when he had delivered that excellent woman into the careof her liege lord and had seen them securely packed into the horse-carthat was to drag them tediously homeward in company with a greatmultitude of suffocating fellow-sufferers, he felt it; and all the wayout the dark street and up the hill that ran, or seemed to run, intoouter darkness—where his home was—he felt as if he had never been theman he was until now, and that it was all for her sake and throughher influence that this sudden and unexpected transformation had cometo pass. And it seemed to him that if he were not to see her again,very soon, his life would be rendered valueless; and that only to seeher were worth all the honor and glory that he had ever aspired to inhis wildest dreams; and that to be near her always and to feel that hewere much—nay, everything—to her, as before God he felt that at thatmoment she was to him, would make his life one long Elysium, and todeath would add a thousand stings.

II

Saadi had no hand in it, yet all Persia could not outdo it. The wholevalley ran to roses. They covered the earth; they fell from loftytrellises in fragrant cataracts; they played over the rustic arbors likefountains of color and perfume; they clambered to the cottage roof andscattered their bright petals in showers upon the grass. They were ofevery tint and texture; of high and low degree, modest or haughty as thecase might be—but roses all of them, and such roses as California alonecan boast. And some were fat or passé, and more's the pity, but allwere fragrant, and the name of that sweet vale was Santa Rosa.

Paul was in the garden with Miss. Juno. He had followed her thither withwhat speed he dared. She had expected him; there was not breathing-spacefor conventionality between these two. In one part of the garden sat anartist at his easel; by his side a lady somewhat his senior, but of thetype of face and figure that never really grows old, or looks it. Shewas embroidering flowers from nature, tinting them to the life, andrivaling her companion in artistic effects. These were the parents ofMiss. Juno—or rather not quite that. Her mother had been twice married;first, a marriage of convenience darkened the earlier years of her life;Miss. Juno was the only reward for an age of domestic misery. Aclergyman joined these parties—God had nothing to do with the compact;it would seem that he seldom has. A separation very naturally and veryproperly followed in the course of time; a young child was the onlypossible excuse for the delay of the divorce. Thus are the sins of thefathers visited upon the grandchildren. Then came a marriage of love.The artist who having found his ideal had never known a moment'sweariness, save when he was parted from her side. Their union wasperfect; God had joined them. The stepfather to Miss. Juno had alwaysbeen like a big brother to her—even as her mother had always seemedlike an elder sister.

Oh, what a trio was that, my countrymen, where liberty, fraternity andequality joined hands without howling about it and making themselves anuisance in the nostrils of their neighbors!

Miss. Juno stood in a rose-arbor and pointed to the artists at theirwork.

"Did you ever see anything like that, Paul?"

"Like what?"

"Like those sweet simpletons yonder. They have for years been quiteoblivious of the world about them. Thrones might topple, empires riseand fall, it would matter nothing to them so long as their gardenbloomed, and the birds nested and sung, and he sold a picture once in anage that the larder might not go bare."

"I've seen something like it, Miss. Juno. I've seen fellows who neverbothered themselves about the affairs of others,—who, in short, mindedtheir own business strictly—and they got credit for being selfish."

"Were they happy?"

"Yes, in their way. Probably their way wasn't my way, and their kind ofhappiness would bore me to death. You know happiness really can't bepassed around, like bon-bons or sherbet, for every one to taste. I hatebon-bons: do you like them?"

"That depends upon the quality and flavor—and—perhaps somewhat uponwho offers them. I never buy bon-bons for my private and personalpleasure. Do any of you fellows really care for bon-bons?"

"That depends upon the kind of happiness we are in quest of; I mean thequality and flavor of the girl we are going to give them to."

"Have girls a flavor?"

"Some of them have—perhaps most of them haven't; neither have they formnor feature, nor tint nor texture, nor anything that appeals to a fellowof taste and sentiment."

"I'm sorry for these girls of yours——"

"You needn't be sorry for the girls; they are not my girls, and not oneof them ever will be mine if I can help it——"

"Oh, indeed!"

"They are nothing to me, and I'm nothing to them; but they arejust—they are just the formless sort of thing that a formless sort offellow always marries; they help to fill up the world, you know."

"Yes, they help to fill a world that is overfull already. Poor Mama andEugene don't know how full it is. When Gene wants to sell a picture andcan't, he thinks it's a desert island."

"Probably they could live on a desert island and be perfectly happy andcontent," said Paul.

"Of course they could; the only trouble would be that unless some onecalled them at the proper hours they'd forget to eat—and some daythey'd be found dead locked in their last embrace."

"How jolly!"

"Oh, very jolly for very young lovers; they are usually such fools!"

"And yet, I believe I'd like to be a fool for love's sake, Miss. Juno."

"Oh, Paul, you are one for your own,—at least I'll think so, if youwork yourself into this silly vein!"

Paul was silent and thoughtful. After a pause she continued.

"The trouble with you is, you fancy yourself in love with every new girlyou meet—at least with the latest one, if she is at all out of theordinary line."

"The trouble with me is that I don't keep on loving the same girl longenough to come to the happy climax—if the climax is to be a happyone; of course it doesn't follow that it is to be anything of the sort.I've been brought up in the bosom of too many families to believe in thelasting quality of love. Yet they are happy, you say, those two gentlepeople perpetuating spring on canvas and cambric. See, there is a smallcloud of butterflies hovering about them—one of them is panting infairy-like ecstasy on the poppy that decorates your Mama's hat!"

Paul rolled a cigarette and offered it to Miss. Juno, in a mild spiritof bravado. To his delight she accepted it, as if it were the mostnatural thing in the world for a girl to do. He rolled another and theysat down together in the arbor full of contentment.

"Have you never been in love?" asked Paul suddenly.

"Yes, I suppose so. I was engaged once; you know girls instinctivelyengage themselves to some one whom they fancy; they imagine themselvesin love, and it is a pleasant fallacy. My engagement might have gone onforever, if he had contented himself with a mere engagement. He was ayoung army officer stationed miles and miles away. We wrote volumes ofletters to each other—and they were clever letters; it was rather likea seaside novelette, our love affair. He was lonely, or restless, orsomething, and pressed his case. Then Mama and Gene—those ideallovers—put their feet down and would none of it."

"And you?"

"Of course I felt perfectly wretched for a whole week, and imaginedmyself cruelly abused. You see he was a foreigner, without money; he washeir to a title, but that would have brought him no advantages in thehousehold."

"You recovered. What became of him?"

"I never learned. He seemed to fade away into thin air. I fear I was notvery much in love."

"I wonder if all girls are like you—if they forget so easily?"

"You have yourself declared that the majority have neither form norfeature; perhaps they have no feeling. How do men feel about a brokenengagement?"

"I can only speak for myself. There was a time when I felt that marriagewas the inevitable fate of all respectable people. Some one wanted me tomarry a certain some one else. I didn't seem to care much about it; butmy friend was one of those natural-born match-makers; she talked theyoung lady up to me in such a shape that I almost fancied myself in loveand actually began to feel that I'd be doing her an injustice if Ipermitted her to go on loving and longing for the rest of her days. Soone day I wrote her a proposal; it was the kind of proposal one mightdecline without injuring a fellow's feelings in the least—and she didit!" After a thoughtful pause he continued:

"By Jove! But wasn't I immensely relieved when her letter came; such anice, dear, good letter it was, too, in which she assured me there hadevidently been a mistake somewhere, and nothing had been further fromher thoughts than the hope of marrying me. So she let me down mostbeautifully——"

"And offered to be a sister to you?"

"Perhaps; I don't remember now; I always felt embarrassed after thatwhen her name was mentioned. I couldn't help thinking what an infernalass I'd made of myself."

"It was all the fault of your friend."

"Of course it was; I'd never have dreamed of proposing to her if Ihadn't been put up to it by the match-maker. Oh, what a lot of miserablemarriages are brought on in just this way! You see when I like a girlever so much, I seem to like her too well to marry her. I think itwould be mean of me to marry her."

"Why?"

"Because—because I'd get tired after a while; everybody does, sooner orlater,—everybody save your Mama and Eugene,—and then I'd say somethingor do something I ought not to say or do, and I'd hate myself for it; orshe'd say something or do something that would make me hate her. Wemight, of course, get over it and be very nice to one another; but wecould never be quite the same again. Wounds leave scars, and you can'tforget a scar—can you?"

"You may scar too easily!"

"I suppose I do, and that is the very best reason why I should avoid theoccasion of one."

"So you have resolved never to marry?"

"Oh, I've resolved it a thousand times, and yet, somehow, I'm forevermeeting some one a little out of the common; some one who takes me bystorm, as it were; some one who seems to me a kind of revelation, andthen I feel as if I must marry her whether or no; sometimes I fear Ishall wake up and find myself married in spite of myself—wouldn't thatbe frightful?"

"Frightful indeed—and then you'd have to get used to it, just as mostmarried people get used to it in the course of time. You know it's avery matter-of-fact world we live in, and it takes very matter-of-factpeople to keep it in good running order."

"Yes. But for these drudges, these hewers of wood and drawers of water,that ideal pair yonder could not go on painting and embroidering thingsof beauty with nothing but the butterflies to bother them."

"Butterflies don't bother; they open new vistas of beauty, and they setexamples that it would do the world good to follow; the butterfly says,'my mission is to be brilliant and jolly and to take no thought of themorrow.'"

"It's the thought of the morrow, Miss. Juno, that spoils today forme,—that morrow—who is going to pay the rent of it? Who is going tokeep it in food and clothes?"

"Paul, you have already lived and loved, where there is no rent to payand where the clothing worn is not worth mentioning; as for the food andthe drink in that delectable land, nature provides them both. I don'tsee why you need to take thought of the morrow; all you have to do is totake passage for some South Sea Island, and let the world go by."

"But the price of the ticket, my friend; where is that to come from? Tobe sure I'm only a bachelor, and have none but myself to consider. Whatwould I do if I had a wife and family to provide for?"

"You'd do as most other fellows in the same predicament do; you'dprovide for them as well as you could; and if that wasn't sufficient,you'd desert them, or blow your brains out and leave them to provide forthemselves."

"An old bachelor is a rather comfortable old party. I'm satisfied withmy manifest destiny; but I'm rather sorry for old maids—aren't you?"

"That depends; of course everything in life depends; some of the mostbeautiful, the most blessed, the most bountifully happy women I haveever known were old maids; I propose to be one myself—if I live longenough!"

After an interlude, during which the bees boomed among thehoney-blossoms, the birds caroled on the boughs, and the two artistslaughed softly as they chatted at their delightful work, Paul resumed:

"Do you know, Miss. Juno, this anti-climax strikes me as beingexceedingly funny? When I met you the other day, I felt as if I'd met myfate. I know well enough that I'd felt that way often before, andpromptly recovered from the attack. I certainly never felt it in thesame degree until I came face to face with you. I was never quite sofairly and squarely face to face with any one before. I came herebecause I could not help myself. I simply had to come, and to come atonce. I was resolved to propose to you and to marry you without a cent,if you'd let me. I didn't expect that you'd let me, but I felt it myduty to find out. I'm dead sure that I was very much in love withyou—and I am now; but somehow it isn't that spoony sort of love thatmakes a man unwholesome and sometimes drives him to drink or to suicide.I suppose I love you too well to want to marry you; but God knows howglad I am that we have met, and I hope that we shall never really partagain."

"Paul!"—Miss. Juno's rather too pallid cheeks were slightly tinged withrose; she seemed more than ever to belong to that fair garden, to havebecome a part of it, in fact;—"Paul," said she, earnestly enough,"you're an awfully good fellow, and I like you so much; I shall alwayslike you; but if you had been fool enough to propose to me I should havedespised you. Shake!" And she extended a most shapely hand that claspedhis warmly and firmly. While he still held it without restraint, headded:

"Why I like you so much is because you are unlike other girls; that isto say, you're perfectly natural."

"Most people who think me unlike other girls, think me unnatural forthat reason. It is hard to be natural, isn't it?"

"Why, no, I think it is the easiest thing in the world to be natural.I'm as natural as I can be, or as anybody can be."

"And yet I've heard you pronounced a bundle of affectations."

"I know that—it's been said in my hearing, but I don't care in theleast; it is natural for the perfectly natural person not to care inthe least."

"I think, perhaps, it is easier for boys to be natural, than for girls,"said Miss. Juno.

"Yes, boys are naturally more natural," replied Paul with muchconfidence.

Miss. Juno smiled an amused smile.

Paul resumed—"I hardly ever knew a girl who didn't wish herself a boy.Did you ever see a boy who wanted to be a girl?"

"I've seen some who ought to have been girls—and who would have madevery droll girls. I know an old gentleman who used to bewail thedegeneracy of the age and exclaim in despair, 'Boys will be girls!'"laughed Miss. Juno.

"Horrible thought! But why is it that girlish boys are so unpleasantwhile tom-boys are delightful?"

"I don't know," replied she, "unless the girlish boy has lost the charmof his sex, that is manliness; and the tom-boy has lost the defect ofhers—a kind of selfish dependence."

"I'm sure the girls like you, don't they?'' he added.

"Not always; and there are lots of girls I can't endure!"

"I've noticed that women who are most admired by women are seldompopular with men; and that the women the men go wild over are littleappreciated by their own sex," said Paul.

"Yes, I've noticed that; as for myself my best friends are masculine;but when I was away at boarding-school my chum, who was immenselypopular, used to call me Jack!"

"How awfully jolly; may I call you 'Jack' and will you be my chum?"

"Of course I will; but what idiots the world would think us."

"Who cares?" cried he defiantly. "There are millions of fellows thisvery moment who would give their all for such a pal as you are—Jack!"

There was a fluttering among the butterflies; the artists had risen andwere standing waist-deep in the garden of gracious things; they werecoming to Paul and Miss. Juno, and in amusing pantomime announcing thatpangs of hunger were compelling their return to the cottage; the truthis, it was long past the lunch hour—and a large music-box which hadbeen set in motion when the light repast was laid had failed to catchthe ear with its tinkling aria.

All four of the occupants of the garden turned leisurely toward thecottage. Miss. Juno had rested her hand on Paul's shoulder and said in adelightfully confidential way: "Let it be a secret that we are chums,dear boy—the world is such an idiot."

"All right, Jack," whispered Paul, trying to hug himself in delight,'Little secrets are cozy.'"

And in the scent of the roses it was duly embalmed.

III

Happy is the man who is without encumbrances—that that is if he knowshow to be happy. Whenever Paul cl*theroe found the burden of the daybecoming oppressive he cast it off, and sought solace in a change ofscene. He could always, or almost always, do this at a moment's notice.It chanced, upon a certain occasion, when a little community of artistswere celebrating the sale of a great picture—the masterpiece of one oftheir number—that word was sent to Paul to join their feast. He foundthe large studio where several of them worked intermittently, highlydecorated; a table was spread in a manner to have awakened an appetiteeven upon the palate of the surfeited; there were music and dancing, andbacchanalian revels that went on and on from night to day and on tonight again. It was a veritable feast of lanterns, and not until thelast one had burned to the socket and the wine-vats were empty and thestudio strewn with unrecognizable debris and permeated with odors stale,flat and unprofitable, did the revels cease. Paul came to dine; heremained three days; he had not yet worn out his welcome, but he hadresolved, as was his wont at intervals, to withdraw from the world, andso he returned to the Eyrie,—which was ever his initial step toward theaccomplishment of the longed-for end.

Not very many days later Paul received the breeziest of letters; it wasone of a series of racy rhapsodies that came to him bearing the SantaRosa postmark. They were such letters as a fellow might write to acollege chum, but with no line that could have brought a blush to thecheek of modesty—not that the college chum is necessarily given to theinditing of such epistles. These letters were signed "Jack."

"Jack" wrote to say how the world was all in bloom and the rose-gardenone bewildering maze of blossoms; how Mama was still embroidering fromnature in the midst thereof, crowned with a wreath of butterflies andwith one uncommonly large one perched upon her Psyche shoulder andfanning her cheek with its brilliantly dyed wing; how Eugene wasreveling in his art, painting lovely pictures of the old SpanishMissions with shadowy outlines of the ghostly fathers, long sincedeparted, haunting the dismantled cloisters; how the air was like thebreath of heaven, and the twilight unspeakably pathetic, and they wereall three constantly reminded of Italy and forever talking of Rome andthe Campagna, and Venice, and imagining themselves at home again andPaul with them, for they had resolved that he was quite out of hiselement in California; they had sworn he must be rescued; he must returnwith them to Italy and that right early. He must wind up his affairs andset his house in order at once and forever; he should never go back toit again, but live a new life and a gentler life in that oldest and mostgentle of lands; they simply must take him with them and seat him bythe shore of the Venetian Sea, where he could enjoy his melancholy, ifhe must be melancholy, and find himself for the first time provided witha suitable background. This letter came to him inlaid with rose petals;they showered upon him in all their fragrance as he read the inspiringpages and, since "Jack" with quite a martial air had issued a mandatewhich ran as follows, "Order No. 19—Paul cl*theroe will, upon receiptof this, report immediately at headquarters at Santa Rosa," he placedthe key of his outer door in his pocket and straightway departed withoutmore ado.

***

They swung in individual hammocks, Paul and "Jack," within therose-screened veranda. The conjugal affinities, Violet and Eugene, werelost to the world in the depths of the rose-garden beyond sight andhearing.

Said Jack, resuming a rambling conversation which had been interruptedby the noisy passage of a bee, "That particular bee reminds me of somepeople who fret over their work, and who make others who are seekingrest, extremely uncomfortable."

Paul was thoughtful for a few moments and then remarked: "And yet it isa pleasant work he is engaged in, and his days are passed in the fairestfields; he evidently enjoys his trade even if he does seem to bustleabout it. I can excuse the buzz and the hum in him, when I can't alwaysin the human tribes."

"If you knew what he was saying just now, perhaps you'd find him asdisagreeable as the man who is condemned to earn his bread in the sweatof his brow, and makes more or less of a row about it."

"Very likely, Jack, but these bees are born with business instincts, andthey can't enjoy loafing; they don't know how to be idle. Being as busyas a busy bee must be being very busy!"

"There is the hum of the hive in that phrase, old boy! I'm sure you'vebeen working up to it all along. Come now, confess, you've had that inhand for some little time."

"Well, what if I have? That is what writers do, and they have to do it.How else can they make their dialogue in the least attractive? Did youever write a story, Jack?"

"No, of course not; how perfectly absurd!"

"Not in the least absurd. You've been reading novels ever since you wereborn. You've the knack of the thing, the telling of a story, thedeveloping of a plot, the final wind-up of the whole concern, right atyour tongue's end."

"Paul, you're an idiot."

"Idiot, Jack? I'm nothing of the sort and I can prove what I've justbeen saying to you about yourself. Now, listen and don't interrupt meuntil I've said my say."

Paul caught hold of a branch of vine close at hand and set his hammockswinging slowly. Miss. Juno settled herself more comfortably in hers,and seemed much interested and amused.

"Now," said Paul, with a comical air of importance—"now, any one whohas anything at his tongue's end, has it, or can, just as well as not,have it at his finger's end. If you can tell a story well, and you can,Jack, you know you can, you can write it just as well. You have only totell it with your pen instead of with your lips; and if you will onlywrite it exactly as you speak it, so long as your verbal version is agood one, your pen version is bound to be equally as good; moreover, itseems to me that in this way one is likely to adopt the most naturalstyle, which is, of course, the best of all styles. Now what do you sayto that?"

"Oh, nothing," after a little pause—"however I doubt that any one, maleor female, can take up pen for the first time and tell a tale like apractised writer."

"Of course not. The practised writer has a style of his own, aconventional narrative style which may be very far from nature. Peoplein books very seldom talk as they do in real life. When people in booksbegin to talk like human beings the reader thinks the dialogue eithercommonplace or mildly realistic, and votes it a bore."

"Then why try to write as one talks? Why not cultivate the conventionalstyle of the practised writer?"

"Why talk commonplaces?" cried Paul a little tartly. "Of course mostpeople must do so if they talk at all, and they are usually the peoplewho talk all the time. But I have known people whose ordinaryconversation was extraordinary, and worth putting down in a book—everyword of it."

"In my experience," said Miss. Juno, "people who talk like books are aburden."

"They needn't talk like the conventional book, I tell you. Let them havesomething to say and say it cleverly—that is the kind of conversationto make books of."

"What if all that we've been saying here, under the rose, as it were,were printed just as we've said it?"

"What if it were? It would at least be natural, and we've been sayingsomething of interest to each other; why should it not interest a thirdparty?"

Miss. Juno smiled and rejoined, "I am not a confirmed eavesdropper, butI often find myself so situated that I cannot avoid overhearing whatother people are saying to one another; it is seldom that, under suchcirc*mstances, I hear anything that interests me."

"Yes, but if you knew the true story of those very people, all that theymay be saying in your hearing would no doubt possess an interest,inasmuch as it would serve to develop their history."

"Our conversation is growing a little thin, Paul, don't you think so? Wecouldn't put all this into a book."

"If it helped to give a clue to our character and our motives, we could.The thing is to be interesting: if we are interesting, in ourselves, byreason of our original charm or our unconventionality, almost anythingwe might say or do ought to interest others. Conventional people arenever interesting."

"Yet the majority of mankind is conventional to a degree; theconventionals help to fill up; their habitual love of conventionality,or their fear of the unconventional, is what keeps them in their place.This is very fortunate. On the other hand, a world full of people tooclever to be kept in their proper spheres, would be simply intolerable.But there is no danger of this!"

"Yes, you are right," said Paul after a moment's pause;—"you areinteresting, and that is why I like you so well."

"You mean that I am unconventional?"

"Exactly. And, as I said before, that is why I'm so awfully fond of you.By Jove, I'm so glad I'm not in love with you, Jack."

"So am I, old boy; I couldn't put up with that at all; you'd have to goby the next train, you know; you would, really. And yet, if we are towrite a novel apiece we shall be obliged to put love into it; love witha very large L."

"No we wouldn't; I'm sure we wouldn't."

Miss. Juno shook her golden locks in doubt—Paul went onpersistently:—"I'm dead sure we wouldn't; and to prove it, some dayI'll write a story without its pair of lovers; everybody shall be moreor less spoony—but nobody shall be really in love."

"It wouldn't be a story, Paul."

"It would be a history, or a fragment of a history, a glimpse of a lifeat any rate, and that is as much as we ever get of the lives of thosearound us. Why can't I tell you the story of one fellow—of myself forexample; how one day I met this person, and the next day I met thatperson, and next week some one else comes on to the stage, and strutshis little hour and departs. I'm not trying to give my audience, myreaders, any knowledge of that other fellow. My reader must see forhimself how each of those fellows in his own way has influenced me. Thestory is my story, a study of myself, nothing more or less. If thereader don't like me he may lay me down in my cloth or paper cover, andhave nothing more to do with me. If I'm not a hero, perhaps it's not somuch my fault as my misfortune. That people are interested in me, andshow it in a thousand different ways, assures me that my story, notthe story of those with whom I'm thrown in contact, is what intereststhem. It's a narrow-gauge, single-track story, but it runs through adelightful bit of country, and if my reader wants to look out of mywindows and see things as I see them and find out how they influence mehe is welcome; if he doesn't, he may get off at the very next stationand change cars for Elsewhere."

"I shall have love in my story," said Miss. Juno, with an amusing touchof sentiment that on her lips sounded like polite comedy.

"You may have all the love you like, and appeal to the same oldnovel-reader who has been reading the same sort of love story for thelast hundred years, and when you've finished your work and your readerhas stood by you to the sweet or bitter end, no one will be any thewiser or better. You've taught nothing, you've untaught nothing——andthere you are!"

"Oh! A young man with a mission! Do you propose to revolutionize?"

"No; revolutions only roil the water. You might as well try to makewater flow up-hill as to really revolutionize anything. I'd beautify thebanks of the stream, and round the sharp turns in it, and weed it out,and sow water-lilies, and set the white swan with her snow-fleckedbreast afloat. That's what I'd do!"

"That's the art of the landscape gardener; I don't clearly see how it isof benefit to the novelist, Paul! Now, honestly, is it?"

"You don't catch my meaning, Jack; girls are deuced dull, you know,—Imean obtuse." Miss. Juno flushed. "I wasn't referring to the novel; Iwas saying that instead of writing my all in a vain effort torevolutionize anything in particular, I'd try to get all the good Icould out of the existing evil, and make the best of it. But let's nottalk in this vein any longer; I hate argument. Argument is nothing but alogical or illogical set-to; begin it as politely as you please, it isnot long before both parties throw aside their gloves and go in withnaked and bloody fists; one of the two gets knocked out, but he hasn'tbeen convinced of anything in particular; he was not in condition, thatis all; better luck next time."

"Have you the tobacco, Paul?" asked Miss Juno, extending her hand. Thetobacco was silently passed from one hammock to the other; each rolled acigarette, and lit it. Paul blew a great smoke ring into the air; hiscompanion blew a lesser one that shot rapidly after the larger halo, andthe two were speedily blended in a pretty vapor wraith.

"That's the ghost of an argument, Jack," said Paul, glancing above. Heresumed: "What I was about to say when I was interrupted"—this was hispet joke; he knew well enough that he had been monopolizing theconversation of the morning—"what I was about to say was this: my novelshall be full of love, but you won't know that it is love—I mean theevery-day love of the every-day people. In my book everybody is going tolove everybody else—or almost everybody else; if there is any sort of amisunderstanding it sha'n't matter much. I hate rows; I believe in thetruest and the fondest fellowship. What is true love? It is bosomfriendship; that is the purest passion of love. It is the only love thatlasts."

There was a silence for the space of some minutes; Paul and Miss. Junowere quietly, dreamily smoking. Without, among the roses, there was theboom of bees; the carol of birds, the flutter of balancing butterflies.Nature was very soothing, she was in one of her sweetest moods. The twofriends were growing drowsy. Miss. Juno, if she at times betrayed afeminine fondness for argument, was certainly in no haste to provokePaul to a further discussion of the quality of love or friendship;presently she began rather languidly:

"You were saying I ought to write, and that you believe I can, if I willonly try. I'm going to try; I've been thinking of something thathappened within my knowledge; perhaps I can make a magazine sketch ofit."

"Oh, please write it, Jack! Write it, and send the manuscript to me,that I may place it for you; will you? Promise me you will!" The boy wasquite enthusiastic, and his undisguised pleasure in the prospect ofseeing something from the pen of his pal—as he loved to call Miss.Juno—seemed to awaken a responsive echo in her heart.

"I will, Paul; I promise you!"—and the two struck hands on it.

IV

When Paul returned to the Eyrie, it had been decided that Miss. Juno wasto at once begin her first contribution to periodic literature. She hadfound her plot; she had only to tell her story in her own way, just asif she were recounting it to Paul. Indeed, at his suggestion, she hadpromised to sit with pen in hand and address him as if he were actuallypresent. In this way he hoped she would drop into the narrative stylenatural to her, and so attractive to her listeners.

As for Paul cl*theroe, he was to make inquiry among his editorialfriends in the Misty City, and see if he might not effect somesatisfactory arrangement with one or another of them, whereby he wouldbe placed in a position enabling him to go abroad in the course of a fewweeks, and remain abroad indefinitely. He would make Venice hisheadquarters; he would have the constant society of his friends; thefellowship of Jack; together, after the joint literary labors of theday, they would stem the sluggish tide of the darksome canals andexchange sentiment and cigarette smoke in mutual delight. Paul was towrite a weekly or a semi-monthly letter to the journal employing him asa special correspondent. At intervals, in the company of his friends, oralone, he would set forth upon one of those charming excursions sofruitful of picturesque experience, and return to his lodgings on theSchiavoni, to work them up into magazine articles; these would later, ofcourse, get into book form; from the book would come increasedreputation, a larger source of revenue, and the contentment of successwhich he so longed for, so often thought he had found, and so seldomenjoyed for any length of time.

All this was to be arranged,—or rather the means to which all this wasthe delightful end—was to be settled as soon as possible. Miss. Juno,having finished her story, was to send word to Paul and he was to hiehim to the Rose Garden; thereafter at an ideal dinner, elaborated inhonor of the occasion, Eugene was to read the maiden effort, while theauthor, sustained by the sympathetic presence of her admiring Mama andher devoted Paul, awaited the verdict.

This was to be the test—a trying one for Miss Juno. As for Paul, hefelt quite patriarchal, and yet, so genuine and so deep was his interestin the future of his protégée, that he was already showing symptoms ofanxiety.

The article having been sent to the editor of the first magazine in theland, the family would be ready to fold its æsthetic tent and depart;Paul, of course, accompanying them.

It was a happy thought; visions of Venice; the moonlit lagoon; thereflected lamps plunging their tongues of flame into the sea; the humidair, the almost breathless silence, broken at intervals by the baying ofdeep-mouthed bells; the splash of oars; the soft tripping measure ofhuman voices and the refrain of the gondoliers; Jack by his side—Jacknow in her element, with the maroon fez of the distinguished howadjitilted upon the back of her handsome head, her shapely finger-nailsstained with henna, her wrists weighed down with their scores oftinkling bangles! Could anything be jollier?

Paul gave himself up to the full enjoyment of this dream. Already heseemed to have overcome every obstacle, and to be reveling in thesubdued but sensuous joys of the Adriatic queen. Sometimes he had fledin spirit to the sweet seclusion of the cloistral life at San Lazaro.Byron did it before him;—the plump, the soft-voiced, mild-visagedlittle Arminians will tell you all about that, and take immense pleasurein the telling of it. Paul had also known a fellow-writer who hademulated Byron, and had even distanced the Byron record in one respectat least—he had outstayed his lordship at San Lazaro!

Sometimes Paul turned hermit, in imagination and dwelt alone upon thelong sands of the melancholy Lido; not seeing Jack, or anybody, save thewaiter at the neighboring restaurant, for days and days together. It wasimmensely diverting, this dream-life that Paul led in far distantVenice. It was just the life he loved, the ideal life, and it wasn'tcosting him a cent—no, not a soldo, to speak more in the Venetianmanner.

While he was looking forward to the life to come, he had hardly time toperfect his arrangements for a realization of it. He was to packeverything and store it in a bonded warehouse, where it should remainuntil he had taken root abroad. Then he would send for it and settle inthe spot he loved best of all, and there write and dream and drink thewine of the country, while the Angelus bells ringing thrice a day awokehim to a realizing sense of the fairy-like flight of time just as theyhave been doing for ages past, and, let us hope, as they will continueto do forever and forever.

One day he stopped dreaming of Italy, and resolved to secure hisengagement as a correspondent. Miss. Juno had written him that hersketch was nearly finished; that he must hold himself in readiness toanswer her summons at a moment's notice. The season was advancing; notime was to be lost, etc. Paul started at once for the office of hisfavorite journal; his interview was not entirely satisfactory. Editors,one and all, as he called upon them in succession, didn't seemespecially anxious to send the young man abroad for an indefiniteperiod; the salary requested seemed exorbitant. They each made aproposition; all said: "This is the best I can do at present; go to theother offices, and if you receive a better offer we advise you to takeit." This seemed reasonable enough, but as their best rate was fifteendollars for one letter a week he feared that even the highly respectablesecond-class accommodations of all sorts to which he must confinehimself would be beyond his means.

Was he losing interest in the scheme which had afforded him so manyhours of sweet, if not solid, satisfaction? No, not exactly. Poverty wasmore picturesque abroad than in his prosaic native land. His song wasnot quite so joyous, that was all; he would go to Italy; he would take asmaller room; he would eat at the Trattoria of the people; he would makestudies of the peasant, the contadini. Jack had written, "There is piein Venice when we are there; Mama knows how to make pie; pie cannot bepurchased elsewhere. Love is the price thereof!" And pie is veryfilling. Yes, he would go to Europe on fifteen dollars per week and findparadise in the bright particular Venetian Pie!

V

After many days a great change came to pass. Everybody knew that Paulcl*theroe had disappeared without so much as a "good-by" to his mostintimate friends. Curiosity was excited for a little while, but for alittle while only. Soon he was forgotten, or remembered by no one savethose who had known and loved him and who at intervals regretted him.

And Miss. Juno? Ah, Miss. Juno, the joy of Paul's young dreams! Havingbeen launched successfully at his hands, and hoping in her brave,off-hand way to be of service to him, she continued to write as much forhis sake as for her own; she knew it would please him beyond comparewere she to achieve a pronounced literary success. He had urged her towrite a novel. She had lightly laughed him to scorn—and had keptturning in her mind the possible plot for a tale. One day it suddenlytook shape; the whole thing seemed to her perfectly plain sailing; ifcl*theroe had launched her upon that venturesome sea, she had suddenlyfound herself equipped and able to sail without the aid of any one.

She had written to Paul of her joy in this new discovery. Before herloomed the misty outlines of fair far islands; she was about to setforth to people these. Oh, the joy of that! The unspeakable joy of it!She spread all sail on this voyage of discovery—she asked for nothingmore save the prayers of her old comrade. She longed to have him nearher so that together they might discuss the situations in her story, oneafter another. If he were only in Venice they would meet daily overtheir dinner, and after dinner she would read to him what she hadwritten since they last met; then they would go in a gondola for amoonlight cruise; of course it was always moonlight in Venice! Wouldthis not be delightful and just as an all-wise Providence meant itshould be? Paul had read something like this in the letters which sheused to write him when he was divided against himself; when he began tofeel himself sinking, without a hand to help him. Venice was out of thequestion then; it were vain for him to even dream of it.

So time went on; Miss. Juno became a slave of the lamp; her work grewmarvelously under her pen. Her little people led her a merry chase; theywhispered in her ears night and day; she got no rest of them—but roseagain and again to put down the clever things they said, and so, almostbefore she knew it, her novel had grown into three fine English volumeswith inch-broad margins, half-inch spacings, large type and heavy paper.She was amazed to find how important her work had become.

Fortune favored her. She found a publisher who was ready to bring outher book at once; two sets of proofs were forwarded to her; these shecorrected with deep delight, returning one to her London publisher andsending one to America, where another publisher was ready to issue thework simultaneously with the English print.

It made its appearance under a pen-name in England—anonymously inAmerica. What curiosity it awakened may be judged by the instantaneoussuccess of the work in both countries: Tauchnitz at once added it to hisfascinating list; the French and German translators negotiated for theright to run it as a serial in Paris and Berlin journals. Considerablecuriosity was awakened concerning the identity of the authorship, andthe personal paragraphers made a thousand conjectures, all of whichhelped the sale of the novel immensely and amused Miss. Juno and herconfidants beyond expression.

All this was known to cl*theroe before he had reached the climax thatforced him to the wall. He had written to Miss. Juno; and he had calledher "Jack" as of old, but he felt and she realized that he felt that theconditions were changed. The atmosphere of the rose-garden was goneforever; the hopes and aspirations that were so easy and so airy then,had folded their wings like bruised butterflies or faded like theflowers. She resolved to wait until he had recovered his senses and thenperhaps he would come to Venice and to them—which in her estimationamounted to one and the same thing.

She wrote to him no more; he had not written her for weeks, save onlythe few lines of congratulation on the success of her novel, and tothank her for the author's copy she had sent him: the three-volumeLondon edition with a fond inscription on the flyleaf—a line in eachvolume. This was the end of all that.

Once more she wrote, but not to cl*theroe; she wrote to a friend she hadknown when she was in the far West, one who knew Paul well and wasalways eager for news of him.

The letter, or a part of it, ran as follows:

"Of course such weather as this is not to be shut out-of-doors; we feedon it; we drink it in; we bathe in it, body and soul. Ah, my friend,know a June in Venice before you die! Don't dare to die until you havebecome saturated with the aerial-aquatic beauty of this Divine Sea-City!

"Oh, I was about to tell you something when the charms of this Syrenmade me half-delirious and of course I forgot all else in life—I alwaysdo so. Well, as we leave in a few days for the delectable Dolonites, weare making our rounds of P. P. C.'s,—that we are revisiting every nookand corner in the lagoon so dear to us. We invariably do this; it is themost delicious leave-taking imaginable. If I were only Niobe I'd waterthese shores with tears—I'm sure I would; but you know I never weep; Inever did; I don't know how; there is not a drop of brine in my wholecomposition.

"Dear me! how I do rattle on—but you know my moods and will make dueallowance for what might strike the cold, unfeeling world as beinggarrulity.

"We had resolved to visit that most enchanting of all Italian shrines,San Francisco del Deserto. We had not been there for an age; you know itis rather a long pull over, and one waits for the most perfect hour whenone ventures upon the outskirts of the lagoon.

"Oh, the unspeakable loveliness of that perfect day! The mellowing hazethat veiled the water; the heavenly blue of the sea, a mirror of thesky, and floating in between the two, so that one could not be quitesure whether it slumbered in the lap of the sea or hung upon the bosomof the sky, that ideal summer island—San Francisco del Deserto.

"You know it is only a few acres in extent—not more than six, I fancy,and four-fifths of it are walled about with walls that stand knee-deepin sea-grasses. Along, and above it, are thrust the tapering tops ofthose highly decorative cypresses without which Italy would not beherself at all. There is such a monastery there—an ideal one, withcloister, and sundial, and marble-curbed well, and all that; at leastso I am told; we poor feminine creatures are not permitted to cross thethresholds of these Holy Houses. This reminds me of a remark I heardmade by a very clever woman who wished to have a glimpse of the interiorof that impossible Monte Casino on the mountain top between Rome andNaples. Of course she was refused admission; she turned upon the poorBenedictine, who was only obeying orders—it is a rule of the house, youknow—and said, 'Why do you refuse me admission to this shrine? Is itbecause I am of the same sex as the mother of your God?' But she didn'tget in for all that. Neither have I crossed the threshold of SanFrancisco del Deserto, but I have wandered upon the green in front ofthe little chapel; and sat under the trees in contemplation of the seaand wished—yes, really and truly wished—that I were a barefootedFranciscan friar with nothing to do but look picturesque in such aterrestrial paradise.

"What do you think happened when we were there the other day? Now atlast I am coming to it. We were all upon the Campo in front of thechapel—Violet, Eugene and I; the Angelus had just rung; it was the hourof all hours in one's lifetime; the deepening twilight—we had the moonto light us on our homeward way—the inexpressible loveliness of theatmosphere, the unutterable peace, the unspeakable serenity—the reposein nature—I cannot begin to express myself!

"Out of the chapel came the Father Superior. He knows us very well, forwe have often visited the island; he always offers us some refreshment,a cup of mass wine, or a dish of fruit, and so he did on this occasion.We were in no hurry to leave the shore and so accepted his invitation tobe seated under the trees while he ordered the repast.

"Presently he returned and was shortly followed by a young friar whom wehad never seen before; there are not many of them there—a dozenperhaps—and their faces are more or less familiar to us, for even wepoor women may kneel without the gratings in their little chapel, and sowe have learned to know the faces we have seen there in the choir. Butthis one was quite new to us and so striking; his eyes were ever raised;he offered us a dish of bread and olives, while the abbot poured ourwine, and the very moment we had served ourselves he quietly withdrew.

"I could think of but one thing—indeed we all thought of it at the samemoment—'tis Browning's—

"You know the lines well enough. Why did we think of it?—because wewere all startled, so startled that the abbot who usually sees us to ourgondola, made his abrupt adieus, on some slight pretext, and the door ofthe monastery was bolted fast.

"Oh, me! How long it takes to tell a little tale—to be sure! We knewthat face, the face of the young friar; we knew the hand—it wasunmistakable; we have all agreed upon it and are ready to swear to it onour oaths! That novice was none other than Paul cl*theroe!"

A LITTLE SAVAGEGENTLEMAN

BY

ISOBEL STRONG

Reprinted from Scribner's Magazine by permission

F YOU want a child as badly as all that," my brother said, "why notadopt a chief's son, some one who is handsome and well-born, and will bea credit to you, instead of crying your eyes out over a little commonbrat who is an ungrateful cub, and ugly into the bargain?"

I wasn't particularly fond of the "common brat," but I had grown used totending him, bandaging his miserable little foot and trying to make hislot easier to bear; and he had been spirited away. One may live long inSamoa without understanding the whys and wherefores. His mother may havebeen jealous of my care of the child and carried him away in the night;or the clan to which he belonged may have sent for him, though hisreputed father was our assistant cook. At any rate, he hadgone—departed as completely and entirely as though he had vanished intothin air, and I, sitting on the steps of the veranda, gave way to tears.

Two days later, as I hastened across the courtyard, I turned the cornersuddenly, nearly falling over a small Samoan boy, who stood erect in agallant pose before the house, leaning upon a long stick of sugar-cane,as though it were a spear.

"Who are you?" I asked, in the native language.

"I am your son," was the surprising reply.

"And what is your name?"

"Pola," he said. "Pola, of Tanugamanono, and my mother is the whitechief lady, Teuila of Vailima."

He was a beautiful creature, of an even tint of light bronze-brown; hisslender body reflected the polish of scented cocoanut oil, the tinygarment he called his lava-lava fastened at the waist was coquettishlykilted above one knee. He wore a necklace of scarlet berries across hisshoulders, and a bright red hibiscus flower stuck behind his ear. On hisround, smooth cheek a single rose-leaf hid the dimple. His large blackeyes looked up at me with an expression of terror, overcome by purephysical courage. From the top of his curly head to the soles of hishigh-arched slender foot he looked tama'alii—high-bred. To all myinquiries he answered in purest high-chief Samoan that he was my son.

My brother came to the rescue with explanations. Taking pity on me, hehad gone to our village (as we called Tanugamanono) and adopted thechief's second son in my name, and here he was come to present himselfin person.

I shook hands with him, a ceremony he performed very gracefully withgreat dignity. Then he offered me the six feet of sugar-cane, with theremark that it was a small, trifling gift, unworthy of my high-chiefnotice. I accepted it with a show of great joy and appreciation, thoughby a turn of the head one could see acres of sugar-cane growing on theother side of the river.

There was an element of embarrassment in the possession of thischarming creature. I could not speak the Samoan language very well atthat time, and saw, by his vague but polite smile, that much of myconversation was incomprehensible to him. His language to me was soextremely "high-chief" that I couldn't understand more than three wordsin a sentence. What made the situation still more poignant was that lookof repressed fear glinting in the depths of his black velvety eyes.

I took him by the hand (that trembled slightly in mine, though he walkedboldly along with me) and led him about the house, thinking the sight ofall the wonders of Vailima might divert his mind. When I threw open thedoor of the hall, with its pictures and statues, waxed floor and glitterof silver on the sideboard, Pola made the regulation quotation fromScripture, "And behold the half has not been told me."

He went quite close to the tiger-skin, with the glass eyes and bigteeth. "It is not living?" he asked, and when I assured him it was deadhe remarked that it was a large puss*, and then added, gravely, that hesupposed the forests of London were filled with these animals.

He held my hand quite tightly going up the stairs, and I realized thenthat he could never have mounted a staircase before. Indeed, everythingin the house, even chairs and tables, books and pictures, were new andstrange to this little savage gentleman.

I took him to my room, where I had a number of letters to write. He saton the floor at my feet very obediently while I went on with my work.Looking down a few minutes later I saw that he had fallen asleep, lyingon a while rug in a childish, graceful attitude, and I realized againhis wild beauty and charm.

Late in the day, as it began to grow dark, I asked Pola if he did notwant to go home.

"No, Teuila," he answered, bravely.

"But you will be my boy just the same," I explained. "Only you see Tumau(his real mother) will be lonely at first. So you can sleep at thevillage and come and see me during the day."

His eyes lit up with that and the first smile of the day overspread hisface, showing the whitest teeth imaginable.

It was not long before he was perfectly at home in Vailima. He wouldarrive in the morning early, attended by a serving-man of his family,who walked meekly in the young chief's footsteps, carrying the usualgift for me. Sometimes it was sugar-cane, or a wreath woven by thevillage girls, or a single fish wrapped in a piece of banana-leaf, or afew fresh water prawns, or even a bunch of wayside flowers; my littleson seldom came empty-handed.

It was Pola who really taught me the Samoan language. Ordinarily thenatives cannot simplify their remarks for foreigners, but Pola inventeda sort of Samoan baby-talk for me; sometimes, if I could not understand,he would shake me with his fierce little brown hands, crying, "Stupid,stupid!" But generally he was extremely patient with me, trying asentence in half a dozen different ways, with his bright eyes fixedeagerly on my face, and when the sense of what he said dawned upon meand I repeated it to prove that I understood, his own countenance wouldlight up with an expression of absolute pride and triumph. "Good!" hewould say, approvingly. "Great is your high-chief wisdom!"

Once we spent a happy afternoon together in the forest picking up queerland-shells, bright berries and curious flowers, while Pola dug up anumber of plants by the roots. I asked him the next day what he had donewith the beautiful red flowers. His reply was beyond me, so I shook myhead. He looked at me anxiously for a moment with that worriedexpression that so often crossed his face in conversation with me, and,patting the floor, scraped up an imaginary hole, "They sit down in thedusty," he said in baby Samoan. "Where?" I asked. "In front of Tumau."And then I understood that he had planted them in the ground before hismother's house.

Another time he came up all laughter and excitement to tell of anadventure.

"Your brother," he said, "the high-chief Loia, he of the four eyes(eye-glasses), came riding by the village as I was walking up toVailima. He offered me a ride on his chief-horse and gave me hischief-hand. I put my foot on the stirrup, and just as I jumped the horseshied, and, as I had hold of the high-chief Loia, we both fell off intothe road palasi."

"Yes," I said, "you both fell off. That was very funny."

"Palasi!" he reiterated.

But here I looked doubtful. Pola repeated his word several times asthough the very sound ought to convey some idea to my bemuddled brain,and then a bright idea struck him. I heard his bare feet patteringswiftly down the stairs. He came flying back, still laughing, and laid aheavy dictionary in my lap. I hastily turned the leaves, Pola questingin each one like an excited little dog, till I found the definition ofhis word, "to fall squash like a ripe fruit on the ground."

"Palasi!" he cried, triumphantly, when he saw I understood, making agesture downward with both hands, the while laughing heartily. "We bothfell off palasi!"

It was through Pola that I learned all the news of Tanugamanono. Hewould curl up on the floor at my feet as I sat in my room sewing, andpour forth an endless stream of village gossip. How Mata, the nativeparson, had whipped his daughter for going to a picnic on Sunday anddrinking a glass of beer.

"Her father went whack! whack!" Pola illustrated the scene with gusto,"and Maua cried, ah! ah! But the village says Mata is right, for we mustnot let the white man's evil come near us."

"Evil?" I said; "what evil?"

"Drink," said Pola, solemnly.

Then he told how "the ladies of Tanugamanono" bought a pig of Mr. B., atrader, each contributing a dollar until forty dollars were collected.There was to be a grand feast among the ladies on account of thechoosing of a maid or taupo, the young girl who represents the villageon all state occasions. When the pig came it turned out to be an oldboar, so tough and rank it could not be eaten. The ladies were muchashamed before their guests, and asked the white man for another pig,but he only laughed at them. He had their money, so he did not care,"That was very, very bad of him," I exclaimed, indignantly.

"It is the way of white people," said Pola, philosophically.

It was through my little chief that we learned of a bit of finehospitality. It seems that pigs were scarce in the village, so eachhouse-chief pledged himself to refrain from killing one of them for sixmonths. Any one breaking this rule agreed to give over his house to belooted by the village.

Pola came up rather late one morning, and told me, hilariously, of thefun they had had looting Tupuola's house.

"But Tupuola is a friend of ours," I said. "I don't like to hear of allhis belongings being scattered."

"It is all right," Pola explained. "Tupuola said to the village, 'Comeand loot. I have broken the law and I will pay the forfeit.'"

"How did he break the law?" I asked.

"When the high-chief Loia, your brother of the four eyes, stopped thenight at Tanugamanono, on his way to the shark fishing, he stayed withTupuola, so of course it was chiefly to kill a pig in his honor."

"But it was against the law. My brother would not have liked it, andTupuola must have felt badly to know his house was to be looted."

"He would have felt worse," said Pola, "to have acted unchiefly to afriend."

We never would have known of the famine in Tanugamanono if it had notbeen for Pola. The hurricane had blown off all the young nuts from thecocoanut palms and the fruit from the breadfruit trees, while the tarowas not yet ripe. We passed the village daily. The chief was mybrother's dear friend; the girls often came up to decorate the place fora dinner party, but we had no hint of any distress in the village.

One morning I gave Pola two large ship's biscuits from the pantry.

"Be not angry," said Pola, "but I prefer to carry these home."

"Eat them," I said, "and I will give you more."

Before leaving that night he came to remind me of this. I was swingingin a hammock reading a novel when Pola came to kiss my hand and bid megood night.

"Love," I said, "Talofa."

"Soifua," Pola replied, "may you sleep;" and then he added, "Be notangry, but the biscuits——"

"Are you hungry?" I asked. "Didn't you have your dinner?"

"Oh, yes, plenty of pea-soupo" (a general name for anything in tins);"but you said, in your high-chief kindness, that if I ate the twobiscuits you would give me more to take home."

"And you ate them?"

He hesitated a perceptible moment, and then said:

"Yes, I ate them."

He looked so glowing and sweet, leaning forward to beg a favor, that Isuddenly pulled him to me by his bare, brown shoulders for a kiss. Hefell against the hammock and two large round ship's biscuits slippedfrom under his lava-lava.

"Oh, Pola!" I cried, reproachfully. It cut me to the heart that heshould lie to me.

He picked them up in silence, repressing the tears that stood in his bigblack eyes, and turned to go. I felt there was something strange inthis, one of those mysterious Samoan affairs that had so often baffledme.

"I will give you two more biscuits," I said, quietly, "if you willexplain why you told a wicked lie and pained the heart that loved you."

"Teuila," he cried, anxiously, "I love you. I would not pain your heartfor all the world. But they are starving in the village. My father, thechief, divides the food, so that each child and old person and all shallshare alike, and today there was only green baked bananas, two for each,and tonight when I return there will be again a division of one for eachmember of the village. It seems hard that I should come here and eat andeat, and my brother and my two little sisters, and the good Tumau also,should have only one banana. So I thought I would say to you, 'Behold, Ihave eaten the two biscuits,' and then you would give me two more andthat would be enough for one each to my two sisters and Tumau and mybrother, who is older than I."

That night my brother went down to the village and interviewed thechief. It was all true, as Pola had said, only they had been too proudto mention it. Mr. Stevenson sent bags of rice and kegs of beef to thevillage, and gave them permission to dig for edible roots in our forest,so they were able to tide over until the taro and yams were ripe.

Pola always spoke of Vailima as "our place," and Mr. Stevenson as "mychief." I had given him a little brown pony that exactly matched his ownskin. A missionary, meeting him in the forest road as he was gallopingalong like a young centaur, asked, "Who are you?"

"I," answered Pola, reining in his pony with a gallant air, "am one ofthe Vailima men!"

He proved, however, that he considered himself a true Samoan by aconversation we had together once when we were walking down to Apia. Wepassed a new house where a number of half-caste carpenters were brisklyat work.

"See how clever these men are, Pola," I said, "building the white man'shouse. When you get older perhaps I will have you taught carpentering,that you may build houses and make money."

"Me?" asked Pola, surprised.

"Yes," I replied. "Don't you think that would be a good idea?"

"I am the son of a chief," said Pola.

"I know," I said, "that your highness is a very great personage, but allthe same it is good to know how to make money. Wouldn't you like to be acarpenter?"

"No," said Pola, scornfully, adding, with a wave of his arm that took inacres of breadfruit trees, banana groves, and taro patches, "Why shouldI work? All this land belongs to me."

Once, when Pola had been particularly adorable, I told him, in a burstof affection, that he could have anything in the world he wanted, onlybegging him to name it.

He smiled, looked thoughtful for an instant, and then answered, that ofall things in the world, he would like ear-rings, like those the sailorswear.

I bought him a pair the next time I went to town. Then, armed with acork and a needleful of white silk, I called Pola, and asked if hewanted the ear-rings badly enough to endure the necessary operation.

He smiled and walked up to me.

"Now, this is going to hurt, Pola," I said.

He stood perfectly straight when I pushed the needle through his ear andcut off a little piece of silk. I looked anxiously in his face as heturned his head for me to pierce the other one. I was so nervous that myhands trembled.

"Are you sure it does not hurt, Pola, my pigeon?" I asked, and I havenever forgotten his answer.

"My father is a soldier," he said.

Pola's dress was a simple garment, a square of white muslin hemmed byhis adopted mother. Like all Samoans, he was naturally very clean, goingwith the rest of the "Vailima men" to swim in the waterfall twice a day.He would wash his hair in the juice of wild oranges, clean his teethwith the inside husk of the cocoanut, and, putting on a freshlava-lava, would wash out the discarded one in the river, laying itout in the sunshine to dry. He was always decorated with flowers in someway—a necklace of jessamine buds, pointed red peppers, or the scarletfruit of the pandanas. Little white boys looked naked without theirclothes, but Pola in a strip of muslin, with his wreath of flowers, orsea-shells, some ferns twisted about one ankle, perhaps, or a boar'stusk fastened to his left arm with strands of horse-hair, lookedcompletely, even handsomely, dressed.

He was not too proud to lend a helping hand at any work going—settingthe table, polishing the floor of the hall or the brass handles of theold cabinet, leading the horses to water, carrying pails for themilkmen, helping the cook in the kitchen, the butler in the pantry, orthe cowboy in the fields; holding skeins of wool for Mr. Stevenson'smother, or trotting beside the lady of the house, "Tamaitai," as theyall called her, carrying seeds or plants for her garden. When my brotherwent out with a number of natives laden with surveying implements, Polaonly stopped long enough to beg for a cane-knife before he was leadingthe party. If Mr. Stevenson called for his horse and started to town itwas always Pola who flew to open the gate for him, waving a "Talofa!"and "Good luck to the traveling!"

The Samoans are not reserved, like the Indians, or haughty, like theArabs. They are a cheerful, lively people, who keenly enjoy a joke,laughing at the slightest provocation. Pola bubbled over with fun, andhis voice could be heard chattering and singing gaily at any hour of theday. He made up little verses about me, which he sang to the gracefulgestures of the Siva or native dance, showing unaffected delight whencommended. He cried out with joy and admiration when he first heard ahand-organ, and was excitedly happy when allowed to turn the handle. Igave him a box of tin soldiers, which he played with for hours in myroom. He would arrange them on the floor, talking earnestly to himselfin Samoan.

"These are brave brown men," he would mutter. "They are fighting forMata'afa. Boom! Boom! These are white men. They are fighting theSamoans. Pouf!" And with a wave of his arm he knocked down a wholebattalion, with the scornful remark, "All white men are cowards."

After Mr. Stevenson's death so many of his Samoan friends begged for hisphotograph that we sent to Sydney for a supply, which was soonexhausted. One afternoon Pola came in and remarked, in a very hurt andaggrieved manner, that he had been neglected in the way of photographs.

"But your father, the chief, has a large fine one."

"True," said Pola. "But that is not mine. I have the box presented to meby your high-chief goodness. It has a little cover, and there I wish toput the sun-shadow of Tusitala, the beloved chief whom we all revere,but I more than the others because he was the head of my clan."

"To be sure," I said, and looked about for a photograph. I found apicture cut from a weekly paper, one I remember that Mr. Stevensonhimself had particularly disliked. He would have been pleased had heseen the scornful way Pola threw the picture on the floor.

"I will not have that!" he cried. "It is pig-faced. It is not the shadowof our chief." He leaned against the door and wept.

"I have nothing else, Pola," I protested. "Truly, if I had anotherpicture of Tusitala I would give it to you."

He brightened up at once. "There is the one in the smoking-room," hesaid, "where he walks back and forth. That pleases me, for it looks likehim." He referred to an oil painting of Mr. Stevenson by Sargent. Iexplained that I could not give him that. "Then I will take the roundone," he said, "of tin." This last was the bronze bas-relief by St.Gaudens. I must have laughed involuntarily, for he went out deeply hurt.Hearing a strange noise in the hall an hour or so later, I opened thedoor, and discovered Pola lying on his face, weeping bitterly.

"What are you crying about?" I asked.

"The shadow, the shadow," he sobbed. "I want the sun-shadow ofTusitala."

I knocked at my mother's door across the hall, and at the sight of thattear-stained face her heart melted, and he was given the last photographwe had, which he wrapped in a banana-leaf, tying it carefully with aribbon of grass.

We left Samoa after Mr. Stevenson's death, staying away for more than ayear. Pola wrote me letters by every mail in a large round hand, butthey were too conventional to bear any impress of his mind. He referredto our regretted separation, exhorting me to stand fast in thehigh-chief will of the Lord, and, with his love to each member of thefamily, mentioned by name and title, he prayed that I might live long,sleep well, and not forget Pola, my unworthy servant.

When we returned to Samoa we were up at dawn, on shipboard, watching thehorizon for the first faint cloud that floats above the island of Upulu.Already the familiar perfume came floating over the waters—that sweetblending of many odors, of cocoanut-oil and baking breadfruit, ofjessamine and gardenia. It smelt of home to us, leaning over the railand watching. First a cloud, then a shadow growing more and moredistinct until we saw the outline of the island. Then, as we drewnearer, the deep purple of the distant hills, the green of the richforests, and the silvery ribbons where the waterfalls reflect thesunshine.

Among the fleet of boats skimming out to meet us was one far ahead ofthe others, a lone canoe propelled by a woman, with a single figurestanding in the prow. As the steamer drew near I made out the figure ofPola, dressed in wreaths and flowers in honor of my return. As theanchor went down in the bay of Apia and the custom-house officer startedto board, I called out, begging him to let the child come on first. Hedrew aside. The canoe shot up to the gangway, and Pola, all in hisfinery of fresh flowers, ran up the gangway and stepped forth on thedeck. The passengers drew back before the strange little figure, but hewas too intent upon finding me to notice them.

"Teuila!" he cried, joyfully, with the tears rolling down his cheeks. Iwent forward to meet him, and, kneeling on the deck, caught him in myarms.

LOVE AND ADVERTISING

BY

RICHARD WALTON TULLY

Reprinted from The Cosmopolitan Magazine of April, 1906 by permission

DO NOT demand," said Mr. Pepper, "I simply suggest a change. If youwish me to resign"—his self-deprecatory manner bespoke an impossiblesupposition—"very well. But, if you see fit to find me a newassistant——" He paused, with an interrogatory cough.

It was the senior partner who answered, "We shall consider the matter."

The advertising manager's lean face took on an expression ofsatisfaction. He bowed and disappeared through the door.

Young Kaufmann, the junior partner, smiled covertly. But the elder man'sface bespoke keen disappointment. For it must be explained that Mr.Pepper's simple announcement bore vitally upon the only dissension thathad ever visited the firm of Kaufmann & Houghton during the thirty yearsof its existence.

In 1875, when John Houghton, fresh from college, had come to New York tofind his fortune, the elder Kaufmann had been a candy manufacturer witha modest trade on the East Side. Young Houghton had taken the agency ofa glucose firm. The disposal of this product had brought the twotogether, with the result that a partnership had been formed to carryon a wholesale confectionery business. Success in this venture had ledto new and more profitable fields—the chewing-gum trade.

The rise to wealth of these two was the result of the careful ploddingof the German workman, who kept the "K. & H." products up to anunvarying standard, joined with the other's energy and acumen inmarketing the output. And this mutual relation had been disturbed by butone difference. When Houghton was disposed to consider a college man fora vacancy, Kaufmann had always been ready with his "practical man dothas vorked hiss vay." And each time, in respect to his wishes, Houghtonhad given in, reflecting that perhaps (as Kaufmann said) it had beenthat he, himself, was a good business man in spite of his collegetraining, not because of it; and, after all, college ideals had sunksince his time. And the college applicant had been sent away.

Young Johann Kaufmann graduated from grammar school. Houghton suggestedhigh school and college.

"Vat? Nein!" said the elder Kaufmann. "I show him how better the gum tomake."

And he did. He put on an apron as of yore and started his son under hispersonal supervision in the washing-room. He took off his apron whenJohann knew all about handling chicle products, from importing-bag totin-foil wrapper. Then he died.

And this year troublesome conditions had come on. The ConsolidatedPepsin people were cutting in severely. Orders for the great specialtyof K. & H.—"Old Tulu"—had fallen. Something had to be done.

Houghton, now senior partner, had proposed, and young Kaufmann agreed,that an advertising expert be secured. But the agreement ended there.For the first words of the junior partner showed Houghton that thespirit of the father was still sitting at that desk opposite, andsmiling the same fat, phlegmatic smile at his supposed weakness for"dose college bitzness."

They had compromised upon Mr. Pepper, secured from Simpkins' PracticalAdvertising School. But at the end of six months, Pepper's so-called"follow-up campaign" had failed to meet materially the steady inroads ofthe western men. He had explained that it was the result of his need ofan assistant. It was determined to give him one.

Then, one night as he sat in his library, John Houghton had looked intoa pair of blue eyes and promised to "give Tom Brainard the chance." Inconsequence he had had his hair tousled, been given a resounding kissand a crushing hug from the young lady on his knees. For DorothyHoughton, despite her nineteen years, still claimed that privilege fromher father.

In that way, for the first time, a college man had come into the employof K. & H., and been made the assistant of Mr. Pepper at the salary hedemanded—"any old thing to start the ball rolling."

And now had come the information that the senior partner's long-desiredexperiment had ended in failure.

Young Kaufmann turned to his work with the air of one who has given achild its own way and seen it come to grief.

"I—I suppose," Houghton said slowly, "we'll have to let Brainard go."

And then a peculiar thing happened. Through the open window, floating inthe summer air, he seemed to see a familiar figure. It was dressed influffy white, and carried a parasol over its shoulders. It flutteredcalmly in, seated itself on the sill, and gazed at him with blue eyesthat were serious, reproachful.

"Daddy!" it said, and it brushed away a wisp of hair by its ear—just asanother one, long ago, had used to. "Daddy!" it faltered. "Why did I askyou to give him the place, if it wasn't because—because——"

The spell was broken by Kaufmann's voice. "Whatefer you do, I amsooted," he was saying. It might have been his father. "But if w'atPepper says about Brainard——"

The senior partner straightened up and pushed a button. "Yes. But Wehaven't heard what Brainard says about Pepper."

Several moments later Tom Brainard entered. Medium-sized and muscular,he was dressed in a loose-fitting suit that by its very cut told histraining. He stood between them as Mr. Pepper had done, but there wasnothing of the other's ingratiating deference in his level look.

"Sit down, Brainard," said Houghton. The newcomer did so, and the seniorpartner marked an attitude of laziness and indifference.

Houghton became stern. "Brainard," he began, "I gave you a chance withus because——" He paused.

The other colored. "I had hoped to make good without that."

"But this morning Mr. Pepper——"

"Said we couldn't get along together. That's true."

"Ah! You admit!" It was Kaufmann.

"Yes."

There was a pause. Then Houghton spoke. "I can't tell you how much thisdisappoints me, Brainard. The fact is, for years I have tried to shut myeyes to the development of college training. In my time there was notthe call for practicality that there is today. Yet it seems to me thatthe training in our colleges has grown less and less practical. Why dothe colleges turn out men who spend their time in personal gossip oversport or trivialities?"

"You remember that the King of Spain—or was it Cambodia—puzzled hiswise men for a year as to why a fish, when dropped into a full pail ofwater, didn't make it overflow."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Because I must answer as the king did: It's not so—the pail doesoverflow. They hadn't thought to try it."

"You mean that I am wrong."

"Yes. Are you sure your gossips were 'college men'?"

"Ah!" Houghton made a gesture to his partner, who was about to speak."Then let us commence at the root of the matter. Mr. Kaufmann and I haveoften discussed the subject. In this case you are the one who has 'triedit.' Suppose you explain our mistake."

"I'd be glad to do that," said Brainard, "because I've heard a lot ofthat talk."

"Well?"

"Well—of course when I say 'college man' I mean college graduate."

"Why?"

"If a kitten crawls into an oven, is it a biscuit?"

There was an earnestness that robbed the question of any flippancy.

Houghton laughed. "No!"

"If a dub goes into college and gets flunked out in a month, is he acollege man?"

"Hardly."

"Oh, but he calls himself one. He goes to Podunk all decorated up ingeraniums and the rest of his life is a 'college man.' I'm not talkingabout him or the man who comes to college to learn to mixco*cktails—inside. He may last to the junior year. I'm talking about thegraduate—they're only about a tenth of the college. But they're thefinished product. Mr. Kaufmann, you wouldn't try to sell gum that hadonly gone as far as the rolling-room, would you?"

"W'at—me?"

"Would you?"

"No." The junior partner was puzzled.

"That's because you want it to go through all the processes. Well, let'stalk only about the boy who has gone all the way through the manfactory."

Houghton nodded. "That's fair."

"The trouble is, people don't do that. They persist in butting into thecollege world, jerking out some sophom*ore celebration, and saying, 'Whatuse is this silly thing in the real world?'"

"Well, aren't they right?"

"No. That's just the point. The college world is a mimic world—and yourlifetime is just four years. The sophom*ore celebration is a practicalthing there; perhaps it's teaching loyalty—that generally comes first.That's your college rolling-room. But the graduate—he's learned to dosomething well. I never knew a college man who wasn't at leastresponsible."

"But——"

"But here's the trouble: after selecting say two hundred fellows out ofan entering bunch of six hundred, and developing the thing each is bestfitted for, father steps in and the boy who would have made afirst-class professor is put into business and blamed for beingimpractical. The fellow who has been handling thousands of dollars incollege management and running twenty assistants—the man who could havetaken the place—has no father to give him the boost necessary, and theother man's failure has queered his chances. He has to go to work as amere clerk under a man—excuse me, I don't want to do any knocking."

"You think the whole trouble is caused by misdirected nepotism."

"Yes."

"Ah——" It was young Kaufmann again. "But you said that you weretrained in advertising on your college paper."

"Yes—and I was going to tell you today, if Mr. Pepper hadn't, that themoney you're paying for me is utterly wasted."

"Ah!"

"Yes. I can't look in the face of a hungry designer and beat him down towithin a dollar of the cost of materials. And—and—my suggestions uponbroader lines don't seem to cause much hooray."

"Well—" the junior partner sat up—"since you admit——" He paused forhis partner to speak the words of discharge.

But Houghton was looking quizzically at the college man. "What was youridea as to broader lines?"

Brainard hesitated. "Well, it seemed to me that Pepper is trying to dotwo things that are antagonistic: be 'élite' and sell chewing-gum. Thefact is that élite people don't chew gum. I'd like to know how thestatement, 'Old Tulu—Best by Test,' will make a kid on the corner witha cent in his fist have an attack of mouth-watering."

Kaufmann roused himself. "It is true. Our gum is the best."

"I'm not disputing that, but still it's gum. If you're trying toincrease the vulgar habit of gum-chewing—well—you can't do it byadvertising the firm's financial standing, its age, or the purity of itsoutput. That would do for an insurance company or a bank—but gum! Whocares for purity! All they want to know is if it schmeckt gut." Thislast with a humorous glance at Kaufmann.

The latter was scowling. Brainard was touching a tender spot.

"Well, what would you do?"

Brainard flushed. He felt the tone of sarcasm in the elder man's voice.He tightened his lips. "At least, I'd change the name of the gum!"

"Change the name!" Kaufmann was horrified.

"Well, nobody wants 'Old Tulu.' They want 'New Tulu' or 'Fresh TastyTulu.' At least, something to appeal to the imagination ofSadie-at-the-ribbon-counter."

"Oh!" observed Houghton. "And the name you suggest?"

"Well,—say something like 'Lulu Tulu.'"

"Gott!" Kaufmann struck the desk a blow with his fist. It was an insultto his father's memory.

Brainard rose. "I'm sorry," he said, "if I have offended. To save youany further bother, I'll just cut it out after Saturday. I—thank youfor the chance"—he smiled a little ruefully—"the chance you have givenme. Good day, gentlemen."

He turned on his heel and left the office.

***

As John Houghton was driven home that night, he became suddenlyconscious that he would soon meet the apparition of the afternoon in theflesh. And though, of course, there was no need, he found himselfrehearsing the justification of his position. "Lulu Tulu" indeed!Imagine the smile that would have illumined the faces at the club onsuch an announcement. The impudence of the boy to have suggested it tohim—him who had so often held forth upon the value of conservatism inbusiness! And he remembered with pride the speaker who had once said,"It is such solid vertebrae as Mr. Houghton that form the backbone ofour business world." That speaker had been Bender, of the New YorkDynamo Company. Poor Bender! The Western Electric Construction had gothim after all.

This line of thought caused Houghton to reach in his pocket and producea letter. He went over the significant part again.

"Our Mr. Byrnes reports the clinching of the subway vending-machinecontract," it read, "and this, together with our other business, willgive us over half of the New York trade. With this statement before us,we feel that we can make a winning fight if you still refuse to considerour terms. In view of recent developments, we cannot repeat our formeroffer but if you will consider sixty-seven as a figure——"

Sixty-seven! And a year before he would not have taken one hundred andten! In the bitterness of the moment, he wondered if he, too, wouldfinally go the way that Bender had.

And then, as the butler swung the door back, he was recalled to thematter of Tom Brainard by the sight of a familiar figure that floatedtoward him as airily as had its astral self that afternoon.

He kissed her and went to his study. Just before dinner was not a timeto discuss such things. But later, as he looked across the candelabra athis daughter, all smiles and happiness in that seat that had been hermother's, he regretted that he had not, for——

"Daddy," Dorothy was saying, "I got such a funny note from Tom thisafternoon. He says there has been a change at the office and that youwill explain."

"Yes."

"Well——?" She paused eagerly. "It's something awfully good—I know."

Her father frowned and caught her eye. "Later," he said significantly.

The girl read the tone, and the gaiety of the moment before was gone.After that they ate in silence.

One cigar—two cigars had been smoked when she stole into the library.Since coffee (whether from design or chance he never knew), she hadrearranged her hair. Now it was low on her neck in a fashion of longago, with a single curl that strayed over a white shoulder to her bosom.She knelt at his side without a word.

He looked down at her. Somehow he had never seen her like thisbefore—that curious womanly expression.

"Tell me," was all she said.

And, as he told Tom Brainard's failure to fit in, he watched herclosely. "I'm sorry," he concluded.

"So am I, daddy," she returned steadily; "because I am going to marryhim."

"What?"

"Oh, you knew—you must have," she said, "when I asked you to give himthe chance."

The father was silent. In fancy he again heard Dolly Warner promising,against her parents' advice, to wait for her John to "get on in theworld."

"Well?" he asked.

"Do you think you've given him a fair chance?"

He was restored to his usual poise. "I suppose he complained that Ididn't."

Dorothy's eyes went wide. "No, he said that after I had heard the newsfrom you, he would leave everything to me."

"Oh!"

"But, father, I don't think you have been fair. Tom is right. Idon't chew gum, do I?"

"Well——" He was indignant. Then he stopped thoughtfully. "No."

"But Mary downstairs does. She wouldn't be offended at 'Lulu Tulu.' Idare say she'd think it 'just grand.'"

He returned no answer.

"Come, daddy," she went on. "New York has grown lots—even since I waslittle. And—and some people get behind the times. They think they'rebeing dignified when it's only that they're antiquated."

He looked shrewdly at her. "I never heard you talk like that before.Where did you——"

"Tom said that a week ago," she admitted. "And he said, too, that hecould double the results if he only had full swing. Instead, you admithe's a mere clerk for that horrid Pepper. Oh, daddy, daddy," shepleaded. "Give him a chance." Then her voice went low again. "I'm goingto marry him anyway," she said, "and you don't want this between. If hefails, I'll stand the loss from what mother left me. Give him fullswing—a real chance, daddy! He's going to be—your son."

John Houghton looked into the earnest girlish face. He wound the curlabout his finger. "Kaufmann has always wanted to visit the Fatherland,"he said irrelevantly.

She gave a quick, eager look. "And that Pepper could go on a vacation."

***

Days drag very slowly at a summer resort, especially when one haspromised not to write to him. But Dorothy's father had kept his word, soshe could but do the same. Behind, in the sweltering city, in fullcharge for six weeks was Tom Brainard. His authority included permissionto invent and use any new labels or trade-marks he saw fit.

The girl at the seashore, however, was also busy—amusing her fatherthat he might not give too much time to thinking. And then, when threeof the six weeks had passed, came the accident to the motor car.

She was told that with rest and no worries, her father would recover ina week or two. She cheerfully fitted into the rôle of assistant to thenurse in charge, and, as soon as the doctor allowed, prepared to readhis mail to him as he lay, eyes and head bandaged. But as she opened andglanced over the accumulated letters, she suddenly went pale. She readone in particular from end to end, and then, with a scared, furtive lookat the bandaged figure, slipped it into a pocket.

Later, when her father had finished dictating to her, she answered theconcealed letter herself.

Again the days drifted. The bandages were removed; but still the girlcontinued to scan the mail. Her vigilance was rewarded. She flushed overa second letter which, with one in a worn envelope, she took to herfather.

He saw the careworn expression. "My little girl has been overworking,"he said.

She held out the worn letter. "I've had this for some time—but—but Iwaited for something more, and here it is." She showed the other.

He took the first, and when he had finished, his hand was trembling.

"I regret to report that things are in a chaos," it ran. "All of theregular advertising has been withdrawn. The usual entertainment moneyfor salesmen classed under this head has been stopped. In consequence,our city trade has tumbled fearfully—and you know how bad it wasbefore. The worst news I have to offer is in regard to Mr. Brainardpersonally. Our detective reports that his time outside is spent in mostquestionable company. He has been seen drinking at roof-gardens with acertain dissipated pugilist named Little Sullivan, and was traced withthis man to the apartment of a song-and-dance woman named Violette. Heseems to be spending money extravagantly and visits certain bohemianquarters in the vicinity of Jones Street, where he puts in his time withdisreputable-looking men. I beg leave to advise immediateaction.—Mowbray."

"My God!" groaned Houghton. This explained that derisive offer offifty-one from Consolidated Pepsin.

"And you kept this from me?"

"They said not to worry you," she said. "I—I've had enough for two.Besides, I answered it."

"You did! What——?"

"I told them to wait a little longer."

The father groaned again.

"I just had to, daddy; and then today this letter came."

He seized it eagerly. It read: "You were right about waiting. Suspendall action."

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"We'll find out tomorrow," he answered grimly.

The 4:30 train gave John Houghton just time to reach the office beforeit closed. Dorothy went home. Her father, roused by the evil news of theday before, had impressed her with all that it might mean in a materialway. As though that mattered!—as though anything could hurt her more!She would have been willing to go with Tom Brainard in rags before—butnow!

She sat by the telephone with clenched fists, her traveling veil stillpushed up on her hat, the lines that had come into her face during thepast week deepening with the dusk. At last—a long, sharp ring!"Yes—father—not dine at home—meet you at the Yolland—a guest.Yes—but about Tom—what?—7:30—But about Tom, daddy? Good-by?!! But,daddy!!!"

It was no use. He had hung up. She called feverishly for the office, butthe reply was, "They do not answer." Mechanically she went up to herroom. "The blue mousseline, Susan," she said.

As the maid laid it out, she walked the floor. Through the window thepark lay green and inviting. She longed to fly to the cool grass andrun—and run——

From below came the loud, rasping notes of a street-piano that, in someincomprehensible fashion, had wandered to the deserted row of houses.The noise, for all that there was a pleasing swing to the air, irritatedher. She threw the man a quarter. "Go away," she waved.

At last the maid said her mistress was ready, and Dorothy, withoutquestioning the decision, allowed herself to be put into the brougham.

The drive seemed hours long, and then—her father's face told hernothing. Without a word, he led her to a reception-room. As theyentered, a figure sprang to meet them.

For a moment she hesitated. Then, "Tom!" she cried, and caught his hand.

He saw the whiteness of her face, and all the yearnings of theirseparation matched it upon his.

"Dorothy!" he faltered.

Her father interrupted. "Tom is to explain how he has quadrupled ourbusiness in the last week."

A sudden weakness seized her. She followed them unsteadily. Seated at atable, however, she was able to smile again. At that moment, theorchestra, striking up, suddenly caught her attention."Tum—tum-tum—tum-tum—tum"—that haunting, swinging melody of thestreet-piano.

"What tune is that?" she asked.

Brainard smiled. "That is a tune that has suddenly become popular. Anynight you may see hundreds of East Side children dancing on the asphaltand singing it."

"Yes," she said. "I heard it on a street-piano."

"It's called," he went on, '"My Lulu Tulu Girl.' All the grinders haveit. Billy Tompkins, Noughty-three, who lives in the Jones Street socialsettlement, worked that for me. Those dagoes worship him—saved a kid'slife or something."

A light came into John Houghton's eyes.

"That's part of the scheme. Aspwell wrote the song. I found him down inbohemia working on an opera. But, for the sake of old days in the seniorextravaganza, he turned off 'My Lulu Tulu Girl.' You know those orderson your desk are for our new brand, 'Lulu Tulu.' The song wasintroduced two weeks ago at the Metropolitan Roof by Violette, a younglady who married our old football trainer, Little Sullivan. We'll hearher later—I have tickets. Then we'll go to Leith's; there's a turnthere by 'Jim Bailey and his Six Lulu Tulu Girls'—rather vulgar (whilethey dance they chew the gum and perform calisthenics with it) but itseems to go. Then——"

"Tom!"

"After we've dined, I'll show you our regular magazine and newspaperadvertising in the reading-room—double space. You see, I couldn't askyou to increase, so I stopped it for a time and saved up. But I hopeyou'll stand for it regularly. It's mainly pictures of Miss. Lulu Tuluin a large Florodora hat, with verses below apostrophizing the poetry ofmotion of her jaws. Then there's a line of limericks about theadventures of the 'Lulu Tulu Gummies'—small gum-headed tykes—always introuble until they find Lulu. I got Phillips to do that as a personalfavor."

"Also Noughty-something, I suppose," remarked Houghton.

"Yes. But he graduated before my time. I knew his work in the collegeannual. He's in the magazines now. Then I got Professor Wheaton—'Jimmythe Grind' we used to call him—his folks wanted him to be apoet—imagine Jimmy a poet!—I got Professor Wheaton to give us somereaders on 'Tulu as a Salivary Stimulant,' 'The Healthful Effect of PureSaliva on Food Products' and 'The Degenerative Effect of ArtificiallyRelieving an Organ of its Proper Functions.' That hits the Pepsinpeople, you see——"

And so it ran—until he had covered his plan fully, and Dorothy's facewith happy smiles.

"Tom," said the father, "if I had opened that letter instead of Dolly!"

Dorothy suddenly became demure under their gaze and sought to change thesubject. "Then you admit, daddy, that a college man is of some use?"

"I'll admit that Tom got the business. But that was because he isnaturally clever and business-like, not because——"

"Just a moment," said Brainard. "I think I can show that you'remistaken. I found out that Pepper was doing the wrong thing—by thefirst rule of criticism (freshman English): 'What is the author tryingto do? Does he do it? Is it worth doing?' Substitute 'advertising man'for 'author' and you have a business that is worth doing (since youcontinue it)—and by the other two questions I saw his incongruity ofsubject-matter and expression.' My economics taught me the 'law ofsupply and demand.' 'Analytical research of original authorities' taughtme where the demand was. There was only the problem of a cause tostimulate it. Through deductive logic' and 'psychology' I got the causethat would appeal, and the effect worked out in an increased demandwhich we were ready to supply—just like a problem in math."

The elder man smiled. "I don't understand a word you say, but it seemsto have worked well. In the future, bring in as many of your Noughtyfriends as we need. I'll answer for Kaufmann."

The other shook his head. "I'm not sure they would be any too anxious."

Houghton gasped in surprise. "What's that—they wouldn't be anxious togo into business! Why not?"

"Why not?" There was equal amazement in the younger man's tone. "Wouldyou be anxious to leave a place where you're surrounded by friendsyou've tried—friends that won't stab you in the back the next minuteand call it a 'business deal'—where you're respected and in control ofthings, and plunge out to become a freshman in the world-life, to do thesorting and trying all over again?"

"I remember—I remember——"

"And besides, what right has any one to assume that business is aboveart, charity or even mere learning? Billy Tompkins, in the slums helpingdagoes, is a failure to his father—so is Aspwell with his opera—so isWilliams with his spectacles in his lab. But—who knows—when the GreatBusiness is finally balanced——" He stopped, conscious that he wasgrowing too rhetorical.

"If you loved college ideals so much more than business," observedHoughton, "then why did you come to us?"

A different light stole into the younger man's eyes. "Because"—heanswered, "because I loved something else better than either." And hereached his hand under the cloth to one who understood.

That is all—except that the next offer of Consolidated Pepsin was,"Will you please name your own terms?"

THE TEWANA

BY

HERMAN WHITAKER

Reprinted from The Blue Mule A Western Magazine of Stories, ofFebruary, 1906 by permission

HE WAS a Tewana of the Tehuantepec Isthmus, a primal woman,round-armed, deep-breasted, shapely as the dream on which Canova modeledVenus. Her skin was of the rich gold hue that marks the blood unmuddiedby Spanish strain; to see her, poised on a rich hip by the river'sbrink, wringing her tresses after the morning bath, it were justifiableto mistake her for some beautiful bronze. Moreover, it were easy to seeher, for, in Tehuantepec, innocence is thoughtless as in old Eden. WhenPaul Steiner passed her one morning, she gave him the curious open-eyedstare of a deer, bade him a pleasant "Buenos días, Señor!" and wouldhave proceeded, undisturbed, with her toilet, but that he spoke. In thishe was greatly mistaken. Gringos there are—praise the saints!—who canjudge Tehuantepec by the insight of kindred purity, but Paul had tolearn by the more uncomfortable method of a stone in the face.

He ought not, however, to be too severely handled for his dulness.Though a mining engineer, nature had endowed him with little beyond thealgebraic qualities necessary to the profession; a German-American, adull birth and heredity had predestined him for that class which clothesits morality in fusty black and finds safety in following its neighborin the cut of its clothes and conduct. As then, he was not planned fororiginal thinking, it is not at all surprising that he should—whenpitchforked by Opportunity into the depths of tropical jungles—lose hismoral bearings, fail to recognize a virtue that went in her own goldenskin, and so go down before a temptation that, of old, populated thesexless desert.

That his error continued in the face of Andrea's stone is certainly moreremarkable, though this also should be charged rather against hermismarksmanship than to the wearing quality of his electro-platemorality. It is doubtful if even the ancient Jews had found "stoning" asefficacious a "cure for souls" had they thrown wide as she. Anyway, Paulstood "unconvicted," as the revivalists have it, and being moved tochagrin instead of shame, he carried the story of Andrea's surprisingmodesty to Bachelder.

Here was a man of other parts. An artist, he had traced the spinningmeridians over desert and sea, following the fluttering wing of the musetill she rewarded his deathless hope by pausing for him in this smallIndian town. Expecting to stay a week, he had remained fifteen years,failing to exhaust in that long time a tithe of its form and color.Screened by tropical jungle, a mask of dark palms laced with twiningbejucas, it sat like a wonderfully blazoned cup in a wide green saucerthat was edged with the purple of low environing hills—a brimming cupof inspiration. Save where some oaken grill supplied an ashen note, itsadobe streets burned in smoldering rose, purple and gold—the latteralways predominant. It glowed in the molten sunlight, shone in the softsatin of a woman's skin; the very dust rose in auriferous clouds fromthe wooden-wheeled ox-carts. But for its magenta tiling, the pillaredmarket stood, a huge monochrome, its deep yellows splashed here andthere with the crimson of the female hucksters' dresses. This was theirevery-day wear—a sleeveless bodice, cut low over the matchlessamplitudes and so short that the smooth waist showed at each uplift ofthe round, bronze arms; a skirt that was little more than a cloth woundabout the limbs; a shawl, all of deep blood color. Small wonder that hehad stayed on, and on, and on, while the weeks merged into months, andmonths into years.

He lived in the town's great house, an old feudal hacienda with wallstwo yards thick, recessed windows oaken grilled, and a pleasant patiowhere the hidalgo could take his ease under cocoanut palms and lemontrees while governments went to smash without. Here Bachelder was alwaysto be found in the heat of the day, and here he listened with hugedisgust to Paul's story. Because of their faith, strength andpurity—according to their standards—he had always sworn by the Tewanawomen, setting them above all others, and though a frank sinner againstaccepted moral codes, he would never have confused nudity with vice.

"Man!" he exclaimed—so loudly that Rosa, his housekeeper, imagined thatsomething was going wrong again with the painting—"Man! all the dollarsyou will ever earn would buy nothing more than her stone! If you wanther, you will have to marry her."

"Oh, don't look so chopfallen!" he went on, scornfully, when Paulblinked. "I mean marriage as she counts it. You will have to court herfor a couple of months—flowers, little gifts, small courtesies, thatsort of thing; then, if she likes you, she will come and keep yourhouse. When, later, you feel like settling down in the bosom ofrespectability, there won't be a shred of law to hold you."

Now if Paul lacked wit to analyze and apply to his own government amoral law that has evolved from the painful travail of the generations,it does not follow that he was too stupid to feel irony. Reddening, heput forth the usual declaimer of honorable intention with the glibtongue of passion. He meant well by the girl! Would give her a goodhome, find her better than she had ever been found in her life! As formarrying? He was not of the marrying kind! Never would! and so on,finishing with a vital question—did Bachelder know where she lived?

His color deepened under the artist's sarcastic glance. "So that's whatyou're after? I wondered why you picked me for a father confessor. Well,I don't, but you won't have any trouble in finding her. All the womensell something; she's sure to be on the market in the morning. You willget her quite easily. The girls seem to take pride in keeping a Gringo'shouse—I don't know why, unless it be that they are so dazzled by thethings we have that they cannot see us for what we are."

***

A thousand crimson figures were weaving in and out the market's chromepillars when Paul entered next morning, but though it was hard to singleone person from the red confusion, luck led him almost immediately towhere Andrea stood, a basket of tortillas at her feet. Lackingcustomers, just then, she leaned against a pillar, her scarlet flamingagainst its chrome, thoughtful, pensive, as Bachelder painted her for"The Enganchada," the girl sold for debt. Her shawl lay beside herbasket, so her hair, that had flown loose since the morning bath, fellin a cataract over the polished amplitudes of bosom and shoulders. Savewhen feeling shot them with tawny flashes—as waving branches filtermottled sunlight on brown waters—her eyes were dark as the pools ofLethe, wherein men plunge and forget the past. They broughtforgetfulness to Paul of his moral tradition, racial pride, thecarefully conned apology which he did not remember until, an hour later,he fed her entire stock in trade to his dog. It was better so. Black,brown or white women are alike sensitive to the language of flowers, andthe lilies he left in her basket served him more sweetly than could hisstammering tongue. Next morning, curiosity replaced hostility in herglance, and when he left the market, her brown gaze followed him beyondthe portals. Needs not, however, to linger over the courtship.Sufficient that color of skin does not affect the feminine trait thatforgiveness comes easier when the offense was provoked by one's ownbeauty; the story goes on from the time that Andrea moved into his housewith a stock of household gear that extorted musical exclamations fromall her girl friends.

To their housekeeping Andrea contributed only her handsome body with acontained cargo of unsuspected qualities and virtues that simplydazzled Paul as they cropped out upon the surface. In public a Tewanabears herself staidly, carrying a certain dignity of expression that ofitself reveals how, of old, her forbears came to place limits to theambition of the conquering Aztec and made even Spanish dominion littlemore than an uncomfortable name. Though, through courtship, Andrea'sstern composure had shown no trace of a thaw, it yet melted like snowunder a south wind when she was once ensconced in their little home.Moreover, she unmasked undreamed of batteries, bewildering Paul withinfinite variety of feminine complexities. She would be arch, gay,saucy, and in the next breath fall into one of love's warm silences,watching him with eyes of molten bronze. She taught him the love of thetropics without transcending modesty. Also she astonished him,negatively, by the absence of those wide differences of nature andfeeling between her and the cultured women of his own land that readingin the primal school of fiction had led him to expect. He learned fromher that woman is always woman under any clime or epoch. The greaterstrength of her physique lessened, perhaps, the vine-like tendency, yetshe clung sufficiently to satisfy the needs of his masculinity; and shedisplayed the feminine unreason, at once so charming and irritating,with sufficient coquetry to freshen her love. Her greatest charm,however, lay in the dominant quality of brooding motherhood, thebirthright of primal women and the very essence of femininity. After oneof those sweet silences, she would steal on him from behind, and pullhis head to her bosom with such a squeeze as a loving mother gives herson.

Yet, under even this mood, her laughter lay close to the surface, andnothing tapped its merry flow quicker than Paul's Spanish. Picking upthe language haphazard, he had somehow learned to apply the verbtumblar to describe the pouring out of coffee, and he clung to itafter correction with a persistence that surely inhered in his doggedGerman blood. "Tumbarlo el café!" he would say, and she would repeatit, faithfully mimicking his accent.

"Tumble out the coffee!" following it with peals of laughter. Or,turning up a saucy face, she would ask, "Shall I tumble out morecoffee?" and again the laughter which came as readily at her own misfitattempts at English.

These, few and simple, were learned of Bachelder's woman, and sprung onPaul as surprises on his return from visiting the mining properties,which required his frequent presence. For instance, slipping to his kneeon one such occasion, with the great heart of her pulsing against him,she sighed: "I love thee, lovest thou me?"

A lesson from Bachelder pleased him less. Knowing Paul's pride in hisGerman ancestry, and having been present when, in seasons of swollenpride, he had reflected invidiously in Andrea's presence on Mexico andall things Mexican, the artist, in a wicked moment, taught her to lisp"Hoch der Kaiser!" lèse-majesté that almost caused Paul afainting-fit.

"You shouldn't have taught her that," he said to Bachelder. But themischief was done. Whenever, thereafter, through torment of insect orobsession of national pride, he animadverted on her country, shesilenced him with the treasonable expression.

She learned other than English from Bachelder's woman, sweating out thedog days in Rosa's kitchen, experimenting with the barbaric dishesGringos love. She slaved for his comfort, keeping his linen, her houseand self so spotlessly clean that as Paul's passion waned, affectiongrew up in its place—the respectful affection that, at home, would haveafforded a permanent basis for a happy marriage. When, a year later,their baby came, no northern benedict could have been more proudlyhappy.

Watching him playing with the child, Bachelder would wonder if his unionalso would terminate like all the others of his long experience. In her,for it was a girl baby, Paul's fairness worked out, as she grew, inmarvelous delicacies of cream and rose, weaving, moreover, a golden woofthrough the brown of her hair. From her mother she took a litheperfection of form. At two she was well started for a raving beauty, andas much through his love for her as for Andrea, Paul had come, likeBachelder, to swear by the Tewana women.

He might have been swearing by them yet, but his company's businesssuddenly called him north, and no man could have bidden a white wifemore affectionate farewell or have been more sure of his own return. "Itis a comfort to know that your woman won't go gadding while you areaway, and that is more than a fellow can make sure of at home." Thesewere his last words to Bachelder.

He was to be absent two months, but after he had reported adversely on amine in Sonora, he was ordered to expert a group in far Guerrera, wherethe mountains turn on edge and earth tosses in horrible tumult. Thencame a third order to report in New York for personal conference. Thusthe months did sums in simple addition while Andrea waited, serenelyconfident of his return. Not that she lacked experience of desertedwives, or based hope on her own attractions. Her furious mother lovesimply could not form, much less harbor, the possibility of Paul'sdeserting their pretty Lola.

And, barring her loneliness, the year was kind to her, feeding hermother love with small social triumphs. For one, Lola was chosen to sitwith three other tots, the most beautiful of Tewana's children, at thefeet of the Virgin in the Theophany of the "Black Christ" at the easternfiesta. From morning to mirk midnight, it was a hard vigil. By day thevaulted church reeked incense; by night a thousand candles gutteredunder the dark arches, sorely afflicting small, weary eyelids; yet Lolasat it out like a small thoroughbred, earning thereby the priest'skindly pat and her mother's devoted worship.

Then, on her third saint day, the small girl donned her first fiestacostume, a miniature of the heirlooms which descend from mother todaughter, each generation striving to increase the magnificence of thecostume just as it strove to add to the gold pieces in the chain whichdid triple duty as hoard, dowry and necklace. Andrea subtracted severalEnglish sovereigns from her own to start Lola's, and, with the Americangold eagle, the gift of Bachelder, her padrino, godfather, they madean affluent beginning for so small a girl. As for the costume? Its silk,plush, velours, were worked by Andrea's clever fingers curiously andwondrously, even when judged by difficult Tewana standards. Bachelderpainted the small thing, kneeling by her mother's side before the greatgold altar. Her starched skirt, with its band of red velours, stands ofitself leveling her head, so that she looks for all the world like aserious cherub peering out from a wonderfully embroidered bath-cabinet.But ah! the serious devotion of the faces! The muse Bachelder hadfollowed so faithfully was hovering closely when his soul flamed outupon that canvas. It ranks with his "Enganchada." Either would bring himfame, yet they rest, face to face, in a dusty locker, awaiting the daywhen time or death shall cure the ache that a glimpse of either bringshim.

Two months after that canvas was put away, eighteen counting from theday of his departure, Bachelder walked, one day, down to the primitivepost-office to see if the mail that was due from the little fishing portof Salina Cruz contained aught for him. Waded would better describehis progress, for it was the middle of the rains; water filled the air,dropping in sheets from a livid sky; the streets were rivers runningfull over the cobble curbs. Such white planters as came in occasionallyfrom the jungle country had been housefast upon their plantations forthis month, and, having the town pretty much to himself, the artist'sthought turned naturally to Paul, who used to bring doubtful mitigationto his isolation.

He had written the artist twice, but now six months had elapsed sincethe last letter. "He'll never come back," the artist muttered. "PoorAndrea! But it is better—now."

Warm with the pity the thought inspired, he turned the corner into thestreet that led to the post-office, and was almost run down by the firstmule of a train that came driving through the rain.

"Bachelder!" the rider cried.

It was surely Paul. Pulling up his beast, he thrust a wet hand fromunder his rain poncha, then, turning in his saddle, he spoke to thewoman who rode behind him, "Ethel, this is Mr. Bachelder."

The alternative had happened! As a small hand thrust back the hood ofmackintosh, Bachelder found himself staring at a sweet face, while anequally sweet greeting was drowned by echoing questions in his mind."Good God!" he first thought. "Why did he bring her here?" And upon thatimmediately followed, "How ever did he get her?"

An evening spent with the pair at the small Mexican hotel increased hiswonder. Pleasant, pretty, of a fine sensibility and intellectual withoutloss of femininity, the girl would have been fitly mated with a man ofthe finest clay. How could she have married Paul? Bachelder thought, andcorrectly, that he discerned the reason in a certain warmth of romanticfeeling that tinged her speech and manner. Daughter of an Episcopalclergyman in Paul's native town, she had sighed for something differentfrom the humdrum of small teas, dinners, parochial calls, and when Paulcame to her with the glamour of tropical travel upon him, she married,mistaking the glamour for him.

"She loved me for the dangers I had passed!" the artist mused, quotingShakespeare, on his way home. "What a tragedy when she discovers him fora spurious Othello!"

Dropping into the studio next morning, Paul answered the other question."Why not?" he asked, with a touch of ancestral stolidity. "My work ishere. Andrea?" His next words plainly revealed that while his moralplating had cracked and peeled under tropical heat, the iron conventionbeneath had held without fracture. He began: "It was a beastliness thatwe committed——"

"That you committed," Bachelder sharply corrected. "And what of thechild?"

Blinking in the old fashion, Paul went on, "I was coming to that. Shecannot be allowed to grow up a little Mexican. I shall adopt her andhave her properly educated." Here he looked at Bachelder as thoughexpecting commendation for his honorable intention, and, receiving none,went on, dilating on his plans for the child as if resolved to earn it.Yet, setting aside this patent motive, it was easy to see as he warmedto his subject that Andrea had not erred in counting on Lola to bringhim back. With her beauty she would do any man proud! The whole UnitedStates would not be able to produce her rival! She should have the bestthat money could give her!

Wondering at the curious mixture of class egotism, paternal tendernessand twisted morality, Bachelder listened to the end, then said, "Ofcourse, Mrs. Steiner approves of a ready-made family?"

Paul's proud feathers draggled a little, and he reddened. "Well—yousee—she thinks Lola is the daughter of a dead mining friend. Some day,of course, I'll tell her. In fact, the knowledge will grow on her. Butnot now. It wouldn't do. She couldn't understand."

"No?" But the quiet sarcasm was wasted on Paul, and the artistcontinued, "Aren't you leaving Andrea out of your calculations?"

Paul ruffled like an angry gobbler. His eyes took on an ugly gleam, hisjaw stuck out, his expression incarnated Teutonic obstinacy. "Oh, she'llhave to be fixed. Luckily it doesn't take much to buy these savagewomen; their feelings are all on the surface. I'll give her the house,furniture, and a hundred dollars cash. That should make up for the lossof——"

"——a husband?" Bachelder's face darkened. Throughout the conversationhe had worn an air of suppression, as though holding, by an effort,something back. Now he straightened with a movement that was analogousto the flexure of a coiled spring. His lips opened, closed again, and hewent on with his quiet questioning. "For a husband, yes. They are easystock to come by. But not for the child of her labor. Supposing sherefuses?"

Paul's eyes glinted under his frown. "Then the Jefe-Politico earns thehundred dollars and the law gives her to me."

The spring uncoiled. "Never! She died a month ago of yellow fever."

Under Teuton phlegm lies an hysteria that rivals that of the Latinraces. Paul's flame died to ashes and he burst out sobbing, throwing hishands up and out with ungainly gestures. Looking down upon his awkwardgrief, Bachelder half regretted the just anger that caused him to slipthe news like a lightning bolt; he would have felt sorrier but that heperceived Paul's sorrow rooted in the same colossal egotism that wouldhave sacrificed the mother on the altars of its vast conceit. He knewthat Paul was grieving for himself, for lost sensations of pride, loveand pleasure that he could never experience again. When the ludicroustravesty had partly spent itself, he stemmed the tide with a question.

"If you don't care to see Andrea, I can make the settlements you hintedat."

Paul glanced up, stupidly resentful, through his tears. "The child isdead. That is all off."

"You will do nothing for her?" As much to prop an opinion of humannature that was already too low for comfort as in Andrea's interest,Bachelder asked the question.

"She has the house furnishings," Paul sullenly answered. "That leavesher a sight better off than she was before she knew me."

Rising, the artist walked over to the window. "The river is rising," hesaid, when he could trust himself to speak. "Another foot, and away goesthe bridge. When do you go to the mine?"

"Tomorrow."

"Mrs. Steiner goes with you?"

"No, too wet."

Bachelder hesitated. "I'd offer you my quarters, but—you see I amneither married nor unmarried."

"No!" Paul agreed with ponderous respectability. "It would never do.Besides, I've hired a house of the Jefe-Politico; the one that crownsthe Promontory. When the rain slacks we'll move out to the mine."

"There is one thing I should like," he added as he rose to go. "If youwould have a stone put over the child's grave—something nice—you're abetter judge than me,—I'll——"

"Too late," the artist interrupted. "Andrea broke up her necklace; putsavings of eighteen generations into the finest tomb in the cemetery."He looked curiously at Paul, but his was that small order of mind whichpersistently fixes responsibility for the most inevitable calamity uponsome person. To the day of his death he would go on taxing the child'sdeath against Andrea; he did not even comment on this last proof of herdevoted love.

After he was gone, Bachelder returned to his window, just in time to seethe bridge go. A thin stream in summer, meandering aimlessly betweenwide banks, the river now ran a full half-mile wide, splitting the townwith its yeasty race. An annual occurrence, this was a matter of smallmoment to the severed halves. Each would pursue the even tenor of itsway till the slack of the rains permitted communication by canoe and therebuilding of the bridge. But it had special significance now in thatAndrea lived on the other bank.

He wondered if the news of Paul's return had crossed, muttering: "Poorgirl, poor girl!" Adding, a moment later: "But happier than the other.Poor little Desdemona!"

***

How melancholy is the voice of a flood! Its resurgent dirge will move anew-born babe to frightened wailing, and stirs in strong men a vagueuneasiness that roots in the vast and calamitous experience of the race.Call of hungry waters, patter of driving rain, sough of the weird wind,it requires good company and a red-coal fire to offset their moanings ofeternity. Yet though the fireless tropics could not supply one, and shelacked the other, the storm voices were hardly responsible for EthelSteiner's sadness the third morning after her arrival.

Neither was it due to the fact that Paul had failed to come in thepreceding night from the mine. Seeming relieved rather than distressed,she had gone quietly to bed. No, it was neither the storm, his absence,nor any of the small miseries that afflict young wives. Poor Desdemona!The curtain was rising early on the tragedy which Bachelder foresaw.Already the glamour was falling from Paul to the tropics, where itrightfully belonged; this morning she was living her bitter hour,fighting down the premonition of a fatal mistake.

What with her thoughtful pauses, she made but a slow toilet, and whenthe last rebellious curl had been coaxed to its place behind her smallear, she turned, sighing, to the window. One glance, and she startedback, pale, clutching her hands. A rocky snout, thrusting far out intothe belly of the river's great bow, the Promontory stood high above theordinary flood level. Once, in far-away Aztec times, a Tewana traditionhad it that a cloudburst in the rains had swept it clear of houses, andnow Time's slow cycle had brought the same deadly coincidence. Where,last night, a hundred lights had flickered below her windows, a boil ofyellow waters spread, cutting off her house, the last and highest, fromthe mainland. Black storm had drowned the cries of fleeing householders.The flood's mighty voice, bellowing angrily for more victims as itswallowed house after house, had projected but a faint echo into herdreams. Now, however, she remembered that Carmencita, her new maid, hadfailed to bring in the morning coffee.

Wringing her hands and loudly lamenting the deadly fear that made herforget her mistress, Carmencita, poor girl, was in the crowd that washelping Paul and Bachelder to launch a freight canoe. When Paul—who hadridden in early from the little village, where he had beenstorm-stayed—had tried to impress a crew, the peon boatman had swornvolubly that no pole would touch bottom and that one might as well tryto paddle the town as a heavy canoe against such a flood. But whenBachelder stepped in and manned the big sweep, a half-dozen followed.Notwithstanding, their river wisdom proved. Paddling desperately, theygained no nearer than fifty yards to the pale face at the window.

"Don't be afraid!" Bachelder shouted, as they swept by. "We'll get younext time!"

If the walls did not melt? Already the flood was licking with hungrytongues the adobe bricks where the plaster had bulged and fallen, and anhour would fly while they made a landing and dragged the canoe back foranother cast. The boatmen knew! Their faces expressed, anticipated thatwhich happened as they made the landing half a mile below. Paul saw itfirst. Through the swift passage he sat, facing astern, helplesslyclutching the gunwale, and his cry, raucous as that of a maimed animal,signaled the fall of the house. Sobbing, he collapsed on the bank.

Bachelder looked down upon him. Momentarily stunned, his thoughtreturned along with a feeling of relief that would have framed itselfthus in words: "Poor Desdemona! Now she will never know!"

"Señor! Señor! Mira!" A boatman touched his shoulder.

Two heads were swirling down the flood, a light and a dark. Bachelderinstantly knew Ethel, but, as yet, he could not make out the strongswimmer who was at such infinite pains to hold the fair head abovewater. Though, time and again, the dark head went under for smotheringlylong intervals, Ethel's never once dipped, and, up or down, the swimmerbattled fiercely, angling across the flood. She—for long hair stampedher a woman—gained seventy yards shoreward while floating down twohundred. Three hundred gave her another fifty. So, rising and sinking,she drifted with her burden down upon Paul and Bachelder. At fifty yardsthe artist caught a glimpse of her face, but not till she was almostunder their hands did Paul recognize the swimmer.

"Andrea!" he shouted.

***

Reassured by Bachelder's cheery shout, Ethel had busied herselfcollecting her watch and other trinkets from the bureau till a smackingof wet feet caused her to turn, startled. A woman stood in the door, awoman of matchless amplitudes, such as of old tempted the gods fromheaven. Stark naked, save for the black cloud that dripped below herwaist, her bronze beauty was framed by the ponderous arch.

"I don't know who you are," Ethel said, recovering, "but you are verybeautiful, and, under the circ*mstances, welcome. Under ordinaryconditions, your advent would have been a trifle embarrassing. I mustfind you a shawl before the canoes come. Here, take this blanket."

She little imagined how embarrassing the visitation might have provedunder very ordinary conditions. Though the news of Paul's return didcross before the bridge was carried away, Andrea did not hear it tillthat morning, and she would never have had it from a Tewana neighbor.They pitied the bereavement to which widowhood in the most cruel offorms was now added. But among them she unfortunately counted a peonwoman of the upper Mexican plateau, one of the class which took from theConquest only Spanish viciousness to add to Aztec cruelty. Jealous ofAndrea's luck—as they had deemed it—in marriage, Pancha had thirstedfor the opportunity which came as they drew water together that morningfrom the brink of the flood.

"'Tis the luck of us all!" she exclaimed, malevolently ornamenting herevil tidings. "They take their pleasure of us, these Gringos, then whenthe hide wrinkles, ho for a prettier! They say Tewana hath not suchanother as his new flame, and thy house is a hovel to that he fits upfor her on the Promontory."

Here the hag paused, for two good reasons. That the barbed shaft mightsink deep and rankle from Andrea's belief that her supplanter was a girlof her tribe, but principally because, just then, she went down underthe ruins of her own olla. A fighter, after her kind, with many acutting to her credit, she cowered like a snarling she-wolf among thesharp potsherds cowed by the enormous anger she had provoked; lay andwatched while the tall beauty ripped shawl, slip and skirt from hermagnificent limbs, then turned and plunged into the flood. Pancha roseand shook her black fist, hurling curses after.

"May the alligators caress thy limbs, the fishes pluck thine eyes, thewolves crack thy bleached bones on the strand."

That was the lightest of them, but, unheeding Andrea swam on. As her ownhouse stood in the extreme skirt of the town, the Promontory lay morethan a mile below, but she could see neither it nor the night'sdevastation because of the river's bend. Because of the same bend, shehad the aid of the current, which set strongly over to the other shore,but apart from this the river was one great danger. Floating logs, hugetrees, acres of tangled greenery, the sweepings of a hundred miles ofjungle, covered its surface with other and ghastlier trove. Here thesaurians of Pancha's curse worried a drowned pig, there they fought overa cow's swollen carcass; yet because of carrion taste or food plethora,they let her by. There an enormous saber, long and thick as a church,turned and tumbled, threshing air and water with enormous spreadingbranches, creating dangerous swirls and eddies. These she avoided, and,having swum the river at ebb and flood every day of her life from achild, she now easily clove its roar and tumble; swam on, her heatunabated by the water's chill, till, sweeping around the bend, shesighted the lone house on the Promontory.

That gave her pause. Had death, then, robbed her anger? The thoughtbroke the spring of her magnificent energy. Feeling at last the touch offatigue, she steered straight for the building and climbed in, to rest,at a lower window, without a thought of its being occupied till Ethelmoved above.

Who shall divine her thoughts as, standing there in the door, she gazedupon her rival? Did she not recognize her as such, or was she moved bythe touch of sorrow, aftermath of the morning's bitterness, that stilllingered on the young wife's face? Events seemed to predicate theformer, but, be that as it may, the eyes which grief and despair hadheated till they flamed like small crucibles of molten gold, now cooledto their usual soft brown; smiling, she refused the proffered blanket.

"Ven tu! Ven tu!" she exclaimed, beckoning. Her urgent accent andgesture carried her meaning, and without question Ethel followed down toa lower window.

"But the canoe?" she objected, when Andrea motioned for her to disrobe."It will soon be here!"

"Canoa?" From the one word Andrea caught her meaning. "No hay tiempo.Mira!"

Leaning out, Ethel looked and shrank back, her inexperience convinced bya single glance at the wall. She assisted the strong hands to rip awayher encumbering skirts. It took only a short half-minute, and with thatafforded time for a small femininity to come into play. Placing her ownshapely arm against Ethel's, Andrea murmured soft admiration at theother's marvelous whiteness. But it was done in a breath. Slipping anarm about Ethel's waist, Andrea jumped with her from the window, oneminute before the soaked walls collapsed.

If Ethel's head had remained above, she might have retained her presenceof mind, and so have made things easier for her saviour, but, notsupposing that the whole world contained a mature woman who could notswim, Andrea loosed her as they took the water. A quick dive partiallyamended the error, retrieving Ethel, but not her composure. Coming up,half-choked, she grappled Andrea, and the two went down together. TheTewana could easily have broken the white girl's grip and—have losther. Instead, she held her breath and presently brought her senselessburden to the surface.

Of itself, the struggle was but a small thing to her strength, butcoming on top of the long swim under the shock and play of emotion, itleft her well nigh spent. Yet she struggled shoreward, battling, wagingthe war of the primal creature that yields not till Death himselfreenforces bitter odds.

To this exhaustion, the tales that float in Tehuantepec lay her end, andBachelder has never taken time to contradict them. But as she floatedalmost within reach of his hand, she steadied at Paul's shout as underan accession of sudden strength, and looked at her erstwhile husband.Then, if never before, she knew—him, as well as his works! From him herglance flashed to the fair face at her shoulder. What power ofdivination possessed her? Or was it Bachelder's fancy? He swears to thechosen few, the few who understand, that her face lit with the sameglory of tender pity that she held over her sick child. Then, beforethey could reach her, she shot suddenly up till her bust gleamed wet tothe waist, turned, and dived, carrying down the senseless bride.

Shouting, Bachelder also dived—in vain. In vain, the dives of his men.Death, that mighty potentate, loves sweetness full well as a shiningmark. Swiftly, silently, a deep current bore them far out on the floodedlands and there scoured a sepulcher safe from saurian teeth, beyond thescope Pancha's curse. Later, the jungle flowed in after the recedingwaters and wreathed over the twin grave morning-glories pure as thewhite wife, glorious orchids rich as Andrea's bronze.

***

HERE ENDS THE SPINNERS' BOOK OF FICTION BEING SHORT STORIES BYCALIFORNIA WRITERS COMPILED BY THE BOOK COMMITTEE OF THE SPINNERS' CLUBFOR THE SPINNERS' BENEFIT FUND INA D. COOLBRITH FIRST BENEFICIARYILLUSTRATED BY VARIOUS WESTERN ARTISTS THE DECORATIONS BY SPENCER WRIGHTTHE TYPOGRAPHY DESIGNED BY J. H. NASH PUBLISHED BY PAUL ELDER ANDCOMPANY AND PRINTED FOR THEM AT THE TOMOYE PRESS NEW YORK NINETEENHUNDRED AND SEVEN