7 files changed, 5943 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/11503-0.txt b/11503-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b6fa9e1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11503-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2747 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11503 ***
+
+KEEPING UP
+
+WITH
+
+LIZZIE
+
+BY
+
+IRVING BACHELLER
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+W.H.D.KOERNER
+
+
+
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1910, 1911, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+PUBLISHED MARCH, 1911
+
+C-N
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+THE LOVING AND BELOVED
+"MR. ONEDEAR"
+I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAP.
+
+I.   IN WHICH THE LEADING TRADESMEN OF POINTVIEW
+     BECOME A BOARD OF ASSESSORS
+
+II.  IN WHICH LIZZIE RETURNS TO HER HOME, HAVING MET A QUEEN
+     AND ACQUIRED AN ACCENT AND A FIANCE
+
+III. IN WHICH LIZZIE DESCENDS PROM A GREAT HEIGHT
+
+IV.  IN WHICH THE HAM WAR HAS ITS BEGINNING
+
+V.   IN WHICH LIZZIE EXERTS AN INFLUENCE ON THE AFFAIRS
+     OF THE RICH AND GREAT
+
+VI.  IN WHICH THE PURSUIT OF LIZZIE BECOMES HIGHLY SERIOUS
+
+VII. IN WHICH THE HONORABLE SOCRATES POTTER CATCHES UP
+     WITH LIZZIE
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+A DUEL WITH AUTOMOBILES
+
+WITH HIS MIND ON THE SUBJECT OF EXTRAVAGANCE
+
+"SEVEN DOLLARS A BARREL"
+
+"I WANTED YE TO TELL MR. POTTER ABOUT YER TRAVELS," SAYS SAM
+
+LIZZIE DROPPED INTO A CHAIR AND BEGAN TO CRY
+
+BILL AN' I GOT TOGETHER OFTEN AN' TALKED OF THE OLD HAPPY DAYS
+
+WE SET OUT FOR A TRAMP OVER THE BIG FARM
+
+"I'M A CANDIDATE FOR NEW HONORS"
+
+THREE DAYS LATER I DROVE TO THE VILLA
+
+THE BOY EXERTED HIS CHARMS UPON MY LADY WARBURTON.
+
+SHE LED US INTO THE BEDROOM
+
+THEIR EYES WERE WIDE WITH WONDER
+
+
+
+
+KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE
+
+
+
+
+KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE
+
+IN WHICH THE LEADING TRADESMEN OF POINTVIEW BECOME A BOARD OF
+ASSESSORS
+
+The Honorable Socrates Potter was the only "scientific man" in the
+village of Pointview, Connecticut.  In every point of manhood he
+was far ahead of his neighbors.  In a way he had outstripped
+himself, for, while his ideas were highly modern, he clung to the
+dress and manners that prevailed in his youth.  He wore broadcloth
+every day, and a choker, and chewed tobacco, and never permitted
+his work to interfere with the even tenor of his conversation.  He
+loved the old times and fashions, and had a drawling tongue and
+often spoke in the dialect of his fathers, loving the sound of it.
+His satirical mood was sure to be flavored with clipped words and
+changed tenses.  The stranger often took him for a "hayseed," but
+on further acquaintance opened his mouth in astonishment, for Soc.
+Potter, as many called him, was a man of insight and learning and
+of a quality of wit herein revealed.  He used to call himself "an
+attorney and peacemaker," but he was more than that.  He was the
+attorney and friend of all his clients, and the philosopher of his
+community.  If one man threatened another with the law in that
+neighborhood, he was apt to do it in these terms, "We'll see what
+Soc. Potter has to say about that."
+
+"All right! We'll see," the other would answer, and both parties
+would be sure to show up at the lawyer's office.  Then, probably,
+Socrates would try his famous lock-and-key expedient.  He would sit
+them down together, lock the door, and say, "Now, boys, I don't
+believe in getting twelve men for a job that two can do better,"
+and generally he would make them agree.
+
+He had an office over the store of Samuel Henshaw, and made a
+specialty of deeds, titles, epigrams, and witticisms.
+
+He was a bachelor who called now and then at the home of Miss
+Betsey Smead, a wealthy spinster of Pointview, but nothing had ever
+come of it.
+
+He sat with his feet on his desk and his mind on the subject of
+extravagance.  When he was doing business he sat like other men,
+but when his thought assumed a degree of elevation his feet rose
+with it.  He began his story by explaining that it was all true but
+the names.
+
+[Illustration: With his mind on the subject of extravagance.]
+
+"This is the balloon age," said he, with a merry twinkle in his
+gray eyes.  "The inventor has led us into the skies.  The odor of
+gasoline is in the path of the eagle.  Our thoughts are between
+earth and heaven; our prices have followed our aspirations in the
+upward flight.  Now here is Sam Henshaw.  Sam?  Why, he's a
+merchant prince o' Pointview--grocery business--had a girl--name o'
+Lizzie--smart and as purty as a wax doll.  Dan Pettigrew, the
+noblest flower o' the young manhood o' Pointview, fell in love with
+her.  No wonder.  We were all fond o' Lizzie.  They were a han'some
+couple, an' together about half the time.
+
+"Well, Sam began to aspire, an' nothing would do for Lizzie but the
+Smythe school at Hardcastle at seven hundred dollars a year.  So
+they rigged her up splendid, an' away she went.  Prom that day she
+set the pace for this community.  Dan had to keep up with Lizzie,
+and so his father, Bill Pettigrew, sent him to Harvard.  Other
+girls started in the race, an' the first we knew there was a big
+field in this maiden handicap.
+
+"Well, Sam had been aspirin' for about three months, when he began
+to perspire.  The extras up at Hardcastle had exceeded his
+expectations.  He was goin' a hot pace to keep up with Lizzie, an'
+it looked as if his morals was meltin' away.
+
+"I was in the northern part o' the county one day, an' saw some
+wonderful, big, red, tasty apples.
+
+"'What ye doin' with yer apples?' says I to the grower.
+
+"'I've sent the most of 'em to Samuel Henshaw, o' Pointview, an'
+he's sold 'em on commission,' says he.
+
+"'What do ye get for 'em ?' I asked.
+
+"'Two dollars an' ten cents a barrel,' says he.
+
+"The next time I went into Sam's store there were the same red
+apples that came out o' that orchard in the northern part o' the
+county.
+
+"'How much are these apples?' I says.
+
+"'Seven dollars a barrel,' says Sam.
+
+[Illustration: Seven dollars a barrel.]
+
+"'How is it that you get seven dollars a barrel an' only return two
+dollars an' ten cents to the grower?' I says.
+
+"Sam stuttered an' changed color.  I'd been his lawyer for years,
+an' I always talked plain to Sam.
+
+"'Wal, the fact is,' says he, with a laugh an' a wink, 'I sold
+these apples to my clerk.'
+
+"'Sam, ye're wastin' yer talents,' I says. 'Go into the railroad
+business.'
+
+"Sam was kind o' shamefaced.
+
+"'It costs so much to live I have to make a decent profit
+somewhere,' says he.  'If you had a daughter to educate, you'd know
+the reason.'
+
+"I bought a bill o' goods, an' noticed that ham an' butter were up
+two cents a pound, an' flour four cents a sack, an' other things in
+proportion.  I didn't say a word, but I see that Sam proposed to
+tax the community for the education o' that Lizzie girl.  Folks
+began to complain, but the tax on each wasn't heavy, an' a good
+many people owed Sam an' wasn't in shape to quit him.  Then Sam had
+the best store in the village, an' everybody was kind o' proud of
+it.  So we stood this assessment o' Sam's, an' by a general tax
+paid for the education o' Lizzie.  She made friends, an' sailed
+around in automobiles, an' spent a part o' the Christmas holidays
+with the daughter o' Mr. Beverly Gottrich on Fifth Avenue, an'
+young Beverly Gottrich brought her home in his big red runabout.
+Oh, that was a great day in Pointview!--that red-runabout day of
+our history when the pitcher was broken at the fountain and they
+that looked out of the windows trembled.
+
+"Dan Pettigrew was home from Harvard for the holidays, an' he an'
+Lizzie met at a church party.  They held their heads very high, an'
+seemed to despise each other an' everybody else.  Word went around
+that it was all off between 'em.  It seems that they had riz--not
+risen, but riz--far above each other.
+
+"Now it often happens that when the young ascend the tower o' their
+aspirations an' look down upon the earth its average inhabitant
+seems no larger to them than a red ant.  Sometimes there's nobody
+in sight--that is, no real body--nothin' but clouds an' rainbows
+an' kings an' queens an' their families.  Now Lizzie an' Dan were
+both up in their towers an' lookin' down, an' that was probably the
+reason they didn't see each other.
+
+"Right away a war began between the rival houses o' Henshaw an'
+Pettigrew.  The first we knew Sam was buildin' a new house with a
+tower on it--by jingo!--an' hardwood finish inside an' half an acre
+in the dooryard.  The tower was for Lizzie.  It signalized her rise
+in the community.  It put her one flight above anybody in Pointview.
+
+"As the house rose, up went Sam's prices again.  I went over to the
+store an' bought a week's provisions, an' when I got the bill I see
+that he'd taxed me twenty-nine cents for his improvements.
+
+"I met one o' my friends, an' I says to him, 'Wal,' I says, 'Sam is
+goin' to make us pay for his new house an' lot.   Sam's ham an'
+flour have jumped again.  As an assessor Sam is likely to make his
+mark.'
+
+"'Wal, what do ye expect?' says he.  'Lizzie is in high society,
+an' he's got to keep up with her.  Lizzie must have a home proper
+to one o' her station.  Don't be hard on Sam.'
+
+"'I ain't,' I says.  'But Sam's house ought to be proper to his
+station instead o' hers.'
+
+"I had just sat down in my office when Bill Pettigrew came
+in--Sam's great rival in the grocery an' aspiration business.  He'd
+bought a new automobile, an' wanted me to draw a mortgage on his
+house an' lot for two thousand dollars.
+
+"'You'd better go slow,' I says.  'It looks like bad business to
+mortgage your home for an automobile.'
+
+"'It's for the benefit o' my customers,' says he.
+
+"'Something purty for 'em to look at?' I asked.
+
+"'It will quicken deliveries,' says he.
+
+"'You can't afford it,' I says.
+
+"'Yes, I can,' says he.  'I've put up prices twenty per cent., an'
+it ain't agoin' to bother me to pay for it.'
+
+"'Oh, then your customers are goin' to pay for it!' I says, 'an'
+you're only a guarantor.'
+
+"'I wouldn't put it that way,' says he.  'It costs more to live
+these days.  Everything is goin' up.'
+
+"'Includin' taxes,' I says to Bill, an' went to work an' drew his
+mortgage for him, an' he got his automobile.
+
+"I'd intended to take my trade to his store, but when I saw that he
+planned to tax the community for his luxuries I changed my mind and
+went over to Eph Hill's.  He kept the only other decent grocery
+store in the village.  His prices were just about on a level with
+the others.
+
+"'How do you explain it that prices have gone up so?' I asked.
+
+"'Why, they say it's due to an overproduction o' gold,' says he.
+
+"'Looks to me like an overproduction of argument,' I says.  'The
+old Earth keeps shellin' out more gold ev'ry year, an' the more she
+takes out o' her pockets the more I have to take out o' mine.'
+
+"Wal, o' course I had to keep in line, so I put up the prices o' my
+work a little to be in fashion.  Everybody kicked good an' plenty,
+an' nobody worse'n Sam an' Bill an' Ephraim, but I told 'em how I'd
+read that there was so much gold in the world it kind o' set me
+hankerin'.
+
+"Ye know I had ten acres o' worn-out land in the edge o' the
+village, an' while others bought automobiles an' such luxuries I
+invested in fertilizers an' hired a young man out of an
+agricultural school an' went to farmin'.  Within a year I was
+raisin' all the meat an' milk an' vegetables that I needed, an'
+sellin' as much ag'in to my neighbors.
+
+"Well, Pointview under Lizzie was like Rome under Theodora.  The
+immorals o' the people throve an' grew.  As prices went up decency
+went down, an' wisdom rose in value like meat an' flour.  Seemed so
+everybody that had a dollar in the bank an' some that didn't bought
+automobiles.   They kept me busy drawin' contracts an' deeds an'
+mortgages an' searchin' titles, an' o' course I prospered.  More
+than half the population converted property into cash an' cash into
+folly--automobiles, piano-players, foreign tours, vocal music,
+modern languages, an' the aspirations of other people.  They were
+puffin' it on each other.  Every man had a deep scheme for makin'
+the other fellow pay for his fun.  Reminds me o' that verse from
+Zechariah, 'I will show them no mercy, saith the Lord, but I will
+deliver every man into the hand of his neighbor.'  Now the baron
+business has generally been lucrative, but here in Pointview there
+was too much competition.  We were all barons.  Everybody was
+taxin' everybody else for his luxuries, an' nobody could save a
+cent--nobody but me an' Eph Hill.  He didn't buy any automobiles or
+build a new house or send his girl to the seminary.  He kept both
+feet on the ground, but he put up his prices along with the rest.
+By-an'-by Eph had a mortgage on about half the houses in the
+village.  That showed what was the matter with the other men.
+
+"The merchants all got liver-comlaint.  There were twenty men that
+I used to see walkin' home to their dinner every day or down to the
+postoffice every evenin'.  But they didn't walk any more.  They
+scud along in their automobiles at twenty miles an hour, with the
+whole family around 'em.  They looked as if they thought that now
+at last they were keepin' up with Lizzie.  Their homes were empty
+most o' the time.  The reading-lamp was never lighted.  There was
+no season o' social converse.  Every merchant but Eph Hill grew fat
+an' round, an' complained of indigestion an' sick-headache.  Sam
+looked like a moored balloon.  Seemed so their morals grew fat an'
+flabby an' shif'less an' in need of exercise.  Their morals
+travelled too, but they travelled from mouth to mouth, as ye might
+say, an' very fast.  More'n half of 'em give up church an' went off
+on the country roads every Sunday.  All along the pike from
+Pointview to Jerusalem Corners ye could see where they'd laid
+humbly on their backs in the dust, prayin' to a new god an' tryin'
+to soften his heart with oil or open the gates o' mercy with a
+monkey-wrench.
+
+"Bill came into my shop one day an' looked as if he hadn't a friend
+in the world.  He wanted to borrow some money.
+
+"'Money!' I says.  'What makes ye think I've got money?'
+
+"'Because ye ain't got any automobile,' he says, laughin'.
+
+"'No,' I says.  'You bought one, an' that was all I could afford,'
+
+"It never touched him.  He went on as dry as a duck in a shower.
+'You're one o' the few sensible men in this village. You live
+within yer means, an' you ought to have money if ye ain't.'
+
+"'I've got a little, but I don't see why you should have it,' I
+says.  'You want me to do all the savin' for both of us.'
+
+"'It costs so much to live I can't save a cent,' he says.  'You
+know I've got a boy in college, an' it costs fearful.  I told my
+boy the other day how I worked my way through school an' lived on a
+dollar a week in a little room an' did my own washin'.  He says to
+me, "Well, Governor, you forget that I have a social position to
+maintain."'
+
+"'He's right,' I says. 'You can't expect him to belong to the
+varsity crew an' the Dickey an' the Hasty-Puddin' Club an' dress
+an' behave like the son of an ordinary grocer in Pointview,
+Connecticut.  Ye can't live on nuts an' raisins an' be decent in
+such a position.  Looks to me as if it would require the combined
+incomes o' the grocer an' his lawyer to maintain it.  His position
+is likely to be hard on your disposition.  He's tryin' to keep up
+with Lizzie--that's what's the matter,'
+
+"For a moment Bill looked like a lost dog.  I told him how Grant
+an' Thomas stood on a hilltop one day an' saw their men bein' mowed
+down like grass, an' by-an'-by Thomas says to Grant, 'Wal, General,
+we'll have to move back a little; it's too hot for the boys here.'
+
+"'I'm afraid your boy's position is kind of uncomf'table,' I says.
+
+"'I'll win out,' he says.  'My boy will marry an' settle down in a
+year or so, then he'll begin to help me.'
+
+"'But you may be killed off before then,' I says.
+
+"'If my friends 'll stand by me I'll pull through,' says he.
+
+"'But your friends have their own families to stand by,' I says.
+
+"'Look here, Mr. Potter,' says he.  'You've no such expense as I
+have.  You're able to help me, an' you ought to.  I've got a note
+comin' due tomorrow an' no money to pay it with.'
+
+"'Renew it an' then retrench,' I says.  'Cut down your expenses an'
+your prices.'
+
+"'Can't,' says he.  'It costs too much to live. What 'll I do ?'
+
+"'You ought to die,' I says, very mad.
+
+"'I can't,' says he.
+
+"'Why not?'
+
+"'It costs so much to die,' he says.  'Why, it takes a thousan'
+dollars to give a man a decent funeral these days.'
+
+"'Wal,' I says, 'a man that can't afford either to live or die
+excites my sympathy an' my caution.  You've taxed the community for
+yer luxuries, an' now ye want to tax me for yer notes.  It's unjust
+discrimination.  It gives me a kind of a lonesome feelin'.  You
+tell your boy Dan to come an' see me.  He needs advice more than
+you need money, an' I've got a full line of it.'
+
+"Bill went away richer by a check for a few hundred dollars. Oh, I
+always know when I'm losin' money!  I'm not like other citizens o'
+Pointview.
+
+"Dan came to see me the next Saturday night.  He was a big,
+blue-eyed, handsome, good-natured boy, an' dressed like the son of
+a millionaire.  I brought him here to the office, an' he sat down
+beside me.
+
+"'Dan,' I says, 'what are your plans for the future?'
+
+"'I mean to be a lawyer,' says he.
+
+"'Quit it,' I says.
+
+"'Why?' says he.
+
+"'There are too many lawyers.  We don't need any more.  They're
+devourin' our substance.'
+
+"'What do you suggest?'
+
+"'Be a real man.  We're on the verge of a social revolution.  Boys
+have been leaving the farms an' going into the cities to be grand
+folks.  The result is we have too many grand folks an' too few real
+folks.  The tide has turned.  Get aboard.'
+
+"'I don't understand you.'
+
+"'America needs wheat an' corn an' potatoes more than it needs
+arguments an' theories.'
+
+"'Would you have me be a farmer?' he asked, in surprise.
+
+"'A farmer!' I says.  'It's a new business--an exact science these
+days.  Think o' the high prices an' the cheap land with its
+productiveness more than doubled by modern methods.  The country is
+longing for big, brainy men to work its idle land.  Soon we shall
+not produce enough for our own needs.'
+
+"'But I'm too well educated to be a farmer,' says he.
+
+"'Pardon me,' I says.  'The land 'll soak up all the education
+you've got an' yell for more.  Its great need is education.  We've
+been sending the smart boys to the city an' keeping the fools on
+the farm.  We've put everything on the farm but brains.  That's
+what's the matter with the farm.'
+
+"'But farming isn't dignified,' says Dan.
+
+"'Pardon me ag'in,' says I.  'It's more dignified to search for the
+secrets o' God in the soil than to grope for the secrets o' Satan
+in a lawsuit.  Any fool can learn Blackstone an' Kent an'
+Greenleaf, but the book o' law that's writ in the soil is only for
+keen eyes.'
+
+"'I want a business that fits a gentleman,' says Dan.
+
+"'An' the future farmer can be as much of a gentleman as God 'll
+let him,' says I.  'He'll have as many servants as his talents can
+employ.  His income will exceed the earnings o' forty lawyers taken
+as they average.  His position will be like that o' the rich
+planter before the war.'
+
+"'Well, how shall I go about it?' he says, half convinced.
+
+"'First stop tryin' to keep up with Lizzie,' says I.  'The way to
+beat Lizzie is to go toward the other end o' the road.  Ye see,
+you've dragged yer father into the race, an' he's about winded.
+Turn around an' let Lizzie try to keep up with you.  Second, change
+yer base.  Go to a school of agriculture an' learn the business
+just as you'd go to a school o' law or medicine.  Begin modest.
+Live within yer means.  If you do right I'll buy you all the land
+ye want an' start ye goin'.'
+
+"When he left I knew that I'd won my case.  In a week or so he sent
+me a letter saying that he'd decided to take my advice.
+
+"He came to see me often after that.  The first we knew he was
+goin' with Marie Benson.  Marie had a reputation for good sense,
+but right away she began to take after Lizzie, an' struck a
+tolerably good pace.  Went to New York to study music an' perfect
+herself in French.
+
+"I declare it seemed as if about every girl in the village was
+tryin' to be a kind of a princess with a full-jewelled brain.
+Girls who didn't know an adjective from an adverb an' would have
+been stuck by a simple sum in algebra could converse in French an'
+sing in Italian.  Not one in ten was willin', if she knew how, to
+sweep a floor or cook a square meal.  Their souls were above it.
+Their feet were in Pointview an' their heads in Dreamland.  They
+talked o' the doin's o' the Four Hundred an' the successes o'
+Lizzie.  They trilled an' warbled; they pounded the family piano;
+they golfed an' motored an' whisted; they engaged in the titivation
+of toy dogs an' the cultivation o' general debility; they ate
+caramels an' chocolates enough to fill up a well; they complained;
+they dreamed o' sunbursts an' tiaras while their papas worried
+about notes an' bills; they lay on downy beds of ease with the last
+best seller, an' followed the fortunes of the bold youth until he
+found his treasure at last in the unhidden chest of the heroine;
+they created what we are pleased to call the servant problem, which
+is really the drone problem, caused by the added number who toil
+not, but have to be toiled for; they grew in fat an' folly.  Some
+were both ox-eyed an' peroxide.  Homeliness was to them the only
+misfortune, fat the only burden, and pimples the great enemy of
+woman.
+
+"Now the organs of the human body are just as shiftless as the one
+that owns 'em.  The systems o' these fair ladies couldn't do their
+own work.  The physician an' the surgeon were added to the list o'
+their servants, an' became as necessary as the cook an' the
+chambermaid.  But they were keeping up with Lizzie.  Poor things!
+They weren't so much to blame.  They thought their fathers were
+rich, an' their fathers enjoyed an' clung to that reputation.  They
+hid their poverty an' flaunted the flag of opulence.
+
+"It costs money, big money an' more, to produce a generation of
+invalids.  The fathers o' Pointview had paid for it with sweat an'
+toil an' broken health an' borrowed money an' the usual tax added
+to the price o' their goods or their labor.  Then one night the
+cashier o' the First National Bank blew out his brains.  We found
+that he had stolen eighteen thousand dollars in the effort to keep
+up.  That was a lesson to the Lizzie-chasers!  Why, sir, we found
+that each of his older girls had diamond rings an' could sing in
+three languages, an' a boy was in college.  Poor man! he didn't
+steal for his own pleasure.  Everything went at auction--house,
+grounds, rings, automobile.  Another man was caught sellin' under
+weight with fixed scales, an' went to prison.  Henry Brown failed,
+an' we found that he had borrowed five hundred dollars from John
+Bass, an' at the same time John Bass had borrowed six hundred from
+Tom Rogers, an' Rogers had borrowed seven hundred an' fifty from
+Sam Henshaw, an' Henshaw had borrowed the same amount from Percival
+Smith, an' Smith had got it from me.  The chain broke, the note
+structure fell like a house o' cards, an' I was the only
+loser--think o' that.  There were five capitalists an' only one man
+with real money.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+IN WHICH LIZZIE RETURNS TO HER HOME, HAVING MET A QUEEN AND
+ACQUIRED AN ACCENT AND A FIANCE
+
+"Sam Henshaw's girl had graduated an' gone abroad with her mother.
+One Sunday 'bout a year later, Sam flew up to the door o' my house
+in his automobile.  He lit on the sidewalk an' struggled up the
+steps with two hundred an' forty-seven pounds o' meat on him.  He
+walked like a man carryin' a barrel o' pork.  He acted as if he was
+glad to see me an' the big arm-chair on the piaz'.
+
+"'What's the news?' I asked.
+
+"'Lizzie an' her mother got back this mornin',' he gasped.
+'They've been six months in Europe.  Lizzie is in love with it.
+She's hobnobbed with kings an' queens.  She talks art beautiful.  I
+wish you'd come over an' hear her hold a conversation.  It's
+wonderful.  She's goin' to be a great addition to this community.
+She's got me faded an' on the run.  I ran down to the store for a
+few minutes this mornin', an' when I got back she says to me:
+
+"'"Father, you always smell o' ham an' mustard.  Have you been in
+that disgusting store?  Go an' take a bahth at once."  That's what
+she called it--a "bahth."  Talks just like the English
+people--she's been among 'em so long.  Get into my car an' I'll
+take ye over an' fetch ye back.'
+
+"Sam regarded his humiliation with pride an' joy.  At last Lizzie
+had convinced him that her education had paid.  My curiosity was
+excited.  I got in an' we flew over to his house.  Sam yelled up
+the stairway kind o' joyful as we come in, an' his wife answered at
+the top o' the stairs an' says:
+
+"'Mr.  Henshaw, I wish you wouldn't shout in this house like a boy
+calling the cows.'
+
+"I guess she didn't know I was there.  Sam ran up-stairs an' back,
+an' then we turned into that splendid parlor o' his an' set down.
+Purty soon Liz an' her mother swung in an' smiled very pleasant an'
+shook hands an' asked how was my family, etc., an' went right on
+talkin'.  I saw they didn't ask for the purpose of gettin'
+information.  Liz was dressed to kill an' purty as a
+picture--cheeks red as a rooster's comb an' waist like a hornet's.
+The cover was off her showcase, an' there was a diamond sunburst in
+the middle of it, an' the jewels were surrounded by charms to which
+I am not wholly insensible even now.
+
+"'I wanted ye to tell Mr. Potter about yer travels,' says Sam.
+
+[Illustration: "I wanted ye to tell Mr. Potter about yer travels."
+says Sam.]
+
+"Lizzie smiled an' looked out o' the window a minute an' fetched a
+sigh an' struck out, lookin' like Deacon Bristow the day he give
+ten dollars to the church.  She told about the cities an' the folks
+an' the weather in that queer, English way she had o' talking'>
+
+"'Tell how ye hobnobbed with the Queen o' Italy,' Sam says.
+
+"'Oh, father!  Hobnobbed!' says she.  'Anybody would think that she
+and I had manicured each other's hands.  She only spoke a few words
+of Italian and looked very gracious an' beautiful an' complimented
+my color.'
+
+"Then she lay back in her chair, kind o' weary, an' Sam asked me
+how was business--just to fill in the gap, I guess.  Liz woke up
+an' showed how far she'd got ahead in the race.
+
+"'Business!' says she, with animation.  'That's why I haven't any
+patience with American men.  They never sit down for ten minutes
+without talking business.  Their souls are steeped in
+commercialism.  Don't you see how absurd it is, father?  There are
+plenty of lovely things to talk about.'
+
+"Sam looked guilty, an' I felt sorry for him.  It had cost heavy to
+educate his girl up to a p'int where she could give him so much
+advice an' information.  The result was natural.  She was irritated
+by the large cubic capacity--the length, breadth, and thickness of
+his ignorance and unrefinement; he was dazed by the length,
+breadth, an' thickness of her learning an' her charm.  He didn't
+say a word.  He bowed his head before this pretty, perfumed casket
+of erudition.
+
+"'You like Europe,' I says.
+
+"'I love it,' says she, 'It's the only place to live.  There one
+finds so much of the beautiful in art and music and so many
+cultivated people.'
+
+"Lizzie was a handsome girl, an' had more sense than any o' the
+others that tried to keep up with her.  After all, she was Sam's
+fault, an' Sam was a sin conceived an' committed by his wife, as ye
+might say.  She had made him what he was.
+
+"'Have you seen Dan Pettigrew lately?' Lizzie asked.
+
+"'Yes.' I says.  'Dan is goin' to be a farmer.'
+
+"'A farmer!" says she, an' covered her face with her handkerchief
+an' shook with merriment.
+
+"'Yes,' I says.  'Dan has come down out o' the air.  He's abandoned
+folly.  He wants to do something to help along.'
+
+"'Yes, of course,' says Lizzie, in a lofty manner.  'Dan is really
+an excellent boy--isn't he?'
+
+"'Yes, an' he's livin' within his means--that's the first
+mile-stone in the road to success,' I says.  'I'm goin' to buy him
+a thousand acres o' land, an' one o' these days he'll own it an' as
+much more.  You wait.  He'll have a hundred men in his employ, an'
+flocks an' herds an' a market of his own in New York.  He'll
+control prices in this county, an' they're goin' down.  He'll be a
+force in the State.'
+
+"They were all sitting up.  The faces o' the Lady Henshaw an' her
+daughter turned red.
+
+"'I'm very glad to hear it, I'm sure,' said her Ladyship.
+
+"'I wasn't so sure o' that as she was, an' there, for me, was the
+milk in the cocoanut.  I was joyful.
+
+"'Why, it's perfectly lovely!' says Lizzie, as she fetched her
+pretty hands together in her lap.
+
+"'Yes, you want to cultivate Dan,' I says.  'He's a man to be
+reckoned with.'
+
+"'Oh, indeed!' says her Ladyship.
+
+"'Yes, indeed!' I says, 'an' the girls are all after him.'
+
+"I just guessed that.  I knew it was unscrupulous, but livin' here
+in this atmosphere does affect the morals even of a lawyer.  Lizzie
+grew red in the face.
+
+"'He could marry one o' the Four Hundred if he wanted to,' I says.
+'The other evening he was seen in the big red tourin'-car o' the
+Van Alstynes.  What do you think o' that?'
+
+"Now that was true, but the chauffeur had been a college friend o'
+Dan's, an' I didn't mention that.
+
+"Lizzie had a dreamy smile in her face.
+
+"'Why, it's wonderful!' says she.  'I didn't know he'd improved so.'
+
+"'I hear that his mother is doing her own work,' says the Lady
+Henshaw, with a forced smile.
+
+"'Yes, think of it,' I says.  'The woman is earning her daily
+bread--actually helpin' her husband.  Did you ever hear o' such a
+thing!  I'll have to scratch 'em off my list.  It's too uncommon.
+It ain't respectable.'
+
+"Her Ladyship began to suspect me an' retreated with her chin in
+the air.  She'd had enough.
+
+"I thought that would do an' drew out o' the game.  Lizzie looked
+confident.  She seemed to have something up her sleeve besides that
+lovely arm o' hers.
+
+"I went home, an' two days later Sam looked me up again.  Then the
+secret came out o' the bag.  He'd heard that I had some money in
+the savings-banks over at Bridgeport payin' me only three and a
+half per cent., an' he wanted to borrow it an' pay me six per cent.
+His generosity surprised me.  It was not like Sam.
+
+"'What's the matter with you?' I asked.  'Is it possible that your
+profits have all gone into gasoline an' rubber an' silk an'
+education an' hardwood finish an' human fat?'
+
+"'Well, it costs so much to live,' he says, 'an' the wholesalers
+have kept liftin' the prices on me.  Now there's the meat
+trust--their prices are up thirty-five per cent.'
+
+"'Of course,' I says, 'the directors have to have their luxuries.
+You taxed us for yer new house an' yer automobile an' yer
+daughter's education, an' they're taxin' you for their steam-yachts
+an' private cars an' racin' stables.  You can't expect to do all
+the taxin'.  The wholesalers learnt about the profits that you an'
+others like ye was makin', an' they concluded that they needed a
+part of 'em.  Of course they had to have their luxuries, an'
+they're taxin' you--they couldn't afford to have 'em if they
+didn't.  Don't complain.'
+
+"'I'll come out all right,' he says.  'I'm goin' to raise my whole
+schedule fifteen per cent.'
+
+"'The people won't stand it--they can't,' says I.  'You'll be
+drownin' the miller.  They'll leave you.'
+
+"'It won't do 'em any good,' says he.  'Bill an' Eph will make
+their prices agree with mine.'
+
+"'Folks will go back to the land, as I have,' says I.
+
+"'They don't know enough,' says Sam.  'Farmin' is a lost art here
+in the East.  You take my word for it--they'll pay our
+prices--they'll have to--an' the rich folks, they don't worry about
+prices.  I pay a commission to every steward an' butler in this
+neighborhood.'
+
+"'I won't help you,' says I.  'It's wicked.  You ought to have
+saved your money.'
+
+"'In a year from now I'll have money to burn,' he says.  'For one
+thing, my daughter's education is finished, an' that has cost
+heavy.'
+
+"'How much would it cost to unlearn it?' I asked.  'That's goin' to
+cost more than it did to get it, I'm 'fraid.  In my opinion the
+first thing to do with her is to uneducate her.'
+
+"That was like a red-hot iron to Sam.  It kind o' het him up.
+
+"'Why, sir, you don't appreciate her,' says he.  'That girl is far
+above us all here in Pointview.  She's a queen.'
+
+"'Well, Sam,' I says, 'if there's anything you don't need just now
+it's a queen.  If I were you I wouldn't graft that kind o' fruit on
+the grocery-tree.  Hams an' coronets don't flourish on the same
+bush.  They have a different kind of a bouquet.  They don't
+harmonize.  Then, Sam, what do you want of a girl that's far above
+ye?  Is it any comfort to you to be despised in your own home?'
+
+"'Mr. Potter, I haven't educated her for my own home or for this
+community, but for higher things,' says Sam.
+
+"'You hairy old ass!  The first you know,' I says, 'they'll have
+your skin off an' layin' on the front piaz' for a door-mat.'
+
+"Sam started for the open air.  I hated to be ha'sh with him, but
+he needed some education himself, an' it took a beetle an' wedge to
+open his mind for it.  He lifted his chin so high that the fat
+swelled out on the back of his neck an' unbuttoned his collar.
+Then he turned an' said: 'My daughter is too good for this town,
+an' I don't intend that she shall stay here.  She has been asked to
+marry a man o' fortune in the old country.'
+
+"'So I surmised, an' I suppose you find that the price o' husbands
+has gone up,' I says.
+
+"Sam didn't answer me.
+
+"'They want you to settle some money on the girl--don't they?' I
+asked.
+
+"'My wife says it's the custom in the old country,' says Sam.
+
+"'Suppose he ain't worth the price?'
+
+"'They say he's a splendid fellow,' says Sam.
+
+"'You let me investigate him,' I says, 'an' if he's really worth
+the price I'll help ye to pay it.'
+
+"Sam said that was fair, an' thanked me for the offer, an' gave me
+the young man's address.  He was a Russian by the name of Alexander
+Rolanoff, an' Sam insisted that he belonged to a very old family of
+large means an' noble blood, an' said that the young man would be
+in Pointview that summer.  I wrote to the mayor of the city in
+which he was said to live, but got no answer.
+
+"Alexander came.  He was a costly an' beautiful young man, about
+thirty years old, with red cheeks an' curly hair an' polished
+finger-nails, an' wrote poetry.  Sometimes ye meet a man that
+excites yer worst suspicions.  Your right hand no sooner lets go o'
+his than it slides down into your pocket to see if anything has
+happened; or maybe you take the arm o' yer wife or yer daughter an'
+walk away.  Aleck leaned a little in both directions.  But, sir,
+Sam didn't care to know my opinion of him.  Never said another word
+to me on the subject, but came again to ask about the money.
+
+"'Look here, Sam,' I says.  'You tell Lizzie that I want to have a
+talk with her at four o'clock in this office?  If she really wants
+to buy this man, I'll see what can be done about it.'
+
+"'All right, you talk with her,' says he, an' went out.
+
+"In a few minutes Dan showed up.
+
+"'Have you seen Lizzie?' says I.
+
+"'Not to speak to her,' says Dan.  'Looks fine, doesn't she?'
+
+"'Beautiful!'I says. 'How is Marie Benson?'
+
+"'Oh, the second time I went to see her she was trying to keep up
+with Lizzie,' says he.  'She's changed her gait.  Was going to New
+York after a lot o' new frills.  I suppose she thought that I
+wanted a grand lady.  That's the trouble with all the girls here.
+A man might as well marry the real thing as an imitation.  I wish
+Lizzie would get down off her high horse.'
+
+"'She's goin' to swap him for one with still longer legs,' I says.
+'Lizzie is engaged to a gentleman o' fortune in the old country.'
+
+"Dan's face began to stretch out long as if it was made of
+injy-rubber.
+
+"'It's too bad,' says he. 'Lizzie is a good-hearted girl, if she is
+spoilt.'
+
+"'Fine girl!' I says. 'An', Dan, I was in hopes that she would
+discover her own folly before it was too late.  But she saw that
+others had begun to push her in the race an' that she had to let
+out another link or fall behind.'
+
+"'Well, I wish her happiness,' says Dan, with a sigh.
+
+"'Go an' tell her so,' I says.  'Show her that you have some care
+as to whether she lives or dies.'
+
+"I could see that his feelin's had been honed 'til they were sharp
+as a razor.
+
+"'I've seen that fellow,' he says, 'an' he'll never marry Lizzie if
+I can prevent it.  I hate the looks of him.  I shall improve the
+first opportunity I have to insult him.'
+
+"'That might be impossible,' I suggested.
+
+"'But I'll make the effort,' says Dan.
+
+"As an insulter I wouldn't wonder if Dan had large capacity when
+properly stirred up.
+
+"'Better let him alone.  I have lines out that will bring
+information.  Be patient.'
+
+"Dan rose and said he would see me soon, an' left with a rather
+stern look in his face.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+IN WHICH LIZZIE DESCENDS FROM A GREAT HEIGHT
+
+"Lizzie was on hand at the hour appointed.  We sat down here all by
+ourselves.
+
+"'Lizzie,' I says, 'why in the world did you go to Europe for a
+husband?  It's a slight to Pointview--a discouragement of home
+industry.'
+
+"'There was nobody here that seemed to want me,' she says, blushin'
+very sweet.
+
+"She had dropped her princess manner an' seemed to be ready for
+straight talk.
+
+"'If that's so, Lizzie, it's your fault,' I says.
+
+"'I don't understand you,' says she.
+
+"'Why, my dear child, it's this way,' I says.  'Your mother an'
+father have meant well, but they've been foolish.  They've educated
+you for a millionairess, an' all that's lackin' is the millions.
+You overawed the boys here in Pointview.  They thought that you
+felt above 'em, whether you did or not; an' the boys on Fifth
+Avenue were glad to play with you, but they didn't care to marry
+you.  I say it kindly, Lizzie, an' I'm a friend o' yer father's,
+an' you can afford to let me say what I mean.  Those young fellows
+wanted the millions as well as the millionairess.  One of our boys
+fell in love with ye an' tried to keep up, but your pace was too
+hot for him.  His father got in trouble, an' the boy had to drop
+out.  Every well-born girl in the village entered the race with ye.
+An era of extravagance set in that threatened the solvency, the
+honor, o' this sober old community.  Their fathers had to borrow
+money to keep agoin'.  They worked overtime, they importuned their
+creditors, they wallowed in low finance while their daughters
+revelled in the higher walks o' life an' sang in different
+languages.  Even your father--I tell you in confidence, for I
+suppose he wouldn't have the courage to do it--is in financial
+difficulties.  Now, Lizzie, I want to be kind to you, for I believe
+you're a good girl at heart, but you ought to know that all this is
+what your accomplishments have accomplished.'
+
+"She rose an' walked across the room, with trembling lips.  She had
+seized her parachute an' jumped from her balloon and was slowly
+approachin' the earth.  I kept her comin', 'These clothes an'
+jewels that you wear, Lizzie--these silks an' laces, these
+sunbursts an' solitaires--don't seem to harmonize with your
+father's desire to borrow money.  Pardon me, but I can't make 'em
+look honest.  They are not paid for--or if they are they are paid
+for with other men's money.  They seem to accuse you.  They'd
+accuse me if I didn't speak out plain to ye.'
+
+"All of a sudden Lizzie dropped into a chair an' began to cry.  She
+had lit safely on the ground.
+
+[Illustration: Lizzie dropped into a chair an' began to cry.]
+
+"It made me feel like a murderer, but it had to be.  Poor girl!  I
+wanted to pick her up like a baby an' kiss her.  It wasn't that I
+loved Lizzie less but Rome more.  She wasn't to blame.  Every
+spoilt woman stands for a fool-man.  Most o' them need--not a
+master--but a frank counsellor.  I locked the door.  She grew calm
+an' leaned on my table, her face covered with her hands.  My clock
+shouted the seconds in the silence.  Not a word was said for two or
+three minutes.
+
+"'I have been brutal,' I says, by-an'-by.  'Forgive me.'
+
+"'Mr. Potter,' she says, 'you've done me a great kindness.  I'll
+never forget it.  What shall I do?'
+
+"'Well, for one thing,' says I, 'go back to your old simplicity an'
+live within your means.'
+
+"'I'll do it,' she says; 'but--I--I supposed my father was rich.
+Oh, I wish we could have had this talk before!'
+
+"'Did you know that Dan Pettigrew was in love with you?' I put it
+straight from the shoulder.  'He wouldn't dare tell ye, but you
+ought to know it.  You are regarded as a kind of a queen here, an'
+it's customary for queens to be approached by ambassadors.'
+
+"Her face lighted up.
+
+"'In love with me?' she whispered.  'Why, Mr. Potter, I never
+dreamed of such a thing.  Are you sure?  How do you know?  I
+thought he felt above me.'
+
+"'An' he thought you felt above him,' I says.
+
+"'How absurd! how unfortunate!' she whispered.  'I couldn't marry
+him now if he asked me.  This thing has gone too far.  I wouldn't
+treat any man that way.'
+
+"'You are engaged to Alexander, are you?' I says.
+
+"'Well, there is a sort of understanding, and I think we are to be
+married if--if--'
+
+"She paused, and tears came to her eyes again.
+
+"'You are thinking o' the money,' says I.
+
+"'I am thinking o' the money,' says she.  'It has been promised to
+him.  He will expect it.'
+
+"'Do you think he is an honest man?  Will he treat you well?'
+
+"'I suppose so.'
+
+"'Then let me talk with him.  Perhaps he would take you without
+anything to boot.'
+
+"'Please don't propose that,' says she.  'I think he's getting the
+worst of it now.  Mr. Potter, would you lend me the money?  I ask
+it because I don't want the family to be disgraced or Mr. Rolanoff
+to be badly treated.  He is to invest the money in my name in a
+very promising venture.  He says he can double it within three
+months.'
+
+"It would have been easy for me to laugh, but I didn't.  Lizzie's
+attitude in the whole matter pleased me.  I saw that her heart was
+sound.  I promised to have a talk with her father and see her
+again.  I looked into his affairs carefully and put him on a new
+financial basis with a loan of fifteen thousand dollars.
+
+"One day he came around to my office with Alexander an' wanted me
+to draw up a contract between him an' the young man.  It was a
+rather crude proposition, an' I laughed, an' Aleck sat with a bored
+smile on his face.
+
+"'Oh, if he's good enough for your daughter,' I said, 'his word
+ought to be good enough for you.'
+
+"'That's all right,' says Sam, 'but business is business.  I want
+it down in black an' white that the income from this money is to be
+paid to my daughter, and that neither o' them shall make any
+further demand on me.'
+
+"Well, I drew that fool contract, an', after it was signed, Sam
+delivered ten one-thousand-dollar bills to the young man, who was
+to become his son-in-law the following month with the assistance of
+a caterer and a florist and a string-band, all from New Haven.
+
+"Within half an hour Dan Pettigrew came roarin' up in front o' my
+office in the big red automobile of his father's.  In a minute he
+came in to see me.  He out with his business soon as he lit in a
+chair.
+
+"'I've learned that this man Rolanoff is a scoundrel,' says he.
+
+"'A scoundrel!' says I.
+
+"'Of purest ray serene,' says he.
+
+"I put a few questions, but he'd nothing in the way o' proof to
+otter--it was only the statement of a newspaper.
+
+"'Is that all you know against him?' I asked.
+
+"'He won't fight,' says Dan.  'I've tried him--I've begged him to
+fight.'
+
+"'Well, I've got better evidence than you have,' I says.  'It came
+a few minutes before you did.'
+
+"I showed him a cablegram from a London barrister that said:
+
+"'Inquiry complete.  The man is a pure adventurer, character _nil_.'
+
+"'We must act immediately,' says Dan.
+
+"'I have telephoned all over the village for Sam,' I says.  'They
+say he's out in his car with Aleck an' Lizzie.  I asked them to
+send him here as soon as he returns.'
+
+"'They're down on the Post Road I met 'em on my way here,' says
+Dan.  'We can overtake that car easy.'
+
+"Well, the wedding-day was approaching an' Aleck had the money, an'
+the thought occurred to me that he might give 'em the slip
+somewhere on the road an' get away with it.  I left word in the
+store that if Sam got back before I saw him he was to wait with
+Aleck in my office until I returned, an' off we started like a
+baseball on its way from the box to the catcher.
+
+"An officer on his motor-cycle overhauled us on the Post Road.  He
+knew me.
+
+"'It's a case o' sickness,' I says, 'an' we're after Sam Henshaw.'
+
+"'He's gone down the road an' hasn't come back yet,' says the
+officer.
+
+"I passed him a ten-dollar bill.
+
+"'Keep within sight of us,' I says.  'We may need you any minute.'
+
+"He nodded and smiled, an' away we went.
+
+"'I'm wonderin' how we're agoin' to get the money,' I says, havin'
+told Dan about it.
+
+"'I'll take it away from him,' says Dan.
+
+"'That wouldn't do,' says I.
+
+"'Why not?'
+
+"'Why not!' says I.  'You wouldn't want to be arrested for highway
+robbery.  Then, too, we must think o' Lizzie.  Poor girl!  It's
+agoin' to be hard on her, anyhow.  I'll try a bluff.  It's probable
+that he's worked this game before.  If so, we can rob him without
+violence an' let him go.'
+
+"Dan grew joyful as we sped along.
+
+"'Lizzie is mine,' he says.  'She wouldn't marry him now.'
+
+"He told me how fond they had been of each other until they got
+accomplishments an' began to put up the price o' themselves.  He
+said that in their own estimation they had riz in value like beef
+an' ham, an' he confessed how foolish he had been.  We were excited
+an' movin' fast.
+
+"'Something'll happen soon,' he says.
+
+"An' it did, within ten minutes from date.  We could see a blue car
+half a mile ahead.
+
+"'I'll go by that ol' freight-car o' the Henshaws',' says Dan.
+'They'll take after me, for Sam is vain of his car.  We can halt
+them in that narrow cut on the hill beyond the Byron River.'
+
+"We had rounded the turn at Chesterville, when we saw the Henshaw
+car just ahead of us, with Aleck at the wheel an' Lizzie beside him
+an' Sam on the back seat.  I saw the peril in the situation.
+
+"The long rivalry between the houses of Henshaw an' Pettigrew,
+reinforced by that of the young men, was nearing its climax.
+
+"'See me go by that old soap-box o' the Henshaws',' says Dan, as he
+pulled out to pass 'em.
+
+"Then Dan an' Aleck began a duel with automobiles.  Each had a
+forty-horse-power engine in his hands, with which he was resolved
+to humble the other.  Dan knew that he was goin' to bring down the
+price o' Alecks an' Henshaws.  First we got ahead; then they
+scraped by us, crumpling our fender on the nigh side.  Lizzie an' I
+lost our hats in the scrimmage.  We gathered speed an' ripped off a
+section o' their bulwarks, an' roared along neck an' neck with 'em.
+The broken fenders rattled like drums in a battle.  A hen flew up
+an' hit me in the face, an' came nigh unhorsin' me.  I hung on.  It
+seemed as if Fate was tryin' to halt us, but our horse-power was
+too high.  A dog went under us.  It began to rain a little.  We
+were a length ahead at the turn by the Byron River.  We swung for
+the bridge an' skidded an' struck a telephone pole, an' I went
+right on over the stone fence an' the clay bank an' lit on my head
+in the water.  Dan Pettigrew lit beside me.  Then came Lizzie an'
+Sam--they fairly rained into the river.  I looked up to see if
+Aleck was comin', but he wasn't.  Sam, bein' so heavy, had stopped
+quicker an' hit in shallow water near the shore, but, as luck would
+have it, the bottom was soft an' he had come down feet foremost,
+an' a broken leg an' some bad bruises were all he could boast of.
+Lizzie was in hysterics, but seemed to be unhurt.  Dan an' I got
+'em out on the shore, an' left 'em cryin' side by side, an'
+scrambled up the bank to find Aleck.  He had aimed too low an' hit
+the wall, an' was stunned, an' apparently, for the time, dead as a
+herrin' on the farther side of it.  I removed the ten
+one-thousand-dollar bills from his person to prevent complications
+an' tenderly laid him down.  Then he came to very sudden.
+
+"'Stop!' he murmured.  'You're robbin' me.'
+
+"'Well, you begun it,' I says.  'Don't judge me hastily.  I'm a
+philanthropist.  I'm goin' to leave you yer liberty an' a hundred
+dollars.  You take it an' get.  If you ever return to Connecticut
+I'll arrest you at sight.'
+
+"I gave him the money an' called the officer, who had just come up.
+A traveller in a large tourin'-car had halted near us.
+
+"'Put him into that car an' take him to Chesterville,' I said.
+
+"He limped to the car an' left without a word.
+
+"I returned to my friends an' gently broke the news.
+
+"Sam blubbered 'Education done it,' says he, as he mournfully shook
+his head.
+
+"'Yes,' I says.  'Education is responsible for a damned lot of
+ignorance.'
+
+"'An' some foolishness,' says Sam, as he scraped the mud out of his
+hair.  'Think of our goin' like that.  We ought to have known
+better.' "'We knew better,' I says, 'but we had to keep up with
+Lizzie.'
+
+"Sam turned toward Lizzie an' moaned in a broken voice, 'I wish it
+had killed me.'
+
+"'Why so?' I asked.
+
+"'It costs so much to live,' Sam sobbed, in a half-hysterical way.
+'I've got an expensive family on my hands.'
+
+"'You needn't be afraid o' havin' Lizzie on your hands,' says Dan,
+who held the girl in his arms.
+
+"'What do you mean?^ Sam inquired.
+
+"'She's on my hands an' she's goin' to stay there,' says the young
+man.  'I'm in love with Lizzie myself.  I've always been in love
+with Lizzie.'
+
+"'Your confession is ill-timed,' says Lizzie, as she pulled away
+an' tried to smooth her hair.  She began to cry again, an' added,
+between sobs: 'My heart is about broken, and I must go home and get
+help for my poor father.'
+
+"'I'll attend to that,' says Dan; 'but I warn you that I'm goin' to
+offer a Pettigrew for a Henshaw even.  If I had a million dollars
+I'd give it all to boot.'
+
+"Sam turned toward me, his face red as a beet.
+
+"'The money!' he shouted.  'Get it, quick!'
+
+"'Here it is!' I said, as I put the roll o' bills in his hand.
+
+"'Did you take it off him?'
+
+"'I took it off him.'
+
+"'Poor Aleck!' he says, mournfully, as he counted the money.  'It's
+kind o' hard on him.'
+
+"Soon we halted a passin' automobile an' got Sam up the bank an'
+over the wall.  It was like movin' a piano with somebody playin' on
+it, but we managed to seat him on the front floor o' the car, which
+took us all home.
+
+"So the affair ended without disgrace to any one, if not without
+violence, and no one knows of the cablegram save the few persons
+directly concerned.  But the price of Alecks took a big slump in
+Pointview.  No han'some foreign gent could marry any one in this
+village, unless it was a chambermaid in a hotel.
+
+"That was the end of the first heat of the race with Lizzie in
+Pointview.  Aleck had folded up his bluff an' silently sneaked
+away.  I heard no more of him save from a lady with blond, curly
+hair an' a face done in water-colors, who called at my office one
+day to ask about him, an' who proved to my satisfaction that she
+was his wife, an' who remarked with real, patrician accent when I
+told her the truth about him: 'Ah, g'wan, yer kiddin' me.'
+
+"I began to explore the mind of Lizzie, an' she acted as my guide
+in the matter.  For her troubles the girl was about equally
+indebted to her parents an' the Smythe school.  Now the Smythe
+school had been founded by the Reverend Hopkins Smythe, an
+Englishman who for years had been pastor of the First
+Congregational Church--a soothin' man an' a favorite of the rich
+New-Yorkers.  People who hadn't slept for weeks found repose in the
+First Congregational Church an' Sanitarium of Pointview.  They
+slept an' snored while the Reverend Hopkins wept an' roared.  His
+rhetoric was better than bromide or sulphonal.  In grateful
+recollection of their slumbers, they set him up in business.
+
+"Now I'm agoin' to talk as mean as I feel.  Sometimes I get tired
+o' bein' a gentleman an' knock off for a season o' rest an'
+refreshment.  Here goes!  The school has some good girls in it, but
+most of 'em are indolent candy-eaters.  Their life is one long,
+sweet dream broken by nightmares of indigestion.  Their study is
+mainly a bluff; their books a merry jest; their teachers a butt of
+ridicule.  They're the veriest little pagans.  Their religion is,
+in fact, a kind of Smythology.  Its High Priest is the Reverend
+Hopkins.  Its Jupiter is self.  Its lesser gods are princes, dukes,
+earls, counts, an' barons.  Its angels are actors an' tenors.  Its
+baptism is flattery.  Poverty an' work are its twin hells.
+Matrimony is its heaven, an' a slippery place it is.  They revel in
+the best sellers an' the worst smellers.  They gossip of intrigue
+an' scandal.  They get their lessons if they have time.  They cheat
+in their examinations.  If the teacher objects she is promptly an'
+generally insulted.  She has to submit or go--for the girls stand
+together.  It's a sort of school-girls' union.  They'd quit in a
+body if their fun were seriously interrupted, an' Mr. Smythe
+couldn't afford that, you know.  He wouldn't admit it, but they've
+got him buffaloed.
+
+"Lizzie no sooner got through than she set out with her mother to
+find the prince.  She struck Aleck in Italy."
+
+Socrates leaned back and laughed.
+
+"Now, if you please, I'll climb back on my pedestal," he said.
+
+"Thank God!  Lizzie began to rise above her education.  She went to
+work in her father's store, an' the whole gang o' Lizzie-chasers
+had to change their gait again.  She organized our prosperous young
+ladies' club--a model of its kind--the purpose of which is the
+promotion of simple livin' an' a taste for useful work.  They have
+fairs in the churches, an' I distribute a hundred dollars in cash
+prizes--five dollars each for the best exhibits o' pumpkin-pie,
+chicken-pie, bread, rolls, coffee, roast turkey, plain an' fancy
+sewin', an' so on.  One by one the girls are takin' hold with us
+an' lettin' go o' the grand life.  They've begun to take hold o'
+the broom an' the dish-cloth, an' the boys seem to be takin' hold
+o' them with more vigor an' determination.  The boys are concluding
+that it's cheaper to buy a piano-player than to marry one, that
+canned prima-donnas are better than the home-grown article, that
+women are more to be desired than playthings.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+IN WHICH THE HAM WAR HAS ITS BEGINNING
+
+"One day in the old time a couple of industrious Yankees were hard
+at work in a field," Socrates continued.  "Suddenly one said to the
+other:
+
+"'I wish I was worth ten thousand dollars.'
+
+"An' the other asked:
+
+"'What would ye do with it?'
+
+"The wisher rested on his shovel an' gave his friend a look of
+utter contempt.
+
+"'What would I do with it?' he said.  'Why, you cussed fool, I'd
+set down--an' without blamin' myself.'
+
+"By-and-by the Yankee got to settin' down without blamin' himself,
+an' also without the ten thousand.  Here in Pointview we're
+learnin' how to stand up again, an' Lizzie is responsible.  You
+shall hear how it happened.
+
+"First I must tell you that Dan had been makin' little progress in
+the wooin' o' Lizzie.  Now she was inclined to go slow.  Lizzie was
+fond o' Dan.  She put on her best clothes when he came to see her
+of a Sunday.  She sang to him, she walked him about the place with
+her arm in his, but she tenderly refused to agree to marry him.
+When he grew sentimental she took him out among the cucumbers in
+the garden.  She permitted no sudden rise in his temperature.
+
+"'I will not marry,' she said, 'until I have done what I can to
+repay my father for all that he has tried to do for me.  I must be
+uneducated and re-educated.  It may take a long time.  Meanwhile
+you may meet some one you like better.  I'm not going to pledge you
+to wait for me.  Of course I shall be awfully proud and pleased if
+you do wait, but, Dan, I want you to be free.  Let's both be free
+until we're ready.'
+
+"It was bully.  Dan pleaded with the eloquence of an old-fashioned
+lawyer.  Lizzie stood firm behind this high fence, an' she was
+right.  With Dan in debt an' babies comin', what could she have
+done for her father?  Suddenly it seemed as if all the young men
+had begun to take an interest in Lizzie, an', to tell the truth,
+she was about the neatest, sweetest little myrmidon of commerce
+that ever wore a white apron.  The light of true womanhood had
+begun to shine in her face.  She kept the store in apple-pie order,
+an' everybody was well treated.  The business grew.  Sam bought a
+small farm outside the village with crops in, an' moved there for
+the summer.  Soon he began to let down his prices.  The combine was
+broken.  It was the thing we had been waitin' for.  People flocked
+to his store.  The others came down, but too late.  Sam held his
+gain, an' Lizzie was the power behind the fat.  Dan finished his
+course in agriculture an' I bought him a farm, an' he went to work
+there, but he spent half his time in the store of his father tryin'
+to keep up with Lizzie.  Suddenly Dan started a ham war.  He cut
+the price of hams five cents a pound.  Ham was one of our great
+staples, an' excitement ran high.  Lizzie cut below him two cents a
+pound.  Dan cut the price again.  Lizzie made no effort to meet
+this competition.  The price had gone below the wholesale rate by
+quite a margin.  People thronged to Dan's emporium.  Women stood on
+the battle-field, their necks blanched with powder, their cheeks
+bearin' the red badge o' courage, an' every man you met had a ham
+in his hand.  The Pettigrew wagon hurried hither an' thither loaded
+with hams.  Even the best friends of Sam an' Lizzie were seen in
+Dan's store buyin' hams.  They laid in a stock for all winter.
+Suddenly Dan quit an' restored his price to the old figure.  Lizzie
+continued to sell at the same price, an' was just as cheerful as
+ever.  She had won the fight, an' ye wouldn't think that anything
+unusual had happened; but wait an' see.
+
+"Every day boys an' girls were droppin' out o' the clouds an' goin'
+to work tryin' to keep up with Lizzie.  The hammocks swung limp in
+the breeze.  The candy stores were almost deserted, an' those that
+sat by the fountains were few.  We were learnin' how to stand up.
+
+"One day Dan came into my office all out o' gear.  He looked sore
+an' discouraged.  I didn't wonder.
+
+"'What's the matter now?' I says.
+
+"'I don't believe Lizzie cares for me.'
+
+"'How's that?' I says.
+
+"'Last Sunday she was out riding with Tom Bryson, an' every Sunday
+afternoon I find half-a-dozen young fellows up there.'
+
+"'Well, ye know, Lizzie is attractive, an' she ain't our'n yit--not
+just yit,' I says.  'If young men come to see her she's got to be
+polite to 'em.  You wouldn't expect her to take a broom an' shoo
+'em off?'
+
+"'But I don't have anything to do with other girls.'
+
+"'An' you're jealous as a hornet,' I says.  'Lizzie wants you to
+meet other girls.  When Lizzie marries it will be for life.  She'll
+want to know that you love her an' only her.  You keep right on
+tryin' to catch up with Lizzie, an' don't be worried.'
+
+"He stopped strappin' the razor of his discontent, but left me with
+unhappy looks.  That very week I saw him ridin' about with Marie
+Benson in his father's motor-car.
+
+"Soon a beautiful thing happened.  I have told you of the
+melancholy end of the cashier of one of our local banks.  Well, in
+time his wife followed him to the cemetery.  She was a distant
+relative of Sam's wife, an' a friend of Lizzie.  We found easy
+employment for the older children, an' Lizzie induced her parents
+to adopt two that were just out of their mother's arms--a girl of
+one an' a boy of three years.  I suggested to Lizzie that it seemed
+to me a serious undertaking, but she felt that she ought to be
+awfully good by way of atonement for the folly of her past life.
+It was near the end of the year, an' I happen to know that when
+Christmas came a little sack containing five hundred dollars in
+gold was delivered at Sam Henshaw's door for Lizzie from a source
+unknown to her.  That paid for the nurse, an' eased the situation."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+IN WHICH LIZZIE EXERTS AN INFLUENCE ON THE AFFAIRS OF THE RICH AND
+GREAT
+
+A year after Socrates Potter had told of the descent of Lizzie, and
+the successful beginning of her new life, I called again at his
+office.
+
+"How is Pointview?" I asked.
+
+"Did ye ever learn how it happened to be called Pointview?" he
+inquired.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, it began with a little tavern with a tap-room called the
+Pointview House, a great many years ago.  Travellers used to stop
+an' look around for the Point, an', of course, they couldn't see
+it, for there's none here; at least, no point of land.  They'd go
+in an' order drinks an' say:
+
+"'Landlord, where's the point?'
+
+"An' the landlord would say: 'Well, boys, if you ain't in a hurry
+you'll probably see it purty soon.'
+
+"All at once it would appear to 'em, an' it was apt to be an'
+amusin' bit o' scenery.
+
+"We've always been quick to see a point here, an' anxious to show
+it to other people."
+
+He leaned back and laughed as one foot sought the top of his desk.
+
+"Our balloons rise from every walk o' life an' come down out o'
+ballast," he went on.  "Many of 'em touch ground in the great
+financial aviation park that surrounds Wall Street.  In our stages
+of recovery the power of Lizzie has been widely felt."
+
+Up went his other foot.  I saw that the historical mood was upon
+him.
+
+"Talk about tryin' to cross the Atlantic in an air-ship--why,
+that's conservative," he continued.  "Right here in the eastern
+part o' Connecticut lives a man who set out for the vicinity of the
+moon with a large company--a joint-stock company--in his life-boat.
+First he made the journey with the hot-air-ship of his mind, an'
+came back with millions in the hold of his imagination.  Then he
+thought he'd experiment with a corporation of his friends--his
+surplus friends.  They got in on the ground floor, an' got out in
+the sky.  Most of 'em were thrown over for ballast.  The Wellman of
+this enterprise escaped with his life an' a little wreckage.  He
+was Mr.  Thomas Robinson Barrow, an' he came to consult me about
+his affairs.  They were in bad shape.
+
+"'Sell your big house an' your motor-cars,' I urged.
+
+"'That would have been easy,' he answered, 'but Lizzie has spoilt
+the market for luxuries.  You remember how she got high notions up
+at the Smythe school, an' began a life of extravagance, an' how we
+all tried to keep up with her, an' how the rococo architecture
+broke out like pimples on the face of Connecticut?'
+
+"I smiled an' nodded.
+
+"'Well, it was you, I hear, that helped her back to earth and
+started her in the simpleton life.  Since then she has been going
+just as fast, but in the opposite direction, and we're still tryin'
+to keep up with her.  Now I found a man who was going to buy my
+property, but suddenly his wife decided that they would get along
+with a more modest outfit.  She's trying to keep up with Lizzie.
+Folks are getting wise.'
+
+"'Why don't you?'
+
+"'Can't.'
+
+"'Why not?'
+
+"'Because I'm a born fool.  We're fettered; we're prisoners of
+luxury.'
+
+"Only a night or two before I had seen his wife at a reception with
+a rope of pearls in her riggin' an' a search-light o' diamonds on
+her forward deck an' a tiara-boom-de-ay at her masthead an' the
+flags of opulence flyin' fore an' aft.
+
+"'If I were you,' I said, 'I'd sell everything--even the jewels.'
+
+"'My poor wife!' he exclaimed.  'I haven't the heart to tell her
+all.  She don't know how hard up we are!'
+
+"'I wouldn't neglect her education if I were you,' I said.
+'There's a kindness, you know, that's most unkind.  Some day I
+shall write an article on the use an' abuse of tiaras--poor things!
+It isn't fair to overwork the family tiara.  I suggest that you get
+a good-sized trunk an' lock it up with the other jewels for a
+vacation.  If necessary your house could be visited by a
+burglar--that is, if you wanted to save the feelin's of your wife.'
+
+"He turned with a puzzled look at me.
+
+"'Is it possible that you haven't heard of that trick?' I asked--'a
+man of your talents!'
+
+"He shook his head.
+
+"'Why, these days, if a man wishes to divorce the family jewels an'
+is afraid of his wife, the house is always entered by a burglar.
+My dear sir, the burglar is an ever-present help in time of
+trouble.  It's a pity that we have no Gentleman's Home Journal in
+which poor but deservin' husbands could find encouragement an'
+inspiration.'
+
+"He looked at me an' laughed.
+
+"'Suppose you engage a trusty and reliable burglar?' he proposed.
+
+"'There's only one in the world.' I said.
+
+"'Who is it?'
+
+"'Thomas Robinson Barrow.  Of course, I'm not sayin' that if I
+needed a burglar he's just the man I should choose, but for this
+job he's the only reliable burglar.  Try him.'
+
+"He seemed to be highly amused.
+
+"'But it might be difficult to fool the police,' he said, in a
+minute.
+
+"'Well, it isn't absolutely necessary, you know,' I suggested.
+'The Chief of Police is a friend of mine.'
+
+"'Good!  I'm engaged for this job, and will sell the jewels and
+turn the money over to you.'
+
+"'I do not advise that--not just that,' I said.  'We'll retire them
+from active life.  A tiara in the safe is worth two in the Titian
+bush.  We'll use them for collateral an' go to doin' business.
+When we've paid the debts in full we'll redeem the goods an' return
+them to your overjoyed wife.  We'll launch our tiara on the Marcel
+waves.'
+
+"Tom was delighted with this plan--not the best, perhaps--but,
+anyhow, it would save his wife from reproach, an' I don't know what
+would have happened if she had continued to dazzle an' enrage his
+creditors with the pearls an' the tiara.
+
+"'It will not be so easy to sell the house,' Tom went on.  'That's
+our worst millstone.  It was built for large hospitality, and we
+have a good many friends, and they come every week and jump on to
+the millstone.'
+
+"'If one has to have a millstone he should choose it with
+discretion,' I said.  'It doesn't pay to get one that is too
+inviting.  You'll have to swim around with yours for a while, and
+watch your chance to slip it on to some other fellow's neck.  You
+don't want your son to be a millstonaire.  Some day a man of
+millions may find it a comfortable fit, an' relieve you.  They're
+buyin' places all about here.'
+
+"Tom left an' began work on our programme.  The burglary was well
+executed an' advertised.  It achieved a fair amount of
+publicity--not too much, you know, but enough.  The place was
+photographed by the reporters with the placard 'For Sale' showin'
+plainly on the front lawn.  The advertisin' was worth almost as
+much as the diamonds.  Tom said that his wife had lost weight since
+the sad event.
+
+"'Of course,' I said.  'You can't take ten pounds of jewelry from a
+woman without reducin' her weight.  She must have had a pint o'
+diamonds.'
+
+"'Pictures an' glowin' accounts of the villa were printed in all
+the papers, an' soon a millionaire wrote that it was just the place
+he was lookin' for.  I closed the deal with him.  It was Bill
+Warburton, who used to go to school with me up there on the hills.
+He had long been dreamin' of a home in Pointview.
+
+"They used to say that Bill was a fool, but he proved an alibi.
+Went West years ago an' made a fortune, an' thought it would be
+nice to come back an' finish his life where it began, near the
+greatest American city.  I drew the papers, an' Bill an' I got
+together often an' talked of the old happy days, now glimmering in
+the far past--some thirty-five years away,
+
+[Illustration: Bill an' I got together often an' talked of the old
+happy days.]
+
+"Well, they enlarged the house--that was already big enough for a
+hotel--an' built stables an' kennels an' pheasant yards an' houses
+for ducks an' geese an' peacocks.  They stocked up with fourteen
+horses, twelve hounds, nine collies, four setters, nineteen
+servants, innumerable fowls, an' four motor-cars, an' started in
+pursuit o' happiness.
+
+"You see, they had no children, an' all these beasts an' birds were
+intended to supply the deficiency in human life, an' assist in the
+campaign.  Well, somehow, it didn't succeed, an' one day Bill came
+into my office with a worried look.  He confided to me the
+well-known fact that his wife was nervous and unhappy.
+
+"'The doctors don't do her any good, an' I thought I'd try a
+lawyer,' said he.
+
+"'Do you want to sue Fate for damages or indict her for malicious
+persecution?' I asked.
+
+"'Neither,' he said, 'but you know the laws of nature as well as
+the laws of men.  I appeal to you to tell me what law my wife has
+broken, and how she can make amends.'
+
+"'You surprise me,' I said.  'You an' the madame can have
+everything you want, an' still you're unhappy.'
+
+"'What can we have that you can't?  You can eat as much, an' sleep
+better, an' wear as many clothes, an' see an' hear as well as we
+can.'
+
+"'Ah, but in the matter of quality I'm way behind the flag, Bill.
+You can wear cloth o' gold, an Russian sables, an' have champagne
+an' terrapin every meal, an' fiddlers to play while ye eat it, an'
+a brass band to march around the place with ye, an' splendid horses
+to ride, an' dogs to roar on ahead an' attract the attention of the
+populace.  You can have a lot of bankrupt noblemen to rub an'
+manicure an' adulate an' chiropodize ye, an' people who'd have to
+laugh at your wit or look for another job, an' authors to read from
+their own works--'
+
+"Bill interrupted with a gentle protest: 'Soc, how comforting you
+are!'
+
+"'Well, if all that is losin' its charm, what's the matter with
+travel?'
+
+"'Don't talk to me about travel,' said Bill.  'We've worn ruts in
+the earth now.  Our feet have touched every land.'
+
+"'How many meals do you eat a day?'
+
+"'Three.'
+
+"'Try six,' I suggested.
+
+"He laughed, an' I thought I was makin' progress, so I kept on.
+
+"'How many motor-cars have ye ?'
+
+"'Four.'
+
+"'Get eight,' I advised, as Bill put on the loud pedal.  'You've
+got nineteen servants, I believe, try thirty-eight.  You
+have--twenty-one dogs--get forty-two.  You can afford it.'
+
+"'Come, be serious,' said Bill.  'Don't poke fun at me.'
+
+"'Ah! but your wife must be able to prove that she has more dogs
+an' horses an' servants an' motor-cars, an' that she eats more
+meals in a day than any other woman in Connecticut.  Then, maybe,
+she'll be happy.  You know it's a woman's ambition to excel.'
+
+"'We have too many fool things now,' said Bill, mournfully.  'She's
+had enough of them--God knows!'
+
+"Something in Bill's manner made me sit up and stare at him.
+
+"'Of course, you don't mean that she wants another husband!' I
+exclaimed.
+
+"'I'm not so sure of that,' said Bill, sadly.  'Sometimes I'm
+almost inclined to think she does.'
+
+"'Well, that's one direction in which I should advise strict
+economy,' said I.  'You can multiply the dogs an' the horses, an'
+the servants an' the motor-cars, but in the matter o' wives an'
+husbands we ought to stick to the simple life.  Don't let her go to
+competing with those Fifth Avenue ladies.'
+
+"'I don't know what's the matter,' Bill went on.  'She's had
+everything that her heart could wish.  But, of course, she has had
+only one husband, and most of her friends have had two or three.
+They've outmarried her.  It may be that, secretly, she's just a
+little annoyed about that.  Many of her old friends are consumed
+with envy; their bones are rotten with it.  They smile upon her;
+they accept her hospitality; they declare their love, and they long
+for her downfall.  Now, my wife has a certain pride and joy in all
+this, but, naturally, it breeds a sense of loneliness--the bitter
+loneliness that one may find only in a crowd.  She turns more and
+more to me, and, between ourselves, she seems to have made up her
+mind that I don't love her, and I can't convince her that I do.'
+
+"'Well, Bill, I should guess that you have always been fond of your
+wife--and--true to her.'
+
+"'And you are right,' said Bill.  'I've loved with all my heart and
+with a conscience.  It's my only pride, for, of course, I might
+have been gay.  In society I enjoy a reputation for firmness.  It
+is no idle boast.'
+
+"'Well, Bill, you can't do anything more for her in the matter of
+food, raiment, beasts, or birds, an' as to jewelry she carries a
+pretty heavy stock.  I often feel the need of smoked glasses when I
+look at her.  You'll have to make up your mind as to whether she
+needs more or less.  I'll study the situation myself.  It may be
+that I can suggest something by-and-by--just as a matter of
+friendship.'
+
+"'Your common sense may discern what is needed,' said Bill.  'I
+wish you'd come at least once a week to dinner.  My wife would be
+delighted, to have you, Soc.  You are one of the few men who
+interest her.'
+
+"She was a pretty woman, distinguished for a look of weariness and
+a mortal fear of fat.  She had done nothing so hard an' so long,
+that, to her, nothing was all there was in the world--save fat.
+She was so busy about it that she couldn't sit still an' rest.  She
+wandered from one chair to another, smokin' a cigarette, an' now
+and then glancin' at her image in a mirror an' slyly feelin' her
+ribs to see if she had gained flesh that day.  She liked me because
+I was unlike any other man she had met.  I poked fun at her folly
+an' all the grandeur of the place.  I amused her as much as she
+amused me, perhaps.  Anyhow, we got to be good friends, an' the
+next Sunday we all drove out in a motor-car to see Lizzie.  Mrs.
+Bill wanted to meet her.  Lizzie had become famous.  She was
+walkin' up an' down the lawn with the infant in a perambulator, an'
+the small boy toddling along behind her.  We left Mrs. Bill with
+Lizzie an' the kids, an' set out for a tramp over the big farm.
+When we returned we found the ladies talkin' earnestly in the house.
+
+[Illustration: We set out for a tramp over the big farm.]
+
+"Before we left I called Lizzie aside for a minute.
+
+"'How do you get along with these babies?' I asked.
+
+"'They're the life of our home.  My father and mother think they
+couldn't live without them.'
+
+"'An' they're good practice for you,' I suggested.  'It's time you
+were plannin' for yourself, Lizzie.'
+
+"'I've no prospects,' said she.
+
+"'How is that?'
+
+"'Why, there's only one boy that I care for, an' he has had enough
+of me.'
+
+"'You don't mean Dan?'
+
+"'Yes,' she whispered with trembling lips, an' turned away.
+
+"'What's the matter?'
+
+"She pulled herself together an' answered in half a moment: 'Oh, I
+don't know!  He doesn't come often.  He goes around with other
+girls.'
+
+"'Well,' I said, 'it's the same ol' story.  He's only tryin' to
+keep up with Lizzie.  You've done some goin' around yourself.'
+
+"'I know, but I couldn't help it.'
+
+"'He knows, an' he couldn't help it,' I says.  'The boys have
+flocked around you, an' the girls have flocked around Dan.  They
+were afraid he'd get lonesome.  If I were you I'd put a mortgage on
+him an' foreclose it as soon as possible.'
+
+"'It's too late,' says she.  'I hear he's mortgaged.'
+
+"'You'd better search the records,' I says, 'an' if it ain't so,
+stop bein' careless.  You've put yer father on his feet.  Now look
+out for yerself.'
+
+"'I think he's angry on account of the ham war,' says she.
+
+"'Why do you think that?'
+
+"She told me the facts, an' I laughed 'til the tears came to my
+eyes.
+
+"'Nonsense,' I says, 'Dan will like that.  You wait 'til I tell
+him, an' he'll be up here with his throttle wide open.'
+
+"'Do you suppose he'd spend Christmas with us?' she asked, with a
+very sober look.  'You know, his mother an' father have gone South,
+an' he'll be all alone.'
+
+"'Ask him at once--call him on the 'phone,' I advised, an' bade her
+good-bye.
+
+"The happiness o' Lizzie an' the charm o' those kids had suggested
+an idea.  I made up my mind that I'd try to put Mr. an' Mrs. Bill
+on the job o' keepin' up with Lizzie.
+
+"'That's a wonderful woman,' said Mrs. Bill, as we drove away.  'I
+envy her--she's so strong and well and happy.  She loves those
+babies, and is in the saddle every afternoon, helping with the work
+o' the farm.'
+
+"'Why don't you get into the saddle and be as well and strong as
+she is?' Bill asked.
+
+"'Because I've no object--it's only a way of doing nothing,' said
+Mrs. Bill.  'I'm weary of riding for exercise.  There never was a
+human being who could keep it up long.  It's like you and your
+dumb-bells.  To my knowledge you haven't set a foot in your
+gymnasium for a month.  As a matter of fact, you're as tired of
+play as I am, every bit.  Why don't you go into Wall Street an' get
+poor?'
+
+"'Tired of play!' Bill exclaimed.  'Why, Grace, night before last
+you were playing bridge until three o'clock in the morning.'
+
+"'Well, it's a way of doing nothing skilfully and on the
+competitive plan,' said she.  'It gives me a chance to measure my
+capacity.  When I get through I am so weary that often I can go to
+sleep without thinking.  It seems to me that brains are a great
+nuisance to one who has no need of them.  Of course, by-and-by,
+they'll atrophy and disappear like the tails of our ancestors.
+Meanwhile, I suppose they are bound to get sore.  Mine is such a
+fierce, ill-bred, impudent sort of a brain, and it's as busy as a
+bat in a belfry.  I often wish that I had one of those soft,
+flexible, paralytic, cocker-spaniel brains, like that of our friend
+Mrs. Seavey.  She is so happy with it--so unterrified.  She is
+equally at home in bed or on horseback, reading the last best
+seller or pouring tea and compliments.  Now just hear how this
+brain of mine is going on about that poor, inoffensive creature!
+But that's the way it treats me.  It's a perfect heathen of a
+brain.'
+
+"Bill an' I looked at each other an' laughed.  Her talk convinced
+me of one thing--that her trouble was not the lack of a brain.
+
+"'You're always making fun of me,' she said.  'Why don't you give
+me something to do?'
+
+"'Suppose you wash the dishes?' said Bill.
+
+"'Would it please you?'
+
+"'Anything that pleases you pleases me.'
+
+"'I saw that she, too, was goin' to try to keep up with Lizzie, an'
+I decided that I'd help her.  When we arrived at the villa we made
+our way to its front door through a pack of collie dogs out for an
+airing.
+
+"'By-the-way,' I said, when we sat down to luncheon at Bill's
+house, 'congratulate me.  I'm a candidate for new honors.'
+
+[Illustration: I'm a candidate for new honors.]
+
+"'Those of a husband?  I've been hoping for that--you stubborn old
+bachelor.' said Mrs. Bill, expectantly.
+
+"'No,' I answered, 'I'm to be a father.'
+
+"Bill put down his fork an' turned an' stared at me.  Mrs. Bill
+leaned back in her chair with a red look of surprise.
+
+"'The gladdest, happiest papa in Connecticut,' I added.
+
+"Mrs. Bill covered her face with her napkin an' began to shake.
+
+"'S-Soc., have you fallen?' Bill stammered.
+
+"'No, I've riz,' I said.  'Don't blame me, ol' man, I had to do it.
+I've adopted some orphans.  I'm goin' to have an orphanage on the
+hill; but it will take a year to finish it.  I'm goin' to have five
+children.  They're beauties, an' I know that I'm goin' to love
+them.  I propose to take them out of the atmosphere of indigence
+an' wholesale charity.  They'll have a normal, pleasant home, an' a
+hired mother an' me to look after them--the personal touch, you
+know.  I expect to have a lot of fun with them.'
+
+"'But what a responsibility!' said Mrs. Bill.
+
+"'I know, but I feel the need of it.  Of course it's different with
+you--very different--you have all these dogs an' horses to be
+responsible for an' to give you amusement.  I couldn't afford that.
+Then, too, I'm a little odd, I guess.  I can get more fun out of
+one happy, human soul than out of all the dogs an' horses in
+creation.'
+
+"'But children!  Why, they're so subject to sickness and accident
+and death,' said Mrs. Bill.
+
+"'An' they're subject, also, to health an' life an' safety,' I
+answered.
+
+"'Yes, but you know--they'll be getting into all kinds of trouble.
+They'll worry you.'
+
+"'True; but as for worry, I don't mind that much,' I said.  'My
+best days were those that were full of worry.  Now, that I've won a
+competence an' my worries are gone, so is half my happiness.  You
+can't have sunshine without shadows.  There was one of my neighbors
+who was troubled with "boils."  He had to have 'em cured right
+away, an' a doctor gave him some medicine that healed 'em up, but
+he was worse off than ever.  The boils began to do business inside
+of him, an' he rushed back to the doctor.
+
+"'What's the matter now?" said the medical man.
+
+"'"Outside I'm sound as a dollar," said my neighbor, "but it seems
+as if all hell had moved into me."
+
+"'Now, cares are like boils: it don't do to get rid of 'em too
+quick.  They're often a great relief to the inside of a man, an'
+it's better to have 'em on the surface than way down in your
+marrow.'
+
+"Bill an' his wife looked into each other's eyes for half a minute,
+but neither spoke.
+
+"'I'm goin' to ask a favor of you,' I said.  'I see that there's
+nobody livin' in the old farm-house out back of the garden.  I wish
+you'd let me put my little family into it until I can build a home
+for 'em.'
+
+"'Oh, my!' Mrs.  Bill exclaimed.  'Those children would be running
+all over the lawns and the garden.  They'd destroy my roses.'
+
+"'True; but, after all, they're more beautiful than the roses,' I
+urged.  'They're more graceful in form, more charming in color.
+Then, too, roses cannot laugh or weep or play.  Roses cannot look
+up at you out of eyes full of the light of heaven an' brighter than
+your jewels.  Roses may delight, but they cannot love you or know
+that you love them.  Dear woman, my roses will wander over the
+lawns.  Their colors will be flickering about you, and the music of
+their voices will surround the villa some days; but, God knows,
+they'll look better, far better than the dogs or the bronze lions,
+or the roses.  I shall dress them well.'
+
+"'I think he's right,' said Bill.
+
+"'He's most disturbing and persuasive anyway--the revolutionist!'
+said Mrs. Bill.  'If it's really a favor to you, Mr.  Potter, I
+shall agree to it.  But you must have a trusty woman.  I really
+cannot assume any responsibility.'
+
+"'I thanked her and promised to assume all responsibility, and Mrs.
+Warburton was to get the old house ready at once.
+
+"Three days later I drove to the villa with my matron and the
+babies.  Rather quick work, wasn't it?  I hadn't let any grass grow
+under my plan.  When we lit at the front door every youngster broke
+out in a loud hurrah of merriment.  The three-year-old
+boy--beautiful beyond all words--got aboard one of the crouched
+lions and began to shout.  A little girl made a grab at the
+morning-glories on a Doric column, while her sister had mounted a
+swinging seat an' tumbled to the floor.  The other two were
+chattering like parrots.  Honestly, I was scared.  I was afraid
+that Mrs. Bill would come down and jump into hysterics.  I snaked
+the boy off the lion's back and rapped on him for order.  The
+matron got busy with the others.  In a jiffy it seemed as if they
+had all begun to wail an' roar.  I trembled when a maid opened the
+door an' I saw Mrs. Bill comin' down the staircase.  I wouldn't
+have been surprised to have seen the bronze lion get up an' run.
+
+[Illustration: Three days later I drove to the villa.]
+
+"'The saints defend us!' exclaimed Mrs. Bill, in the midst of the
+uproar.
+
+"'They're not at their best,' I shouted, 'but here they are.'
+
+"'Yes, I knew they were there,' said Mrs. Bill.  'This is the music
+of which you were speaking the other day.  Take them right around
+to the old house, if you please.  I'm sorry, but I must ask you to
+excuse me this morning.'
+
+"I succeeded in quellin' the tumult, and introduced the matron, who
+received a nod an' a look that made a dent in her, an' away we went
+around the great house, a melancholy, shuffling troop, now silent
+as the grave.  It looked dark for my little battalion with which I
+had been hoping to conquer this world within the villa gates.  They
+were of the great army of the friendless.
+
+"I asked Mrs. Hammond, the matron, to see that they did as little
+damage as possible, and left them surrounded by every comfort.
+
+"They had a telephone and unlimited credit at the stores, an' Mrs.
+Hammond was a motherly soul of much experience with children, an' I
+knew that I could trust her.
+
+"I was to dine with the Warburtons later in the week, an' before I
+entered the big house that evening I went around to the lodge.  The
+children were all well an' asleep in their beds, an' the matron
+apparently happy an' contented.  She said that Mrs. Bill had met
+them in the grounds that day, an' she told how the little
+three-year-old boy had exerted his charms upon my lady Warburton,
+who had spent half an hour leading him through the gardens.
+
+[Illustration: The boy had exerted his charms upon my lady
+Warburton.]
+
+"How beautiful he was lying asleep in his bed that evening!--his
+face like the old dreams of Eros, with silken, yellow, curly locks
+on his brow, an' long dark lashes, soft as the silk of the growing
+corn, an' a red mouth, so wonderfully curved, so appealing in its
+silence.  Beneath it were teeth like carved ivory.  Those baby lips
+seemed to speak to me and to say: 'O man that was born of a woman,
+and like me was helpless, give me your love or look not upon me!'
+
+"But I could not help looking, an" as I looked he smiled in what
+dreams--of things past or to come--I wish it were in me to tell
+you.  Something touched me--like a strong hand.  I went out under
+the trees in the darkness an' stood still an' wondered what had
+happened to me.  Great Scott!--me!  Socrates Potter, lawyer,
+statesman, horse-trader!
+
+"'With that little captain I could take a city,' I whispered, an' I
+got up an' brushed myself off, as it were, an' walked around to the
+front door of the great house.
+
+"Therein I was to witness an amusing comedy.  The butler wore a new
+sort of grin as he took my wraps at the door.  There were guests,
+mostly from New York an' Greenwich.  We had taken our seats at the
+table when, to my surprise, Mrs. Bill, in a grand costume, with a
+tiara on her head, an' a collar of diamonds on her neck, began to
+serve the caviar.
+
+"'Ladies and gentlemen,' said she, 'this is to convince Mr.
+Socrates Potter that I can do useful work.  I'm dieting, anyhow,
+and I can't eat.'
+
+"'My friend, I observe that you are serving us, and we are proud,
+but you do not appear to be serving a purpose,' I said.
+
+"'Now, don't spoil it all with your relentless logic,' she began.
+'You see, I am going to take a hand in this keeping-up-with-Lizzie
+business.  One of our ladies had to give up a dinner-party the
+other day, because her butlers had left suddenly.'
+
+"'"Why didn't you and a maid serve the dinner yourselves?" I said.
+
+"'"Impossible!" was her proud answer.
+
+"'"It would have been a fine lark.  I would have done it," I said.
+
+"'"I'd like to see you," she laughed.
+
+"'"You shall," I answered, and here I am.'
+
+"Now, there were certain smiles which led me to suspect that it was
+a blow aimed at one of the ladies who sat at the table with us, but
+of that I am not sure.
+
+"'I'm also getting my hand in,' our hostess went on.  'Bill and I
+are going to try the simple life.  Tomorrow we move into the
+log-cabin, where we shall do our own work, and send the servants
+off for a week's holiday.  I'm going to do the cooking--I've been
+learning how--and I shall make the beds, and Bill is to chop the
+wood, and help wash the dishes, and we shall sleep out-of-doors.
+It will, I hope, be a lesson to some of these proud people around
+us who are living beyond their means.  That's good, isn't it?'
+
+"'Excellent!' I exclaimed, as the others laughed.
+
+"'Incidentally, it will help me to reduce,' she added.
+
+"'An' it promises to reduce Bill,' I said.  'It will kill Bill, I
+fear, but it will pay.  You might change your plan a little--Just a
+little--an' save poor Bill.  Think of eating biscuit an' flapjacks
+from the hand of a social leader!  Between the millstones of duty
+and indigestion he will be sadly ground, but with the axe he may,
+if he will, defend his constitution.'
+
+"'Well, what's a constitution between husband and wife?' she asked.
+"'Nothin'.' I says.  'Bear in mind I wouldn't discourage you.  With
+the aid of the axe his ancestors were able to withstand the
+assaults of pork an' beans an' pie.  If he uses it freely, he is
+safe.'
+
+"'You see, I shall have him in a position where he must work or
+die,' said Mrs.  Bill.
+
+"'He'll die,' said a guest.
+
+"'I call it a worthy enterprise whatever the expense,' I said.  'It
+will set a fashion here an' a very good one.  In this community
+there are so many dear ladies who are prisoners of gravitation.
+They rely almost exclusively on hired hands an' feet, an' are
+losin' the use o' their own.  What confusion will spread among them
+when they learn that Mrs. William Henry Warburton, the richest
+woman in Fairfield County, and the daughter of a bishop, has been
+doin' her own work!  What consternation!  What dismay!  What female
+profanity!  What a revision of habits an' resolutions!  Why,
+there's been nothin' like it since the descent of Lizzie.'
+
+"'I think it's terrible,' said a fat lady from Louisville,
+distinguished for her appetite, an' often surreptitiously referred
+to as 'The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.' 'The idea of trying to make
+it fashionable to endure drudgery!  I think we women have all we
+can do now.'
+
+"'To be respectable,' said Mrs. Bill; 'but let's try to do
+something else.'
+
+"'Why don't you form a Ladies' Protective Union,' Bill suggested,
+'an' choose the tiara for a symbol, an' strike for no hours a day
+an' all your husbands can earn?'
+
+"'And the employment of skilled idlers only,' Mrs.  Bill put in.
+'They must all know how to do nothing in the modern way--by
+discussing the rights of women and the novel of lust, and the
+divorces past and prospective, by playing at bridge and
+benevolence.  How absurd it all is!  I'm not going to be an
+overgrown child any longer.'
+
+"I saw that Mrs. Bill was makin' progress, an' with her assistance
+I began to hope for better things in that neighborhood.
+
+"You've got to reach the women somehow, you see, before you can
+improve the social conditions of a community.  I love them, but
+many are overgrown children, as Mrs. Bill had put it, an' doin'
+nothing with singular skill an' determination an' often with
+appalling energy.
+
+"Our pretty hostess had been helping a butler, as this talk went
+on, an' presently one of the other ladies joined her, an' never was
+any company so picturesquely an' amusingly served.
+
+"'I've quite fallen in love with that three-year-old boy,' said
+Mrs. Bill, as we rose from the table.  'I had a good romp with him
+to-day.'
+
+"'I wish you'd go over to the old farm-house with me; I want to
+show you something,' I said.
+
+"In a moment we were in wraps an' making our way across the lawn.
+
+"'I was glad to get a rap at that Mrs. Barrow,' she whispered, as
+we walked along.  'She's just got back her jewels that were stolen,
+and has begun to go out again.  She's the vainest, proudest fool of
+a woman, and her husband is always borrowing money.  Did you know
+it?'
+
+"'Some--that is, fairly well,' I said, with bitterness.
+
+"'So does Bill, and she goes about with the airs of a grand lady
+and the silliest notions.  Really, it was for her benefit that I
+helped the butler.'
+
+"'If it weren't for Bill I'd call you an angel,' I said.  'You have
+it in your power to redeem the skilled idlers of this community.'
+
+"We reached the little house so unlike the big, baronial thing we
+had left.  It was a home.  Mrs. Hammond sat by the reading-lamp in
+its cozy sitting-room before an open fire.  She led us into the
+bedroom with the lamp in her hand.  There lay the boy as I had left
+him, still smiling with a lovelier, softer red in his cheeks than
+that of roses.
+
+[Illustration: She led us into the bedroom.]
+
+"'See the color and the dimples,' I said.
+
+"She looked from one to another, an' suddenly the strong appeal of
+their faces fell upon her.  She raised the boy from his bed, an' he
+put his arms around her neck an' began to talk in a tender baby
+treble.
+
+"Did you ever hear the voice of a child just out of dreamland, when
+it expresses, not complaint, but love an' contentment?  Well, sir,
+it is the sweetest, the most compelling note in all nature, I
+believe.  It is like a muted violin--voice of God or voice of
+man--which is it?  I dare not say, but I do know that the song of
+the hermit-thrush is but sounding brass compared with that.
+
+"I felt its power, an' I said to myself: 'I will waste my life no
+longer.  I will marry.'
+
+"She, too, had felt it.  The little captain had almost overcome
+her.  She laid him down, an' we turned away.
+
+"We walked through the garden paths, an' neither spoke, but in the
+stillness I could hear trumpets of victory.  We entered the great
+hall an' sat with the others by its fireside, but took little part
+in the talk.  When I made my adieus she shook my hand warmly and
+said I was very good to them.
+
+"Save for its good example, the log-cabin experiment was not a
+success.  They slept with all the doors and windows open, an' one
+night a skunk came in an' got under the bed.  Mrs. Bill discovered
+that they had company, an' Bill got up an' lit the lantern, an'
+followed the clew to its source.  He threatened an' argued an'
+appealed to the skunk's better nature with a doughnut, but the
+little beast sat unmoved in his corner.  The place seemed to suit
+him.
+
+"Bill got mad an' flung the axe at him.  It was a fatal move--fatal
+to the skunk an' the cabin an' the experiment, an' a blow to the
+sweetness an' sociological condition of Connecticut.
+
+"They returned to the big house, an' by-an'-by told me of their
+adventure.
+
+"'Don't be discouraged,' I said.  'You will find skunks in every
+walk of life, but when you do, always throw down your cards an'
+quit the game.  They can deal from the bottom of the pack.  You
+haven't a ghost of a show with 'em.'
+
+"Being driven out of the cabin, Mrs. Bill gave most of her leisure
+to the farm-house, where I had spent an hour or more every day.
+
+"Suddenly I saw that a wonderful thing had happened to me.  I was
+in love with those kids, an' they with me.  The whole enterprise
+had been a bluff conceived in the interest of the Warburtons.  I
+hadn't really intended to build a house, but suddenly I got busy
+with all the mechanics I could hire in Pointview, and the house
+began to grow like a mushroom.
+
+"Another wonderful thing happened.  Mrs. Warburton fell in love
+with the kids, and they with her.  She romped with them on the
+lawn; she took them out to ride every day; she put them to bed
+every night; she insisted upon buying their clothes; she bought
+them a pony an' a little omnibus; she built them a playhouse for
+their comfort.  The whole villa began to revolve around the
+children.  They called her mama an' they called me papa, a
+sufficiently singular situation.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+IN WHICH THE PURSUIT OF LIZZIE BECOMES HIGHLY SERIOUS
+
+Dan had been out of town, an' immediately on his return he came to
+my office.
+
+"'How's business?' I asked.
+
+"'Well, the ham war was a little hard on us, but we're picking up,'
+says he.  'They're still selling hams way below a decent price over
+at Henshaw's.  I don't see how they can do it.'
+
+"'I do,' I says.
+
+"'Please explain," says Dan.
+
+"'Don't you know that Lizzie was buyin' most o' those hams that you
+sold way below the wholesale price, an' that she's now makin' a
+good profit on 'em?' I says.
+
+"'Great Scott!' Dan exclaimed, as he sank in a chair.
+
+"'The fact is, Dan, the only way to keep up with that girl is to
+marry her,' says I.  'Get busy.  If you don't somebody else will.
+Put a mortgage on her an' foreclose it as soon as possible.  As a
+floatin' asset Lizzie is dangerous.'
+
+"Dan picked up his hat an' started for the door.
+
+"'Tell her she must do business or you'll cut the price of
+Pettigrews,' I suggested.
+
+"'Good idea!' he answered, as he went away.
+
+"Meanwhile Mr. an' Mrs. Bill Warburton were hot on the trail of
+Lizzie.
+
+"Bill came to me one day an' said: 'Those babies have solved the
+problem; my wife is happy and in excellent health.  She sleeps an'
+eats as well as ever, an' her face has a new look--you have
+observed it?'
+
+"'Certainly, Bill, an' you're goin' to hear some rather chesty an'
+superior talk.  I saw what was the matter long ago--she was
+motor-sick, an' tiara-sick, an' dog-sick, an' horse-sick.  She was
+sick of idleness an' rich food an' adulation.  She has discovered
+that there are only three real luxuries--work, children,
+motherhood--that to shirk responsibility is to forfeit happiness.
+I have been a little disappointed in you, Bill.  Your father was a
+minister; he had the love of men in his soul.  You seem to have
+taken to dogs an' horses with an affection almost brotherly.  I
+don't blame you so much.  When men get rich they naturally achieve
+a passion for the things that money will buy.  They think they've
+got to improve the breed o' dogs an' horses, an' they're apt to
+forget the breed o' men.  You've been pursuin' Happiness with dogs,
+horses, an' motor-cars.  You never can catch her in that
+way--never.  Don't you remember, Bill, that in the old days we
+didn't pursue Happiness?  Why, Happiness pursued us an' generally
+caught us.  Some days she didn't succeed until we were all tired
+out, an' then she led us away into the wonderful land o' dreams,
+an' it was like heaven.  You never get Happiness by pursuin'
+_her_--that's one dead sure thing.  Happiness is never captured.
+She comes unbidden or not at all.  She travels only in one path,
+an' you haven't found it.  Bill, we've strayed a little.  Let's try
+to locate the trail o' Happiness.  I believe we're gettin' near it.
+
+"'Last year a colt of yours won a classic event of the turf.  How
+much finer it would be if you had some boys in training for the
+sublime contests of life, an' it wouldn't cost half so much.  You
+know, there are plenty of homeless boys who need your help.
+Wouldn't it pay better to develop a Henry M. Stanley--once a
+homeless orphan--than a Salvator or an Ormonde or a Rayon d'Or?'
+
+"'Pound away,' said Bill.  'Nail an' rivet me to the cross.  I
+haven't a word to say, except this: What in the devil do ye want me
+to do?'
+
+"'Well, ye might help to redeem New England,' I said.  'The Yankee
+blood is runnin' out, an' it's a pity.  To-day the Yankees are
+almost a childless race.  Do ye know the reason?'
+
+"He shook his head.
+
+"'It costs so much to live,' I says.  'We can't afford children.
+To begin with, the boys an' girls don't marry so young.  They can't
+stand the expense.  They're all keepin' up with Lizzie, but on the
+wrong road.  The girls are worse than the boys.  They go out o' the
+private school an' beat the bush for a husband.   At first they
+hope to drive out a duke or an earl; by-an'-by they're willin' to
+take a common millionaire; at last they conclude that if they can't
+get a stag they'll take a rabbit.  Then we learn that they're
+engaged to a young man, an' are goin' to marry as soon as he can
+afford it.  He wears himself out in the struggle, an' is apt to be
+a nervous wreck before the day arrives.  They are nearin' or past
+thirty when he decides that with economy an' _no children_ they can
+afford to maintain a home.  The bells ring, the lovely strains from
+"Lohengrin" fill the grand, new house o' God, an' overflow into the
+quiet streets o' the village, an' we hear in them what Wagner never
+thought of--_the joyful death-march of a race_.  Think of it, Bill,
+this old earth is growin' too costly for the use o' man.  We prefer
+autos an' diamonds an' knick-knacks!  Life has become a kind of a
+circus where only the favored can pay the price of admission, an'
+here in America, where about all the great men we have had were
+bred in cabins, an' everything worth a fish-hook came out o'
+poverty!  You have it in your power to hasten the end o' this
+wickedness,' I said.  'For one thing, you can make the middleman
+let go of our throats in this community.  Near here are hundreds of
+acres o' land goin' to waste.  Buy it an' make it produce--wool,
+meat, flax, grains, an' vegetables.  Start a market an' a small
+factory here, an' satisfy yourself as to what is a just price for
+the necessaries of life.  If the tradesmen are overchargin' us,
+they'll have to reduce prices.  Put your brain an' money into it;
+make it a business.  At least, you'll demonstrate what it ought to
+cost to live here in New England.  If it's so much that the average
+Yankee can't afford it by honest work--if we must all be lawyers or
+bankers or brokers or graspin' middle-men in order to live--let's
+start a big Asylum for the Upright, an' give 'em a chance to die
+comfortably.  But it isn't so.  I can raise potatoes right here for
+thirty cents a bushel, as good as those you pay forty cents a peck
+for at Sam Henshaw's.  You'll set an example of inestimable value
+in this republic of ours.  Dan has begun the good work, an'
+demonstrated that it will pay.'
+
+"'It's a good idea--I'm with you,' he said.  'If we can get the
+boys an' girls to marry while the bloom is on the rye, it's worth
+while, an' I wouldn't wonder if indirectly we'd increase the crop
+of Yankees an' the yield of happiness to the acre.'
+
+"'Bill, you're a good fellow,' I said.  'You only need to be
+reminded of your duty--you're like many another man.'
+
+"'And I'll think you the best fellow in the world if you'll let us
+keep those kids.  We enjoy them.  We've been having a lot of fun
+lately.'
+
+"'I can't do that,' I said, 'but I'll keep 'em here until we can
+get some more.  There are thousands of them as beautiful, as
+friendless, as promising as these were.'
+
+"'I wish you could let us have these,' he urged.  'We wouldn't
+adopt them, probably, but we'd do our best for them--our very best.'
+
+"'I can't,' I answered.
+
+"'Why?'
+
+"'Because they've got hold of my old heart--that's why.  I hadn't
+looked for that, Bill, but the little cusses have conquered _me_.'
+
+"'Great God!' he exclaimed.  'I hadn't thought of that.  And my
+wife told me this morning that she loves that three-year-old boy as
+dearly as she loves me.  They've all won her heart.  What shall I
+do?'
+
+"'Let me think it over,' I said, an' shook his hand an' left, an' I
+knew that I was likely to indulge in the makin' of history right
+away.
+
+"I went home an' sat down an' wrote the best brief of my career--an
+appeal to the Supreme Court o' this planet--a woman's heart.  It
+was a letter to one whose name I honored although I had not written
+it in years.
+
+"Next mornin' I plunged into a lawsuit an' was workin' night an'
+day, until the jury came in with a verdict an' court adjourned for
+the Christmas holidays.
+
+"An' that day a decision was handed down in my appeal to the court
+of last resort.  It was a cablegram from an Italian city, an' a
+verdict in my favor.  I am to get in that case the best fee on
+record--a wife and the love of a dear and beautiful woman.  We went
+to school together, and I am ashamed that I didn't ask her to marry
+me years ago.  So much for me had Lizzie an' the kids accomplished.
+
+"I was to dine with the Warburtons Christmas Eve, and be Santa
+Claus for the children.  I bought a set o' whiskers an' put on my
+big fur coat and two sets o' bells on the mare, an' drove to the
+villa, with a full pack in the buggy an' a fuller heart in my
+breast.
+
+"Bill an' Mrs. Bill an' I went over to the farm-house together with
+our arms full.  The children were in a room up-stairs with Mrs.
+Hammond waiting for Santa Claus.  Below we helped the two maids,
+who were trimming the Christmas tree--and a wonderful tree it was
+when we were done with it--why, sir, you'd have thought a rainbow
+was falling into a thicket on the edge of a lake.  My friend, it
+was the tree of all fruits.
+
+"We filled the little stockings hanging on the mantel.  Then they
+helped me to put on my beard an' the greatcoat an' cap an' the pack
+over all, an' Mrs. Bill an' I went out-of-doors.  We stood still
+an' listened for a moment.  Two baby voices were calling out of an
+upper window: 'Santa Claus, please come, Santa Claus!' Then we
+heard the window close an' the chatter above stairs, but we stood
+still.  Mrs. Bill seemed to be laughing, but I observed that her
+handkerchief had the centre of the stage in this little comedy.
+
+"In half a minute I stole down the road an' picked up the bells
+that lay beside it, an' came prancin' to the door with a great
+jingle, an' in I went an' took my stand by the Christmas tree.  We
+could hear the hurry of small feet, an' eager, half-hushed voices
+in the hall overhead.  Then down the stairway came my slender
+battalion in the last scene of the siege.  Their eyes were wide
+with wonder, their feet slow with fear.  The little captain of
+three years ran straight to Mrs. Bill an' lay hold of her gown, an'
+partly hid himself in its folds, an' stood peekin' out at me.  It
+was a masterful bit of strategy.  I wonder how he could have done
+it so well.  She raised him in her arms an' held him close.  A
+great music-box in a corner began to play:
+
+  "'O tannenbaum! O tannenbaum!
+  wie grun sind deine blaetter!'
+
+[Illustration: Their eyes were wide with wonder.]
+
+"Then with laughter an' merry jests we emptied the pack, an'
+gathered from the tree whose fruit has fed the starving human heart
+for more than a thousand years, an' how it filled those friends o'
+mine!
+
+"Well, it was the night of my life, an' when I turned to go, its
+climax fell upon me.  Mrs. Bill kneeled at my feet, an' said with
+tears in her eyes, an' her lips an' voice trembling:
+
+"'O Santa Claus! you have given me many things, but I beg for
+more--five more.'
+
+"The city had fallen.  Its queen was on her knees.  The victorious
+army was swarming into the open gate of her arms.  The hosts of
+doubt an' fear were fleeing.
+
+"I refuse to tell you all that happened in the next minute or two.
+A witness has some rights when testifyin' against his own manhood.
+
+"I helped the woman to her feet, an' said:
+
+"'They are yours.  I shall be happy enough, and, anyhow, I do not
+think I shall need them now.'
+
+"An' so I left them as happy as human beings have any right to be.
+At last they had caught up with Lizzie, an' I, too, was in a fair
+way to overtake her.
+
+"An' how fared Dan in his pursuit of that remarkable maiden?  Why,
+that very night Lizzie an' Dan had been shakin' the tree o' love,
+an' I guess the fruit on it was fairly ripe an' meller.  Next day
+they came up to my house together.
+
+"Dan couldn't hold his happiness, an' slopped over as soon as he
+was inside the door.
+
+"'Mr. Potter,' says he, with more than Christmas merriment, 'we're
+going to be married next month.'
+
+"Before I could say a word he had gathered Lizzie up in his arms
+an' kissed her, an' she kissed back as prompt as if it had been a
+slap in a game o' tag.
+
+"'You silly man,' she says, 'you could have had me long ago.'
+
+"'If I'd only 'a' known it,' he says.
+
+"'Oh, the ignorance o' some men!' she says, lookin' into his eyes.
+
+"'It exceeds the penetration o' some women,' I says.
+
+"They came together ag'in quite spiteful.  I separated 'em.
+
+"'Quit,' I says.  'Stop pickin' on each other.  It provokes you an'
+me too.  You're like a pair o' kids turned loose in a candy store.
+Behave yerselves an' listen to reason.'
+
+"Lizzie turned upon me as if she thought it was none o' my
+business.  Then she smiled an' hid her face on the manly breast o'
+Dan.
+
+"'Now Lizzie,' I says, 'get yer mind in workin' order as soon as ye
+can.  Dan, you go over an' stand by the window.  I want you to keep
+at least ten paces apart, an' please don't fire 'til ye get the
+signal.  I'm goin' to give a prize for the simplest weddin' that
+ever took place in Pointview,' I says.  'It will be five hundred
+dollars in gold for the bride.  Don't miss it.'
+
+"'The marriage will occur at noon,' says Lizzie.  'There'll be
+nothing but simple morning frocks.  The girls can wear calico if
+they wish.  No jewels, no laces, no elaborate breakfast."
+
+"'An' no presents, but mine, that cost over five dollars each,' I
+says.
+
+"An' that's the way it was--like old times.  No hard work wasted in
+gettin' ready, no vanity fair, no heart-burnin', no bitter envy, no
+cussin' about the expense.  There was nothing but love an'
+happiness an' goodwill at that wedding.  It was just as God would
+have a wedding, I fancy, if He were the master o' ceremonies, as He
+ought to be.
+
+"They are now settled on a thousand acres o' land here in New
+England.  Dan has eight gangs o' human oxen from Italy at work for
+him getting in his fertilizers.  He rides a horse all day an' is as
+cordy as a Roman gladiator.  Do you know what it means?  Ten
+thousand like him are going into the same work, the greed o' the
+middleman will be checked, an' one o' these days the old earth 'll
+be lopsided with the fruitfulness of America."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+IN WHICH THE HONORABLE SOCRATES POTTER CATCHES UP WITH LIZZIE
+
+Early in June I was invited to the wedding of Miss Betsey Smead and
+the Honorable Socrates Potter.  Miss Betsey had inherited a large
+estate, and lived handsomely in the Smead homestead, built by her
+grandfather.  She was a woman of taste and refinement, but, in
+deference to Socrates, no doubt, the invitations had been printed
+in the office of the local newspaper.  There could have been no
+better example of honest simplicity.  The good news sent me in
+quest of my friend the lawyer.  I found him in Miss Betsey's
+library.  He was in high spirits and surrounded by treasures of art.
+
+"Yes, I'm in luck," he began.  "Miss Betsey is a dear soul.  We're
+bound to be happy in spite of all this polished brass an' plate an'
+mahogany.  There's nothin' here that I can put my feet on, except
+the rugs or the slippery floor or the fender.  Everything has the
+appearance o' bein' more valuable than I am.  If it was mine I'd
+take an axe an' bring things down to my level.  I'm kind o' scairt
+for fear I'll sp'ile suthin' er other.  Sometimes I feel as if I'd
+like to crawl under the grand pyano an' git out o' danger.  Now
+look at old gran'pa Smead in his gold frame on the wall.  He's got
+me buffaloed.  Watches every move I make.  Betsey laughs an' tells
+me I can sp'ile anything I want to, but gran'pa is ever remindin'
+me o' the ancient law o' the Smeads an' the Persians."
+
+"Mr. Potter, I owe so much to you," I said.  "I want to make you a
+present--something that you and your wife will value.  I've thought
+about it for weeks.  Can you--"
+
+He interrupted me with a smile and these gently spoken words:
+
+"Friends who wish to express their good-will in gifts are requested
+to consider the large an' elegant stock o' goods in the local
+ninety-nine-cent store.  Everything from socks to sunbursts may be
+found there.  Necklaces an' tiaras are not prohibited if guaranteed
+to be real ninety-nine-centers.  These days nobody has cheap
+things.  That makes them rare an' desirable.  All diamonds should
+weigh at least half a pound.  Smaller stones are too common.
+Everybody has them, you know.  Why, the wife of the butcher's clerk
+is payin' fifty cents a week on a solitaire.  Gold, silver, an'
+automobiles will be politely but firmly refused--too common, far
+too common!  Nothin' is desired likely to increase envy or bank
+loans or other forms of contemporaneous crime in Pointview.  We
+would especially avoid increasin' the risk an' toil of overworked
+an' industrious burglars.  They have enough to do as it is--poor
+fellows--they hardly get a night's rest.  Miss Betsey's home has
+already given 'em a lot o' trouble."
+
+His humor had relieved its pressure in the deep, good-natured
+chuckle of the Yankee, as he strode up an' down the floor with both
+hands in his trousers pockets.
+
+"Look at that ol' duffer," he went on, as he pointed at the stern
+features of grandpa Smead.  "Wouldn't ye think he'd smile now an'
+then.  Maybe he'll cheer up after I've lived here awhile."
+
+He moved a couple of chairs to give him more room, an' went on:
+
+"Now, there's Bill Warburton.  I supposed he was a friend o' mine,
+but we had a fight in school, years ago, an' I guess he's never got
+over it.  Anyhow, I caught him tryin' to slip an automobile on
+me--just caught him in time.  There he was tryin' to rob me o' the
+use o' my legs an' about fifteen hundred a year for expenses an'
+build me up into a fat man with indigestion an' liver-complaint.  I
+served an injunction on him.
+
+"Another man has tried to make me the lifelong slave of a silver
+service.  He'd gone down to Fifth Avenue an' ordered it, an' I
+suppose it would 'a' cost thousands.  Tried to sneak it on me.  Can
+ye think o' anything meaner?  It would 'a' cost me a pretty penny
+for insurance an' storage the rest o' my life, an' then think of
+our--ahem--our poor children!  Why, it would be as bad as a
+mortgage debt.  Every time I left home I would have worried about
+that silver service; every time the dog barked at night I would
+have trembled in my bed for the safety o' the silver service; every
+time we had company I would have been afraid that somebody was
+goin' to scratch the silver service; an' when I saw a stranger in
+town, I would have said to myself: 'Ah, ha! it may be that he has
+heard of our silver service an' has come to steal it.'  I would
+have begun to regard my servants an' many other people with dread
+an' suspicion.  Why, once I knew a man who had a silver service,
+an' they carried it up three nights to the attic every night for
+fifty years.  They figured that they'd walked eleven hundred miles
+up an' down stairs with the silver service in their hands.  The
+thought that they couldn't take it with 'em hastened an' embittered
+their last days.  Then the heirs learned that it wasn't genuine
+after all.
+
+"Of course, I put another injunction upon that man.  'If we've ever
+done anything to you, forgive us,' I said, 'but please do not
+cripple us with gold or silver.'"
+
+He stopped and put his hand upon my shoulder and continued:
+
+"My young friend, if you would make us a gift, I wish it might be
+something that will give us pleasure an' not trouble, something
+that money cannot buy an' thieves cannot steal--your love an' good
+wishes to be ours as long as you live an' we live--at least.  We
+shall need no token o' that but your word an' conduct."
+
+I assured him of all he asked for with a full heart.
+
+"Should I come dressed?" was my query.
+
+"Dressed, yes, but not dressed up," he answered.  "Neither white
+neckties nor rubber boots will be required."
+
+"How are Mr. and Mrs. Bill?"
+
+"Happier than ever," said he.  "Incidentally they've learned that
+life isn't all a joke, for one of those little brownies led them to
+the gate of the great mystery an' they've begun to look through it
+an' are' wiser folks.  Two other women are building orphan lodges
+on their grounds, an' there's no tellin' where the good work will
+end."
+
+We were interrupted by the entrance of Miss Betsey Smead.  She was
+a comely, bustling, cheerful little woman of about forty-five, with
+a playful spirit like that of Socrates himself.
+
+"This is my _financee_," said Socrates.  "She has waited for me
+twenty-five years."
+
+"And he kept me waiting--the wretch!--just because my grandfather
+left me his money," said Miss Betsey.
+
+"I shall never forgive that man," said Socrates, as he shook his
+fist at the portrait.  "An' she was his only grandchild, too."
+
+"And think how comfortable he might have been here, and how I've
+worried about him."  Miss Betsey went on: "Here, Soc., put your
+feet on this piano seat.  Now you look at home."
+
+"When I achieve the reformation of Betsey I shall have a kitchen
+table to put my feet on!" said Soc., as I left them.
+
+Then I decided that I would send him a kitchen table.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Keeping up with Lizzie, by Irving Bacheller
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11503 ***
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9a0f12c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #11503 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11503)
diff --git a/old/11503.txt b/old/11503.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..43b510f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11503.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3167 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Keeping up with Lizzie, by Irving Bacheller
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Keeping up with Lizzie
+
+Author: Irving Bacheller
+
+Release Date: March 16, 2004 [EBook #11503]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+KEEPING UP
+
+WITH
+
+LIZZIE
+
+BY
+
+IRVING BACHELLER
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+W.H.D.KOERNER
+
+
+
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1910, 1911, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+PUBLISHED MARCH, 1911
+
+C-N
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+THE LOVING AND BELOVED
+"MR. ONEDEAR"
+I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAP.
+
+I.   IN WHICH THE LEADING TRADESMEN OF POINTVIEW
+     BECOME A BOARD OF ASSESSORS
+
+II.  IN WHICH LIZZIE RETURNS TO HER HOME, HAVING MET A QUEEN
+     AND ACQUIRED AN ACCENT AND A FIANCE
+
+III. IN WHICH LIZZIE DESCENDS PROM A GREAT HEIGHT
+
+IV.  IN WHICH THE HAM WAR HAS ITS BEGINNING
+
+V.   IN WHICH LIZZIE EXERTS AN INFLUENCE ON THE AFFAIRS
+     OF THE RICH AND GREAT
+
+VI.  IN WHICH THE PURSUIT OF LIZZIE BECOMES HIGHLY SERIOUS
+
+VII. IN WHICH THE HONORABLE SOCRATES POTTER CATCHES UP
+     WITH LIZZIE
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+A DUEL WITH AUTOMOBILES
+
+WITH HIS MIND ON THE SUBJECT OF EXTRAVAGANCE
+
+"SEVEN DOLLARS A BARREL"
+
+"I WANTED YE TO TELL MR. POTTER ABOUT YER TRAVELS," SAYS SAM
+
+LIZZIE DROPPED INTO A CHAIR AND BEGAN TO CRY
+
+BILL AN' I GOT TOGETHER OFTEN AN' TALKED OF THE OLD HAPPY DAYS
+
+WE SET OUT FOR A TRAMP OVER THE BIG FARM
+
+"I'M A CANDIDATE FOR NEW HONORS"
+
+THREE DAYS LATER I DROVE TO THE VILLA
+
+THE BOY EXERTED HIS CHARMS UPON MY LADY WARBURTON.
+
+SHE LED US INTO THE BEDROOM
+
+THEIR EYES WERE WIDE WITH WONDER
+
+
+
+
+KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE
+
+
+
+
+KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE
+
+IN WHICH THE LEADING TRADESMEN OF POINTVIEW BECOME A BOARD OF
+ASSESSORS
+
+The Honorable Socrates Potter was the only "scientific man" in the
+village of Pointview, Connecticut.  In every point of manhood he
+was far ahead of his neighbors.  In a way he had outstripped
+himself, for, while his ideas were highly modern, he clung to the
+dress and manners that prevailed in his youth.  He wore broadcloth
+every day, and a choker, and chewed tobacco, and never permitted
+his work to interfere with the even tenor of his conversation.  He
+loved the old times and fashions, and had a drawling tongue and
+often spoke in the dialect of his fathers, loving the sound of it.
+His satirical mood was sure to be flavored with clipped words and
+changed tenses.  The stranger often took him for a "hayseed," but
+on further acquaintance opened his mouth in astonishment, for Soc.
+Potter, as many called him, was a man of insight and learning and
+of a quality of wit herein revealed.  He used to call himself "an
+attorney and peacemaker," but he was more than that.  He was the
+attorney and friend of all his clients, and the philosopher of his
+community.  If one man threatened another with the law in that
+neighborhood, he was apt to do it in these terms, "We'll see what
+Soc. Potter has to say about that."
+
+"All right! We'll see," the other would answer, and both parties
+would be sure to show up at the lawyer's office.  Then, probably,
+Socrates would try his famous lock-and-key expedient.  He would sit
+them down together, lock the door, and say, "Now, boys, I don't
+believe in getting twelve men for a job that two can do better,"
+and generally he would make them agree.
+
+He had an office over the store of Samuel Henshaw, and made a
+specialty of deeds, titles, epigrams, and witticisms.
+
+He was a bachelor who called now and then at the home of Miss
+Betsey Smead, a wealthy spinster of Pointview, but nothing had ever
+come of it.
+
+He sat with his feet on his desk and his mind on the subject of
+extravagance.  When he was doing business he sat like other men,
+but when his thought assumed a degree of elevation his feet rose
+with it.  He began his story by explaining that it was all true but
+the names.
+
+[Illustration: With his mind on the subject of extravagance.]
+
+"This is the balloon age," said he, with a merry twinkle in his
+gray eyes.  "The inventor has led us into the skies.  The odor of
+gasoline is in the path of the eagle.  Our thoughts are between
+earth and heaven; our prices have followed our aspirations in the
+upward flight.  Now here is Sam Henshaw.  Sam?  Why, he's a
+merchant prince o' Pointview--grocery business--had a girl--name o'
+Lizzie--smart and as purty as a wax doll.  Dan Pettigrew, the
+noblest flower o' the young manhood o' Pointview, fell in love with
+her.  No wonder.  We were all fond o' Lizzie.  They were a han'some
+couple, an' together about half the time.
+
+"Well, Sam began to aspire, an' nothing would do for Lizzie but the
+Smythe school at Hardcastle at seven hundred dollars a year.  So
+they rigged her up splendid, an' away she went.  Prom that day she
+set the pace for this community.  Dan had to keep up with Lizzie,
+and so his father, Bill Pettigrew, sent him to Harvard.  Other
+girls started in the race, an' the first we knew there was a big
+field in this maiden handicap.
+
+"Well, Sam had been aspirin' for about three months, when he began
+to perspire.  The extras up at Hardcastle had exceeded his
+expectations.  He was goin' a hot pace to keep up with Lizzie, an'
+it looked as if his morals was meltin' away.
+
+"I was in the northern part o' the county one day, an' saw some
+wonderful, big, red, tasty apples.
+
+"'What ye doin' with yer apples?' says I to the grower.
+
+"'I've sent the most of 'em to Samuel Henshaw, o' Pointview, an'
+he's sold 'em on commission,' says he.
+
+"'What do ye get for 'em ?' I asked.
+
+"'Two dollars an' ten cents a barrel,' says he.
+
+"The next time I went into Sam's store there were the same red
+apples that came out o' that orchard in the northern part o' the
+county.
+
+"'How much are these apples?' I says.
+
+"'Seven dollars a barrel,' says Sam.
+
+[Illustration: Seven dollars a barrel.]
+
+"'How is it that you get seven dollars a barrel an' only return two
+dollars an' ten cents to the grower?' I says.
+
+"Sam stuttered an' changed color.  I'd been his lawyer for years,
+an' I always talked plain to Sam.
+
+"'Wal, the fact is,' says he, with a laugh an' a wink, 'I sold
+these apples to my clerk.'
+
+"'Sam, ye're wastin' yer talents,' I says. 'Go into the railroad
+business.'
+
+"Sam was kind o' shamefaced.
+
+"'It costs so much to live I have to make a decent profit
+somewhere,' says he.  'If you had a daughter to educate, you'd know
+the reason.'
+
+"I bought a bill o' goods, an' noticed that ham an' butter were up
+two cents a pound, an' flour four cents a sack, an' other things in
+proportion.  I didn't say a word, but I see that Sam proposed to
+tax the community for the education o' that Lizzie girl.  Folks
+began to complain, but the tax on each wasn't heavy, an' a good
+many people owed Sam an' wasn't in shape to quit him.  Then Sam had
+the best store in the village, an' everybody was kind o' proud of
+it.  So we stood this assessment o' Sam's, an' by a general tax
+paid for the education o' Lizzie.  She made friends, an' sailed
+around in automobiles, an' spent a part o' the Christmas holidays
+with the daughter o' Mr. Beverly Gottrich on Fifth Avenue, an'
+young Beverly Gottrich brought her home in his big red runabout.
+Oh, that was a great day in Pointview!--that red-runabout day of
+our history when the pitcher was broken at the fountain and they
+that looked out of the windows trembled.
+
+"Dan Pettigrew was home from Harvard for the holidays, an' he an'
+Lizzie met at a church party.  They held their heads very high, an'
+seemed to despise each other an' everybody else.  Word went around
+that it was all off between 'em.  It seems that they had riz--not
+risen, but riz--far above each other.
+
+"Now it often happens that when the young ascend the tower o' their
+aspirations an' look down upon the earth its average inhabitant
+seems no larger to them than a red ant.  Sometimes there's nobody
+in sight--that is, no real body--nothin' but clouds an' rainbows
+an' kings an' queens an' their families.  Now Lizzie an' Dan were
+both up in their towers an' lookin' down, an' that was probably the
+reason they didn't see each other.
+
+"Right away a war began between the rival houses o' Henshaw an'
+Pettigrew.  The first we knew Sam was buildin' a new house with a
+tower on it--by jingo!--an' hardwood finish inside an' half an acre
+in the dooryard.  The tower was for Lizzie.  It signalized her rise
+in the community.  It put her one flight above anybody in Pointview.
+
+"As the house rose, up went Sam's prices again.  I went over to the
+store an' bought a week's provisions, an' when I got the bill I see
+that he'd taxed me twenty-nine cents for his improvements.
+
+"I met one o' my friends, an' I says to him, 'Wal,' I says, 'Sam is
+goin' to make us pay for his new house an' lot.   Sam's ham an'
+flour have jumped again.  As an assessor Sam is likely to make his
+mark.'
+
+"'Wal, what do ye expect?' says he.  'Lizzie is in high society,
+an' he's got to keep up with her.  Lizzie must have a home proper
+to one o' her station.  Don't be hard on Sam.'
+
+"'I ain't,' I says.  'But Sam's house ought to be proper to his
+station instead o' hers.'
+
+"I had just sat down in my office when Bill Pettigrew came
+in--Sam's great rival in the grocery an' aspiration business.  He'd
+bought a new automobile, an' wanted me to draw a mortgage on his
+house an' lot for two thousand dollars.
+
+"'You'd better go slow,' I says.  'It looks like bad business to
+mortgage your home for an automobile.'
+
+"'It's for the benefit o' my customers,' says he.
+
+"'Something purty for 'em to look at?' I asked.
+
+"'It will quicken deliveries,' says he.
+
+"'You can't afford it,' I says.
+
+"'Yes, I can,' says he.  'I've put up prices twenty per cent., an'
+it ain't agoin' to bother me to pay for it.'
+
+"'Oh, then your customers are goin' to pay for it!' I says, 'an'
+you're only a guarantor.'
+
+"'I wouldn't put it that way,' says he.  'It costs more to live
+these days.  Everything is goin' up.'
+
+"'Includin' taxes,' I says to Bill, an' went to work an' drew his
+mortgage for him, an' he got his automobile.
+
+"I'd intended to take my trade to his store, but when I saw that he
+planned to tax the community for his luxuries I changed my mind and
+went over to Eph Hill's.  He kept the only other decent grocery
+store in the village.  His prices were just about on a level with
+the others.
+
+"'How do you explain it that prices have gone up so?' I asked.
+
+"'Why, they say it's due to an overproduction o' gold,' says he.
+
+"'Looks to me like an overproduction of argument,' I says.  'The
+old Earth keeps shellin' out more gold ev'ry year, an' the more she
+takes out o' her pockets the more I have to take out o' mine.'
+
+"Wal, o' course I had to keep in line, so I put up the prices o' my
+work a little to be in fashion.  Everybody kicked good an' plenty,
+an' nobody worse'n Sam an' Bill an' Ephraim, but I told 'em how I'd
+read that there was so much gold in the world it kind o' set me
+hankerin'.
+
+"Ye know I had ten acres o' worn-out land in the edge o' the
+village, an' while others bought automobiles an' such luxuries I
+invested in fertilizers an' hired a young man out of an
+agricultural school an' went to farmin'.  Within a year I was
+raisin' all the meat an' milk an' vegetables that I needed, an'
+sellin' as much ag'in to my neighbors.
+
+"Well, Pointview under Lizzie was like Rome under Theodora.  The
+immorals o' the people throve an' grew.  As prices went up decency
+went down, an' wisdom rose in value like meat an' flour.  Seemed so
+everybody that had a dollar in the bank an' some that didn't bought
+automobiles.   They kept me busy drawin' contracts an' deeds an'
+mortgages an' searchin' titles, an' o' course I prospered.  More
+than half the population converted property into cash an' cash into
+folly--automobiles, piano-players, foreign tours, vocal music,
+modern languages, an' the aspirations of other people.  They were
+puffin' it on each other.  Every man had a deep scheme for makin'
+the other fellow pay for his fun.  Reminds me o' that verse from
+Zechariah, 'I will show them no mercy, saith the Lord, but I will
+deliver every man into the hand of his neighbor.'  Now the baron
+business has generally been lucrative, but here in Pointview there
+was too much competition.  We were all barons.  Everybody was
+taxin' everybody else for his luxuries, an' nobody could save a
+cent--nobody but me an' Eph Hill.  He didn't buy any automobiles or
+build a new house or send his girl to the seminary.  He kept both
+feet on the ground, but he put up his prices along with the rest.
+By-an'-by Eph had a mortgage on about half the houses in the
+village.  That showed what was the matter with the other men.
+
+"The merchants all got liver-comlaint.  There were twenty men that
+I used to see walkin' home to their dinner every day or down to the
+postoffice every evenin'.  But they didn't walk any more.  They
+scud along in their automobiles at twenty miles an hour, with the
+whole family around 'em.  They looked as if they thought that now
+at last they were keepin' up with Lizzie.  Their homes were empty
+most o' the time.  The reading-lamp was never lighted.  There was
+no season o' social converse.  Every merchant but Eph Hill grew fat
+an' round, an' complained of indigestion an' sick-headache.  Sam
+looked like a moored balloon.  Seemed so their morals grew fat an'
+flabby an' shif'less an' in need of exercise.  Their morals
+travelled too, but they travelled from mouth to mouth, as ye might
+say, an' very fast.  More'n half of 'em give up church an' went off
+on the country roads every Sunday.  All along the pike from
+Pointview to Jerusalem Corners ye could see where they'd laid
+humbly on their backs in the dust, prayin' to a new god an' tryin'
+to soften his heart with oil or open the gates o' mercy with a
+monkey-wrench.
+
+"Bill came into my shop one day an' looked as if he hadn't a friend
+in the world.  He wanted to borrow some money.
+
+"'Money!' I says.  'What makes ye think I've got money?'
+
+"'Because ye ain't got any automobile,' he says, laughin'.
+
+"'No,' I says.  'You bought one, an' that was all I could afford,'
+
+"It never touched him.  He went on as dry as a duck in a shower.
+'You're one o' the few sensible men in this village. You live
+within yer means, an' you ought to have money if ye ain't.'
+
+"'I've got a little, but I don't see why you should have it,' I
+says.  'You want me to do all the savin' for both of us.'
+
+"'It costs so much to live I can't save a cent,' he says.  'You
+know I've got a boy in college, an' it costs fearful.  I told my
+boy the other day how I worked my way through school an' lived on a
+dollar a week in a little room an' did my own washin'.  He says to
+me, "Well, Governor, you forget that I have a social position to
+maintain."'
+
+"'He's right,' I says. 'You can't expect him to belong to the
+varsity crew an' the Dickey an' the Hasty-Puddin' Club an' dress
+an' behave like the son of an ordinary grocer in Pointview,
+Connecticut.  Ye can't live on nuts an' raisins an' be decent in
+such a position.  Looks to me as if it would require the combined
+incomes o' the grocer an' his lawyer to maintain it.  His position
+is likely to be hard on your disposition.  He's tryin' to keep up
+with Lizzie--that's what's the matter,'
+
+"For a moment Bill looked like a lost dog.  I told him how Grant
+an' Thomas stood on a hilltop one day an' saw their men bein' mowed
+down like grass, an' by-an'-by Thomas says to Grant, 'Wal, General,
+we'll have to move back a little; it's too hot for the boys here.'
+
+"'I'm afraid your boy's position is kind of uncomf'table,' I says.
+
+"'I'll win out,' he says.  'My boy will marry an' settle down in a
+year or so, then he'll begin to help me.'
+
+"'But you may be killed off before then,' I says.
+
+"'If my friends 'll stand by me I'll pull through,' says he.
+
+"'But your friends have their own families to stand by,' I says.
+
+"'Look here, Mr. Potter,' says he.  'You've no such expense as I
+have.  You're able to help me, an' you ought to.  I've got a note
+comin' due tomorrow an' no money to pay it with.'
+
+"'Renew it an' then retrench,' I says.  'Cut down your expenses an'
+your prices.'
+
+"'Can't,' says he.  'It costs too much to live. What 'll I do ?'
+
+"'You ought to die,' I says, very mad.
+
+"'I can't,' says he.
+
+"'Why not?'
+
+"'It costs so much to die,' he says.  'Why, it takes a thousan'
+dollars to give a man a decent funeral these days.'
+
+"'Wal,' I says, 'a man that can't afford either to live or die
+excites my sympathy an' my caution.  You've taxed the community for
+yer luxuries, an' now ye want to tax me for yer notes.  It's unjust
+discrimination.  It gives me a kind of a lonesome feelin'.  You
+tell your boy Dan to come an' see me.  He needs advice more than
+you need money, an' I've got a full line of it.'
+
+"Bill went away richer by a check for a few hundred dollars. Oh, I
+always know when I'm losin' money!  I'm not like other citizens o'
+Pointview.
+
+"Dan came to see me the next Saturday night.  He was a big,
+blue-eyed, handsome, good-natured boy, an' dressed like the son of
+a millionaire.  I brought him here to the office, an' he sat down
+beside me.
+
+"'Dan,' I says, 'what are your plans for the future?'
+
+"'I mean to be a lawyer,' says he.
+
+"'Quit it,' I says.
+
+"'Why?' says he.
+
+"'There are too many lawyers.  We don't need any more.  They're
+devourin' our substance.'
+
+"'What do you suggest?'
+
+"'Be a real man.  We're on the verge of a social revolution.  Boys
+have been leaving the farms an' going into the cities to be grand
+folks.  The result is we have too many grand folks an' too few real
+folks.  The tide has turned.  Get aboard.'
+
+"'I don't understand you.'
+
+"'America needs wheat an' corn an' potatoes more than it needs
+arguments an' theories.'
+
+"'Would you have me be a farmer?' he asked, in surprise.
+
+"'A farmer!' I says.  'It's a new business--an exact science these
+days.  Think o' the high prices an' the cheap land with its
+productiveness more than doubled by modern methods.  The country is
+longing for big, brainy men to work its idle land.  Soon we shall
+not produce enough for our own needs.'
+
+"'But I'm too well educated to be a farmer,' says he.
+
+"'Pardon me,' I says.  'The land 'll soak up all the education
+you've got an' yell for more.  Its great need is education.  We've
+been sending the smart boys to the city an' keeping the fools on
+the farm.  We've put everything on the farm but brains.  That's
+what's the matter with the farm.'
+
+"'But farming isn't dignified,' says Dan.
+
+"'Pardon me ag'in,' says I.  'It's more dignified to search for the
+secrets o' God in the soil than to grope for the secrets o' Satan
+in a lawsuit.  Any fool can learn Blackstone an' Kent an'
+Greenleaf, but the book o' law that's writ in the soil is only for
+keen eyes.'
+
+"'I want a business that fits a gentleman,' says Dan.
+
+"'An' the future farmer can be as much of a gentleman as God 'll
+let him,' says I.  'He'll have as many servants as his talents can
+employ.  His income will exceed the earnings o' forty lawyers taken
+as they average.  His position will be like that o' the rich
+planter before the war.'
+
+"'Well, how shall I go about it?' he says, half convinced.
+
+"'First stop tryin' to keep up with Lizzie,' says I.  'The way to
+beat Lizzie is to go toward the other end o' the road.  Ye see,
+you've dragged yer father into the race, an' he's about winded.
+Turn around an' let Lizzie try to keep up with you.  Second, change
+yer base.  Go to a school of agriculture an' learn the business
+just as you'd go to a school o' law or medicine.  Begin modest.
+Live within yer means.  If you do right I'll buy you all the land
+ye want an' start ye goin'.'
+
+"When he left I knew that I'd won my case.  In a week or so he sent
+me a letter saying that he'd decided to take my advice.
+
+"He came to see me often after that.  The first we knew he was
+goin' with Marie Benson.  Marie had a reputation for good sense,
+but right away she began to take after Lizzie, an' struck a
+tolerably good pace.  Went to New York to study music an' perfect
+herself in French.
+
+"I declare it seemed as if about every girl in the village was
+tryin' to be a kind of a princess with a full-jewelled brain.
+Girls who didn't know an adjective from an adverb an' would have
+been stuck by a simple sum in algebra could converse in French an'
+sing in Italian.  Not one in ten was willin', if she knew how, to
+sweep a floor or cook a square meal.  Their souls were above it.
+Their feet were in Pointview an' their heads in Dreamland.  They
+talked o' the doin's o' the Four Hundred an' the successes o'
+Lizzie.  They trilled an' warbled; they pounded the family piano;
+they golfed an' motored an' whisted; they engaged in the titivation
+of toy dogs an' the cultivation o' general debility; they ate
+caramels an' chocolates enough to fill up a well; they complained;
+they dreamed o' sunbursts an' tiaras while their papas worried
+about notes an' bills; they lay on downy beds of ease with the last
+best seller, an' followed the fortunes of the bold youth until he
+found his treasure at last in the unhidden chest of the heroine;
+they created what we are pleased to call the servant problem, which
+is really the drone problem, caused by the added number who toil
+not, but have to be toiled for; they grew in fat an' folly.  Some
+were both ox-eyed an' peroxide.  Homeliness was to them the only
+misfortune, fat the only burden, and pimples the great enemy of
+woman.
+
+"Now the organs of the human body are just as shiftless as the one
+that owns 'em.  The systems o' these fair ladies couldn't do their
+own work.  The physician an' the surgeon were added to the list o'
+their servants, an' became as necessary as the cook an' the
+chambermaid.  But they were keeping up with Lizzie.  Poor things!
+They weren't so much to blame.  They thought their fathers were
+rich, an' their fathers enjoyed an' clung to that reputation.  They
+hid their poverty an' flaunted the flag of opulence.
+
+"It costs money, big money an' more, to produce a generation of
+invalids.  The fathers o' Pointview had paid for it with sweat an'
+toil an' broken health an' borrowed money an' the usual tax added
+to the price o' their goods or their labor.  Then one night the
+cashier o' the First National Bank blew out his brains.  We found
+that he had stolen eighteen thousand dollars in the effort to keep
+up.  That was a lesson to the Lizzie-chasers!  Why, sir, we found
+that each of his older girls had diamond rings an' could sing in
+three languages, an' a boy was in college.  Poor man! he didn't
+steal for his own pleasure.  Everything went at auction--house,
+grounds, rings, automobile.  Another man was caught sellin' under
+weight with fixed scales, an' went to prison.  Henry Brown failed,
+an' we found that he had borrowed five hundred dollars from John
+Bass, an' at the same time John Bass had borrowed six hundred from
+Tom Rogers, an' Rogers had borrowed seven hundred an' fifty from
+Sam Henshaw, an' Henshaw had borrowed the same amount from Percival
+Smith, an' Smith had got it from me.  The chain broke, the note
+structure fell like a house o' cards, an' I was the only
+loser--think o' that.  There were five capitalists an' only one man
+with real money.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+IN WHICH LIZZIE RETURNS TO HER HOME, HAVING MET A QUEEN AND
+ACQUIRED AN ACCENT AND A FIANCE
+
+"Sam Henshaw's girl had graduated an' gone abroad with her mother.
+One Sunday 'bout a year later, Sam flew up to the door o' my house
+in his automobile.  He lit on the sidewalk an' struggled up the
+steps with two hundred an' forty-seven pounds o' meat on him.  He
+walked like a man carryin' a barrel o' pork.  He acted as if he was
+glad to see me an' the big arm-chair on the piaz'.
+
+"'What's the news?' I asked.
+
+"'Lizzie an' her mother got back this mornin',' he gasped.
+'They've been six months in Europe.  Lizzie is in love with it.
+She's hobnobbed with kings an' queens.  She talks art beautiful.  I
+wish you'd come over an' hear her hold a conversation.  It's
+wonderful.  She's goin' to be a great addition to this community.
+She's got me faded an' on the run.  I ran down to the store for a
+few minutes this mornin', an' when I got back she says to me:
+
+"'"Father, you always smell o' ham an' mustard.  Have you been in
+that disgusting store?  Go an' take a bahth at once."  That's what
+she called it--a "bahth."  Talks just like the English
+people--she's been among 'em so long.  Get into my car an' I'll
+take ye over an' fetch ye back.'
+
+"Sam regarded his humiliation with pride an' joy.  At last Lizzie
+had convinced him that her education had paid.  My curiosity was
+excited.  I got in an' we flew over to his house.  Sam yelled up
+the stairway kind o' joyful as we come in, an' his wife answered at
+the top o' the stairs an' says:
+
+"'Mr.  Henshaw, I wish you wouldn't shout in this house like a boy
+calling the cows.'
+
+"I guess she didn't know I was there.  Sam ran up-stairs an' back,
+an' then we turned into that splendid parlor o' his an' set down.
+Purty soon Liz an' her mother swung in an' smiled very pleasant an'
+shook hands an' asked how was my family, etc., an' went right on
+talkin'.  I saw they didn't ask for the purpose of gettin'
+information.  Liz was dressed to kill an' purty as a
+picture--cheeks red as a rooster's comb an' waist like a hornet's.
+The cover was off her showcase, an' there was a diamond sunburst in
+the middle of it, an' the jewels were surrounded by charms to which
+I am not wholly insensible even now.
+
+"'I wanted ye to tell Mr. Potter about yer travels,' says Sam.
+
+[Illustration: "I wanted ye to tell Mr. Potter about yer travels."
+says Sam.]
+
+"Lizzie smiled an' looked out o' the window a minute an' fetched a
+sigh an' struck out, lookin' like Deacon Bristow the day he give
+ten dollars to the church.  She told about the cities an' the folks
+an' the weather in that queer, English way she had o' talking'>
+
+"'Tell how ye hobnobbed with the Queen o' Italy,' Sam says.
+
+"'Oh, father!  Hobnobbed!' says she.  'Anybody would think that she
+and I had manicured each other's hands.  She only spoke a few words
+of Italian and looked very gracious an' beautiful an' complimented
+my color.'
+
+"Then she lay back in her chair, kind o' weary, an' Sam asked me
+how was business--just to fill in the gap, I guess.  Liz woke up
+an' showed how far she'd got ahead in the race.
+
+"'Business!' says she, with animation.  'That's why I haven't any
+patience with American men.  They never sit down for ten minutes
+without talking business.  Their souls are steeped in
+commercialism.  Don't you see how absurd it is, father?  There are
+plenty of lovely things to talk about.'
+
+"Sam looked guilty, an' I felt sorry for him.  It had cost heavy to
+educate his girl up to a p'int where she could give him so much
+advice an' information.  The result was natural.  She was irritated
+by the large cubic capacity--the length, breadth, and thickness of
+his ignorance and unrefinement; he was dazed by the length,
+breadth, an' thickness of her learning an' her charm.  He didn't
+say a word.  He bowed his head before this pretty, perfumed casket
+of erudition.
+
+"'You like Europe,' I says.
+
+"'I love it,' says she, 'It's the only place to live.  There one
+finds so much of the beautiful in art and music and so many
+cultivated people.'
+
+"Lizzie was a handsome girl, an' had more sense than any o' the
+others that tried to keep up with her.  After all, she was Sam's
+fault, an' Sam was a sin conceived an' committed by his wife, as ye
+might say.  She had made him what he was.
+
+"'Have you seen Dan Pettigrew lately?' Lizzie asked.
+
+"'Yes.' I says.  'Dan is goin' to be a farmer.'
+
+"'A farmer!" says she, an' covered her face with her handkerchief
+an' shook with merriment.
+
+"'Yes,' I says.  'Dan has come down out o' the air.  He's abandoned
+folly.  He wants to do something to help along.'
+
+"'Yes, of course,' says Lizzie, in a lofty manner.  'Dan is really
+an excellent boy--isn't he?'
+
+"'Yes, an' he's livin' within his means--that's the first
+mile-stone in the road to success,' I says.  'I'm goin' to buy him
+a thousand acres o' land, an' one o' these days he'll own it an' as
+much more.  You wait.  He'll have a hundred men in his employ, an'
+flocks an' herds an' a market of his own in New York.  He'll
+control prices in this county, an' they're goin' down.  He'll be a
+force in the State.'
+
+"They were all sitting up.  The faces o' the Lady Henshaw an' her
+daughter turned red.
+
+"'I'm very glad to hear it, I'm sure,' said her Ladyship.
+
+"'I wasn't so sure o' that as she was, an' there, for me, was the
+milk in the cocoanut.  I was joyful.
+
+"'Why, it's perfectly lovely!' says Lizzie, as she fetched her
+pretty hands together in her lap.
+
+"'Yes, you want to cultivate Dan,' I says.  'He's a man to be
+reckoned with.'
+
+"'Oh, indeed!' says her Ladyship.
+
+"'Yes, indeed!' I says, 'an' the girls are all after him.'
+
+"I just guessed that.  I knew it was unscrupulous, but livin' here
+in this atmosphere does affect the morals even of a lawyer.  Lizzie
+grew red in the face.
+
+"'He could marry one o' the Four Hundred if he wanted to,' I says.
+'The other evening he was seen in the big red tourin'-car o' the
+Van Alstynes.  What do you think o' that?'
+
+"Now that was true, but the chauffeur had been a college friend o'
+Dan's, an' I didn't mention that.
+
+"Lizzie had a dreamy smile in her face.
+
+"'Why, it's wonderful!' says she.  'I didn't know he'd improved so.'
+
+"'I hear that his mother is doing her own work,' says the Lady
+Henshaw, with a forced smile.
+
+"'Yes, think of it,' I says.  'The woman is earning her daily
+bread--actually helpin' her husband.  Did you ever hear o' such a
+thing!  I'll have to scratch 'em off my list.  It's too uncommon.
+It ain't respectable.'
+
+"Her Ladyship began to suspect me an' retreated with her chin in
+the air.  She'd had enough.
+
+"I thought that would do an' drew out o' the game.  Lizzie looked
+confident.  She seemed to have something up her sleeve besides that
+lovely arm o' hers.
+
+"I went home, an' two days later Sam looked me up again.  Then the
+secret came out o' the bag.  He'd heard that I had some money in
+the savings-banks over at Bridgeport payin' me only three and a
+half per cent., an' he wanted to borrow it an' pay me six per cent.
+His generosity surprised me.  It was not like Sam.
+
+"'What's the matter with you?' I asked.  'Is it possible that your
+profits have all gone into gasoline an' rubber an' silk an'
+education an' hardwood finish an' human fat?'
+
+"'Well, it costs so much to live,' he says, 'an' the wholesalers
+have kept liftin' the prices on me.  Now there's the meat
+trust--their prices are up thirty-five per cent.'
+
+"'Of course,' I says, 'the directors have to have their luxuries.
+You taxed us for yer new house an' yer automobile an' yer
+daughter's education, an' they're taxin' you for their steam-yachts
+an' private cars an' racin' stables.  You can't expect to do all
+the taxin'.  The wholesalers learnt about the profits that you an'
+others like ye was makin', an' they concluded that they needed a
+part of 'em.  Of course they had to have their luxuries, an'
+they're taxin' you--they couldn't afford to have 'em if they
+didn't.  Don't complain.'
+
+"'I'll come out all right,' he says.  'I'm goin' to raise my whole
+schedule fifteen per cent.'
+
+"'The people won't stand it--they can't,' says I.  'You'll be
+drownin' the miller.  They'll leave you.'
+
+"'It won't do 'em any good,' says he.  'Bill an' Eph will make
+their prices agree with mine.'
+
+"'Folks will go back to the land, as I have,' says I.
+
+"'They don't know enough,' says Sam.  'Farmin' is a lost art here
+in the East.  You take my word for it--they'll pay our
+prices--they'll have to--an' the rich folks, they don't worry about
+prices.  I pay a commission to every steward an' butler in this
+neighborhood.'
+
+"'I won't help you,' says I.  'It's wicked.  You ought to have
+saved your money.'
+
+"'In a year from now I'll have money to burn,' he says.  'For one
+thing, my daughter's education is finished, an' that has cost
+heavy.'
+
+"'How much would it cost to unlearn it?' I asked.  'That's goin' to
+cost more than it did to get it, I'm 'fraid.  In my opinion the
+first thing to do with her is to uneducate her.'
+
+"That was like a red-hot iron to Sam.  It kind o' het him up.
+
+"'Why, sir, you don't appreciate her,' says he.  'That girl is far
+above us all here in Pointview.  She's a queen.'
+
+"'Well, Sam,' I says, 'if there's anything you don't need just now
+it's a queen.  If I were you I wouldn't graft that kind o' fruit on
+the grocery-tree.  Hams an' coronets don't flourish on the same
+bush.  They have a different kind of a bouquet.  They don't
+harmonize.  Then, Sam, what do you want of a girl that's far above
+ye?  Is it any comfort to you to be despised in your own home?'
+
+"'Mr. Potter, I haven't educated her for my own home or for this
+community, but for higher things,' says Sam.
+
+"'You hairy old ass!  The first you know,' I says, 'they'll have
+your skin off an' layin' on the front piaz' for a door-mat.'
+
+"Sam started for the open air.  I hated to be ha'sh with him, but
+he needed some education himself, an' it took a beetle an' wedge to
+open his mind for it.  He lifted his chin so high that the fat
+swelled out on the back of his neck an' unbuttoned his collar.
+Then he turned an' said: 'My daughter is too good for this town,
+an' I don't intend that she shall stay here.  She has been asked to
+marry a man o' fortune in the old country.'
+
+"'So I surmised, an' I suppose you find that the price o' husbands
+has gone up,' I says.
+
+"Sam didn't answer me.
+
+"'They want you to settle some money on the girl--don't they?' I
+asked.
+
+"'My wife says it's the custom in the old country,' says Sam.
+
+"'Suppose he ain't worth the price?'
+
+"'They say he's a splendid fellow,' says Sam.
+
+"'You let me investigate him,' I says, 'an' if he's really worth
+the price I'll help ye to pay it.'
+
+"Sam said that was fair, an' thanked me for the offer, an' gave me
+the young man's address.  He was a Russian by the name of Alexander
+Rolanoff, an' Sam insisted that he belonged to a very old family of
+large means an' noble blood, an' said that the young man would be
+in Pointview that summer.  I wrote to the mayor of the city in
+which he was said to live, but got no answer.
+
+"Alexander came.  He was a costly an' beautiful young man, about
+thirty years old, with red cheeks an' curly hair an' polished
+finger-nails, an' wrote poetry.  Sometimes ye meet a man that
+excites yer worst suspicions.  Your right hand no sooner lets go o'
+his than it slides down into your pocket to see if anything has
+happened; or maybe you take the arm o' yer wife or yer daughter an'
+walk away.  Aleck leaned a little in both directions.  But, sir,
+Sam didn't care to know my opinion of him.  Never said another word
+to me on the subject, but came again to ask about the money.
+
+"'Look here, Sam,' I says.  'You tell Lizzie that I want to have a
+talk with her at four o'clock in this office?  If she really wants
+to buy this man, I'll see what can be done about it.'
+
+"'All right, you talk with her,' says he, an' went out.
+
+"In a few minutes Dan showed up.
+
+"'Have you seen Lizzie?' says I.
+
+"'Not to speak to her,' says Dan.  'Looks fine, doesn't she?'
+
+"'Beautiful!'I says. 'How is Marie Benson?'
+
+"'Oh, the second time I went to see her she was trying to keep up
+with Lizzie,' says he.  'She's changed her gait.  Was going to New
+York after a lot o' new frills.  I suppose she thought that I
+wanted a grand lady.  That's the trouble with all the girls here.
+A man might as well marry the real thing as an imitation.  I wish
+Lizzie would get down off her high horse.'
+
+"'She's goin' to swap him for one with still longer legs,' I says.
+'Lizzie is engaged to a gentleman o' fortune in the old country.'
+
+"Dan's face began to stretch out long as if it was made of
+injy-rubber.
+
+"'It's too bad,' says he. 'Lizzie is a good-hearted girl, if she is
+spoilt.'
+
+"'Fine girl!' I says. 'An', Dan, I was in hopes that she would
+discover her own folly before it was too late.  But she saw that
+others had begun to push her in the race an' that she had to let
+out another link or fall behind.'
+
+"'Well, I wish her happiness,' says Dan, with a sigh.
+
+"'Go an' tell her so,' I says.  'Show her that you have some care
+as to whether she lives or dies.'
+
+"I could see that his feelin's had been honed 'til they were sharp
+as a razor.
+
+"'I've seen that fellow,' he says, 'an' he'll never marry Lizzie if
+I can prevent it.  I hate the looks of him.  I shall improve the
+first opportunity I have to insult him.'
+
+"'That might be impossible,' I suggested.
+
+"'But I'll make the effort,' says Dan.
+
+"As an insulter I wouldn't wonder if Dan had large capacity when
+properly stirred up.
+
+"'Better let him alone.  I have lines out that will bring
+information.  Be patient.'
+
+"Dan rose and said he would see me soon, an' left with a rather
+stern look in his face.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+IN WHICH LIZZIE DESCENDS FROM A GREAT HEIGHT
+
+"Lizzie was on hand at the hour appointed.  We sat down here all by
+ourselves.
+
+"'Lizzie,' I says, 'why in the world did you go to Europe for a
+husband?  It's a slight to Pointview--a discouragement of home
+industry.'
+
+"'There was nobody here that seemed to want me,' she says, blushin'
+very sweet.
+
+"She had dropped her princess manner an' seemed to be ready for
+straight talk.
+
+"'If that's so, Lizzie, it's your fault,' I says.
+
+"'I don't understand you,' says she.
+
+"'Why, my dear child, it's this way,' I says.  'Your mother an'
+father have meant well, but they've been foolish.  They've educated
+you for a millionairess, an' all that's lackin' is the millions.
+You overawed the boys here in Pointview.  They thought that you
+felt above 'em, whether you did or not; an' the boys on Fifth
+Avenue were glad to play with you, but they didn't care to marry
+you.  I say it kindly, Lizzie, an' I'm a friend o' yer father's,
+an' you can afford to let me say what I mean.  Those young fellows
+wanted the millions as well as the millionairess.  One of our boys
+fell in love with ye an' tried to keep up, but your pace was too
+hot for him.  His father got in trouble, an' the boy had to drop
+out.  Every well-born girl in the village entered the race with ye.
+An era of extravagance set in that threatened the solvency, the
+honor, o' this sober old community.  Their fathers had to borrow
+money to keep agoin'.  They worked overtime, they importuned their
+creditors, they wallowed in low finance while their daughters
+revelled in the higher walks o' life an' sang in different
+languages.  Even your father--I tell you in confidence, for I
+suppose he wouldn't have the courage to do it--is in financial
+difficulties.  Now, Lizzie, I want to be kind to you, for I believe
+you're a good girl at heart, but you ought to know that all this is
+what your accomplishments have accomplished.'
+
+"She rose an' walked across the room, with trembling lips.  She had
+seized her parachute an' jumped from her balloon and was slowly
+approachin' the earth.  I kept her comin', 'These clothes an'
+jewels that you wear, Lizzie--these silks an' laces, these
+sunbursts an' solitaires--don't seem to harmonize with your
+father's desire to borrow money.  Pardon me, but I can't make 'em
+look honest.  They are not paid for--or if they are they are paid
+for with other men's money.  They seem to accuse you.  They'd
+accuse me if I didn't speak out plain to ye.'
+
+"All of a sudden Lizzie dropped into a chair an' began to cry.  She
+had lit safely on the ground.
+
+[Illustration: Lizzie dropped into a chair an' began to cry.]
+
+"It made me feel like a murderer, but it had to be.  Poor girl!  I
+wanted to pick her up like a baby an' kiss her.  It wasn't that I
+loved Lizzie less but Rome more.  She wasn't to blame.  Every
+spoilt woman stands for a fool-man.  Most o' them need--not a
+master--but a frank counsellor.  I locked the door.  She grew calm
+an' leaned on my table, her face covered with her hands.  My clock
+shouted the seconds in the silence.  Not a word was said for two or
+three minutes.
+
+"'I have been brutal,' I says, by-an'-by.  'Forgive me.'
+
+"'Mr. Potter,' she says, 'you've done me a great kindness.  I'll
+never forget it.  What shall I do?'
+
+"'Well, for one thing,' says I, 'go back to your old simplicity an'
+live within your means.'
+
+"'I'll do it,' she says; 'but--I--I supposed my father was rich.
+Oh, I wish we could have had this talk before!'
+
+"'Did you know that Dan Pettigrew was in love with you?' I put it
+straight from the shoulder.  'He wouldn't dare tell ye, but you
+ought to know it.  You are regarded as a kind of a queen here, an'
+it's customary for queens to be approached by ambassadors.'
+
+"Her face lighted up.
+
+"'In love with me?' she whispered.  'Why, Mr. Potter, I never
+dreamed of such a thing.  Are you sure?  How do you know?  I
+thought he felt above me.'
+
+"'An' he thought you felt above him,' I says.
+
+"'How absurd! how unfortunate!' she whispered.  'I couldn't marry
+him now if he asked me.  This thing has gone too far.  I wouldn't
+treat any man that way.'
+
+"'You are engaged to Alexander, are you?' I says.
+
+"'Well, there is a sort of understanding, and I think we are to be
+married if--if--'
+
+"She paused, and tears came to her eyes again.
+
+"'You are thinking o' the money,' says I.
+
+"'I am thinking o' the money,' says she.  'It has been promised to
+him.  He will expect it.'
+
+"'Do you think he is an honest man?  Will he treat you well?'
+
+"'I suppose so.'
+
+"'Then let me talk with him.  Perhaps he would take you without
+anything to boot.'
+
+"'Please don't propose that,' says she.  'I think he's getting the
+worst of it now.  Mr. Potter, would you lend me the money?  I ask
+it because I don't want the family to be disgraced or Mr. Rolanoff
+to be badly treated.  He is to invest the money in my name in a
+very promising venture.  He says he can double it within three
+months.'
+
+"It would have been easy for me to laugh, but I didn't.  Lizzie's
+attitude in the whole matter pleased me.  I saw that her heart was
+sound.  I promised to have a talk with her father and see her
+again.  I looked into his affairs carefully and put him on a new
+financial basis with a loan of fifteen thousand dollars.
+
+"One day he came around to my office with Alexander an' wanted me
+to draw up a contract between him an' the young man.  It was a
+rather crude proposition, an' I laughed, an' Aleck sat with a bored
+smile on his face.
+
+"'Oh, if he's good enough for your daughter,' I said, 'his word
+ought to be good enough for you.'
+
+"'That's all right,' says Sam, 'but business is business.  I want
+it down in black an' white that the income from this money is to be
+paid to my daughter, and that neither o' them shall make any
+further demand on me.'
+
+"Well, I drew that fool contract, an', after it was signed, Sam
+delivered ten one-thousand-dollar bills to the young man, who was
+to become his son-in-law the following month with the assistance of
+a caterer and a florist and a string-band, all from New Haven.
+
+"Within half an hour Dan Pettigrew came roarin' up in front o' my
+office in the big red automobile of his father's.  In a minute he
+came in to see me.  He out with his business soon as he lit in a
+chair.
+
+"'I've learned that this man Rolanoff is a scoundrel,' says he.
+
+"'A scoundrel!' says I.
+
+"'Of purest ray serene,' says he.
+
+"I put a few questions, but he'd nothing in the way o' proof to
+otter--it was only the statement of a newspaper.
+
+"'Is that all you know against him?' I asked.
+
+"'He won't fight,' says Dan.  'I've tried him--I've begged him to
+fight.'
+
+"'Well, I've got better evidence than you have,' I says.  'It came
+a few minutes before you did.'
+
+"I showed him a cablegram from a London barrister that said:
+
+"'Inquiry complete.  The man is a pure adventurer, character _nil_.'
+
+"'We must act immediately,' says Dan.
+
+"'I have telephoned all over the village for Sam,' I says.  'They
+say he's out in his car with Aleck an' Lizzie.  I asked them to
+send him here as soon as he returns.'
+
+"'They're down on the Post Road I met 'em on my way here,' says
+Dan.  'We can overtake that car easy.'
+
+"Well, the wedding-day was approaching an' Aleck had the money, an'
+the thought occurred to me that he might give 'em the slip
+somewhere on the road an' get away with it.  I left word in the
+store that if Sam got back before I saw him he was to wait with
+Aleck in my office until I returned, an' off we started like a
+baseball on its way from the box to the catcher.
+
+"An officer on his motor-cycle overhauled us on the Post Road.  He
+knew me.
+
+"'It's a case o' sickness,' I says, 'an' we're after Sam Henshaw.'
+
+"'He's gone down the road an' hasn't come back yet,' says the
+officer.
+
+"I passed him a ten-dollar bill.
+
+"'Keep within sight of us,' I says.  'We may need you any minute.'
+
+"He nodded and smiled, an' away we went.
+
+"'I'm wonderin' how we're agoin' to get the money,' I says, havin'
+told Dan about it.
+
+"'I'll take it away from him,' says Dan.
+
+"'That wouldn't do,' says I.
+
+"'Why not?'
+
+"'Why not!' says I.  'You wouldn't want to be arrested for highway
+robbery.  Then, too, we must think o' Lizzie.  Poor girl!  It's
+agoin' to be hard on her, anyhow.  I'll try a bluff.  It's probable
+that he's worked this game before.  If so, we can rob him without
+violence an' let him go.'
+
+"Dan grew joyful as we sped along.
+
+"'Lizzie is mine,' he says.  'She wouldn't marry him now.'
+
+"He told me how fond they had been of each other until they got
+accomplishments an' began to put up the price o' themselves.  He
+said that in their own estimation they had riz in value like beef
+an' ham, an' he confessed how foolish he had been.  We were excited
+an' movin' fast.
+
+"'Something'll happen soon,' he says.
+
+"An' it did, within ten minutes from date.  We could see a blue car
+half a mile ahead.
+
+"'I'll go by that ol' freight-car o' the Henshaws',' says Dan.
+'They'll take after me, for Sam is vain of his car.  We can halt
+them in that narrow cut on the hill beyond the Byron River.'
+
+"We had rounded the turn at Chesterville, when we saw the Henshaw
+car just ahead of us, with Aleck at the wheel an' Lizzie beside him
+an' Sam on the back seat.  I saw the peril in the situation.
+
+"The long rivalry between the houses of Henshaw an' Pettigrew,
+reinforced by that of the young men, was nearing its climax.
+
+"'See me go by that old soap-box o' the Henshaws',' says Dan, as he
+pulled out to pass 'em.
+
+"Then Dan an' Aleck began a duel with automobiles.  Each had a
+forty-horse-power engine in his hands, with which he was resolved
+to humble the other.  Dan knew that he was goin' to bring down the
+price o' Alecks an' Henshaws.  First we got ahead; then they
+scraped by us, crumpling our fender on the nigh side.  Lizzie an' I
+lost our hats in the scrimmage.  We gathered speed an' ripped off a
+section o' their bulwarks, an' roared along neck an' neck with 'em.
+The broken fenders rattled like drums in a battle.  A hen flew up
+an' hit me in the face, an' came nigh unhorsin' me.  I hung on.  It
+seemed as if Fate was tryin' to halt us, but our horse-power was
+too high.  A dog went under us.  It began to rain a little.  We
+were a length ahead at the turn by the Byron River.  We swung for
+the bridge an' skidded an' struck a telephone pole, an' I went
+right on over the stone fence an' the clay bank an' lit on my head
+in the water.  Dan Pettigrew lit beside me.  Then came Lizzie an'
+Sam--they fairly rained into the river.  I looked up to see if
+Aleck was comin', but he wasn't.  Sam, bein' so heavy, had stopped
+quicker an' hit in shallow water near the shore, but, as luck would
+have it, the bottom was soft an' he had come down feet foremost,
+an' a broken leg an' some bad bruises were all he could boast of.
+Lizzie was in hysterics, but seemed to be unhurt.  Dan an' I got
+'em out on the shore, an' left 'em cryin' side by side, an'
+scrambled up the bank to find Aleck.  He had aimed too low an' hit
+the wall, an' was stunned, an' apparently, for the time, dead as a
+herrin' on the farther side of it.  I removed the ten
+one-thousand-dollar bills from his person to prevent complications
+an' tenderly laid him down.  Then he came to very sudden.
+
+"'Stop!' he murmured.  'You're robbin' me.'
+
+"'Well, you begun it,' I says.  'Don't judge me hastily.  I'm a
+philanthropist.  I'm goin' to leave you yer liberty an' a hundred
+dollars.  You take it an' get.  If you ever return to Connecticut
+I'll arrest you at sight.'
+
+"I gave him the money an' called the officer, who had just come up.
+A traveller in a large tourin'-car had halted near us.
+
+"'Put him into that car an' take him to Chesterville,' I said.
+
+"He limped to the car an' left without a word.
+
+"I returned to my friends an' gently broke the news.
+
+"Sam blubbered 'Education done it,' says he, as he mournfully shook
+his head.
+
+"'Yes,' I says.  'Education is responsible for a damned lot of
+ignorance.'
+
+"'An' some foolishness,' says Sam, as he scraped the mud out of his
+hair.  'Think of our goin' like that.  We ought to have known
+better.' "'We knew better,' I says, 'but we had to keep up with
+Lizzie.'
+
+"Sam turned toward Lizzie an' moaned in a broken voice, 'I wish it
+had killed me.'
+
+"'Why so?' I asked.
+
+"'It costs so much to live,' Sam sobbed, in a half-hysterical way.
+'I've got an expensive family on my hands.'
+
+"'You needn't be afraid o' havin' Lizzie on your hands,' says Dan,
+who held the girl in his arms.
+
+"'What do you mean?^ Sam inquired.
+
+"'She's on my hands an' she's goin' to stay there,' says the young
+man.  'I'm in love with Lizzie myself.  I've always been in love
+with Lizzie.'
+
+"'Your confession is ill-timed,' says Lizzie, as she pulled away
+an' tried to smooth her hair.  She began to cry again, an' added,
+between sobs: 'My heart is about broken, and I must go home and get
+help for my poor father.'
+
+"'I'll attend to that,' says Dan; 'but I warn you that I'm goin' to
+offer a Pettigrew for a Henshaw even.  If I had a million dollars
+I'd give it all to boot.'
+
+"Sam turned toward me, his face red as a beet.
+
+"'The money!' he shouted.  'Get it, quick!'
+
+"'Here it is!' I said, as I put the roll o' bills in his hand.
+
+"'Did you take it off him?'
+
+"'I took it off him.'
+
+"'Poor Aleck!' he says, mournfully, as he counted the money.  'It's
+kind o' hard on him.'
+
+"Soon we halted a passin' automobile an' got Sam up the bank an'
+over the wall.  It was like movin' a piano with somebody playin' on
+it, but we managed to seat him on the front floor o' the car, which
+took us all home.
+
+"So the affair ended without disgrace to any one, if not without
+violence, and no one knows of the cablegram save the few persons
+directly concerned.  But the price of Alecks took a big slump in
+Pointview.  No han'some foreign gent could marry any one in this
+village, unless it was a chambermaid in a hotel.
+
+"That was the end of the first heat of the race with Lizzie in
+Pointview.  Aleck had folded up his bluff an' silently sneaked
+away.  I heard no more of him save from a lady with blond, curly
+hair an' a face done in water-colors, who called at my office one
+day to ask about him, an' who proved to my satisfaction that she
+was his wife, an' who remarked with real, patrician accent when I
+told her the truth about him: 'Ah, g'wan, yer kiddin' me.'
+
+"I began to explore the mind of Lizzie, an' she acted as my guide
+in the matter.  For her troubles the girl was about equally
+indebted to her parents an' the Smythe school.  Now the Smythe
+school had been founded by the Reverend Hopkins Smythe, an
+Englishman who for years had been pastor of the First
+Congregational Church--a soothin' man an' a favorite of the rich
+New-Yorkers.  People who hadn't slept for weeks found repose in the
+First Congregational Church an' Sanitarium of Pointview.  They
+slept an' snored while the Reverend Hopkins wept an' roared.  His
+rhetoric was better than bromide or sulphonal.  In grateful
+recollection of their slumbers, they set him up in business.
+
+"Now I'm agoin' to talk as mean as I feel.  Sometimes I get tired
+o' bein' a gentleman an' knock off for a season o' rest an'
+refreshment.  Here goes!  The school has some good girls in it, but
+most of 'em are indolent candy-eaters.  Their life is one long,
+sweet dream broken by nightmares of indigestion.  Their study is
+mainly a bluff; their books a merry jest; their teachers a butt of
+ridicule.  They're the veriest little pagans.  Their religion is,
+in fact, a kind of Smythology.  Its High Priest is the Reverend
+Hopkins.  Its Jupiter is self.  Its lesser gods are princes, dukes,
+earls, counts, an' barons.  Its angels are actors an' tenors.  Its
+baptism is flattery.  Poverty an' work are its twin hells.
+Matrimony is its heaven, an' a slippery place it is.  They revel in
+the best sellers an' the worst smellers.  They gossip of intrigue
+an' scandal.  They get their lessons if they have time.  They cheat
+in their examinations.  If the teacher objects she is promptly an'
+generally insulted.  She has to submit or go--for the girls stand
+together.  It's a sort of school-girls' union.  They'd quit in a
+body if their fun were seriously interrupted, an' Mr. Smythe
+couldn't afford that, you know.  He wouldn't admit it, but they've
+got him buffaloed.
+
+"Lizzie no sooner got through than she set out with her mother to
+find the prince.  She struck Aleck in Italy."
+
+Socrates leaned back and laughed.
+
+"Now, if you please, I'll climb back on my pedestal," he said.
+
+"Thank God!  Lizzie began to rise above her education.  She went to
+work in her father's store, an' the whole gang o' Lizzie-chasers
+had to change their gait again.  She organized our prosperous young
+ladies' club--a model of its kind--the purpose of which is the
+promotion of simple livin' an' a taste for useful work.  They have
+fairs in the churches, an' I distribute a hundred dollars in cash
+prizes--five dollars each for the best exhibits o' pumpkin-pie,
+chicken-pie, bread, rolls, coffee, roast turkey, plain an' fancy
+sewin', an' so on.  One by one the girls are takin' hold with us
+an' lettin' go o' the grand life.  They've begun to take hold o'
+the broom an' the dish-cloth, an' the boys seem to be takin' hold
+o' them with more vigor an' determination.  The boys are concluding
+that it's cheaper to buy a piano-player than to marry one, that
+canned prima-donnas are better than the home-grown article, that
+women are more to be desired than playthings.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+IN WHICH THE HAM WAR HAS ITS BEGINNING
+
+"One day in the old time a couple of industrious Yankees were hard
+at work in a field," Socrates continued.  "Suddenly one said to the
+other:
+
+"'I wish I was worth ten thousand dollars.'
+
+"An' the other asked:
+
+"'What would ye do with it?'
+
+"The wisher rested on his shovel an' gave his friend a look of
+utter contempt.
+
+"'What would I do with it?' he said.  'Why, you cussed fool, I'd
+set down--an' without blamin' myself.'
+
+"By-and-by the Yankee got to settin' down without blamin' himself,
+an' also without the ten thousand.  Here in Pointview we're
+learnin' how to stand up again, an' Lizzie is responsible.  You
+shall hear how it happened.
+
+"First I must tell you that Dan had been makin' little progress in
+the wooin' o' Lizzie.  Now she was inclined to go slow.  Lizzie was
+fond o' Dan.  She put on her best clothes when he came to see her
+of a Sunday.  She sang to him, she walked him about the place with
+her arm in his, but she tenderly refused to agree to marry him.
+When he grew sentimental she took him out among the cucumbers in
+the garden.  She permitted no sudden rise in his temperature.
+
+"'I will not marry,' she said, 'until I have done what I can to
+repay my father for all that he has tried to do for me.  I must be
+uneducated and re-educated.  It may take a long time.  Meanwhile
+you may meet some one you like better.  I'm not going to pledge you
+to wait for me.  Of course I shall be awfully proud and pleased if
+you do wait, but, Dan, I want you to be free.  Let's both be free
+until we're ready.'
+
+"It was bully.  Dan pleaded with the eloquence of an old-fashioned
+lawyer.  Lizzie stood firm behind this high fence, an' she was
+right.  With Dan in debt an' babies comin', what could she have
+done for her father?  Suddenly it seemed as if all the young men
+had begun to take an interest in Lizzie, an', to tell the truth,
+she was about the neatest, sweetest little myrmidon of commerce
+that ever wore a white apron.  The light of true womanhood had
+begun to shine in her face.  She kept the store in apple-pie order,
+an' everybody was well treated.  The business grew.  Sam bought a
+small farm outside the village with crops in, an' moved there for
+the summer.  Soon he began to let down his prices.  The combine was
+broken.  It was the thing we had been waitin' for.  People flocked
+to his store.  The others came down, but too late.  Sam held his
+gain, an' Lizzie was the power behind the fat.  Dan finished his
+course in agriculture an' I bought him a farm, an' he went to work
+there, but he spent half his time in the store of his father tryin'
+to keep up with Lizzie.  Suddenly Dan started a ham war.  He cut
+the price of hams five cents a pound.  Ham was one of our great
+staples, an' excitement ran high.  Lizzie cut below him two cents a
+pound.  Dan cut the price again.  Lizzie made no effort to meet
+this competition.  The price had gone below the wholesale rate by
+quite a margin.  People thronged to Dan's emporium.  Women stood on
+the battle-field, their necks blanched with powder, their cheeks
+bearin' the red badge o' courage, an' every man you met had a ham
+in his hand.  The Pettigrew wagon hurried hither an' thither loaded
+with hams.  Even the best friends of Sam an' Lizzie were seen in
+Dan's store buyin' hams.  They laid in a stock for all winter.
+Suddenly Dan quit an' restored his price to the old figure.  Lizzie
+continued to sell at the same price, an' was just as cheerful as
+ever.  She had won the fight, an' ye wouldn't think that anything
+unusual had happened; but wait an' see.
+
+"Every day boys an' girls were droppin' out o' the clouds an' goin'
+to work tryin' to keep up with Lizzie.  The hammocks swung limp in
+the breeze.  The candy stores were almost deserted, an' those that
+sat by the fountains were few.  We were learnin' how to stand up.
+
+"One day Dan came into my office all out o' gear.  He looked sore
+an' discouraged.  I didn't wonder.
+
+"'What's the matter now?' I says.
+
+"'I don't believe Lizzie cares for me.'
+
+"'How's that?' I says.
+
+"'Last Sunday she was out riding with Tom Bryson, an' every Sunday
+afternoon I find half-a-dozen young fellows up there.'
+
+"'Well, ye know, Lizzie is attractive, an' she ain't our'n yit--not
+just yit,' I says.  'If young men come to see her she's got to be
+polite to 'em.  You wouldn't expect her to take a broom an' shoo
+'em off?'
+
+"'But I don't have anything to do with other girls.'
+
+"'An' you're jealous as a hornet,' I says.  'Lizzie wants you to
+meet other girls.  When Lizzie marries it will be for life.  She'll
+want to know that you love her an' only her.  You keep right on
+tryin' to catch up with Lizzie, an' don't be worried.'
+
+"He stopped strappin' the razor of his discontent, but left me with
+unhappy looks.  That very week I saw him ridin' about with Marie
+Benson in his father's motor-car.
+
+"Soon a beautiful thing happened.  I have told you of the
+melancholy end of the cashier of one of our local banks.  Well, in
+time his wife followed him to the cemetery.  She was a distant
+relative of Sam's wife, an' a friend of Lizzie.  We found easy
+employment for the older children, an' Lizzie induced her parents
+to adopt two that were just out of their mother's arms--a girl of
+one an' a boy of three years.  I suggested to Lizzie that it seemed
+to me a serious undertaking, but she felt that she ought to be
+awfully good by way of atonement for the folly of her past life.
+It was near the end of the year, an' I happen to know that when
+Christmas came a little sack containing five hundred dollars in
+gold was delivered at Sam Henshaw's door for Lizzie from a source
+unknown to her.  That paid for the nurse, an' eased the situation."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+IN WHICH LIZZIE EXERTS AN INFLUENCE ON THE AFFAIRS OF THE RICH AND
+GREAT
+
+A year after Socrates Potter had told of the descent of Lizzie, and
+the successful beginning of her new life, I called again at his
+office.
+
+"How is Pointview?" I asked.
+
+"Did ye ever learn how it happened to be called Pointview?" he
+inquired.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, it began with a little tavern with a tap-room called the
+Pointview House, a great many years ago.  Travellers used to stop
+an' look around for the Point, an', of course, they couldn't see
+it, for there's none here; at least, no point of land.  They'd go
+in an' order drinks an' say:
+
+"'Landlord, where's the point?'
+
+"An' the landlord would say: 'Well, boys, if you ain't in a hurry
+you'll probably see it purty soon.'
+
+"All at once it would appear to 'em, an' it was apt to be an'
+amusin' bit o' scenery.
+
+"We've always been quick to see a point here, an' anxious to show
+it to other people."
+
+He leaned back and laughed as one foot sought the top of his desk.
+
+"Our balloons rise from every walk o' life an' come down out o'
+ballast," he went on.  "Many of 'em touch ground in the great
+financial aviation park that surrounds Wall Street.  In our stages
+of recovery the power of Lizzie has been widely felt."
+
+Up went his other foot.  I saw that the historical mood was upon
+him.
+
+"Talk about tryin' to cross the Atlantic in an air-ship--why,
+that's conservative," he continued.  "Right here in the eastern
+part o' Connecticut lives a man who set out for the vicinity of the
+moon with a large company--a joint-stock company--in his life-boat.
+First he made the journey with the hot-air-ship of his mind, an'
+came back with millions in the hold of his imagination.  Then he
+thought he'd experiment with a corporation of his friends--his
+surplus friends.  They got in on the ground floor, an' got out in
+the sky.  Most of 'em were thrown over for ballast.  The Wellman of
+this enterprise escaped with his life an' a little wreckage.  He
+was Mr.  Thomas Robinson Barrow, an' he came to consult me about
+his affairs.  They were in bad shape.
+
+"'Sell your big house an' your motor-cars,' I urged.
+
+"'That would have been easy,' he answered, 'but Lizzie has spoilt
+the market for luxuries.  You remember how she got high notions up
+at the Smythe school, an' began a life of extravagance, an' how we
+all tried to keep up with her, an' how the rococo architecture
+broke out like pimples on the face of Connecticut?'
+
+"I smiled an' nodded.
+
+"'Well, it was you, I hear, that helped her back to earth and
+started her in the simpleton life.  Since then she has been going
+just as fast, but in the opposite direction, and we're still tryin'
+to keep up with her.  Now I found a man who was going to buy my
+property, but suddenly his wife decided that they would get along
+with a more modest outfit.  She's trying to keep up with Lizzie.
+Folks are getting wise.'
+
+"'Why don't you?'
+
+"'Can't.'
+
+"'Why not?'
+
+"'Because I'm a born fool.  We're fettered; we're prisoners of
+luxury.'
+
+"Only a night or two before I had seen his wife at a reception with
+a rope of pearls in her riggin' an' a search-light o' diamonds on
+her forward deck an' a tiara-boom-de-ay at her masthead an' the
+flags of opulence flyin' fore an' aft.
+
+"'If I were you,' I said, 'I'd sell everything--even the jewels.'
+
+"'My poor wife!' he exclaimed.  'I haven't the heart to tell her
+all.  She don't know how hard up we are!'
+
+"'I wouldn't neglect her education if I were you,' I said.
+'There's a kindness, you know, that's most unkind.  Some day I
+shall write an article on the use an' abuse of tiaras--poor things!
+It isn't fair to overwork the family tiara.  I suggest that you get
+a good-sized trunk an' lock it up with the other jewels for a
+vacation.  If necessary your house could be visited by a
+burglar--that is, if you wanted to save the feelin's of your wife.'
+
+"He turned with a puzzled look at me.
+
+"'Is it possible that you haven't heard of that trick?' I asked--'a
+man of your talents!'
+
+"He shook his head.
+
+"'Why, these days, if a man wishes to divorce the family jewels an'
+is afraid of his wife, the house is always entered by a burglar.
+My dear sir, the burglar is an ever-present help in time of
+trouble.  It's a pity that we have no Gentleman's Home Journal in
+which poor but deservin' husbands could find encouragement an'
+inspiration.'
+
+"He looked at me an' laughed.
+
+"'Suppose you engage a trusty and reliable burglar?' he proposed.
+
+"'There's only one in the world.' I said.
+
+"'Who is it?'
+
+"'Thomas Robinson Barrow.  Of course, I'm not sayin' that if I
+needed a burglar he's just the man I should choose, but for this
+job he's the only reliable burglar.  Try him.'
+
+"He seemed to be highly amused.
+
+"'But it might be difficult to fool the police,' he said, in a
+minute.
+
+"'Well, it isn't absolutely necessary, you know,' I suggested.
+'The Chief of Police is a friend of mine.'
+
+"'Good!  I'm engaged for this job, and will sell the jewels and
+turn the money over to you.'
+
+"'I do not advise that--not just that,' I said.  'We'll retire them
+from active life.  A tiara in the safe is worth two in the Titian
+bush.  We'll use them for collateral an' go to doin' business.
+When we've paid the debts in full we'll redeem the goods an' return
+them to your overjoyed wife.  We'll launch our tiara on the Marcel
+waves.'
+
+"Tom was delighted with this plan--not the best, perhaps--but,
+anyhow, it would save his wife from reproach, an' I don't know what
+would have happened if she had continued to dazzle an' enrage his
+creditors with the pearls an' the tiara.
+
+"'It will not be so easy to sell the house,' Tom went on.  'That's
+our worst millstone.  It was built for large hospitality, and we
+have a good many friends, and they come every week and jump on to
+the millstone.'
+
+"'If one has to have a millstone he should choose it with
+discretion,' I said.  'It doesn't pay to get one that is too
+inviting.  You'll have to swim around with yours for a while, and
+watch your chance to slip it on to some other fellow's neck.  You
+don't want your son to be a millstonaire.  Some day a man of
+millions may find it a comfortable fit, an' relieve you.  They're
+buyin' places all about here.'
+
+"Tom left an' began work on our programme.  The burglary was well
+executed an' advertised.  It achieved a fair amount of
+publicity--not too much, you know, but enough.  The place was
+photographed by the reporters with the placard 'For Sale' showin'
+plainly on the front lawn.  The advertisin' was worth almost as
+much as the diamonds.  Tom said that his wife had lost weight since
+the sad event.
+
+"'Of course,' I said.  'You can't take ten pounds of jewelry from a
+woman without reducin' her weight.  She must have had a pint o'
+diamonds.'
+
+"'Pictures an' glowin' accounts of the villa were printed in all
+the papers, an' soon a millionaire wrote that it was just the place
+he was lookin' for.  I closed the deal with him.  It was Bill
+Warburton, who used to go to school with me up there on the hills.
+He had long been dreamin' of a home in Pointview.
+
+"They used to say that Bill was a fool, but he proved an alibi.
+Went West years ago an' made a fortune, an' thought it would be
+nice to come back an' finish his life where it began, near the
+greatest American city.  I drew the papers, an' Bill an' I got
+together often an' talked of the old happy days, now glimmering in
+the far past--some thirty-five years away,
+
+[Illustration: Bill an' I got together often an' talked of the old
+happy days.]
+
+"Well, they enlarged the house--that was already big enough for a
+hotel--an' built stables an' kennels an' pheasant yards an' houses
+for ducks an' geese an' peacocks.  They stocked up with fourteen
+horses, twelve hounds, nine collies, four setters, nineteen
+servants, innumerable fowls, an' four motor-cars, an' started in
+pursuit o' happiness.
+
+"You see, they had no children, an' all these beasts an' birds were
+intended to supply the deficiency in human life, an' assist in the
+campaign.  Well, somehow, it didn't succeed, an' one day Bill came
+into my office with a worried look.  He confided to me the
+well-known fact that his wife was nervous and unhappy.
+
+"'The doctors don't do her any good, an' I thought I'd try a
+lawyer,' said he.
+
+"'Do you want to sue Fate for damages or indict her for malicious
+persecution?' I asked.
+
+"'Neither,' he said, 'but you know the laws of nature as well as
+the laws of men.  I appeal to you to tell me what law my wife has
+broken, and how she can make amends.'
+
+"'You surprise me,' I said.  'You an' the madame can have
+everything you want, an' still you're unhappy.'
+
+"'What can we have that you can't?  You can eat as much, an' sleep
+better, an' wear as many clothes, an' see an' hear as well as we
+can.'
+
+"'Ah, but in the matter of quality I'm way behind the flag, Bill.
+You can wear cloth o' gold, an Russian sables, an' have champagne
+an' terrapin every meal, an' fiddlers to play while ye eat it, an'
+a brass band to march around the place with ye, an' splendid horses
+to ride, an' dogs to roar on ahead an' attract the attention of the
+populace.  You can have a lot of bankrupt noblemen to rub an'
+manicure an' adulate an' chiropodize ye, an' people who'd have to
+laugh at your wit or look for another job, an' authors to read from
+their own works--'
+
+"Bill interrupted with a gentle protest: 'Soc, how comforting you
+are!'
+
+"'Well, if all that is losin' its charm, what's the matter with
+travel?'
+
+"'Don't talk to me about travel,' said Bill.  'We've worn ruts in
+the earth now.  Our feet have touched every land.'
+
+"'How many meals do you eat a day?'
+
+"'Three.'
+
+"'Try six,' I suggested.
+
+"He laughed, an' I thought I was makin' progress, so I kept on.
+
+"'How many motor-cars have ye ?'
+
+"'Four.'
+
+"'Get eight,' I advised, as Bill put on the loud pedal.  'You've
+got nineteen servants, I believe, try thirty-eight.  You
+have--twenty-one dogs--get forty-two.  You can afford it.'
+
+"'Come, be serious,' said Bill.  'Don't poke fun at me.'
+
+"'Ah! but your wife must be able to prove that she has more dogs
+an' horses an' servants an' motor-cars, an' that she eats more
+meals in a day than any other woman in Connecticut.  Then, maybe,
+she'll be happy.  You know it's a woman's ambition to excel.'
+
+"'We have too many fool things now,' said Bill, mournfully.  'She's
+had enough of them--God knows!'
+
+"Something in Bill's manner made me sit up and stare at him.
+
+"'Of course, you don't mean that she wants another husband!' I
+exclaimed.
+
+"'I'm not so sure of that,' said Bill, sadly.  'Sometimes I'm
+almost inclined to think she does.'
+
+"'Well, that's one direction in which I should advise strict
+economy,' said I.  'You can multiply the dogs an' the horses, an'
+the servants an' the motor-cars, but in the matter o' wives an'
+husbands we ought to stick to the simple life.  Don't let her go to
+competing with those Fifth Avenue ladies.'
+
+"'I don't know what's the matter,' Bill went on.  'She's had
+everything that her heart could wish.  But, of course, she has had
+only one husband, and most of her friends have had two or three.
+They've outmarried her.  It may be that, secretly, she's just a
+little annoyed about that.  Many of her old friends are consumed
+with envy; their bones are rotten with it.  They smile upon her;
+they accept her hospitality; they declare their love, and they long
+for her downfall.  Now, my wife has a certain pride and joy in all
+this, but, naturally, it breeds a sense of loneliness--the bitter
+loneliness that one may find only in a crowd.  She turns more and
+more to me, and, between ourselves, she seems to have made up her
+mind that I don't love her, and I can't convince her that I do.'
+
+"'Well, Bill, I should guess that you have always been fond of your
+wife--and--true to her.'
+
+"'And you are right,' said Bill.  'I've loved with all my heart and
+with a conscience.  It's my only pride, for, of course, I might
+have been gay.  In society I enjoy a reputation for firmness.  It
+is no idle boast.'
+
+"'Well, Bill, you can't do anything more for her in the matter of
+food, raiment, beasts, or birds, an' as to jewelry she carries a
+pretty heavy stock.  I often feel the need of smoked glasses when I
+look at her.  You'll have to make up your mind as to whether she
+needs more or less.  I'll study the situation myself.  It may be
+that I can suggest something by-and-by--just as a matter of
+friendship.'
+
+"'Your common sense may discern what is needed,' said Bill.  'I
+wish you'd come at least once a week to dinner.  My wife would be
+delighted, to have you, Soc.  You are one of the few men who
+interest her.'
+
+"She was a pretty woman, distinguished for a look of weariness and
+a mortal fear of fat.  She had done nothing so hard an' so long,
+that, to her, nothing was all there was in the world--save fat.
+She was so busy about it that she couldn't sit still an' rest.  She
+wandered from one chair to another, smokin' a cigarette, an' now
+and then glancin' at her image in a mirror an' slyly feelin' her
+ribs to see if she had gained flesh that day.  She liked me because
+I was unlike any other man she had met.  I poked fun at her folly
+an' all the grandeur of the place.  I amused her as much as she
+amused me, perhaps.  Anyhow, we got to be good friends, an' the
+next Sunday we all drove out in a motor-car to see Lizzie.  Mrs.
+Bill wanted to meet her.  Lizzie had become famous.  She was
+walkin' up an' down the lawn with the infant in a perambulator, an'
+the small boy toddling along behind her.  We left Mrs. Bill with
+Lizzie an' the kids, an' set out for a tramp over the big farm.
+When we returned we found the ladies talkin' earnestly in the house.
+
+[Illustration: We set out for a tramp over the big farm.]
+
+"Before we left I called Lizzie aside for a minute.
+
+"'How do you get along with these babies?' I asked.
+
+"'They're the life of our home.  My father and mother think they
+couldn't live without them.'
+
+"'An' they're good practice for you,' I suggested.  'It's time you
+were plannin' for yourself, Lizzie.'
+
+"'I've no prospects,' said she.
+
+"'How is that?'
+
+"'Why, there's only one boy that I care for, an' he has had enough
+of me.'
+
+"'You don't mean Dan?'
+
+"'Yes,' she whispered with trembling lips, an' turned away.
+
+"'What's the matter?'
+
+"She pulled herself together an' answered in half a moment: 'Oh, I
+don't know!  He doesn't come often.  He goes around with other
+girls.'
+
+"'Well,' I said, 'it's the same ol' story.  He's only tryin' to
+keep up with Lizzie.  You've done some goin' around yourself.'
+
+"'I know, but I couldn't help it.'
+
+"'He knows, an' he couldn't help it,' I says.  'The boys have
+flocked around you, an' the girls have flocked around Dan.  They
+were afraid he'd get lonesome.  If I were you I'd put a mortgage on
+him an' foreclose it as soon as possible.'
+
+"'It's too late,' says she.  'I hear he's mortgaged.'
+
+"'You'd better search the records,' I says, 'an' if it ain't so,
+stop bein' careless.  You've put yer father on his feet.  Now look
+out for yerself.'
+
+"'I think he's angry on account of the ham war,' says she.
+
+"'Why do you think that?'
+
+"She told me the facts, an' I laughed 'til the tears came to my
+eyes.
+
+"'Nonsense,' I says, 'Dan will like that.  You wait 'til I tell
+him, an' he'll be up here with his throttle wide open.'
+
+"'Do you suppose he'd spend Christmas with us?' she asked, with a
+very sober look.  'You know, his mother an' father have gone South,
+an' he'll be all alone.'
+
+"'Ask him at once--call him on the 'phone,' I advised, an' bade her
+good-bye.
+
+"The happiness o' Lizzie an' the charm o' those kids had suggested
+an idea.  I made up my mind that I'd try to put Mr. an' Mrs. Bill
+on the job o' keepin' up with Lizzie.
+
+"'That's a wonderful woman,' said Mrs. Bill, as we drove away.  'I
+envy her--she's so strong and well and happy.  She loves those
+babies, and is in the saddle every afternoon, helping with the work
+o' the farm.'
+
+"'Why don't you get into the saddle and be as well and strong as
+she is?' Bill asked.
+
+"'Because I've no object--it's only a way of doing nothing,' said
+Mrs. Bill.  'I'm weary of riding for exercise.  There never was a
+human being who could keep it up long.  It's like you and your
+dumb-bells.  To my knowledge you haven't set a foot in your
+gymnasium for a month.  As a matter of fact, you're as tired of
+play as I am, every bit.  Why don't you go into Wall Street an' get
+poor?'
+
+"'Tired of play!' Bill exclaimed.  'Why, Grace, night before last
+you were playing bridge until three o'clock in the morning.'
+
+"'Well, it's a way of doing nothing skilfully and on the
+competitive plan,' said she.  'It gives me a chance to measure my
+capacity.  When I get through I am so weary that often I can go to
+sleep without thinking.  It seems to me that brains are a great
+nuisance to one who has no need of them.  Of course, by-and-by,
+they'll atrophy and disappear like the tails of our ancestors.
+Meanwhile, I suppose they are bound to get sore.  Mine is such a
+fierce, ill-bred, impudent sort of a brain, and it's as busy as a
+bat in a belfry.  I often wish that I had one of those soft,
+flexible, paralytic, cocker-spaniel brains, like that of our friend
+Mrs. Seavey.  She is so happy with it--so unterrified.  She is
+equally at home in bed or on horseback, reading the last best
+seller or pouring tea and compliments.  Now just hear how this
+brain of mine is going on about that poor, inoffensive creature!
+But that's the way it treats me.  It's a perfect heathen of a
+brain.'
+
+"Bill an' I looked at each other an' laughed.  Her talk convinced
+me of one thing--that her trouble was not the lack of a brain.
+
+"'You're always making fun of me,' she said.  'Why don't you give
+me something to do?'
+
+"'Suppose you wash the dishes?' said Bill.
+
+"'Would it please you?'
+
+"'Anything that pleases you pleases me.'
+
+"'I saw that she, too, was goin' to try to keep up with Lizzie, an'
+I decided that I'd help her.  When we arrived at the villa we made
+our way to its front door through a pack of collie dogs out for an
+airing.
+
+"'By-the-way,' I said, when we sat down to luncheon at Bill's
+house, 'congratulate me.  I'm a candidate for new honors.'
+
+[Illustration: I'm a candidate for new honors.]
+
+"'Those of a husband?  I've been hoping for that--you stubborn old
+bachelor.' said Mrs. Bill, expectantly.
+
+"'No,' I answered, 'I'm to be a father.'
+
+"Bill put down his fork an' turned an' stared at me.  Mrs. Bill
+leaned back in her chair with a red look of surprise.
+
+"'The gladdest, happiest papa in Connecticut,' I added.
+
+"Mrs. Bill covered her face with her napkin an' began to shake.
+
+"'S-Soc., have you fallen?' Bill stammered.
+
+"'No, I've riz,' I said.  'Don't blame me, ol' man, I had to do it.
+I've adopted some orphans.  I'm goin' to have an orphanage on the
+hill; but it will take a year to finish it.  I'm goin' to have five
+children.  They're beauties, an' I know that I'm goin' to love
+them.  I propose to take them out of the atmosphere of indigence
+an' wholesale charity.  They'll have a normal, pleasant home, an' a
+hired mother an' me to look after them--the personal touch, you
+know.  I expect to have a lot of fun with them.'
+
+"'But what a responsibility!' said Mrs. Bill.
+
+"'I know, but I feel the need of it.  Of course it's different with
+you--very different--you have all these dogs an' horses to be
+responsible for an' to give you amusement.  I couldn't afford that.
+Then, too, I'm a little odd, I guess.  I can get more fun out of
+one happy, human soul than out of all the dogs an' horses in
+creation.'
+
+"'But children!  Why, they're so subject to sickness and accident
+and death,' said Mrs. Bill.
+
+"'An' they're subject, also, to health an' life an' safety,' I
+answered.
+
+"'Yes, but you know--they'll be getting into all kinds of trouble.
+They'll worry you.'
+
+"'True; but as for worry, I don't mind that much,' I said.  'My
+best days were those that were full of worry.  Now, that I've won a
+competence an' my worries are gone, so is half my happiness.  You
+can't have sunshine without shadows.  There was one of my neighbors
+who was troubled with "boils."  He had to have 'em cured right
+away, an' a doctor gave him some medicine that healed 'em up, but
+he was worse off than ever.  The boils began to do business inside
+of him, an' he rushed back to the doctor.
+
+"'What's the matter now?" said the medical man.
+
+"'"Outside I'm sound as a dollar," said my neighbor, "but it seems
+as if all hell had moved into me."
+
+"'Now, cares are like boils: it don't do to get rid of 'em too
+quick.  They're often a great relief to the inside of a man, an'
+it's better to have 'em on the surface than way down in your
+marrow.'
+
+"Bill an' his wife looked into each other's eyes for half a minute,
+but neither spoke.
+
+"'I'm goin' to ask a favor of you,' I said.  'I see that there's
+nobody livin' in the old farm-house out back of the garden.  I wish
+you'd let me put my little family into it until I can build a home
+for 'em.'
+
+"'Oh, my!' Mrs.  Bill exclaimed.  'Those children would be running
+all over the lawns and the garden.  They'd destroy my roses.'
+
+"'True; but, after all, they're more beautiful than the roses,' I
+urged.  'They're more graceful in form, more charming in color.
+Then, too, roses cannot laugh or weep or play.  Roses cannot look
+up at you out of eyes full of the light of heaven an' brighter than
+your jewels.  Roses may delight, but they cannot love you or know
+that you love them.  Dear woman, my roses will wander over the
+lawns.  Their colors will be flickering about you, and the music of
+their voices will surround the villa some days; but, God knows,
+they'll look better, far better than the dogs or the bronze lions,
+or the roses.  I shall dress them well.'
+
+"'I think he's right,' said Bill.
+
+"'He's most disturbing and persuasive anyway--the revolutionist!'
+said Mrs. Bill.  'If it's really a favor to you, Mr.  Potter, I
+shall agree to it.  But you must have a trusty woman.  I really
+cannot assume any responsibility.'
+
+"'I thanked her and promised to assume all responsibility, and Mrs.
+Warburton was to get the old house ready at once.
+
+"Three days later I drove to the villa with my matron and the
+babies.  Rather quick work, wasn't it?  I hadn't let any grass grow
+under my plan.  When we lit at the front door every youngster broke
+out in a loud hurrah of merriment.  The three-year-old
+boy--beautiful beyond all words--got aboard one of the crouched
+lions and began to shout.  A little girl made a grab at the
+morning-glories on a Doric column, while her sister had mounted a
+swinging seat an' tumbled to the floor.  The other two were
+chattering like parrots.  Honestly, I was scared.  I was afraid
+that Mrs. Bill would come down and jump into hysterics.  I snaked
+the boy off the lion's back and rapped on him for order.  The
+matron got busy with the others.  In a jiffy it seemed as if they
+had all begun to wail an' roar.  I trembled when a maid opened the
+door an' I saw Mrs. Bill comin' down the staircase.  I wouldn't
+have been surprised to have seen the bronze lion get up an' run.
+
+[Illustration: Three days later I drove to the villa.]
+
+"'The saints defend us!' exclaimed Mrs. Bill, in the midst of the
+uproar.
+
+"'They're not at their best,' I shouted, 'but here they are.'
+
+"'Yes, I knew they were there,' said Mrs. Bill.  'This is the music
+of which you were speaking the other day.  Take them right around
+to the old house, if you please.  I'm sorry, but I must ask you to
+excuse me this morning.'
+
+"I succeeded in quellin' the tumult, and introduced the matron, who
+received a nod an' a look that made a dent in her, an' away we went
+around the great house, a melancholy, shuffling troop, now silent
+as the grave.  It looked dark for my little battalion with which I
+had been hoping to conquer this world within the villa gates.  They
+were of the great army of the friendless.
+
+"I asked Mrs. Hammond, the matron, to see that they did as little
+damage as possible, and left them surrounded by every comfort.
+
+"They had a telephone and unlimited credit at the stores, an' Mrs.
+Hammond was a motherly soul of much experience with children, an' I
+knew that I could trust her.
+
+"I was to dine with the Warburtons later in the week, an' before I
+entered the big house that evening I went around to the lodge.  The
+children were all well an' asleep in their beds, an' the matron
+apparently happy an' contented.  She said that Mrs. Bill had met
+them in the grounds that day, an' she told how the little
+three-year-old boy had exerted his charms upon my lady Warburton,
+who had spent half an hour leading him through the gardens.
+
+[Illustration: The boy had exerted his charms upon my lady
+Warburton.]
+
+"How beautiful he was lying asleep in his bed that evening!--his
+face like the old dreams of Eros, with silken, yellow, curly locks
+on his brow, an' long dark lashes, soft as the silk of the growing
+corn, an' a red mouth, so wonderfully curved, so appealing in its
+silence.  Beneath it were teeth like carved ivory.  Those baby lips
+seemed to speak to me and to say: 'O man that was born of a woman,
+and like me was helpless, give me your love or look not upon me!'
+
+"But I could not help looking, an" as I looked he smiled in what
+dreams--of things past or to come--I wish it were in me to tell
+you.  Something touched me--like a strong hand.  I went out under
+the trees in the darkness an' stood still an' wondered what had
+happened to me.  Great Scott!--me!  Socrates Potter, lawyer,
+statesman, horse-trader!
+
+"'With that little captain I could take a city,' I whispered, an' I
+got up an' brushed myself off, as it were, an' walked around to the
+front door of the great house.
+
+"Therein I was to witness an amusing comedy.  The butler wore a new
+sort of grin as he took my wraps at the door.  There were guests,
+mostly from New York an' Greenwich.  We had taken our seats at the
+table when, to my surprise, Mrs. Bill, in a grand costume, with a
+tiara on her head, an' a collar of diamonds on her neck, began to
+serve the caviar.
+
+"'Ladies and gentlemen,' said she, 'this is to convince Mr.
+Socrates Potter that I can do useful work.  I'm dieting, anyhow,
+and I can't eat.'
+
+"'My friend, I observe that you are serving us, and we are proud,
+but you do not appear to be serving a purpose,' I said.
+
+"'Now, don't spoil it all with your relentless logic,' she began.
+'You see, I am going to take a hand in this keeping-up-with-Lizzie
+business.  One of our ladies had to give up a dinner-party the
+other day, because her butlers had left suddenly.'
+
+"'"Why didn't you and a maid serve the dinner yourselves?" I said.
+
+"'"Impossible!" was her proud answer.
+
+"'"It would have been a fine lark.  I would have done it," I said.
+
+"'"I'd like to see you," she laughed.
+
+"'"You shall," I answered, and here I am.'
+
+"Now, there were certain smiles which led me to suspect that it was
+a blow aimed at one of the ladies who sat at the table with us, but
+of that I am not sure.
+
+"'I'm also getting my hand in,' our hostess went on.  'Bill and I
+are going to try the simple life.  Tomorrow we move into the
+log-cabin, where we shall do our own work, and send the servants
+off for a week's holiday.  I'm going to do the cooking--I've been
+learning how--and I shall make the beds, and Bill is to chop the
+wood, and help wash the dishes, and we shall sleep out-of-doors.
+It will, I hope, be a lesson to some of these proud people around
+us who are living beyond their means.  That's good, isn't it?'
+
+"'Excellent!' I exclaimed, as the others laughed.
+
+"'Incidentally, it will help me to reduce,' she added.
+
+"'An' it promises to reduce Bill,' I said.  'It will kill Bill, I
+fear, but it will pay.  You might change your plan a little--Just a
+little--an' save poor Bill.  Think of eating biscuit an' flapjacks
+from the hand of a social leader!  Between the millstones of duty
+and indigestion he will be sadly ground, but with the axe he may,
+if he will, defend his constitution.'
+
+"'Well, what's a constitution between husband and wife?' she asked.
+"'Nothin'.' I says.  'Bear in mind I wouldn't discourage you.  With
+the aid of the axe his ancestors were able to withstand the
+assaults of pork an' beans an' pie.  If he uses it freely, he is
+safe.'
+
+"'You see, I shall have him in a position where he must work or
+die,' said Mrs.  Bill.
+
+"'He'll die,' said a guest.
+
+"'I call it a worthy enterprise whatever the expense,' I said.  'It
+will set a fashion here an' a very good one.  In this community
+there are so many dear ladies who are prisoners of gravitation.
+They rely almost exclusively on hired hands an' feet, an' are
+losin' the use o' their own.  What confusion will spread among them
+when they learn that Mrs. William Henry Warburton, the richest
+woman in Fairfield County, and the daughter of a bishop, has been
+doin' her own work!  What consternation!  What dismay!  What female
+profanity!  What a revision of habits an' resolutions!  Why,
+there's been nothin' like it since the descent of Lizzie.'
+
+"'I think it's terrible,' said a fat lady from Louisville,
+distinguished for her appetite, an' often surreptitiously referred
+to as 'The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.' 'The idea of trying to make
+it fashionable to endure drudgery!  I think we women have all we
+can do now.'
+
+"'To be respectable,' said Mrs. Bill; 'but let's try to do
+something else.'
+
+"'Why don't you form a Ladies' Protective Union,' Bill suggested,
+'an' choose the tiara for a symbol, an' strike for no hours a day
+an' all your husbands can earn?'
+
+"'And the employment of skilled idlers only,' Mrs.  Bill put in.
+'They must all know how to do nothing in the modern way--by
+discussing the rights of women and the novel of lust, and the
+divorces past and prospective, by playing at bridge and
+benevolence.  How absurd it all is!  I'm not going to be an
+overgrown child any longer.'
+
+"I saw that Mrs. Bill was makin' progress, an' with her assistance
+I began to hope for better things in that neighborhood.
+
+"You've got to reach the women somehow, you see, before you can
+improve the social conditions of a community.  I love them, but
+many are overgrown children, as Mrs. Bill had put it, an' doin'
+nothing with singular skill an' determination an' often with
+appalling energy.
+
+"Our pretty hostess had been helping a butler, as this talk went
+on, an' presently one of the other ladies joined her, an' never was
+any company so picturesquely an' amusingly served.
+
+"'I've quite fallen in love with that three-year-old boy,' said
+Mrs. Bill, as we rose from the table.  'I had a good romp with him
+to-day.'
+
+"'I wish you'd go over to the old farm-house with me; I want to
+show you something,' I said.
+
+"In a moment we were in wraps an' making our way across the lawn.
+
+"'I was glad to get a rap at that Mrs. Barrow,' she whispered, as
+we walked along.  'She's just got back her jewels that were stolen,
+and has begun to go out again.  She's the vainest, proudest fool of
+a woman, and her husband is always borrowing money.  Did you know
+it?'
+
+"'Some--that is, fairly well,' I said, with bitterness.
+
+"'So does Bill, and she goes about with the airs of a grand lady
+and the silliest notions.  Really, it was for her benefit that I
+helped the butler.'
+
+"'If it weren't for Bill I'd call you an angel,' I said.  'You have
+it in your power to redeem the skilled idlers of this community.'
+
+"We reached the little house so unlike the big, baronial thing we
+had left.  It was a home.  Mrs. Hammond sat by the reading-lamp in
+its cozy sitting-room before an open fire.  She led us into the
+bedroom with the lamp in her hand.  There lay the boy as I had left
+him, still smiling with a lovelier, softer red in his cheeks than
+that of roses.
+
+[Illustration: She led us into the bedroom.]
+
+"'See the color and the dimples,' I said.
+
+"She looked from one to another, an' suddenly the strong appeal of
+their faces fell upon her.  She raised the boy from his bed, an' he
+put his arms around her neck an' began to talk in a tender baby
+treble.
+
+"Did you ever hear the voice of a child just out of dreamland, when
+it expresses, not complaint, but love an' contentment?  Well, sir,
+it is the sweetest, the most compelling note in all nature, I
+believe.  It is like a muted violin--voice of God or voice of
+man--which is it?  I dare not say, but I do know that the song of
+the hermit-thrush is but sounding brass compared with that.
+
+"I felt its power, an' I said to myself: 'I will waste my life no
+longer.  I will marry.'
+
+"She, too, had felt it.  The little captain had almost overcome
+her.  She laid him down, an' we turned away.
+
+"We walked through the garden paths, an' neither spoke, but in the
+stillness I could hear trumpets of victory.  We entered the great
+hall an' sat with the others by its fireside, but took little part
+in the talk.  When I made my adieus she shook my hand warmly and
+said I was very good to them.
+
+"Save for its good example, the log-cabin experiment was not a
+success.  They slept with all the doors and windows open, an' one
+night a skunk came in an' got under the bed.  Mrs. Bill discovered
+that they had company, an' Bill got up an' lit the lantern, an'
+followed the clew to its source.  He threatened an' argued an'
+appealed to the skunk's better nature with a doughnut, but the
+little beast sat unmoved in his corner.  The place seemed to suit
+him.
+
+"Bill got mad an' flung the axe at him.  It was a fatal move--fatal
+to the skunk an' the cabin an' the experiment, an' a blow to the
+sweetness an' sociological condition of Connecticut.
+
+"They returned to the big house, an' by-an'-by told me of their
+adventure.
+
+"'Don't be discouraged,' I said.  'You will find skunks in every
+walk of life, but when you do, always throw down your cards an'
+quit the game.  They can deal from the bottom of the pack.  You
+haven't a ghost of a show with 'em.'
+
+"Being driven out of the cabin, Mrs. Bill gave most of her leisure
+to the farm-house, where I had spent an hour or more every day.
+
+"Suddenly I saw that a wonderful thing had happened to me.  I was
+in love with those kids, an' they with me.  The whole enterprise
+had been a bluff conceived in the interest of the Warburtons.  I
+hadn't really intended to build a house, but suddenly I got busy
+with all the mechanics I could hire in Pointview, and the house
+began to grow like a mushroom.
+
+"Another wonderful thing happened.  Mrs. Warburton fell in love
+with the kids, and they with her.  She romped with them on the
+lawn; she took them out to ride every day; she put them to bed
+every night; she insisted upon buying their clothes; she bought
+them a pony an' a little omnibus; she built them a playhouse for
+their comfort.  The whole villa began to revolve around the
+children.  They called her mama an' they called me papa, a
+sufficiently singular situation.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+IN WHICH THE PURSUIT OF LIZZIE BECOMES HIGHLY SERIOUS
+
+Dan had been out of town, an' immediately on his return he came to
+my office.
+
+"'How's business?' I asked.
+
+"'Well, the ham war was a little hard on us, but we're picking up,'
+says he.  'They're still selling hams way below a decent price over
+at Henshaw's.  I don't see how they can do it.'
+
+"'I do,' I says.
+
+"'Please explain," says Dan.
+
+"'Don't you know that Lizzie was buyin' most o' those hams that you
+sold way below the wholesale price, an' that she's now makin' a
+good profit on 'em?' I says.
+
+"'Great Scott!' Dan exclaimed, as he sank in a chair.
+
+"'The fact is, Dan, the only way to keep up with that girl is to
+marry her,' says I.  'Get busy.  If you don't somebody else will.
+Put a mortgage on her an' foreclose it as soon as possible.  As a
+floatin' asset Lizzie is dangerous.'
+
+"Dan picked up his hat an' started for the door.
+
+"'Tell her she must do business or you'll cut the price of
+Pettigrews,' I suggested.
+
+"'Good idea!' he answered, as he went away.
+
+"Meanwhile Mr. an' Mrs. Bill Warburton were hot on the trail of
+Lizzie.
+
+"Bill came to me one day an' said: 'Those babies have solved the
+problem; my wife is happy and in excellent health.  She sleeps an'
+eats as well as ever, an' her face has a new look--you have
+observed it?'
+
+"'Certainly, Bill, an' you're goin' to hear some rather chesty an'
+superior talk.  I saw what was the matter long ago--she was
+motor-sick, an' tiara-sick, an' dog-sick, an' horse-sick.  She was
+sick of idleness an' rich food an' adulation.  She has discovered
+that there are only three real luxuries--work, children,
+motherhood--that to shirk responsibility is to forfeit happiness.
+I have been a little disappointed in you, Bill.  Your father was a
+minister; he had the love of men in his soul.  You seem to have
+taken to dogs an' horses with an affection almost brotherly.  I
+don't blame you so much.  When men get rich they naturally achieve
+a passion for the things that money will buy.  They think they've
+got to improve the breed o' dogs an' horses, an' they're apt to
+forget the breed o' men.  You've been pursuin' Happiness with dogs,
+horses, an' motor-cars.  You never can catch her in that
+way--never.  Don't you remember, Bill, that in the old days we
+didn't pursue Happiness?  Why, Happiness pursued us an' generally
+caught us.  Some days she didn't succeed until we were all tired
+out, an' then she led us away into the wonderful land o' dreams,
+an' it was like heaven.  You never get Happiness by pursuin'
+_her_--that's one dead sure thing.  Happiness is never captured.
+She comes unbidden or not at all.  She travels only in one path,
+an' you haven't found it.  Bill, we've strayed a little.  Let's try
+to locate the trail o' Happiness.  I believe we're gettin' near it.
+
+"'Last year a colt of yours won a classic event of the turf.  How
+much finer it would be if you had some boys in training for the
+sublime contests of life, an' it wouldn't cost half so much.  You
+know, there are plenty of homeless boys who need your help.
+Wouldn't it pay better to develop a Henry M. Stanley--once a
+homeless orphan--than a Salvator or an Ormonde or a Rayon d'Or?'
+
+"'Pound away,' said Bill.  'Nail an' rivet me to the cross.  I
+haven't a word to say, except this: What in the devil do ye want me
+to do?'
+
+"'Well, ye might help to redeem New England,' I said.  'The Yankee
+blood is runnin' out, an' it's a pity.  To-day the Yankees are
+almost a childless race.  Do ye know the reason?'
+
+"He shook his head.
+
+"'It costs so much to live,' I says.  'We can't afford children.
+To begin with, the boys an' girls don't marry so young.  They can't
+stand the expense.  They're all keepin' up with Lizzie, but on the
+wrong road.  The girls are worse than the boys.  They go out o' the
+private school an' beat the bush for a husband.   At first they
+hope to drive out a duke or an earl; by-an'-by they're willin' to
+take a common millionaire; at last they conclude that if they can't
+get a stag they'll take a rabbit.  Then we learn that they're
+engaged to a young man, an' are goin' to marry as soon as he can
+afford it.  He wears himself out in the struggle, an' is apt to be
+a nervous wreck before the day arrives.  They are nearin' or past
+thirty when he decides that with economy an' _no children_ they can
+afford to maintain a home.  The bells ring, the lovely strains from
+"Lohengrin" fill the grand, new house o' God, an' overflow into the
+quiet streets o' the village, an' we hear in them what Wagner never
+thought of--_the joyful death-march of a race_.  Think of it, Bill,
+this old earth is growin' too costly for the use o' man.  We prefer
+autos an' diamonds an' knick-knacks!  Life has become a kind of a
+circus where only the favored can pay the price of admission, an'
+here in America, where about all the great men we have had were
+bred in cabins, an' everything worth a fish-hook came out o'
+poverty!  You have it in your power to hasten the end o' this
+wickedness,' I said.  'For one thing, you can make the middleman
+let go of our throats in this community.  Near here are hundreds of
+acres o' land goin' to waste.  Buy it an' make it produce--wool,
+meat, flax, grains, an' vegetables.  Start a market an' a small
+factory here, an' satisfy yourself as to what is a just price for
+the necessaries of life.  If the tradesmen are overchargin' us,
+they'll have to reduce prices.  Put your brain an' money into it;
+make it a business.  At least, you'll demonstrate what it ought to
+cost to live here in New England.  If it's so much that the average
+Yankee can't afford it by honest work--if we must all be lawyers or
+bankers or brokers or graspin' middle-men in order to live--let's
+start a big Asylum for the Upright, an' give 'em a chance to die
+comfortably.  But it isn't so.  I can raise potatoes right here for
+thirty cents a bushel, as good as those you pay forty cents a peck
+for at Sam Henshaw's.  You'll set an example of inestimable value
+in this republic of ours.  Dan has begun the good work, an'
+demonstrated that it will pay.'
+
+"'It's a good idea--I'm with you,' he said.  'If we can get the
+boys an' girls to marry while the bloom is on the rye, it's worth
+while, an' I wouldn't wonder if indirectly we'd increase the crop
+of Yankees an' the yield of happiness to the acre.'
+
+"'Bill, you're a good fellow,' I said.  'You only need to be
+reminded of your duty--you're like many another man.'
+
+"'And I'll think you the best fellow in the world if you'll let us
+keep those kids.  We enjoy them.  We've been having a lot of fun
+lately.'
+
+"'I can't do that,' I said, 'but I'll keep 'em here until we can
+get some more.  There are thousands of them as beautiful, as
+friendless, as promising as these were.'
+
+"'I wish you could let us have these,' he urged.  'We wouldn't
+adopt them, probably, but we'd do our best for them--our very best.'
+
+"'I can't,' I answered.
+
+"'Why?'
+
+"'Because they've got hold of my old heart--that's why.  I hadn't
+looked for that, Bill, but the little cusses have conquered _me_.'
+
+"'Great God!' he exclaimed.  'I hadn't thought of that.  And my
+wife told me this morning that she loves that three-year-old boy as
+dearly as she loves me.  They've all won her heart.  What shall I
+do?'
+
+"'Let me think it over,' I said, an' shook his hand an' left, an' I
+knew that I was likely to indulge in the makin' of history right
+away.
+
+"I went home an' sat down an' wrote the best brief of my career--an
+appeal to the Supreme Court o' this planet--a woman's heart.  It
+was a letter to one whose name I honored although I had not written
+it in years.
+
+"Next mornin' I plunged into a lawsuit an' was workin' night an'
+day, until the jury came in with a verdict an' court adjourned for
+the Christmas holidays.
+
+"An' that day a decision was handed down in my appeal to the court
+of last resort.  It was a cablegram from an Italian city, an' a
+verdict in my favor.  I am to get in that case the best fee on
+record--a wife and the love of a dear and beautiful woman.  We went
+to school together, and I am ashamed that I didn't ask her to marry
+me years ago.  So much for me had Lizzie an' the kids accomplished.
+
+"I was to dine with the Warburtons Christmas Eve, and be Santa
+Claus for the children.  I bought a set o' whiskers an' put on my
+big fur coat and two sets o' bells on the mare, an' drove to the
+villa, with a full pack in the buggy an' a fuller heart in my
+breast.
+
+"Bill an' Mrs. Bill an' I went over to the farm-house together with
+our arms full.  The children were in a room up-stairs with Mrs.
+Hammond waiting for Santa Claus.  Below we helped the two maids,
+who were trimming the Christmas tree--and a wonderful tree it was
+when we were done with it--why, sir, you'd have thought a rainbow
+was falling into a thicket on the edge of a lake.  My friend, it
+was the tree of all fruits.
+
+"We filled the little stockings hanging on the mantel.  Then they
+helped me to put on my beard an' the greatcoat an' cap an' the pack
+over all, an' Mrs. Bill an' I went out-of-doors.  We stood still
+an' listened for a moment.  Two baby voices were calling out of an
+upper window: 'Santa Claus, please come, Santa Claus!' Then we
+heard the window close an' the chatter above stairs, but we stood
+still.  Mrs. Bill seemed to be laughing, but I observed that her
+handkerchief had the centre of the stage in this little comedy.
+
+"In half a minute I stole down the road an' picked up the bells
+that lay beside it, an' came prancin' to the door with a great
+jingle, an' in I went an' took my stand by the Christmas tree.  We
+could hear the hurry of small feet, an' eager, half-hushed voices
+in the hall overhead.  Then down the stairway came my slender
+battalion in the last scene of the siege.  Their eyes were wide
+with wonder, their feet slow with fear.  The little captain of
+three years ran straight to Mrs. Bill an' lay hold of her gown, an'
+partly hid himself in its folds, an' stood peekin' out at me.  It
+was a masterful bit of strategy.  I wonder how he could have done
+it so well.  She raised him in her arms an' held him close.  A
+great music-box in a corner began to play:
+
+  "'O tannenbaum! O tannenbaum!
+  wie grun sind deine blaetter!'
+
+[Illustration: Their eyes were wide with wonder.]
+
+"Then with laughter an' merry jests we emptied the pack, an'
+gathered from the tree whose fruit has fed the starving human heart
+for more than a thousand years, an' how it filled those friends o'
+mine!
+
+"Well, it was the night of my life, an' when I turned to go, its
+climax fell upon me.  Mrs. Bill kneeled at my feet, an' said with
+tears in her eyes, an' her lips an' voice trembling:
+
+"'O Santa Claus! you have given me many things, but I beg for
+more--five more.'
+
+"The city had fallen.  Its queen was on her knees.  The victorious
+army was swarming into the open gate of her arms.  The hosts of
+doubt an' fear were fleeing.
+
+"I refuse to tell you all that happened in the next minute or two.
+A witness has some rights when testifyin' against his own manhood.
+
+"I helped the woman to her feet, an' said:
+
+"'They are yours.  I shall be happy enough, and, anyhow, I do not
+think I shall need them now.'
+
+"An' so I left them as happy as human beings have any right to be.
+At last they had caught up with Lizzie, an' I, too, was in a fair
+way to overtake her.
+
+"An' how fared Dan in his pursuit of that remarkable maiden?  Why,
+that very night Lizzie an' Dan had been shakin' the tree o' love,
+an' I guess the fruit on it was fairly ripe an' meller.  Next day
+they came up to my house together.
+
+"Dan couldn't hold his happiness, an' slopped over as soon as he
+was inside the door.
+
+"'Mr. Potter,' says he, with more than Christmas merriment, 'we're
+going to be married next month.'
+
+"Before I could say a word he had gathered Lizzie up in his arms
+an' kissed her, an' she kissed back as prompt as if it had been a
+slap in a game o' tag.
+
+"'You silly man,' she says, 'you could have had me long ago.'
+
+"'If I'd only 'a' known it,' he says.
+
+"'Oh, the ignorance o' some men!' she says, lookin' into his eyes.
+
+"'It exceeds the penetration o' some women,' I says.
+
+"They came together ag'in quite spiteful.  I separated 'em.
+
+"'Quit,' I says.  'Stop pickin' on each other.  It provokes you an'
+me too.  You're like a pair o' kids turned loose in a candy store.
+Behave yerselves an' listen to reason.'
+
+"Lizzie turned upon me as if she thought it was none o' my
+business.  Then she smiled an' hid her face on the manly breast o'
+Dan.
+
+"'Now Lizzie,' I says, 'get yer mind in workin' order as soon as ye
+can.  Dan, you go over an' stand by the window.  I want you to keep
+at least ten paces apart, an' please don't fire 'til ye get the
+signal.  I'm goin' to give a prize for the simplest weddin' that
+ever took place in Pointview,' I says.  'It will be five hundred
+dollars in gold for the bride.  Don't miss it.'
+
+"'The marriage will occur at noon,' says Lizzie.  'There'll be
+nothing but simple morning frocks.  The girls can wear calico if
+they wish.  No jewels, no laces, no elaborate breakfast."
+
+"'An' no presents, but mine, that cost over five dollars each,' I
+says.
+
+"An' that's the way it was--like old times.  No hard work wasted in
+gettin' ready, no vanity fair, no heart-burnin', no bitter envy, no
+cussin' about the expense.  There was nothing but love an'
+happiness an' goodwill at that wedding.  It was just as God would
+have a wedding, I fancy, if He were the master o' ceremonies, as He
+ought to be.
+
+"They are now settled on a thousand acres o' land here in New
+England.  Dan has eight gangs o' human oxen from Italy at work for
+him getting in his fertilizers.  He rides a horse all day an' is as
+cordy as a Roman gladiator.  Do you know what it means?  Ten
+thousand like him are going into the same work, the greed o' the
+middleman will be checked, an' one o' these days the old earth 'll
+be lopsided with the fruitfulness of America."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+IN WHICH THE HONORABLE SOCRATES POTTER CATCHES UP WITH LIZZIE
+
+Early in June I was invited to the wedding of Miss Betsey Smead and
+the Honorable Socrates Potter.  Miss Betsey had inherited a large
+estate, and lived handsomely in the Smead homestead, built by her
+grandfather.  She was a woman of taste and refinement, but, in
+deference to Socrates, no doubt, the invitations had been printed
+in the office of the local newspaper.  There could have been no
+better example of honest simplicity.  The good news sent me in
+quest of my friend the lawyer.  I found him in Miss Betsey's
+library.  He was in high spirits and surrounded by treasures of art.
+
+"Yes, I'm in luck," he began.  "Miss Betsey is a dear soul.  We're
+bound to be happy in spite of all this polished brass an' plate an'
+mahogany.  There's nothin' here that I can put my feet on, except
+the rugs or the slippery floor or the fender.  Everything has the
+appearance o' bein' more valuable than I am.  If it was mine I'd
+take an axe an' bring things down to my level.  I'm kind o' scairt
+for fear I'll sp'ile suthin' er other.  Sometimes I feel as if I'd
+like to crawl under the grand pyano an' git out o' danger.  Now
+look at old gran'pa Smead in his gold frame on the wall.  He's got
+me buffaloed.  Watches every move I make.  Betsey laughs an' tells
+me I can sp'ile anything I want to, but gran'pa is ever remindin'
+me o' the ancient law o' the Smeads an' the Persians."
+
+"Mr. Potter, I owe so much to you," I said.  "I want to make you a
+present--something that you and your wife will value.  I've thought
+about it for weeks.  Can you--"
+
+He interrupted me with a smile and these gently spoken words:
+
+"Friends who wish to express their good-will in gifts are requested
+to consider the large an' elegant stock o' goods in the local
+ninety-nine-cent store.  Everything from socks to sunbursts may be
+found there.  Necklaces an' tiaras are not prohibited if guaranteed
+to be real ninety-nine-centers.  These days nobody has cheap
+things.  That makes them rare an' desirable.  All diamonds should
+weigh at least half a pound.  Smaller stones are too common.
+Everybody has them, you know.  Why, the wife of the butcher's clerk
+is payin' fifty cents a week on a solitaire.  Gold, silver, an'
+automobiles will be politely but firmly refused--too common, far
+too common!  Nothin' is desired likely to increase envy or bank
+loans or other forms of contemporaneous crime in Pointview.  We
+would especially avoid increasin' the risk an' toil of overworked
+an' industrious burglars.  They have enough to do as it is--poor
+fellows--they hardly get a night's rest.  Miss Betsey's home has
+already given 'em a lot o' trouble."
+
+His humor had relieved its pressure in the deep, good-natured
+chuckle of the Yankee, as he strode up an' down the floor with both
+hands in his trousers pockets.
+
+"Look at that ol' duffer," he went on, as he pointed at the stern
+features of grandpa Smead.  "Wouldn't ye think he'd smile now an'
+then.  Maybe he'll cheer up after I've lived here awhile."
+
+He moved a couple of chairs to give him more room, an' went on:
+
+"Now, there's Bill Warburton.  I supposed he was a friend o' mine,
+but we had a fight in school, years ago, an' I guess he's never got
+over it.  Anyhow, I caught him tryin' to slip an automobile on
+me--just caught him in time.  There he was tryin' to rob me o' the
+use o' my legs an' about fifteen hundred a year for expenses an'
+build me up into a fat man with indigestion an' liver-complaint.  I
+served an injunction on him.
+
+"Another man has tried to make me the lifelong slave of a silver
+service.  He'd gone down to Fifth Avenue an' ordered it, an' I
+suppose it would 'a' cost thousands.  Tried to sneak it on me.  Can
+ye think o' anything meaner?  It would 'a' cost me a pretty penny
+for insurance an' storage the rest o' my life, an' then think of
+our--ahem--our poor children!  Why, it would be as bad as a
+mortgage debt.  Every time I left home I would have worried about
+that silver service; every time the dog barked at night I would
+have trembled in my bed for the safety o' the silver service; every
+time we had company I would have been afraid that somebody was
+goin' to scratch the silver service; an' when I saw a stranger in
+town, I would have said to myself: 'Ah, ha! it may be that he has
+heard of our silver service an' has come to steal it.'  I would
+have begun to regard my servants an' many other people with dread
+an' suspicion.  Why, once I knew a man who had a silver service,
+an' they carried it up three nights to the attic every night for
+fifty years.  They figured that they'd walked eleven hundred miles
+up an' down stairs with the silver service in their hands.  The
+thought that they couldn't take it with 'em hastened an' embittered
+their last days.  Then the heirs learned that it wasn't genuine
+after all.
+
+"Of course, I put another injunction upon that man.  'If we've ever
+done anything to you, forgive us,' I said, 'but please do not
+cripple us with gold or silver.'"
+
+He stopped and put his hand upon my shoulder and continued:
+
+"My young friend, if you would make us a gift, I wish it might be
+something that will give us pleasure an' not trouble, something
+that money cannot buy an' thieves cannot steal--your love an' good
+wishes to be ours as long as you live an' we live--at least.  We
+shall need no token o' that but your word an' conduct."
+
+I assured him of all he asked for with a full heart.
+
+"Should I come dressed?" was my query.
+
+"Dressed, yes, but not dressed up," he answered.  "Neither white
+neckties nor rubber boots will be required."
+
+"How are Mr. and Mrs. Bill?"
+
+"Happier than ever," said he.  "Incidentally they've learned that
+life isn't all a joke, for one of those little brownies led them to
+the gate of the great mystery an' they've begun to look through it
+an' are' wiser folks.  Two other women are building orphan lodges
+on their grounds, an' there's no tellin' where the good work will
+end."
+
+We were interrupted by the entrance of Miss Betsey Smead.  She was
+a comely, bustling, cheerful little woman of about forty-five, with
+a playful spirit like that of Socrates himself.
+
+"This is my _financee_," said Socrates.  "She has waited for me
+twenty-five years."
+
+"And he kept me waiting--the wretch!--just because my grandfather
+left me his money," said Miss Betsey.
+
+"I shall never forgive that man," said Socrates, as he shook his
+fist at the portrait.  "An' she was his only grandchild, too."
+
+"And think how comfortable he might have been here, and how I've
+worried about him."  Miss Betsey went on: "Here, Soc., put your
+feet on this piano seat.  Now you look at home."
+
+"When I achieve the reformation of Betsey I shall have a kitchen
+table to put my feet on!" said Soc., as I left them.
+
+Then I decided that I would send him a kitchen table.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Keeping up with Lizzie, by Irving Bacheller
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 11503.txt or 11503.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/5/0/11503/
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year. For example:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/11503.zip b/old/11503.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5871ffb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/11503.zip
diff --git a/old/readme.htm b/old/readme.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0c8f9f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/readme.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+    <meta charset="utf-8">
+</head>
+<body>
+<div>
+  Old versions of this book's files are here.<br>
+  Any future changes are reflected in the GitHub repository:<br>
+  <a href="https://github.com/gutenbergbooks/11503">https://github.com/gutenbergbooks/11503</a>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>
\ No newline at end of file