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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/12094-0.txt b/12094-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1bfb1b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/12094-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12288 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12094 *** + +O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD + +PRIZE STORIES + +of 1919 + + + + +CHOSEN BY THE SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES + + + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + +BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS + +1924 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +ENGLAND TO AMERICA. By Margaret Prescott Montague + +"FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO." By Wilbur Daniel Steele + +THEY GRIND EXCEEDING SMALL. By Ben Ames Williams + +ON STRIKE. By Albert Payson Terhune. + +THE ELEPHANT REMEMBERS. By Edison Marshall + +TURKEY RED. By Frances Gilchrist Wood + +FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD. By Melville Davisson Post + +THE BLOOD OF THE DRAGON. By Thomas Grant Springer + +"HUMORESQUE." By Fannie Hurst + +THE LUBBENY KISS. By Louise Rice. + +THE TRIAL IN TOM BELCHER'S STORE. By Samuel A. Derieux + +PORCELAIN CUPS. By James Branch Cabell + +THE HIGH COST OF CONSCIENCE. By Beatrice Ravenel + +THE KITCHEN GODS. By G.F. Alsop + +APRIL 25TH, AS USUAL. By Edna Ferber + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +On April 18, 1918, the Society of Arts and Sciences of New York City +paid tribute to the memory of William Sydney Porter at a dinner in +honour of his genius. In the ball-room of the Hotel McAlpin there +gathered, at the speakers' table, a score of writers, editors and +publishers who had been associated with O. Henry during the time he +lived in Manhattan; in the audience, many others who had known him, and +hundreds yet who loved his short stories. + +Enthusiasm, both immediate and lasting, indicated to the Managing +Director of the Society, Mr. John F. Tucker, that he might progress +hopefully toward an ideal he had, for some time, envisioned. The goal +lay in the establishing of a memorial to the author who had transmuted +realistic New York into romantic Bagdad-by-the-Subway. + +When, therefore, in December, 1918, Mr. Tucker called a committee for +the purpose of considering such a memorial, he met a glad response. The +first question, "What form shall the monument assume?" drew tentative +suggestions of a needle in Gramercy Square, or a tablet affixed to the +corner of O. Henry's home in West Twenty-sixth Street. But things of +iron and stone, cold and dead, would incongruously commemorate the +dynamic power that moved the hearts of living men and women, "the master +pharmacist of joy and pain," who dispensed "sadness tinctured with a +smile and laughter that dissolves in tears." + +In short, then, it was decided to offer a minimum prize of $250 for the +best short story published in 1919, and the following Committee of Award +was appointed: + + BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, Ph.D. + EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt.D. + ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD + ROBERT WILSON NEAL, M.A. + MERLE ST. CROIX WRIGHT, D.D. + +It is significant that this committee had no sooner begun its round +table conferences than the Society promised, through the Director, funds +for two prizes. The first was fixed at $500, the second at $250. + +At a meeting in January, 1919, the Committee of Award agreed upon the +further conditions that the story must be the work of an American +author, and must first appear in 1919 in an American publication. At the +same time an Honorary Committee was established, composed of writers and +editors, whose pleasure it might be to offer advice and propose stories +for consideration. The Honorary Committee consisted of + + GERTRUDE ATHERTON + EDWARD J. O'BRIEN + FANNIE HURST + JOHN MACY + BURGES JOHNSON + MRS. EDWIN MARKHAM + ROBERT MORSS LOVETT + JOHN S. PHILLIPS + WILLIAM MARION REEDY + VIRGINIA RODERICK + WALTER ROBERTS + CHARLES G. NORRIS + EDWARD E. HALE + MAX EASTMAN + CHARLES CALDWELL DOBIE + MARGARET SHERWOOD + HAMLIN GARLAND + JAMES BRANCH CABELL + STUART P. SHERMAN + WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + STEPHEN LEACOCK + MAJOR RUPERT HUGHES + EUGENE MANLOVE RHODES + +The Committee of Award read throughout the year, month by month, scores +of stories, rejecting many, debating over others, and passing up a +comparative few for final judgment. In January, out of the hundred or +more remaining, they salvaged the following: + + 1. The Kitchen Gods, by Guglielma Alsop (_Century_, September). + + 2. Facing It, by Edwina Stanton Babcock (_Pictorial Review_, June). + + 3. The Fairest Sex, by Mary Hastings Bradley (_Metropolitan_, March). + + 4. Bargain Price, by Donn Byrne (_Cosmopolitan_, March). + + 5. Porcelain Cups, by James Branch Cabell (_Century_, November). + + 6. Gum Shoes, 4-B, by Forrest Crissey (_Harper's_, December). + + 7. The Trial in Tom Belcher's Store, by Samuel A. Derieux (_American_, + June). + + 8. April Twenty-fifth As Usual, by Edna Ferber (_Ladies Home Journal_, + July). + + 9. The Mottled Slayer, by George Gilbert (_Sunset_, August). + +10. Dog Eat Dog, by Ben Hecht (_The Little Review_, April). + +11. Blue Ice, by Joseph Hergesheimer (_Saturday Evening Post_, December + 13). + +12. Innocence, by Rupert Hughes (_Cosmopolitan_, September). + +13. Humoresque, by Fannie Hurst (_Cosmopolitan_, March). + +14. The Yellow Streak, by Ellen La Motte (_Century_, March). + +15. The Elephant Remembers, by Edison Marshall (_Everybody's_, October). + +16. England to America, by Margaret Prescott Montague (_Atlantic_, + September). + +17. Five Thousand Dollars Reward, by Melville D. Post (_Saturday Evening + Post_, February 15). + +18. The Lubbeny Kiss, by Louise Rice (_Ainslee's_, October). + +19. The High Cost of Conscience, by Beatrice Ravenel (_Harper's_, + January). + +20. The Red Mark, by John Russell (_Collier's_, April 15). + +21. The Trap, by Myra Sawhill (_American_, May). + +22. Evening Primroses, by Anne D. Sedgwick (_Atlantic_, July). + +23. Autumn Crocuses, by Anne D. Sedgwick (_Atlantic_, August). + +24. The Blood of the Dragon, by Thomas Grant Springer (_Live Stories_, + May). + +25. Contact, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Harper's_, March). + +26. For They Know not What They Do, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Pictorial + Review_, July). + +27. La Guiablesse, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Harpers_, September). + +28. On Strike, by Albert Payson Terhune (_The Popular Magazine_, + October). + +29. The Other Room, by Mary Heaton Vorse (_McCall's_, April). + +30. They Grind Exceeding Small, by Ben Ames Williams (_Saturday Evening + Post_, September 13). + +31. On the Field of Honour, by Ben Ames Williams (_American_, March). + +32. Turkey Red, by Frances Gilchrist Wood (_Pictorial Review_, + November). + +Although the exiguity of the vessel forbids inclusion of all these +stories, yet the Committee wish to record them as worthy of preservation +under covers. Publishing by title, therefore, carries all the honour +attached to publishing the complete story. + +Awarding the prizes proved difficult. No title stood first on all the +lists: rated best by one judge, any story lost rank through lower rating +by another. But the following held from first place to fifth place on +the separate final lists: "La Guiablesse," "England to America," "For +They Know not What They Do," "Evening Primroses," "Autumn Crocuses," +"Humoresque," "The Red Mark," "They Grind Exceeding Small," "On Strike," +"The Elephant Remembers," "Contact," and "Five Thousand Dollars Reward." +It will be observed that three of Wilbur Daniel Steele's narratives +appear. If the prize had been announced as going to the author of more +stories rated first, he would have received it. But by the predetermined +conditions, it must fall to the author of the best story, and according +to a recognized system of counts,[A] the best is "England to America"; +the second best, "For They Know not What They Do." The first award, +therefore, goes to Miss Margaret Prescott Montague; the second to Mr. +Wilbur Daniel Steele. + +[Footnote A: +Since there were five judges, the system used was the following: + + A story of place 1 was given 5 points + " " " " 2 " " 4 " + " " " " 3 " " 3 " + " " " " 4 " " 2 " + " " " " 5 " " 1 point.] + +The Committee were remarkably unanimous in answering the question, "What +is a short-story?"; but they differed, rather violently, over the +fulfilment of requirements by the various illustrations. Without doubt, +the most provocative of these was Mr. Steele's "Contact." Three of the +Committee think it a short-story; two declare it an article; all agree +that no finer instance of literature in brief form was published in +1919. + +Their diverging views, however, challenged curiosity: what did the +publishers think about it? The editor of _Harper's_ wrote: + +"Contact" was written by Mr. Steele after a personal visit to the North +Sea fleet. It is a faithful portrayal of the work done by our destroyers +and therefore falls under the category of "articles." + +And the Author: + +I am not quite sure what to say. The piece, "Contact," of which you +speak, was in a sense drawn from life, that is to say it is made up of a +number of impressions gained while I was at sea with the U.S. destroyers +off the coast of France. The characters are elaborations of real +characters, and the "contact" told of was such a one as I actually +witnessed. Otherwise, the chronology of events, conversations, etc., +were gathered from various sources and woven to the best of my ability +so as to give a picture of the day's work of our convoying forces in the +War. + +These data reconcile, in part, the conflicting points of view, or at +least show the tenability of each. + +In addition to the first requisite of _struggle_, "the story's the +thing," the judges sought originality, excellence in organization of +plot incidents, skill in characterization, power in moving +emotions--and, again, they differed over their findings. One member +would have awarded the prize to "La Guiablesse" on its original motif--a +ship is jealous of a woman--on its masterful employment of suggestion, +unique presentation of events, and on all the other counts. Another, +while recognizing the essential bigness of the tale, regards it as +somewhat crudely constructed and as extending the use of suggestion into +the mist of obscurity. + +Or, take characterization. Mary Hastings Bradley's "The Fairest Sex" +represents, in the climax, a reporter's fiancee betraying the +whereabouts of a young woman who is, technically, a criminal. One of the +Committee held that, under the circumstances, the psychology is false: +others "believed" that particular girl did that particular thing. + +Best narrative always compels belief: the longer the period of belief +the greater the story. This business of convincing the reader requires +more labour than the average writer seems to care about performing. Any +reader is willing to be held--for a time. But how many stories compel +recollection of plot and characters as indubitably a part of all that +one has met? + +Too frequently the writer neglects the value of atmosphere, forgetful of +its weight in producing conviction. The tale predominantly of atmosphere +(illustrated in the classic "Fall of the House of Usher"), revealing +wherever found the ability of the author to hold a dominant mood in +which as in a calcium light characters and arts are coloured, this tale +occurs so rarely as to challenge admiration when it does occur. "For +They Know not What They Do" lures the reader into its exotic air and +holds him until he, too, is suffused, convinced. + +... The Committee were not insensible to style. But expert phrasing, +glowing appreciation of words and exquisite sense of values, the texture +of the story fabric--all dropped into the abyss of the unimportant after +the material they incorporated had been judged. No man brings home +beefsteak in silk or sells figs as thistles. + +The Committee accepted style as the fit medium for conveying the +matter.... + +Since the Committee confess to catholicity of taste, the chosen stories +reveal predilection for no one type. They like detective stories, and +particularly those of Melville Davisson Post. A follower of the founder +of this school of fiction, he has none the less advanced beyond his +master and has discovered other ways than those of the Rue Morgue. "Five +Thousand Dollars Reward" in its brisk action, strong suspense, and +humorous denouement carries on the technique so neatly achieved in "The +Doomdorf Mystery" and other tales about Uncle Abner. + +The Committee value, also, the story about animals: universal interest +in puzzles, in the science of ratiocination, is not more pronounced than +the interest in rationalizing the brute. "The Mottled Slayer" and "The +Elephant Remembers" offer sympathetic studies of struggles in the animal +world. Mr. Marshall's white elephant will linger as a memory, even as +his ghost remains, longer than the sagacious play-fellow of Mr. +Gilbert's little Indian; but nobody can forget the battle the latter +fought with the python. + +For stories about the home the Committee have a weakness: Miss Ferber's +"April Twenty-fifth As Usual," cheerfully proclaiming the inevitableness +of spring cleaning, might be published with the sub-title, An Epic of +the Housekeeper. + +They were alert for reflections of life--in America and elsewhere. The +politics of "Gum Shoes, 4-B"; the local court of law in "Tom Belcher's +Store"; the frozen west of "Turkey Red" seemed to them to meet the +demand that art must hold the mirror up to nature. + +In particular, the Committee hoped to find good stories of the war. Now +that fiction containing anything of the Great Struggle is anathema to +editors, and must wait for that indefinite time of its revival, it was +like getting a last bargain to read "Facing It," "Humoresque," +"Contact," "Autumn Crocuses," and "England to America." In these small +masterpieces is celebrated either manhood which keeps a rendezvous with +death. + +The Committee accepted style as the fit medium for conveying the +matter.... + +Since the Committee confess to catholicity of taste, the chosen stories +reveal predilection for no one type. They like detective stories, and +particularly those of Melville Davisson Post. A follower of the founder +of this school of fiction, he has none the less advanced beyond his +master and has discovered other ways than those of the Rue Morgue. "Five +Thousand Dollars Reward" in its brisk action, strong suspense, and +humorous denouement carries on the technique so neatly achieved in "The +Doomdorf Mystery" and other tales about Uncle Abner. + +The Committee value, also, the story about animals: universal interest +in puzzles, in the science of ratiocination, is not more pronounced than +the interest in rationalizing the brute. "The Mottled Slayer" and "The +Elephant Remembers" offer sympathetic studies of struggles in the animal +world. Mr. Marshall's white elephant will linger as a memory, even as +his ghost remains, longer than the sagacious play-fellow of Mr. +Gilbert's little Indian; but nobody can forget the battle the latter +fought with the python. + +For stories about the home the Committee have a weakness: Miss Ferber's +"April Twenty-fifth As Usual," cheerfully proclaiming the inevitableness +of spring cleaning, might be published with the sub-title, An Epic of +the Housekeeper. + +They were alert for reflections of life--in America and elsewhere. The +politics of "Gum Shoes, 4-B"; the local court of law in "Tom Belcher's +Store"; the frozen west of "Turkey Red" seemed to them to meet the +demand that art must hold the mirror up to nature. + +In particular, the Committee hoped to find good stories of the war. Now +that fiction containing anything of the Great Struggle is anathema to +editors, and must wait for that indefinite time of its revival, it was +like getting a last bargain to read "Facing It," "Humoresque," +"Contact," "Autumn Crocuses," and "England to America." In these small +masterpieces is celebrated either manhood which keeps a rendezvous with +death, womanhood which endures, or the courage of men and women which +meets bodily misfortune and the anguish of personal loss. Leon Kantor of +"Humoresque" and the young Virginian of "England to America" will bring +back, to all who read, their own heroes. It is fitting that Miss +Montague's story should have received the first prize: poignant, short +in words, great in significance, it will stand a minor climactic peak in +that chain of literature produced during the actual progress of the +World War. + + * * * * * + +In the estimation of the Committee the year 1919 was not one of +pre-eminent short stories. Why? There are several half-satisfactory +explanations. Some of the acknowledged leaders, seasoned authors, have +not been publishing their average annual number of tales. Alice Brown, +Donn Byrne, Irvin Cobb, Edna Ferber, Katharine Gerould, Fannie Hurst and +Mary W. Freeman are represented by spare sheaves. Again, a number of new +and promising writers have not quite attained sureness of touch; +although that they are acquiring it is manifest in the work of Ben Ames +Williams, Edison Marshall, Frances Wood, Samuel Derieux, John Russell, +Beatrice Ravenel and Myra Sawhill. Too frequently, there is "no story": +a series of episodes however charmingly strung out is not a story; a +sketch, however clever or humorous, is not a story; an essay, however +wisely expounding a truth, is not a story. So patent are these facts, +they are threadbare from repetition; yet of them succeeding aspirants +seem to be as ignorant as were their predecessors--who at length found +knowledge. For obvious reasons, names of authors who succeed in a +certain literary form, but who produce no story are omitted. + +Again, some stories just miss the highest mark. A certain one, praised +by a magazine editor as the best of the year, suffers in the opinion of +the Committee, or part of the Committee, from an introduction too long +and top-heavy. It not only mars the symmetry of the whole, this +introduction, but starts the reader in the wrong direction. One thing +the brief story must not do is to begin out of tone, to promise what it +does not fulfil, or to lead out a subordinate character as though he +were chief.... Another story suffers from plethora of phrasing, and even +of mere diction. Stevenson believed few of his words too precious to be +cut; contemporary writers hold their utterances in greater esteem.... A +third story shows by its obvious happy ending that the author has +catered to magazine needs or what he conceives to be editorial policies. +Such an author requires a near "Smart Set" sparkle or a pseudo-Atlantic +Monthly sobriety; he develops facility, but at the expense, ultimately, +of conventionality, dullness and boredom. + +According to the terms which omit foreign authors from possible +participation in the prize, the work of Achmed Abdullah, Britten Austin, +Elinor Mordaunt and others was in effect non-existent for the Committee. +"Reprisal," by Mr. Austin, ranks high as a specimen of real short-story +art, strong in structure, rich in suggestion. "The Honourable +Gentleman," by the mage from Afghanistan, in reflecting Oriental life in +the Occident, will take its place in literary history. Elinor Mordaunt's +modernized biblical stories--"The Strong Man," for instance--in showing +that the cycles repeat themselves and that today is as one of five +thousand years ago exemplify the universality of certain motifs, fables, +characters. + +But, having made allowance for the truths just recounted, the Committee +believe that the average of stories here bound together is high. They +respond to the test of form and of life. "The Kitchen Gods" grows from +five years of service to the women of China--service by the author, who +is a doctor of medicine. "Porcelain Cups" testifies to the interest a +genealogist finds in the Elizabethan Age and, more definitely, in the +life of Christopher Marlowe. The hardships of David, in the story by Mr. +Derieux, are those of a boy in a particular Southern neighbourhood the +author knows. Miss Louise Rice, who boasts a strain of Romany blood, +spends part of her year with the gypsies. Mr. Terhune is familiar, from +the life, with his prototypes of "On Strike." "Turkey Red" relates a +real experience, suited to fiction or to poetry--if Wordsworth was +right--for it is an instance of emotion remembered in tranquility. In +these and all the others, the story's the thing. + +Some of them, perhaps, were produced _because_ their creators were +consciously concerned about the art of creation. "Blue Ice," by Joseph +Hergesheimer, proclaims itself a study in technique, a thing of careful +workmanship. "Innocence," by Rupert Hughes, with "Read It Again" and +"The Story I Can't Write" boldly announce his desire to get the most out +of the material. "For They Know not What They Do," an aspiration of +spirit, is fashioned as firmly as the Woolworth Tower. + +Just here it may be observed that the Committee noticed a tendency of +the present day story which only the future can reveal as significant or +insignificant. It is this: in spite of the American liking for the brief +tale, as Poe termed it--the conte, as the French know it--in spite of an +occasional call from magazines for stories of fewer than 5,000 words, +yet the number of these narratives approaching perfection is +considerably less than that of the longer story. Whether the long +short-story gives greater entertainment to the greater number may be +questioned. To state that it is farthest from the practice of O. Henry +invites a logical and inevitable conclusion. He wrote two hundred +stories averaging about fifteen pages each. Whether it may be greater +literature is another matter; if it escapes tediousness it may impress +by its weight. If the Committee had selected for publication all the +longest stories in the list of thirty-two, this volume would contain the +same number of words, but only half the titles. + +The Honorary Committee expressed, some of them, to the Committee of +Award certain preferences. William Marion Reedy wrote: "I read and +printed one very good story called 'Baby Fever.' I think it is one of +the best stories of the year." John Phillips, though stating that he had +not followed short stories very closely, thought the best one he had +read "The Theatrical Sensation of Springtown," by Bess Streeter Aldrich +(_American_, December). Mrs. Edwin Markham commended Charles Finger's +"Canassa" (_Reedy's Mirror_, October 30). W. Adolphe Roberts submitted +a number of stories from _Ainslee's:_ "Young Love," by Nancy Boyd; "The +Token from the Arena," by June Willard; "The Light," by Katherine +Wilson. He also drew attention to "Phantom," by Mildred Cram (_Green +Book_, March). That the Committee of Award, after a careful study of +these and other recommendations, failed to confirm individual high +estimates is but another illustration of the disagreement of doctors. To +all those of the Honorary Committee who gave encouragement and aid the +Committee of Award is most grateful. + +There remains the pleasure of thanking, also, the authors and publishers +who have kindly granted permission for the reprinting of the stories +included in this volume. The Committee of Award would like them to know +that renewal of the O. Henry prize depends upon their generous +cooperation. + +BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS. + +NEW YORK CITY, February 29, 1920. + + + + +_O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES 1919_ + + + +ENGLAND TO AMERICA + + +By MARGARET PRESCOTT MONTAGUE + +From _Atlantic Monthly_ + + +I. + +"Lord, but English people are funny!" + +This was the perplexed mental ejaculation that young Lieutenant +Skipworth Cary, of Virginia, found his thoughts constantly reiterating +during his stay in Devonshire. Had he been, he wondered, a confiding +fool, to accept so trustingly Chev Sherwood's suggestion that he spend a +part of his leave, at least, at Bishopsthorpe, where Chev's people +lived? But why should he have anticipated any difficulty here, in this +very corner of England which had bred his own ancestors, when he had +always hit it off so splendidly with his English comrades at the Front? +Here, however, though they were all awfully kind,--at least, he was sure +they meant to be kind,--something was always bringing him up short: +something that he could not lay hold of, but which made him feel like a +blind man groping in a strange place, or worse, like a bull in a +china-shop. He was prepared enough to find differences in the American +and English points of view. But this thing that baffled him did not seem +to have to do with that; it was something deeper, something very +definite, he was sure--and yet, what was it? The worst of it was that he +had a curious feeling as if they were all--that is, Lady Sherwood and +Gerald; not Sir Charles so much--protecting him from himself--keeping +him from making breaks, as he phrased it. That hurt and annoyed him, and +piqued his vanity. Was he a social blunderer, and weren't a Virginia +gentleman's manners to be trusted in England without leading-strings? +He had been at the Front for several months with the Royal Flying +Corps, and when his leave came, his Flight Commander, Captain Cheviot +Sherwood, discovering that he meant to spend it in England, where he +hardly knew a soul, had said his people down in Devonshire would be +jolly glad to have him stop with them; and Skipworth Cary, knowing that, +if the circumstances had been reversed, his people down in Virginia +would indeed have been jolly glad to entertain Captain Sherwood, had +accepted unhesitatingly. The invitation had been seconded by a letter +from Lady Sherwood,--Chev's mother,--and after a few days sight-seeing +in London, he had come down to Bishopsthorpe, very eager to know his +friend's family, feeling as he did about Chev himself. "He's the finest +man that ever went up in the air," he had written home; and to his own +family's disgust, his letters had been far more full of Chev Sherwood +than they had been of Skipworth Cary. + +And now here he was, and he almost wished himself away--wished almost +that he was back again at the Front, carrying on under Chev. There, at +least, you knew what you were up against. The job might be hard enough, +but it wasn't baffling and queer, with hidden undercurrents that you +couldn't chart. It seemed to him that this baffling feeling of +constraint had rushed to meet him on the very threshold of the +drawing-room, when he made his first appearance. + +As he entered, he had a sudden sensation that they had been awaiting him +in a strained expectancy, and that, as he appeared, they adjusted unseen +masks and began to play-act at something. "But English people don't +play-act very well," he commented to himself, reviewing the scene +afterward. + +Lady Sherwood had come forward and greeted him in a manner which would +have been pleasant enough, if he had not, with quick sensitiveness, felt +it to be forced. But perhaps that was English stiffness. + +Then she had turned to her husband, who was standing staring into the +fireplace, although, as it was June, there was no fire there to stare +at. + +"Charles," she said, "here is Lieutenant Cary"; and her voice had a +certain note in it which at home Cary and his sister Nancy were in the +habit of designating "mother-making-dad-mind-his-manners." + +At her words the old man--and Cary was startled to see how old and +broken he was--turned round and held out his hand, "How d'you do?" he +said jerkily, "how d'you do?" and then turned abruptly back again to the +fireplace. + +"Hello! What's up! The old boy doesn't like me!" was Cary's quick, +startled comment to himself. + +He was so surprised by the look the other bent upon him that he +involuntarily glanced across to a long mirror to see if there was +anything wrong with his uniform. But no, that appeared to be all right. +It was himself, then--or his country; perhaps the old sport didn't fall +for Americans. + +"And here is Gerald," Lady Sherwood went on in her low remote voice, +which somehow made the Virginian feel very far away. + +It was with genuine pleasure, though with some surprise, that he turned +to greet Gerald Sherwood, Chev's younger brother, who had been, +tradition in the corps said, as gallant and daring a flyer as Chev +himself, until he got his in the face five months ago. + +"I'm mighty glad to meet you," he said eagerly, in his pleasant, muffled +Southern voice, grasping the hand the other stretched out, and looking +with deep respect at the scarred face and sightless eyes. + +Gerald laughed a little, but it was a pleasant laugh, and his hand-clasp +was friendly. + +"That's real American, isn't it?" he said. "I ought to have remembered +and said it first. Sorry." + +Skipworth laughed too. "Well," he conceded, "we generally are glad to +meet people in my country, and we don't care who says it first. But," he +added. "I didn't think I'd have the luck to find you here." + +He remembered that Chev had regretted that he probably wouldn't see +Gerald, as the latter was at St. Dunstan's, where they were re-educating +the blinded soldiers. + +The other hesitated a moment, and then said rather awkwardly, "Oh, I'm +just home for a little while; I only got here this morning, in fact." + +Skipworth note the hesitation. Did the old people get panicky at the +thought of entertaining a wild man from Virginia, and send an SOS for +Gerald, he wondered. + +"We are so glad you could come to us," Lady Sherwood said rather hastily +just then. And again he could not fail to note that she was prompting +her husband. + +The latter reluctantly turned round, and said, "Yes, yes, quite so. +Welcome to Bishopsthorpe, my boy," as if his wife had pulled a string, +sand he responded mechanically, without quite knowing what he said. +Then, as his eyes rested a moment on his guest, he looked as if he would +like to bolt out of the room. He controlled himself, however, and, +jerking round again to the fireplace, went on murmuring, "Yes, yes, +yes," vaguely--just like the dormouse at the Mad Tea-Party, who went to +sleep, saying, "Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle," Cary could not help thinking +to himself. + +But after all, it wasn't really funny, it was pathetic. Gosh, how +doddering the poor old boy was! Skipworth wondered, with a sudden twist +at his heart, if the war was playing the deuce with his home people, +too. Was his own father going to pieces like this, and had his mother's +gay vivacity fallen into that still remoteness of Lady Sherwood's? But +of course not! The Carys hadn't suffered as the poor Sherwoods had, with +their youngest son, Curtin, killed early in the war, and now Gerald +knocked out so tragically. Lord, he thought, how they must all bank on +Chev! And of course they would want to hear at once about him. "I left +Chev as fit as anything, and he sent all sorts of messages," he +reported, thinking it more discreet to deliver Chev's messages thus +vaguely than to repeat his actual carefree remark, which had been, "Oh, +tell 'em I'm jolly as a tick." + +But evidently there was something wrong with the words as they were, for +instantly he was aware of that curious sense of withdrawal on their +part. Hastily reviewing them, he decided that they had sounded too +familiar from a stranger and a younger man like himself. He supposed he +ought not to have spoken of Chev by his first name. Gee, what sticklers +they were! Wouldn't his family--dad and mother and Nancy--have fairly +lapped up any messages from him, even if they had been delivered a bit +awkwardly? However, he added, as a concession to their point of view, +"But of course, you'll have had later news of Captain Sherwood." + +To which, after a pause, Lady Sherwood responded, "Oh, yes," in that +remote and colourless voice which might have meant anything or nothing. + +At this point dinner was announced. + +Lady Sherwood drew her husband away from the empty fireplace, and Gerald +slipped his arm through the Virginian's, saying pleasantly, "I'm +learning to carry on fairly well at St. Dunstan's, but I confess I still +like to have a pilot." + +To look at the tall young fellow beside him, whose scarred face was so +reminiscent of Chev's untouched good looks, who had known all the +immense freedom of the air, but who was now learning to carry on in the +dark, moved Skipworth Cary to generous homage. + +"You know my saying I'm glad to meet you isn't just American," he said +half shyly, but warmly. "It's plain English, and the straight truth. +I've wanted to meet you awfully. The oldsters are always holding up your +glorious exploits to us newcomers. Withers never gets tired telling +about that fight of yours with the four enemy planes. And besides," he +rushed on eagerly, "I'm glad to have a chance to tell Chev's +brother--Captain Sherwood's brother, I mean--what I think of him. Only +as a matter of fact, I can't," he broke off with a laugh. "I can't put +it exactly into words, but I tell you I'd follow that man straight into +hell and out the other side--or go there alone if he told me to. He is +the finest chap that ever flew." + +And then he felt as if a cold douche had been flung in his face, for +after a moment's pause, the other returned, "That's awfully good of +you," in a voice so distant and formal that the Virginian could have +kicked himself. What an ass he was to be so darned enthusiastic with an +Englishman! He supposed it was bad form to show any pleasure over praise +of a member of your family. Lord, if Chev got the V.C., he reckoned it +would be awful to speak of it. Still, you would have thought Gerald +might have stood for a little praise of him. But then, glancing sideways +at his companion, he surprised on his face a look so strange and +suffering that it came to him almost violently what it must be never to +fly again; to be on the threshold of life, with endless days of +blackness ahead. Good God! How cruel he had been to flaunt Chev in his +face! In remorseful and hasty reparation he stumbled on. "But the old +fellows are always having great discussions as to which was the +best--you or your brother. Withers always maintains you were." + +"Withers lies, then!" the other retorted. "I never touched Chev--never +came within a mile of him, and never could have." + +They reached the dinner-table with that, and young Cary found himself +bewildered and uncomfortable. If Gerald hadn't liked praise of Chev, he +had liked praise of himself even less, it seemed. + +Dinner was not a success. The Virginian found that, if there was to be +conversation, the burden of carrying it on was upon him, and gosh! they +don't mind silences in this man's island, do they? he commented +desperately to himself, thinking how different it was from America. Why, +there they acted as if silence was an egg that had just been laid, and +everyone had to cackle at once to cover it up. But here the talk +constantly fell to the ground, and nobody but himself seemed concerned +to pick it up. His attempt to praise Chev had not been successful, and +he could understand their not wanting to hear about flying and the war +before Gerald. + +So at last, in desperation, he wandered off into descriptions of +America, finding to his relief, that he had struck the right note at +last. They were glad to hear about the States, and Lady Sherwood +inquired politely if the Indians still gave them much trouble; and when +he assured her that in Virginia, except for the Pocahontas tribe, they +were all pretty well subdued, she accepted his statement with complete +innocency. And he was so delighted to find at last a subject to which +they were evidently cordial, that he was quite carried away, and would +up by inviting them all to visit his family in Richmond, as soon as soon +as the war was over. + +Gerald accepted at once, with enthusiasm; Lady Sherwood made polite +murmurs, smiling at him in quite a warm and almost, indeed, maternal +manner. Even Sir Charles, who had been staring at the food on his plate +as if he did not quite know what to make of it, came to the surface long +enough to mumble, "Yes, yes, very good idea. Countries must carry on +together--What?" + +But that was the only hit of the whole evening, and when the Virginian +retired to his room, as he made an excuse to do early, he was so +confused and depressed that he fell into an acute attack of +homesickness. + +Heavens, he thought, as he tumbled into bed, just suppose, now, this was +little old Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A., instead of being Bishopsthorpe, +Avery Cross near Wick, and all the rest of it! And at that, he grinned +to himself. England wasn't such an all-fired big country that you'd +think they'd have to ticket themselves with addresses a yard long, for +fear they'd get lost--now, would you? Well, anyway, suppose it was +Richmond, and his train just pulling into the Byrd Street Station. He +stretched out luxuriously, and let his mind picture the whole familiar +scene. The wind was blowing right, so there was the mellow homely smell +of tobacco in the streets, and plenty of people all along the way to +hail him with outstretched hands and shouts of "Hey, Skip Cary, when did +you get back?" "Welcome home, my boy!" "Well, will you _look_ what the +cat dragged in!" And so he came to his own front door-step, and, walking +straight in, surprised the whole family at breakfast; and yes--doggone +it! if it wasn't Sunday, and they having waffles! And after that his +obliging fancy bore him up Franklin Street, through Monroe Park, and so +to Miss Sally Berkeley's door. He was sound asleep before he reached it, +but in his dreams, light as a little bird, she came flying down the +broad stairway to meet him, and-- + +But when he waked next morning, he did not find himself in Virginia, +but in Devonshire, where, to his unbounded embarrassment, a white +housemaid was putting up his curtains and whispering something about his +bath. And though he pretended profound slumber, he was well aware that +people do not turn brick-red in their sleep. And the problem of what was +the matter with the Sherwood family was still before him. + + +II + +"They're playing a game," he told himself after a few days. "That is, +Lady Sherwood and Gerald are--poor old Sir Charles can't make much of a +stab at it. The game is to make me think they are awfully glad to have +me, when in reality there's something about me, or something I do, that +gets them on the raw." + +He almost decided to make some excuse and get away; but after all, that +was not easy. In English novels, he remembered, they always had a wire +calling them to London; but, darn it all! the Sherwoods knew mighty well +there wasn't any one in London who cared a hoot about him. + +The thing that got his goat most, he told himself, was that they +apparently didn't like his friendship with Chev. Anyway they didn't seem +to want him to talk about him; and whenever he tried to express his warm +appreciation for all that the older man had done for him, he was +instantly aware of a wall of reserve on their part, a holding of +themselves aloof from him. That puzzled and hurt him, and put him on his +dignity. He concluded that they thought it was cheeky of a youngster +like him to think that a man like Chev could be his friend; and if that +was the way they felt, he reckoned he'd jolly well better shut up about +it. + +But whatever it was that they didn't like about him, they most certainly +did want him to have a good time. He and his pleasure appeared to be for +the time being their chief consideration. And after the first day or so +he began indeed to enjoy himself extremely. For one thing, he came to +love the atmosphere of the old place and of the surrounding country, +which he and Gerald explored together. He liked to think that ancestors +of his own had been inheritors of these green lanes, and pleasant mellow +stretches. Then, too, after the first few days, he could not help seeing +that they really began to like him, which of course was reassuring, and +tapped his own warm friendliness, which was always ready enough to be +released. And besides, he got by accident what he took to be a hint as +to the trouble. He was passing the half-open door of Lady Sherwood's +morning-room, when he heard Sir Charles's voice break out, "Good God, +Elizabeth, I don't see how you stand it! When I see him so straight and +fine-looking, and so untouched, beside our poor lad, and think--and +think--" + +Skipworth hurried out of earshot, but now he understood that look of +aversion in the old man's eyes which had so startled him at first. Of +course, the poor old boy might easily hate the sight of him beside +Gerald. With Gerald himself he really got along famously. He was a most +delightful companion, full of anecdotes and history of the countryside, +every foot of which he had apparently explored in the old days with Chev +and the younger brother, Curtin. Yet even with Gerald, Cary sometimes +felt that aloofness and reserve, and that older protective air that they +all showed him. Take, for instance, that afternoon when they were +lolling together on the grass in the park. The Virginian, running on in +his usual eager manner, had plunged without thinking into an account of +a particularly daring bit of flying on Chev's part, when suddenly he +realized that Gerald had rolled over on the grass and buried his face in +his arms, and interrupted himself awkwardly. "But, of course," he said, +"he must have written home about it himself." + +"No, or if he did, I didn't hear of it. Go on," Gerald said in a muffled +voice. + +A great rush of compassion and remorse overwhelmed the Virginian, and he +burst out penitently, "What a brute I am! I'm always forgetting and +running on about flying, when I know it must hurt like the very devil!" + +The other drew a difficult breath. "Yes," he admitted, "what you say +does hurt in a way--in a way you can't understand. But all the same I +like to hear you. Go on about Chev." + +So Skipworth went on and finished his account, winding up, "I don't +believe there's another man in the service who could have pulled it +off--but I tell you your brother's one in a million." + +"Good God, don't I know it!" the other burst out. "We were all three the +jolliest pals together," he got out presently in a choked voice, "Chev +and the young un and I; and now--" + +He did not finish, but Cary guessed his meaning. Now the young un, +Curtin, was dead, and Gerald himself knocked out. But, heavens! the +Virginian though, did Gerald think Chev would go back on him now on +account of his blindness? Well, you could everlastingly bet he wouldn't! + +"Chev thinks the world and all of you!" he cried in eager defense of his +friend's loyalty. "Lots of times when we're all awfully jolly together, +he makes some excuse and goes off by himself; and Withers told me it was +because he was so frightfully cut up about you. Withers said he told him +once that he'd a lot rather have got it himself--so you can +everlastingly bank on him!" + +Gerald gave a terrible little gasp. "I--I knew he'd feel like that," he +got out. "We've always cared such a lot for each other." And then he +pressed his face harder than ever into the grass, and his long body +quivered all over. But not for long. In a moment he took fierce hold on +himself, muttering, "Well, one must carry on, whatever happens," and +apologized disjointedly. "What a fearful fool you must think me! +And--and this isn't very pippy for you, old chap." Presently, after +that, he sat up, and said, brushing it all aside, "We're facing the old +moat, aren't we? There's an interesting bit of tradition about it that I +must tell you." + +And there you were, Cary thought: no matter how much Gerald might be +suffering from his misfortune, he must carry on just the same, and see +that his visitor had a pleasant time. It made the Virginian feel like +an outsider and very young as if he were not old enough for them to show +him their real feelings. + +Another thing that he noticed was that they did not seem to want him to +meet people. They never took him anywhere to call and if visitors came +to the house, they showed an almost panicky desire to get him out of the +way. That again hurt his pride. What in heaven's name was the matter +with him anyway! + + +III + +However on the last afternoon of his stay at Bishopsthorpe, he told +himself with a rather rueful grin, that his manners must have improved a +little, for they took him to tea at the rectory. + +He was particularly glad to go there because, from certain jokes of +Withers's, who had known the Sherwoods since boyhood, he gathered that +Chev and the rector's daughter were engaged. And just as he would have +liked Chev to meet Sally Berkeley, so he wanted to meet Miss Sybil +Gaylord. + +He had little hope of having a tête-à -tête with her, but as it fell out +he did. They were all in the rectory garden together, Gerald and the +rector a little behind Miss Gaylord and himself, as they strolled down a +long walk with high hedges bordering it. On the other side of the hedge +Lady Sherwood and her hostess still sat at the tea-table, and then it +was that Cary heard Mrs. Gaylord say distinctly, "I'm afraid the strain +has been too much for you--you should have let us have him." + +To which Lady Sherwood returned quickly. "Oh, no, that would have been +impossible with--" + +"Come--come this way--I must show you the view from the arbor," Miss +Gaylord broke in breathlessly; and laying a hand on his arm, she turned +abruptly into a side path. + +Glancing down at her the Southerner could not but note the panic and +distress in her fair face. It was so obvious that the overheard words +referred to him, and he was so bewildered by the whole situation that +he burst out impulsively, "I say, what _is_ the matter with me? Why do +they find me so hard to put up with? Is it something I do--or don't they +like Americans? Honestly, I wish you'd tell me." + +She stood still at that, looking at him, her blue eyes full of distress +and concern. + +"Oh, I am so sorry," she cried. "They would be so sorry to have you +think anything like that." + +"But what is it?" her persisted. "Don't they like Americans?" + +"Oh, no, it isn't like that--Oh, quite the contrary!" she returned +eagerly. + +"Then it's something about me they don't like?" + +"Oh, no, no! Least of all, that--_don't_ think that!" she begged. + +"But what am I to think then?" + +"Don't think anything just yet," she pleaded. "Wait a little, and you +will understand." + +She was so evidently distressed that he could not press her further; and +fearing she might think him unappreciative, he said, "Well, whatever it +is, it hasn't prevented me from having a ripping good time. They've seen +to that, and just done everything for my pleasure." + +She looked up quickly, and to his relief he saw that for once he had +said the right thing. + +"You enjoyed it, then?" she questioned eagerly. + +"Most awfully," he assured her warmly. "I shall always remember what a +happy leave they gave me." + +She gave a little sigh of satisfaction, "I am so glad," she said. "They +wanted you to have a good time--that was what we all wanted." + +He looked at her gratefully, thinking how sweet she was in her fair +English beauty, and how good to care that he should have enjoyed his +leave. How different she was too from Sally Berkeley--why she would have +made two of his little girl! And how quiet! Sally Berkeley, with her +quick glancing vivacity, would have been all around her and off again +like a humming-bird before she could have uttered two words. And yet he +was sure that they would have been friends, just as he and Chev were. +Perhaps they all would be, after the war. And then he began to talk +about Chev, being sure that, had the circumstances been reversed, Sally +Berkeley would have wanted news of him. Instantly he was aware of a +tense listening stillness on her part. That pleased him. Well, she did +care for the old fellow all right, he thought; and though she made no +response, averting her face and plucking nervously at the leaves of the +hedge as they passed slowly along, he went on pouring out his eager +admiration for his friend. + +At last they came to a seat in an arbour, from which one looked out upon +a green beneficent landscape. It was an intimate secluded little +spot--and oh, if Sally Berkeley were only there to sit beside him! And +as he thought of this, it came to him whimsically that in all +probability she must be longing for Chev, just as he was for Sally. + +Dropping down on the bench beside her, he leaned over, and said with a +friendly, almost brotherly, grin of understanding, "I reckon you're +wishing Captain Sherwood was sitting here, instead of Lieutenant Cary." + +The minute the impulsive words were out of his mouth, he knew he had +blundered, been awkward, and inexcusably intimate. She gave a little +choked gasp, and her blue eyes stared up at him, wide and startled. Good +heavens, what a break he had made! No wonder the Sherwoods couldn't +trust him in company! There seemed no apology that he could offer in +words, but at least, he thought, he would show her that he would not +intruded on her secret without being willing to share his with her. With +awkward haste he put his hand into his breast-pocket, and dragged forth +the picture of Sally Berkley he always carried there. + +"This is the little girl I'm thinking about," he said, turning very red, +yet boyishly determined to make amends, and also proudly confident of +Sally Berkeley's charms. "I'd like mighty well for you two to know one +another." + +She took the picture in silence, and for a long moment stared down at +the soft little face, so fearless, so confident and gay, that smiled +appealingly back at her. Then she did something astonishing,--something +which seemed to him wholly un-English,--and yet he thought it the +sweetest thing he had ever seen. Cupping her strong hands about the +picture with a quick protectiveness, she suddenly raised it to her lips, +and kissed it lightly. "O little girl!" she cried. "I hope you will be +very happy!" + +The little involuntary act, so tender, so sisterly and spontaneous, +touched the Virginian extremely. + +"Thanks, awfully," he said unsteadily. "She'll think a lot of that, just +as I do--and I know she'd wish you the same." + +She made no reply to that, and as she handed the picture back to him, he +saw that her hands were trembling, and he had a sudden conviction that, +if she had been Sally Berkeley, her eyes would have been full of tears. +As she was Sybil Gaylord, however, there were no tears there, only a +look that he never forgot. The look of one much older, protective, +maternal almost, and as if she were gazing back at Sally Berkeley and +himself from a long way ahead on the road of life. He supposed it was +the way most English people felt nowadays. He had surprised it so often +on all their faces, that he could not help speaking of it. + +"You all think we Americans are awfully young and raw, don't you?" he +questioned. + +"Oh, no, not that," she deprecated. "Young perhaps for these days, +yes--but it is more that you--that your country is so--so unsuffered. +And we don't want you to suffer!" she added quickly. + +Yes, that was it! He understood now, and, heavens, how fine it was! Old +England was wounded deep--deep. What she suffered herself she was too +proud to show; but out of it she wrought a great maternal care for the +newcomer. Yes, it _was_ fine--he hoped his country would understand. + +Miss Gaylord rose. "There are Gerald and father looking for you," she +said, "and I must go now." She held out her hand. "Thank you for letting +me see her picture, and for everything you said about Captain +Sherwood--for _everything_, remember--I want you to remember." + +With a light pressure of her fingers she was gone, slipping away +through the shrubbery, and he did not see her again. + + +IV + +So he came to his last morning at Bishopsthorpe; and as he dressed, he +wished it could have been different; that he were not still conscious of +that baffling wall of reserve between himself and Chev's people, for +whom, despite all, he had come to have a real affection. + +In the breakfast-room he found them all assembled, and his last meal +there seemed to him as constrained and difficult as any that had +preceded it. It was over finally, however, and in a few minutes he would +be leaving. + +"I can never thank you enough for the splendid time I've had here," he +said as he rose. "I'll be seeing Chev to-morrow, and I'll tell him all +about everything." + +Then he stopped dead. With a smothered exclamation, old Sir Charles had +stumbled to his feet, knocking over his chair, and hurried blindly out +of the room; and Gerald said, "_Mother_!" in a choked appeal. + +As if it were a signal between them, Lady Sherwood pushed her chair back +a little from the table, her long delicate fingers dropped together +loosely in her lap; she gave a faint sigh as if a restraining mantle +slipped from her shoulders, and, looking up at the youth before her, her +fine pale face lighted with a kind of glory, she said, "No, dear lad, +no. You can never tell Chev, for he is gone." + +"_Gone_!" he cried. + +"Yes," she nodded back at him, just above a whisper; and now her face +quivered, and the tears began to rush down her cheeks. + +"Not _dead_!" he cried. "Not Chev--not that! O my God, Gerald, not +_that_!" + +"Yes," Gerald said. "They got him two days after you left." + +It was so overwhelming, so unexpected and shocking, above all so +terrible, that the friend he had so greatly loved and admired was gone +out of his life forever, that young Cary stumbled back into his seat, +and, crumpling over, buried his face in his hands, making great uncouth +gasps as he strove to choke back his grief. + +Gerald groped hastily around the table, and flung an arm about his +shoulders. + +"Steady on, dear fellow, steady," he said, though his own voice broke. + +"When did you hear?" Cary got out at last. + +"We got the official notice just the day before you came--and Withers +has written us particulars since." + +"And you _let_ me come in spite of it! And stay on, when every word I +said about him must have--have fairly _crucified_ each one of you! Oh, +forgive me! forgive me!" he cried distractedly. He saw it all now; he +understood at last. It was not on Gerald's account that they could not +talk of flying and of Chev, it was because--because their hearts were +broken over Chev himself. "Oh, forgive me!" he gasped again. + +"Dear lad, there is nothing to forgive," Lady Sherwood returned. "How +could we help loving your generous praise of our poor darling? We loved +it, and you for it; we wanted to hear it, but we were afraid. We were +afraid we might break down, and that you would find out." + +The tears were still running down her cheeks. She did not brush them +away now; she seemed glad to have them there at last. + +Sinking down on his knees, he caught her hands. "Why did you _let_ me do +such a horrible thing?" he cried. "Couldn't you have trusted me to +understand? Couldn't you _see_ I loved him just as you did--No, no!" he +broke down humbly. "Of course I couldn't love him as his own people did. +But you must have seen how I felt about him--how I admired him, and +would have followed him anywhere--and _of course_ if I had known, I +should have gone away at once." + +"Ah, but that was just what we were afraid of," she said quickly. "We +were afraid you would go away and have a lonely leave somewhere. And in +these days a boy's leave is so precious a thing that nothing must spoil +it--_nothing_," she reiterated; and her tears fell upon his hands like +a benediction. "But we didn't do it very well, I'm afraid," she went on +presently, with gentle contrition. "You were too quick and +understanding; you guessed there was something wrong. We were sorry not +to manage better," she apologized. + +"Oh, you wonderful, wonderful people!" he gasped. "Doing everything for +my happiness, when all the time--all the time--" + +His voice went out sharply, as his mind flashed back to scene after +scene: to Gerald's long body lying quivering on the grass; to Sybil +Gaylord wishing Sally Berkeley happiness out of her own tragedy; and to +the high look on Lady Sherwood's face. They seemed to him themselves, +and yet more than themselves--shining bits in the mosaic of a great +nation. Disjointedly there passed through his mind familiar +words--"these are they who have washed their garments--having come out +of great tribulation." No wonder they seemed older. + +"We--we couldn't have done it in America," he said humbly. + +He had a desperate desire to get away to himself; to hide his face in +his arms, and give vent to the tears that were stifling him; to weep for +his lost friend, and for this great heartbreaking heroism of theirs. + +"But why did you do it?" he persisted. "Was it because I was his +friend?" + +"Oh, it was much more than that," Gerald said quickly. "It was a matter +of the two countries. Of course, we jolly well knew you didn't belong to +us, and didn't want to, but for the life of us we couldn't help a sort +of feeling that you did. And when America was in at last, and you +fellows began to come, you seemed like our very own come back after many +years, and," he added a throb in his voice, "we were most awfully glad +to see you--we wanted a chance to show you how England felt." + +Skipworth Cary rose to his feet. The tears for his friend were still wet +upon his lashes. Stooping, he took Lady Sherwood's hands in his and +raised them to his lips. "As long as I live, I shall never forget," he +said. "And others of us have seen it too in other ways--be sure America +will never forget, either." + +She looked up at his untouched youth out of her beautiful sad eyes, the +exalted light still shining through her tears. "Yes," she said, "you see +it was--I don't know exactly how to put it--but it was England to +America." + + + + +"FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO" + + +BY WILBUR DANIEL STEELE + +From _Pictorial Review_ + +When Christopher Kain told me his story, sitting late in his +dressing-room at the Philharmonic I felt that I ought to say something, +but nothing in the world seemed adequate. It was one of those times when +words have no weight: mine sounded like a fly buzzing in the tomb of +kings. And after all, he did not hear me; I could tell that by the look +on his face as he sat there staring into the light, the lank, dark hair +framing his waxen brow, his shoulders hanging forward, his lean, strong, +sentient fingers wrapped around the brown neck of "Ugo," the 'cello, +tightly. + +Agnes Kain was a lady, as a lady was before the light of that poor worn +word went out. Quiet, reserved, gracious, continent, bearing in face and +form the fragile beauty of a rose-petal come to its fading on a windless +ledge, she moved down the years with the stedfast sweetness of the +gentlewoman--gentle, and a woman. + +They knew little about her in the city, where she had come with her son. +They did not need to. Looking into her eyes, into the transparent soul +behind them they could ask no other credential for the name she bore and +the lavender she wore for the husband of whom she never spoke. + +She spoke of him, indeed, but that was in privacy, and to her son. As +Christopher grew through boyhood, she watched him; in her enveloping +eagerness she forestalled the hour when he would have asked, and told +him about his father, Daniel Kain. + +It gave them the added bond of secret-sharers. The tale grew as the boy +grew. Each night when Christopher crept into his mother's bed for the +quiet hour of her voice, it was as if he crept in to another world, the +wind-blown, sky-encompassed kingdom of the Kains, Daniel, his father, +and Maynard, _his_ father, another Maynard before _him_, and all the +Kains--and the Hill and the House, the Willow Wood, the Moor Under the +Cloud, the Beach where the gray seas pounded, the boundless Marsh, the +Lilac hedge standing against the stars. + +He knew he would have to be a man of men to measure up to that heritage, +a man strong, grave, thoughtful, kind with the kindness that never +falters, brave with the courage of that dark and massive folk whose +blood ran in his veins. Coming as it did, a world of legend growing up +side by side with the matter-of-fact world of Concord Street, it never +occurred to him to question. He, the boy, was _not_ massive, strong, +or brave; he saw things in the dark that frightened him, his thin +shoulders were bound to droop, the hours of practise on his violin left +him with no blood in his legs and a queer pallor on his brow. + +Nor was he always grave, thoughtful, kind. He did not often lose his +temper, the river of his young life ran too smooth and deep. But there +were times when he did. Brief passions swept him, blinded him, twisted +his fingers, left him sobbing, retching, and weak as death itself. He +never seemed to wonder at the discrepancy in things, however, any more +than he wondered at the look in his mother's eyes, as she hung over him, +waiting, in those moments of nausea after rage. She had not the look of +the gentlewoman then; she had more the look, a thousand times, of the +prisoner led through the last gray corridor in the dawn. + +He saw her like that once when he had not been angry. It was on a day +when he came into the front hall unexpectedly as a stranger was going +out of the door. The stranger was dressed in rough, brown homespun; in +one hand he held a brown velour hat, in the other a thorn stick without +a ferrule. Nor was there anything more worthy of note in his face, an +average-long face with hollowed cheeks, sunken gray eyes, and a high +forehead, narrow, sallow, and moist. + +No, it was not the stranger that troubled Christopher. It was his +mother's look at his own blundering entrance, and, when the man was out +of hearing, the tremulous haste of her explanation. + +"He came about some papers, you know." + +"You mean our _Morning Post?_" Christopher asked her. + +She let her breath out all at once and colour flooded her face. + +"Yes," she told him. "Yes, yes." + +Neither of them said anything more about it. + +It was that same day, toward evening, that Christopher broke one of his +long silences, reverting to a subject always near to them both. + +"Mother, you've never told me where it is--on the _map_, I mean." + +She was looking the other way. She did not turn around. + +"I--Chris--I--I haven't a map in the house." + +He did not press the matter. He went out into the back yard presently, +under the grape-trellis, and there he stood still for a long time, +staring at nothing particular. + +He was growing up. + +He went away to boarding-school not long after this, taking with him the +picture of his adored mother, the treasured epic of his dark, strong +fathers, his narrow shoulders, his rare, blind bursts of passion, his +newborn wonder, and his violin. At school they thought him a queer one. + +The destinies of men are unaccountable things. Five children in the +village of Deer Bay came down with diphtheria. That was why the academy +shut up for a week, and that was what started Christopher on his way +home for an unexpected holiday. And then it was only by one chance in a +thousand that he should glimpse his mother's face in the down-train +halted at the junction where he himself was changing. + +She did not see till he came striding along the aisle of her coach, his +arms full of his things, face flushed, eyes brimming with the surprise +and pleasure of seeing her; his lips trembling questions. + +"Why, Mother, what in earth? Where are you going? I'm to have a week at +least, Mother; and here you're going away, and you didn't tell me, and +what is it, and everything?" + +His eager voice trailed off. The colour drained out of his face and +there was a shadow in his eyes. He drew back from her the least way. + +"What is it, Mother? _Mother!_" + +Somewhere on the platform outside the conductor's droning "--_board_" +ran along the coaches. Agnes Kain opened her white lips. + +"Get off before it's too late, Christopher. I haven't time to explain +now. Go home, and Mary will see you have everything. I'll be back in a +day or so. Kiss me, and go quickly. Quickly!" + +He did not kiss her. He would not have kissed her for worlds. He was to +bewildered, dazed, lost, too inexpressibly hurt. On the platform +outside, had she turned ever so little to look, she might have seen his +face again for an instant as the wheels ground on the rails. Colour was +coming back to it again, a murky colour like the shadow of a red cloud. + +They must have wondered, in the coach with her, at the change in the +calm, unobtrusive, well-gowned gentlewoman, their fellow-passenger. +Those that were left after another two hours saw her get down at a +barren station where an old man waited in a carriage. The halt was +brief, and none of them caught sight of the boyish figure that slipped +down from the rearmost coach to take shelter for himself and his dark, +tempest-ridden face behind the shed at the end of the platform-- + +Christopher walked out across a broad, high, cloudy plain, following a +red road, led by the dust-feather hanging over the distant carriage. + +He walked for miles, creeping ant-like between the immensities of the +brown plain and the tumbled sky. Had he been less implacable, less +intent, he might have noticed many things, the changing conformation of +the clouds, the far flight of a gull, the new perfume and texture of the +wind that flowed over his hot temples. But as it was, the sea took him +by surprise. Coming over a little rise, his eyes focused for another +long, dun fold of the plain, it seemed for an instant as if he had lost +his balance over a void; for a wink he felt the passing of a strange +sickness. He went off a little way to the side of the road and sat down +on a flat stone. + +The world had become of a sudden infinitely simple, as simple as the +inside of a cup. The land broke down under him, a long, naked slope +fringed at the foot of a ribbon of woods. Through the upper branches he +saw the shingles and chimneys of a pale grey village clinging to a white +beach, a beach which ran up to the left in a bolder flight of cliffs, +showing on their crest a cluster of roofs and dull-green gable-ends +against the sea that lifted vast, unbroken, to the rim of the cup. + +Christopher was fifteen, and queer even for that queer age. He had a +streak of the girl in him at his adolescence, and, as he sat there in a +huddle, the wind coming out of this huge new gulf of life seemed to pass +through him, bone and tissue, and tears rolled down his face. + +The carriage bearing his strange mother was gone, from sight and from +mind. His eyes came down from the lilac-crowned hill to the beach, where +it showed in white patches through the wood, and he saw that the wood +was of willows. And he remembered the plain behind him, the wide, brown +moor under the could. He got up on his wobbly legs. There were stones +all about him on the whispering wire-grass, and like them the one he had +been sitting on bore a blurred inscription. He read it aloud, for some +reason, his voice borne away faintly on the river of air: + + Here Lie The Earthly Remains Of + MAYNARD KAIN, SECOND + Born 1835--Died 1862 For the Preservation of the Union + +His gaze went on to another of those worn stones. + + MAYNARD KAIN, ESQUIRE + 1819-1849 + + This Monument Erected in His Memory By His Sorrowing + Widow, Harriet Burnam Kain + + The windy Gales of the West Indias + Laid claim to His Noble Soul + And Took him on High to his Creator + Who made him Whole. + +There was no moss or lichen on this wind-scoured slope. In the falling +dusk the old white stones stood up like the bones of the dead +themselves, and the only sound was the rustle of the wire-grass creeping +over them in a dry tide. The boy had taken off his cap; the sea-wind +moving under the mat of his damp hair gave it the look of some somber, +outlandish cowl. With the night coming on, his solemnity had an elfin +quality. He found what he was looking for at last, and his fingers had +to help his eyes. + + DANIEL KAIN + + Beloved Husband of Agnes Willoughby Kain + + Born 1860--Died 1886 + + Forgive them, for they know not what they do. + +Christopher Kain told me that he left the naked graveyard repeating it +to himself, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do," conscious +less of the words than of the august rhythm falling in with the pulse of +his exaltation. + +The velvet darkness that hangs under cloud had come down over the hill +and the great marsh stretching away to the south of it. Agnes Kain stood +in the open doorway, one hand on the brown wood, the other pressed to +her cheek. + +"You heard it _that_ time, Nelson?" + +"No, ma'am." The old man in the entrance-hall behind her shook his +head. In the thin, blown light of the candelabra which he held high, the +worry and doubt of her deepened on his singularly-unlined face. + +"And you might well catch your death in that draft, ma'am." + +But she only continued to stare out between the pillars where the +lilac-hedge made a wall of deeper blackness across the night. + +"What am I thinking of?" she whispered, and then: _"There!"_ + +And this time the old man heard it, a nearer, wind-blown hail. + +"Mother! Oh, Mother!" + +The boy came striding through the gap of the gate in the hedge. + +"It's I, Mother! Chris! Aren't you surprised?" + +She had no answer. As he came she turned and moved away from the door, +and the old man, peering from under the flat candle flames, saw her face +like wax. And he saw the boy, Christopher, in the doorway, his hands +flung out, his face transfigured. + +"Mother! I'm here! Don't you understand?" + +He touched her shoulder. She turned to him, as it were, lazily. + +"Yes," she breathed. "I see." + +He threw his arms about her, and felt her shaking from head to foot. But +he was shaking, too. + +"I knew the way!" he cried. "I knew it, Mother, I knew it! I came down +from the Moor and there was the Willow Wood, and I knew the way home. +And when I came, Mother, it was like the trees bowing down their +branches in the dark. And when I came by the Beach, Mother, it was like +a roll of drums beating for me, and when I came to the Hill I saw the +Hedge standing against the sky, and I came, and here I am!" + +She expressed no wonder, asked no question. + +"Yes," was all she said, and it was as if she spoke of a tree coming to +its leaf, the wind to its height, the tide to its flood. + +Had he been less rapt and triumphant he must have wondered more at that +icy lassitude, and at the cloak of ceremony she wrapped about her to +hide a terror. It was queer to hear the chill urbanity of her: "This is +Christopher, Nelson; Christopher, this is your father's servant, +Nelson." It was queerer still to see the fastidious decorum with which +she led him over this, the familiar house of his fathers. + +He might have been a stranger, come with a guide-book in his hand. When +he stood on his heels in the big drawing-room, staring up with all his +eyes at the likenesses of those men he had known so well, it was strange +to hear her going on with all the patter of the gallery attendant, names +of painters, prices, dates. He stood before the portrait of Daniel Kain, +his father, a dark-skinned, longish face with a slightly-protruding +nether lip, hollow temples, and a round chin, deeply cleft. As in all +the others, the eyes, even in the dead pigment, seemed to shine with an +odd, fixed luminosity of their own, and like the others from first to +last of the line, it bore upon it the stamp of an imperishable youth. +And all the while he stood there, drinking it in, detail by detail, his +mother spoke, not of the face, but of the frame, some obscure and +unsuspected excellence in the gold-leaf on the frame. + +More than once in that stately tour of halls and chambers he found +himself protesting gaily, "I know, Mother! I know, I know!" + +But the contagion of his glory did not seem to touch her. Nothing seemed +to touch her. Only once was the fragile, bright shell of her punctilio +penetrated for a moment, and that was when Christopher, lagging, turned +back to a door they were about to pass and threw it open with the happy +laugh of a discoverer. And then, even before she could have hushed him, +the laughter on his lips died of itself. + +A man lay on a bed in the room, his face as colourless and still as the +pillow behind it. His eyes were open, but they did not move from the +three candles burning on the high bureau, and he seemed unconscious of +any intrusion. + +"I didn't know!" Christopher whispered, shocked, and shamed. + +When the door was closed again his mother explained. She explained at +length, concisely, standing quite still, with one frail, fine hand +worrying the locket she wore at her throat. Nelson stood quite still +too, his attention engrossed in his candle-wicks. And Christopher stood +quite still, and all their shadows--That man was the caretaker, the man, +Christopher was to understand, who had been looking after the place. His +name was Sanderson. He had fallen ill, very ill. In fact, he was dying. +And that was why his mother had had to come down, post-haste, without +warning. To see about some papers. Some papers. Christopher was to +understand-- + +Christopher understood. Indeed there was not much to understand. And +yet, when they had gone on, he was bothered by it. Already, so young he +was, so ruthless, and so romantic, he had begun to be a little ashamed +of that fading, matter-of-fact world of Concord Street. And it was with +just that world which he wished to forget, that the man lying ill in the +candle-lit chamber was linked in Christopher's memory. For it was the +same man he had seen in the doorway that morning months ago, with a +brown hat in one hand and a thorn stick in the other. + +Even a thing like that may be half put aside, though--for a while. And +by the time Christopher went to his room for the night the thought of +the interloper had retired into the back of his mind, and they were all +Kains there on the Hill, inheritors of romance. He found himself bowing +to his mother with a courtliness he had never known, and an "I wish you +a good night," sounding a century old on his lips. He saw the remote, +patrician figure bow as gravely in return, a petal of colour as hard as +paint on the whiteness of either cheek. He did not see her afterward, +though, when the merciful door was closed. + +Before he slept he explored the chamber, touching old objects with +reverent finger-tips. He came on a leather case like an absurdly +overgrown beetle, hidden in a corner, and a violoncello was in it. He +had seen such things before, but he had never touched one, and when he +lifted it from the case he had a moment of feeling very odd at the pit +of his stomach. Sitting in his underthings on the edge of the bed, he +held the wine-coloured creature in the crook of his arm for a long time, +the look in his round eyes, half eagerness, half pain, of one pursuing +the shadow of some ghostly and elusive memory. + +He touched the C-string by and by with an adventuring thumb. I have +heard "Ugo" sing, myself, and I know what Christopher meant when he said +that the sound did not come out of the instrument, but that it came +_in_ to it, sweeping home from all the walls and corners of the +chamber, a slow, rich, concentric wind of tone. He felt it about him, +murmurous, pulsating, like the sound of surf borne from some far-off +coast. + +And then it was like drums, still farther off. And then it was the feet +of marching men, massive, dark, grave men with luminous eyes, and the +stamp on their faces of an imperishable youth. + +He sat there so lost and rapt that he heard nothing of his mother's +footsteps hurrying in the hall; knew nothing till he saw her face in the +open doorway. She had forgotten herself this time; that fragile defense +of gentility was down. For a moment they stared at each other across a +gulf of silence, and little by little the boy's cheeks grew as white as +hers, his hands as cold, his lungs as empty of breath. + +"What is it, Mother?" + +"Oh, Christopher, Christopher--Go to bed, dear." + +He did not know why, but of a sudden he felt ashamed and a little +frightened, and, blowing out the candle, he crept under the covers. + +The afternoon was bright with a rare sun and the world was quiet. +Christopher lay full-spread on the turf, listening idly to the +"clip-clip" of Nelson's shears as the old man trimmed the hedge. + +"And was my father _very_ strong?" he asked with a drowsy pride. + +"No, not so very." Nelson stopped clipping and was immediately lost in +the past. + +"Only when he was _that_ way five strong men couldn't turn him. I'll +say that. No, if they had to get him with a shotgun that day, 'twas +nobody's fault nor sin. If Guy Bullard seen Daniel there on the sand +with an ax in his hand and foam-like on his lips, and the little ones +cornered where he caught them between cliff and water--Guy's own baby +amongst them--and knowing the sickness of the Kains as he and everybody +else did--why, I'm free and willing to say 'twas his bounden duty to +hold a true aim and pull a steady trigger on Daniel, man of his though I +was, and man of his poor father before him-- + +"No, I can't make it right to lay blame on any man for it, no more than +I can on them, his brother officers, that broke Maynard's neck with +their tent-pegs the night after Gettysburg. No, no--" + +It was evidently a time-worn theme, an argument, an _apologia_, accepted +after years of bitterness and self-searching. He went on with the remote +serenity of age, that has escaped the toils of passion, pursuing the +old, worn path of his mind, his eyes buried in vacancy. + +"No, 'twas a mercy to the both of them, father and son, and a man must +see it so. 'Twould be better of course if they could have gone easier, +same as the _old_ Maynard went, thinking himself the Lord our God to +walk on water and calm the West Indy gale. That's better, better for all +hands round. But if it had to come so, in violence and fear, then nobody +need feel the sin of it on his soul--nobody excepting the old man +Bickers, him that told Daniel. For 'twas from that day he began to take +it on. + +"I saw it myself. There was Daniel come home from other parts where his +mother had kept him, out of gossip's way, bright as you please and +knowing nothing wrong with the blood of the Kains. And so I say the sin +lays on the loose-wagging tongue of Bickers, for from the day he let it +out to Daniel, Daniel changed. 'Twas like he'd heard his doom, and went +to it. Bickers is dead a long time now, but may the Lord God lay eternal +damnation on his soul!" + +Even then there was no heat; the curse had grown a formula. Having come +to the end, the old man's eyes tumbled down painlessly out of the void +and discovered the shears in his hand. + +"Dear me, that's so," he said to himself. One thought was enough at a +time. He fell to work again. The steady "clip-clip-clip" moved off +slowly along the hedge. Not once did he remember; not once as the +indefatigable worker shuffled himself out of sight around the house did +he look back with any stirring of recollection at the boyish figure +lying there as still as a shadow cast in the deep grass. + +A faintly lop-sided moon swam in the zenith. For three days now that +rare clarity had hung in the sky, and for three nights the moon had +grown. Its benign, poisonous illumination flowed down steeply through +the windows of the dark chamber where Christopher huddled on the bed's +edge, three pale, chill islands spread on the polished floor. + +Once again the boy brought the bow home across the shivering strings, +and, as if ears could be thirsty as a drunkard's throat, he drank his +fill of the 'cello's deep, full-membered chord. The air was heavy with +the resonance of marching feet, ghostly feet marching and marching down +upon him in slow, inexorable crescendo as the tides ebbed later among +the sedges on the marsh and the moon grew big. And above the pulse of +the march he seemed to hear another cadence, a thin laughter. + +He laughed too, giving himself up to that spectral contagion. He saw the +fat, iridescent bubble with the Hill in it, the House of dreams, the +Beach and the Moor and Willow Wood of fancy, and all the grave, strong, +gentle line of Kains to whom he had been made bow down in worship. He +saw himself taken in, soul and body, by a thin-plated fraud, a cheap +trick of mother's words, as before him, his father had been. And the +faint exhalations from the moon-patches on the floor showed his face +contorted with a still, set grimace of mirth. + +Anger came over him in a white veil, twitching his lips and his toes and +bending his fingers in knots. Through the veil a sound crept, a sound he +knew well by this time, secret footfalls in the hall, faltering, +retreating, loitering returning to lag near the door. + +How he hated her! It is curious that not once did his passion turn +against his blighted fathers; it was against the woman who had borne +him, the babe, and lied to him, the boy--against her, and against that +man, that interloper, dying in a room below. + +The thought that had been willing to creep out of sight into the +back-country of his mind on that first night came out now like a red, +devouring cloud. Who was that man? + +What was he dying of--or _supposed_ to be dying of? What had he been +doing that morning in Concord Street? What was he doing here, in the +house of the men who had never grown old and of the boy who would never +grow old? Why had his mother come down here, where he was, so queerly, +so secretly, so frightened? + +Christopher would have liked to kill that man. He shivered and licked +his lips. He would have liked to do something bloody and abominable to +that face with the hollow cheeks, the sunken grey eyes, and the +forehead, high, sallow, and moist. He would have liked to take an ax in +his hand and run along the thundering beach and catch that face in a +corner somewhere between cliff and water. The desire to do this thing +possessed him and blinded him like the kiss of lightning. + +He found himself on the floor at the edge of the moonlight, full of +weakness and nausea. He felt himself weeping as he crawled back to the +bed, his cheeks and neck bathed in a flood of painless tears. He threw +himself down, dazed with exhaustion. + +It seemed to him that his mother had been calling a long while. +"Christopher! What is it? What is it, boy?" + +He had heard no footsteps, going or coming; she must have been there all +the time, waiting, listening, her ear pressed to the thick, old paneling +of the door. The thought was like wine; the torment of her whispering +was sweet in his ears. + +"Oh, Chris, Chris! You're making yourself sick!" + +"Yes," he said. He lifted on an elbow and repeated in a voice which +must have sounded strange enough to the listener beyond the door. "Yes!" +he said. "Yes!" + +"Go away!" he cried of a sudden, making a wide, dim, imperious gesture +in the dark. + +"No, no," the imploring whisper crept in. "You're making yourself +sick--Christopher--all over nothing--nothing in the world. It's so +foolish--so foolish--foolish! Oh, if I could only tell you, +Christopher--if I could tell you--" + +"Tell me _what_?" He shuddered with the ecstasy of his own irony. "Who +that man is? That 'caretaker'? What he's doing here? What _you're_ doing +here?--" He began to scream in a high, brittle voice: "_Go away from +that door! Go away!_" + +This time she obeyed. He heard her retreating, soft-footed and +frightened, along the hall. She was abandoning him--without so much as +trying the door, just once again, to see if it were still bolted against +her. + +She did not care. She was sneaking off--down the stairs--Oh, yes, he +knew where. + +His lips began to twitch again and his finger nails scratched on the +bedclothes. If only he had something, some weapon, an axe, a broad, +keen, glittering axe! He would show them! He was strong, incredibly +strong! Five men could not have turned him back from what he was going +to do--if only he had something. + +His hand, creeping, groping, closed on the neck of the 'cello leaning by +the bed. He laughed. + +Oh, yes, he would stop her from going down there; he would hold her, +just where she was on the dark stair nerveless, breathless, as long as +he liked, if he liked he would bring her back, cringing, begging. + +He drew the bow, and laughed higher and louder yet to hear the booming +discord rocking in upon him from the shadows. Swaying from side to side, +he lashed the hollow creature to madness. They came in the press of the +gale, marching, marching, the wild, dark pageant of his fathers, nearer +and nearer through the moon-struck night. + +"Tell me _what_?" he laughed. "_What_?" + +And abruptly he slept, sprawled crosswise on the covers, half-clothed, +dishevelled, triumphant. + + * * * * * + +It was not the same night, but another; whether the next or the next but +one, or two, Christopher can not say. But he was out of doors. + +He had escaped from the house at dusk; he knew that. + +He had run away, through the hedge and down the back side of the hill, +torn between the two, the death, warm and red like life, and the birth, +pale, chill, and inexorable as death. + +Most of that daft night-running will always be blank in Christopher's +mind; moments and moments, like islands of clarity, remain. He brings +back one vivid interval when he found himself seated on his father's +gravestone among the whispering grasses, staring down into the pallid +bowl of the world. And in that moment he knew what Daniel Kain had felt, +and Maynard Kain before him; a passionate and contemptuous hatred for +all the dullards in the world who never dreamed dreams or saw visions or +sang wordless songs or ran naked-hearted in the flood of the full-blown +moon. He hated them because they could not by any possibility comprehend +his magnificent separation, his starry sanity, his kinship with the +gods. And he had a new thirst to obliterate the whole creeping race of +dust-dwellers with one wide, incomparably bloody gesture. + +It was late when he found himself back again before the house, and an +ink-black cloud touched the moon's edge. After the airless evening a +wind had sprang up in the east; it thrashed among the lilac-stems as he +came through them and across the turf, silent-footed as an Indian. In +his right hand he had a bread-knife, held butt to thumb, dagger-wise. +Where he had come by the rust-bitten thing no one knows, least of all +himself. In the broken light his eyes shone with a curious luminosity of +their own, absorbed, introspective. + +All the windows were dark, and the entrance-hall, when he slipped in +between the pillars, but across its floor he saw light thrown in a +yellow ribbon from the half-closed door of the drawing-room. + +It took his attention, laid hands on his imagination. He began to +struggle against it. + +He would _not_ go into that room. He was going to another room. To stay +him, he made a picture of the other room in his tumbled mind--the high, +bleak walls, the bureau with the three candles burning wanly, the bed, +the face of the man on the bed. And when his rebellious feet, +surrendering him up to the lure of that beckoning ribbon, had edged as +far as the door, and he had pushed it a little further ajar to get his +head in, he saw that the face itself was there in the drawing-room. + +He stood there for some time, his shoulder pressed against the +door-jamb, his eyes blinking. + +His slow attention moved from the face to the satin pillows that wedged +it in, and then to the woman that must have been his mother, kneeling +beside the casket with her arms crooked on the shining cover and her +head down between them. And across from her leaned "Ugo," the 'cello, +come down from his chamber to stand vigil at the other shoulder of the +dead. + +The first thing that came into his groping mind was a bitter sense of +abandonment. The little core of candle-light hanging in the gloom left +him out. Its unstirring occupants, the woman, the 'cello, and the clay, +seemed sufficient to themselves. His mother had forgotten him. Even +"Ugo," that had grown part and parcel of his madness, had forgotten him. + +Bruised, sullen, moved by some deep-lying instinct of the clan, his eyes +left them and sought the wall beyond, where there were those who would +not forget him, come what might, blood of his blood and mind of his own +queer mind. And there among the shadowed faces he searched for one in +vain. As if that candle-lit tableau, somehow holy and somehow +abominable, were not for the eyes of one of them, the face of Daniel, +the wedded husband, had been turned to the wall. + +Here was something definite, something Christopher could take hold of, +and something that he would not have. + +His mother seemed not to have known he was near till he flung the door +back and came stalking into the light with the rusty bread-knife in his +hand. One would not have imagined there were blood enough left in her +wasted heart, but her face went crimson when she lifted it and saw him. + +It brought him up short--the blush, where he had looked for fright. It +shocked him, and, shocking him more than by a thousand laboured words of +explanation, it opened a window in his disordered brain. He stood +gawking with the effort of thought, hardly conscious of his mother's +cry: + +"Christopher, I never meant you to know!" + +He kept on staring at the ashen face between the pillows, long (as his +own was long), sensitive, worn; and at the 'cello keeping incorruptible +vigil over its dead. And then slowly his eyes went down to his own left +hand, to which that same old wine-brown creature had come home from the +first with a curious sense of fitness and authority and right. + +"Who is this man?" + +"Don't look at me so! Don't, Chris!" + +But he did look at her. Preoccupied as he was, he was appalled at sight +of the damage the half-dozen of days had done. She had been so much the +lady, so perfectly the gentlewoman. To no one had the outward gesture +and symbol of purity been more precious. No whisper had ever breathed +against her. If there had been secrets behind her, they had been dead; +if a skeleton, the closet had been closed. And now, looking down on her, +he was not only appalled, he was a little sickened, as one might be to +find squalor and decay creeping into a familiar and once immaculate +room. + +"Who is this man?" he repeated. + +"He grew up with me." She half raised herself on her knees in the +eagerness of her appeal. "We were boy and girl together at home in +Maryland. We were meant for each other, Chris. We were always to +marry--always, Chris. And when I went away, and when I married +your--when I married Daniel Kain, _he_ hunted and he searched and he +found me here. He was with me, he stood by me through that awful +year--and--that was how it happened. I tell you, Christopher, darling, +we were meant for each other, John Sanderson and I. He loved me more +than poor Daniel ever did or could, loved me enough to throw away a life +of promise, just to hang on here after every one else was gone, alone +with his 'cello and is one little memory. And I loved him enough +to--to--_Christopher, don't look at me so!"_ + +His eyes did not waver. You must remember his age, the immaculate, +ruthless, mid-Victorian 'teens; and you must remember his bringing-up. + +"And so this was my father," he said. And then he went on without +waiting, his voice breaking into falsetto with the fierceness of his +charge. "And you would have kept on lying to me! If I hadn't happened, +just happened, to find you here, now, you would have gone on keeping me +in the dark! You would have stood by and seen me--well--_go crazy!_ Yes, +go crazy, thinking I was--well, thinking I was meant for it! And all to +save your precious--" + +She was down on the floor again, what was left of the gentlewoman, +wailing. + +"But you don't know what it means to a woman, Chris! You don't know what +it means to a woman!" + +A wave of rebellion brought her up and she strained toward him across +the coffin. + +"Isn't it something, then, that I gave you a father with a _mind_? And +if you think you've been sinned against, think of _me_! Sin! You call it +_sin_! Well, isn't it _anything at all_ that by my 'sin' my son's blood +came down to him _clean_? Tell me that!" + +He shook himself, and his flame turned to sullenness. + +"It's not so," he glowered. + +All the girl in him, the poet, the hero-worshipping boy, rebelled. His +harassed eyes went to the wall beyond and the faces there, the ghosts of +the doomed, glorious, youth-ridden line, priceless possessions of his +dreams. He would not lose them: he refused to be robbed of a tragic +birthright. He wanted some gesture puissant enough to turn back and +blot out all that had been told him. + +"It's not his!" he cried. And reaching out fiercely he dragged the +'cello away from the coffin's side. He stood for an instant at bay, +bitter, defiant. + +"It's not his! It's mine! It's--it's--_ours!_" + +And then he fled out into the dark of the entrance-hall and up the black +stairs. In his room there was no moonlight now, for the cloud ran over +the sky and the rain had come. + +"It isn't so, it isn't so!" It was like a sob in his throat. + +He struck on the full strings. And listening breathless through the +dying discord he heard the liquid whispers of the rain, nothing more. He +lashed with a wild bow, time and again. But something was broken, +something was lost: out of the surf of sound he could no longer fashion +the measure of marching feet. The mad Kains had found him out, and cast +him out. No longer could he dream them in dreams or run naked-hearted +with them in the flood of the moon, for he was no blood of theirs, and +they were gone. And huddling down on the edge of the bed, he wept. + +The tears washed his eyes and falling down bathed his strengthless +hands. And beyond the phantom windows, over the marsh and the moor and +the hill that were not his, the graves of strangers and the lost Willow +Wood, lay the healing rain. He heard it in gurgling rivulets along the +gutters overhead. He heard the soft impact, like a kiss, brushing the +reedy cheeks of the marsh, the showery shouldering of branches, the +aspiration of myriad drinking grasses, the far whisper of waters coming +home to the waters of the sea--the long, low melody of the rain. + +And by and by he found it was "Ugo," the 'cello, and he was playing. + +They went home the following afternoon, he and his mother. Or rather, +she went home, and he with her as far as the Junction, where he changed +for school. + +They had not much to say to each other through the journey. The boy had +to be given time. Five years younger, or fifteen years older, it would +have been easier for him to look at his mother. You must remember what +his mother had meant to him, and what, bound up still in the fierce and +sombre battle of adolescence, she must mean to him now. + +As for Agnes Kain, she did not look at him, either. Through the changing +hours her eyes rested on the transparent hands lying crossed in her lap. +She seemed very tired and very white. Her hair was not done as tidily, +her lace cuffs were less fresh than they had used to be. About her whole +presence there was a troubling hint of let-down, something obscurely +slovenly, a kind of awkward and unlovely nakedness. + +She really spoke to him for the first time at the Junction, when he +stood before her, slim and uncouth under the huge burden of "Ugo," +fumbling through his leave-taking. + +"Christopher," she said, "try not to think of me--always--as--as--well, +when you're older, Christopher, you'll know what I mean." + +That was the last time he ever heard her speak. He saw her once again, +but the telegram was delayed and his train was late, and when he came +beside her bed she said nothing. She looked into his eyes searchingly, +for a long while, and died. + + * * * * * + +That space stands for the interval of silence that fell after +Christopher had told me the story. I thought he had quite finished. He +sat motionless, his shoulders fallen forward, his eyes fixed in the +heart of the incandescent globe over the dressing-table, his long +fingers wrapped around the neck of the 'cello. + +"And so she got me through those years," he said. "Those nip-and-tuck +years that followed. By her lie. + +"Insanity is a queer thing," he went on, still brooding into the light. +"There's more of it about than we're apt to think. It works in so many +ways. In hobbies, arts, philosophies. Music is a kind of insanity. I +know. I've got mine penned up in the music now, and I think I can keep +it there now, and save my soul." + +"Yours?" + +"Yes, mine. I know now--now that it's safe for me to know. I was down +at that village by the beach a year or so ago. I'm a Kain, of course, +one of the crazy Kains, after all. John Sanderson was born in the +village and lived there till his death. Only once that folks could +remember had he been away, and that was when he took some papers to the +city for Mrs. Kain to sign. He was caretaker at the old 'Kain place' the +last ten years of his life, and deaf, they said, since his tenth +year--'deaf as a post.' And they told me something else. They said there +was a story that before my father, Daniel, married her, my mother had +been an actress. An actress! You'll understand that I needed no one to +tell me _that_! + +"They told me that they had heard a story that she was a _great_ +actress. Dear God, if they could only know! When I think of that night +and that setting, that scene! It killed her, and it got me over the +wall--" + + + + +THEY GRIND EXCEEDING SMALL + + +By BEN AMES WILLIAMS + +From _Saturday Evening Post_ + +I telephoned down the hill to Hazen Kinch. "Hazen," I asked, "are you +going to town to-day?" + +"Yes, yes," he said abruptly in his quick, harsh fashion. "Of course I'm +going to town." + +"I've a matter of business," I suggested. + +"Come along," he invited brusquely. "Come along." + +There was not another man within forty miles to whom he would have given +that invitation. + +"I'll be down in ten minutes," I promised him; and I went to pull on my +Pontiacs and heavy half boots over them and started downhill through the +sandy snow. It was bitterly cold; it had been a cold winter. The bay--I +could see it from my window--was frozen over for a dozen miles east and +west and thirty north and south; and that had not happened in close to a +score of years. Men were freighting across to the islands with heavy +teams. Automobiles had beaten a rough road along the course the steamers +took in summer. A man who had ventured to stock one of the lower islands +with foxes for the sake of their fur, counting on the water to hold them +prisoners, had gone bankrupt when his stock in trade escaped across the +ice. Bitterly cold and steadily cold, and deep snow lay upon the hills, +blue-white in the distance. The evergreens were blue-black blotches on +this whiteness. The birches, almost indistinguishable, were like trees +in camouflage. To me the hills are never so grand as in this winter coat +they wear. It is easy to believe that a brooding God dwells upon them. I +wondered as I ploughed my way down to Hazen Kinch's farm whether God did +indeed dwell among these hills; and I wondered what He thought of Hazen +Kinch. + +This was no new matter of thought with me. I had given some thought to +Hazen in the past. I was interested in the man and in that which should +come to him. He was, it seemed to me, a problem in fundamental ethics; +he was, as matters stood, a demonstration of the essential uprightness +of things as they are. The biologist would have called him a sport, a +deviation from type, a violation of all the proper laws of life. That +such a man should live and grow great and prosper was not fitting; in a +well-regulated world it could not be. Yet Hazen Kinch did live; he had +grown--in his small way--great; and by our lights he had prospered. +Therefore I watched him. There was about the man the fascination which +clothes a tight-rope walker above Niagara; an aeronaut in the midst of +the nose dive. The spectator stares with half-caught breath, afraid to +see and afraid to miss seeing the ultimate catastrophe. Sometimes I +wondered whether Hazen Kinch suspected this attitude on my part. It was +not impossible. There was a cynical courage in the man; it might have +amused him. Certainly I was the only man who had in any degree his +confidence. + +I have said there was not another within forty miles whom he would have +given a lift to town; I doubt if there was another man anywhere for whom +he would have done this small favour. + +He seemed to find a mocking sort of pleasure in my company. + +When I came to his house he was in the barn harnessing his mare to the +sleigh. The mare was a good animal, fast and strong. She feared and she +hated Hazen. I could see her roll her eyes backward at him as he +adjusted the traces. He called to me without turning: + +"Shut the door! Shut the door! Damn the cold!" + +I slid the door shut behind me. There was within the barn the curious +chill warmth which housed animals generate to protect themselves against +our winters. + +"It will snow," I told Hazen. "I was not sure you would go." + +He laughed crookedly, jerking at the trace. + +"Snow!" he exclaimed. "A man would think you were the personal manager +of the weather. Why do you say it will snow?" + +"The drift of the clouds--and it's warmer," I told him. + +"I'll not have it snowing," he said, and looked at me and cackled. He +was a little, thin, old man with meager whiskers and a curious precision +of speech; and I think he got some enjoyment out of watching my +expression at such remarks as this. He elaborated his assumption that +the universe was conducted for his benefit, in order to see my silent +revolt at the suggestion. "I'll not have it snowing." he said. "Open the +door." + +He led the mare out and stopped by the kitchen door. + +"Come in," he said. "A hot drink." + +I went with him into the kitchen. His wife was there, and their child. +The woman was lean and frail; and she was afraid of him. The countryside +said he had taken her in payment of a bad debt. Her father had owed him +money which he could not pay. + +"I decided it was time I had a wife," Hazen used to say to me. + +The child was on the floor. The woman had a drink of milk and egg and +rum, hot and ready for us. We drank, and Hazen knelt beside the child. A +boy baby, not yet two years old. It is an ugly thing to say, but I hated +this child. There was evil malevolence in his baby eyes. I have +sometimes thought the grey devils must have left just such hate-bred +babes as this in France. Also, he was deformed--a twisted leg. The women +of the neighbourhood sometimes said he would be better dead. But Hazen +Kinch loved him. He lifted him in his arms now with a curious passion in +his movement, and the child stared at him sullenly. When the mother came +near the baby squalled at her, and Hazen said roughly: + +"Stand away! Leave him alone!" + +She moved back furtively; and Hazen asked me, displaying the child: "A +fine boy, eh?" + +I said nothing, and in his cracked old voice he mumbled endearments to +the baby. I had often wondered whether his love for the child redeemed +the man; or merely made him vulnerable. Certainly any harm that might +come to the baby would be a crushing blow to Hazen. + +He put the child down on the floor again and he said to the woman +curtly: "Tend him well." She nodded. There was a dumb submission in her +eyes; but through this blank veil I had seen now and then a blaze of +pain. + +Hazen went out of the door without further word to her, and I followed +him. We got into the sleigh, bundling ourselves into the robes for the +six-mile drive along the drifted road to town. There was a feeling of +storm in the air. I looked at the sky and so did Hazen Kinch. He guessed +what I would have said and he answered me before I could speak. + +"I'll not have it snowing," he said, and leered at me. + +Nevertheless, I knew the storm would come. The mare turned out of the +barnyard and ploughed through a drift and struck hard-packed road. Her +hoofs beat a swift tattoo; our runners sang beneath us. We dropped to +the little bridge and across and began the mile-long climb to the top of +Rayborn Hill. The road from Hazen's house to town is compounded of such +ups and downs. + +At the top of the hill we paused for a moment to breathe the mare; +paused just in front of the big old Rayborn house, that has stood there +for more years than most of us remember. It was closed and shuttered and +deserted; and Hazen dipped his whip toward it and said meanly: + +"An ugly, improvident lot, the Rayborns were." + +I had known only one of them--the eldest son. A fine man, I had thought +him. Picking apples in his orchard, he fell one October and broke his +neck. His widow tried to make a go of the place, but she borrowed of +Hazen and he had evicted her this three months back. It was one of the +lesser evils he had done. I looked at the house and at him, and he +clucked to the mare and we dipped down into the steep valley below the +hill. + +The wind had a sweep in that valley and there was a drift of snow across +it and across the road. This drift was well packed by the wind, but when +we drove over its top our left-hand runner broke through the coaming and +we tumbled into the snow, Hazen and I. We were well entangled in the +rugs. The mare gave a frightened start, but Hazen had held the reins and +the whip so that she could not break away. We got up together, he and I, +and we righted the sleigh and set it upon the road again. I remember +that it was becoming bitter cold and the sun was no longer shining. +There was a steel-grey veil drawn across the bay. + +When the sleigh was upright Hazen went forward and stood beside the +mare. Some men, blaming the beast without reason, would have beaten her. +They would have cursed, cried out upon her. That was not the cut of +Hazen Kinch. But I could see that he was angry and I was not surprised +when he reached up and gripped the horse's ear. He pulled the mare's +head down and twisted the ear viciously. All in a silence that was +deadly. + +The mare snorted and tried to rear back and Hazen clapped the butt of +his whip across her knees. She stood still, quivering, and he wrenched +at her ear again. + +"Now," he said softly, "keep the road." + +And he returned and climbed to his place beside me in the sleigh. I said +nothing. I might have interfered, but something had always impelled me +to keep back my hand from Hazen Kinch. + +We drove on and the mare was lame. Though Hazen pushed her, we were slow +in coming to town and before we reached Hazen's office the swirling snow +was whirling down--a pressure of driving, swirling flakes like a heavy +white hand. + +I left Hazen at the stair that led to his office and I went about my +business of the day. He said as I turned away: + +"Be here at three." + +I nodded. But I did not think we should drive home that afternoon. I +had some knowledge of storms. + +That which had brought me to town was not engrossing. I found time to go +to the stable and see Hazen's mare. There was an ugly welt across her +knees and some blood had flowed. The stablemen had tended the welt, and +cursed Hazen in my hearing. It was still snowing, and the stable boss, +looking out at the driving flakes, spat upon the ground and said to me: + +"Them legs'll go stiff. That mare won't go home to-night." + +"I think you are right," I agreed. + +"The white-whiskered skunk!" he said, and I knew he spoke of Hazen. + +At a quarter of three I took myself to Hazen Kinch's office. It was not +much of an office; not that Hazen could not have afforded a better. But +it was up two flights--an attic room ill lighted. A small air-tight +stove kept the room stifling hot. The room was also air-tight. Hazen had +a table and two chairs, and an iron safe in the corner. He put a +pathetic trust in that safe. I believe I could have opened it with a +screwdriver. I met him as I climbed the stairs. He said harshly: + +"I'm going to telephone. They say the road's impassable." + +He had no telephone in his office; he used one in the store below. A +small economy fairly typical of Hazen. + +"I'll wait in the office," I told him. + +"Go ahead," he agreed, halfway down the stairs. + +I went up to his office and closed the drafts of the stove--it was +red-hot--and tried to open the one window, but it was nailed fast. Then +Hazen came back up the stairs grumbling. + +"Damn the snow!" he said. "The wire is down." + +"Where to?" I asked. + +"My house, man! To my house!" + +"You wanted to telephone home that you--" + +"I can't get home to-night. You'll have to go to the hotel." + +I nodded good-naturedly. + +"All right. You, too, I suppose." + +"I'll sleep here," he said. + +I looked round. There was no bed, no cot, nothing but the two stiff +chairs. He saw my glance and said angrily: "I've slept on the floor +before." + +I was always interested in the man's mental processes. + +"You wanted to telephone Mrs. Kinch not to worry?" I suggested. + +"Pshaw, let her fret!" said Hazen. "I wanted to ask after my boy." His +eyes expanded, he rubbed his hands a little, cackling. "A fine boy, sir! +A fine boy!" + +It was then we heard Doan Marshey coming up the stairs. We heard his +stumbling steps as he began the last flight and Hazen seemed to cock his +ears as he listened. Then he sat still and watched the door. The steps +climbed nearer; they stopped in the dim little hall outside the door and +someone fumbled with the knob. When the door opened we saw who it was. I +knew Marshey. He lived a little beyond Hazen on the same road. Lived in +a two-room cabin--it was little more--with his wife and his five +children; lived meanly and pitiably, grovelling in the soil for daily +bread, sweating life out of the earth--life and no more. A thin man, +racking thin; a forward-thrusting neck and a bony face and a sad and +drooping moustache about his mouth. His eyes were meek and weary. + +He stood in the doorway blinking at us; and with his gloved hands--they +were stiff and awkward with the cold--he unwound the ragged muffler that +was about his neck and he brushed weakly at the snow upon his head and +his shoulders. Hazen said angrily: + +"Come in! Do you want my stove to heat the town?" + +Doan shuffled in and he shut the door behind him. He said: "Howdy, Mr. +Kinch." And he smiled in a humble and placating way. + +Hazen said: "What's your business? Your interest is due." + +Doan nodded. + +"Yeah. I know, Mr. Kinch. I cain't pay it all." + +Kinch exclaimed impatiently: "An old story! How much can you pay?" + +"Eleven dollars and fifty cents," said Doan. + +"You owe twenty." + +"I aim to pay it when the hens begin to lay." + +Hazen laughed scornfully. + +"You aim to pay! Damn you, Marshey, if your old farm was worth taking +I'd have you out in this snow, you old scamp!" + +Doan pleaded dully: "Don't you do that, Mr Kinch! I aim to pay." + +Hazen clapped his hands on the table. + +"Rats! Come! Give me what you've got! And Marshey, you'll have to get +the rest. I'm sick of waiting on you." + +Marshey came shuffling toward the table. Hazen was sitting with the +table between him and the man and I was a little behind Hazen at one +side. Marshey blinked as he came nearer, and his weak nearsighted eyes +turned from Hazen to me. I could see that the man was stiff with the +cold. + +When he came to the table in front of Hazen he took off his thick +gloves. His hands were blue. He laid the gloves on the table and reached +into an inner pocket of his torn coat and drew out a little cloth pouch +and he fumbled into this and I heard the clink of coins. He drew out two +quarters and laid them on the table before Hazen, and Hazen picked them +up. I saw that Marshey's fingers moved stiffly; I could almost hear them +creak with the cold. Then he reached into the pouch again. + +Something dropped out of the mouth of the little cloth bag and fell +soundlessly on the table. It looked to me like a bill, a piece of paper +currency. I was about to speak, but Hazen, without an instant's +hesitation, had dropped his hand on the thing and drawn it +unostentatiously toward him. When he lifted his hand the money--if it +was money--was gone. + +Marshey drew out a little roll of worn bills. Hazen took them out of his +hand and counted them swiftly. + +"All right." he said. "Eleven-fifty. I'll give you a receipt. But you +mind me, Doan Marshey, you get the rest before the month's out. I've +been too slack with you." + +Marshey, his dull eyes watching Hazen write the receipt, was folding +the little pouch and putting it away. Hazen tore off the bit of paper +and gave it to him. Doan took it and he said humbly: "Thank'e, sir." + +Hazen nodded. + +"Mind now," he exclaimed, and Marshey said: "I'll do my best, Mr. +Kinch." + +Then he turned and shuffled across the room and out into the hall and we +heard him descending the stairs. + +When he was gone I asked Hazen casually: "What was it that he dropped +upon the table?" + +"A dollar," said Hazen promptly. "A dollar bill. The miserable fool!" + +Hazen's mental processes were always of interest to me. + +"You mean to give it back to him?" I asked. + +He stared at me and he laughed. "No! If he can't take care of his own +money--that's why he is what he is." + +"Still it is his money." + +"He owes me more than that." + +"Going to give him credit for it?" + +"Am I a fool?" Hazen asked me. "Do I look like so much of a fool?" + +"He may charge you with finding it." + +"He loses a dollar; I find one. Can he prove ownership? Pshaw!" Hazen +laughed again. + +"If there is any spine in him he will lay the thing to you as a theft," +I suggested. I was not afraid of angering Hazen. He allowed me open +speech; he seemed to find a grim pleasure in my distaste for him and for +his way of life. + +"If there were any backbone in the man he would not be paying me eighty +dollars a year on a five-hundred-dollar loan--discounted." + +Hazen grinned at me triumphantly. + +"I wonder if he will come back," I said. + +"Besides," Hazen continued, "he lied to me. He told me the eleven-fifty +was all he had." + +"Yes," I agreed. "There is no doubt he lied to you." + +Hazen had a letter to write and he bent to it. I sat by the stove and +watched him and considered. He had not yet finished the letter when we +heard Marshey returning. His dragging feet on the stair were +unmistakable. At the sound of his weary feet some tide of indignation +surged up in me. + +I was minded to do violence to Hazen Kinch. But--a deeper impulse held +my hand from the man. + +Marshey came in and his weary eyes wandered about the room. They +inspected the floor; they inspected me; they inspected Hazen Kinch's +table, and they rose at last humbly to Hazen Kinch. + +"Well?" said Hazen. + +"I lost a dollar," Marshey told him. "I 'lowed I might have dropped it +here." + +Hazen frowned. + +"You told me eleven-fifty was all you had." + +"This here dollar wa'n't mine." + +The money-lender laughed. + +"Likely! Who would give you a dollar? You lied to me, or you're lying +now. I don't believe you lost a dollar." + +Marshey reiterated weakly: "I lost a dollar." + +"Well," said Hazen, "there's no dollar of yours here." + +"It was to git medicine," Marshey said. "It wa'n't mine." + +Hazen Kinch exclaimed: "By God, I believe you're accusing me!" + +Marshey lifted both hands placatingly. + +"No, Mr. Kinch. No, sir." His eyes once more wandered about the room. +"Mebbe I dropped it in the snow," he said. + +He turned to the door. Even in his slow shuffle there was a hint of +trembling eagerness to escape. He went out and down the stairs. Hazen +looked at me, his old face wrinkling mirthfully. + +"You see?" he said. + +I left him a little later and went out into the street. On the way to +the hotel I stopped for a cigar at the drug store. Marshey was there, +talking with the druggist. + +I heard the druggist say: "No, Marshey, I'm sorry. I've been stung too +often." + +Marshey nodded humbly. + +"I didn't 'low you'd figure to trust me." he agreed. "It's all right. I +didn't 'low you would." + +It was my impulse to give him the dollar he needed, but I did not do it. +An overpowering compulsion bade me keep my hands off in this matter. I +did not know what I expected, but I felt the imminence of the fates. +When I went out into the snow it seemed to me the groan of the gale was +like the slow grind of millstones, one upon the other. + +I thought long upon the matter of Hazen Kinch before sleep came that +night. + +Toward morning the snow must have stopped; and the wind increased and +carved the drifts till sunrise, then abruptly died. I met Hazen at the +postoffice at ten and he said: "I'm starting home." + +I asked: "Can you get through?" + +He laughed. + +"I will get through," he told me. + +"You're in haste." + +"I want to see that boy of mine," said Hazen Kinch. "A fine boy, man! A +fine boy!" + +"I'm ready," I said. + +When we took the road the mare was limping. But she seemed to work out +the stiffness in her knees and after a mile or so of the hard going she +was moving smoothly enough. We made good time. + +The day, as often happens after a storm, was full of blinding sunlight. +The glare of the sun upon the snow was almost unbearable. I kept my eyes +all but closed but there was so much beauty abroad in the land that I +could not bear to close them altogether. The snow clung to twigs and to +fences and to wires, and a thousand flames glinted from every crystal +when the sun struck down upon the drifts. The pine wood upon the eastern +slope of Rayborn Hill was a checkerboard of rich colour. Green and blue +and black and white, indescribably brilliant. When we crossed the bridge +at the foot of the hill we could hear the brook playing beneath the ice +that sheathed it. On the white pages of the snow wild things had writ +here and there the fine-traced tale of their morning's adventuring. We +saw once where a fox had pinned a big snowshoe rabbit in a drift. + +Hazen talked much of that child of his on the homeward way. I said +little. From the top of the Rayborn Hill we sighted his house and he +laid the whip along the mare and we went down that last long descent at +a speed that left me breathless. I shut my eyes and huddled low in the +robes for protection against the bitter wind, and I did not open them +again till we turned into Hazen's barnyard, ploughing through the +unpacked snow. + +When we stopped Hazen laughed. + +"Ha!" he said. "Now, come in, man, and warm yourself and see the baby! A +fine boy!" + +He was ahead of me at the door; I went in upon his heels. We came into +the kitchen together. + +Hazen's kitchen was also living-room and bedroom in the cold of winter. +The arrangement saved firewood. There was a bed against the wall +opposite the door. As we came in a woman got up stiffly from this bed +and I saw that this woman was Hazen's wife. But there was a change in +her. She was bleak as cold iron and she was somehow strong. + +Hazen rasped at this woman impatiently: "Well, I'm home! Where is the +boy?" + +She looked at him and her lips moved soundlessly. She closed them, +opened them again. This time she was able to speak. + +"The boy?" she said to Hazen. "The boy is dead!" + +The dim-lit kitchen was very quiet for a little time. I felt myself +breathe deeply, almost with relief. The thing for which I had waited--it +had come. And I looked at Hazen Kinch. + +He had always been a little thin man. He was shrunken now and very white +and very still. Only his face twitched. A muscle in one cheek jerked and +jerked and jerked at his mouth. It was as though he controlled a desire +to smile. That jerking, suppressed smile upon his white and tortured +countenance was terrible. I could see the blood drain down from his +forehead, down from his cheeks. He became white as death itself. + +After a little he tried to speak. I do not know what he meant to say. +But what he did was to repeat--as though he had not heard her words--the +question which he had flung at her in the beginning. He said huskily: +"Where is the boy?" + +She looked toward the bed and Hazen looked that way; and then he went +across to the bed with uncertain little steps. I followed him. I saw the +little twisted body there. The woman had been keeping it warm with her +own body. It must have been in her arms when we came in. The tumbled +coverings, the crushed pillows spoke mutely of a ferocious intensity of +grief. + +Hazen looked down at the little body. He made no move to touch it, but I +heard him whisper to himself: "Fine boy." + +After a while he looked at the woman. She seemed to feel an accusation +in his eyes. She said: "I did all I could." + +He asked "What was it?" + +I had it in me--though I had reason enough to despise the little man--to +pity Hazen Kinch. + +"He coughed," said the woman. "I knew it was croup. You know I asked you +to get the medicine--ipecac. You said no matter--no need--and you had +gone." + +She looked out of the window. + +"I went for help--to Annie Marshey. Her babies had had it. Her husband +was going to town and she said he would get the medicine for me. She did +not tell him it was for me. He would not have done it for you. He did +not know. So I gave her a dollar to give him--to bring it out to me. + +"He came home in the snow last night. Baby was bad by that time, so I +was watching for Doan. I stopped him in the road and I asked for the +medicine. When he understood he told me. He had not brought it." + +The woman was speaking dully, without emotion. + +"It would have been in time, even then," she said. "But after a while, +after that, baby died." + +I understood in that moment the working of the mills. And when I looked +at Hazen Kinch I saw that he, too, was beginning to understand. There +is a just mercilessness in an aroused God. Hazen Kinch was driven to +questions. + +"Why--didn't Marshey fetch it?" he asked. + +She said slowly: "They would not trust him--at the store." + +His mouth twitched, he raised his hands. + +"The money!" he cried. "The money! What did he do with that?" + +"He said," the woman answered, "that he lost it--in your office; lost +the money there." + +After a little the old money-lender leaned far back like a man wrenched +with agony. His body was contorted, his face was terrible. His dry mouth +opened wide. + +He screamed! + + * * * * * + +Halfway up the hill to my house I stopped to look back and all round. +The vast hills in their snowy garments looked down upon the land, upon +the house of Hazen Kinch. Still and silent and inscrutable. + +I knew now that a just and brooding God dwelt among these hills. + + + + +ON STRIKE + + +BY ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE + +From _The Popular Magazine_ + +"Furthermore, howadji," ventured Najib, who had not spoken for fully +half an hour, but had been poring over a sheaf of shipment items +scribbled in Arabic, "furthermore, I am yearnful to know who was the +unhappy person the wicked general threatened. Or, of a perhaps, it was +that poor general himself who was bethreatened by his padishah or by +the--" + +"What on earth are you babbling about, Najib?" absent-mindedly asked +Logan Kirby, as he looked up from a month-old New York paper which had +arrived by muleteer that day and which the expatriated American had been +reading with pathetic interest. + +Now, roused from his perusal by Najib's query, Logan saw that the little +Syrian has ceased wrestling with the shipment items and was peering over +his employer's shoulder, his beady eyes fixed in keen curiosity on the +printed page. + +"I enseeched you to tell me, howadji," said Najib, "who has been +threatening that poor general. Or, perchancely, who has been made to +cower himself undertheneath of that fierce general's threatenings. See, +it is there, howadji. There, in the black line at the left top end of +the news. See?" + +Following the guidance of Najib's stubby, unwashed finger, Kirby read +the indicated headline: + + GENERAL STRIKE THREATENED + +"Oh!" he answered, choking back a grin, "I see. There isn't any +'general,' Najib. And he isn't threatened. It means--" + +"May the faces of all liars be blackened!" cried Najib in virtuous +indignation. "And may the maker of the becurst newspage lie be doubly +afflictioned! May his camels die and his wives cast dust upon his bared +head! For he has befooled me, by what he has here enprinted. My heart +went out with a sweet sorrowfulness for that poor general or for the +folk he bethreatened. Whichever it might chance itself to be. And now +the news person has made a jest of the truth. But he--" + +Kirby's attempt at self-control went to pieces. He guffawed. Najib eyed +him sourly; then said in icy reproof: + +"It is known to all, howadji, that Sidi-ben-Hassan, the sheikh, was the +wisest of men. And did not Sidi-ben-Hassan make known, in his book, that +'_Laughter is for women and for hyenas_'? Furthermore--" + +"I'm sorry I laughed at you, Najib," returned Kirby, with due penitence, +"I don't wonder you got such an idea, from the headline. You see, I have +read the story that goes under it. That's how I happen to know what it +means. It means that several thousand workmen of several allied trades +threatened to go on strike. That will tie up a lot of business, you see; +along a lot of lines. It will mean a general tie-up--a--" + +From Najib's blank face, the American saw his more or less technical +explanation was going wide. Still remorseful at having hurt his +factotum's feelings, Kirby laid the paper aside and undertook to +simplify the matter. + +"It's like this," said he. "We'll say a gang of men aren't satisfied +with the pay or the hours they are getting. They asked for more money or +for shorter hours; or for both. If the demand is refused, they stop +working. They won't go back to their jobs till they get the cash and the +hours they want. That is known as 'going on strike.' When a number of +concerns are involved in it, it's sometimes called 'a general strike.' +This paper says a general strike is threatened. That means--" + +"I apperceive it, howadji!" exclaimed Najib. "I am onward to it, now. I +might have known the printed page cannot lie. But, oh, my heart berends +itself when I think of the sad fate of those poor folk who do the +stroking! Of an assuredly, Allah hath deprived them of wisdom! + +"Not necessarily," argued Kirby, wondering at his henchman's outburst of +sympathy for union labourers so many thousand miles away. "They may win, +you know; or, at least, get a compromise. And their unions will support +them while they are out of work. Of course, they may lose. And then--" + +"But when they make refusal to do their work," urged Najib, "will not +the soldiers of the pasha cut them to ribbons with the kourbash and +drive them back to their toil? Or if the pasha of that pashalik is a +brutesome man, will not he cast those poor fellaheen into the prison and +beseize their goods? And I answer, howadji, he will. Wherefore my eyes +are tearing, for the men who have so unlucklessly--" + +"Hold on!" exhorted Kirby; albeit despairing of opening the mind of a +man whose forebears for thousands of years had lived in a land where the +_corvée_--forced labour--was a hallowed institution; and where the money +of employers could always enlist the aid of government soldiery to keep +the fellaheen at their tasks. "Hold on! That sort of thing is dead and +done with. Even in the East. Chinese Gordon stamped out the last of it, +in Egypt, years ago. If a man doesn't want to work, he can't be forced +to. All his boss can do is to fire him and try to get some one in his +place. When a whole factory of men strike--especially if there are any +big contract orders to fill in a rush--the employers sometimes find it +cheaper to give them what they want than to call in untrained +strikebreakers. On the other hand, sometimes, the boss can bring the men +to terms. It all depends." + +Yielding to the human joy of imparting instruction to so interested a +listener, Kirby launched forth into an elaboration of his theme; trying +to expound something of the capital-and-labour situation to his +follower; and secretly wondering at the keen zest wherewith his words +were listened to. + +Seldom was Kirby so successful in making Najib follow so long an +oration. And he was pleased with his own new-found powers of explaining +Occidental customs to an Oriental mind. + +Now, Logan Kirby knew the tangled Syrian character and its myriad queer +slants, as well as it can be given to a white man to know it. Kirby's +father had been a missionary, at Nablous. He himself had been born +there, and had spent his boyhood at the mission. That was why--after he +had completed his engineering course at Columbia's school of mines and +had served an apprenticeship in Colorado and Arizona--the Cabell +Smelting Company of New York had sent him out to the Land of Moab, as +manager of its new-acquired little antimony mine. + +The mine--a mere prospect shaft--was worked by about thirty +fellaheen--native labourers--supervised by a native guard of twelve +Turkish soldiers. Small as was the plant, it was a rich property and it +was piling up dividends for the Cabells. Antimony, in the East, is used +in a score of ways--from its employment in the form of kohl, for the +darkening of women's eyes, to the chemical by-products, always in demand +by Syrian apothecaries. + +This was the only antimony mine between Aden and Germany. Its shipments +were in constant demand. Its revenues were a big item on the credit side +of the Cabell ledger. + +Kirby's personal factotum, as well as superintendent of the mine, was +this squat little Syrian, Najib, who had once spent two blissfully +useless years with an All Nations Show, at Coney Island; and who there +had picked up a language which he proudly believed to be English; and +which he spoke exclusively when talking with the manager. + +Kirby's rare knowledge of the East had enabled the mine to escape ruin a +score of times where a manager less conversant with Oriental ways must +have blundered into some fatal error in the handling of his men or in +dealing with the local authorities. + +Remember, please, that in the East it is the seemingly insignificant +things which bring disaster to the feringhee, or foreigner. For example, +many an American or European has met unavenged death because he did not +realize that he was heaping vile affront upon his Bedouin host by eating +with his left hand. Many a foreign manager of labour has lost instant +and complete control over his fellaheen by deigning to wash his own +shirt in the near-by river or for brushing the dirt from his own +clothes. Thereby he has proved himself a labourer, instead of a master +of men. Many a foreigner has been shot or stabbed for speaking to a +native whom he thought afflicted with a fit and who was really engaged +in prayer. Many more have lost life or authority by laughing at the +wrong time or by glancing--with entire absence of interest, perhaps--at +some passing woman. + +Yes, Kirby had been invaluable to his employers by virtue of his inborn +knowledge of Syrian ways. Yet, now, he was not enough of an Oriental to +understand why his lecture on the strike system should thrill his +listener. + +He did not pause to realize that the idea of strikes was one which +carries a true appeal to the Eastern imagination. It has all the +elements of revenge, of coercion, and of trapping, of wily +give-and-take, and of simple and logical gambling uncertainty, which +characterize the most popular of the Arabian Nights yarns and which have +made those tales remain as Syrian classics for more than ten centuries. + +"It is of an assuredly a pleasing and noble plan," applauded Najib when +Kirby finished the divers ramifications of his discourse. "And I do not +misdoubt but what that cruel general betrembled himself inside of his +boots when they threatened to strike. If the stroking ones may not be +lawfully attackled by the pashalik troops, indeed must the general--" + +"I told you there wasn't any general!" interrupted Kirby, jarred that +his luminous explanations had still left Najib more or less where it +found him, so far as any lucid idea was concerned. "And I've wasted +enough time trying to ding the notion of the thing into your thick head. +If you've got those shipment items catalogued, go back to the shaft and +check off the inventory. The first load ought to be on the way to the +coast before sunrise to-morrow. Chase!" + +As he picked up the duplicate sets of the list and ran over their items +once more, Kirby tried to forget his own silly annoyance at his failure +to make the dull little Syrian comprehend a custom that had never +reached the Land of Moab. + +Presently, in his absorption in his work, the American forgot the whole +incident. It was the beginning of a rush period at the mine--the busiest +month in its history was just setting in. The Alexandretta-bound +shipment of the morrow was but the first of twelve big shipments +scheduled for the next twenty-nine days. + +The restoration of peace and the shutting out of several Central +European rivals had thrown an unprecedented sheaf of rush orders on the +Cabell mine. It was such a chance as Kirby had longed for; a chance to +show his rivals' customers the quality of the Cabell product and the +speed and efficiency wherewith orders could and would be filled by him. +If he could but fill these new customers' orders in quicker and more +satisfactory fashion than the firms were accustomed to receiving, it +might well mean that the new buyers would stick to the Cabells, after +the other mines should again be in operation. + +It was a big chance, as Kirby had explained at some length to Najib, +during the past few weeks. At his behest, the little superintendent had +used every known method to get extra work and extra speed out of the +fellaheen; and, by judicious baksheesh, had even impressed to the toil +several members of the haughty, Turkish guard and certain folk from the +nearest hill village. + +As a result, the first shipment was ready for the muleteers to carry +coastward a full week ahead of schedule time. And the contract chanced +to be one for which the eager wholesalers at Alexandretta had agreed to +pay a bonus for early arrival. The men were even now busy getting a +second shipment in shape for transportation by mule train to Tiberias +and thence by railway to Damascus. + +The work was progressing finely. Kirby thrilled at the thought. And he +was just a little ashamed of his own recent impatience at Najib, when he +remembered how the superintendent was pushing the relays of consignments +along. After all, he mused, it was no reflection on Najib's intelligence +that the poor little chap could not grasp the whole involved Occidental +strike system in one hasty lecture; and that his simple mind clung to +the delusion that there was some fierce general involved in it. In the +Arabian Nights was there not always a scheming sultan or a baffled +wazir, in every clash with the folk of the land? Was it unnatural that +Najib should have substituted for these the mythical general of whom he +thought he had seen mention in the news headline? + +But, soon after dusk, Kirby had reason to know that his words had not +all fallen on barren soil. At close of the working day, Najib had +brought the manager the usual diurnal report from the mine. Now, after +supper, Kirby, glancing over the report again, found a gap of terse yet +complete reports. And occasionally Kirby was obliged to summon his +henchman to correct or amend the day's tally sheet. + +Wherefore, the list in his hand, the American strolled down from his own +knoll-top tent toward Najib's quarters. As Najib was superintendent, and +thus technically an official, Kirby could make such domiciliary visits +without loss of prestige, instead of summoning the Syrian to his +presence by handclap of by messenger, as would have been necessary in +dealing with any of the other employees. + +Najib's hut lay a hundred yards beyond the hollow where the fellaheen +and soldiers were encamped. For Najib, too, had a dignity to uphold. He +might no more lodge or break bread with his underlings than might Kirby +with him. Yet, at times, preparatory to pattering up the knoll for his +wonted evening chat with the American at the latter's campfire, Najib +would so far unbend as to pause at the fellaheen's camp for a native +discussion of many gestures and much loud talking. + +So it was to-night. Just outside the radius of the fellaheen's +firelight, Kirby paused. For he heard Najib's shrill voice uplifted in +speech. And amusedly he halted and prepared to turn back. He had no wish +to break in upon a harangue so interesting as the speaker seemed to find +this one. + +Najib's voice was pitched far above the tones of normal Eastern +conversation;--louder and more excited even than that of a professional +story-teller. In Syria it is hard to believe that these professionals +are merely telling an oft-heard Arabian Nights narrative; and not +indulging in delirium or apoplexy. + +Yet at a stray word of Najib's, Kirby checked involuntarily his own +retreat; and paused again to look back. There stood Najib, in the center +of the firelit circle; hands and head in wild motion. Around him, +spell-bound, squatted the ring of his dark-faced and unwashed hearers. +The superintendent, being with his own people, was orating in pure +Arabic--or, rather, in the colloquial vernacular which is as close to +pure Arabic as one can expect to hear, except among the remoter +Bedouins. + +"Thus it is!" he was declaiming. "Even as I have sought to show you, oh, +addle-witted offspring of mangy camels and one-eyed mules! In that far +country, when men are dissatisfied with their wage, they take counsel +together and they say, one unto the other: 'Lo, we shall labour no more, +unless our hire be greater and our toil hours less!' Then go they to +their sheikh or whomever he be who hath hired them, and they say to him: +'Oh, favoured of Allah, behold we must have such and such wage and such +and such hours of labour!' Then doth their sheikh cast ashes upon his +beard and rend his garments. For doth he not know his fate is upon him +and that his breath is in his nostrils? Yet will they not listen to his +prayers; but at once they make 'strike.' + +"Then doth their sheikh betake himself to the pasha with his grievance; +beseeching the pasha, with many rich gifts, that he will throw those +strike-making labourers into prison and scourge their kinsmen with the +kourbash. But the pasha maketh answer, with tears: 'Lo, I am helpless! +What saith the law? It saith that a man may make strike at will; and +that his employer must pay what is demanded!' Now, this pasha is named +'General.' And his heart is as gall within him that he may not accept +the rich gifts offered by the sheikh; and punish the labourers. Yet the +law restraineth him. Then the sheikh, perchance, still refuseth the +demands of his toilers. And they say to him then: 'If you will not +employ us and on the terms we ordain, then shall ye hire none others, +for we shall overthrow those whom you set in our places. And perchance +we shall destroy your warehouses or barns or shops!' This say they, when +they know he hath greatest need of them. Then boweth their master his +head upon his breast and saith: 'Be it even as ye will, my hirelings! +For I must obey!' And he giveth them, of his substance, whatsoever they +may require. And all are glad. And under the new law, even in this land +of ours, none may imprison or beat those who will not work. And all may +demand and receive what wage they will. And--" + +And Kirby waited to hear no more. With a groan of disgust at the +orator's imbecility, he went back, up the hill, to his own tent. + +There, he drew forth his rickety sea chair and placed it in front of a +patch of campfire that twinkled in the open space in front of the tent +door. For, up there in the hills, the nights had an edge of chill to +them; be the days ever so hot. + +Stretching himself out lazily in his long chair, Kirby exhumed from a +shirt pocket his disreputable brier pipe, and filled and lighted it. The +big white Syrian stars glinted down on him from a black velvet sky. +Along the nearer peaks and hollows of the Moab Mountains, the knots of +prowling jackals kept up a running chorus of yapping--a discordant chant +punctuated now and then by the far-away howl of a hunting wolf; or, by +the choking "laugh" of a hyena in the valley below, who thus gave forth +the news of some especially delicious bit of carrion discovered among +the rocks. + +And Kirby was reminded of Najib's quoted dictum that "laughter is for +women and for hyenas." The memory brought back to him his squat +henchman's weird jumbling of the strike system. And he smiled in +reminiscent mirth. + +The Syrian had been his comrade in many a vicissitude And he knew that +Najib's fondness for him was as sincere as can be that of any Oriental +for a foreigner, an affection based not wholly on self-interest. Kirby +enjoyed his evening powwows with superintendent beside the campfire; and +the little man's amazing faculty for mangling the English tongue. + +He rather missed Najib's presence to-night. But he was not to miss it +for long. Just as he was about to knock out his pipe and go to bed, the +native came pattering up the slope on excitedly rapid feet; and squatted +as usual on the ground beside the American's lounging chair. In Najib's +manner there was a scarce-repressed jubilant thrill. His beady eyes +shone wildly. Hardly had he seated himself when he broke the custom of +momentary grave silence by blurting forth: + +"Furthermore, howadji, I am the bearer of gladly tidings which will make +you to beshout yourself aloud for joyfulness and leap about and +besclaim: 'Pretty fair!' and other words of a grand rapture. For the +bird will sing gleesome dirges in your heart!" + +"Well?" queried Kirby in no especial excitement. "I'm listening. But if +the news is really so wonderful you surely took your time in bringing +it. I've been here all evening, while you've stayed below there, trying +to increase those fellaheens' stock of ignorance. What's the idea?" + +"Oh, I prythee you, do not let my awayness beget your goat, howadji!" +pleaded Najib, ever sensitive to any hint of reproof from his master. +"It was that which made the grand tidings. If I had not of been where I +have been this evening--and doing what I have done--there would not be +any tidings at all. I made the tidings myself. Both of them. And I made +them for _you._ Is it that I may now tell them to you, howadji?" + +"Go ahead," adjured Kirby, humouring the wistful eagerness of the man. +"What's the news you have for me?" + +"It is more than just a 'news,' howadji," corrected Najib with jealous +regard for shades of meaning. "It is a tidings. And it is this: You and +my poor self and the fellaheen and even those hell-selected pashalik +soldiers--we are all to be rich. Most especially _you,_ howadji. +Wealthiness bewaits us all. No longer shall any of us be downward and +outward from povertude. No more shall any of us toil early and +belatedly. We shall all live in easiness of hours and with much payment. +_Inshallah! Alhandulillah!"_ he concluded, his rising excitement for +once bursting the carefully nourished bounds of English and overflowing +into Arabic expletive. + +Noting his own lapse into his native language, he looked sheepishly at +Kirby, as though hoping the American had not heard the break. Then, with +mounting eagerness, Najib struck the climax of his narrative. + +"To speak with a briefness, howadji," he proclaimed grandiloquently. "We +have all stroked ourselfs!" + +"You've all done--what?" asked the puzzled Kirby. + +"Not we alone, howadji," amended Najib, "but you also! We would not +berich ourselves and leave you outward in the plan. It is you also who +are to stroke yourself. And--" + +"For the love of Heaven!" exclaimed Kirby in sudden loss of patience. +"What are you driving at? What do you mean about 'stroking yourselves'? +Say it in Arabic. Then perhaps I can find what you mean." + +"It is not to be said in the Arabic, howadji," returned Najib, wincing +at this slur on his English. "For there is not such a thing in the +Arabic as to make strike. We make strike. Thus I say it we 'stroke +ourselves.' If it is the wrong way for saying it--" + +"Strike?" repeated Kirby, perplexed. "What do you mean? Are you still +thinking about what I told you to-day? If you are going--" + +"I have bethought of it, howadji, ever since," was the reply. "And it is +because of my much bethoughting that I found my splenderous plan. That +is my tidings. I bethought it all out with tremense clearness and +wiseness. Then I told those others, down yonder. At first they were of a +stupidity. For it was so new. But at last I made them understand. And +they rejoiced of it. So it is all settled most sweetly. You may not fear +that they will not stand by it. As soon as that was made sure I came to +you to tell--" + +"Najib!" groaned Kirby, his head awhirl. "_Will_ you stop chewing chunks +of indigestible language, and tell me what you are jabbering about? What +was it you thought over? And what is 'all settled'? What will--" + +"The strike, of an assuredly," explained Najib, as if in pity of his +chief's denseness. "To-night we make strike. All of us. That is one +tiding. And you, too, make strike with us. That is the other tiding. +Making two tidings. We make strike. To-morrow we all sleep late. No work +is to be made. And so it shall be, on each dear and nice and happy day, +until Cabell Effendi--be his sons an hundred and his wives true!--shall +pay us the money we ask and make short our hours of toil. Then--" + +Kirby sought to speak. But his breath was gone. He only gobbled. Taking +the wordless sound for a token of high approval, Najib hastened on, more +glibly, with his program. + +"On the to-morrow's morning, howadji," he said, "we enseech that you +will write a sorrowsome letter to Cabell Effendi, in the Broad Street of +New York; and say to him that all of us have made strike and that we +shall work no more until we have from his hands a writing that our +payment shall be two mejidie for every mejidie we have been capturing +from his company. Also and likewise that we shall work but half time. +And that you, howadji, are to receive even as we; save only that _your_ +wage is to be enswollen to three times over than what it is now. And say +to him, howadji, that unless he does our wish in this striking we shall +slay all others whom he may behire in our place and that we shall +dynamitely destroy that nice mine. Remind him, howadji--if perchancely +he does not know of such things--that the law is with us. Say, +moreoverly, that there be many importanceful shipments and contracts +just now. And say he will lose all if he be so bony of head as to refuse +us. Furthermore, howadji, tell him, I prythee you, that we--" + +A veritable yell from Kirby broke in on the smug instructions. The +American had recovered enough of his breath to expend a lungful of it in +one profane bellow. In a flash he visualized the whole scene at the +fellaheens' quarters--Najib's crazy explanation of the strike system and +of the supposed immunity from punishment that would follow sabotage and +other violence; the fellaheens' duller brains gradually seizing on the +idea until it had become as much a part of their mucilaginous mentality +as the Koran itself; and Najib's friendly desire that Kirby might share +in the golden benefits of the new scheme. + +Yes, the American grasped the whole thing at once; his knowledge of the +East foretelling to him its boundless possibilities for mischief and for +the ruin of the mine's new prosperity. He fairly strangled with the gust +of wrath and impotent amaze which gripped him. + +Najib smiled up at him as might a dog that had just performed some +pretty new trick, or a child who has brought to its father a gift. But +the aspect of Kirby's distorted face there in the dying firelight +shocked the Syrian into a grunt of terror. Scrambling to his feet, he +sputtered quaveringly. + +"Tame yourself, howadji, I enseech you! Why are you not rejoiceful? Will +it not mean much money for you; and--" + +"You mangy brown rat!" shouted Kirby in fury. "What in blazes have you +done? You know, as well as I do, that such an idea will never get out of +those fellaheens' skulls, once it's really planted there. They'll +believe every word of that wall-eyed rot you've been telling them! And +they'll go on a _genuine_ strike on the strength of it. They'll--" + +"Of an assuredly, howadji, they will," assented the bewildered Najib. "I +made me very assured of that. Four times I told it all over to them, +until even poor Imbarak--whose witfulness hath been beblown out from his +brain by the breath of the Most High--until even Imbarak understood. But +why it should enrouse you to a lionsome raging I cannot think. I +bethought you would be pleasured--" + +"Listen to me!" ordered Kirby, fighting hard for self-control and +forcing himself to speak with unnatural slowness. "You've done more +damage than if you had dynamited the whole mine and then turned a river +into the shaft. This kind of news spreads. In a week there won't be a +worker east of the Jordan who won't be a strike fan. And these people +here will work the idea a step farther. I know them. They'll decide that +if one strike is good, two strikes are better. And they will strike +every week--loafing between times." + +This prospect brought a grin of pure bliss to Najib's swarthy face. He +looked in new admiration upon his farsighted chief. Kirby went on: + +"Not that that will concern us. For this present strike will settle the +Cabell mine. It means ruin to our business here, and the loss of all +your jobs, as well as my own. Why, you idiot, can't you see what you've +done? If you don't take that asinine grin off your ugly face, I'll knock +it off!" he burst out, his hard-held patience momentarily fraying. + +Then, taking new hold on his self-control, Kirby began again to talk. As +if addressing a defective child, which, as a matter of fact, he was +doing, he expounded the hideous situation. + +He explained the disloyalty to the Cabells of such a move as Najib had +planned. He pointed out the pride he and Najib had taken in the new +business they had secured for the home office; and the fact that this +new business had brought an increase of pay to them both as well as to +the fellaheen. He showed how great a triumph for the mine was this vast +increase of business; and the stark necessity of impressing the new +customers by the promptitude and uniform excellence of all shipments. He +pointed out the utter collapse to this and to all the rest of the mine's +connections which a strike would entail. Najib listened unmoved. + +Hopeless of hammering American ethics into the brain of an Oriental, +Kirby set off at a new angle. He explained the loss of prestige and +position which he himself would suffer. He would be +discharged--probably by cable--for allowing the mine's bourgeoning +prosperity to go to pieces in such fashion. Another and less lenient and +understanding manager would be sent out to take his place. A manager +whose first official act would probably be the discharging of Najib as +the cause of the whole trouble. + +Najib listened to this with a new interest, but with no great +conviction. + +Even Kirby's declaration that the ridiculous strike be a failure, and +that the government would assuredly punish any damage done to the Cabell +property, did not serve to impress him. Najib was a Syrian. An idea once +firm-rooted in his mind, was loathe to let itself be torn thence by mere +words. Kirby waxed desperate. + +"You have wrecked this whole thing!" he stormed. "You got an idiotically +wrong slant on what I told you about strikes to-day; and you have ruined +us all. Even if you should go down there to the quarters this minute and +tell the men that you were mistaken and that the strike is off--you know +they wouldn't believe you. And you know they would go straight ahead +with the thing. That's the Oriental of it. They'd refuse to go on +working. And our shipments wouldn't be delivered. None of the ore for +the next shipments would be mined. The men would just hang about, +peacefully waiting for the double pay and the half time that you've +promised them." + +"Of an assuredly, that is true, howadji," conceded Najib. "They would--" + +"They _will_!" corrected Kirby with grim hopelessness. + +"But soon Cabell Effendi will reply to your letter," went on Najib. "And +then the double paying--" + +"To my letter!" mocked the raging Kirby. + +Then he paused, a sudden inspiration smiting him. + +"Najib," he continued after a minute of concentrated thought, "you have +sense enough to know one thing: You have sense enough to know you people +can't get that extra pay till I write to Mr. Cabell and demand it for +you. There's not another one of you who can write English. There's no +one here but yourself who can speak or understand it or make shift to +spell out a few English words in print And Mr. Cabell doesn't know a +word of Arabic--let alone the Arabic script. And your own two years at +Coney Island must have shown you that no New Yorkers would know how to +read an Arabic letter to him. Now I swear to you, by every Christian and +Moslem oath, that _I_ shan't write such a letter! So how are you going +to get word to him that you people are on strike and that you won't do +another lick of work till you get double pay and half time? How are you +going to do that?" + +Najib's solid face went blank. Here at last was an argument that struck +home. He had known Kirby for years, long enough to know that the +American was most emphatically a man of his word. If Kirby swore he +would not act as the men's intermediary with the company, then +decisively Kirby would keep his oath. And Najib realized the futility of +getting any one else to write such a letter in any language which the +Cabell Smelting Company's home office would decipher. + +He peered up at Kirby with disconsolate astonishment. Quick to take +advantage of the change, the manager hurried on: + +"Now, the men are on strike. That's understood. Well what are you and +they going to do about it? When the draft for the monthly pay roll comes +to the bank, at Jerusalem as usual, I shall refuse to indorse it. I give +you my oath on that, too. I am not going to distribute the company's +cash among a bunch of strikers. Without my signature, the bank won't +cash the draft. You know that. Well, how are you going to live, all of +you, on nothing a month? When the present stock of provisions gives out +I'm not going to order them renewed. And the provision people in +Jerusalem won't honour any one's order for them but mine. This is the +only concern in Syria to-day that pays within forty per cent, of the +wages you chaps are getting. With no pay and no food you're due to find +your strike rather costly. For when the mine shuts down I'm going back +to America. There'll be nothing to keep me here. I'll be ruined, in any +case. You people will find yourself without money or provisions. And if +you go elsewhere for work it will be at a pay that is only a little more +than half what you are getting now. Your lookout isn't cheery, my +striking friend!" + +He made as though to go into his tent. After a brief pause of horror, +Najib pattered hurriedly and beseechingly in his wake. + +"Howadji!" pleaded the Syrian shakily. _"Howadji!_ You would not, in the +untamefulness of your mad, desertion us like that? Not _me_, at anyhow? +Not me, who have loved you as Daoud the Emir loved Jonathan of old! You +would not forsook me, to starve myself! _Aie! Ohé!_" + +"Shut up that ungodly racket!" snapped Kirby, entering his tent and +lighting his lamp, as the first piercing notes of the traditional +mourner chant exploded through the unhappy Najib's wide-flung jaws. +"Shut up! You'll start every hyena and jackal in the mountains to +howling! It's bad enough as it is without adding a native concert to the +rest of the mess." + +"But, howadji!" pleaded Najib. + +_"Tamán!"_ growled Kirby, summarily speaking the age-hallowed Arabic +word for the ending of all interviews. + +"But I shall be beruinated, howadji!" tearfully insisted Najib. + +Covertly the American watched his henchman while pretending to make +ready for bed. If he had fully and permanently scared Najib into a +conviction that the strike would spell ruin for the Syrian himself, then +the little man's brain might possibly be jarred into one of its rare +intervals of uncanny craftiness; and Najib might hit upon some way of +persuading the fellaheen that the strike was off. + +This was Kirby's sole hope. And he knew it. Unless the fellaheen could +be so convinced, it meant the strike would continue until it should +break the mine as well as the mine's manager. Kirby knew of no way to +persuade the men. The same arguments which had crushed Najib would mean +nothing to them. All their brains could master at one time, without the +aid of some uprooting shock, was that henceforth they were to get double +pay and half labour. + +A calm fatalism of hopelessness, bred perhaps of his long residence in +the homeland of fatalism began to creep over Kirby. In one hour his +golden ambitions for the mine and for himself had been smashed. At best +he saw no hope of getting the obsessed mine crew to work soon enough to +save his present contracts. He would be lucky if, on non-receipt of +their demanded increase, they did not follow Najib's muddled preachments +to the point of sabotage. + +The more he thought of it, the less possible did it seem to Kirby that +Najib could undo the damage he had so blithely done. Ordering the +blubbering little fellow out of the tent and refusing to speak or listen +further, Kirby went to bed. + +Oddly enough, he slept. There was nothing to worry about. When a man's +job or fortune are imperilled sleep vanishes. But after the catastrophe +what sense is there in lying awake? Depression and nervous fatigue threw +Kirby into a troubled slumber. Only once in the night was he roused. + +Perhaps two hours before dawn he started up at sound of a humble +scratching at the open door flap of his tent. On the threshold cowered +Najib. + +"Furthermore, howadji," came the Syrian's woe-begone voice through the +gloom, "could I borrow me a book if I shall use it with much +carefulness?" + +Too drowsy to heed the absurdity of such a plea at such an hour, Kirby +grumbled a surly assent, and dozed again as he heard Najib rumbling, in +the dark, among the shelves of the packing-box bookcase in a far corner +of the tent. Here were stored nearly a hundred old volumes which had +once been a part of the missionary library belonging to Kirby's father +at Nablous. A few years earlier, at the moving of the mission, the dead +missionary's scanty library had been shipped across country to his son. + +Kirby awoke at greyest daylight. Through force of habit he woke at this +hour; in spite of the workless day which he knew confronted him. It was +his custom to get up and take his bath in the rain cistern at this time, +and to finish dressing just as the men piled out for the morning's work. + +Yet now the first sounds that smote his ears as he opened his eyes were +the rhythmic creak of the mine windlass and equally rhythmic, if less +tuneful, chant of the men who were working it; + +_"All-ah sa-eed!--Ne-bi sa-eed! Ohé! Sa-eed! Sa-eed! Sa-EED!"_ + +In the distance, dying away, he heard the plodding hoofs of a string of +pack mules. From the direction of the mine came the hoodlum racket which +betokens, in Syria, the efforts of a number of honest labourers to +perform their daily tasks in an efficient and orderly way. + +Kirby, in sleepy amaze, looked at his watch in the dim dawn light. He +saw it was still a full half hour before the men were due to begin work. +And by the sounds he judged that the day's labour was evidently well +under way. Yes, and to-day there was to have been no work done! + +Kirby jumped out of bed and strode dazedly to his tent door. At the mine +below him his fellaheen were as busy as so many dirty and gaudy bees. +Even the lordly lazy Turkish soldiers were lending a hand at windlass +and crane. Over the nick of the pass, leading toward Jerusalem, the last +animal of a mule train was vanishing. Najib, who had as usual escorted +the departing shipment of ore to the opening in the pass, was trotting +back toward camp. + +At sight of Kirby in the tent door the little superintendent veered from +his course toward the mine and increased his pace to a run as he bore +down upon the American. Najib's swart face was aglow. But his eyes were +those of a man who has neglected to sleep. His cheeks still bore flecks +of the dust he had thrown on his head when Kirby had explained the wreck +of his scheme and of his future. There, in all likelihood, the dust +smears would remain until the next rain should wash them off. But, +beyond these tokens of recent mental strife, Najib's visage shone like +a full moon that is streaked by dun dust clouds. + +"Furthermore, howadji!" he hailed his chief as soon as he was within +earshot, "the shipment for Alexandretta is on its wayward--over than an +hour earlier than it was due to bestart itself. And those poor +hell-selected fellaheen are betoiling themselfs grand. Have I done well, +oh, howadji?" + +"Najib!" stammered Kirby, still dazed. + +"And here is that most sweet book of great worthiness and wit, which I +borrowed me of you in the night, howadji," pursued Najib, taking from +the soiled folds of his abieh a large old volume, bound in stout +leather, after the manner of religious or scientific books of a +half-century ago. On the brown back a scratched gold lettering +proclaimed the gruesome title: + +"Martyrs of Ancient and Modern Error." + +Well did Kirby know the tome. Hundreds of times, as a child, had he sat +on the stone floor of his father's cell-like mission study at Nablous, +and had pored in shuddering fascination over its highly coloured +illustrations. The book was a compilation--chiefly in the form of +multichrome pictures with accompanying borders of text--of all the +grisly scenes of martyrdom which the publishers had been able to scrape +together from such classics as "Fox's Book of Martyrs" and the like. +Twice this past year he had surprised Najib scanning the gruesome pages +in frank delight. + +"I betook the book to their campfire, howadji, and I smote upon my +breast and I bewept me and I wailed aloud and I would not make comfort. +Till at last they all awoken and they came out of their huts and they +reviled at me for disturbing them as they slept themselfs so happily. +Then I spake much to them. And all the time I teared with my eyes and +moaned aloudly. + +"But," put in Kirby, "I don't see what this--" + +"In a presently you shall, howadji. Yesterday I begot your goat. To-day +I shall make you to frisk with peacefulness of heart. Those fellaheen +cannot read. They are not of an education, as I am. And they know my +wiseness in reading. For over than a trillion times I have told them. +And they believe. Pictures also they believe. Just as men of an +education believe the printed word; knowing full well it could not be +printed if it were not Allah's own truth. Well, these folk believe a +picture, if it be in a book. So I showed them pictures. And I read the +law which was beneath the pictures. They heard me read. And they saw the +pictures with their own eyesight. So what could they do but believe? And +they did. Behold, howadji!" + +Opening the volume with respectful care, Najib thumbed the yellowing +pages. Presently he paused at a picture which represented in glaring +detail a stricken battlefield strewn with dead and dying Orientals of +vivid costume. In the middle distance a regiment of prisoners was being +slaughtered in a singularly bloodthirsty fashion. The caption, above the +cut, read: + +_"Destruction of Sennacherib's Assyrian Hosts, by the People of +Israel."_ + +"While yet they gazed joyingly on this noble picture," remarked Najib, +"I read to them the words of the law about it. I read aloudly, thus: +'This shall be the way of punishing all folk who make strike hereafter +this date.' Then," continued Najib, "I showed to them another pretty and +splendid picture. See!" + +_"Martyrdom of John Rogers, His Wife and Their Nine Children."_ + +"And," proclaimed Najib, "of this sweet portrait I read thus the law: +'So shall the wifes and the offsprungs of all strike-makers be put to +death; and those wicked strike-makers themselfs along with them.' By the +time I had shown them six or fifteen of such pictures and read them the +law for each of them, those miserable fellaheen and guards were +beweeping themselfs harder and louder and sadder than I had seemed to. +Why, howadji, it was with a difficultness that I kept them from running +away and enhiding themselfs in the mountains, lest the soldiers of the +pasha come upon them at once and punish them for trying to make strike! +But I said I would intercede with you to make you merciful of heart +toward them, to spare them and not to tell the law what they had so +sinsomely planned to do I said I would do this, for mine own sake as +well as for theirs, and that I knew I could wake you to pity. But I said +it would perchancely soften your heart toward them, if all should work +harder to atone themselfs for the sin they had beplotted. Wherefore, +howadji, they would consent to sleep no more; but they ran henceforthly +and at once to the mine. They have been onto the job ever since. And, +howadji, they are jobbing harder than ever I have seen men bejob +themselfs. Am I forgiven, howadji?" he finished timidly. + +"Forgiven!" yelled Kirby, when he could speak. "Why, you eternal little +liar, you're a genius! My hat is off to you! This ought to be worth a +fifty-mejidie bonus. And--" + +"Instead of the bonus, howadji," ventured Najib, scared at his own +audacity, yet seeking to take full advantage of this moment of +expansiveness, "could I have this pleasing book as a baksheesh gift?" + +"Take it!" vouchsafed Kirby. "The thing gives me bad dreams. Take it!" + +"May the houris make soft your bed in the Paradise of the Prophet!" +jabbered Najib, in a frenzy of gratitude, as he hugged the treasured +gift to his breast. "And--and, howadji, there be more pictures I did not +show. They will be of a nice convenience, if ever again it be needsome +to make a new law for the mine." + +"But--" + +"Oh, happy and pretty decent hour!" chortled the little man, petting his +beloved volume as if it were a loved child and executing a shuffling and +improvised step-dance of unalloyed rapture. "This book has been +donationed to me because I was brave enough to request for it while yet +your heart was warm at me, howadji. It is even as your sainted feringhee +proverb says: 'Never put off till to-morrow the--the--man who may be +done, to-day!'" + + + + +THE ELEPHANT REMEMBERS + + +By EDISON MARSHALL + +From _Everybody's Magazine_ + +An elephant is old on the day he is born, say the natives of Burma, and +no white man is ever quite sure just what they mean. Perhaps they refer +to his pink, old-gentleman's skin and his droll, fumbling, old-man ways +and his squeaking treble voice. And maybe they mean he is born with a +wisdom such as usually belongs only to age. And it is true that if any +animal in the world has had a chance to acquire knowledge it is the +elephant, for his breed are the oldest residents of this old world. + +They are so old that they don't seem to belong to the twentieth century +at all. Their long trunks, their huge shapes, all seem part of the +remote past. They are just the remnants of a breed that once was great. + +Long and long ago, when the world was very young indeed, when the +mountains were new, and before the descent of the great glaciers taught +the meaning of cold, they were the rulers of the earth, but they have +been conquered in the struggle for existence. Their great cousins, the +mastodon and the mammoth, are completely gone, and their own tribe can +now be numbered by thousands. + +But because they have been so long upon the earth, because they have +wealth of experience beyond all other creatures, they seem like +venerable sages in a world of children. They are like the last veterans +of an old war, who can remember scenes and faces that all others have +forgotten. + +Far in a remote section of British India, in a strange, wild province +called Burma, Muztagh was born. And although he was born in captivity, +the property of a mahout, in his first hour he heard the far-off call +of the wild elephants in the jungle. + +The Burmans, just like the other people of India, always watch the first +hour of a baby's life very closely. They know that always some incident +will occur that will point, as a weather-vane points in the wind, to the +baby's future. Often they have to call a man versed in magic to +interpret, but sometimes the prophecy is quite self-evident. No one +knows whether or not it works the same with baby elephants, but +certainly this wild, far-carrying call, not to be imitated by any living +voice, did seem a token and an omen in the life of Muztagh. And it is a +curious fact that the little baby lifted his ears at the sound and +rocked back and forth on his pillar legs. + +Of all the places in the great world, only a few remain wherein a +captive elephant hears the call of his wild brethren at birth. Muztagh's +birthplace lies around the corner of the Bay of Bengal, not far from the +watershed of the Irawadi, almost north of Java. It is strange and wild +and dark beyond the power of words to tell. There are great dark +forests, unknown, slow-moving rivers, and jungles silent and dark and +impenetrable. + +Little Muztagh weighed a flat two hundred pounds at birth. But this was +not the queerest thing about him. Elephant babies, although usually +weighing not more than one hundred and eighty, often touch two hundred. +The queerest thing was a peculiarity that probably was completely +overlooked by his mother. If she saw it out of her dull eyes, she took +no notice of it. It was not definitely discovered until the mahout came +out of his hut with a lighted fagot for a first inspection. + +He had been wakened by the sound of the mother's pain. "_Hai!_" he had +exclaimed to his wife. "Who has ever heard a cow bawl so loud in labour? +The little one that to-morrow you will see beneath her belly must weigh +more than you!" + +This was rather a compliment to his plump wife. She was not offended at +all. Burman women love to be well-rounded. But the mahout was not +weighing the effect of his words. He was busy lighting his firebrand, +and his features seemed sharp and intent when the beams came out. Rather +he was already weighing the profits of little Muztagh. He was an +elephant-catcher by trade, in the employ of the great white Dugan Sahib, +and the cow that was at this moment bringing a son into the world was +his own property. If the baby should be of the Kumiria-- + +The mahout knew elephants from head to tail, and he was very well +acquainted with the three grades that compose the breed. The least +valuable of all are the Mierga--a light, small-headed, thin-skinned, +weak-trunked and unintelligent variety that are often found in the best +elephant herds. They are often born of the most noble parents, and they +are as big a problem to elephant men as razor-backs to hog-breeders. +Then there is a second variety, the Dwasala, that compose the great bulk +of the herd--a good, substantial, strong, intelligent grade of elephant. +But the Kumiria is the best of all; and when one is born in a captive +herd it is a time for rejoicing. He is the perfect elephant--heavy, +symmetrical, trustworthy and fearless--fitted for the pageantry of +kings. + +He hurried out to the lines, for now he knew that the baby was born. The +mother's cries had ceased. The jungle, dark and savage beyond ever the +power of man to tame, lay just beyond. He could feel its heavy air, its +smells; its silence was an essence. And as he stood, lifting the fagot +high, he heard the wild elephants trumpeting from the hills. + +He turned his head in amazement. A Burman, and particularly one who +chases the wild elephants in their jungles, is intensely superstitious, +and for an instant it seemed to him that the wild trumpeting must have +some secret meaning, it was so loud and triumphant and prolonged. It was +greatly like the far-famed elephant salute--ever one of the mysteries of +those most mysterious of animals--that the great creatures utter at +certain occasions and times. + +"Are you saluting this little one?" he cried. "He is not a wild tusker +like you. He is not a wild pig of the jungle. He is born in bonds, such +as you will wear too, after the next drive!" + +They trumpeted again, as if in scorn of his words. Their great strength +was given them to rule the jungle, not to haul logs and pull chains! The +man turned back to the lines and lifted higher his light. + +Yes--the little elephant in the light-glow was of the Kumiria. Never had +there been a more perfect calf. The light of greed sprang again in his +eyes. And as he held the fagot nearer so that the beams played in the +elephant's eyes and on his coat, the mahout sat down and was still, lest +the gods observe his good luck, and, being jealous, turn it into evil. + +The coat was not pinky dark, as is usual in baby elephants. It was +distinctly light-coloured--only a few degrees darker than white. + +The man understood at once. In the elephants, as well as in all other +breeds, an albino is sometimes born. A perfectly white elephant, up to a +few years ago, had never been seen, but on rare occasions elephants are +born with light-coloured or clouded hides. Such creatures are bought at +fabulous prices by the Malay and Siamese princes, to whom a white +elephant is the greatest treasure that a king can possess. + +Muztagh was a long way from being an albino, yet a tendency in that +direction had bleached his hide. And the man knew that on the morrow +Dugan Sahib would pay him a lifetime's earnings for the little wabbly +calf, whose welcome had been the wild cries of the tuskers in the +jungle. + + +II + +Little Muztagh (which means White Mountain in an ancient tongue) did not +enjoy his babyhood at all. He was born with the memory of jungle +kingdoms, and the life in the elephant lines almost killed him with +dulness. + +There was never anything to do but nurse of the strong elephant milk and +roam about in the _keddah_ or along the lines. He had been bought the +second day of his life by Dugan Sahib, and the great white heaven-born +saw to it that he underwent none of the risks that are the happy fate +of most baby elephants. His mother was not taken on the elephant drives +into the jungles, so he never got a taste of this exciting sport. Mostly +she was kept chained in the lines, and every day Langur Dass, the +low-caste hillman in Dugan's employ, grubbed grass for her in the +valleys. All night long, except the regular four hours of sleep, he +would hear her grumble and rumble and mutter discontent that her little +son shared with her. + +Muztagh's second year was little better. Of course he had reached the +age where he could eat such dainties as grass and young sugar-cane, but +these things could not make up for the fun he was missing in the hills. +He would stand long hours watching their purple tops against the skies, +and his little dark eyes would glow. He would see the storms break and +flash above them, behold the rains lash down through the jungles, and he +was always filled with strange longings and desires that he was too +young to understand or to follow. He would see the white haze steam up +from the labyrinth of wet vines, and he would tingle and scratch for the +feel of its wetness on his skin. And often, when the mysterious Burman +night came down, it seemed to him that he would go mad. He would hear +the wild tuskers trumpeting in the jungles a very long way off, and all +the myriad noises of the mysterious night, and at such times even his +mother looked at him with wonder. + +"Oh, little restless one," Langur Dass would say, "thou and that old cow +thy mother and I have one heart between us. We know the burning--we +understand, we three!" + +It was true that Langur Dass understood more of the ways of the forest +people than any other hillman in the encampment. But his caste was low, +and he was drunken and careless and lazy beyond words, and the hunters +had mostly only scorn for him. They called him Langur after a +grey-bearded breed of monkeys along the slopes of the Himalayas, rather +suspecting he was cursed with evil spirits, for why should any sane man +have such mad ideas as to the rights of elephants? He never wanted to +join in the drives--which was a strange thing indeed for a man raised in +the hills. Perhaps he was afraid--but yet they could remember a certain +day in the bamboo thickets, when a great, wild buffalo had charged their +camp and Langur Dass acted as if fear were something he had never heard +of and knew nothing whatever about. + +One day they asked him about it. "Tell us, Langur Dass," they asked, +mocking the ragged, dejected looking creature, "If thy name speaks +truth, thou art brother to many monkey-folk, and who knows the jungle +better than thou or they? None but the monkey-folk and thou canst talk +with my lord the elephant. _Hai!_ We have seen thee do it, Langur Dass. +How is it that when we go hunting, thou art afraid to come?" + +Langur looked at them out of his dull eyes, and evaded their question +just as long as he could. "Have you forgotten the tales you heard on +your mothers' breasts?" he asked at last. "Elephants are of the jungle. +You are of the cooking-pots and thatch! How should such folk as ye are +understand?" + +This was flat heresy from their viewpoint. There is an old legend among +the elephant-catchers to the effect that at one time men were subject to +the elephants. + +Yet mostly the elephants that these men knew were patient and contented +in their bonds. Mostly they loved their mahouts, gave their strong backs +willingly to toil, and were always glad and ready to join in the chase +after others of their breed. Only on certain nights of the year, when +the tuskers called from the jungles, and the spirit of the wild was +abroad, would their love of liberty return to them. But to all this +little Muztagh was distinctly an exception. Even though he had been born +in captivity, his desire for liberty was with him just as constantly as +his trunk or his ears. + +He had no love for the mahout that rode his mother. He took little +interest in the little brown boys and girls that played before his +stall. He would stand and look over their heads into the wild, dark +heart of the jungle that no man can ever quite understand. And being +only a beast, he did not know anything about the caste and prejudices +of the men he saw, but he did know that one of them, the low-caste +Langur Dass, ragged and dirty and despised, wakened a responsive chord +in his lonely heart. + +They would have long talks together, that is, Langur would talk and +Muztagh would mumble. "Little calf, little fat one," the man would say, +"can great rocks stop a tree from growing? Shall iron shackles stop a +prince from being king? Muztagh--jewel among jewels! Thy heart speaks +through those sleepless eyes of thine! Have patience--what thou knowest, +who shall take away from thee?" + +But most of the mahouts and catchers noticed the rapidity with which the +little Muztagh acquired weight and strength. He outweighed, at the age +of three, any calf of his season in the encampment by a full two hundred +pounds. And of course three in an elephant is no older than three in a +human child. He was still just a baby, even if he did have the wild +tuskers' love of liberty. + +"Shalt thou never lie the day long in the cool mud, little one? Never +see a storm break on the hills? Nor feel a warm rain dripping through +the branches? Or are these matters part of thee that none may steal?" +Langur Dass would ask him, contented to wait a very long time for his +answer. "I think already that thou knowest how the tiger steals away at +thy shrill note; how thickets feel that crash beneath thy hurrying +weight! A little I think thou knowest how the madness comes with the +changing seasons. How knowest thou these things? Not as I know them, who +have seen--nay, but as a king knows conquering; it's in thy blood! Is a +bundle of sugar-cane tribute enough for thee, Kumiria? Shall purple +trappings please thee? Shall some fat rajah of the plains make a beast +of burden of thee? Answer, lord of mighty memories!" + +And Muztagh answered in his own way, without sound or emphasis, but +giving his love to Langur Dass, a love as large as the big elephant +heart from which it had sprung. No other man could even win his +friendship. The smell of the jungle was on Langur Dass. The mahouts and +hunters smelt more or less of civilization and were convinced for their +part that the disposition of the little light-coloured elephant was +beyond redemption. + +"He is a born rogue," was their verdict, and they meant by that, a +particular kind of elephant, sometimes a young male, more often an old +and savage tusker alone in the jungle--apart from the herd. Solitariness +doesn't improve their dispositions, and they were generally expelled +from a herd for ill-temper to begin with. "Woe to the fool prince who +buys this one!" said the grey-beard catchers. "There is murder in his +eyes." + +But Langur Dass would only look wise when he heard these remarks. He +knew elephants. The gleam in the dark eyes of Muztagh was not +viciousness, but simply inheritance, a love of the wide wild spaces that +left no room for ordinary friendships. + +But calf-love and mother-love bind other animals as well as men, and +possibly he might have perfectly fulfilled the plans Dugan had made for +him but for a mistake the sahib made in the little calf's ninth year. + +He sold Muztagh's mother to an elephant-breeder from a distant province. +Little Muztagh saw her march away between two tuskers--down the long +elephant trail into the valley and the shadow. + +"Watch the little one closely to-night," Dugan Sahib said to his mahout. +So when they had led him back and forth along the lines, they saw that +the ends of his ropes were pegged down tightly. They were horsehair +ropes, far beyond the strength of any normal nine-year-old elephant to +break. Then they went to the huts and to their women and left him to +shift restlessly from foot to foot, and think. + +Probably he would have been satisfied with thinking, for Muztagh did not +know his strength, and thought he was securely tied. The incident that +upset the mahout's plans was simply that the wild elephants trumpeted +again from the hills. + +Muztagh heard the sound, long drawn and strange from the silence of the +jungle. He grew motionless. The great ears pricked forward, the whipping +tail stood still. It was a call never to be denied. The blood was +leaping in his great veins. + +He suddenly rocked forward with all his strength. The rope spun tight, +hummed, and snapped--very softly indeed. Then he padded in silence out +among the huts, and nobody who had not seen him do it would believe how +silently an elephant can move when he sees fit. + +There was no thick jungle here--just soft grass, huts, approaching dark +fringe that was jungle. None of the mahouts was awake to see him. No +voice called him back. The grass gave way to bamboo thickets, the smell +of the huts to the wild, bewitching perfumes of the jungle. + +Then, still in silence, because there are decencies to be observed by +animals no less than men, he walked forward with his trunk outstretched +into the primordial jungle and was born again. + + +III + +Muztagh's reception was cordial from the very first. The great bulls of +the herd stood still and lifted their ears when they heard him grunting +up the hill. But he slipped among them and was forgotten at once. They +had no dealings with the princes of Malay and Siam, and his +light-coloured coat meant nothing whatever to them. If they did any +thinking about him at all, it was just to wonder why a calf with all the +evident marks of a nine-year-old should be so tall and weigh so much. + +One can fancy that the great old wrinkled tusker that led the herd +peered at him now and then out of his little red eyes and wondered. A +herd-leader begins to think about future contestants for his place as +soon as he acquires the leadership. But _Hai!_ This little one would not +have his greatest strength for fifteen years. + +It was a compact, medium-sized herd--vast males, mothers, old-maid +elephants, long-legged and ungainly, young males just learning their +strength and proud of it beyond words, and many calves. They ranged all +the way in size from the great leader, who stood ten feet and weighed +nearly nine thousand pounds, to little two-hundred-and-fifty-pound +babies that had been born that season. And before long the entire herd +began its cautious advance into the deeper hills. + +The first night in the jungle--and Muztagh found it wonderful past all +dreams. The mist on his skin was the same cool joy he had expected. +There were sounds, too, that set his great muscles aquiver. He heard the +sound that the bamboos make--the little click-click of the stems in the +wind--the soft rustle and stir of many leafy tendrils entwining and +touching together, and the whisper of the wind over the jungle grass. +And he knew because it was his heritage, what every single one of these +sounds meant. + +The herd threaded through the dark jungle, and now they descended into a +cool river. A herd of deer--either the dark sambur or black buck--sprang +from the misty shore-line and leaped away into the bamboos. Farther +down, he could hear the grunt of buffalo. + +It was simply a caress--the touch of the soft, cool water on his flanks. +Then they reared out, like great sea-gods rising from the deep, and +grunted and squealed their way up the banks into the jungle again. + +But the smells were the book that he read best; he understood them even +better than the sounds of green things growing. Flowers that he could +not see hung like bells from the arching branches. Every fern and every +seeding grass had its own scent that told sweet tales. The very mud that +his four feet sank into emitted scent that told the history of +jungle-life from the world's beginnings. When dawn burst over the +eastern hills, he was weary in every muscle of his young body, but much +too happy to admit it. + +This day was just the first of three thousand joyous days. The jungle, +old as the world itself, is ever new. Not even the wisest elephant, who, +after all, is king of the jungle, knows what will turn up at the next +bend in the elephant trail. It may be a native woodcutter, whose long +hair is stirred with fright. It may easily be one of the great breed of +bears, large as the American grizzly, that some naturalists believe are +to be found in the Siamese and Burman jungles. It may be a herd of wild +buffalo, always looking for a fight, or simply some absurd +armadillo-like thing, to make him shake his vast sides with mirth. + +The herd was never still. They ranged from one mysterious hill to +another, to the ranges of the Himalayas and back again. There were no +rivers that they did not swim, no jungles that they did not penetrate, +no elephant trails that they did not follow, in the whole northeastern +corner of British India. And all the time Muztagh's strength grew upon +him until it became too vast a thing to measure or control. + +Whether or not he kept with the herd was by now a matter of supreme +indifference to him. He no longer needed its protection. Except for the +men who came with the ropes and guns and shoutings, there was nothing in +the jungle for him to fear. He was twenty years old, and he stood nearly +eleven feet to the top of his shoulders. He would have broken any scales +in the Indian Empire that tried to weigh him. + +He had had his share of adventures, yet he knew that life in reality had +just begun. The time would come when he would want to fight the great +arrogant bull for the leadership of the herd. He was tired of fighting +the young bulls of his own age. He always won, and to an elephant +constant winning is almost as dull as constant losing. He was a great +deal like a youth of twenty in any breed of any land--light-hearted, +self-confident, enjoying every minute of wakefulness between one +midnight and another. He loved the jungle smells and the jungle sounds, +and he could even tolerate the horrible laughter of the hyenas that +sometimes tore to shreds the silence of the grassy plains below. + +But India is too thickly populated by human beings for a wild elephant +to escape observation entirely. Many natives had caught sight of him, +and at last the tales reached a little circle of trackers and hunters in +camp on a distant range of hills. They did not work for Dugan Sahib, for +Dugan Sahib was dead long since. They were a determined little group, +and one night they sat and talked softly over their fire. If Muztagh's +ears had been sharp enough to hear their words across the space of +hills, he wouldn't have gone to his mud-baths with such complacency the +next day. But the space between them was fifty miles of sweating jungle, +and of course he did not hear. + +"You will go, Khusru," said the leader, "for there are none here half so +skilful with horsehair rope as you. If you do not come back within +twelve months we shall know you have failed." + +Of course all of them knew what he meant. If a man failed in the effort +to capture a wild elephant by the hair-rope method, he very rarely lived +to tell of it. + +"In that case," Ahmad Din went on, "there will be a great drive after +the monsoon of next year. Picked men will be chosen. No detail will be +overlooked. It will cost more, but it will be sure. And our purses will +be fat from the selling-price of this king of elephants with a white +coat!" + + +IV + +There is no need to follow Khusru on his long pursuit through the +elephant trails. He was an able hunter and, after the manner of the +elephant-trackers, the scared little man followed Muztagh through jungle +and river, over hill and into dale, for countless days, and at last, as +Muztagh slept, he crept up within a half-dozen feet of him. He intended +to loop a horsehair rope about his great feet--one of the oldest and +most hazardous methods of elephant-catching. But Muztagh wakened just in +time. + +And then a curious thing happened. The native could never entirely +believe it, and it was one of his best stories to the day he died. Any +other wild tusker would have charged in furious wrath, and there would +have been a quick and certain death beneath his great knees. Muztagh +started out as if he had intended to charge. He lifted his trunk out of +the way--the elephant trunk is for a thousand uses, but fighting is not +one of them--and sprang forward. He went just two paces. Then his little +eyes caught sight of the brown figure fleeing through the bamboos. And +at once the elephant set his great feet to brake himself, and drew to a +sliding halt six feet beyond. + +He did not know why. He was perfectly aware that this man was an enemy, +jealous of his most-loved liberty. He knew perfectly it was the man's +intention to put him back into his bonds. He did not feel fear, +either--because an elephant's anger is too tremendous an emotion to +leave room for any other impulse such as fear. It seemed to him that +memories came thronging from long ago, so real and insistent that he +could not think of charging. + +He remembered his days in the elephant lines. These brown creatures had +been his masters then. They had cut his grass for him in the jungle, and +brought him bundles of sugar-cane. The hill people say that the elephant +memory is the greatest single marvel in the jungle, and it was that +memory that saved Khusru then. It wasn't deliberate gratitude for the +grass-cutting of long ago. It wasn't any particular emotion that he +could reach out his trunk and touch. It was simply an impulse--another +one of the thousand mysteries that envelop, like a cloud, the mental +processes of these largest of forest creatures. + +These were the days when he lived apart from the herd. He did it from +choice. He liked the silence, the solitary mud-baths, the constant +watchfulness against danger. + +One day a rhino charged him--without warning or reason. This is quite a +common thing for a rhino to do. They have the worst tempers in the +jungle, and they would just as soon charge a mountain if they didn't +like the look of it. Muztagh had awakened the great creature from his +sleep, and he came bearing down like a tank over "no man's land." + +Muztagh met him squarely, with the full shock of his tusks, and the +battle ended promptly. Muztagh's tusk, driven by five tons of might +behind it, would have pierced a ship's side, and the rhino limped away +to let his hurt grow well and meditate revenge. Thereafter for a full +year, he looked carefully out of his bleary, drunken eyes and chose a +smaller objective before he charged. + +Month after month Muztagh wended alone through the elephant trails, and +now and then rooted up great trees just to try his strength. Sometimes +he went silently, and sometimes like an avalanche. He swam alone in the +deep holes, and sometimes shut his eyes and stood on the bottom, just +keeping the end of his trunk out of the water. One day he was obliged to +kneel on the broad back of an alligator who tried to bite off his foot. +He drove the long body down into the muddy bottom, and no living +creature, except possibly the catfish that burrow in the mud, ever saw +it again. + +He loved the rains that flashed through the jungles, the swift-climbing +dawns in the east, the strange, tense, breathless nights. And at +midnight he loved to trumpet to the herd on some far-away hill, and +hear, fainter than the death-cry of a beetle, its answer come back to +him. At twenty-five he had reached full maturity; and no more +magnificent specimen of the elephant could be found in all of British +India. At last he had begun to learn his strength. + +Of course he had known for years his mastery over the inanimate things +of the world. He knew how easy it was to tear a tree from its roots, to +jerk a great tree-limb from its socket. He knew that under most +conditions he had nothing to fear from the great tigers, although a +fight with a tiger is a painful thing and well to avoid. But he did not +know that he had developed a craft and skill that would avail him in +battle against the greatest of his own kind. He made the discovery one +sunlit day beside the Manipur River. + +He was in the mud-bath, grunting and bubbling with content. It was a +bath with just room enough for one. And seeing that he was young, and +perhaps failing to measure his size, obscured as it was in the mud, a +great "rogue" bull came out of the jungles to take the bath for himself. + +He was a huge creature--wrinkled and yellow-tusked and scarred from the +wounds of a thousand fights. His little red eyes looked out malignantly, +and he grunted all the insults the elephant tongue can compass to the +youngster that lolled in the bath. He confidently expected that Muztagh +would yield at once, because as a rule young twenty-five-year-olds do +not care to mix in battle with the scarred and crafty veterans of sixty +years. But he did not know Muztagh. + +The latter had been enjoying the bath to the limit, and he had no desire +whatever to give it up. Something hot and raging seemed to explode in +his brain and it was as if a red glare, such as sometimes comes in the +sunset, had fallen over all the stretch of river and jungle before his +eyes. He squealed once, reared up with one lunge out of the bath--and +charged. They met with a shock. + +Of all the expressions of power in the animal world, the elephant fight +is the most terrible to see. It is as if two mountains rose up from +their roots of strata and went to war. It is terrible to hear, too. The +jungle had been still before. The river glided softly, the wind was +dead, the mid-afternoon silence was over the thickets. + +The jungle people were asleep. A thunder-storm would not have broken +more quickly, or could not have created a wilder pandemonium. The jungle +seemed to shiver with the sound. + +They squealed and bellowed and trumpeted and grunted and charged. Their +tusks clicked like the noise of a giant's game of billiards. The +thickets cracked and broke beneath their great feet. + +It lasted only a moment. It was so easy, after all. In a very few +seconds indeed, the old rogue became aware that he had made a very +dangerous and disagreeable mistake. There were better mud-baths on the +river, anyway. + +He had not been able to land a single blow. And his wrath gave way to +startled amazement when Muztagh sent home his third. The rogue did not +wait for the fourth. + +Muztagh chased him into the thickets. But he was too proud to chase a +beaten elephant for long. He halted, trumpeting, and swung back to his +mud-bath. + +But he did not enter the mud again. All at once he remembered the herd +and the fights of his calfhood. All at once he knew that his craft and +strength and power were beyond that of any elephant in all the jungle. +Who was the great, arrogant herd-leader to stand against him? What +yellow tusks were to meet his and come away unbroken? + +His little eyes grew ever more red as he stood rocking back and forth, +his trunk lifted to catch the sounds and smells of the distant jungle. +Why should he abide alone, when he could be the ruler of the herd and +the jungle king? Then he grunted softly and started away down the river. +Far away, beyond the mountains and rivers and the villages of the +hillfolk, the herd of his youth roamed in joyous freedom. He would find +them and assert his mastery. + + +V + +The night fire of a little band of elephant-catchers burned fitfully at +the edge of the jungle. They were silent men--for they had lived long on +the elephant trails--and curiously scarred and sombre. They smoked their +cheroots, and waited for Ahmad Din to speak. + +"You have all heard?" he asked at last. + +All but one of them nodded. Of course this did not count the most +despised one of them all--old Langur Dass--who sat at the very edge of +the shadow. His long hair was grey, and his youth had gone where the sun +goes at evening. They scarcely addressed a word to him, or he to them. +True, he knew the elephants, but was he not possessed of evil spirits? +He was always without rupees, too, a creature of the wild that could not +seem to understand the gathering of money. As a man, according to the +standards of men, he was an abject failure. + +"Khusru has failed to catch White-Skin, but he has lived to tell many +lies about it. He comes to-night." + +It was noticeable that Langur Dass, at the edge of the circle, pricked +up his ears. + +"Do you mean the white elephant of which the Manipur people tell so many +lies?" he asked. "Do you, skilled catchers that you are, believe that +such an elephant is still wild in the jungle?" + +Ahmad Din scowled. "The Manipur people tell of him, but for once they +tell the truth," was the reply. "He is the greatest elephant, the +richest prize, in all of Burma. Too many people have seen him to doubt. +I add my word to theirs, thou son of immorality!" + +Ahmad Din hesitated before he continued. Perhaps it was a mistake to +tell of the great, light-coloured elephant until this man should have +gone away. But what harm could this wanderer do them? All men knew that +the jungle had maddened him. + +Langur Dass's face lit suddenly. "Then it could be none but Muztagh, +escaped from Dugan Sahib fifteen years ago. That calf was also white. He +was also overgrown for his years." + +One of the trackers suddenly gasped. "Then that is why he spared +Khusru!" he cried. "He remembered men." + +The others nodded gravely. "They never forget," said Langur Dass. + +"You will be silent while I speak," Ahmad Din went on. Langur grew +silent as commanded, but his thoughts were flowing backward twenty +years, to days at the elephant lines in distant hills. Muztagh was the +one living creature that in all his days had loved Langur Dass. The man +shut his eyes, and his limbs seemed to relax as if he had lost all +interest in the talk. The evil one took hold of him at such times, the +people said, letting understanding follow his thoughts back into the +purple hills and the far-off spaces of the jungle. But to-night he was +only pretending. He meant to hear every word of the talk before he left +the circle. + +"He tells a mad story, as you know, of the elephant sparing him when he +was beneath his feet," Ahmad Din went on; "that part of his story does +not matter to us. _Hai!_ He might have been frightened enough to say +that the sun set at noon. But what matters to us more is that he knows +where the herd is--but a day's journey beyond the river. And there is no +time to be lost." + +His fellows nodded in agreement. + +"So to-morrow we will break camp. There can be no mistake this time. +There must be no points overlooked. The chase will cost much, but it +will return a hundredfold. Khusru says that at last the white one has +started back toward his herd, so that all can be taken in the same +_keddah_. And the white sahib that holds the license is not to know that +White-Coat is in the herd at all." + +The circle nodded again, and contracted toward the speaker. + +"We will hire beaters and drivers, the best that can be found. To-morrow +we will take the elephants and go." + +Langur Dass pretended to waken. "I have gone hungry many days," he said. +"If the drive is on, perhaps you will give your servant a place among +the beaters." + +The circle turned and stared at him. It was one of the stories of Langur +Dass that he never partook in the elephant hunts. Evidently poor living +had broken his resolutions. + +"You shall have your wish, if you know how to keep a closed mouth," +Ahmad Din replied. "There are other hunting parties in the hills." + +Langur nodded. He was very adept indeed at keeping a closed mouth. It is +one of the first lessons of the jungle. + +For another long hour they sat and perfected their plans. Then they lay +down by the fire together, and sleep dropped over them one by one. At +last Langur sat by the fire alone. + +"You will watch the flame to-night," Ahmad Din ordered. "We did not feed +you to-night for pity on your grey hairs. And remember--a gipsy died in +a tiger's claws on this very slope--not six months past." + +Langur Dass was left alone with his thoughts. Soon he got up and stole +out into the velvet darkness. The mists were over the hills as always. + +"Have I followed the tales of your greatness all these years for this?" +he muttered. "It is right for pigs with the hearts of pigs to break +their backs in labour. But you, my Muztagh! Jewel among elephants! King +of the jungle! Thou art of the true breed! Moreover I am minded that thy +heart and mine are one! + +"Thou art born ten thousand years after thy time, Muztagh," he went on. +"Thou art of the breed of masters, not of slaves! We are of the same +womb, thou and I. Can I not understand? These are not my people--these +brown men about the fire. I have not thy strength, Muztagh, or I would +be out there with thee! Yet is not the saying that brother shall serve +brother?" + +He turned slowly back to the circle of the firelight. Then his brown, +scrawny fingers clenched. + +"Am I to desert my brother in his hour of need? Am I to see these brown +pigs put chains around him, in the moment of his power? A king, falling +to the place of a slave? Muztagh, we will see what can be done! Muztagh, +my king, my pearl, my pink baby, for whom I dug grass in the long ago! +Thy Langur Dass is old, and his whole strength is not that of thy trunk, +and men look at him as a worm in the grass. But _hai!_ perhaps thou wilt +find him an ally not to be despised!" + + +VI + +The night had just fallen, moist and heavy over the jungle, when Muztagh +caught up with his herd. He found them in an open grassy glade, +encircled by hills, and they were all waiting, silent, as he sped down +the hills toward them. They had heard him coming a long way. He was not +attempting silence. The jungle people had not got out of his way. + +The old bull that led the herd, seventy years of age and at the pride of +his wisdom and strength, scarred, yellow-tusked and noble past any +elephant patriarch in the jungle, curled up his trunk when he saw him +come. He knew very well what would happen. And because no one knows +better than the jungle people what a good thing it is to take the +offensive in all battles, and because it was fitting his place and +dignity, he uttered the challenge himself. + +The silence dropped as something from the sky. The little pink calves +who had never seen the herd grow still in this same way before, felt the +dawn of the storm that they could not understand, and took shelter +beneath their mothers' bellies. But they did not squeal. The silence +was too deep for them to dare to break. + +It is always an epoch in the life of the herd when a young bull contests +for leadership. It is a much more serious thing than in the herds of +deer and buffalo. The latter only live a handful of years, then grow +weak and die. A great bull who has attained strength and wisdom enough +to obtain the leadership of an elephant herd may often keep it for forty +years. Kings do not rise and fall half so often as in the kingdoms of +Europe. For, as most men know, an elephant is not really old until he +has seen a hundred summers come and go. Then he will linger fifty years +more, wise and grey and wrinkled and strange and full of memories of a +time no man can possibly remember. + +Long years had passed since the leader's place had been questioned. The +aristocracy of strength is drawn on quite inflexible lines. It would +have been simply absurd for an elephant of the Dwasala or Mierga grades +to covet the leadership. They had grown old without making the attempt. +Only the great Kumiria, the grand dukes in the aristocracy, had ever +made the trial at all. And besides, the bull was a better fighter after +thirty years of leadership than on the day he had gained the honour. + +The herd stood like heroic figures in stone for a long moment--until +Muztagh had replied to the challenge. He was so surprised that he +couldn't make any sound at all at first. He had expected to do the +challenging himself. The fact that the leader had done it shook his +self-confidence to some slight degree. Evidently the old leader still +felt able to handle any young and arrogant bulls that desired his place. + +Then the herd began to shift. The cows drew back with their calves, the +bulls surged forward, and slowly they made a hollow ring, not greatly +different from the pugilistic ring known to fight-fans. The calves began +to squeal, but their mothers silenced them. Very slowly and grandly, +with infinite dignity, Muztagh stamped into the circle. His tusks +gleamed. His eyes glowed red. And those appraising old bulls in the ring +knew that such an elephant had not been born since the time of their +grandfathers. + +They looked him over from tail to trunk. They marked the symmetrical +form, the legs like mighty pillars, the sloping back, the wide-apart, +intelligent eyes. His shoulders were an expression of latent +might--power to break a tree-trunk at its base; by the conformity of his +muscles he was agile and quick as a tiger. And knowing these things, and +recognizing them, and honouring them, devotees of strength that they +were, they threw their trunks in the air till they touched their +foreheads and blared their full-voiced salute. + +They gave it the same instant--as musicians strike the same note at +their leader's signal. It was a perfect explosion of sound, a terrible +blare, that crashed out through the jungles and wakened every sleeping +thing. The dew fell from the trees. A great tawny tiger, lingering in +hope of an elephant calf, slipped silently away. The sound rang true and +loud to the surrounding hills and echoed and re-echoed softer and +softer, until it was just a tiny tremour in the air. + +Not only the jungle folk marvelled at the sound. At an encampment three +miles distant Ahmad Din and his men heard the wild call, and looked with +wondering eyes upon each other. Then out of the silence spoke Langur +Dass. + +"My lord Muztagh has come back to his herd--that is his salute," he +said. + +Ahmad Din looked darkly about the circle. "And how long shall he stay?" +he asked. + +The trap was almost ready. The hour to strike had almost come. + +Meanwhile the grand old leader stamped into the circle, seeming +unconscious of the eyes upon him, battle-scarred and old. Even if this +fight were his last, he meant to preserve his dignity. + +Again the salute sounded--shattering out like a thunderclap over the +jungle. Then challenger and challenged closed. + +At first the watchers were silent. Then as the battle grew ever fiercer +and more terrible, they began to grunt and squeal, surging back and +forth, stamping the earth and crashing the underbrush. All the +jungle-folk for miles about knew what was occurring. And Ahmad Din +wished his _keddah_ were completed, for never could there be a better +opportunity to surround the herd than at the present moment, when they +had forgotten all things except the battling monsters in the centre of +the ring. + +The two bulls were quite evenly matched. The patriarch knew more of +fighting, had learned more wiles, but he had neither the strength nor +the agility of Muztagh. The late twilight deepened into the intense +dark, and the stars of midnight rose above the eastern hills. + +All at once, Muztagh went to his knees. But as might a tiger, he sprang +aside in time to avoid a terrible tusk blow to his shoulder. And his +counter-blow, a lashing cut with the head, shattered the great leader to +the earth. The elephants bounded forward, but the old leader had a trick +left in his trunk. As Muztagh bore down upon him he reared up beneath, +and almost turned the tables. Only the youngster's superior strength +saved him from immediate defeat. + +But as the night drew to morning, the bulls began to see that the tide +of the battle had turned. Youth was conquering--too mighty and agile to +resist. The rushes of the patriarch were ever weaker. He still could +inflict punishment, and the hides of both of them were terrible to see, +but he was no longer able to take advantage of his openings. Then +Muztagh did a thing that reassured the old bulls as to his craft and +wisdom. Just as a pugilist will invite a blow to draw his opponent +within range, Muztagh pretended to leave his great shoulder exposed. The +old bull failed to see the plot. He bore down, and Muztagh was ready +with flashing tusk. + +What happened thereafter occurred too quickly for the eyes of the +elephants to follow. They saw the great bull go down and Muztagh stand +lunging above him. And the battle was over. + +The great leader, seriously hurt, backed away into the shadowed jungle. +His trunk was lowered in token of defeat. Then the ring was empty except +for a great red-eyed elephant, whose hide was no longer white, standing +blaring his triumph to the stars. + +Three times the elephant salute crashed out into the jungle silence--the +full voiced salaam to a new king. Muztagh had come into his birthright. + + +VII + +The _keddah_ was built at last. It was a strong stockade, opening with +great wings spreading out one hundred yards, and equipped with the great +gate that lowered like a portcullis at the funnel end of the wings. The +herd had been surrounded by the drivers and beaters, and slowly they had +been driven, for long days, toward the _keddah_ mouth. They had guns +loaded with blank cartridges, and firebrands ready to light. At a given +signal they would close down quickly about the herd, and stampede it +into the yawning mouth of the stockade. + +No detail had been overlooked. No expense had been spared. The profit +was assured in advance, not only from the matchless Muztagh, but from +the herd as well. The king of the jungle, free now as the winds or the +waters, was about to go back to his chains. These had been such days! He +had led the herd through the hills, and had known the rapture of living +as never before. It had been his work to clear the trail of all dangers +for the herd. It was his pride to find them the coolest watering-places, +the greenest hills. One night a tiger had tried to kill a calf that had +wandered from its mother's side. Muztagh lifted his trunk high and +charged down with great, driving strides--four tons and over of majestic +wrath. The tiger leaped to meet him, but the elephant was ready. He had +met tigers before. He avoided the terrible stroke of outstretched claws, +and his tusks lashed to one side as the tiger was in midspring. Then he +lunged out, and the great knees descended slowly, as a hydraulic press +descends on yellow apples. And soon after that the kites were dropping +out of the sky for a feast. + +His word was law in the herd. And slowly he began to overcome the doubt +that the great bulls had of him--doubt of his youth and experience. If +he had had three months more of leadership, their trust would have been +absolute. But in the meantime, the slow herding toward the _keddah_ had +begun. + +"We will need brave men to stand at the end of the wings of the +_keddah_," said Ahmad Din. He spoke no less than truth. The man who +stands at the end of the wings, or wide-stretching gates, of the +_keddah_ is of course in the greatest danger of being charged and +killed. The herd, mad with fright, is only slightly less afraid of the +spreading wings of the stockade than of the yelling, whooping beaters +behind. Often they will try to break through the circle rather than +enter the wings. + +"For two rupees additional I will hold one of the wings," replied old +Langur Dass. Ahmad Din glanced at him--at his hard, bright eyes and +determined face. Then he peered hard, and tried in vain to read the +thoughts behind the eyes. "You are a madman, Langur Dass," he said +wonderingly. "But thou shalt lie behind the right-wing men to pass them +torches. I have spoken." + +"And the two extra rupees?" Langur asked cunningly. + +"Maybe." One does not throw away rupees in Upper Burma. + +Within the hour the signal of _"Maîl, maîl!"_ (Go on, go on!) was given, +and the final laps of the drive began. + +The hills grew full of sound. The beaters sprang up with firebrand and +rifle, and closed swiftly about the herd. The animals moved slowly at +first. The time was not quite ripe to throw them into a panic. Many +times the herd would leave their trail and start to dip into a valley or +a creek-bed, but always there was a new crowd of beaters to block their +path. But presently the beaters closed in on them. Then the animals +began a wild descent squarely toward the mouth of the _keddah_. + +_"Hai!"_ the wild men cried. "Oh, you forest pigs! On, on! Block the way +through that valley, you brainless sons of jackals! Are you afraid? +_Ai!_ Stand close! Watch, Puran! Guard your post, Khusru! Now on, on--do +not let them halt! _Arre! Aihai!_" + +Firebrands waved, rifles cracked, the wild shout of beaters increased +in volume. The men closed in, driving the beasts before them. + +But there was one man that did not raise his voice. Through all the +turmoil and pandemonium he crouched at the end of the stockade wing, +tense, and silent and alone. To one that could have looked into his +eyes, it would have seemed that his thoughts were far and far away. It +was just old Langur Dass, named for a monkey and despised of men. + +He was waiting for the instant that the herd would come thundering down +the hill, in order to pass lighted firebrands to the bold men who held +that corner. He was not certain that he could do the thing he had set +out to do. Perhaps the herd would sweep past him, through the gates. If +he did win, he would have to face alone the screaming, infuriated +hillmen, whose knives were always ready to draw. But knives did not +matter now. Langur Dass had only his own faith and his own creed, and no +fear could make him betray them. + +Muztagh had lost control of his herd. At their head ran the old leader +that he had worsted. In their hour of fear they had turned back to him. +What did this youngster know of elephant-drives? Ever the waving +firebrands drew nearer, the beaters lessened their circle, the avenues +of escape became more narrow. The yawning arms of the stockade stretched +just beyond. + +"Will I win, jungle gods?" a little grey man at the _keddah_ wing was +whispering to the forests. "Will I save you, great one that I knew in +babyhood? Will you go down into chains before the night is done? _Ai!_ I +hear the thunder of your feet! The moment is almost here. And now--your +last chance, Muztagh!" + +"Close down, close down!" Ahmad Din was shouting to his beaters. "The +thing is done in another moment. Hasten, pigs of the hills! Raise your +voice! Now! _Aihai!_" + +The herd was at the very wings of the stockade. They had halted an +instant, milling, and the beaters increased their shouts. Only one of +all the herd seemed to know the danger--Muztagh himself, and he had +dropped from the front rank to the very rear. He stood with uplifted +trunk, facing the approaching rows of beaters. And there seemed to be +no break in the whole line. + +The herd started to move on into the wings of captitivity; and they did +not heed his warning squeals to turn. The circle of fire drew nearer. +Then his trunk seemed to droop, and he turned, too. He could not break +the line. He turned, too, toward the mouth of the _keddah_. + +But even as he turned, a brown figure darted toward him from the end of +the wing. A voice known long ago was calling to him--a voice that +penetrated high and clear above the babble of the beaters. "Muztagh!" it +was crying. "Muztagh!" + +But it was not the words that turned Muztagh. An elephant cannot +understand words, except a few elemental sounds such as a horse or dog +can learn. Rather it was the smell of the man, remembered from long ago, +and the sound of his voice, never quite forgotten. For an elephant never +forgets. + +"Muztagh! Muztagh!" + +The elephant knew him now. He remembered his one friend among all the +human beings that he knew in his calfhood; the one mortal from whom he +had received love and given love in exchange. + +"More firebrands!" yelled the men who held that corner of the wing. +"Firebrands! Where is Langur Dass?" but instead of firebrands that would +have frightened beast and aided men, Langur Dass stepped out from behind +a tree and beat at the heads of the right-wing guards with a bamboo cane +that whistled and whacked and scattered them into panic--yelling all the +while--"Muztagh! O my Muztagh! Here is an opening! Muztagh, come!". + +And Muztagh did come--trumpeting--crashing like an avalanche, with +Langur Dass hard after him afraid, now that he had done the trick. And +hot on the trail of Langur Dass ran Ahmad Din, with his knife drawn not +meaning to let that prize be lost to him at less than the cost of the +trickster's life. + +But it was not written that the knife should ever enter the flesh of +Langur Dass. + +The elephant never forgets, and Muztagh was monarch of his breed. He +turned back two paces, and struck with his trunk. Ahmad Din was knocked +aside as the wind whips a straw. + +For an instant elephant and man stood front to front. To the left of +them the gates of the stockade dropped shut behind the herd. The +elephant stood with trunk slightly lifted, for the moment motionless. +The long-haired man who saved him stood lifting upstretched arms. + +It was such as scene as one might remember in an old legend, wherein +beasts and men were brothers, or such as sometimes might steal, likely +something remembered from another age, into a man's dreams. Nowhere but +in India, where men have a little knowledge of the mystery of the +elephant, could it have taken place at all. + +For Langur Dass was speaking to my lord the elephant: + +"Take me with thee, Muztagh! Monarch of the hills! Thou and I are not of +the world of men, but of the jungle and the rain, the silence, and the +cold touch of rivers. We are brothers, Muztagh. O beloved, wilt thou +leave me here to die!" + +The elephant slowly turned his head and looked scornfully at the group +of beaters bearing down on Langur Dass, murder shining no less from +their knives than from their lighted eyes. + +"Take me," the old man pleaded; "thy herd is gone." + +The elephant seemed to know what he was asking. He had lifted him to his +great shoulders many times, in the last days of his captivity. And +besides, his old love for Langur Dass had never been forgotten. It all +returned, full and strong as ever. For an elephant never can forget. + +It was not one of the man-herd that stood pleading before him. It was +one of his own jungle people, just as, deep in his heart, he had always +known. So with one motion light as air, he swung him gently to his +shoulder. + +The jungle, vast and mysterious and still, closed its gates behind them. + + + + +TURKEY RED + + +BY FRANCES GILCHRIST WOOD + +From _Pictorial Review_ + +The old mail-sled running between Haney and Le Beau, in the days when +Dakota was still a Territory, was nearing the end of its hundred-mile +route. + +It was a desolate country in those days; geographers still described it +as The Great American Desert, and in looks it deserved the title. Never +was there anything so lonesome as that endless stretch of snow reaching +across the world until it cut into a cold grey sky, excepting the same +desert burned to a brown tinder by the hot wind of summer. + +Nothing but sky and plain and its voice, the wind, unless you might +count a lonely sod shack blocked against the horizon, miles away from a +neighbour, miles from anywhere, its red-curtained square of window +glowing through the early twilight. + +There were three men in the sled; Dan, the mail-carrier, crusty, +belligerently Western, the self-elected guardian of every one on his +route; Hillas, a younger man, hardly more than a boy, living on his +pre-emption claim near the upper reaches of the stage line; the third a +stranger from that part of the country vaguely defined as "the East." He +was travelling, had given him name as Smith, and was as inquisitive +about the country as he was reticent about his business there. Dan +plainly disapproved of him. + +They had driven the last cold miles in silence when the stage-driver +turned to his neighbour. "Letter didn't say anything about coming out in +the spring to look over the country, did it?" + +Hillas shook his head. "It was like all the rest, Dan. Don't want to +build a railroad at all until the country's settled." + +"God! Can't they see the other side of it? What it means to the folks +already here to wait for it?" + +The stranger thrust a suddenly interested profile above the handsome +collar of his fur coat. He looked out over the waste of snow. + +"You say there's no timber here?" + +Dan maintained unfriendly silence and Hillas answered: "Nothing but +scrub on the banks of the creeks. Years of prairie fires have burned out +the trees, we think." + +"Any ores--mines?" + +The boy shook his head as he slid farther down in his worn buffalo coat +of the plains. + +"We're too busy rustling for something to eat first. And you can't +develop mines without tools." + +"Tools?" + +"Yes, a railroad first of all." + +Dan shifted the lines from one fur-mittened hand to the other, swinging +the freed numbed arm in rhythmic beating against his body as he looked +along the horizon a bit anxiously. The stranger shivered visibly. + +"It's a god-forsaken country. Why don't you get out?" + +Hillas, following Dan's glance around the blurred sky line, answered +absently, "Usual answer is 'Leave? It's all I can do to stay here.'" + +Smith regarded him irritably. "Why should any sane man ever have chosen +this frozen wilderness?" + +Hillas closed his eyes wearily. "We came in the spring." + +"I see!" The edged voice snapped, "Visionaries!" + +Hillas's eyes opened again, wide, and then the boy was looking beyond +the man with the far-seeing eyes of the plainsman. He spoke under his +breath as if he were alone. + +"Visionary, pioneer, American. That was the evolution in the beginning. +Perhaps that is what we are." Suddenly the endurance in his voice went +down before a wave of bitterness. "The first pioneers had to wait, too. +How could they stand it so long!" + +The young shoulders drooped as he thrust stiff fingers deep within the +shapeless coat pockets. He slowly withdrew his right hand holding a +parcel wrapped in brown paper. He tore a three-cornered flap in the +cover, looked at the brightly coloured contents, replaced the flap and +returned the parcel, his chin a little higher. + +Dan watched the northern sky-line restlessly. "It won't be snow. Look +like a blizzard to you, Hillas?" + +The traveller sat up. "Blizzard?" + +"Yes," Dan drawled in willing contribution to his uneasiness, "the real +Dakota article where blizzards are made. None of your eastern +imitations, but a ninety-mile wind that whets slivers of ice off the +frozen drifts all the way down from the North Pole. Only one good thing +about a blizzard--it's over in a hurry. You get to shelter or you freeze +to death." + +A gust of wind flung a powder of snow stingingly against their faces. +The traveller withdrew his head turtlewise within the handsome collar in +final condemnation. "No man in his senses would ever have deliberately +come here to live." + +Dan turned. "Wouldn't, eh?" + +"No." + +"You're American?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"I was born here. It's my country." + +"Ever read about your Pilgrim Fathers?" + +"Why, of course." + +"Frontiersmen, same as us. You're living on what they did. We're getting +this frontier ready for those who come after. Want our children to have +a better chance than we had. Our reason's same as theirs. Hillas told +you the truth. Country's all right if we had a railroad." + +"Humph!" With a contemptuous look across the desert. "Where's your +freight, your grain, cattle--" + +"_West_-bound freight, coal, feed, seed-grain, work, and more +neighbours." + +"One-sided bargain. Road that hauls empties one way doesn't pay. No +company would risk a line through here." + +The angles of Dan's jaw showed white. "Maybe. Ever get a chance to pay +your debt to those Pilgrim pioneers? Ever take it? Think the stock was +worth saving?" + +He lifted his whip-handle toward a pin-point of light across the stretch +of snow. "Donovan lives over there and Mis' Donovan. We call them 'old +folks' now; their hair has turned white as these drifts in two years. +All they've got is here. He's a real farmer and a lot of help to the +country, but they won't last long like this." + +Dan swung his arm toward a glimmer nor' by nor'east. "Mis' Clark lives +there, a mile back from the stage road. Clark's down in Yankton earning +money to keep them going. She's alone with her baby holding down the +claim." Dan's arm sagged. "We've had women go crazy out here." + +The whip-stock followed the empty horizon half round the compass to a +lighted red square not more than two miles away. "Mis' Carson died in +the spring. Carson stayed until he was too poor to get away. There's +three children--oldest's Katy, just eleven." Dan's words failed, but his +eyes told. "Somebody will brag of them as ancestors some day. They'll +deserve it if they live through this." + +Dan's jaw squared as he leveled his whip-handle straight at the +traveller. "I've answered your questions, now you answer mine! We know +your opinion of the country--you're not travelling for pleasure or your +health. What are you here for?" + +"Business. My own!" + +"There's two kinds of business out here this time of year. Tain't +healthy for either of them." Dan's words were measured and clipped. +"You've damned the West and all that's in it good and plenty. Now I say, +damn the people anywhere in the whole country that won't pay their debts +from pioneer to pioneer; that lets us fight the wilderness barehanded +and die fighting; that won't risk--" + +A grey film dropped down over the world, a leaden shroud that was not +the coming of twilight. Dan jerked about, his whip cracked out over the +heads of the leaders and they broke into a quick trot. The shriek of the +runners along the frozen snow cut through the ominous darkness. + +"Hillas," Dan's voice came sharply, "stand up and look for the light on +Clark's guide-pole about a mile to the right. God help us if it ain't +burning." + +Hillas struggled up, one clumsy mitten thatching his eyes from the +blinding needles. "I don't see it, Dan. We can't be more than a mile +away. Hadn't you better break toward it?" + +"Got to keep the track 'til we--see--light!" + +The wind tore the words from his mouth as it struck them in lashing +fury. The leaders had disappeared in a wall of snow, but Dan's lash +whistled forward in reminding authority. There was a moment's lull. + +"See it, Hillas?" + +"No, Dan." + +Tiger-like the storm leaped again, bandying them about in its paws like +captive mice. The horses swerved before the punishing blows, bunched, +backed, tangled. Dan stood up shouting his orders of menacing appeal +above the storm. + +Again a breathing space before the next deadly impact. As it came Hillas +shouted, "I see it--there, Dan! It's a red light. She's in trouble." + +Through the whirling smother and chaos of Dan's cries and the struggling +horses the sled lunged out of the road into unbroken drifts. Again the +leaders swung sidewise before the lashing of a thousand lariats of ice +and bunched against the wheel-horses. Dan swore, prayed, mastered them +with far-reaching lash, then the off leader went down. Dan felt behind +him for Hillas and shoved the reins against his arm. + +"I'll get him up--or cut leaders--loose! If I don't--come back--drive to +light. _Don't--get--out!_" + +Dan disappeared in the white fury. There were sounds of a struggle; the +sled jerked sharply and stood still. Slowly it strained forward. + +Hillas was standing, one foot outside on the runner, as they travelled +a team's length ahead. He gave a cry--"Dan! Dan!" and gripped a furry +bulk that lumbered up out of the drift. + +"All--right--son." Dan reached for the reins. + +Frantically they fought their slow way toward the blurred light, +staggering on in a fight with the odds too savage to last. They stopped +abruptly as the winded leaders leaned against a wall interposed between +themselves and insatiable fury. + +Dan stepped over the dashboard, groped his way along the tongue between +the wheel-horses and reached the leeway of a shadowy square. "It's the +shed, Hillas. Help get the team in." The exhausted animals crowded into +the narrow space without protest. + +"Find the guide-rope to the house, Dan?" + +"On the other side, toward the shack. Where's--Smith?" + +"Here, by the shed." + +Dan turned toward the stranger's voice. + +"We're going 'round to the blizzard-line tied from shed to shack. Take +hold of it and don't let go. If you do you'll freeze before we can find +you. When the wind comes, turn your back and wait. Go on when it dies +down and never let go the rope. Ready? The wind's dropped. Here, Hillas, +next to me." + +Three blurs hugged the sod walls around to the north-east corner. The +forward shadow reached upward to a swaying rope, lifted the hand of the +second who guided the third. + +"Hang on to my belt, too, Hillas. Ready--Smith? Got the rope?" + +They crawled forward, three barely visible figures, six, eight, ten +steps. With a shriek the wind tore at them, beat the breath from their +bodies, cut them with stinging needle-points and threw them aside. Dan +reached back to make sure of Hillas who fumbled through the darkness for +the stranger. + +Slowly they struggled ahead, the cold growing more intense; two steps, +four, and the mounting fury of the blizzard reached its zenith. The +blurs swayed like battered leaves on a vine that the wind tore in two +at last and flung the living beings wide. Dan, clinging to the broken +rope, rolled over and found Hillas with the frayed end of the line in +his hand, reaching about through the black drifts for the stranger. Dan +crept closer, his mouth at Hillas's ear, shouting, "Quick! Right behind +me if we're to live through it!" + +The next moment Hillas let go the rope. Dan reached madly. "Boy, you +can't find him--it'll only be two instead of one! Hillas! Hillas!" + +The storm screamed louder than the plainsman and began heaping the snow +over three obstructions in its path, two that groped slowly and one that +lay still. Dan fumbled at his belt, unfastened it, slipped the rope +through the buckle, knotted it and crept its full length back toward the +boy. A snow-covered something moved forward guiding another, one arm +groping in blind search, reached and touched the man clinging to the +belt. + +Beaten and buffeted by the ceaseless fury that no longer gave quarter, +they slowly fought their way hand-over-hand along the rope, Dan now +crawling last. After a frozen eternity they reached the end of the line +fastened man-high against a second haven of wall. Hillas pushed open the +unlocked door, the three men staggered in and fell panting against the +side of the room. + +The stage-driver recovered first, pulled off his mittens, examined his +fingers and felt quickly of nose, ears, and chin. He looked sharply at +Hillas and nodded. Unceremoniously they stripped off the stranger's +gloves, reached for a pan, opened the door, dipped it into the drift and +plunged Smith's fingers down in the snow. + +"Your nose is white, too. Thaw it out." + +Abruptly Dan indicated a bench against the wall where the two men seated +would take up less space. + +"I'm--" The stranger's voice was unsteady. "I--," but Dan had turned his +back and his attention to the homesteader. + +The eight by ten room constituted the entire home. A shed roof slanted +from eight feet high on the door and window side to a bit more than five +on the other. A bed in one corner took up most of the space, and the +remaining necessities were bestowed with the compactness of a ship's +cabin. The rough boards of the roof and walls had been hidden by a +covering of newspapers, with a row of illustrations pasted picture +height. Cushions and curtains of turkey-red calico brightened the homely +shack. + +The driver had slipped off his buffalo coat and was bending over a baby +exhaustedly fighting for breath that whistled shrilly through a closing +throat. The mother, scarcely more than a girl, held her in tensely +extended arms. + +"How long's she been this way?" + +"She began to choke up day before yesterday, just after you passed on +the down trip." + +The driver laid big finger tips on the restless wrist. + +"She always has the croup when she cuts a tooth, Dan, but this is +different. I've used all the medicines I have--nothing relieves the +choking." + +The girl lifted heavy eyelids above blue semicircles of fatigue and the +compelling terror back of her eyes forced a question through dry lips. + +"Dan, do you know what membranous croup is like? Is this it?" + +The stage-driver picked up the lamp and held it close to the child's +face, bringing out with distressing clearness the blue-veined pallour, +sunken eyes, and effort of impeded breathing. He frowned, putting the +lamp back quickly. + +"Mebbe it is, Mis' Clark, but don't you be scared. We'll help you a +spell." + +Dan lifted the red curtain from the cupboard, found an emptied +lard-pail, half filled it with water and placed it on an oil-stove that +stood in the center of the room. He looked questioningly about the four +walls, discovered a cleverly contrived tool-box beneath the cupboard +shelves, sorted out a pair of pincers and bits of iron, laying the +latter in a row over the oil blaze. He took down a can of condensed +milk, poured a spoonful of the thick stuff into a cup of water and made +room for it near the bits of heating iron. + +He turned to the girl, opened his lips as if to speak and stood with a +face full of pity. + +Along the four-foot space between the end of the bed and the opposite +wall the girl walked, crooning to the sick child she carried. As they +watched, the low song died away, her shoulder rubbed heavily against the +boarding, her eyelids dropped and she stood sound asleep. The next +hard-drawn breath of the baby roused her and she stumbled on, crooning a +lullaby. + +Smith clutched the younger man's shoulder. "God, Hillas, look where +she's marked the wall rubbing against it! Do you suppose she's been +walking that way for three days and nights? Why, she's only a child--no +older than my own daughter!" + +Hillas nodded. + +"Where are her people? Where's her husband?" + +"Down in Yankton, Dan told you, working for the winter. Got to have the +money to live." + +"Where's the doctor?" + +"Nearest one's in Haney--four days' trip away by stage." + +The traveller stared, frowningly. + +Dan was looking about the room again and after prodding the gay seat in +the corner, lifted the cover and picked up a folded blanket, shaking out +the erstwhile padded cushion. He hung the blanket over the back of a +chair. + +"Mis' Clark, there's nothing but steam will touch membreenous croup. We +saved my baby that way last year. Set here and I'll fix things." + +He put the steaming lard-pail on the floor beside the mother and lifted +the blanket over the baby's head. She put up her hand. + +"She's so little, Dan, and weak. How am I going to know if she--if +she--" + +Dan rearranged the blanket tent. "Jest get under with her yourself, Mis' +Clark, then you'll know all that's happening." + +With the pincers he picked up a bit of hot iron and dropped it hissing +into the pail, which he pushed beneath the tent. The room was +oppressively quiet, walled in by the thick sod from the storm. The +blanket muffled the sound of the child's breathing and the girl no +longer stumbled against the wall. + +Dan lifted the corner of the blanket and another bit of iron hissed as +it struck the water. The older man leaned toward the younger. + +"Stove--fire?" with a gesture of protest against the inadequate oil +blaze. + +Hillas whispered, "Can't afford it. Coal is $9.00 in Haney, $18.00 +here." + +They sat with heads thrust forward, listening in the intolerable +silence. Dan lifted the blanket, hearkened a moment, then--"pst!" +another bit of iron fell into the pail. Dan stooped to the tool-chest +for a reserve supply when a strangling cough made him spring to his feet +and hurriedly lift the blanket. + +The child was beating the air with tiny fists, fighting for breath. The +mother stood rigid, arms out. + +"Turn her this way!" Dan shifted the struggling child, face out. "Now +watch out for the--" + +The strangling cough broke and a horrible something--"It's the membrane! +She's too weak--let me have her!" + +Dan snatched the child and turned it face downward. The blue-faced baby +fought in a supreme effort--again the horrible something--then Dan laid +the child, white and motionless, in her mother's arms. She held the limp +body close, her eyes wide with fear. + +"Dan, is--is she--?" + +A faint sobbing breath of relief fluttered the pale lips that moved in +the merest ghost of a smile. The heavy eyelids half-lifted and the child +nestled against its mother's breast. The girl swayed, shaking with sobs, +"Baby--baby!" + +She struggled for self-control and stood up straight and pale. "Dan, I +ought to tell you. When it began to get dark with the storm and time to +put up the lantern, I was afraid to leave the baby. If she strangled +when I was gone--with no one to help her--she would die!" + +Her lips quivered as she drew the child closer. "I didn't go right away +but--I did--at last. I propped her up in bed and ran. If I hadn't--" Her +eyes were wide with the shadowy edge of horror, "if I hadn't--you'd have +been lost in the blizzard and--my baby would have died!" + +She stood before the men as if for judgment, her face wet with unchecked +tears. Dan patted her shoulder dumbly and touched a fresh, livid bruise +that ran from the curling hair on her temple down across cheek and chin. + +"Did you get this then?" + +She nodded. "The storm threw me against the pole when I hoisted the +lantern. I thought I'd--never--get back!" + +It was Smith who translated Dan's look of appeal for the cup of warm +milk and held it to the girl's lips. + +"Drink it, Mis' Clark, you need it." + +She made heroic attempts to swallow, her head drooped lower over the cup +and fell against the driver's rough sleeve. "Poor kid, dead asleep!" + +Dan guided her stumbling feet toward the bed that the traveller sprang +to open. She guarded the baby in the protecting angle of her arm into +safety upon the pillow, then fell like a log beside her. Dan slipped off +the felt boots, lifted her feet to the bed and softly drew covers over +mother and child. + +"Poor kid, but she's grit, clear through!" + +Dan walked to the window, looked out at the lessening storm, then at the +tiny alarm-clock on the cupboard. "Be over pretty soon now!" He seated +himself by the table, dropped his head wearily forward on folded arms +and was asleep. + +The traveller's face had lost some of its shrewdness. It was as if the +white frontier had seized and shaken him into a new conception of life. +He moved restlessly along the bench, then stepped softly to the side of +the bed and straightened the coverlet into greater nicety while his lips +twitched. + +With consuming care he folded the blanket and restored the corner seat +to its accustomed appearance of luxury. He looked about the room, picked +up the grey kitten sleeping contentedly on the floor and settled it on +the red cushion with anxious attention to comfort. + +He examined with curiosity the few books carefully covered on a corner +shelf, took down an old hand-tooled volume and lifted his eyebrows at +the ancient coat of arms on the book plate. He tiptoed across to the +bench and pointed to the script beneath the plate. "Edward Winslow (7) +to his dear daughter, Alice (8)." + +He motioned toward the bed. "Her name?" + +Hillas nodded, Smith grinned. "Dan's right. Blood will tell, even to +damning the rest of us." + +He sat down on the bench. "I understand more than I did Hillas, +since--you crawled back after me--out there. But how can you stand it +here? I know you and the Clarks are people of education and, oh, all the +rest; you could make your way anywhere." + +Hillas spoke slowly. "I think you have to live here to know. It means +something to be a pioneer. You can't be one if you've got it in you to +be a quitter. The country will be all right some day." He reached for +his greatcoat, bringing out a brown-paper parcel. He smiled at it oddly +and went on as if talking to himself. + +"When the drought and the hot winds come in the summer and burn the +buffalo grass to a tinder and the monotony of the plains weighs on you +as it does now, there's a common, low-growing cactus scattered over the +prairie that blooms into the gayest red flower you ever saw. + +"It wouldn't count for much anywhere else, but the pluck of it, without +rain for months, dew even. It's the 'colours of courage.'" + +He turned the torn parcel, showing the bright red within, and looked at +the cupboard and window with shining, tired eyes. + +"Up and down the frontier in these shacks, homes, you'll find things +made of turkey-red calico, cheap, common elsewhere--" He fingered the +three-cornered flap. "Its our 'colours.'" He put the parcel back in his +pocket. "I bought two yards yesterday after--I got a letter at Haney." + +Smith sat looking at the gay curtains before him. The fury of the storm +was dying down into fitful gusts. Dan stirred, looked quickly toward the +bed, then the window, and got up quietly. + +"I'll hitch up. We'll stop at Peterson's and tell her to come over." He +closed the door noiselessly. + +The traveller was frowning intently. Finally he turned toward the boy +who sat with his head leaning back against the wall, eyes closed. + +"Hillas," his very tones were awkward, "they call me a shrewd business +man. I am, it's a selfish job and I'm not reforming now. But twice +to-night you--children have risked your lives, without thought for a +stranger. I've been thinking about that railroad. Haven't you raised any +grain or cattle that could be used for freight?" + +The low answer was toneless. "Drought killed the crops, prairie fires +burned the hay, of course the cattle starved." + +"There's no timber, ore, nothing that could be used for east-bound +shipment?" + +The plainsman looked searchingly into the face of the older man. +"There's no timber this side the Missouri. Across the river it's +reservation--Sioux. We--" He frowned and stopped. + +Smith stood up, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. "I admitted I was +shrewd, Hillas, but I'm not yellow clear through, not enough to betray +this part of the frontier anyhow. I had a man along here last fall +spying for minerals. That's why I'm out here now. If you know the +location, and we both think you do, I'll put capital in your way to +develop the mines and use what pull I have to get the road in." + +He looked down at the boy and thrust out a masterful jaw. There was a +ring of sincerity no one could mistake when he spoke again. + +"This country's a desert now, but I'd back the Sahara peopled with your +kind. This is on the square, Hillas, don't tell me you won't believe +I'm--American enough to trust?" + +The boy tried to speak. With stiffened body and clenched hands he +struggled for self-control. Finally in a ragged whisper, "If I try to +tell you what--it means--I can't talk! Dan and I know of outcropping +coal over in the Buttes." He nodded in the direction of the Missouri, +"but we haven't had enough money to file mining claims." + +"Know where to dig for samples under this snow?" + +The boy nodded. "Some in my shack too. I--" His head went down upon the +crossed arms. Smith laid an awkward hand on the heaving shoulders, then +rose and crossed the room to where the girl had stumbled in her vigil. +Gently he touched the darkened streak where her shoulders had rubbed and +blurred the newspaper print. He looked from the relentless white desert +outside to the gay bravery within and bent his head. +"Turkey-red--calico!" + +There was the sound of jingling harness and the crunch of runners. The +men bundled into fur coats. + +"Hillas, the draw right by the house here," Smith stopped and looked +sharply at the plainsman, then went on with firm carelessness, "This +draw ought to strike a low grade that would come out near the river +level. Does Dan know Clark's address?" Hillas nodded. + +They tiptoed out and closed the door behind them softly. The wind had +swept every cloud from the sky and the light of the northern stars +etched a dazzling world. Dan was checking up the leaders as Hillas +caught him by the shoulder and shook him like a clumsy bear. + +"Dan, you blind old mole, can you see the headlight of the Overland +Freight blazing and thundering down that draw over the Great Missouri +and Eastern?" + +Dan stared. + +"I knew you couldn't!" Hillas thumped him with furry fist. "Dan," the +wind might easily have drowned the unsteady voice, "I've told Mr. Smith +about the coal--for freight. He's going to help us get capital for +mining and after that the road." + +"Smith! Smith! Well, I'll be--aren't you a claim spotter?" + +He turned abruptly and crunched toward the stage. His passengers +followed. Dan paused with his foot on the runner and looked steadily at +the traveller from under lowered, shaggy brows. + +"You're going to get a road out here?" + +"I've told Hillas I'll put money in your way to mine the coal. Then the +railroad will come." + +Dan's voice rasped with tension. "We'll get out the coal. Are you going +to see that the road is built?" + +Unconsciously the traveller held up his right hand. "I am!" + +Dan searched his face sharply. Smith nodded. "I'm making my bet on the +people--friend!" + +It was a new Dan who lifted his bronzed face to a white world. His voice +was low and very gentle. "To bring a road here," he swung his +whip-handle from Donovan's light around to Carson's square, sweeping in +all that lay behind, "out here to them--" The pioneer faced the wide +desert that reached into a misty space ablaze with stars, "would be +like--playing God!" + +The whip thudded softly into the socket and Dan rolled up on the +driver's seat. Two men climbed in behind him. The long lash swung out +over the leaders as Dan headed the old mail-sled across the drifted +right-of-way of the Great Missouri and Eastern. + + + + +FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD + + +By MELVILLE DAVISSON POST + +From _Saturday Evening Post_ + +I was before one of those difficult positions unavoidable to a man of +letters. My visitor must have some answer. He had come back for the +manuscript of his memoir and for my opinion. It was the twilight of an +early Washington winter. The lights in the great library, softened with +delicate shades, had been turned on. Outside, Sheridan Circle was almost +a thing of beauty in its vague outline; even the squat ridiculous bronze +horse had a certain dignity in the blue shadow. + +If one had been speculating on the man, from his physical aspect one +would have taken Walker for an engineer of some sort, rather than the +head of the United States Secret Service. His lean face and his angular +manner gave that impression. Even now, motionless in the big chair +beyond the table, he seemed--how shall I say it?--mechanical. + +And that was the very defect in his memoir. He had cut the great cases +into a dry recital. There was no longer in them any pressure of a human +impulse. The glow of inspired detail had been dissected out. Everything +startling and wonderful had been devitalized. + +The memoir was a report. + +The bulky typewritten manuscript lay on the table beside the electric +lamp, and I stood about uncertain how to tell him. + +"Walker," I said, "did nothing wonderful ever happen to you in the +adventure of these cases?" + +"What precisely do you mean?" he replied. + +The practical nature of the man tempted me to extravagance. + +"Well," I said, "for example, were you never kissed in a lonely street +by a mysterious woman and the flash of your dark lantern reveal a face +of startling beauty?" + +"No," he said, as though he were answering a sensible question, "that +never happened to me." + +"Then," I continued, "perhaps you have found a prince of the church, +pale as alabaster, sitting in his red robe, who put together the +indicatory evidence of the crime that baffled you with such uncanny +acumen that you stood aghast at his perspicacity?" + +"No," he said; and then his face lighted. "But I'll tell you what I did +find. I found a drunken hobo at Atlantic City who was the best detective +I ever saw." + +I sat down and tapped the manuscript with my fingers. + +"It's not here," I said. "Why did you leave it out?" + +He took a big gold watch out of his pocket and turned it about in his +hand. The case was covered with an inscription. + +"Well," he said, "the boys in the department think a good deal of me. I +shouldn't like them to know how a dirty tramp faked me at Atlantic City. +I don't mind telling you, but I couldn't print it in a memoir." + +He went directly ahead with the story and I was careful not to interrupt +him: + +"I was sitting in a rolling chair out there on the Boardwalk before the +Traymore. I was nearly all in, and I had taken a run to Atlantic for a +day or two of the sea air. The fact is the whole department was down and +out. You may remember what we were up against; it finally got into the +newspapers. + +"The government plates of the Third Liberty Bond issue had disappeared. +We knew how they had gotten out and we thought we knew the man at the +head of the thing. It was a Mulehaus job, as we figured it. + +"It was too big a thing for a little crook. With the government plates +they could print Liberty Bonds just as the Treasury would. And they +could sow the world with them." + +He paused and moved his gold-rimmed spectacles a little closer in on his +nose. + +"You see these war bonds are scattered all over the country. They are +held by everybody. It's not what it used to be, a banker's business +that we could round up. Nobody could round up the holders of these +bonds. + +"A big crook like Mulehaus could slip a hundred million of them into the +country and never raise a ripple." + +He paused and drew his fingers across his bony protruding chin. + +"I'll say this for Mulehaus: He's the hardest man to identify in the +whole kingdom of crooks. Scotland Yard, the Service de la Sûreté, +everybody, says that. I don't mean dime-novel disguises--false whiskers +and a limp. I mean the ability to be the character he pretends--the +thing that used to make Joe Jefferson Rip Van Winkle--and not an actor +made up to look like it. That's the reason nobody could keep track of +Mulehaus, especially in South American cities. He was a French banker in +the Egypt business and a Swiss banker in the Argentine." + +He turned back from the digression: + +"And it was a clean job. They had got away with the plates. We didn't +have a clue. We thought, naturally, that they'd make for Mexico or some +South American country to start their printing press. And we had the +ports and the border netted up. Nothing could have gone out across the +border or through any port. All the customs officers were working with +us, and every agent of the Department of Justice." + +He looked at me steadily across the table. + +"You see the government had to get those plates back before the crook +started to print, or else take up every bond of that issue over the +whole country. It was a hell of a thing! + +"Of course we had gone right after the record of all the big crooks to +see whose line this sort of job was. And the thing narrowed down to +Mulehaus or old Vronsky. We soon found out it wasn't Vronsky. He was in +Joliet. It was Mulehaus. But we couldn't find him. + +"We didn't even know that Mulehaus was in America. He's a big crook with +a genius for selecting men. He might be directing the job from Rio or a +Mexican port. But we were sure it was a Mulehaus job. He sold the +French securities in Egypt in '90; and he's the man who put the bogus +Argentine bonds on our market--you'll find the case in the 115th Federal +Reporter. + +"Well," he went on, "I was sitting out there in the rolling chair, +looking at the sun on the sea and thinking about the thing, when I +noticed this hobo that I've been talking about. He was my chair +attendant, but I hadn't looked at him before. He had moved round from +behind me and was now leaning against the galvanized-pipe railing. + +"He was a big human creature, a little stooped, unshaved and dirty; his +mouth was slack and loose, and he had a big mobile nose that seemed to +move about like a piece of soft rubber. He had hardly any clothing; a +cap that must have been fished out of an ash barrel, no shirt whatever, +merely an old ragged coat buttoned round him, a pair of canvas breeches +and carpet slippers tied on to his feet with burlap, and wrapped round +his ankles to conceal the fact that he wore no socks. + +"As I looked at him he darted out, picked up the stump of a cigarette +that someone had thrown down, and came back to the railing to smoke it, +his loose mouth and his big soft nose moving like kneaded putty. + +"Altogether this tramp was the worst human derelict I ever saw. And it +occurred to me that this was the one place in the whole of America where +any sort of a creature could get a kind of employment and no questions +asked. + +"Anything that could move and push a chair could get fifteen cents an +hour from McDuyal. Wise man, poor man, beggar man, thief, it as all one +to McDuyal. And the creatures could sleep in the shed behind the rolling +chairs. + +"I suppose an impulse to offer the man a garment of some sort moved me +to address him. 'You're nearly naked,' I said. + +"He crossed one leg over the other with the toe of the carpet slipper +touching the walk, in the manner a burlesque actor, took the cigarette +out of his mouth with a little flourish, and replied to me: 'Sure, +Governor, I ain't dolled up like John Drew.' + +"There was a sort of cocky unconcern about the creature that gave his +miserable state a kind of beggarly distinction. He was in among the very +dregs of life, and he was not depressed about it. + +"'But if I had a sawbuck,' he continued, 'I could bulge your eye.... +Couldn't point the way to one?' + +"He arrested my answer with the little flourish of his fingers holding +the stump of the cigarette. + +"'Not work, Governor,' and he made a little duck of his head, 'and not +murder.... Go as far as you please between 'em.' + +"The fantastic manner of the derelict was infectious. + +"'O.K.,' I said. 'Go out and find me a man who is a deserter from the +German Army, was a tanner in Bâle and began life as a sailor, and I'll +double your money--I'll give you a twenty-dollar bill.' + +"The creature whistled softly in two short staccato notes. + +"'Some little order,' he said. And taking a toothpick out of his pocket +he stuck it into the stump of the cigarette which had become too short +to hold between his fingers. + +"At this moment a boy from the postoffice came to me with the daily +report from Washington, and I got out of the chair, tipped the creature, +and went into the hotel, stopping to pay McDuyal as I passed. + +"There was nothing new from the department except that our organization +over the country was in close touch. We had offered five thousand +dollars reward for the recovery of the plates, and the Postoffice +Department was now posting the notice all over America in every office. +The Secretary thought we had better let the public in on it and not keep +it an underground offer to the service. + +"I had forgotten the hobo, when about five o'clock he passed me a little +below the Steel Pier. He was in a big stride and he had something +clutched in his hand. + +"He called to me as he hurried along: 'I got him, Governor.... See you +later!' + +"'See me now,' I said. 'What's the hurry?' + +"He flashed his hand open, holding a silver dollar with his thumb +against the palm. + +"'Can't stop now, I'm going to get drunk. See you later.' + +"I smiled at the disingenuous creature. He was saving me for the dry hour. +He could point out Mulehaus in any passing chair, and I would give some +coin to be rid of his pretension." + +Walker paused. Then he went on: + +"I was right. The hobo was waiting for me when I came out of the hotel +the following morning. + +"'Howdy, Governor,' he said; 'I located your man.' + +"I was interested to see how he would frame up his case. + +"'How did you find him?' I said. + +"He grinned, moving his lip and his loose nose. + +"'Some luck, Governor, and some sleuthin'. It was like this: I thought +you was stringin' me. But I said to myself I'll keep out an eye; maybe +it's on the level--any damn thing can happen.' + +"He put up his hand as though to hook his thumb into the armhole of his +vest, remembered that he had only a coat buttoned round him and dropped +it. + +"'And believe me or not, Governor, it's the God's truth. About four +o'clock up toward the Inlet I passed a big, well-dressed, banker-looking +gent walking stiff from the hip and throwing out his leg. "Come eleven!" +I said to myself. "It's the goose-step!" I had an empty roller, and I +took a turn over to him. + +"'"Chair, Admiral?" I said. + +"'He looked at me sort of queer. + +"'"What makes you think I'm an admiral, my man?" he answers. + +"'"Well," I says, lounging over on one foot reflective like, "nobody +could be a-viewin' the sea with that lovin', ownership look unless he'd +bossed her a bit.... If I'm right, Admiral, you takes the chair." + +"'He laughed, but he got in. "I'm not an admiral," he said, "but it is +true that I've followed the sea."' + +"The hobo paused, and put up his first and second fingers spread like a +V. + +"'Two points, Governor--the gent had been a sailor and a soldier; now +how about the tanner business?' + +"He scratched his head, moving the ridiculous cap. + +"'That sort of puzzled me, and I pussyfooted along toward the Inlet +thinkin' about it. If a man was a tanner, and especially a foreign, +hand-workin' tanner, what would his markin's be? + +"'I tried to remember everybody that I'd ever seen handlin' a hide, and +all at once I recollected that the first thing a dago shoemaker done +when he picked up a piece of leather was to smooth it out with his +thumbs. An' I said to myself, now that'll be what a tanner does, only he +does it more ... he's always doing it. Then I asks myself what would be +the markin's?' + +"The hobo paused, his mouth open, his head twisted to one side. Then he +jerked up as under a released spring. + +"'And right away, Governor, I got the answer to it--flat thumbs!' + +"The hobo stepped back with an air of victory and flashed his hand up. + +"'And he had 'em! I asked him what time it was so I could keep the hour +straight for McDuyal, I told him, but the real reason was so I could see +his hands.'" + +Walker crossed one leg over the other. + +"It was clever," he said, "and I hesitated to shatter it. But the +question had to come. + +"'Where is your man?' I said. + +"The hobo executed a little deprecatory step, with his fingers picking +at his coat pockets. + +"'That's the trouble, Governor,' he answered; 'I intended to sleuth him +for you, but he give me a dollar and I got drunk ... you saw me. That +man had got out at McDuyal's place not five minutes before. I was +flashin' to the booze can when you tried to stop me.... Nothin' doin' +when I get the price.'" + +Walker paused. + +"It was a good fairy story and worth something. I offered him half a +dollar. Then I got a surprise. + +"The creature looked eagerly at the coin in my fingers, and he moved +toward it. He was crazy for the liquor it would buy. But he set his +teeth and pulled up. + +"'No, Governor,' he said, 'I'm in it for the sawbuck. Where'll I find +you about noon?' + +"I promised to be on the Boardwalk before Heinz's Pier at two o clock +and he turned to shuffle away. I called an inquiry after him.... You see +there were two things in his story: How did he get a dollar tip, and how +did he happen to make his imaginary man banker-looking? Mulehaus had +been banker-looking in both the Egypt and the Argentine affairs. I left +the latter point suspended, as we say. But I asked about the dollar. He +came back at once. + +"'I forgot about that, Governor,' he said. 'It was like this: The +admiral kept looking out at the sea where an old freighter was going +South. You know, the fruit line to New York. One of them goes by every +day or two. And I kept pushing him along. Finally we got up to the +Inlet, and I was about to turn when he stopped me. You know the neck of +ground out beyond where the street cars loop; there's an old board fence +by the road, then sand to the sea, and about halfway between the fence +and the water there's a shed with some junk in it. You've seen it. They +made the old America out there and the shed was a tool house. + +"'When I stopped the admiral says: "Cut across to the hole in that old +board fence and see if an automobile has been there, and I'll give you a +dollar." An' I done it, an' I got it.' + +"Then he shuffled off. + +"'Be on the spot, Governor, an' I'll lead him to you.'" + +Walker leaned over, rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, and +linked his fingers together. + +"That gave me a new flash on the creature. He was a slicker article than +I imagined. I was not to get off with a tip. He was taking some pains to +touch me for a greenback. I thought I saw his line. It would not account +for his hitting the description of Mulehaus in the make-up of his straw +man, but it would furnish the data for the dollar story. I had drawn the +latter a little before he was ready. It belonged in what he planned to +give me at two o'clock. But I thought I saw what the creature was about. +And I was right." + +Walker put out his hand and moved the pages of his memoir on the table. +Then he went on: + +"I was smoking a cigar on a bench at the entrance to Heinz's Pier when +the hobo shuffled up. He came down one of the streets from Pacific +Avenue, and the direction confirmed me in my theory. It also confirmed +me in the opinion that I was all kinds of a fool to let this dirty hobo +get a further chance at me. + +"I was not in a very good humour. Everything I had set going after +Mulehaus was marking time. The only report was progress in linking +things up; not only along the Canadian and Mexican borders and the +custom houses, but we had also done a further unusual thing, we had an +agent on every ship going out of America to follow through to the +foreign port and look out for anything picked up on the way. + +"It was a plan I had set at immediately the robbery was discovered. It +would cut out the trick of reshipping at sea from some fishing craft or +small boat. The reports were encouraging enough in that respect. We had +the whole country as tight as a drum. But it was slender comfort when +the Treasury was raising the devil for the plates and we hadn't a clue +to them." + +Walker stopped a moment. Then he went on: + +"I felt like kicking the hobo when he got to me, he was so obviously the +extreme of all worthless creatures, with that apologetic, confidential +manner which seems to be an abominable attendant on human degeneracy. +One may put up with it for a little while, but it presently becomes +intolerable. + +"'Governor,' he began, when he shuffled up, 'you won't get mad if I say +a little somethin'?' + +"'Go on and say it,' I said. + +"The expression on his dirty unshaved face became, if possible, more +foolish. + +"'Well, then, Governor, askin' your pardon, you ain't Mr. Henry P. +Johnson, from Erie; you're the Chief of the United States Secret +Service, from Washington.'" + +Walker moved in his chair. + +"That made me ugly," he went on, "the assurance of the creature and my +unspeakable carelessness in permitting the official letters brought to +me on the day before by the postoffice messenger to be seen. In my +relaxation I had forgotten the eye of the chair attendant. I took the +cigar out of my teeth and looked at him. + +"'And I'll say a little something myself!' I could hardly keep my foot +clear of him. 'When you got sober this morning and remembered who I was, +you took a turn up round the postoffice to make sure of it, and while +you were in there you saw the notice of the reward for the stolen bond +plates. That gave you the notion with which you pieced out your fairy +story about how you got the dollar tip. Having discovered my identity +through a piece of damned carelessness on my part and having seen the +postal notice of the reward, you undertook to enlarge your little game. +That's the reason you wouldn't take fifty cents. It was your notion in +the beginning to make a touch for a tip. And it would have worked. But +now you can't get a damned cent out of me.' Then I threw a little brush +into him: 'I'd have stood a touch for your finding the fake tanner, +because there isn't any such person.' + +"I intended to put the hobo out of business," Walker went on, "but the +effect of my words on him were even more startling than I anticipated. +His jaw dropped and he looked at me in astonishment. + +"'No such person!' he repeated. 'Why, Governor, before God, I found a +man like that, an' he was a banker--one of the big ones, sure as there's +a hell!'" + +Walker put out his hands in a puzzled gesture. + +"There it was again, the description of Mulehaus! And it puzzled me up. +Every motion of this hobo's mind in every direction about this affair +was perfectly clear to me. I saw his intention in every turn of it and +just where he got the material for the details of his story. But this +absolutely distinguishing description of Mulehaus was beyond me. +Everybody, of course, knew that we were looking for the lost plates, for +there was the reward offered by the Treasury; but no human soul outside +of the trusted agents of the department knew that we were looking for +Mulehaus." + +Walker did not move, but he stopped in his recital for a moment. + +"The tramp shuffled up a step closer to the bench where I sat The +anxiety in his big slack face was sincere beyond question. + +"'I can't find the banker man, Governor; he's skipped the coop. But I +believe I can find what he's hid.' + +"'Well' I said, 'go on and find it.' + +"The hobo jerked out his limp hands in a sort of hopeless gesture. + +"'Now, Governor,' he whimpered, 'what good would it do me to find them +plates?' + +"'You'd get five thousand dollars,' I said. + +"'I'd git kicked into the discard by the first cop that got to me,' he +answered, 'that's what I'd git.' + +"The creature's dirty, unshaved jowls began to shake, and his voice +became wholly a whimper. + +"'I've got a line on this thing, Governor, sure as there's a hell. That +banker man was viewin' the layout. I've thought it all over, an' this is +the way it would be. They're afraid of the border an' they're afraid of +the custom houses, so they runs the loot down here in an automobile, +hides it up about the Inlet, and plans to go out with it to one of them +fruit steamers passing on the way to Tampico. They'd have them plates +bundled up in a sailor's chest most like. + +"'Now, Governor, you'd say why ain't they already done it; an' I'd +answer, the main guy--this banker man--didn't know the automobile had +got here until he sent me to look, and there ain't been no ship along +since then.... I've been special careful to find that out.' And then the +creature began to whine. 'Have a heart, Governor, come along with me. +Gimme a show!' + +"It was not the creature's plea that moved me, nor his pretended +deductions; I'm a bit old to be soft. It was the 'banker man' sticking +like a bur in the hobo's talk. I wanted to keep him in right until I +understood where he got it. No doubt that seems a slight reason for +going out to the Inlet with the creature; but you must remember that +slight things are often big signboards in our business." + +He continued, his voice precise and even: "We went directly from the +end of the Boardwalk to the old shed; it was open, an unfastened door on +a pair of leather hinges. The shed is small, about twenty feet by +eleven, with a hard dirt floor packed down by the workmen who had used +it, a combination of clay and sand like the Jersey roads put in to make +a floor. All round it, from the sea to the board fence was soft sand. +There were some pieces of old junk lying about in the shed; but nothing +of value or it would have been nailed up. + +"The hobo led right off with his deductions. There was the track of a +man, clearly outlined in the soft sand, leading from the board fence to +the shed and returning, and no other track anywhere about. + +"'Now, Governor,' he began, when he had taken a look at the tracks, 'the +man that made them tracks carried something into this shed, and he left +it here, and it was something heavy.' + +"I was fairly certain that the hobo had salted the place for me, made +the tracks himself; but I played out a line to him. + +"'How do you know that?' I said. + +"'Well, Governor,' he answered, 'take a look at them two line of tracks. +In the one comin' to the shed the man was walkin' with his feet apart +and in the one goin' back he was walkin' with his feet in front of one +another; that's because he was carryin' somethin' heavy when he come an' +nothin' when he left.' + +"It was an observation on footprints," he went on, "that had never +occurred to me. The hobo saw my awakened interest, and he added: + +"'Did you never notice a man carryin a heavy load? He kind of totters, +walkin' with his feet apart to keep his balance. That makes his foot +tracks side by side like, instead of one before the other as he makes +them when he's goin' light.'" + +Walker interrupted his narrative with a comment: "It's the truth I've +verified it a thousand times since that hobo put me onto it. A line +running through the center of the heel prints of a man carrying a heavy +burden will be a zigzag, while one through the heel prints of the same +man without the burden will be almost straight. + +"The tramp went right on with his deductions: + +"'If it come in and didn't go out, it's here.' + +"And he began to go over the inside of the shed. He searched it like a +man searching a box for a jewel. He moved the pieces of old castings and +he literally fingered the shed from end to end. He would have found a +bird's egg. + +"Finally he stopped and stood with hand spread out over his mouth. And I +selected this critical moment to touch the powder off under his game. + +"'Suppose,' I said, 'that this man with the heavy load wished to mislead +us; suppose that instead of bringing something here he took one of these +old castings away?' + +"The hobo looked at me without changing his position. + +"'How could he, Governor; he was pointin' this way with the load?' + +"'By walking backward,' I said. For it had occurred to me that perhaps +the creature had manufactured this evidence for the occasion, and I +wished to test the theory." + +Walker went on in his slow, even voice: + +"The test produced more action than I expected. The hobo dived out +through the door. I followed to see him disappear. But he was not in +flight; he was squatting down over the foot prints. And a moment later +he rocked back on his haunches with a little exultant yelp. + +"'Dope's wrong, Governor,' he said; 'he was sure comin' this way.' Then +he explained: 'If a man's walkin' forward in sand or mud or snow the toe +of his shoe flirts out a little of it, an' if he's walkin' backward his +heel flirts it out.' + +"At this point I began to have some respect for the creature's ability. +He got up and came back into the shed. And there he stood, in his old +position, with his fingers over his mouth, looking round at the empty +shed, in which, as I have said, one could not have concealed a bird's +egg. + +"I watched him without offering any suggestion, for my interest in the +thing had awakened and was curious to see what he would do. He stood +perfectly motionless for about a minute; and then suddenly he snapped +his fingers and the light came into his face. + +"'I got it, Governor!' Then he came over to where I stood. 'Gimme a +quarter to get a bucket' + +"I gave him the coin, for I was now profoundly puzzled, and he went out. +He was gone perhaps twenty minutes, and when he came in he had a bucket +of water. But he had evidently been thinking on the way, for he set the +bucket down carefully, wiped his hands on his canvas breeches, and began +to speak, with a little apologetic whimper in his voice. + +"'Now look here, Governor,' he said, 'I'm a-goin' to talk turkey; do I +get the five thousand if I find this stuff?' + +"'Surely,' I answered him. + +"'An' there'll be no monkey'n', Governor; you'll take me down to a bank +yourself an' put the money in my hand?' + +"'I promise you that,' I assured him. + +"But he was not entirely quiet in his mind about it. He shifted uneasily +from one foot to the other, and his soft rubber nose worked. + +"'Now, Governor,' he said, 'I'm leery about jokers--I gotta be. I don't +want any string to this money. If I get it I want to go and blow it in. +I don't want you to hand me the roll an' then start any reformin' +stunt--a-holdin' of it in trust an' a probation officer a-pussy-footin' +me, or any funny business. I want the wad an' a clear road to the bright +lights with no word passed along to pinch me. Do I git it?' + +"'It's a trade!" I said. + +"'O.K.,' he answered, and he took up the bucket. He began at the door +and poured the water carefully on the hard tramped earth. When the +bucket was empty he brought another and another. Finally about midway of +the floor space he stopped. + +"'Here it is!' he said. + +"I was following beside him, but I saw nothing to justify his words. + +"Why do you think the plates are buried here?' I said. + +"'Look at the air bubbles comin' up, Governor,' he answered." + +Walker stopped, then he added: + +"It's a thing which I did not know until that moment, but it's the +truth. If hard-packed earth is dug up and repacked air gets into it, and +if one pours water on the place air bubbles will come up." + +He did not go on, and I flung the big query of his story at him. + +"And you found the plates there?" + +"Yes," he replied, "in the false bottom of an old steamer trunk." + +"And the hobo got the money?" + +"Certainly," he answered. "I put it into his hand, and let him go with +it, as I promised." + +Again he was silent, and I turned toward him in astonishment. + +"Then," I said, "why did you begin this story by saying the hobo faked +you? I don't see the fake; he found the plates and he was entitled to +the reward." + +Walker put his hand into his pocket, took out a leather case, selected a +paper from among its contents and handed it to me. "I didn't see the +fake either," he said, "until I got this letter." + +I unfolded the letter carefully. It was neatly written in a hand like +copper plate and dated from Buenos Aires: + +_Dear Colonel Walker_: When I discovered that you were planting an agent +on every ship I had to abandon the plates and try for the reward. Thank +you for the five thousand; it covered expenses. Very sincerely yours, + +D. MULEHAUS. + + + + +THE BLOOD OF THE DRAGON + + +BY THOMAS GRANT SPRINGER + +From _Live Stories_ + +Kan Wong, the sampan boatman, sat in the bow of his tiny craft, looking +with dream-misted eyes upon the oily, yellow flood of the Yangtze River. +Far across on the opposite shore, blurred by the mist that the alchemy +of the setting sun transmuted from miasmic vapour to a veil of gold, +rose the purple-shadowed, stone-tumbled ruins of Hang Gow, ruins that +had been a proud, walled city in the days before the Tai-ping Rebellion. + +Viewing its slowly dimming powers as they sank into the fading gold of +the mist that the coming night thickened and darkened as it wiped out +the light with a damp hand, Kan Wong dreamed over the stories that his +father's father--now revered dust somewhere off toward the hills that +dimly met the melting sky line--had told him of that ruined city, +wherein he, Kan Wong, had not Fate made men mad, would now be ruling a +lordly household, even wearing the peacock feather and embroidered +jacket that were his by right of the Dragon's blood, that blood now +hidden under the sun-browned skin of a river coolie. Kan Wong stuffed +fine-cut into his brass-bowled pipe and struck a spark from his tinder +box. Through his wide nostrils twin streamers of smoke writhed out, +twisting fantastically together and mixing slowly with the rising river +mist. His pipe became a wand of dreams summoning the genii of glorious +memory. The blood of the Dragon in his veins quickened from the lethargy +to which drudgery had cooled it, and raced hotly as he thought of the +battle past of his forefathers. Off Somewhere along the river's winding +length, where it crawled slowly to the sea, lay the great coast cities. +The lazy ripples, light-tipped, beckoned with luring fingers. There was +naught to stay him. His sampan was his home and movable, therefore the +morrow would see him turning its bow downstream to seek that strange +city where he had heard, dwelt many Foreign Devils who now and then +scattered wealth with a prodigal hand. + +In that pale hour when the mist, not yet dissipated by the rising sun, +lay in a cold, silver veil upon the night-chilled water, he pushed out +from the shore and pointed the sampan's prow downstream. Days it took +him to reach salt water. He loitered for light cargoes at village edges, +or picked up the price of his daily rice at odd tasks ashore, but +always, were it day or night for travel, his tiny craft bore surely +seaward. Mile after slow mile dropped behind him, like the praying beads +of a lama's chain, but at last the river salted slightly, and his tiny +craft was lifted by the slow swell of the sea's hand reaching for +inland. + +The river became more populous. The crowding sampans, houseboats, and +junks stretched far out into its oily, oozy flow, making a floating city +as he neared the congested life of the coast, where the ever-increasing +population failed to find ground space in its maggoty swarming. As the +stream widened until the farther bank disappeared in the artificial mist +of rising smoke and man-stirred dust, the Foreign Devils' fire junks +appeared, majestically steaming up and down--swift swans that scorned +the logy, lumbering native craft, the mat sails and toiling sweeps of +which made them appear motionless by comparison. A day or two of this +and then the coast, with Shanghai sprawling upon the bank, writhing with +life, odoriferous, noisy, perpetually awake. + +Kan Wong slid into its waterfront turmoil, an infinitesimal human atom +added to it. His tiny craft fixed itself upon the outer edge of the +wriggling river life like a coral cell attaching itself to a slow +growing atoll. From there he worked his way inshore, crawling over the +craft that stretched out from the low banks as a water beetle might move +over the flotsam and jetsam caught in the back-water of a sluggish +stream. Once in the narrow, crowded streets of the city itself, he +roamed aimlessly, open-eyed to its wonders, dreamily observant. Out of +the native quarter and into the foreign section he moved, accustoming +himself to these masters of mystery whom he was about to serve, calling +sluggish memory to his aid as his cars strove to reconstruct The meaning +of the barbarous jargon. + +Into the quarter where the Foreign Devils and the native population came +together to barter and to trade, he strayed one day. A Foreign Devil in +a strangely unattractive uniform was addressing a crowd of coolies in +their own tongue. Kan Wong attached himself to the outer edge of the +impassively curious throng, his ears alert, his features, as ever, an +imperturbable mask. The foreign officer, for such he seemed to be, was +making an offer to the assemblage for contract labour: one dollar a day, +with rice, fish, and tea rations, for work in a foreign land. Kan Wong +translated the money quickly into _yens_. The sum seemed incredible to +him. What service would he not perform for such payment? Why, within a +year, or two at the very most, with careful frugality, he might return +and buy himself a junk worthy of his Dragon dreams of the river. And +then ... + +The officer talked on, persuading, holding out the glittering lure of +profit and adventure. Kan Wong listened eagerly. He had thought there +was a ban on contract labour, but perhaps this new Republican +Government, so friendly to the Foreign Devil, had removed it. Surely one +who wore the uniform of a soldier and an officer could not thus publicly +solicit coolies without the sanction of the mandarins, or escape their +notice. + +Kan Wong studied the crowd. It contained a few Chinese soldiers, who +were obviously keeping order. He was satisfied, and edged his way closer +to the speaker. There, already, ranged to one side was a line of his own +kind, jabbering to a Celestial who put down their names on slips of rice +paper and accepted their marks, which they made with a bamboo brush, +that they bonded themselves to the adventure. Kan Wong gained the +signing table. Picking up the brush, he set his name, the name of one +of the Dragon's blood, to the contract, accepted a duplicate, and +stepped back into the waiting line. + +His pay and his rations, he was told, would begin two days hence, when +he was to report to the fire junk now lying at the dock, awaiting the +human cargo of which he was a part. Kan Wong memorized the directions as +he turned away from his instructing countryman. Of the Foreign Devil he +took no further notice. Time enough for that when he passed into +service. The God of Luck had smiled upon his boldness, and, reflecting +upon it Kan Wong turned back to the river and the sampan that had so +long been his floating home. No sentimental memories, however, clung +about it for him. Its freight of dreams he had landed here in Shanghai, +marketing them for a realization. The sampan now was but the empty shell +of a water beetle, that had crawled upon the bank into the sun of +Fortune to spill forth a dragon fly to try newly found wings of +adventure. + +He found a customer, and, with much haggling after the manner of his +kind, disposed of his boat, the last tie, if tie there was, that bound +him to his present life. Waterman he had always been, and now had come +to him the call of the Father of All Waters. The tang of the salt in his +nostrils conjured up dreams as magical as those invoked by the wand of +the poppy god. Wrapped in their rosy mantle, he walked the streets for +the next two days, and on the third he took his way to the dock where +lay the fire junk that was to bear him forth into the wonders of the +Foreign Devils' land. Larger she loomed than any he had ever seen, +larger, oh, much larger, than those which had steamed up the Yangtze in +swanlike majesty. But this huge bulk was grey--grey and squat and +powerful. Once aboard, he found it crowded with an army of chattering +coolies. They swarmed in the hold like maggots. Every inch of space was +given over to them, an army, it seemed to Kan Wong, in which he was all +but lost. + +Day after day across the waste of water the ship took its eastern way. +Never had Kan Wong dreamed there was so much water in the world. The +broad, long river that had been his life's path seemed but a narrow +trickle on the earth's face compared with this stretch of sea that never +ended, though the days ran into weeks. The land coolies chafed and found +much sickness in the swell but Kan Wong, used ever to a moving deck, +round the way none too long, and smiled softly to himself as he counted +up the dollars they were paying him for the keenest pleasure he had ever +known. + +At last land appeared. The ship swung into the dock, disclosing to the +questioning eyes of Kan Won and his kind a new strange land. In orderly +discipline they were marched off the vessel and on to the dock. But rest +was not theirs as yet, nor was this their final destination. From the +fire junk they boarded the flying iron horse of the Foreign Devils; +again they were on the move. Swiftly across the land they went, over +high mountains crowded with eternal snow, thence down upon brown, +rolling plains as wide as the flat stretches of the broad Yangtze +Valley; eastward, ever eastward, through a land sparsely peopled for all +its virgin fertility. Behind their flying progress the days +dropped--one, two, three, four, at last five; and then they entered a +more populous region. Kan Wong, his nose flattened against the glass +that held the moving picture as in a frame, wondered much at the magic +that unrolled to his never-sated eyes. Yet the journey's end was beyond +his questioning. + +Once more they came to a seaport. Marching from the carriages, once more +they beheld the sea. But this time it was different--more turbulent, +harsher, more sombre with the hint of waiting storms. Was there, then, +more than one ocean, Kan Wong asked himself? He found that it was indeed +so when once more a fire junk received them. This one was greyer than +the first that they had known. Upon her decks were guns and at her side +were other junks, low, menacing, with a demon flurry of vicious speed, +and short, squat funnels that belched dense smoke clouds. Within the +town were many Foreign Devils, all dressed alike in strange drab +uniforms; on the docks and here and there at other places they bore +arms and other unmistakable equipment of fighting men, which even Kan +Wong could not but notice. + +The grey ship moved into a cold grey fog. With it other ships as grey +and as crowded, ships that crawled with men, strange Foreign Devils who +clanked with weapons as they walked aboard. Again a waste of water, +through which the ship seemed to crawl with a caution that Kan Wong +felt, but did not understand. With it on either side, moved those other +junks--squat, menacing, standing low on the horizon, but as haunting as +dark ghosts. Where were they bound, this strangely mixed fleet? Often +Kan Wong pondered this, but gave it no tongue to his fellow-passengers, +holding a bit aloof from them by virtue of his caste. + +Again they neared the shore, where other boats, low-built and bristling +with guns, flew swiftly out to meet them like fierce ocean birds of +prey. Now they skirted high, bleak cliffs, their feet hid in a lather of +white foam; then they rounded the cliffs and passed into a storm-struck +stretch of sea through which they rolled to a more level land, off which +they cast anchor. The long ocean journey was finished at last. + +There was a frantic bustle at this port, increasing a hundredfold when +once they set foot upon the land. Men--men were everywhere; men in +various uniforms, men who spoke various tongues in a confusing babel, +yet they all seemed intent upon one purpose, the import of which Kan +Wong could but vaguely guess. All about them was endless movement, but +no confusion, and once ashore their work commenced immediately. + +From the fleet of fire junks various cargoes were to be unloaded with +all speed, and at this the coolies toiled. Numberless crates, boxes, and +bags came ashore to be stowed away in long, low buildings, or loaded +into long lines of rough, boxlike carriages that then went scurrying off +behind countless snorting and puffing fire-horses to the east, always to +the east and north. Strange engines, which the Foreign Devils saw to it +that they handled most tenderly, were also much in evidence, and always, +at all hours the uniformed men with their bristling arms and clanking +equipment crowded into the carriages and were whisked off to the east, +always to the east and north. They went with much strange shouting and, +to Kan Wong's ears, discordant sounds that they mistook for music. Yet +now and then other strings of carriages came back from the east and +north, with other men--men broken, bloody, lacking limbs, groping in +blindness, their faces twisted with pain as they were loaded into the +waiting fire-junks to recross the rough sea. + +Then came the turn of the coolies to be crowded into the boxlike +carriages and to be whisked off to the east. With them went +tools--picks, shovels, and the like--for further work, upon the nature +of which Kan Wong, unquestioning, speculated. It was a slow, broken +journey that they made. Every now and then they stopped that other +traffic might pass them, going either way; mostly the strange men in +uniforms, bristling with guns, hurrying always to the east and north. + +At last they too turned north, and as they did so the country, which had +been smiling, low, filled with soft fields and pretty, nestling houses, +little towns and quiet, orderly cities, changed to bleak fields, cut and +seared as by a simoom's angry breath. Still there were little towns--or +what had been little towns, now tumbled ruins--fire-smitten, gutted, +their windows gaping like blind eyes in the face of a twisted cripple. +Off to the east hung angry clouds from which the thunder echoed +distantly; a thunder low, grumbling, continual, menacing, and through +the clouds at night were lightning flashes of an angry red. Toward this +storm it seemed that all the men were hurrying, and so too were the +coolies of whom Kan Wong was one. Often they chattered speculatively of +the storm beyond. What did it mean? Why did the men hurry toward instead +of away from it? Truly the ways of the Foreign Devils were strange! + +As they drew nearer to the storm, the river dreams of Kan Wong returned. +This was indeed the land of the Dragon's wrath. The torn and harrowed +fields, the empty, broken towns, the distant, grumbling storm, and the +armed men, hurrying, always hurrying toward the east and north where the +clouds darkened and spread--all this was in the tales that his father's +father had told him of those fifteen mad years when the Yangtze Valley +crouched trembling under the fiery breath of the Dragon's wrath. Here +once more he saw the crumbling towers and walls of Hang Gow in fresh +rain. Here was the ruthless wreck that even nature in her fiercest mood +could never make. Truly the lure of the Dragon's blood in him was +drawing him, magnet-like, to the glory of his ancestors. + +The one who had them in charge and spoke their tongue gave them their +tools and bade them dig narrow ditches head deep. From them they ran +tunnels into deep caves hollowed out far under the ground. They burrowed +like moles, cutting galleries here and there, reinforcing them with +timbers, and lining them with a stone which they made out of dust and +water. Many they cut, stretching far back behind the ever present storm +in front of them, while from that storm cloud, in swift and unseen +lightning bolts that roared and burst and destroyed their work often as +fast as it was completed, fell death among them, who were only +labourers, not soldiers, as Kan Wong now knew those Foreign Devils in +the strange and dirty uniforms to be. + +As the storm roared on, never ceasing, it stirred the Dragon's blood in +Kan Wong's veins. The pick and shovel irked his hands as he swung them; +his palms began to itch for the weapons that the soldiers bore. Now and +then he came upon a gun where it had dropped from its owner's useless +hands. He studied its mechanism, even asking the Foreign Devil overseer +how it was worked, and, being shown, he remembered and practised its use +whenever opportunity offered. He took to talking with his +fellow-workers, some of whom had themselves fought with the rebels of +New China, who, with just such Foreign Devils' tools, had clipped the +claws of the Manchu Dragon, freeing the Celestial Kingdom forever from +its crooked grip. He took much interest in these war implements. He +became more intimate and friendly with his fellows, feeling them now to +be brothers in a danger that had awakened the soldier soul beneath the +brown of his coolie skin. + +Little could he make of all the strife about him. All of which he was +sure was that this was the Dragon's Field, and he, a Son of the Dragon, +had been guided to it to fulfil a destiny his forefathers had begun in +the Yangtze Valley when with the "Hairy Rebels" they had waged such war +as this. The flying death all about him that now and then claimed toll +of one of his own kind was but a part of it; but all the time he grew to +hate his humble work and long for a part, a real part, in the fighting +that raged ahead, where an unseen enemy, of whom he grew to think as his +own, hurled destruction among them. Often he spoke of this to the gang +under him, imbuing them with the spirit of the Dragon's blood that, +eager to fulfil its destiny, once more boiled within him. + +Then one day the storm grew more furious. The thunder was a continual +roll, and both from the front and rear flew the whining lightning bolts, +spewing out death and destruction. Many a coolie fell, his dust buried +under the dust of this fierce foreign land, never to be returned and +mixed with that of his own Flowery Kingdom. Now and then came "stink +pots," filling the air with such foul vapours that men coughed out their +lives in the putrid fumes. The breath of the Dragon, fresh from his +awful mouth, was wrapped about them in hot wrath. + +Past them the soldiers streamed, foul with fight, their hot guns +spitting viciously back into the rolling, pungent grey fog that followed +them malignantly. Confusion reigned, and in that confusion a perfect +riot of death. On all sides the soldiers fell, blighted by the Dragon's +breath. The coolies crouched in the heaped-up ruins of their newly dug +ditches, knowing not which way to turn, bereft of leadership since the +Foreign Devil who commanded them was gone, buried beneath a pile of +earth where a giant cracker had fallen. + +Suddenly Kan Wong noticed that there were no more soldiers save only +those who lay writhing or in still, twisted heaps upon the harrowed +ground. The coolie crowd huddled here alone, clutching their futile +picks and shovels, grovelling in helpless panic. Disaster had overtaken +them. The Dragon was upon them, and they were unprotected. All about +them in scattered heaps lay discarded equipment, guns, even the +sharp-barking death-spitting, tiny instrument that the soldiers handled +so lovingly and so gently when it was not in action. But those who +manned the weapons had passed on, back through the thick curtain of +smoke that hung between them and the comparative safety of the rear. + +Kan Wong's eyes were ahead, striving to pierce the pungent veil that hid +the enemy. Suddenly his keen eyes noted them--the strange uniforms and +stranger faces, ducking forward here and there through the hell of their +own making. The blood of the Dragon within him boiled up, now that the +enemy was really near enough to feel the teeth and claws of the Dragon's +whelps. This was the hour for which he had lived. This was the Tai-ping +glory come again for him to share. Reaching down, he picked up the rifle +of a fallen soldier, fondled its mechanism lovingly for a moment, and +then, cuddling it tenderly beneath his chin, his finger bade it spit +death at the misty grey figures crawling through the greyer fog in +front. + +When the magazine was exhausted he filled it with fresh clips and turned +with the authority he had always wielded, and a new one that they +instantly recognized, upon his shivering countrymen. + +"What are ye?" he yelled with withering scorn. "Sons of pigs who root in +the dung of this Foreign Devil's land, or men of the Dragon's blood? Are +ye the scum of the Yangtze River or honourable descendants of the Hairy +Rebels? Would ye avenge your brothers who have choked to death in the +breath of the stink-pots that have been flung among us? Will ye let +escape this horde of Foreign Devil enemies who have hurled at us giant +crackers that have spit death, now that they are near enough to feel how +the Dragon's blood can strike? Here are the Dragon's claws!" He waved +his bayoneted gun aloft. "Will ye die like men, or like slinking rats +stamped into the earth? All who are not cowards--come!" He waved the way +through the smoke to the grey figures emerging from it. + +The Chinaman is no coward when once aroused. Death he faces as he faces +life, stoically, imperturbably. The coolies, reaching for the nearest +weapons, followed the man who showed the Dragon's blood. Many of them +understood the use of arms, having borne them for New China. Death was +upon them, and they went to meet it with death in their hands. + +Kan Wong dragged up an uninjured machine gun the crew of which lay about +it. Fitting the bands of cartridges as he had seen the gunners do, he +turned the crank and swung it round on its revolving tripod. Before its +vicious rain he saw the grey figures fall, and a great joy welled up in +his breast. He signalled for other belts and worked the gun faster. +Round him the coolies rallied; others beyond the sound of his voice +joined in from pure instinct. The grey figures wavered, hesitated, +melted back into the smoke, and then strove to work around the fire of +the death-spitting group. But the Dragon's blood was up, the voice of +the Dragon's son cheered and directed the snarling, roused whelps to +whom war was an old, old trade, forgotten, and now remembered in this +strange, wild land. The joy of slaughter came savagely upon them. The +death that they had received they now gave back. In the place the white +men had fled, the yellow men now stood, descendants of the Tai-pings, as +fierce and wild as their once Hairy brothers. + +Meanwhile, behind them the retreating line halted, stiffened by hurried +reinforcements. The officers rallied their men, paused and looked back +through the smoke. The line had given way and they must meet the +oncoming wave. Quickly reforming, they picked their ground for a stand +and waited. The moments passed, but no sign of the victors. + +"What the hell is up?" snarled one of the reinforcing officers. "I +thought the line had given way." + +"It has," replied the panting, battle-torn commander. "My men are all +back here; there's no one in front but the enemy!" + +"What's that ahead, then?" The sharp bark of rifles, the _rat-a-tat_ of +machine guns, the boom of bursting grenades, and the yells, groans, +screams and shouts of the hand-to-hand conflict came through the +curtaining smoke in a mad jumble of savage sound. + +"Damned if I know! We'd better find out!" They began moving their now +rallied men back into it. + +Suddenly they came upon it--a writhing mass of jeans-clad coolies, +wild-eyed, their teeth bared in devilish, savage grins, their hands busy +with the implements of death, standing doggedly at bay before grey waves +that broke upon them as a sullen sea breaks and recedes before a jutting +point of land ... + +With the reinforcements the tide turned, ebbing back in a struggling, +writhing fury, and soon the ground was clear again of all save the wreck +that such a wave leaves behind it. Once the line was re-established and +the soldiers holding it steadily, the coolies, once more the wielders of +pick and shovel, returned to the work of trench repairing, leaving the +fighting to those to whom it belonged. + +The officers were puzzled. What had started them? What had injected that +mad fighting spirit into their yellow hides? What had caused them to +make that swift, wild, wonderful stand? + +"Hey, you, John!" The commanding officer addressed one of them when a +lull came and they were busy again at the tumbled earth. "What you fight +for, hey?" + +The coolie grinned foolishly. + +"Him say fight. Him heap big man, alle same have Dlagon's blood. Him say +fight, we fight, _sabe_?" And he pointed to Kan Wong--Kan Wong, his head +bleeding from a wound, his eyes glowing with a green fury from between +their narrow lids, his long, strong hands, red with blood other than his +own, still clutching his rifle with a grip that had a tenderly savage +joy _in_ it. + +The officer approached him. + +"Are you the man who rallied the coolies and held the line?" he asked +shortly. + +Kan Wong stiffened with a dignity to which he now felt he had a right. + +"Me fight," he said quietly--"me fight, coolie fight, too. Me belong +Dlagon's blood. One time my people fighting men; long time I wait." + +"You'll wait no longer," said the officer. He unpinned the cross from +his tunic and fastened it to the torn, bloody blouse of Kan Wong. "Off +to the east are men of your own race, fighting-men from China, +Cochin-China. That is the place for a man of the Dragon's blood--and +that is the tool that belongs in your hand till we're done with this +mess." He pointed to the rifle that Kan Wong still held with a stiff, +loving, lingering grip. + +And so, on the other side of the world, the son of the Dragon came to +his own and realized the dreams of a glory he had missed. + + + + +"HUMORESQUE" + + +By FANNIE HURST + +From _Cosmopolitan_ + +On either side of the Bowery, which cuts through like a drain to catch +its sewage, Every Man's Land, a reeking march of humanity and humidity, +steams with the excrement of seventeen languages, flung in _patois_ from +tenement windows, fire-escapes, curbs, stoops, and cellars whose walls +are terrible and spongy with fungi. + +By that impregnable chemistry of race whereby the red blood of the +Mongolian and the red blood of the Caucasian become as oil and water in +the mingling, Mulberry Street, bounded by sixteen languages, runs its +intact Latin length of push-carts, clothes-lines, naked babies, drying +vermicelli; black-eyed women in rhinestone combs and perennially big +with child; whole families of button-hole makers, who first saw the +blue-and-gold light of Sorrento, bent at home work around a single gas +flare; pomaded barbers of a thousand Neapolitan amours. And then, just +as suddenly, almost without osmosis and by the mere stepping-down from +the curb, Mulberry becomes Mott Street, hung in grill-work balconies, +the mouldy smell of poverty touched up with incense. Orientals, whose +feet shuffle and whose faces are carved out of satinwood. Forbidden +women, their white, drugged faces behind upper windows. Yellow children, +incongruous enough in Western clothing. A drafty areaway with an oblique +of gaslight and a black well of descending staircase. Show-windows of +jade and tea and Chinese porcelains. + +More streets emanating out from Mott like a handful of crooked, +rheumatic fingers, then suddenly the Bowery again, cowering beneath +elevated trains, where men, burned down to the butt end of soiled lives, +pass in and out and out and in of the knee-high swinging doors--a +veiny-nosed, acid-eaten race in themselves. + +Allen Street, too, still more easterly and half as wide, is straddled +its entire width by the steely, long-legged skeleton of elevated +traffic, so that its third-floor windows no sooner shudder into silence +from the rushing shock of one train than they are shaken into chatter by +the passage of another. Indeed, third-floor dwellers of Allen Street, +reaching out, can almost touch the serrated edges of the elevated +structure, and in summer the smell of its hot rails becomes an actual +taste in the mouth. Passengers, in turn, look in upon this horizontal of +life as they whiz by. Once, in fact, the blurry figure of what might +have been a woman leaned out as she passed to toss into one Abrahm +Kantor's apartment a short-stemmed pink carnation. It hit softly on +little Leon Kantor's crib, brushing him fragrantly across the mouth and +causing him to pucker up. + +Beneath, where, even in August noonday, the sun cannot find its way by a +chink, and babies lie stark naked in the cavernous shade, Allen Street +presents a sort of submarine and greenish gloom, as if its humanity were +actually moving through a sea of aqueous shadows, faces rather bleached +and shrunk from sunlessness as water can bleach and shrink. And then, +like a shimmering background of orange-finned and copper-flanked marine +life, the brass shops of Allen Street, whole rows of them, burn +flamelessly and without benefit of fuel. + +To enter Abrahm Kantor's--Brasses--was three steps down, so that his +casement show-window, at best filmed over with the constant rain of dust +ground down from the rails above, was obscure enough, but crammed with +the copied loot of khedive and of czar. The seven-branch candlestick so +Biblical and supplicating of arms. An urn, shaped like Rebecca's, of +brass all beaten over with little poks. Things: cups, trays, knockers, +ikons, gargoyles, bowls, and teapots. A symphony of bells in graduated +sizes. Jardinières with fat sides. A pot-bellied samovar. A swinging +lamp for the dead, star-shaped. Against the door, an octave of tubular +chimes, prisms of voiceless harmony and of heatless light. + +Opening this door, they rang gently, like melody heard through water +and behind glass. Another bell rang, too, in tilted singsong from a +pulley operating somewhere in the catacomb rear of this lambent vale of +things and things and things. In turn, this pulley set in toll still +another bell, two flights up in Abrahm Kantor's tenement, which +overlooked the front of whizzing rails and a rear wilderness of +gibbet-looking clothes-lines, dangling perpetual specters of flapping +union suits in a mid-air flaky with soot. + +Often at lunch, or even the evening meal, this bell would ring in on +Abrahm Kantor's digestive well-being, and while he hurried down, napkin +often bib-fashion still about his neck, and into the smouldering lanes +of copper, would leave an eloquent void at the head of his +well-surrounded table. + +This bell was ringing now, jingling in upon the slumber of a still newer +Kantor, snuggling peacefully enough within the ammoniac depths of a +cradle recently evacuated by Leon, heretofore impinged upon you. + +On her knees before an oven that billowed forth hotly into her face, +Mrs. Kantor, fairly fat and not yet forty, and at the immemorial task of +plumbing a delicately swelling layer-cake with broom-straw, raised her +face, reddened and faintly moist. + +"Isadore, run down and say your papa is out until six. If it's a +customer, remember the first asking-price is the two middle figures on +the tag, and the last asking-price is the two outside figures. See once, +with your papa out to buy your little brother his birthday present, and +your mother in a cake, if you can't make a sale for first price." + +Isadore Kantor, aged eleven and hunched with a younger Kantor over an +oilcloth-covered table, hunched himself still deeper in barter for a +large crystal marble with a candy stripe down its center. + +"Izzie, did you hear me?" + +"Yes'm." + +"Go down this minute--do you hear? Rudolph, stop always letting your big +brother get the best of you in marbles. Iz-zy!" + +"In--a--minute." + +"Don't let me have to ask you again, Isadore Kantor!" + +"Aw, ma; I got some 'rithmetic to do. Let Esther go." + +"Always Esther! Your sister stays right in the front room with her +spelling." + +"Aw, ma; I got spelling, too." + +"Every time I ask that boy he should do me one thing, right away he gets +lessons! With me, that lessons-talk don't go no more. Every time you get +put down in school, I'm surprised there's a place left lower where they +can put you. Working-papers for such a boy like you!" + +"I'll woik--" + +"How I worried myself! Violin lessons yet--thirty cents lesson out of +your papa's pants while he slept! That's how I wanted to have in the +family a profession--maybe a musician on the violin. Lessons for you out +of money I had to lie to your papa about! Honest, when I think of it--my +own husband--it's a wonder I don't potch you just for remembering it. +Rudolph, will you stop licking that cake-pan? It's saved for your little +brother Leon. Ain't you ashamed even on your little brother's birthday +to steal from him?" + +"Ma, gimme the spoon?" + +"I'll give you the spoon, Isadore Kantor, where you don't want it. If +you don't hurry down the way that bell is ringing, not one bite out of +your little brother's birthday-cake to-night!" + +"I'm goin', ain't I?" + +"Always on my children's birthdays a meanness sets into this house! +Ru-dolph, will you put down that bowl? Iz-zy--for the last time I ask +you--for the last time--" + +Erect now, Mrs. Kantor lifted a portentous hand, letting it hover. + +"I'm goin', ma; for golly sakes, I'm goin'!" said her recalcitrant one, +shuffling off toward the staircase, shuffling, shuffling. + +Then Mrs. Kantor resumed her plumbing, and through the little apartment, +its middle and only bedroom of three beds and a crib lighted vicariously +by the front room and kitchen, began to wind the warm, the golden-brown +fragrance of cake in the rising. + +By six o'clock, the shades were drawn against the dirty dusk of Allen +Street, and the oilcloth-covered table dragged out center and spread by +Esther Kantor, nine in years, in the sturdy little legs bulging over +shoe-tops, in the pink cheeks that sagged slightly of plumpness, and in +the utter roundness of face and gaze, but mysteriously older in the +little-mother lore of crib and knee-dandling ditties and in the ropy +length and thickness of the two brown plaits down her back. + +There was an eloquence to that waiting, laid-out table, the print of the +family already gathered about it; the dynastic high chair, throne of +each succeeding Kantor; an armchair drawn up before the paternal +moustache-cup; the ordinary kitchen chair of Mannie Kantor, who spilled +things, an oilcloth sort of bib dangling from its back; the little chair +of Leon Kantor, cushioned in an old family album that raised his chin +above the table. Even in cutlery, the Kantor family was not lacking in +variety. Surrounding a centerpiece of thick Russian lace were Russian +spoons washed in washed-off gilt, forks of one, two, and three tines. +Steel knives with black handles. A hart's-horn carving-knife. +Thick-lipped china in stacks before the armchair. A round +four-pound-loaf of black bread waiting to be torn, and to-night, on the +festive mat of cotton lace, a cake of pinkly gleaming icing, encircled +with five pink little twisted candles. + +At slightly after six, Abrahm Kantor returned, leading by a resisting +wrist Leon Kantor, his stemlike little legs, hit midship, as it were, by +not sufficiently cut-down trousers and so narrow and birdlike of face +that his eyes quite obliterated the remaining map of his features, like +those of a still wet nestling. All except his ears. They poised at the +sides of Leon's shaved head of black bristles, as if butterflies had +just lighted there, whispering, with very spread wings, their message, +and presently would fly off again. By some sort of muscular contraction, +he could wiggle these ears at will, and would do so for a penny, a +whistle, and upon one occasion for his brother Rudolph's dead rat, so +devised as to dangle from string and window before the unhappy +passer-by. They were quivering now, these ears, but because the entire +little face was twitching back tears and gulp of sobs. + +"Abrahm--Leon--what is it?" Her hands and her forearms instantly out +from the business of kneading something meaty and floury, Mrs. Kantor +rushed forward, her glance quick from one to the other of them. "Abrahm, +what's wrong?" + +"I'll feedle him! I'll feedle him!" + +The little pulling wrist still in clutch, Mr. Kantor regarded his wife, +the lower half of his face, well covered with reddish bristles, +undershot, his free hand and even his eyes violently lifted. To those +who see in a man a perpetual kinship to that animal kingdom of which he +is supreme, there was something undeniably anthropoidal about Abrahm +Kantor, a certain simian width between the eyes and long, rather agile +hands with hairy backs. + +"Hush it!" cried Mr. Kantor, his free hand raised in threat of descent +and cowering his small son to still more undersized proportions. "Hush +it, or, by golly, I'll--" + +"Abrahm--Abrahm--what is it?" + +Then Mr. Kantor gave vent in acridity of word and feature. + +"_Schlemmil!_" he cried. "_Momser! Ganef! Nebich!_" By which Abrahm +Kantor, in smiting mother tongue, branded his offspring with attributes +of apostate and ne'er-do-well, of idiot and thief. + +"Abrahm!" + +"_Schlemmil!_" repeated Mr. Abrahm, swinging Leon so that he described a +large semi-circle that landed him into the meaty and waiting embrace of +his mother. "Take him! You should be proud of such a little _Momser_ for +a son! Take him--and here you got back his birthday dollar. A feedle! +Honest--when I think on it--a feedle!" + +Such a rush of outrage seemed fairly to strangle Mr. Kantor that he +stood, hand still upraised, choking and inarticulate above the now +frankly howling huddle of his son. + +"Abrahm you should just once touch this child! How he trembles! +Leon--mamma's baby--what is it--is this how you come back when papa +takes out to buy your birthday present? Ain't you ashamed?" + +Mouth distended to a large and blackly hollow O, Leon between terrifying +spells of breath-holding, continued to howl. + +"All the way to Naftel's toy store I drag him. A birthday present for a +dollar his mother wants he should have--all right, a birthday present! I +give you my word till I'm ashamed for Naftel, every toy on his shelves +is pulled down. Such a cow--that shakes with his head--" + +"No--no--no!" This from young Leon, beating at his mother's skirts. + +Again the upraised but never quite descending hand of his father. + +"By golly, I'll 'no--no' you!" + +"Abrahm--go way! Baby, what did papa do?" + +Then Mr. Kantor broke into an actual tarantella of rage, his hands palms +up and dancing. + +"'What did papa do?' she asks. She's got easy asking. 'What did papa +do?' The whole shop, I tell you. A sheep with a baa inside when you +squeeze on him--games--a horn so he can holler my head off--such a knife +like Izzy's with a scissors in it! 'Leon,' I said, ashamed for Naftel, +'that's a fine knife like Izzy's so you can cut up with.' 'All right +then'--when I see how he hollers--'such a box full of soldiers to have +war with.' 'Dollar seventy-five,' says Naftel. 'All right then,' I +says--when I seen how he keeps hollering--'give you a dollar fifteen for +'em.' I should make myself small for fifteen cents more. 'Dollar +fifteen,' I says--anything so he should shut up with his hollering for +what he seen in the window." + +"He seen something in the window he wanted, Abrahm?" + +"Didn't I tell you? A feedle! A four-dollar feedle! A moosiker, so we +should have another feedler in the family for some thirty-cents +lessons." + +"Abrahm--you mean--he--our Leon--wanted a violin?" + +"'Wanted,' she says. I could potch him again this minute for how he +wanted it! _Du_--you little bum you--_Chammer_--_Momser_--I'll feedle +you!" + +Across Mrs. Kantor's face as she knelt there in the shapeless +cotton-stuff uniform of poverty, through the very tenement of her body, +a light had flashed up into her eyes. She drew her son closer, crushing +his puny cheek up against hers, cupping his bristly little head in her +by no means immaculate palms. + +"He wanted a violin--it's come, Abrahm! The dream of all my life--it's +come! I knew it must be one of my children if I waited long enough--and +prayed enough. A musician! He wants a violin. He cried for a violin. My +baby! Why, darlink, mamma'll sell her clothes off her back to get you a +violin. He's a musician, Abrahm! I should have known it the way he's +fooling always around the chimes and the bells in the store!" + +Then Mrs. Kantor took to rocking his head between her palms. + +"_Oi--oi!_ The mother is crazier as her son. A moosican! A _Fresser_ you +mean. Such an eater, it's a wonder he ain't twice too big instead of +twice too little for his age." + +"That's a sign, Abrahm; they all eat big. For all we know he's a genius. +I swear to you, Abrahm, all the months before he was born, I prayed for +it. Each one before they came, I prayed it should be the one. I thought +that time the way our Isadore ran after the organ-grinder he would be +the one. How could I know it was the monkey he wanted? When Isadore +wouldn't take it, I prayed my next one and then my next one should have +the talent. I've prayed for it, Abrahm. If he wants a violin, please, he +should have it." + +"Not with my money." + +"With mine! I've got enough saved, Abrahm. Them three extra dollars +right here inside my own waist, that I saved toward that cape down on +Grand Street. I wouldn't have it now the way they say the wind blows up +them--" + +"I tell you the woman's crazy!" + +"I feel it! I know he's got talent! I know my children so well. A--a +father don't understand. I'm so next to them. It's like I can tell +always everything that will happen to them--it's like a pain--somewheres +here--in back of my heart." + +"A pain in the heart she gets!" + +"For my own children I'm always a prophet, I tell you. You think I +didn't know that--that terrible night after the pogrom after we got out +of Kief to cross the border! You remember, Abrahm, how I predicted it to +you then--how our Mannie would be born too soon and--and not right from +my suffering? Did it happen on the ship to America just the way I said +it would? Did it happen just exactly how I predicted our Izzy would +break his leg that time playing on the fire-escape? I tell you, Abrahm, +I get a real pain here under my heart that tells me what comes to my +children. Didn't I tell you how Esther would be the first in her +confirmation-class and our baby Boris would be red-headed? At only five +years, our Leon all by himself cries for a fiddle--get it for him, +Abrahm--get it for him!" + +"I tell you, Sarah, I got a crazy woman for a wife! It ain't enough we +celebrate eight birthdays a year with one-dollar presents each time and +copper goods every day higher. It ain't enough that right to-morrow I +got a fifty-dollar note over me from Sol Ginsberg--a four-dollar present +she wants for a child that don't even know the name of a feedle!" + +"Leon baby, stop hollering--papa will go back and get the fiddle for you +now before supper. See--mamma's got money here in her waist--" + +"Papa will go back for the feedle not--three dollars she's saved for +herself he can holler out of her for a feedle!" + +"Abrahm, he's screaming so he--he'll have a fit." + +"He should have two fits." + +"Darlink--" + +"I tell you the way you spoil your children it will some day come back +on us." + +"It's his birthday night, Abrahm--five years since his little head +first lay on the pillow next to me." + +"All right--all right--drive me crazy because he's got a birthday." + +"Leon baby--if you don't stop hollering you'll make yourself sick. +Abrahm, I never saw him like this--he's green--" + +"I'll green him. Where is that old feedle from Isadora--that +seventy-five-cents one?" + +"I never thought of that! You broke it that time you got mad at +Isadore's lessons. I'll run down. Maybe it's with the junk behind the +store. I never thought of that fiddle, Leon darlink--wait--mamma'll run +down and look--wait, Leon, till mamma finds you a fiddle." + +The raucous screams stopped then suddenly, and on their very lustiest +crest, leaving an echoing gash across silence. On willing feet of haste, +Mrs. Kantor wound down backward the high, ladderlike staircase that led +to the brass shop. + +Meanwhile, to a gnawing consciousness of dinner-hour, had assembled the +house of Kantor. Attuned to the intimate atmosphere of the tenement +which is so constantly rent with cry of child, child-bearing, delirium, +delirium-tremens, Leon Kantor had howled no impression into the motley +din of things. Isadore, already astride his chair, well into +center-table, for first vociferous tear at the four-pound loaf; Esther +Kantor, old at chores, settled an infant into the high chair, careful of +tiny fingers in lowering the wooden bib. + +"Papa, Izzy's eating first again." + +"Put down that loaf and wait until your mother dishes up or you'll get a +potch you won't soon forget." + +"Say, pop--" + +"Don't 'say pop' me! I don't want no street-bum freshness from you!" + +"I mean, papa, there was an uptown swell in, and she bought one of them +seventy-five-cent candlesticks for the first price," + +"_Schlemmil--Chammer!_" said Mr. Kantor, rinsing his hands at the sink. +"Didn't I always tell you it's the first price times two when you see +up-town business come in? Haven't I learned it to you often enough a +slummer must pay for her nosiness?" + +There entered then, on poor shuffling feet, Mannie Kantor so marred in +the mysterious and ceramic process of life that the brain and the soul +had stayed back sooner than inhabit him. Seventeen in years, in the down +upon his face, and in growth unretarded by any great nervosity of +system, his vacuity of face was not that of childhood but rather as if +his light eyes were peering out from some hinterland and wanting so +terribly and so dumbly to communicate what they beheld to brain-cells +closed against himself. + +At sight of Mannie, Leon Kantor, the tears still wetly and dirtily down +his cheeks, left off his black, fierce-eyed stare of waiting long enough +to smile, darkly, it is true, but sweetly. + +"Giddy-ap!" he cried. "Giddy-ap!" + +And then Mannie, true to habit, would scamper and scamper. + +Up out of the traplike stair-opening came the head of Mrs. Kantor, +disheveled and a smudge of soot across her face, but beneath her arm, +triumphant, a violin of one string and a broken back. + +"See, Leon--what mamma got! A violin! A fiddle! Look--the bow, too, I +found. It ain't much, baby, but it's a fiddle." + +"Aw, ma--that's my old violin--gimme--I want it--where'd you find--" + +"Hush up, Izzy! This ain't yours no more. See, Leon, what mamma brought +you! A violin!" + +"Now, you little _Chammer_, you got a feedle, and if you ever let me +hear you holler again for a feedle, by golly if I don't--" + +From his corner, Leon Kantor reached out, taking the instrument and +fitting it beneath his chin, the bow immediately feeling, surely and +lightly for string. + +"Look, Abrahm! He knows how to hold it! What did I tell you? A child +that never in his life seen a fiddle, except a beggar's on the street!" + +Little Esther suddenly cantered down-floor, clapping her chubby hands. + +"Looky--looky--Leon!" + +The baby ceased clattering his spoon against the wooden bib. A silence +seemed to shape itself. + +So black and so bristly of head, his little clawlike hands hovering over +the bow, Leon Kantor withdrew a note, strangely round and given up +almost sobbingly from the single string. A note of warm twining quality, +like a baby's finger. + +"Leon--darlink!" + +Fumbling for string and for notes the instrument could not yield up to +him, the birdlike mouth began once more to open widely and terribly into +the orificial O. + +It was then Abrahm Kantor came down with a large hollow resonance of +palm against the aperture, lifting his small son and depositing him plop +upon the family album. + +"Take that! By golly, one more whimper out of you and if I don't make +you black-and-blue, birthday or no birthday! Dish up, Sarah, quick, or +I'll give him something to cry about." + +The five pink candles had been lighted, burning pointedly and with +slender little smoke wisps. Regarding them owlishly, the tears dried on +Leon's face, his little tongue licking up at them. + +"Look how solemn he is, like he was thinking of something a million +miles away except how lucky he is he should have a pink birthday-cake! +Uh--uh--uh! Don't you begin to holler again--Here, I'm putting the +feedle next to you--uh--uh--uh!" + +To a meal plentifully ladled out directly from stove to table, the +Kantor family drew up, dipping first into the rich black soup of the +occasion. All except Mrs. Kantor. + +"Esther, you dish up; I'm going somewhere. I'll be back in a minute." + +"Where you going, Sarah? Won't it keep until--" + +But even in the face of query, Sarah Kantor was two flights down and +well through the lambent aisles of the copper shop. Outside, she broke +into a run, through two blocks of the indescribable bazaar atmosphere of +Grand Street, then one block to the right. + +Before Naftel's show-window, a jet of bright gas burned into a +jibberwock land of toys. There was that in Sarah Kantor's face that was +actually lyrical, as, fumbling at the bosom of her dress, she entered. + +To Leon Kantor, by who knows what symphonic scheme of things, life was a +chromatic scale, yielding up to him through throbbing, living nerves of +sheep-gut, the sheerest semitones of man's emotions. + +When he tucked his Stradivarius beneath his chin, the Book of Life +seemed suddenly translated to him in melody. Even Sarah Kantor, who +still brewed for him, on a small portable stove carried from city to +city and surreptitiously unpacked in hotel suites, the blackest of +soups, and, despite his protestation, would incase his ears of nights in +an old home-made device against their flightiness, would often times +bleed inwardly at this sense of his isolation. + +There was a realm into which he went alone, leaving her as detached as +the merest ticket purchaser at the box-office. + +At seventeen, Leon Kantor had played before the crowned heads of Europe, +the aching heads of American capital, and even the shaved head of a +South Sea prince. There was a layout of anecdotal gifts, from the molar +tooth of the South Sea prince set in a South Sea pearl to a +blue-enamelled snuff-box encrusted with the rearing-lion coat of arms of +a very royal house. + +At eighteen, came the purchase of a king's Stradivarius for a king's +ransom, and acclaimed by Sunday supplements to repose of nights in an +ivory cradle. + +At nineteen, under careful auspices of press-agent, the ten singing +digits of the son of Abrahm Kantor were insured at ten thousand dollars +the finger. + +At twenty, he had emerged surely and safely from the perilous quicksands +which have sucked down whole Lilliputian worlds of infant prodigies. + +At twenty-one, when Leon Kantor played a Sunday-night concert, there was +a human queue curling entirely around the square block of the +opera-house, waiting its one, two, even three and four hours for the +privilege of standing-room only. + +Usually these were Leon Kantor's own people pouring up from the lowly +lands of the East Side to the white lands of Broadway, parched for +music, these burning brethren of his--old men in that line, frequently +carrying their own little folding camp-chairs, not against weariness of +the spirit but of the flesh; youth with Slavic eyes and cheek-bones. +These were the six-deep human phalanx which would presently slant down +at him from tiers of steepest balconies and stand frankly emotional and +jammed in the unreserved space behind the railing which shut them off +from the three-dollar seats of the reserved. + +At a very special one of these concerts, dedicated to the meager purses +of just these, and held in New York's super-opera-house, the +Amphitheater, a great bowl of humanity, the metaphor made perfect by +tiers of seats placed upon the stage, rose from orchestra to dome. A +gigantic Colosseum of a cup, lined in stacks and stacks of faces. From +the door of his dressing-room, leaning out, Leon Kantor could see a +great segment of it, buzzing down into adjustment, orchestra twitting +and tuning into it. + +In a bare little room, illuminated by a sheaf of roses just arrived, +Mrs. Kantor drew him back by the elbow. + +"Leon, you're in a draft." + +The amazing years had dealt kindly with Mrs. Kantor. Stouter, softer, +apparently even taller, she was full of small new authorities that could +shut out cranks, newspaper reporters, and autograph fiends. A +fitted-over-corsets black taffeta and a high comb in the greying hair +had done their best with her. Pride, too, had left its flush upon her +cheeks, like two round spots of fever. + +"Leon, it's thirty minutes till your first number. Close that door. Do +you want to let your papa and his excitement in on you?" + +The son of Sarah Kantor obeyed, leaning on his short, rather narrow form +in silhouette against the closed door. In spite of slimly dark evening +clothes worked out by an astute manager to the last detail in boyish +effects, there was that about him which defied long-haired precedent. +Slimly and straightly he had shot up into an unmannered, a short, even +a bristly-haired young manhood, disqualifying by a close shave for the +older school of hirsute virtuosity. + +But his nerves did not spare him. On concert nights they seemed to +emerge almost to the surface of him and shriek their exposure. + +"Just feel my hands, ma. Like ice." + +She dived down into her large silk what-not of a reticule. + +"I've got your fleece-lined gloves here, son." + +"No--no. For God's--sake--not those things! No!" + +He was back at the door again, opening it to a slit, peering through. + +"They're bringing more seats on the stage. If they crowd me in I won't +go on. I can't play if I hear them breathe. Hi--out there--no more +chairs--pa--Hancock--" + +"Leon, Leon, ain't you ashamed to get so worked up? Close that door. +Have you got a manager who is paid just to see to your comfort? When +papa comes, I'll have him go out and tell Hancock you don't want chairs +so close to you. Leon, will you mind mamma and sit down?" + +"It's a bigger house than the royal concert in Madrid, ma. Why, I never +saw anything like it! It's a stampede. God, this is real--this is what +gets me, playing for my own! I should have given a concert like this +three years ago. I'll do it every year now. I'd rather play before them +than all the crowned heads on earth. It's the biggest night of my +life--they're rioting out there, ma--rioting to get in." + +"Leon, Leon, won't you sit down if mamma begs you to?" + +He sat then, strumming with all ten fingers upon his knees. + +"Try to get quiet, son. Count--like you always do. One--two--three--" + +"Please ma--for God's sake--please--please!" + +"Look--such beautiful roses! From Sol Ginsberg, an old friend of papa's +he used to buy brasses from eighteen years ago. Six years he's been +away with his daughter in Munich. Such a beautiful mezzo, they say, +engaged already for Metropolitan next season." + +"I hate it, ma, if they breathe on my neck." + +"Leon darlink, did mamma promise to fix it? Have I ever let you plan a +concert where you wouldn't be comfortable?" + +His long, slim hands suddenly prehensile and cutting a long, upward +gesture, Leon Kantor rose to his feet, face whitening. + +"Do it now! Now, I tell you! I won't have them breathe on me. Do you +hear me? Now! Now! Now!" + +Risen also, her face soft and tremulous for him, Mrs. Kantor put out a +gentle, a sedative hand upon his sleeve. + +"Son," she said, with an edge of authority even behind her smile, "don't +holler at me." + +He grasped her hand with his two, and, immediately quiet, placed a close +string of kisses along it. + +"Mamma," he said, kissing them again and again into the palm, +"mamma--mamma!" + +"I know, son; it's nerves." + +"They eat me, ma. Feel--I'm like ice. I didn't mean it; you know I +didn't mean it." + +"My baby," she said, "my wonderful boy, it's like I can never get used +to the wonder of having you! The greatest one of them all should be +mine--a plain woman's like mine!" + +He teased her, eager to conciliate and ride down his own state of +quivering. + +"Now, ma--now--now--don't forget Rimsky!" + +"'Rimsky!' A man three times your age who was playing concerts before +you was born! Is that a comparison? From your clippings-books I can show +Rimsky who the world considers the greatest violinist. Rimsky he rubs +into me!" + +"All right then, the press-clippings, but did Elsass, the greatest +manager of them all, bring me a contract for thirty concerts at two +thousand a concert? Now I've got you! Now!" + +She would not meet his laughter. + +"'Elsass!' Believe me, he'll come to you yet. My boy should worry if he +makes fifty thousand a year more or less. Rimsky should have that +honour--for so long as he can hold it. But he won't hold it long. +Believe me, I don't rest easy in my bed till Elsass comes after you. Not +for so big a contract like Rimsky's, but bigger--not for thirty concerts +but for fifty!" + +"_Brava! Brava!_ There's a woman for you. More money than she knows what +to do with, and then not satisfied!" + +She was still too tremulous for banter. + +"'Not satisfied?' Why, Leon, I never stop praying my thanks for you!" + +"All right then," he cried, laying his icy fingers on her cheek; +"to-morrow we'll call a _Mignon_--a regular old-fashioned Allen Street +prayer-party!" + +"Leon, you mustn't make fun." + +"Make fun of the sweetest girl in this room?" + +"'Girl!' Ah, if I could only hold you by me this way, Leon! Always a +boy--with me--your poor old mother--your only girl. That's a fear I +suffer with, Leon--to lose you to a--girl! That's how selfish the mother +of such a wonder-child like mine can get to be." + +"All right. Trying to get me married off again. Nice! Fine!" + +"Is it any wonder I suffer, son? Twenty-one years to have kept you by me +a child. A boy that's never in his life was out after midnight except to +catch trains. A boy that never has so much as looked at a girl and could +have looked at princesses. To have kept you all these years--mine--is it +any wonder, son, I never stop praying my thanks for you? You don't +believe Hancock, son, the way he keeps teasing you always you should +have a--what he calls--affair--a love-affair? Such talk is not nice, +Leon--an affair!" + +"Love-affair poppycock!" said Leon Kantor, lifting his mothers face and +kissing her on eyes about ready to tear. "Why, I've got something, ma, +right here in my heart for you that--" + +"Leon, be careful your shirt-front!" + +"That's so--so what you call 'tender,' for my best sweetheart that +I--oh, love affair--poppycock!" + +She would not let her tears come. "My boy--my wonder-boy!" + +"There goes the overture, ma." + +"Here, darlink--your glass of water." + +"I can't stand it in here; I'm suffocating!" + +"Got your mute in your pocket, son?" + +"Yes, ma; for God's sake, yes! Yes! Don't keep asking things." + +"Ain't you ashamed, Leon, to be in such an excitement? For every concert +you get worse." + +"The chairs--they'll breathe on my neck." + +"Leon, did mamma promise you those chairs would be moved?" + +"Where's Hancock?" + +"Say--I'm grateful if he stays out. It took me enough work to get this +room cleared. You know your papa he likes to drag in the whole world to +show you off--always just before you play. The minute he walks in the +room, right away he gets everybody to trembling just from his own +excitements. I dare him this time he should bring people--no dignity has +that man got, the way he brings everyone." + +Even upon her words came a rattling of door, of door-knob and a voice +through the clamour. + +"Open--quick--Sarah! Leon!" + +A stiffening raced over Mrs. Kantor, so that she sat rigid on her +chair-edge, lips compressed, eye darkly upon the shivering door. + +"Open--Sarah!" + +With a narrowing glance, Mrs. Kantor laid to her lips a forefinger of +silence. + +"Sarah, it's me! Quick, I say!" + +Then Leon Kantor sprang up, the old prehensile gesture of curving +fingers shooting up. + +"For God's sake, ma, let him in! I can't stand that infernal battering." + +"Abrahm, go away! Leon's got to have quiet before his concert." + +"Just a minute, Sarah. Open quick!" + +With a spring, his son was at the door, unlocking and flinging it back. + +"Come in, pa." + +The years had weighed heavily upon Abrahm Kantor in avoirdupois only. He +was himself plus eighteen years, fifty pounds, and a new sleek pomposity +that was absolutely oleaginous. It shone roundly in his face, doubling +of chin, in the bulge of waistcoat, heavily gold-chained, and in eyes +that behind the gold-rimmed glasses gave sparklingly forth his estate of +well-being. + +"Abrahm, didn't I tell you not to dare to--" + +On excited balls of feet that fairly bounced him, Abrahm Kantor burst +in. + +"Leon--mamma--I got out here an old friend--Sol Ginsberg--you remember, +mamma, from brasses--" + +"Abrahm--not now--" + +"Go way with your 'not now!' I want Leon should meet him. Sol, this is +him--a little grown-up from such a _Nebich_ like you remember him--_nu_? +Sarah, you remember Sol Ginsberg? Say--I should ask you if you remember +your right hand? Ginsberg & Esel, the firm. This is his girl, a five +years' contract signed yesterday--five hundred dollars an opera for a +beginner--six rôles--not bad--_nu_?" + +"Abrahm, you must ask Mr. Ginsberg please to excuse Leon until after his +concert--" + +"Shake hands with him, Ginsberg. He's had his hand shook enough in his +life, and by kings, too--shake it once more with an old bouncer like +you!" + +Mr. Ginsberg, not unlike his colleague in rotundities, held out a short, +a dimpled hand. + +"It's a proud day," he said, "for me to shake the hands from mine old +friend's son and the finest violinist living to-day. My little +daughter--" + +"Yes, yes, Gina. Here shake hands with him. Leon, they say a voice like +a fountain. Gina Berg--eh, Ginsberg--is how you stage-named her? You +hear, mamma, how fancy--Gina Berg? We go hear her, eh?" + +There was about Miss Gina Berg, whose voice could soar to the +tirra-lirra of a lark and then deepen to mezzo, something of the actual +slimness of the poor, maligned Elsa so long buried beneath the buxomness +of divas. She was like a little flower that in its crannied nook keeps +dewy longest. + +"How do you do, Leon Kantor?" + +There was a whir through her English of three acquired languages. + +"How do _you_ do?" + +"We--father and I--travelled once all the way from Brussels to Dresden +to hear you play. It was worth it. I shall never forget how you played +the 'Humoresque.' It made me laugh and cry." + +"You like Brussels?" + +She laid her little hand to her heart, half closing her eyes. + +"I will never be so happy again as with the sweet little people of +Brussels." + +"I, too, love Brussels. I studied there four years with Ahrenfest." + +"I know you did. My teacher, Lyndahl, in Berlin, was his +brother-in-law." + +"You have studied with Lyndahl?" + +"He is my master." + +"I--will I sometime hear you sing?" + +"I am not yet great. When I am foremost like you, yes." + +"Gina--Gina Berg, that is a beautiful name to make famous." + +"You see how it is done? Gins--Berg. Gina Berg. + +"Clev-er!" + +They stood then smiling across a chasm of the diffidence of youth, she +fumbling at the great fur pelt out of which her face flowered so dewily. + +"I--well--we--we are in the fourth box--I guess we had better be +going--fourth box left." He wanted to find words, but for consciousness +of self could not "It's a wonderful house out there waiting for you, +Leon Kantor, and you--you're wonderful, too!" + +"The--flowers--thanks!" + +"My father, he sent them. Come, father--quick!" + +Suddenly there was a tight tensity that seemed to crowd up the little +room. + +"Abrahm--quick--get Hancock--that first rows of chairs has got to be +moved--there he is, in the wings--see the piano ain't dragged down too +far! Leon, got your mute on your pocket? Please Mr. Ginsberg--you must +excuse--Here, Leon, is your glass of water. Drink it, I say. Shut that +door out there, boy, so there ain't a draft in the wings. Here, Leon, +your violin. Got neckerchief? Listen how they're shouting--it's for +you--Leon--darlink--go!" + +In the center of that vast human bowl which had finally shouted itself +out, slim, boylike, and in his supreme isolation, Leon Kantor drew bow +and a first thin, pellucid, and perfect note into a silence breathless +to receive it. + +Throughout the arduous flexuosities of the Mendelssohn E-minor concerto, +singing, winding from tonal to tonal climax, and out of the slow +movement, which is like a tourniquet twisting the heart into the +spirited _allegro molto vivace_, it was as if beneath Leon Kantor's +fingers the strings were living vein-cords, youth, vitality, and the +very foam of exuberance racing through them. + +That was the power of him--the Vichy and the sparkle of youth, so that, +playing, the melody poured round him like wine and went down seething +and singing into the hearts of his hearers. + +Later, and because these were his people and because they were dark and +Slavic with his Slavic darkness, he played, as if his very blood were +weeping, the "Kol Nidre," which is the prayer of his race for atonement. + +And then the super-amphitheater, filled with those whose emotions lie +next to the surface and whose pores have not been closed over with a +water-tight veneer, burst into its cheers and its tears. + +There were fifteen recalls from the wings, Abrahm Kantor standing +counting them off on his fingers, and trembling to receive the +Stradivarius. Then, finally, and against the frantic negative pantomime +of his manager, a scherzo, played so lacily that it swept the house in +lightest laughter. + +When Leon Kantor finally completed his program, they were loath to let +him go, crowding down the aisles upon him, applauding up, down, round +him, until the great disheveled house was like the roaring of a sea, +and he would laugh and throw out his arm in wide-spread helplessness, +and always his manager in the background, gesticulating against too much +of his precious product for the money, ushers already slamming up +chairs, his father's arms out for the Stradivarius, and, deepest in the +gloom of the wings, Sarah Kantor, in a rocker especially dragged out for +her, and from the depths of the black-silk reticule, darning his socks. + +"_Bravo_--_bravo_! Give us the 'Humoresque'--Chopin +nocturne--polonaise--'Humoresque'! _Bravo_--_bravo_!" + +And even as they stood, hatted and coated, importuning and pressing in +upon him, and with a wisp of a smile to the fourth left box, Leon Kantor +played them the "Humoresque" of Dvorak, skedaddling, plucking, +quirking--that laugh on life with a tear behind it. Then suddenly, +because he could escape no other way, rushed straight back for his +dressing-room, bursting in upon a flood of family already there before +him. Isadora Kantor, blue-shaven, aquiline, and already greying at the +temples; his five-year-old son, Leon; a soft little pouter-pigeon of a +wife, too, enormous of bust, in glittering ear-drops and a wrist-watch +of diamonds half buried in chubby wrist; Miss Esther Kantor, pink and +pretty; Rudolph; Boris, not yet done with growing-pains. + +At the door, Miss Kantor met her brother, her eyes as sweetly moist as +her kiss. + +"Leon, darling, you surpassed even yourself!" + +"Quit crowding, children! Let him sit down. Here, Leon, let mamma give +you a fresh collar. Look how the child's perspired! Pull down that +window, Boris. Rudolph, don't let no one in. I give you my word if +to-night wasn't as near as I ever came to seeing a house go crazy. Not +even that time in Milan, darlink--when they broke down the doors, was it +like to-night--" + +"Ought to seen, ma, the row of police outside--" + +"Hush up, Roody! Don't you see your brother is trying to get his +breath?" + +From Mrs. Isadore Kantor: "You ought to seen the balconies, mother. +Isadore and I went up just to see the jam." + +"Six thousand dollars in the house to-night if there was a cent," said +Isadore Kantor. + +"Hand me my violin please, Esther. I must have scratched it, the way +they pushed." + +"No, son; you didn't. I've already rubbed it up. Sit quiet, darlink!" + +He was limply white, as if the vitality had flowed out of him. + +"God! Wasn't it--tremendous?" + +"Six thousand if there was a cent," repeated Isadore Kantor; "more than +Rimsky ever played to in his life!" + +"Oh, Izzy, you make me sick, always counting--counting." + +"Your sister's right, Isadore. You got nothing to complain of if there +was only six hundred in the house. A boy whose fiddle has made already +enough to set you up in such a fine business, his brother Boris in such +a fine college, automobiles--style--and now because Vladimir Rimsky, +three times his age, gets signed up with Elsass for a few thousand more +a year, right away the family gets a long face--" + +"Ma, please; Isadore didn't mean it that way!" + +"Pa's knocking, ma; shall I let him in?" + +"Let him in, Roody. I'd like to know what good it will do to try to keep +him out." + +In an actual rain of perspiration, his tie slid well under one ear, +Abrahm Kantor burst in, mouthing the words before his acute state of +strangulation would let them out. + +"Elsass--it's Elsass outside--he--wants--to sign--Leon--fifty +concerts--coast to coast--two thousand--next season--he's got the +papers--already drawn up--the pen outside waiting--" + +"Abrahm!" + +"Pa!" + +In the silence that followed, Isadore Kantor, a poppiness of stare and a +violent redness set in, suddenly turned to his five-year-old son, sticky +with lollypop, and came down soundly and with smack against the +infantile, the slightly outstanding, and unsuspecting ear. + +"_Momser!_" he cried. "_Chammer! Lump! Ganef!_ You hear that? Two +thousand! Two thousand! Didn't I tell you--didn't I tell you to +practise?" + +Even as Leon Kantor put pen to this princely document, Francis Ferdinand +of Austria, the assassin's bullet true, lay dead in state, and let slip +were the dogs of war. + +In the next years, men, forty deep, were to die in piles; hayricks of +fields to become human hayricks of battlefields; Belgium disembowelled, +her very entrails dragging to find all the civilized world her champion, +and between the poppies of Flanders, crosses, thousands upon thousands +of them, to mark the places where the youth of her allies fell, avenging +outrage. Seas, even when calmest, were to become terrible, and men's +heart-beats, a bit sluggish with the fatty degeneration of a sluggard +peace, to quicken and then to throb with the rat-a-tat-tat, the +rat-a-tat-tat of the most peremptory, the most reverberating call to +arms in the history of the world. + +In June, 1917, Leon Kantor, answering that rat-a-tat-tat, enlisted. + +In November, honed by the interim of training to even a new leanness, +and sailing orders heavy and light in his heart, Lieutenant Kantor, on +two day's home-leave, took leave of his home, which can be cruelest when +it is tenderest. + +Standing there in the expensive, the formal, the enormous French parlour +of his up-town apartment de luxe, from not one of whose chairs would his +mother's feet touch floor, a wall of living flesh, mortared in blood, +was throbbing and hedging him in. + +He would pace up and down the long room, heavy with the faces of those +who mourn, with a laugh too ready, too facetious in his fear for them. + +"Well, well, what is this, anyway, a wake? Where's the coffin? Who's +dead?" + +His sister-in-law shot out her plump, watch-incrusted wrist. + +"Don't, Leon" she cried. "Such talk is a sin! It might come true." + +"Rosie-Posy-butter-ball," he said pausing beside her chair to pinch her +deeply soft cheek. "Cry-baby-roly-poly, you can't shove me off in a +wooden kimono that way." + +From his place before the white-and-gold mantel, staring steadfastly at +the floor-tiling, Isadore Kantor turned suddenly, a bit whiter and older +at the temples. + +"Don't get your comedy, Leon. + +"'Wooden kimono'--Leon?" + +"That's the way the fellows at camp joke about coffins, ma. I didn't +mean anything but fun. Great Scott--can't anyone take a joke?" + +"O God! O God!" His mother fell to swaying, softly hugging herself +against shivering. + +"Did you sign over power of attorney to pa, Leon?" + +"All fixed, Izzy." + +"I'm so afraid, son, you don't take with you enough money in your +pockets. You know how you lose it. If only you would let mamma sew that +little bag inside your uniform with a little place for bills and a +little place for the asfitidy!" + +"Now, please, ma--please! If I needed more, wouldn't I take it? Wouldn't +I be a pretty joke among the fellows, tied up in that smelling stuff? +Orders are orders, ma; I know what to take and what not to take." + +"Please, Leon, don't get mad at me, but if you will let me put in your +suitcase just one little box of that salve for your finger tips, so they +don't crack--" + +Pausing as he paced to lay cheek to her hair, he patted her. + +"Three boxes if you want. Now, how's that?" + +"And you won't take it out so soon as my back is turned?" + +"Cross my heart." + +His touch seemed to set her trembling again, all her illy concealed +emotions rushing up. + +"I can't stand it! Can't! Can't! Take my life--take my blood, but don't +take my boy--don't take my boy--" + +"Mamma, mamma, is that the way you're going to begin all over again +after your promise?" + +She clung to him, heaving against the rising storm of sobs. + +"I can't help it--can't--cut out my heart from me, but let me keep my +boy--my wonder-boy--" + +"Oughtn't she be ashamed of herself? Just listen to her, Esther! What +will we do with her? Talks like she had a guarantee I wasn't coming +back. Why I wouldn't be surprised if by spring I wasn't tuning up again +for a coast-to-coast tour--" + +"'Spring'--that talk don't fool me--without my boy, the springs in my +life are over--" + +"Why, ma, you talk like every soldier who goes to war was killed. +There's only the smallest percentage of them die in battle--" + +"'Spring,' he says; 'spring!' Crossing the seas from me! To live through +months with that sea between us--my boy maybe shot--my--" + +"Mamma, please!" + +"I can't help it, Leon; I'm not one of those fine mothers that can be so +brave. Cut out my heart, but leave my boy--my wonder-boy--my child I +prayed for!" + +"There's other mothers, ma, with sons." + +"Yes, but not wonder-sons! A genius like you could so easy get excused, +Leon. Give it up. Genius it should be the last to be sent to--the +slaughter-pen. Leon darlink--don't go!" + +"Ma, ma--you don't mean what you're saying. You wouldn't want me to +reason that way. You wouldn't want me to hide behind my--violin." + +"I would! Would! You should wait for the draft. With my Roody and even +my baby Boris enlisted, ain't it enough for one mother? Since they got +to be in camp, all right I say, let them be there, if my heart breaks +for it, but not my wonder-child! You get the exemption, Leon, right away +for the asking. Stay with me Leon! Don't go away! The people at home got +to be kept happy with music. That's being a soldier, too, playing their +troubles away. Stay with me, Leon! Don't go leave me--don't--don't--" + +He suffered her to lie, tear-drenched, back into his arms, holding her +close in his compassion for her, his own face twisting. + +"God, ma, his--is awful! Please--you make us ashamed--all of us! I +don't know what to say. Esther, come quiet her--for God's sake quiet +her!" + +From her place in the sobbing circle, Esther Kantor crossed to kneel +beside her mother. + +"Mamma, darling, you're killing yourself! What if every family went on +this way? You want papa to come in and find us all crying? Is this the +way you want Leon to spend his last hour with us--" + +"O God--God!" + +"I mean his last hour until he comes back, darling. Didn't you just hear +him say, darling, it may be by spring?" + +"'Spring'--'spring'--never no more springs for me--" + +"Just think, darling, how proud we should be. Our Leon, who could so +easily have been excused, not even to wait for the draft." + +"It's not too late yet--please, Leon--" + +"Our Roody and Boris both in camp, too, training to serve their country. +Why, mamma, we ought to be crying for happiness! As Leon says, surely +the Kantor family who fled out of Russia to escape massacre should know +how terrible slavery can be. That's why we must help our boys, mamma, in +their fight to make the world free. Right, Leon?"--trying to smile with +her red-rimmed eyes. + +"We've got no fight with no one! Not a child of mine was ever raised to +so much as lift a finger against no one. We've got no fight with no +one." + +"We have got a fight with some one. With autocracy! Only, this time it +happens to be Hunnish autocracy. You should know it, mamma; oh, you +should know it deeper down in you than any of us, the fight our family +right here has got with autocracy!" + +"Leon's right, mamma darling, the way you and papa were beaten out of +your country--" + +"There's not a day in your life you don't curse it without knowing it! +Every time we three boys look at your son and our brother Mannie, born +an--an imbecile--because of autocracy, we know what we're fighting for. +We know. You know, too. Look at him over there, even before he was +born, ruined by autocracy! Know what I'm fighting for? Why, this whole +family knows! What's music, what's art, what's life itself in a world +without freedom? Every time, ma, you get to thinking we've got a fight +with no one, all you have to do is look at our poor Mannie. He's the +answer! He's the answer!" + +In a foaming sort of silence, Mannie Kantor smiled softly from his chair +beneath the pink-and-gold shade of the piano-lamp. The heterogeneous +sounds of women weeping had ceased. Straight in her chair, her great +shelf of bust heaving, sat Rosa Kantor, suddenly dry of eye; Isadore +Kantor head up. Erect now, and out from the embrace of her daughter, +Sarah looked up at her son. + +"What time do you leave, Leon?" she asked, actually firm of lip. + +"Any minute, ma. Getting late." + +This time she pulled her lips to a smile, waggling her forefinger. + +"Don't let them little devils of French girls fall in love with my dude +in his uniform." + +Her pretense at pleasantry was almost more than he could bear. + +"Hear! Hear! Our mother thinks I'm a regular lady-killer! Hear that, +Esther?"--pinching her cheek. + +"You are, Leon--only--only, you don't know it." + +"Don't you bring down too many beaus while I'm gone, either, Miss +Kantor!" + +"I--won't, Leon." + +_Sotto voce_ to her: "Remember, Esther, while I'm gone, the royalties +from the Discaphone records are yours. I want you to have them for +pin-money and--maybe a dowry?" + +She turned from him. + +"Don't, Leon--don't--" + +"I like him! Nice fellow, but too slow! Why, if I were in his shoes, I'd +have popped long ago." + +She smiled with her lashes dewy. + +There entered then, in a violet-scented little whirl, Miss Gina Berg, +rosy with the sting of a winter's night, and, as usual, swathed in the +high-napped furs. + +"Gina!" + +She was for greeting everyone, a wafted kiss to Mrs. Kantor, and then +arms wide, a great bunch of violets in one outstretched hand, her glance +straight sure and sparkling for Leon Kantor. + +"Surprise--everybody--surprise!" + +"Why, Gina--we read--we thought you were singing in Philadelphia +to-night!" + +"So did I, Esther darling, until a little bird whispered to me that +Lieutenant Kantor was home on farewell leave." + +He advanced to her down the great length of room, lowering his head over +her hand, his puttee-clad legs clicked together. + +"You mean, Miss Gina--Gina--you didn't sing?" + +"Of course I didn't! Hasn't every prima donna a larynx to hid behind?" +She lifted off her fur cap, spilling curls. + +"Well, I--I'll be hanged!" said Lieutenant Kantor, his eyes lakes of her +reflected loveliness. + +She let her hand linger in his. + +"Leon--you--really going--how--terrible--how--how--wonderful!" + +"How wonderful--your coming!" + +"I--you think it was not nice of me--to come?" + +"I think it was the nicest thing that ever happened in the world." + +"All the way here in the train, I kept saying--crazy--crazy--running to +tell Leon--Lieutenant--Kantor good-bye--when you haven't even seen him +three times in three years--" + +"But each--each of those three times we--we've remembered, Gina." + +"But that's how I feel toward all the boys, Leon--our fighting +boys--just like flying to them to kiss them each one good-bye." + +"Come over, Gina. You'll be a treat to our mother. I--well, I'm +hanged--all the way from Philadelphia!" + +There was even a sparkle to talk then, and a let-up of pressure. After +a while, Sarah Kantor looked up at her son, tremulous but smiling. + +"Well, son, you going to play--for your old mother before--you go? It'll +be many a month--spring--maybe longer before I hear my boy again except +on the discaphone." + +He shot a quick glance to his sister. + +"Why, I--I don't know. I--I'd love it, ma if--if you think, Esther, I'd +better." + +"You don't need to be afraid of me, darlink. There's nothing can give me +strength to bear--what's before me like--like my boy's music. That's my +life, his music." + +"Why, yes; if mamma is sure she feels that way, play for us, Leon." + +He was already at the instrument, where it lay swathed, atop the grand +piano. + +"What'll it be, folks?" + +"Something to make ma laugh, Leon--something light, something funny." + +"'Humoresque'?" he said, with a quick glance for Miss Berg. + +"'Humoresque,'" she said, smiling back at him. + +He capered through, cutting and playful of bow, the melody of Dvorak's, +which is as ironic as a grinning mask. + +Finished, he smiled at his parent, her face still untearful. + +"How's that?" + +"It's like life, son, that piece. Laughing and making fun of--the way +just as we think we got--we ain't got." + +"Play that new piece, Leon, the one you set to music. You know. The +words by that young boy in the war who wrote such grand poetry before he +was killed. The one that always makes poor Mannie laugh. Play it for +him, Leon." + +Her plump little unlined face innocent of fault, Mrs. Isadore Kantor +ventured her request, her smile tired with tears." + +"No, no--Rosa--not now--ma wouldn't want that." + +"I do, son; I do! Even Mannie should have his share of good-bye." + +To Gina Berg: "They want me to play that little setting of mine of +Allan Seeger's poem, 'I have a rendezvous.'" + +"It--it's beautiful, Leon! I was to have sung it on my program +to-night--only, I'm afraid you had better not--" + +"Please, Leon! Nothing you play can ever make me as sad as it makes me +glad. Mannie should have too his good-bye." + +"All right then, ma, if--if you're sure you want it. Will you sing it, +Gina?" + +She had risen. + +"Why, yes, Leon." + +She sang it then, quite purely, her hands clasped simply together and +her glance mistily off, the beautiful, the heroic, the lyrical prophecy +of a soldier-poet and a poet-soldier. + + But I've a rendezvous with Death + On some scarred slope of battered hill, + When spring comes round again this year + And the first meadow-flowers appear. + +In the silence that followed, a sob burst out stifled from Esther +Kantor, this time her mother holding her in arms that were strong. + +"That, Leon, is the most beautiful of all your compositions. What does +it mean, son, that word, 'rondy-voo'?" + +"Why, I--I don't exactly know. A rendezvous--it's a sort of meeting, an +engagement, isn't it, Miss Gina? Gina?" + +"That's it, Leon--an engagement." + +"Have I an engagement with you, Gina?" + +"Oh, how--how I hope you have, Leon!" + +"When?" + +"In the spring?" + +"That's it--in the spring." + +Then they smiled, these two, who had never felt more than the merest +butterfly wings of love brushing them, light as lashes. No word between +them, only an unfinished sweetness, waiting to be linked up. + +Suddenly there burst in Abrahm Kantor. + +"Quick, Leon! I got the car downstairs. Just fifteen minutes to make the +ferry. Quick! The sooner we get him over there the sooner we get him +back! I'm right, mamma? Now--now--no water-works! Get your brother's +suitcase, Isadore. Now--now--no nonsense--quick!" + +With a deftly manoeuvred round of good-byes, a grip-laden dash for door, +a throbbing moment of turning back when it seemed as though Sarah +Kantor's arms could not unlock their deadlock of him, Leon Kantor was +out and gone, the group of faces point-etched into the silence behind +him. The poor mute face of Mannie, laughing softly. Rosa Kantor crying +into her hands. Esther, grief-crumpled, but rich in the enormous hope of +youth. The sweet Gina, to whom the waiting months had already begun +their reality. + +Not so, Sarah Kantor. In a bedroom adjoining, its high-ceilinged +vastness as cold as a cathedral to her lowness of stature, sobs dry and +terrible were rumbling up from her, only to dash against lips tightly +restraining them. + +On her knees beside a chest of drawers, and unwrapping it from +swaddling-clothes, she withdrew what at best had been a sorry sort of +fiddle. Cracked of back and solitary of string it was as if her +trembling arms, raising it above her head, would make of themselves and +her swaying body the tripod of an altar. The old twisting and prophetic +pain was behind her heart. Like the painted billows of music that the +old Italian masters loved to do, there wound and wreathed about her +clouds of song. + + But I've a rendezvous with Death + On some scarred slope of battered hill, + When spring comes round again this year + And the first meadow-flowers appear. + + + + +THE LUBBENY KISS + + +BY LOUISE RICE + +From _Ainslee's Magazine_ + +For many hours the hot July sun had beaten down upon the upland meadows +and the pine woods of the lower New Jersey hills. So, when the dew began +to fall, there arose from them a heady brew, distilled from blossoming +milkweed and fruiting wild raspberry canes and mountain laurel and dried +pine needles. + +The Princess Dora Parse took this perfume into her lusty young lungs and +blew it out again in a long sigh, after which she bent her first finger +over her thumb as one must when one returns what all Romanys know to be +"the breath of God." She did this almost unconsciously, for all her +faculties were busied in another matter. + +The eyes of a gorgio, weakened by an indoor life, would never have been +able to distinguish the small object for which the princess looked, for +she was perched up on the high seat of the red Romany _wardo_, and she +drove her two strong, shaggy horses with a free and careless hand. But +to Dora Parse the blur of vague shadows gliding by each wheel was not +vague at all. Suddenly she checked her horses and sprang down. + +The patteran for which she was looking was laid beneath a clump of the +flowering weed which the Romanys call "stars in the sky." The gorgios +know it as Queen Ann's lace, and the farmers curse it by the name of the +wild carrot. The patteran was like a miniature log cabin without a roof, +and across the top one large stick was laid, pointing upward along the +mountain road. + +Two brown and slender fingers on the big braid which dropped over her +shoulder, the princess meditated, a shiver of fear running through her. +What, she asked herself, could this mean? Why, for the first time in +years, were the wagons to go to the farm of Jan Jacobus? Even if it were +only a chance happening, it was a most unfortunate one, for young Jan, +the fair-haired, giant son of old Jacobus, with his light blue eyes and +his drawling, insolent speech, was the last person in the world that she +wanted to see, especially with her man near. + +For she had meant no harm. Many and many a time she had smiled into the +eyes of men and felt pride in her power over them. Still--and yet--The +princess scattered the patteran with her foot, for she knew that all the +wagons must be ahead of her, since she had lagged so, and she leaped to +her seat with one easy, lithe swing and drove on up the darkening road. + +Jan Jacobus, like several other descendants of the Dutch settlers of New +Jersey, held his upland farm on shares with John Lane's tribe of +gypsies. Jacobuses and Bantas and Koppfs, they made no bones about +having business dealings with the tribe of English Romanys which had +followed a regular route, twice a year, from Maryland to the upper part +of New Jersey, since before the beginning of the Revolutionary days. The +descendants of the English settlers, the Hardys, the Lesters, the +Vincents, and the Farrands, looked with still persisting English reserve +upon the roamers of the woods and would have no traffic with them, +though a good many of their sons and daughters had to know the few +Romany young people who were left, by twos and threes in the towns for +occasional years of schooling. + +The tribe, trading in land in the two States which they frequented, and +breeding horses, was very rich, but not very many people knew that. +However, they were conceded to be shrewd bargainers, and when old John +bought Martin Debbins' upland and rocky farm one year, with the money +that he had made by a lucky purchase of a gangling colt whose owner had +failed rightly to appraise its possibilities as a racer, Boonton and +Dover and Morristown laughed. + +"_Sal_ away," old John retorted pleasantly to the cashier of the bank in +Boonton, where the tube had deposited its surplus funds for many years, +"but you won't _sal_ so much when you _dik_ what I will make out of +that joke." + +The cashier thereupon looked thoughtful. It might well be that he and +others would not laugh when they saw good fortune which might have been +theirs following this genial old outlaw. + +That summer the wagons camped on the Debbins place, and old John stocked +it with a lot of fine hogs, for which the land was especially adapted. +They fattened on the many acres, wooded with wild nut trees, and +Jacobus--as keen a bargainer as any Romany, upon whom John Lane had had +his eye all the time--took the farm on shares, and every year thereafter +the cashier at the bank added a neat little total to the big balance +which the tribe was rolling up. + +And every year, as the wagons beat up toward Dover in July, old John +would drive on ahead and spend a night of mingled business and pleasure +with old Jan, reckoning up the profits on the Berkshires for which the +farm was now famous, and putting down big mugs of the "black drink" for +which Aunty Alice Lee, John Lane's ancient cousin, was equally famous. +The amount of this fiery and head-splitting liquor which the two old men +thus got away with was afterward gleefully recounted in the wagons and +fearfully whispered of in the little Dutch church at Horse's Neck which +the Jacobuses had attended for over a hundred years. + +But never, as wagon after wagon had gone up the turning that led to the +upward farm, had there been a patteran pointing that way. Always, it had +shown the way onward and downward, to the little hamlet of Rockaway, +where there was an old and friendly camping place, back of the +blacksmith shop beyond the church. Old John never encouraged the wagons +to visit any of the properties held by the tribe. + +"Silver blackens the salt of friendship," he would say. + +Dora Parse was driving her own _wardo_, a very fine one which had +belonged to her mother. Lester Montague, of Sea Tack, Maryland, who +makes the wagons of Romanys for all the Atlantic coast tribes, like his +father before him, had done an especially good job of it. The princess +had been certified, by the Romany rites, to old John's eldest son, +George, for she had flatly refused to be married according to the gorgio +ways. Not having been married a full year, he was not yet entitled to +carry the heavy, silver-topped stick which is the badge of the married +man, nor could he demand a place in his wife's tent or wagon unless she +expressly invited him. Dora Parse and George Lane were passionately in +love with each other, and their meeting and mating had been the +flowering romance of the tribe, the previous summer. + +The princess, being descended from a very old Romany family, as her name +showed, was far higher in rank than any one in the Lane tribe. Her +aristocratic lineage showed in the set of her magnificent head, in the +small, delicate fingers of her hand, and in the fire and richness of her +eyes. Also, her skin was of the colour of old ivory upon which is cast a +distant, faint reflection of the sunset, and her mouth, thinner than +those of most Romanys, was of the colour of a ripe pomegranate. + +"A _rauni, a puro rauni_," all the tribes of the eastern coast murmured +respectfully, when Dora Parse's name was mentioned. + +She was, indeed, a very great lady, but she was a flirtatious and +headstrong girl. She was one of the few modern gypsies who still hold to +the unadulterated worship of "those." All the members of John Lane's +tribe were Methodists--had been since before they had migrated from +England. In every wagon, save Dora's, a large illustrated Bible lay on a +little table, and those who could, read them aloud to the rest of a +Sunday afternoon. This did not mean, however, that the Romanys had +descended to gorgio ways, or that they had wholly left off their +attentions to "those". They combined the two. Old John was known as a +fervent and eloquent leader in prayer at the Wednesday-night prayer +meetings in the Maryland town where his church membership was held, but +he had not ceased to carry the "box of meanings," as befitted the chief +of the tribe. + +This was a very beautifully worked box of pure gold, made by the great +Nikola of Budapest, whose boxes can be found inside the shirt of every +gypsy chief, where they are always carried. In them are some grains of +wheat, garnered by moonlight, a peacock's feather, and a small silver +bell with a coiled snake for a handle. When anything is to be decided, a +few of the grains are taken out and counted. If they are even, the omen +is bad, but if they are odd, all is well. Old John had an elastic and +accommodating mind, like all Romanys, so he never thought it strange +that he should ask the "box of meanings" whether or not it was going to +storm on prayer-meeting nights. + +Dora Parse thought of the box now, and wished that she might have the +peacock's feather for a minute, so that her uneasy sense of impending +bad luck would leave her. Then she stopped beside a cross-barred gate +where an old man was evidently waiting for her. + +"Lane was gettin' troubled about yuh," he said, as he turned the horses +and peered curiously up at her. He knew who she was, not only because +John Lane had said who it was who was late, but because Dora Parse's +appearance was well known to the whole countryside. She was the only +member of the tribe who kept to the full Romany dress. There were big +gold loops in her small ears, and on her arms, many gold bracelets, +whose lightness testified to their freedom from alloy. Her skirt was of +red, heavily embroidered in blue, and her waist, with short sleeves, was +of sheer white cloth, with an embroidered bolero. Her hair she wore in +the ancient fashion, in two braids on either side of her face. She could +well afford to, the chis muttered among themselves. Any girl with hair +like that-- + +There was a long lane leading to the barns and to the meadow back of +them, and there, said Jan, the tribe was to camp. As the princess drove +along the short distance, she swiftly snatched off her little bolero, +put it on wrong side out, and then snatched it off and righted it. That +much, at least, she could do to avert ill luck. And her heart bounded as +she drove in among the other wagons, for her husband came running to +meet her and held out his arms. + +She dropped into them and laid each finger tip, delicately, in +succession, upon his eyes and his ears and his mouth, the seal of a +betrothal and the sign whereby a Romany chal may know that a chi intends +to accept him when he speaks for her before the tribe; a sign that +lovers repeat as a sacred and intimate caress. She leaned, hard, into +his arms, and he held her, pressing the tender, confidential kiss that +is given to children behind her little ear. + +Dora Parse suddenly ran both hands through his thick hair and gave it a +little pull. She always did that when her spirits rose. Then she turned +and looked at the scene, and at once she knew that there was to be some +special occasion. Aunty Alice Lee was seated by a cooking fire, on which +stood the enormous iron pot in which the "big meals" were prepared, when +the tribe was to eat together and not in separate groups, as it usually +did. There were some boards laid on wooden horses, and Pyramus Lee, +aunty's grandson, was bringing blocks of wood from the woodshed for +seats. Dora Parse clapped her hands with delight and looked at her man. + +"_Tetcho_!" she exclaimed, approvingly, using the word that spells all +degrees of satisfaction. "And what is it for, stickless one? Is it a +talk over silver?" + +"Yes, it is some business," George Lane replied, "but first there will +be a _gillie shoon_." + +A _gillie shoon_ has its counterpart in the English word "singsong," as +it is beginning to be used now, with this exception: Romanys have few +"fixed" songs. They have strains which are set, which every one knows, +but a _gillie shoon_ means that the performers improvise coninually; and +in this sense it is a mystic ceremony, never held at an appointed time, +except a "time of Mul-cerus," which really means a sort of religious +wave of feeling, which strikes tribe after tribe, usually in the spring. + +"Marda has come back," Aunty Lee called out to Dora Parse. No one ever +called her by her full name of Marda Lee, because she was a Lee only by +courtesy, having been adopted from a distant wagon when both her parents +were killed in a thunderstorm. Marda, wearing the trim tailored skirt +and waist that were her usual costume, was putting the big red +tablecloth of the "big meals" on the boards. Dora went quickly toward +the young girl and embraced her. + +"How is our little scholar?" she asked affectionately. + +"I am very well, Dora Parse, but a little tired," Marda answered. + +"And did you receive another paper?" + +"Yes. I passed my exams. It will save me half a year in Dover." + +"That is good," Dora Parse replied, although she had only the dimmest +idea of what Marda meant. The young girl knew that. She had just come +from taking a special course in Columbia, and she was feeling the breach +between herself and her people to be especially wide. Because of that, +perhaps, she also felt more loving toward all of them than she ever had, +and especially toward Dora about whom she knew something that was most +alarming. Dora Parse noted the pale, grave face of her favourite friend +with concern. + +"Smile, bird of my heart," she entreated, "for we are to have a _gillie +shoon_. Sit near me, that I may follow your heaven voice." + +There was no flattery meant. The Romanys call the soprano "the heaven +voice," the tenor "the sky voice," the contralto "the earth voice," and +the basso "the sea voice." Dora had a really wonderful earth voice, +almost as wonderful as Marda's heaven voice, which would have been +remarkable even among opera singers, and the two were known everywhere +for their improvisations. In answer to the remark of the princess, Marda +gave her a strange look and said: + +"I shall be near you, Dora Parse. Do not forget." + +Her manner was certainly peculiar, the princess thought, as she walked +away. But then one never knew what Marda was thinking about. Her great +education set her apart from others. Any chi who habitually read herself +to sleep over those most _puro libros_, "The Works of William +Shakespeare, in Eight Volumes, Complete, with Glossary and Appendix," +must not be judged by ordinary standards. The princess knew the full +title of those _puro libros_, having painfully spelled it out, all one +rainy afternoon, in Marda's mother's wagon, with repeated assitance and +explanations from Marda, which had left the princess with a headache. + +Now Aunty Lee took off the heavy iron cover of the pot and the odour of +Romany duck stew, than which there is nothing in the world more +appetizing, mingled with the sweet fragrance of the drying hay. Aunty +thrust a fork as long as a poker into the bubbling mass and then gave +the call that brings the tribe in a hurry. + +"Empo!" she said in her shrill, cracked voice. "Empo! Empo!" + +Laughing, teasing, jostling, talking, they all came, spilling out from +the wagons, running from the barn, sauntering in, the lovers, by twos, +and sat down before the plates heaped high with the duck and the +vegetables with which it was cooked and the big loaves of Italian bread +which the Romanys like and always buy as they pass through towns where +there are Italian bakeries. + +But they sat quiet then, and each one looked toward the princess, as +politeness demanded, since she was the highest in rank among them. + +She drew a sliver of meat from her plate and tossed it over her +shoulder. + +"To the great _ré_" she said. + +"To the _shule_," each one murmured. Then, having paid their compliments +to the sun and the moon, as all good Romanys must before eating, they +fell to with heartiness. + +When they were through, the mothers and the old men cleared away the +tables and put the younger children to bed in the wagons, and the +princess and George Lane and Marda and young Adam Lane, George's +youngest brother, walked up and down, outside the glow from the cooking +fire, taking the deep, full breaths which cleanse the mouth and prepare +the soul for the ecstasy of song. + +The men took away the table and the lanterns which had been standing +about, and put out the cooking fire, for the big moon was rolling up +over the treetops, and Romanys sing by her light alone, if they can. +Frogs were calling in the shallow stretches of the Upper Rockaway. +People began to sit down in a big circle. + +Then Marda started the _gillie shoon_. At first you could not have been +sure whether the sound was far or near, for she "covered" her tones, in +a way that many a gorgio gives years and much silver to learn. Then the +wonderful tone swelled out, as if an organ stop were being pulled open, +and one by one, the four leaders cast in the dropping notes which +followed and sustained the theme that Marda was weaving: + +"Lal--la--ai--lala--lalu! Ai--l-a-a-a--lalu!" + +Old John, who had not appeared before, slid into the circle, holding by +the sleeve a giant of a man who seemed to come half unwillingly. Dora +Parse saw him, and she could not repress the shiver that ran through her +at the sight of young Jan Jacobus, yet she sang on. The deep, majestic +basses throbbed out the foundation of the great fuguelike chorus, and +the sopranos soared and soared until they were singing falsetto, +according to gorgio standards, only it sounded like the sweetly piercing +high notes of violins, and the tenors and contraltos wove a garland of +glancing melody between the two. They were all singing now. Rocking back +and forth a little, swaying gently from side to side, lovers clasped +together, mothers in their young sons' arms, and fathers clasping their +daughters, they sent out to the velvet arch above them the heart cry of +a race, proud and humble, cleanly voluptuous, strong and cruel, +passionate and loving, elemental like the north wind and subtle as the +fragrance of the poppy. + +"Ai--lallu! Ai--lala--lala! Ai--lallu!" + +Jan Jacobus sat with his big jaw dropping. Stupid boor that he was, he +could not have explained the terrifying effect which this wild music and +those tense, uplifting faces had upon him, but he would have given +anything to be back in his mother's kitchen, with the lamp lit and the +dark, unfamiliar night shut out. + +As suddenly as the singing had begun, it stopped. People coughed, moved +a little, whispered to one another. Then George Lane stood upon his +feet, pulling Dora Parse with him. + +"You see her?" he asked them all, holding out his wife in his arms. + +Dora Parse knew then, for he was beginning the ritual of the man or +woman who accuses a partner, before the tribe, of unfaithfulness. He was +using the most _puro_ Romany _jib_, for only so can the serious affairs +of the tribe tribunal be conducted. Dora Parse struggled in the strong +hands of her man. + +"No! No!" she cried. "No--no!" + +"You see her?" George Lane repeated to the circle. + +"We see her," they answered in a murmur that ran around from end to end. + +"She is mine?" + +"She is yours." + +"What shall be done to her if she has lost the spirit of our love?" + +Again Dora Parse furiously struggled, but George Lane held her. + +"What shall be done with her? If that is so?" + +Aunty Lee, as the oldest woman present, now took up the replies, as was +her right and duty: + +"Let her go to that other, if she wishes, and do you close your tent and +your wagon against her." + +"And if she does not wish?" + +"Then punish her." + +"What shall be done to the man?" + +"Is he a Romany?" + +"No." + +Jan Jacobus half started up, but strong hands instantly jerked him down. + +"He is a gorgio?" + +"Yes." + +"Do nothing. We do not soil our hands with gorgios. Let the woman bear +the blame. She is a Romany. She should have known better. She is a +woman, the wiser sex. It is her fault. Let her be punished." + +"Do you all say so?" George Lane demanded. + +"We say so." Again the rippling murmur. + +Jan Jacobus made a desperate attempt to get on his feet, but, for all +his strength, he might as well have tried to uncoil the folds of a great +snake as to unbind the many hands that held him, for the Romanys have +as many secret ways of restraining a person as the Japanese. + +George Lane drew his wife tenderly close to him. + +"She shall be punished," he said, "but first she shall hear, before you +all, that I love her and that I know she has not lost the spirit of our +love. Her fault was born of lightness of heart and vanity, not of evil." + +"What is her fault? Name it," commanded Aunty Lee. + +George Lane looked over at Jan. + +"Her fault is that she trusted a gorgio to understand the ways of a +Romany. For our girls have the spirit of love in their eyes, but no man +among us would kiss a girl unless he received the sign from her. But the +gorgio men are without honour. To-day, as this woman who is mine stopped +to talk with a gorgio, among some trees where I waited, thinking to +enter her wagon there, he kissed her, and she kissed him, in return." + +"Not with the _lubbeny_ kiss--not with that kiss!" Dora Parse cried. +"May I be lost as Pharaoh was in the sea if I speak not the truth!" + +The solemn oath, never taken by any Romany lightly and never falsely +sworn to, rang out on the still night air. A cold, but firm little hand +was slipped into Dora Parse's. Marda was near, as she had promised, and +the hot palm of the princess closed gratefully upon it. + +George Lane drew his wife upon his breast, and over her glossy head he +looked for encouragement to Aunty Lee, who knew what he must do. He was +very pale, but he must not hesitate. + +"Kiss me, my love," he said, loudly and clearly, "here before my people, +that I may punish you. Give me the kiss of love, when tongues and lips +meet, that you may know your fault." + +Now Dora Parse grew very pale, too, and she leaned far back against her +man's arms, her eyes wide with terror. And no one spoke, for in all the +history of the tribe this thing had never happened before, though every +one had heard of it. Dora Parse knew that, if she refused, her oath +would be considered false, and she would be cast out, not only from her +husband's tent and wagon, but from all Romany tribes. And slowly she +leaned forward, and George Lane bent down. + +Jan Jacobus, although he had not understood the words of the ritual, +thought he knew what had happened. The gypsy fool was forgiving his +pretty wife. The young Dutchman settled back on his haunches, suddenly +aware that he was no longer held. And then, with all the others, he +sprang to his feet, for Dora Parse was hanging in her husband's arms, +with blood pouring from her mouth and George Lane was sobbing aloud as +he called her name. + +"What--what--what happened?" Jan stammered. "Gawd--did he kill her?" + +Old John Lane, his serene face unruffled, turned the bewildered and +frightened boy toward the lane and spoke, in the silky, incisive tones +which were half of his enchanting charm. + +"Nothing much has happened. One of our girls allowed a gorgio to kiss +her, so her man bit off the tip of her tongue. It is not necessary, +often, to do it, but it is not a serious matter. It will soon heal. She +will be able to talk--a little. It is really nothing, but I thought you +might like to see it. It is seldom that gorgios are allowed to see a +thing like that. + +"Please say to your father that I will spend the evening as usual with +him. My people will pass on." + + + + +THE TRIAL IN TOM BELCHER'S STORE + + +BY SAMUEL A. DERIEUX + +From _The American Magazine_ + +It was a plain case of affinity between Davy Allen and Old Man +Thornycroft's hound dog Buck. Davy, hurrying home along the country road +one cold winter afternoon, his mind intent on finishing his chores +before dark, looking back after passing Old Man Thornycroft's house to +find Buck trying to follow him--_trying_ to, because the old man, who +hated to see anybody or anything but himself have his way, had chained a +heavy block to him to keep him from doing what nature had intended him +to do--roam the woods and poke his long nose in every briar patch after +rabbits. + +At the sight Davy stopped, and the dog came on, dragging behind him in +the road the block of wood fastened by a chain to his collar, and trying +at the same time to wag his tail. He was tan-coloured, lean as a rail, +long-eared, a hound every inch; and Davy was a ragged country boy who +lived alone with his mother, and who had an old single-barrel shotgun at +home, and who had in his grave boy's eyes a look, clear and +unmistakable, of woods and fields. + +To say it was love at first sight when that hound, dragging his prison +around with him, looked up into the boy's face, and when that ragged boy +who loved the woods and had a gun at home looked down into the hound's +eyes, would hardly be putting it strong enough. It was more than +love--it was perfect understanding, perfect comprehension. "I'm your +dog," said the hound's upraised, melancholy eyes. "I'll jump rabbits and +bring them around for you to shoot. I'll make the frosty hills echo with +music for you. I'll follow you everywhere you go. I'm your dog if you +want me--yours to the end of my days." + +And Davy looking down into those upraised beseeching eyes, and at that +heavy block of wood, and at the raw place the collar had worn on the +neck, then at Old Man Thornycroft's bleak, unpainted house on the hill, +with the unhomelike yard and the tumble-down fences, felt a great pity, +the pity of the free for the imprisoned, and a great longing to own, not +a dog, but _this_ dog. + +"Want to come along?" he grinned. + +The hound sat down on his haunches, elevated his long nose and poured +out to the cold winter sky the passion and longing of his soul. Davy +understood, shook his head, looked once more into the pleading eyes, +then at the bleak house from which this prisoner had dragged himself. + +"That ol' devil!" he said. "He ain't fitten to own a dog. Oh, I wish he +was mine!" + +A moment he hesitated there in the road, then he turned and hurried away +from temptation. + +"He _ain't_ mine," he muttered. "Oh' dammit all!" + +But temptation followed him as it has followed many a boy and man. A +little way down the road was a pasture through which by a footpath he +could cut off half a mile of the three miles that lay between him and +home. Poised on top of the high rail fence that bordered the road, he +looked back. The hound was still trying to follow, walking +straddle-legged, head down, all entangled with the taut chain that +dragged the heavy block. The boy watched the frantic efforts, pity and +longing on his face; then he jumped off the fence inside the pasture and +hurried on down the hill, face set straight ahead. + +He had entered a pine thicket when he heard behind the frantic, choking +yelps of a dog in dire distress. Knowing what had happened, he ran back. +Within the pasture the hound, only his hind feet touching the ground, +was struggling and pawing at the fence. He had jumped, the block had +caught, and was hanging him. Davy rushed to him. Breathing fast, he +unclicked the chain. The block an chain fell on the other side of the +fence, and the dog was free. Shrewdly the boy looked back up the road; +the woods hid the old man's house from view, and no one was to be seen. +With a little grin of triumph he turned and broke into a run down the +pasture hill toward the pines, the wind blowing gloriously into his +face, the dog galloping beside him. + +Still running, the two came out into the road that led home, and +suddenly Davy stopped short and his face flushed. Yonder around the bend +on his grey mare jogged Squire Kirby toward them, his pipe in his mouth, +his white beard stuck cozily inside the bosom of his big overcoat There +was no use to run, no use to try to make the dog hide, no use to try to +hide himself--the old man had seen them both. Suppose he knew whose dog +this was! Heart pounding, Davy waited beside the road. + +Mr. Kirby drew rein opposite them and looked down with eyes that +twinkled under his bushy white brows. He always stopped to ask the boy +how his mother was, and how they were getting along. Davy had been to +his house many a time with eggs and chickens to sell, or with a load of +seasoned oak wood. Many a time he had warmed before Mr. Kirby's fire in +the big living- and bedroom combined, and eaten Mrs. Kirby's fine white +cake covered with frosting. Never before had he felt ill at ease in the +presence of the kindly old man. + +"That's a genuine hound you got there, son, ain't it?" + +"Yes, sir," said Davy. + +"Good for rabbits an' 'possums an' coons, eh?" + +"He shore is!" + +"Well, next big fat 'possum you an' him ketch, you bring that 'possum +'round an' me an' you'll talk business. Maybe we'll strike a bargain. +Got any good sweet potatoes? Well, you bring four or five bushels along +to eat that 'possum with. Haulin' any wood these days? Bring me a load +or two of good, dry oak--pick it out, son, hear? How's your ma? All +right? That's good. Here--" + +He reached deep down in a pocket of his enormous faded overcoat, brought +out two red apples, and leaned down out of his saddle, that creaked +under the strain of his weight. + +"Try one of 'em yourself, an' take one of 'em home to your ma. Git up, +Mag!" + +He jogged on down the road, and the boy, sobered walked on. One thing +was certain, though, Mr Kirby hadn't known whose dog this was. What +difference did it make anyhow? He hadn't stolen anything. He couldn't +let a dog choke to death before his eyes. What did Old Man Thornycroft +care about a dog, anyhow, the hard-hearted old skin-flint! + +He remembered the trouble his mother had had when his father died and +Old Man Thornycroft pushed her for a note he had given. He had heard +people talk about it at the time, and he remembered how white his +mother's face had been. Old Man Thornycroft had refused to wait, and his +mother had had to sell five acres of the best land on the little farm to +pay the note. It was after the sale that Mr. Kirby, who lived five miles +away, had ridden over. + +"Why didn't you let me know, Mrs. Allen!" he had demanded. "I would have +loaned you the money--gladly, gladly!" He had risen from the fire and +pulled on the same overcoat he wore now. It was faded then, and that was +two years ago. + +It was sunset when Davy reached home to find his mother out in the +clean-swept yard picking up chips in her apron. From the bedroom window +of the little one-storied unpainted house came a bright red glow, and +from the kitchen the smell of cooking meat. His mother straightened up +from her task with a smile when with his new-found partner he entered +the yard. + +"Why, Davy," she asked, "where did you get him?" + +"He--he just followed me, Ma." + +"But whose dog is he?" + +"He's mine, Ma--he just took up with me." + +"Where, Davy?" + +"Oh, way back down the road--in a pasture." + +"He must belong to somebody." + +"He's just a ol' hound dog, Ma, that's all he is. Lots of hounds don't +belong to nobody--everybody knows that, Ma. Look at him, Ma. Mighty nigh +starved to death. Lemme keep him. We can feed him on scraps. He can +sleep under the house. Me an' him will keep you in rabbits. You won't +have to kill no more chickens. Nobody don't want him but me!" + +From her gaunt height she looked down into the boy's eager eyes, then at +the dog beside him. "All right, son," she said. "If he don't belong to +anybody." + +That night Davy alternately whistled and talked to the dog beside him as +he husked the corn he had raised with his own hands, and chopped the +wood he had cut and hauled--for since his father's death he had kept +things going. He ate supper in a sort of haze; he hurried out with a tin +plate of scraps; he fed the grateful, hungry dog on the kitchen steps. +He begged some vaseline from his mother and rubbed it on the sore neck. +Then he got two or three empty gunnysacks out of the corncrib, crawled +under the house to a warm place beside the chimney and spread them out +for a bed. He went into the house whistling; he didn't hear a word of +the chapter his mother read out of the Bible. Before he went to bed in +the shed-room, he raised the window. + +"You all right, old feller?" he called. + +Underneath the house he heard the responsive tap-tap of a tail in the +dry dust. He climbed out of his clothes, leaving them in a pile in the +middle of the floor, tumbled into bed, and pulled the covers high over +him. + +"Golly!" he said. "Oh, golly!" + +Next day he hunted till sundown. The Christmas holidays were on and +there was no thought of school. He went only now and then, anyway, for +since his father's death there was too much for him to do at home. He +hunted in the opposite direction from Old Man Thornycroft's. It was +three miles away; barriers of woods and bottoms and hills lay between, +and the old man seldom stirred beyond the boundaries of his own farm; +but Davy wanted to be on the safe side. + +There were moments, though, when he thought of the old man, and wondered +if he had missed the dog and whether he would make any search for him. +There were sober moments, too, when he thought of his mother and Mr. +Kirby, and wished he had told them the truth. But then the long-drawn +bay of the hound would come from the bottoms ahead, and he would hurry +to the summons, his face flushed and eager. The music of the dog +running, the sound of the shots, and his own triumphant yells started +many an echo among the silent frosted hills that day. He came home with +enough meat to last a week--six rabbits. As he hurried into the yard he +held them up for the inspection of his mother, who was feeding the +chickens. + +"He's the finest rabbit dog ever was, Ma! Oh, golly, he can follow a +trail! I never see anything like it, Ma, I never did! I'll skin 'em an' +clean 'em after supper. You ought to have saw him, Ma! Golly!" + +And while he chopped the wood and milked the cow and fed the mule, and +skinned the rabbits, he saw other days ahead like this, and whistled and +sang and talked to the hound, who followed close at his heels every step +he took. + +Then one afternoon, while he was patching the lot fence, with Buck +sunning himself near the woodpile, came Old Man Thornycroft. Davy +recognized his buggy as it turned the bend in the road. He quickly +dropped his tools, called Buck to him and got behind the house where he +could see without being seen. The buggy stopped in the road, and the old +man, his hard, pinched face working, his buggy whip in his hand, came +down the walk and called Mrs. Alien out on the porch. + +"I just come to tell you," he cried, "that your boy Davy run off with my +dog las' Friday evenin'! There ain't no use to deny it. I know all about +it. I seen him when he passed in front of the house. I found the block I +had chained to the dog beside the road. I heered Squire Jim Kirby +talkin' to some men in Tom Belcher's sto' this very mornin'; just +happened to overhear him as I come in. 'A boy an' a dog,' he says, 'is +the happiest combination in nater.' Then he went on to tell about your +boy an' a tan dog. He had met 'em in the road. Met 'em when? Last Friday +evenin'. Oh, there ain't no use to deny it, Mrs. Allen! Your boy +Davy--he _stole_ my dog!" + +"Mr. Thornycroft"--Davy could not see his mother, but he could hear her +voice tremble--"he did _not_ know whose dog it was!" + +"He didn't? He didn't?" yelled the old man. "An' him a boy that knows +ever' dog for ten miles around! Right in front of my house, I tell +you--that's where he picked him up--that's where he tolled him off! +Didn't I tell you, woman, I seen him pass? Didn't I tell you I found he +block down the road? Didn't know whose dog it was? Ridiculous, +ridiculous! Call him, ask him, face him with it. Likely he'll lie--but +you'll see his face. Call him, that's all I ask. Call him!" + +"Davy!" called Mrs. Allen. "Davy!" + +Just a moment the boy hesitated. Then he went around the house. The +hound stuck very close to him, eyes full of terror, tail tucked as he +looked at the old man. + +"There he is--with my dog!" cried the old man. "You didn't know whose +dog it was, did you, son? Eh? You didn't know, now, did you?" + +"Yes!" cried the boy "I knowed!" + +"Hear that, Mrs. Allen? Did he know? What do you say now? He stole my +dog, didn't he? That's what he done, didn't he? Answer me, woman! You +come here!" he yelled, his face livid, and started, whip raised, toward +boy and dog. + +There were some smooth white stones the size of hen eggs arranged around +a flower bed in the yard, and Davy stood near these stones--and now, +quick as a flash, he stooped down and picked one up. + +"You stop!" he panted, his face very white. + +His mother cried out and came running toward him, but Thornycroft had +stopped. No man in his right mind wants to advance on a country boy with +a rock. Goliath tried it once. + +"All right!" screamed the old man. "You steal first--then you try to +assault an old man! I didn't come here to raise no row. I just came hear +to warn you, Mrs. Allen. I'll have the law on that boy--I'll have the +law on him before another sun sets!" + +He turned and hurried toward the buggy. Davy dropped the rock. Mrs. +Allen stood looking at the old miser, who was clambering into his +buggy, with a sort of horror. Then she ran toward the boy. + +"Oh, Davy! run after him. Take the dog to him. He's terrible, Davy, +terrible! Run after him--anything--anything!" + +But the boy looked up at her with grim mouth and hard eyes. + +"I ain't a-goin' to do it, Ma!" he said. + +It was after supper that very night that the summons came. Bob Kelley, +rural policeman, brought it. + +"Me an' Squire Kirby went to town this mornin'," he said, "to look up +some things about court in the mornin.' This evenin' we run into Old Man +Thornycroft on the street, lookin' for us. He was awful excited. He had +been to Mr. Kirby's house, an' found out Mr. Kirby was in town, an' +followed us. He wanted a warrant swore out right there. Mr. Kirby tried +to argue with him, but it warn't no use. So at last Mr. Kirby turned to +me. 'You go on back, Bob,' he said. 'This'll give me some more lookin' +up to do. Tell my wife I'll just spend the night with Judge Fowler, an' +git back in time for court in Belcher's sto' in the mornin'. An', Bob, +you just stop by Mrs. Allen's--she's guardian of the boy--an' tell her I +say to bring him to Belcher's sto' to-morrow mornin' at nine. You be +there, too, Mr. Thornycroft--an,' by the way, bring that block of wood +you been talkin' about." + +That was all the squire had said, declared the rural policeman. No, he +hadn't sent any other message--just said he would read up on the case. +The rural policeman went out and closed the door behind him. It had been +informal, hap-hazard, like the life of the community in which they +lived. But, for all that, the law had knocked at the door of the Widow +Allen, and left a white-faced mother and a bewildered boy behind. + +They tried to resume their usual employments. Mrs. Allen sat down beside +the table, picked up her sewing and put her glasses on, but her hands +trembled when she tried to thread the needle. Davy sat on a split-bottom +chair in the corner, his feet up on the rungs, and tried to be still; +but his heart was pounding fast and there was a lump in his throat. +Presently he got up and went out of doors, to get in some kindling on +the back porch before it snowed, he told his mother. But he went because +he couldn't sit there any longer, because he was about to explode with +rage and grief and fear and bitterness. + +He did not go toward the woodpile--what difference did dry kindling make +now? At the side of the house he stooped down and softly called Buck. +The hound came to him, wriggling along under the beams, and he leaned +against the house and lovingly pulled the briar-torn ears. A long time +he stayed there, feeling on his face already the fine mist of snow. +To-morrow the ground would be white; it didn't snow often in that +country; day after to-morrow everybody would hunt rabbits--everybody but +him and Buck. + +It was snowing hard when at last he went back into the warm room, so +warm that he pulled off his coat. Once more he tried to sit still in the +split-bottom chair. But there is no rage that consumes like the rage of +a boy. In its presence he is so helpless! If he were a man, thought +Davy, he would go to Old Man Thornycroft's house that night, call him +out, and thrash him in the road. If he were a man, he would curse, he +would do something. He looked wildly about the room, the hopelessness of +it all coming over him in a wave. Then suddenly, because he wasn't a +man, because he couldn't do what he wanted to do, he began to cry, not +as a boy cries, but more as a man cries, in shame and bitterness, his +shoulders shaken by great convulsive sobs, his head buried in his hands, +his fingers running through his tangled mop of hair. + +"Davy, Davy!" The sewing and the scissors slipped to the floor. His +mother was down on her knees beside him, one arm about his shoulders, +trying to pry his face from his hands, trying to look into his eyes. +"You're my man, Davy! You're the only man, the only help I've got. +You're my life, Davy. Poor boy! Poor child!" + +He caught hold of her convulsively, and she pressed his head against her +breast. Then he saw that she was crying, and he grew quiet, and wiped +his eyes with his ragged coat sleeve. + +"I'm all right now, Ma," he said; but he looked at her wildly. + +She did not follow him into his little unceiled bedroom. She must have +known that he had reached that age where no woman could help him. It +must be a man now to whom he could pin his faith. And while he lay +awake, tumbling and tossing, along with bitter thoughts of Old Man +Thornycroft came other bitter thoughts of Mr. Kirby, whom, deep down in +his boy's heart he had worshipped--Mr. Kirby, who had sided with Old Man +Thornycroft and sent a summons with--no message for him. "God!" he said. +"God!" And pulled his hair, down there under the covers; and he hated +the law that would take a dog from him and give it back to that old +man--the law that Mr. Kirby represented. + +It was still snowing when next morning he and his mother drove out of +the yard and he turned the head of the reluctant old mule in the +direction of Belcher's store. A bitter wind cut their faces, but it was +not as bitter as the heart of the boy. Only twice on that five-mile ride +did he speak. The first time was when he looked back to find Buck, whom +they had left at home, thinking he would stay under the house on such a +day, following very close behind the buggy. + +"Might as well let him come on," said the boy. + +The second time was when they came in sight of Belcher's store, dim +yonder through the swirling snow. Then he looked up into his mother's +face. + +"Ma," he said grimly, "I ain't no thief!" + +She smiled as bravely as she could with her stiffened face and with the +tears so near the surface. She told him that she knew it, and that +everybody knew it. But there was no answering smile on the boys set +face. + +The squire's gray mare, standing huddled up in the midst of other horses +and of buggies under the shed near the store, told that court had +probably already convened. Hands numb, the boy hitched the old mule to +the only rack left under the shed, then made Buck lie down under the +buggy. Heart pounding, he went up on the store porch with his mother and +pushed the door open. + +There was a commotion when they entered. The men, standing about the +pot-bellied stove, their overcoats steaming, made way for them. Old Man +Thornycroft looked quickly and triumphantly around. In the rear of the +store the squire rose from a table, in front of which was a cleared +space. + +"Pull up a chair nigh the stove for Mrs. Allen, Tom Belcher," he said. +"I'm busy tryin' this chicken-stealin' nigger. When I get through, Mrs. +Allen, if you're ready I'll call your case." + +Davy stood beside his mother while the trial of the negro proceeded. +Some of the fight had left him now, crowded down here among all these +grown men, and especially in the presence of Mr. Kirby, for it is hard +for a boy to be bitter long. But with growing anxiety he heard the sharp +questions the magistrate asked the negro; he saw the frown of justice; +he heard the sentence "sixty days on the gang." And the negro had stolen +only a chicken--and he had run off with another man's dog! + +"The old man's rough this mornin'," a man whispered to another above +him; and he saw the furtive grin on the face of Old Man Thornycroft, who +leaned against the counter, waiting. + +His heart jumped into his mouth when after a silence the magistrate +spoke: "Mr. Thornycroft, step forward, sir. Put your hand on the book +here. Now tell us about that dog of yours that was stole." + +Looking first at the magistrate, then at the crowd, as if to impress +them also, the old man told in a high-pitched, excited voice all the +details--his seeing Davy Allen pass in front of his house last Friday +afternoon, his missing the dog, his finding the block of wood down the +road beside the pasture fence, his over-hearing the squire's talk right +here in the store, his calling on Mrs. Allen, the boy's threatening him. + +"I tell you," he cried, "that's a dangerous character--that boy!" + +"Is that all you've got to say?" asked the squire. + +"It's enough, ain't it?" demanded Thornycroft angrily. + +The squire nodded and spat into the cuspidor between his feet. "I think +so," he said quietly, "Stand aside. Davy Alien step forward. Put your +hand on the book here, son. Davy, how old are you?" + +The boy gulped. "Thirteen years old, goin' on fo'teen." + +"You're old enough, son, to know the nater of the oath you're about to +take. For over two years you've been the mainstay an' support of your +mother. You've had to carry the burdens and responsibilities of a man, +Davy. The testimony you give in this case will be the truth, the whole +truth an' nothin' but the truth, so help you God. What about it?" + +Davy nodded, his face very white. + +"All right now. Tell us about it. Talk loud so we can hear--all of us." + +The boy's eyes never left Mr. Kirby's while he talked. Something in them +held him, fascinated him, overawed him. Very large and imposing he +looked there behind his little table, with his faded old overcoat on, +and there was no sound in the room but the boy's clear voice. + +"An' you come off an' left the dog at first?" + +"Yes, sir," + +"An' you didn't unfasten the chain from the block till the dog got +caught in the fence?" + +"No, sir, I didn't." + +"Did you try to get him to follow you then?" + +"No, sir, he wanted to." + +"Ask him, Mr. Kirby," broke in Thornycroft angrily, "if he tried to +drive him home!" + +"I'll ask him whatever seems fit an' right to me, sir," said Mr. Kirby. +"What did you tell your ma, Davy, when you got home?" + +"I told her he followed me." + +"Did you tell her whose dog he was? + +"No, sir." + +"Ain't that what you ought to have done? Ain't it?" + +Davy hesitated. "Yes, sir." + +There was a slight shuffling movement amoung the men crowded about. +Somebody cleared his throat. Mr. Kirby resumed. + +"This block you been tellin' about--how was it fastened to the dog?" + +"Thar was a chain fastened to the block by a staple. The other end was +fastened to the collar." + +"How heavy do you think that block was?" + +"About ten pound. I reckon." + +"Five," broke in Old Man Thornycroft with a sneer. + +Mr. Kirby turned to him. "You fetched it with you, didn't you? I told +you to. It's evidence. Bob Kelley, go out to Mr. Thornycroft's buggy an' +bring that block of wood into court." + +The room was silent while the rural policeman was gone. Davy still stood +in the cleared space before Mr. Kirby, his ragged overcoat on, his +tattered hat in his hand, breathing fast, afraid to look at his mother. +Everybody turned when Kelley came in with the block of wood. Everybody +craned their necks to watch, while at the magistrate's order Kelley +weighed the block of wood on the store's scales, which he put on the +magistrate's table. + +"Fo'teen punds," said Mr. Kirby. "Take the scales away." + +"It had rubbed all the skin off'n the dog's neck," broke in Davy +impulsively. "It was all raw an' bleedin'." + +"Aw, that ain't so!" cried Thornycroft. + +"Is the dog out there?" asked Mr. Kirby. + +"Yes, sir, under the buggy." + +"Bob Kelley, you go out an' bring that dog into court." + +The rural policeman went out, and came back with the hound, who looked +eagerly up from one face to the other, then, seeing Davy, came to him +and stood against him, still looking around with that expression of +melancholy on his face that a hound dog always wears except when he's in +action. + +"Bring the dog here, son!" commanded Mr. Kirby. He examined the raw +place on the neck. "Any of you gentlemen care to take a look?" he asked. + +"It was worse than that," declared Davy, "till I rubbed vase-leen on +it." + +Old Man Thornycroft pushed forward, face quivering. "What's all this got +to do with the boy stealin' the dog?" he demanded. "That's what I want +to know--what's it got to do?" + +"Mr. Thornycroft," said Kirby, "at nine o'clock this mornin' this place +ceased to be Tom Belcher's sto', an' become a court of justice. Some +things are seemly in a court, some not. You stand back there!" + +The old man stepped back to the counter, and stood julling his chin, his +eyes running over the crowd of faces. + +"Davy Allen," spoke Mr. Kirby, "you stand back there with your ma. Tom +Belcher make way for him. And, Tom, s'pose you put another stick of wood +in that stove an' poke up the fire." He took off his glasses, blew on +them, polished them with his handkerchief and readjusted them. Then, +leaning back in his chair, he spoke. + +"Gentlemen, from the beginnin' of time, as fur back as records go, a +dog's been the friend, companion, an' protector of man. Folks say he +come from the wolf, but that ain't no reflection on him, seem' that we +come from monkeys ourselves, an' I believe, takin' all things into +account, I'd as soon have a wolf for a ancestor as a monkey, an' a +little ruther. + +"Last night in the libery of my old friend Judge Fowler in town, I +looked up some things about this dog question. I find that there have +been some queer decisions handed down by the courts, showin' that the +law does recognize the fact that a dog is different from other +four-footed critters. For instance, it has been held that a dog has a +right to protect not only his life but his dignity; that where a man +worries a dog beyond what would be reasonable to expect any self +respectin' critter to stand, that dog has a right to bite that man, an' +that man can't collect any damages--provided the bitin' is done at the +time of the worryin' an' in sudden heat an' passion. That has been held +in the courts, gentlemen. The law that holds for man holds for dogs. + +"Another thing: If the engineer of a railroad train sees a cow or a +horse or a sheep on the track, or a hog, he must stop the train or the +road is liable for any damage done 'em. But if he sees a man walkin' +along the track he has a right to presume that the man, bein' a critter +of more or less intelligence, will git off, an' he is not called on to +stop under ordinary circumstances. The same thing holds true of a dog. +The engineer has a right to presume that the dog, bein' a critter of +intelligence, will get off the track. Here again the law is the same for +dog an' man. + +"_But_--if the engineer has reason to believe that the man's mind is +took up with some object of an engrossin' nater, he is supposed to stop +the train till the man comes to himself an' looks around. The same thing +holds true of a dog. If the engineer has reason to suspect that the +dog's mind is occupied with some engrossin' topic, he must stop the +train. That case has been tested in this very state, where a dog was on +the track settin' a covey of birds in the adjoinin' field. The railroad +was held responsible for the death of that dog, because the engineer +ought to have known by the action of the dog that his mind was on +somethin' else beside railroad trains an' locomotives." + +Again the magistrate spat into the cuspidor between his feet. Davy, +still watching him, felt his mother's grip on his arm. Everyone was +listening so closely that the whispered sneering comment of Old Man +Thornycroft to the man next to him was audible, "What's all this got to +do with the case?" + +"The p'int I'm gettin' to is this," went on Mr. Kirby, not paying +attention to him: "a dog is not like a cow or a horse or any four-footed +critter. He's a individual, an' so the courts have held in spirit if not +in actual words. Now this court of mine here in Tom Belcher's sto, ain't +like other courts. I have to do the decidin' myself; I have to interpret +the true spirit of the law, without technicalities an' quibbles such as +becloud it in other an' higher courts. An' I hold that since a dog is +_de facto_ an' _de jure_ an individual, he has a right to life, liberty +an' the pursuit of happiness. + +"Therefore, gentlemen, I hold that that houn' dog, Buck, had a perfect +right to follow that boy, Davy Allen, there; an' I hold that Davy Allen +was not called on to drive that dog back, or interfere in any way with +that dog followin' him if the dog so chose. You've heard the evidence of +the boy. You know, an' I know, he has spoke the truth this day, an' +there ain't no evidence to the contrary. The boy did not entice the dog. +He even went down the road, leavin' him behind. He run back only when +the dog was in dire need an' chokin' to death. He wasn't called on to +put that block an' chain back on the dog. He couldn't help it if the dog +followed him. He no more stole that dog than I stole him. He's no more a +thief than I am. I dismiss this case, Mr. Thornycroft, this case you've +brought against Davy Allen. I declare him innocent of the charge of +theft. I set it down right here on the records of this court." + +"Davy!" gasped Mrs. Allen. "Davy!" + +But, face working, eyes blazing, Old Man Thornycroft started forward, +and the dog, panting, shrank between boy and mother. "Jim Kirby!" cried +the old man, stopping for a moment in the cleared space. "You're +magistrate. What you say goes. But that dog thar--he's mine! He's my +property--mine by law!" He jerked a piece of rope out of his overcoat +pocket and came on toward the cowering dog. "Tom Belcher, Bob Kelley! +Stop that dog! He's mine!" + +"Davy!" Mrs. Alien was holding the boy. "Don't--don't say anything. +You're free to go home. Your record's clear. The dog's his!" + +"Hold on!" Mr. Kirby had risen from his chair. "You come back here, Mr. +Thornycroft. This court's not adjourned yet. If you don't get back, I'll +stick a fine to you for contempt you'll remember the rest of your days. +You stand where you are, sir! Right there! Don't move till I'm through!" + +Quivering the old man stood where he was. Mr. Kirby sat down, face +flushed, eyes blazing. "Punch up that fire, Tom Belcher," he said. "I +ain't through yet." + +The hound came trembling back to Davy, looked up in his face, licked his +hand, then sat down at the side opposite his former master, looking +around now and then at the old man, terror in his eyes. In the midst of +a deathly silence the magistrate resumed. + +"What I was goin' to say, gentlemen, is this: I'm not only magistrate, +I'm an officer in an organization that you country fellers likely don't +know of, an organization known as the Society for the Prevention of +Cruelty to Animals. As such an officer it's my duty to report an' bring +to trial any man who treats a dumb brute in a cruel an' inhuman way. Mr +Thornycroft, judgin' by the looks of that houn', you ain't give him +enough to eat to keep a cat alive--an' a cat we all know, don't eat +much, just messes over her vittles. You condemned that po' beast, for no +fault of his own, to the life of a felon. A houn' that ain't happy at +best, he's melancholy; an' a houn' that ain't allowed to run free is of +all critters the wretchedest. This houn's neck is rubbed raw. God only +knows what he's suffered in mind an' body. A man that would treat a dog +that way ain't fitten to own one. An' I hereby notify you that, on the +evidence of this boy, an' the evidence before our eyes, I will indict +you for breakin' the law regardin' the treatment of animals; an' I +notify you, furthermore, that as magistrate I'll put the law on you for +that same thing. An' it might be interestin' to you to know, sir, that I +can find you as much as five hundred dollars, or send you to jail for +one year, or both, if I see fit--an' there ain't no tellin' but what I +will see fit, sir." + +He looked sternly at Thornycroft. + +"Now I'm goin' to make a proposition that I advise you to jump at like +you never jumped at anything before. If you will give up that houn' +Buck--to me, say, or to anybody I decide will be kind to him--I will let +the matter drop. If you will go home like a peaceable citizen, you won't +hear no more about it from me; but if you don't--" + +"Git out of my way!" cried Old Man Thornycroft. "All of you! I'm +goin'--I'm goin'!" + +"Hold on!" said Mr. Kirby, when he had got almost to the door. "Do you, +in the presence of these witnesses, turn over this dog to me, +relinquishin' all claims to him, on the conditions named? Answer Yes or +No?" + +There was a moment's silence; then the old man cried out: + +"Take the old hound! He ain't wuth the salt in his vittles!" + +He jerked the door open. + +"Yes or no?" called Mr. Kirby inexorably. + +"Yes!" yelled the old man, and slammed the door behind him. + +"One minute, gentlemen," said Mr. Kirby, rising from the table and +gathering his papers and records together. "Just one more thing: If +anybody here has any evidence, or knows of any, tendin' to show that +this boy Davy Allen is not the proper person to turn over a houn' dog +to, I hope he will speak up." He waited a moment. "In the absence of any +objections, an' considerin' the evidence that's been given here this +mornin', I think I'll just let that dog go back the way he come. Thank +you, gentlemen. Court's adjourned!" + + + + +PORCELAIN CUPS + + +BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL + +From _Century Magazine_ + + +I + +OF GREATNESS INTIMATELY VIEWED + +"Oh, but they are beyond praise," said Cynthia Allonby, enraptured, "and +certainly you should have presented them to the Queen." + +"Her majesty already possesses a cup of that ware," replied Lord +Pevensey. "It was one of her New Year's gifts, from Robert Cecil. Hers +is, I believe, not quite so fine as either of yours; but then, they tell +me, there is not the like of this pair in England, nor indeed on the +hither side of Cataia." + +He set the two pieces of Chinese pottery upon the shelves in the south +corner of the room. These cups were of that sea-green tint called +céladon, with a very wonderful glow and radiance. Such oddities were the +last vogue at court in this year of grace 1593: and Cynthia could not +but speculate as to what monstrous sum Lord Pevensey had paid for this +his last gift to her. + +Now he turned, smiling, a really superb creature in his blue and gold. +"I had another message from the Queen--" + +"George," Cynthia said, with fond concern, "it frightens me to see you +thus foolhardy, in tempting alike the Queen's anger and the Plague." + +"Eh, as goes the Plague, it spares nine out of ten," he answered, +lightly. "The Queen, I grant you, is another pair of sleeves, for an +irritated Tudor spares nobody." + +But Cynthia Allonby kept silence, and did not exactly smile, while she +appraised her famous young kinsman. She was flattered by, and a little +afraid of, the gay self-confidence which led anybody to take such +chances. Two weeks ago it was that the painted terrible old Queen had +named Lord Pevensey to go straightway into France, where rumour had it, +King Henri was preparing to renounce the Reformed Religion, and making +his peace with the Pope: and for two weeks Pevensey had lingered, on one +pretence or another, at his house in London, with the Plague creeping +about the city like an invisible incalculable flame, and the Queen +asking questions at Windsor. Of all the monarchs that had ever reigned +in England, Elizabeth was the least used to having her orders +disregarded. Meanwhile Lord Pevensey came every day to the Marquis of +Falmouth's lodgings at Deptford; and every day Lord Pevensey pointed out +to the marquis's daughter that Pevensey, whose wife had died in +childbirth a year back, did not intend to go into France, for nobody +could foretell how long a stay, as a widower. Certainly it was all very +flattering ... + +"Yes, and you would be an excellent match," said Cynthia, aloud, "if +that were all. And yet, what must I reasonably expect in marrying, sir, +the famous Earl of Pevensey?" + +"A great deal of love and petting, my dear. And if there were anything +else to which you had a fancy, I would get it for you." + +Her glance went to those lovely cups and lingered fondly. "Yes, dear +Master Generosity, if it could be purchased or manufactured, you would +get it for me--" + +"If it exists I will get it for you," he declared. + +"I think that it exists. But I am not learned enough to know what it is. +George, if I married you I would have money and fine clothes and soft +hours and many lackeys to wait on me, and honour from all men. And you +would be kind to me, I know when you returned from the day's work at +Windsor--or Holyrood or the Louvre. But do you not see that I would +always be to you only a rather costly luxury, like those cups, which the +Queen's minister could afford to keep for his hours of leisure?" + +He answered: "You are all in all to me. You know it. Oh, very well do +you know and abuse your power, you adorable and lovely baggage, who have +kept me dancing attendance for a fortnight, without ever giving me an +honest yes or no." He gesticulated. "Well, but life is very dull in +Deptford village, and it amuses you to twist a Queen's adviser around +your finger! I see it plainly, you minx, and I acquiesce because, it +delights me to give you pleasure, even at the cost of some dignity. Yet +I may no longer shirk the Queen's business,--no, not even to amuse you, +my dear." + +"You said you had heard from her--again?" + +"I had this morning my orders, under Glorianna's own fair hand, either +to depart to-morrow into France or else to come to-morrow to Windsor. I +need not say that in the circumstances I consider France the more +wholesome." + +Now the girl's voice was hurt and wistful. "So, for the thousandth time, +is it proven the Queen's business means more to you than I do. Yes, +certainly it is just as I said, George." + +He observed, unruffled: "My dear, I scent unreason. This is a high +matter. If the French King compounds with Rome, it means war for +Protestant England. Even you must see that." + +She replied, sadly: "Yes, even I! oh, certainly, my lord, even a +half-witted child of seventeen can perceive as much as that." + +"I was not speaking of half-witted persons, as I remember. Well, it +chances that I am honoured by the friendship of our gallant Béarnais, +and am supposed to have some claim upon him, thanks to my good fortune +last year in saving his life from the assassin Barrière. It chances that +I may perhaps become, under providence, the instrument of preserving my +fellow countrymen from much grief and trumpet-sounding and +throat-cutting. Instead of pursuing that chance, two weeks ago--as was +my duty--I have dangled at your apron-strings, in the vain hope of +softening the most variable and hardest heart in the world. Now, +clearly, I have not the right to do that any longer." + +She admired the ennobled, the slightly rapt look which, she knew, +denoted that George Bulmer was doing his duty as he saw it, even in her +disappointment. "No, you have not the right. You are wedded to your +state-craft, to your patriotism, to your self-advancement, or christen +it what you will. You are wedded, at all events, to your man's business. +You have not time for such trifles as giving a maid that foolish and +lovely sort of wooing to which every maid looks forward in her heart of +hearts. Indeed, when you married the first time it was a kind of +infidelity; and I am certain that poor dear mouse-like Mary must have +felt that often and over again. Why, do you not see, George, even now, +that your wife will always come second to your real love?" + +"In my heart, dear sophist, you will always come first. But it is not +permitted that any loyal gentleman devote every hour of his life to +sighing and making sonnets, and to the general solacing of a maid's +loneliness in this dull little Deptford. Nor would you, I am sure, +desire me to do so." + +"I hardly know what I desire," she told him ruefully. "But I know that +when you talk of your man's business I am lonely and chilled and far +away from you. And I know that I cannot understand more than half your +fine high notions about duty and patriotism and serving England and so +on," the girl declared: and she flung wide her lovely little hands, in a +despairing gesture. "I admire you, sir, when you talk of England. It +makes you handsomer--yes, even handsomer!--somehow. But all the while I +am remembering that England is just an ordinary island inhabited by a +number of ordinary persons, for the most of whom I have no particular +feeling one way or the other.". + +Pevensey looked at her for a while with queer tenderness. Then he +smiled. "No, I could not quite make you understand, my dear. But, ah, +why fuddle that quaint little brain by trying to understand such matters +as lie without your realm? For a woman's kingdom is the home, my dear, +and her throne is in the heart of her husband--" + +"All this is but another way of saying your lordship would have us cups +upon a shelf," she pointed out--"in readiness for your leisure." + +He shrugged, said "Nonsense!" and began more lightly to talk of other +matters. Thus and thus he would do in France, such and such trinkets he +would fetch back--"as toys for the most whimsical, the loveliest and the +most obstinate child in all the world," he phrased it. And they would be +married, Pevensey declared, in September: nor (he gaily said) did he +propose to have any further argument about it. Children should be +seen--the proverb was dusty, but it particularly applied to pretty +children. + +Cynthia let him talk. She was just a little afraid of his self +confidence, and of this tall nobleman's habit of getting what he wanted, +in the end: but she dispiritedly felt that Pevensey had failed her. He +treated her as a silly infant: and his want of her, even in that +capacity, was a secondary matter: he was going into France, for all his +petting talk, and was leaving her to shift as she best might, until he +could spare the time to resume his love-making.... + + +II + +WHAT COMES OF SCRIBBLING + +Now when Pevensey had gone the room seemed darkened by the withdrawal of +so much magnificence. Cynthia watched from the window as the tall earl +rode away, with three handsomely clad retainers. Yes, George was very +fine and admirable, no doubt of it: even so, there was relief in the +reflection that for a month or two she was rid of him. + +Turning, she faced a lean dishevelled man who stood by the Magdalen +tapestry scratching his chin. He had unquiet bright eyes, this +out-at-elbows poet whom a marquis's daughter was pleased to patronize, +and his red hair to-day was unpardonably puzzled. Nor were his manners +beyond reproach, for now, without saying anything, he too went to the +window. He dragged one foot a little as he walked. + +"So my lord Pevensey departs! Look how he rides in triumph! like lame +Tamburlaine, with Techelles and Usumcasane and Theridamas to attend him, +and with the sunset turning the dust raised by their horses' hoofs into +a sort of golden haze about them. It is a beautiful world. And truly, +Mistress Cyn," the poet said, reflectively, "that Pevensey is a very +splendid ephemera. If not a king himself, at least he goes magnificently +to settle the affairs of kings. Were modesty not my failing Mistress +Cyn, I would acclaim you as strangely lucky, in being beloved by two +fine fellows that have not their like in England." + +"Truly you are not always thus modest, Kit Marlowe--" + +"But, Lord, how seriously Pevensey takes it all! and himself in +particular! Why, there departs from us, in befitting state, a personage +whose opinion as to every topic in the world is written legibly in the +carriage of those fine shoulders, even when seen from behind and from so +considerable a distance. And in not one syllable do any of these +opinions differ from the opinions of his great-great-grandfathers. Oho, +and hark to Deptford! now all the oafs in the Corn-market are cheering +this bulwark of Protestant England, this rising young hero of a people +with no nonsense about them. Yes, it is a very quaint and rather +splendid ephemera." + +A marquis's daughter could not quite approve of the way in which this +shoemaker's son, however talented, railed at his betters. "Pevensey will +be the greatest man in these kingdoms some day. Indeed, Kit Marlowe, +there are those who say he is that much already." + +"Oh very probably! Still, I am puzzled by human greatness. A century +hence what will he matter, this Pevensey? His ascent and his declension +will have been completed, and his foolish battles and treaties will have +given place to other foolish battles and treaties and oblivion will have +swallowed this glistening bluebottle, plumes and fine lace and stately +ruff and all. Why, he is but an adviser to the queen of half an island, +whereas my Tamburlaine was lord of all the golden ancient East: and what +does my Tamburlaine matter now, save that he gave Kit Marlowe the +subject of a drama? Hah, softly though! for does even that very greatly +matter? Who really cares to-day about what scratches were made upon wax +by that old Euripides, the latchet of whose sandals I am not worthy to +unloose? No, not quite worthy, as yet!" + +And thereupon the shabby fellow sat down in the tall leather-covered +chair which Pevensey had just vacated: and this Marlowe nodded his +flaming head portentously. "Hoh, look you, I am displeased, Mistress +Cyn, I cannot lend my approval to this over-greedy oblivion that gapes +for all. No, it is not a satisfying arrangement that I should teeter +insecurely through the void on a gob of mud, and be expected bye and bye +to relinquish even that crazy foothold. Even for Kit Marlowe death lies +in wait! and it may be, not anything more after death, not even any +lovely words to play with. Yes, and this Marlowe may amount to nothing, +after all: and his one chance of amounting to that which he intends may +be taken away from him at any moment!" + +He touched the breast of a weather-beaten doublet. He gave her that +queer twisted sort of smile which the girl could not but find +attractive, somehow. He said: "Why but this heart thumping here inside +me may stop any moment like a broken clock. Here is Euripides writing +better than I: and here in my body, under my hand, is the mechanism upon +which depend all those masterpieces that are to blot the Athenian from +the reckoning, and I have no control of it!" + +"Indeed, I fear that you control few things," she told him, "and that +least of all do you control your taste for taverns and bad women. Oh, I +hear tales of you!" And Cynthia raised a reproving fore-finger. + +"True tales, no doubt." He shrugged. "Lacking the moon he vainly cried +for, the child learns to content himself with a penny whistle." + +"Ah, but the moon is far away," the girl said, smiling--"too far to hear +the sound of human crying: and besides, the moon, as I remember it, was +never a very amorous goddess--" + +"Just so," he answered: "also she was called Cynthia, and she, too, was +beautiful." + +"Yet is it the heart that cries to me, my poet?" she asked him, softly, +"or just the lips?" + +"Oh, both of them, most beautiful and inaccessible of goddesses." Then +Marlowe leaned toward her, laughing and shaking that disreputable red +head. "Still you are very foolish, in your latest incarnation, to be +wasting your rays upon carpet earls who will not outwear a century. Were +modesty not my failing, I repeat, I could name somebody who will last +longer. Yes, and--if, but I lacked that plaguey virtue--I would advise +you to go a-gypsying with that nameless somebody, so that two manikins +might snatch their little share of the big things that are eternal, just +as the butterfly fares intrepidly and joyously, with the sun for his +torch-boy, through a universe wherein thought cannot estimate the +unimportance of a butterfly, and wherein not even the chaste moon is +very important. Yes, certainly I would advise you to have done with this +vanity of courts and masques, of satins and fans and fiddles, this +dallying with tinsels and bright vapours; and very movingly I would +exhort you to seek out Arcadia, travelling hand in hand with that still +nameless somebody." And of a sudden the restless man began to sing. + +Sang Kit Marlowe: + + "Come live with me and be my love, + And we will all the pleasures prove + That hills and valleys, dales and fields, + Woods or sleepy mountain yields. + + "And we will sit upon the rocks, + And see the shepherds feed their flocks + By shallow rivers, to whose falls + Melodious birds sing madrigals--" + +But the girl shook her small, wise head decisively. "That is all very +fine, but, as it happens, there is no such place as this Arcadia, where +people can frolic in perpetual sunlight the year round, and find their +food and clothing miraculously provided. No, nor can you, I am afraid, +give me what all maids really, in their heart of hearts, desire far +more than any sugar-candy Arcadia. Oh, as I have so often told you, Kit, +I think you love no woman. You love words. And your seraglio is tenanted +by very beautiful words, I grant you, thought there is no longer any +Sestos builded of agate and crystal, either, Kit Marlowe. For, as you +may perceive, sir, I have read all that lovely poem you left with me +last Thursday--" + +She saw how interested he was, saw how he almost smirked. "Aha, so you +think it not quite bad, eh, the conclusion of my 'Hero and Leander'?" + +"It is your best. And your middlemost, my poet, is better than aught +else in English," she said, politely, and knowing how much he delighted +to hear such remarks. + +"Come, I retract my charge of foolishness, for you are plainly a wench +of rare discrimination. And yet you say I do not love you! Cynthia, you +are beautiful, you are perfect in all things. You are that heavenly +Helen of whom I wrote, some persons say, acceptably enough--How strange +it was I did not know that Helen was dark-haired and pale! for certainly +yours is that immortal loveliness which must be served by poets in life +and death." + +"And I wonder how much of these ardours," she thought, "is kindled by my +praise of his verses?" She bit her lip, and she regarded him with a hint +of sadness. She said, aloud: "But I did not, after all, speak to Lord +Pevensey concerning the printing of your poem. Instead, I burned your +'Hero and Leander'." + +She saw him jump, as under a whip-lash. Then he smiled again, in that +wry fashion of his. "I lament the loss to letters, for it was my only +copy. But you knew that." + +"Yes, Kit, I knew it was your only copy." + +"Oho! and for what reason did you burn it, may one ask?" + +"I thought you loved it more than you loved me. It was my rival, I +thought--" The girl was conscious of remorse, and yet it was remorse +commingled with a mounting joy. + +"And so you thought a jingle scribbled upon a bit of paper could be +your rival with me!" + +Then Cynthia no longer doubted, but gave a joyous little sobbing laugh, +for the love of her disreputable dear poet was sustaining the stringent +testing she had devised. She touched his freckled hand caressingly, and +her face was as no man had ever seen it, and her voice, too, caressed +him. + +"Ah, you have made me the happiest of women, Kit! Kit, I am almost +disappointed in you, though, that you do not grieve more for the loss of +that beautiful poem." + +His smiling did not waver; yet the lean, red-haired man stayed +motionless. "Do I appear perturbed?" he said. "Why, but see how lightly +I take the destruction of my life-work in this, my masterpiece! For I +can assure you it was a masterpiece, the fruit of two years' toil and of +much loving repolishment--" + +"Ah, but you love me better than such matters, do you not?" she asked +him, tenderly. "Kit Marlowe, I adore you! Sweetheart, do you not +understand that a woman wants to be loved utterly and entirely? She +wants no rivals, not even paper rivals. And so often when you talked of +poetry I have felt lonely and chilled and far away from you, and I have +been half envious, dear, of your Heros and your Helens, and your other +good-for-nothing Greek minxes. But now I do not mind them at all. And I +will make amends, quite prodigal amends, for my naughty jealousy; and my +poet shall write me some more lovely poems, so he shall--" + +He said "You fool!" + +And she drew away from him, for this man was no longer smiling. + +"You burned my 'Hero and Leander'! You! you big-eyed fool! You lisping +idiot! you wriggling, cuddling worm! you silken bag of guts! had not +even you the wit to perceive it was immortal beauty which would have +lived long after you and I were stinking dirt? And you, a half-witted +animal, a shining, chattering parrot, lay claws to it!" Marlowe had +risen in a sort of seizure, in a condition which was really quite +unreasonable when you considered that only a poem was at stake, even a +rather long poem. + +And Cynthia began to smile, with tremulous hurt-looking young lips. "So +my poet's love is very much the same as Pevensey's love! And I was +right, after all." + +"Oh, oh!" said Marlowe, "that ever a poet should love a woman! What +jokes does the lewd flesh contrive!" Of a sudden he was calmer: and then +rage fell from him like a dropped cloak and he viewed her as with +respectful wonder. "Why, but you sitting there, with goggling innocent +bright eyes, are an allegory of all that is most droll and tragic. Yes, +and indeed there is no reason to blame you. It is not your fault that +every now and then is born a man who serves an idea which is to him the +most important thing in the world. It is not your fault that this man +perforce inhabits a body to which the most important thing in the world +is a woman. Certainly it is not your fault that this compost makes yet +another jumble of his two desires, and persuades himself that the two +are somehow allied. The woman inspires, the woman uplifts, the woman +strengthens him for his high work, saith he! Well, well, perhaps there +are such women, but by land and sea I have encountered none of them." + +All this was said while Marlowe shuffled about the room, with bent +shoulders, and nodding his tousled red head, and limping as he walked. +Now Marlowe turned, futile and shabby-looking, just where Pevensey had +loomed resplendent a while since. Again she saw the poet's queer, +twisted, jeering smile. + +"What do you care for my ideals? What do you care for the ideals of that +tall earl whom you have held from his proper business for a fortnight? +or for the ideals of any man alive? Why, not one thread of that dark +hair, not one snap of those white little fingers, except when ideals +irritate you by distracting a man's attention from Cynthia Allonby. +Otherwise, he is welcome enough to play with his incomprehensible toys." + +He jerked a thumb toward the shelves behind him. + +"Oho, you virtuous pretty ladies! what all you value is such matters as +those cups: they please the eye, they are worth sound money, and people +envy you the possession of them. So you cherish your shiny mud cups, and +you burn my 'Hero and Leander': and I declaim all this dull nonsense, +over the ashes of my ruined dreams, thinking at bottom of how pretty you +are, and of how much I would like to kiss you. That is the real tragedy, +the immortal tragedy, that I should still hanker after you, my +Cynthia--" + +His voice dwelt tenderly upon her name. His fever-haunted eyes were +tender, too, for just a moment. Then he grimaced. + +"No, I am wrong--the tragedy strikes deeper. The root of it is that +there is in you and in all your glittering kind no malice, no will to do +harm nor to hurt anything, but just a bland and invincible and, upon the +whole, a well-meaning stupidity, informing a bright and soft and +delicately scented animal. So you work ruin among those men who serve +ideals, not foreplanning ruin, not desiring to ruin anything, not even +having sufficient wit to perceive the ruin when it is accomplished. You +are, when all is done, not even detestable, not even a worthy peg +whereon to hang denunciatory sonnets, you shallow-pated pretty creatures +whom poets--oh, and in youth all men are poets!--whom poets, now and +always, are doomed to hanker after to the detriment of their poesy. No, +I concede it: you kill without premeditation, and without ever +suspecting your hands to be anything but stainless. So in logic I must +retract all my harsh words; and I must, without any hint or reproach, +endeavour to bid you a somewhat more civil farewell." + +She had regarded him, throughout this preposterous and uncalled-for +harangue, with sad composure, with a forgiving pity. Now she asked him, +very quietly, "Where are you going, Kit?" + +"To the Golden Hind, O gentle, patient and unjustly persecuted virgin +martyr!" he answered, with an exaggerated how--"since that is the part +in which you now elect to posture." + +"Not to that low, vile place again!" + +"But certainly I intend in that tavern to get tipsy as quickly as +possible: for then the first woman I see will for the time become the +woman whom I desire and who exists nowhere." And with that the +red-haired man departed, limping and singing as he went to look for a +trull in a pot-house. + +Sang Kit Marlowe: + + "And I will make her beds of roses + And a thousand fragrant posies; + A cap of flowers, and a kirtle + Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle. + + "A gown made of the finest wool + Which from our pretty lambs we pull; + Fair-linèd slippers for the cold, + With buckles of the purest gold--" + + +III + +ECONOMICS OF EGERIA + +She sat quite still when Marlowe had gone. + +"He will get drunk again," she thought despondently. "Well, and why +should it matter to me if he does, after all that outrageous ranting? He +has been unforgivably insulting--Oh, but none the less, I do not want to +have him babbling of the roses and gold of that impossible fairy world +which the poor, frantic child really believes in, to some painted woman +of the town who will laugh at him. I loathe the thought of her laughing +at him--and kissing him! His notions are wild foolishness; but I at +least wish that they were not foolishness, and that hateful woman will +not care one way or the other." + +So Cynthia sighed, and to comfort her forlorn condition fetched a +hand-mirror from the shelves whereon glowed her green cups. She touched +each cup caressingly in passing; and that which she found in the mirror, +too, she regarded not unappreciatively, from varying angles.... Yes +after all, dark hair and a pale skin had their advantages at a court +where pink and yellow women were so much the fashion as to be common. +Men remembered you more distinctively. Though nobody cared for men, in +view of their unreasonable behaviour, and their absolute +self-centeredness.... Oh, it was pitiable, it was grotesque, she +reflected sadly, how Pevensey and Kitt Marlowe had both failed her, +after so many pretty speeches. + +Still, there was a queer pleasure in being wooed by Kit: his insane +notions went to one's head like wine. She would send Meg for him again +to-morrow. And Pevensey was, of course, the best match imaginable.... +No, it would be too heartless to dismiss George Bulmer outright. It was +unreasonable of him to desert her because a Gascon threatened to go to +mass; but, after all, she would probably marry George in the end. He was +really almost unendurably silly, though, about England and freedom and +religion, and right and wrong things like that. Yes, it would be tedious +to have a husband who often talked to you as though he were addressing a +public meeting.... However, he was very handsome, particularly in his +highflown and most tedious moments; that year-old son of his was sickly +and would probably die soon, the sweet, forlorn little pet, and not be a +bother to anybody: and her dear old father would be profoundly delighted +by the marriage of his daughter to a man whose wife could have at will a +dozen céladon cups, and anything else she chose to ask for.... + +But now the sun had set, and the room was growing quite dark. So Cynthia +stood a-tiptoe, and replaced the mirror upon the shelves, setting it +upright behind those wonderful green cups which had anew reminded her of +Pevensey's wealth and generosity. She smiled a little, to think of what +fun it had been to hold George back, for two whole weeks, from +discharging that horrible old queen's stupid errands. + + +IV + +TREATS PHILOSOPHICALLY OF BREAKAGE + +The door opened. Stalwart young Captain Edward Musgrave came with a +lighted candle, which he placed carefully upon the table in the room's +centre. + +He said: "They told me you were here. I come from London. I bring news +for you." + +"You bring no pleasant tidings, I fear--" + +"As Lord Pevensey rode through the Strand this afternoon, on his way +home, the Plague smote him. That is my sad news. I grieve to bring such +news, for your cousin was a worthy gentleman and universally respected." + +"Ah," Cynthia said, very quiet, "so Pevensey is dead. But the Plague +kills quickly!" + +"Yes, yes, that is a comfort, certainly. Yes, he turned quite black in +the face, they report, and before his men could reach him had fallen +from his horse. It was all over almost instantly. I saw him afterward, +hardly a pleasant sight. I came to you as soon as I could. I was +vexatiously detained--" + +"So George Bulmer is dead, in a London gutter! It seems strange, because +he was here, befriended by monarchs, and very strong and handsome and +self-confident, hardly two hours ago. Is that his blood upon your +sleeve?" + +"But of course not! I told you I was vexatiously detained, almost at +your gates. Yes, I had the ill luck to blunder into a disgusting +business. The two rapscallions tumbled out of a doorway under my horse's +very nose, egad! It was a near thing I did not ride them down. So I +stopped, naturally. I regretted stopping, afterward, for I was too late +to be of help. It was at the Golden Hind, of course. Something really +ought to be done about that place. Yes, and that rogue Marler bled all +over a new doublet, as you see. And the Deptford constables held me with +their foolish interrogatories--" + +"So one of the fighting men was named Marlowe! Is he dead, too, dead in +another gutter?" + +"Marlowe or Marler, or something of the sort--wrote plays and sonnets +and such stuff, they tell me. I do not know anything about him--though, +I give you my word now, those greasy constables treated me as though I +were a noted frequenter of pot-houses. That sort of thing is most +annoying. At all events, he was drunk as David's sow, and squabbling +over, saving your presence, a woman of the sort one looks to find in +that abominable hole. And so, as I was saying, this other drunken rascal +dug a knife into him--" + +But now, to Captain Musgrave's discomfort, Cynthia Allonby had begun to +weep heartbrokenly. + +So he cleared his throat, and he patted the back of her hand. "It is a +great shock to you, naturally--oh, most naturally, and does you great +credit. But come now, Pevensey is gone, as we must all go some day, and +our tears cannot bring him back, my dear. We can but hope he is better +off, poor fellow, and look on it as a mysterious dispensation and that +sort of thing, my dear--" + +"Oh, Ned, but people are so cruel! People will be saying that it was I +who kept poor Cousin George in London this past two weeks, and that but +for me he would have been in France long ago. And then the Queen, +Ned!--why, that pig-headed old woman will be blaming it on me, that +there is nobody to prevent that detestable French King from turning +Catholic and dragging England into new wars, and I shall not be able to +go to any of the court dances! nor to the masque!" sobbed Cynthia, "nor +anywhere!" + +"Now you talk tender-hearted and angelic nonsense. It is noble of you to +feel that way, of course. But Pevensey did not take proper care of +himself, and that is all there is to it. Now I have remained in London +since the Plague's outbreak. I stayed with my regiment, naturally. We +have had a few deaths, of course. People die everywhere. But the Plague +has never bothered me. And why has it never bothered me? Simply because +I was sensible, took the pains to consult an astrologer, and by his +advice wear about my neck, night and day, a bag of dried toad's blood +and powdered cinnamon. It is an infallible specific for men born in +February. No, not for a moment do I wish to speak harshly of the dead, +but sensible persons cannot but consider Lord Pevensey's death to have +been caused by his own carelessness." + +"Now, certainly that is true," the girl said, brightening. "It was +really his own carelessness, and his dear, lovable rashness. And +somebody could explain it to the Queen. Besides, I often think that wars +are good for the public spirit of a nation, and bring out its true +manhood. But then it upset me, too, a little, Ned, to hear about this +Marlowe--for I must tell you that I knew the poor man, very slightly. So +I happen to know that today he flung off in a rage, and began drinking, +because somebody, almost by pure accident, had burned a packet of his +verses--" + +Thereupon Captain Musgrave raised heavy eyebrows, and guffawed so +heartily that the candle flickered. "To think of the fellow's putting it +on that plea! when he could so easily have written some more verses. +That is the trouble with these poets, if you ask me: they are not +practical even in their ordinary, everyday lying. No, no, the truth of +it was that the rogue wanted a pretext for making a beast of himself, +and seized the first that came to hand. Egad, my dear, it is a daily +practice with these poets. They hardly draw a sober breath. Everybody +knows that." + +Cynthia was looking at him in the half-lit room with very flattering +admiration.... Seen thus, with her scarlet lips a little +parted--disclosing pearls--and with her naïve dark eyes aglow, she was +quite incredibly pretty and caressable. She had almost forgotten until +now that this stalwart soldier, too, was in love with her. But now her +spirits were rising venturously, and she knew that she liked Ned +Musgrave. He had sensible notions; he saw things as they really were, +and with him there would never be any nonsense about top-lofty ideas. +Then, too, her dear old white-haired father would be pleased, because +there was a very fair estate.... + +So Cynthia said: "I believe you are right, Ned. I often wonder how they +can be so lacking in self-respect. Oh, I am certain you must be right, +for it is just what I felt without being able quite to express it You +will stay for supper with us, of course. Yes, but you must, because it +is always a great comfort for me to talk with really sensible persons. I +do not wonder that you are not very eager to stay, though, for I am +probably a fright, with my eyes red, and with my hair all tumbling down, +like an old witch's. Well, let us see what can be done about it, sir! +There was a hand-mirror--" + +And thus speaking, she tripped, with very much the reputed grace of a +fairy, toward the far end of the room, and standing a-tiptoe, groped at +the obscure shelves, with a resultant crash of falling china. + +"Oh, but my lovely cups!" said Cynthia, in dismay. "I had forgotten they +were up there: and now I have smashed both of them, in looking for my +mirror, sir, and trying to prettify myself for you. And I had so fancied +them, because they had not their like in England!" + +She looked at the fragments, and then at Musgrave, with wide, innocent +hurt eyes. She was honestly grieved by the loss of her quaint toys. But +Musgrave, in his sturdy, common-sense way, only laughed at her +seriousness over such kickshaws. + +"I am for an honest earthenware tankard myself!" he said, jovially, as +the two went in to supper. + + + + +THE HIGH COST OF CONSCIENCE + + +_BY BEATRICE RAVENEL_ + +From _Harper's Magazine_ + +"Any woman who can accept money from a gentleman who is in no way +related to her--" Miss Fowler delivered judgment. + +"My dear Aunt Maria, you mean a gentleman's disembodied spirit," Hugh's +light, pleasant tones intervened. + +"A legacy, Maria, is not quite the same thing. Mr. Winthrop Fowler's +perfect intonation carried its usual implication that the subject was +closed. + +"---- is what I call an adventuress," Miss Fowler summed up. She had a +way of ignoring objections, of reappearing beyond them like a submarine +with the ultimate and detonating answer. "And now she wants to reopen +the matter when the whole thing's over and done with. After three years. +Extraordinary taste." She hitched her black-velvet Voltaire arm-chair a +little away from the fire and spread a vast knitting-bag of Chinese +brocade over her knees. "I suppose she isn't satisfied; she wants more." + +"Naturally. I cannot imagine what other reason she could have for +insisting on a personal interview," her brother agreed, dryly. He +retired into the _Transcript_ as a Trappist withdraws into his vows. A +chastened client of Mr. Fowler's once observed that a half-hour's +encounter with him resulted in a rueful of asphyxiated topics. + +Miss Maria, however, preferred disemboweling hers, "I shouldn't have +consented," she snapped. "Hugh, if you would be so good as to sit down. +You are obstructing the light. And the curtain-cord. If you could +refrain from twisting it for a few moments." + +Hugh let his long, high-shouldered figure lapse into the window-seat. +"And besides, we're all dying to know what she looks like," he +suggested. + +"Speak for yourself, please," said Miss Fowler, with the vivacity of the +lady who protests too much. + +"I do, I do! Good Lord! I'm just as bad as the rest of you. All my life +I've been consumed to know what Uncle Hugh could have seen in a +perfectly obscure little person to make him do what he did. There must +have been something." His eyes travelled to a sketch in pencil of a +man's head which hung in the shadow of the chimneypiece, a sketch whose +uncanny suggestion might have come from the quality of the sitter or +merely from a smudging of the medium. "Everything he did always seemed +to me perfectly natural," he went on, as though conscious of new +discovery. "Even those years when he was knocking about the world, +hiding his address. Even when he had that fancy that people were +persecuting him. Most people did worry him horribly." + +A glance flashed between the two middle-aged listeners. It was a +peculiar glance, full of a half-denied portent. Then Miss Fowler's +fingers, true to their traditions, loosened their grip on her needles +and casually smoothed out her work. + +"I have asked you not to speak of that," she mentioned, quietly. + +"I know. But of course there was no doubt at all that he was sa--was +entirely recovered before his death. Don't you think so, sir?" + +His uncle laid down the paper and fixed the young man with the gray, +unsheathed keenness that had sent so many witnesses grovelling to the +naked truth. "No doubt whatever. I always held, and so did both the +physicians, that his lack of balance was a temporary and sporadic thing, +brought on by overwork--and certain unhappy conditions of his life. +There has never been any such taint in our branch of the family." + +"No-o, so they say," Hugh agreed. "One of our forebears did see ghosts, +but that was rather the fashion. And his father, that old Johnnie over +the fireplace--you take after him, Aunt Maria--he was the prize +witch-smeller of his generation, and he condemned all the young and +pretty ones. That hardly seems well-balanced." + +"Collaterals on the distaff side," Mr. Fowler put in hastily. "If you +would read Mendel--" + +"Mendel? I have read about him." He raised the forefinger of his right +hand. "Very suggestive. If your father was a black rabbit"--he raised +the forefinger of his left--"and your mother was a white rabbit, then +your male children would be"--he raised all the other fingers and paused +as though taken aback by the size of the family--"would be blue +guinea-pigs, with a tendency to club-foot and astigmatism, but your +female children might only be rather clumsy tangoists with a weakness +for cutting their poor relations. That's all I remember, but I _do_ know +that because I studied the charts." + +"Very amusing," said Mr. Fowler, indulgently. + +Hugh flushed. + +"I am sure it can't be that way." Miss Maria flapped her knitting over. +"But everything has changed since my day, and _not_ for the better. The +curtain-cord." + +"Beg pardon," muttered Hugh. His mind went on churning nonsense. "There +are two days it is useless to flee from--the day of your death and the +day when your family doesn't care for your jokes. + + "For a joke is an intellectual thing, + And a _mot_ is the sword of an angel king. + +"Good old Blake. Why do the best people always see jokes? Why does a +really good one make a whole frozen crowd feel jolly and united all of a +sudden?" He pondered on the beneficence of the comic spirit. Hugh was a +born Deist. It gave him no trouble at all to believe that since the +paintings of Velasquez and the great outdoors which he had seen, were +beautiful, so much the more beautiful must be that God whom he had not +seen. It seemed reasonable. As for the horrors like Uncle Hugh's +affair--well, they must be put in for chiaroscuro. A thing couldn't be +all white without being blank. The thought of the shadows, however, +always made him profoundly uncomfortable, and his instinct +right-about-faced to the lighter surface of life. "Anyhow," he broke +silence, "the daughter of Heth must be game. Three to one, and on our +native heath." + +He looked appraisingly about the room, pausing at the stiff, +distinguished, grey-haired couple, one on either side of the fire. The +effect was of a highly finished genre picture: the rich wainscot between +low book-shelves, the brooding portraits, the black-blue rug bordered by +a veiled Oriental motive, the black-velvet cushions that brought out the +watery reflections of old Sheraton as even the ancient horsehair had not +done; the silver candlesticks, the miniatures, and on the mantel those +two royal flower-pots whose precarious existence was to his aunt a very +fearful joy. Even the tortoise-shell cat, sprawled between the two +figures like a tiny tiger-skin, was in the picture. It was a room that +gently put you into your place. Hugh recalled with a faint grin certain +meetings here of philanthropic ladies whose paths had seldom turned into +the interiors of older Beacon Street. The state of life to which it had +pleased their Maker to call them, he reflected, would express itself +preferably in gilding and vast pale-tinted upholstery and pink +bibelots--oh, quite a lot of pink. This place had worried them into a +condition of disconcerted awe. + +He tried to fancy what it was going to do to the unbidden, resented +guest. A queer protest against its enmity, an impulse to give her a +square deal, surged up in him from nowhere. After all, whatever else she +might be, she was Uncle Hugh's girl. Like all the world, Hugh loved the +dispossessed lover. He knew what it felt like. One does not reach the +mature age of twenty-four without having at least begun the passionate +pilgrimage. His few tindery and tinselly affairs suspected of following +the obvious formula: three parts curiosity, three parts the literary +sense, three parts crude young impulse, one part distilled moonshine. +The real love of his life had been Uncle Hugh. + +He sprang up with an abruptness to which his elders seemed to be used. +He stopped before a brass-trimmed desk and jerked at the second drawer. +"Where are those letters, sir?" + +"You mean--" + +"Yes, the one you wrote her about the money, and her answer. You put +them with his papers, didn't you? Where's the key?" + +The older man drew from his waistcoat pocket a carved bit of brass. +"What do you want with them?" he asked, cautiously. + +"I want to refresh my memory--and Aunt Maria's." He took out a neat +little pile of papers and began to sort them intently. "Here they are on +top." He laid out a docketed envelope on the desk. "And here are the +essays and poems that you wouldn't publish. I considered them the best +things he ever did." + +"You were not his literary executor," said his uncle, coldly. Another +stifled glance passed between the seniors, but this time Miss Maria made +no effort to restore the gloss of the surface. She sat idle, staring at +the papers with a sort of horror. + +"Put them back," she said. "Winthrop, I do think you might burn them. If +you keep things like that too long the wrong people are sure to get +them." + +"Wait a bit. I haven't seen them for years, not since you published the +collected works--with Hamlet left out." The young man lifted a worn +brown-morocco portfolio tied with a frazzled red ribbon. "And here"--his +voice dropped--"here is It--the letters he wrote to her and never sent. +It was a sort of diary, wasn't it, going on for years? What a howling +pity we couldn't print that!" + +"Hugh!" + +"Don't faint, Aunt Maria. You wouldn't catch me doing anything so +indecent. But suppose Dante's dear family had suppressed the _Vita +Nuova_. And it ought to be one of the most extraordinary human documents +in the world, perfectly intimate, all the bars down, full of those +flashes of his. Just the man, _ipsissimus_, that never happened but that +once. Uncle Winthrop, don't you think that I might read it?" + +"Do you think so? I never did." + +"Oh, if you put it up to me like that! Of course I can't. But what luck +that he didn't ask you to send it to her--supposing she's the wrong +kind--wasn't it ..." His voice trailed off, leaving his lips foolishly +open. "You don't mean--he did?" + +"Yes, at the end, after you had left the room," said Mr. Fowler, firmly. + +"And you--didn't? Why not?" + +"As you said, for fear she was the wrong kind" + +"It was too much to hope that she would be anything else," his aunt +broke in, harshly. "Shut your mouth, Hugh; you look like a fool. Think +what she might have done with them--she and some of those unspeakable +papers." + +"Oh, I see! I see!" groaned the young man. "But how awful not to do the +very last thing he wanted! Did you ever try to find out what kind of a +person she was?" + +"She took the money. That was enough," cried Miss Fowler. "She got her +share, just as though she had been his legal wife." + +Hugh gave her a dazed look. "You don't mean that she was his illegal +one? I never--" + +"Oh no, no!" Mr. Fowler interposed. "We have no reason to think that she +was otherwise than respectable. Maria, you allow most unfortunate +implications to result from your choice of words. We know very little, +really." + +"He met her in Paris when he gave that course of lectures over there. We +know that much. And she was an American student--from Virginia, wasn't +it? But that was over twenty years ago. Didn't he see her after that?" + +"I am sure he did not." + +"She wasn't with him when he was knocking about Europe?" + +"Certainly not. She came home that very year and married. As her letter +states, she was a widow with three children at the time of his death." + +"I have always considered it providential that he didn't know she was a +widow," observed Miss Maria, primly. + +Her nephew shot her a look that admitted his intermittent amusement in +his aunt Maria, but definitely gave her up. He carefully leaned the +portfolio inside the arm of the sofa that neighboured the desk, and +picked up the long envelope. + +"A copy of my letter," said Mr. Fowler. + +To his sister, watching him as he watched Hugh, came the unaccountable +impression that his sure and chiselled surface covered a nervous +anxiety. Then Miss Maria, being a product of the same school, dismissed +the idea as absurd. + +Hugh raised bewildered eyes from the letters. "I can't exactly +remember," he said. "I was so cut up at the time. Did I ever actually +read this before or was I merely told about it? I went back for +Midyear's, you know, almost at once. I know my consent was asked, but--" + +"You--did not see it." + +"And you, Aunt Maria, of course you knew about it!" + +"Certainly," said Miss Fowler, on the defensive. "As usual in business +matters, your uncle decided for me. We have been accustomed to act as a +family always. To me the solidarity of the family it more than the +interest of any member of it." + +"Oh, I know that the Fowler family is the noblest work of God." The +young man looked from one to the other as he might have regarded two +strangers whose motives it was his intention to find out. "I've been +brought up on that. But what I want to know now is the whyness of this +letter." + +"What do you mean?" Mr. Fowler's voice cut the pause like a trowel +executing the middle justice on an earthworm. + +"Why--why--" Hugh began, desperately. "I mean, why wasn't the money +turned over to her at once--all of it?" + +"It is customary to notify legatees." + +"And she wasn't even a legatee," added Miss Maria, grimly. He never made +a will." + +"No," said Hugh, with an ugly laugh, "he merely trusted to our +promises." + +There was a brief but violent silence. + +"I think, Winthrop," Miss Maria broke it, "that instead of questioning +the propriety of my language, you might do well to consider your +nephew's." + +Hugh half-tendered the letter. "You're so confoundedly clever. Uncle +Winthrop. You--you just put the whole thing up to the poor woman. I +can't pick out a word to show where you said it, but the tone of your +letter is exactly this, 'Here's the money for you, and if you take it +you're doing an unheard-of thing.' _She_ saw it right enough. Her answer +is just defence of why she has to take it--some of it. She's a mother +with three children, struggling to keep above water. She's a human +animal fighting for her young. So she takes, most apologetically, most +unhappily, a part of what he left her, and she hates to take that. It's +the most pitiful thing--" + +"Piteous," corrected Miss Maria, in a tone like a bite. + +Mr. Fowler laid the tips of his fingers very delicately on his nephew's +knee. "Will you show me the place or places where I make these very +damaging observations?" + +"That's just it. I can't pick them out, but--" + +"I am sure that you cannot, because they exist only in your +somewhat--shall we say, lyrical imagination? I laid the circumstances +before the woman and she acted as she saw fit to act. Hugh, my dear boy, +I wish that you would try to restrain your--your growing tendency to +excitability. I know that this is a trying day for all of us." + +"O Lord, yes! It brings it all back," said Hugh, miserably. "I'm sorry +if I said anything offensive sir, but--" He gave it up. "You know I have +a devil, sometimes." He gave a half-embarrassed laugh. + +"Offensive--if you have said anything offensive?" Miss Fowler boiled +over. "Is that all you are going to say, Winthrop? If so--" + +Mr. Fowler lifted a warning hand. The house door was opening. Then the +discreet steps of Gannett came up the hall, followed by something +lighter and more resilient. + +"At least don't give me away to the lady the very first thing," said +Hugh, lightly. He shoved the papers into the drawers and swung it shut. +His heart was beating quite ridiculously. He would know at last--What +wouldn't he know? "Uncle Hugh's girl, Uncle Hugh's girl," he told +himself, and his temperamental responsiveness to the interest and the +mystery of life expanded like a sea-anemone in the Gulf Stream. + +Gannett opened the door, announced in his impeccable English, "Mrs. +Shirley," and was not. + + * * * * * + +A very small, very graceful woman hesitated in the doorway. Hugh's first +impression was surprise that there was so little of her. Then his always +alert subconsciousness registered: + +"A lady, yes, but a country lady; not _de par le monde_. Pleasantly +rather than well dressed; those veils are out." He had met her at once +with outstretched hand and the most cordial, "I am glad to see you, Mrs. +Shirley." Then he mentioned the names of his aunt and uncle. He did not +dare to leave anything to Aunt Maria. + +That lady made a movement that might or might not have been a gesture of +recognition. Mr. Fowler, who had risen, inclined his handsome head with +a polite murmur and indicated a chair which faced the light. Mrs. +Shirley sat, instead, upon the edge of the sofa, which happened to be +nearer. With her coming Hugh's expansiveness had suffered a sudden +rebuff. A feeling of dismal conventionality permeated the room like a +fog. He plumbed it in vain for the wonder and the magic that ought to +have been the inescapable aura of Uncle Hugh's girl. Was this the mighty +ocean, was this all? She was a little nervous, too. That was a pity. +Nervousness in social relations was one of the numerous things that Aunt +Maria never forgave. + +Then the stranger spoke, and Hugh's friendliness went out to the sound +as to something familiar for which he had been waiting. + +"It is very good of you to let me come," she said. + +"But she must be over forty," Hugh told himself, "and her voice is +young. So was his always." It was also very natural and moving and not +untinged by what Miss Fowler called the Southern patois. "And her feet +are young." + +Mr. Fowler uttered another polite murmur. There was no help from that +quarter. She made another start. + +"It seemed to me--" she addressed Miss Fowler, who looked obdurate. She +cast a helpless glance at the cat, who opened surprising topaz eyes and +looked supercilious. Then she turned to Hugh. "It seemed to me," she +said, steadily, "that I could make you understand--I mean I could +express myself more clearly if I could see you, than I could by writing, +but--it is rather difficult." + +The overheated, inclement room waited. Hugh restrained his foot from +twitching. Why didn't Aunt Maria say something? She was behaving +abominably. She was still seething with her suppressed outburst like a +tea-kettle under the cozy of civilization. And it was catching. + +"I explained at the time, three years ago," Mrs. Shirley made the +plunge, "why I took the--money at all." The hard word was out, and Hugh +relaxed. "I don't know what you thought of me, but at the time it seemed +like the mercy of Heaven. I had to educate the children. We were +horribly poor. I was almost in despair. And I felt that if I could take +it from any one I could take it from him ..." + +"Yes," said Hugh, unhappily. The depression that dropped on him at +intervals seemed waiting to pounce. He glanced at his uncle's judicial +mask, knowing utterly the distaste for sentimental encounters that it +covered. He detested his aunt's aloofness. He was almost angry with this +little woman's ingenuousness that put her so candidly at their cynical +mercy. + +"But now," she went on, "some land we have that seemed worth nothing at +the time has become very valuable. The town grew out in that direction. +And my eldest boy is doing very well indeed, and my daughter is studying +for a library position." + +"The short and simple annals of the poor," sighed Hugh to Hugh. + +"And so," said little Mrs. Shirley, with astounding simplicity, "I came +to ask you please to take it back again." She gave an involuntary sigh +of relief, as though she had returned a rather valuable umbrella. Mr. +Fowl's eyeglasses dropped from his nose as his eyebrows shot up. + +"Good Lord!" ejaculated Miss Maria with all the unexpectedness of +Galatea. "You don't really mean it?" Her bag slid to the floor and the +cat became thoroughly intrigued. + +"Do I understand you to say"--Mr. Fowler's voice was almost +stirred--"that you wish to return my brother's legacy to the family?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Shirley, "only, it wasn't a legacy. It was merely +kindness that let me have it. You never can know how kind it was. But we +can get on without it now." + +Mr. Fowler cleared his throat. To Hugh his manner faintly suggested the +cat busy with the yarn, full of a sort of devout curiosity. "Pardon me," +he said, gently, "but are you sure--have you given this matter +sufficient thought? The sum is a considerable one. Your children--" + +"I have talked it over with them. They feel just as I do." + +"A very proper feeling," said Miss Fowler, approvingly. "I must say that +I never expected it. I shall add part of my share of it to the Marian +Fowler Ward in the Home for Deficient Children. A most worthy charity. +Perhaps I could interest you--" + +"Oh, that would be lovely!" cried Mrs. Shirley. "Anything for +children.... I've already spoken to my cousin, who is a lawyer, about +transferring the securities back to you." + +"I shall communicate with him at once," said Mr. Fowler. His court-room +manner had bourgeoned into his best drawing-room blend of faintly +implied gallantry and deep consideration. One almost caught Winter +getting out of the lap of Spring. Then the three heads which had +unconsciously leaned together suddenly straightened up and turned in the +same direction. + +Hugh stood almost over them. In one hand he held his aunt's knitting, +which he had mechanically rescued from the cat. Now he drew out one of +the ivory needles and snapped it into accurate halves. "This is +atrocious!" he said, with care and precision. His voice shook. "I shall +not touch a cent of it and"--he embraced his uncle and aunt in the same +devastating look--"neither will you if you have any sense of decency." + +"I think--" + +"It doesn't matter remotely what you--we think sir. What matters is what +Uncle Hugh thought." He turned to Mrs. Shirley with an extraordinary +softening of tone. "Couldn't you keep it? When he died ... in the room +over this"--with a little gasp her glance flew to the ceiling as though +this topographical detail had brought her a sharp realization of that +long-past scene--"he made us promise that you should have it, all of it. +He felt that you needed it; he worried about it." + +"Oh, how kind of him--how kind!" cried the little woman. The poignancy +of her voice cut into his disappointment like a sharp ray of light. +"Even then--to think of me. But don't you understand that he wouldn't +want me to--to take anything that I felt I ought not to take?" + +"That's the way out," rippled across Mr. Fowler's face. He was +experiencing a variety of mental disturbances, but this came to the +surface just in time for Hugh to catch it. + +"Oh well," he murmured, wearily. "Only, none for this deficient child, +thank you." He walked to the window and stood looking out into the blown +spring green of the elm opposite. His ebbed anger had left a residuum of +stubbornness. There was still an act of justice to be consummated and +the position of grand-justicer offered a certain righteous attraction. +As he reminded himself, if you put your will to work on a difficult +action you were fain to commit, after a while the will worked +automatically and your mind functioned without aid from you, and the +action bloomed of itself. This kinetic process was a constant device of +the freakish impulse that he called his devil. He deliberately laid the +train. + +"There is one more thing," the alien was saying. Her voice had gained a +wonderful fluency amid the general thaw. "I didn't dare to ask before, +but if we thought of me then--I have always hoped he left some message +for me ... a letter, perhaps." + +Hugh smiled agreeably. "In just a moment," he considered, "I am going to +do something so outrageous that I can't even imagine how my dear +families are going to take it." He was about to hurt them severely, but +that was all right. His uncle was a tempered weapon of war that despised +quarter; and as for Aunt Maria, he rather wanted to hurt Aunt Maria for +her own good. + +Into the eloquent and mendacious silence that was a gift of their caste +the voice fell humbly: "So there wasn't? I suppose I oughtn't to have +expected it." + +"Any time now, Gridley," Hugh signalled to his familiar. Like a +response, a thin breeze tickled the roots of his hair. He swung around +with the pivot of a definite purpose. With an economy of movement that +would have contented an efficiency expert he set a straight +fiddle-backed chair squarely in front of Uncle Hugh's girl and settled +himself in it with his back to his own people. + +"Mrs. Shirley," he began, quietly, "will you talk to me, please? I hope +I shan't startle you, but there are things I absolutely have to know, +and this is my one chance. I am entirely determined not to let it slip. +Talk to me, please, not to them. As you have doubtless noticed, though +excellent people where the things not flatly of this world are +concerned, my uncle is a graven image and my aunt is a deaf mute. As for +me, I am just unbalanced enough to understand anything." He was aware of +the rustle of consternation behind him and hurried on, ignoring that and +whatever else might be happening there. "That's what I'm banking on now. +I intend to say my say and they are going to allow it, because it is +dangerous to thwart queer people--very dangerous indeed. You know, they +thwarted Uncle Hugh in every possible way. My grandfather was a +composite of those two, and all of them adored my uncle and contradicted +him and watched him until he went over the border. And they're so dead +scared that I'm going to follow him some day that they let me do quite +as I please." He passed his hand across his eyes as though brushing away +cobwebs. "Will you be so good as to put your veil up." + +"Why--why, certainly!" Mrs. Shirley faltered. She uncovered her face and +Hugh nodded to the witness within. + +"Yes, he'd have liked that," he told himself. "Lots of expression and +those beautiful haunted shadows about the eyes." He laughed gently. +"Don't look so frightened. I don't bite. Just humour me, as Uncle +Winthrop is signalling you to do. You understand, don't you, that Uncle +Hugh was the romance and the adventure of my life? I'm still saturated +with him, but there was lots of him that I could never get through to. +There never was a creature better worth knowing, and he couldn't show +me, or else I had blind spots. There were vast tracts of undiscovered +country in him, as far as I was concerned--lands of wonder, east of the +sun and west of the moon--that sort of thing. But I knew that there was +a certain woman who must have been there, who held the heart of the +mystery, and to-day, when this incredible chance came--when you came--I +made up my mind that I was not going to be restrained nor baffled by the +customs of my tribe. I want the truth and I'm prepared to give it. From +the shoulder. If you will tell me everything you know about him I +promise to tell you everything I know. You'll want to--" The sound of +the closing door made him turn. The room behind him was empty. His +manner quieted instantly. "That's uncommonly tactful of them.... You +won't think that they meant any discourtesy by leaving?" he added, +anxiously. "They wouldn't do that." + +"Oh, I'm sure not! Your uncle made me understand," faltered Mrs. +Shirley. "They knew you could speak more freely without them." + +"He's wonderful with the wireless," Hugh agreed. "But they were in +terror, anyway, as to how freely I was about to speak before them. They +can't stand this. Everything really human seems pretty well alien to +Uncle Winthrop. He's exhibit A of the people who consider civilization +a mistake. And my aunt Maria is a truly good woman--charities and all +that--but if you put a rabbit in her brain it would incontinently curl +up and die in convulsions." + +She laughed helplessly, and Hugh reported an advance. + +"Nevertheless," he added quaintly, "we don't really dislike each other." + +"I'm the last of the family, you see; I'm the future.... Can't we skip +the preliminaries?" he broke out. "You don't feel that I am a stranger, +do you?" He halted on the verge of the confidence that he found no +barrier in her advanced age. He knew plenty of women of forty who had +never grown up much and who met him on perfectly equal terms. This, +however, was a case by itself. He plunged back into the memories of +Uncle Hugh. He spoke of his charm, his outlook on life, sometimes +curiously veiled, often uncannily clairvoyant; his periods of restless +suffering tending to queer, unsocial impulses; then the flowering of an +interval of hard work and its reward of almost supernatural joy. + +"He used to go around in a rainbow," said Hugh, "a sort of holy soap +bubble. I hardly dared to speak to him for fear of breaking it. It came +with a new inspiration, and while it lasted nothing on earth was so +important. Then when it was finished he never wanted to see the thing +again." + +"Go on," said his listener. Her grey eyes plumbed his with a child's +directness. He was conscious of his will playing on her. He was keeping +his part of the contract, but he was also breaking the way for hers. He +must not let them go for a moment, those grey eyes like a girl's that +grew absent-minded so easily. Only a little more and his mood would +curve around both them, a glamorous mist of feeling. + +"You go on," he murmured. "Can't you see how much I want you to? Can't +you feel how much I'm the right person to know?" + +"I could never tell any one. You want--" + +"Anything, everything. You must have known him better than anybody in +he world did." + +"I think so," she said, slowly "And I saw him alone only twice in my +life." + +For some time he had sat with his long fingers over his mouth, afraid of +checking her by an untimely word. + +"Of course I was in his classes. You know he had an extraordinary +success; he struck twelve at once, as they say there. The French really +discovered him as a poet, just as Mallarmé discovered Poe; some of them +used that parallel. And the girls--he was a matinée idol and a +cult--even the French girls. We went into that classroom thrilling as we +never went to any ball. I worked that winter for him harder than I had +ever worked in my life, and about Easter he began to single me out for +the most merciless fault-finding. That was his way of showing that he +considered you worth while. He had a habit of standing over you in +class, holding your paper like a knout. And once or twice--I called +myself a conceited little idiot--but once or twice--" + +Hugh nodded. His pulses were singing like morning stars at the spectacle +of a new world. + +"He used to say of a certain excited, happy feeling, a sort of fey +feeling, that you seemed to have swallowed a heavenly pigeon. And--well, +he looked like that. But I knocked my vanity on the head and told it, +'Down to the other dogs.' I was used to young men; I knew how little +such manifestations could mean. But after that I used to set little +lines in the things I wrote for him, very delicately, and sometimes I +fancied I had caught a fish. It was most exciting." + +Hugh again impersonated a Chinese mandarin. + +"You see, he allowed so few people to know him, he moved with such +difficulty in that formally laid-out small, professional world, with its +endless leaving of cards and showing yourself on the proper days. I +think they considered him a sort of Huron afflicted with genius, and +forgave him. He ran away from them, he fought them off. And to feel that +there was a magic spiderweb between this creature and me, new every day +and invisible to everybody else and dripping with poetry like dewdrops! +Can't you fancy the intoxication? I was nineteen.... I had engaged +myself to be married to Beverly Shirley. I had known him all my +life--before I left home--but I had absolutely no conviction of +disloyalty. This was different; this was another life." + +"Another you," agreed Hugh, as one who took exotic states of mind for +granted. + +"Well, yes.... It was one of the awful at-homes of Madame Normand's. She +took American girls _en pension_, and she was supposed to look after us +severely; but as she was an American herself, of course she gave us a +great deal of liberty. She was the wife of a _professeur_, and she had +rather an imposing _salon_, so she received just so often, and you had +to go or she never stopped asking you why. You have been to those French +receptions?" + +"Where they serve music and syrup and little hard cakes, and you carry +away the impression of a lordly function because of the scenery and the +manners? Indeed yes!" + +"I slid away after a while, out upon the iron balcony, filled with new +lilacs, that overhung the garden. Something had hurt my little feelings; +a letter hadn't come, perhaps. I remember how dark and warm the night +was, like a gulf under me, and the stars and the lights of Paris seemed +very much alike and rather disappointing. Then I heard his voice behind +me, and I was as overwhelmed as--as Daphne or Danaë or one of those +pagan ladies might have been when the god came. + +"He said, 'What are you doing, hanging over this dark, romantic chasm?' +And I just had presence of mind enough to play up. + +"'Naturally, I'm waiting for a phantom lover.' Then the answer to that +flashed on me and I said in a hurry, 'I thought you never came to these +things.' + +"'I came to see you'--he really said it--and then, 'And--am I +sufficiently demoniacal?' And he _had_ swallowed a pigeon. + +"'Oh dear, no!' said I. 'You are much too respectable. You are from +Boston.' + +"'And you from Virginia,' said he. 'I hear that a certain Stewart once +unjustifiably claimed kinship with your branch of the family and has +since been known as the Pretender.' + +"'That is quite true,' said I. 'And I hear that once when the Ark ran +aground a little voice was heard piping: 'Save me! save me! I am a +Fowler of Boston!' + +"That was the silly way we began. Isn't it incredible?" + +"He could be silly--that was one of the lovable things," Hugh mused. +"And he could say the most nakedly natural things. But he generally used +the mandarin dialect. He thought in it, I suppose." + +"No," the stranger corrected him. "He thought in thoughts. Brilliant +people always do. The words just wait like a--a--" + +"Layette," said Hugh. "What else did he say?" + +"The next I remember we were leaning together, all but touching. And he +was telling me about the little green gate." + +Hugh's hand shut. "He always called it that. Was he thinking of it even +then?" + +"Oh yes!" + +"He never was like a person of this world," said Hugh, under his breath. + +"The loneliest creature I ever knew." + +They fell silent, like two old friends whose sorrow is the same. + +"He believed," Hugh went on, after a moment, "that when life became +intolerable you had a perfect right to take the shortest way out. And he +thought of it as a little green gate, swinging with its shadow in the +twilight so that a touch would let you into the sweetest, dimmest old +garden." + +"But he loved life." + +"Sometimes. The colour of it and the unexpectedness. He believed the +word didn't have any definite plan, but just wandered along the road and +picked up adventures. And he loved that. He said God made a new earth +every day and he rather fancied a new heaven oftener. But he got so +dead tired at the end, homesick for the underground.... I wonder ..." + +The little woman was looking past him, straight into an evocation of a +vanished presence that was so real, so nearly tangible, that Hugh was +forced to lay violent hands upon his absurd impulse to glance over his +shoulder "I wouldn't let him," she said, in a tone the young man had +never heard before. + +"You mean ..." + +"I couldn't bear it. I made him promise me that he wouldn't. I can't +tell you that. We talked for a long time and the night was full of doom. +He was tired then, but that wasn't all. He felt what was coming--the +Shadow ... and he was in terror. What he dreaded most was that it might +change him in some way, make him something beastly and devilish--he who +had always loved whatever was lovely and merciful and of good report." + +Hugh got up with a shudder. "Hush!" he said, sharply. "It's too ghastly. +Don't tell me any more about it." He wandered across the room, pulling a +leaf from the azaleas, stopping at the window for a long look out. The +wind was blowing some riotous young clouds over the sky like +inarticulate shouts. There was an arrogant bird in the elm; there were +pert crocus-buds in the window-boxes. The place was full of foolhardy +little dare-devils who trusted their fate and might never find it out. +After all, that was the way to live--as long as one was allowed. He +turned suddenly with his whimsical smile. "I look out o' window quite a +bit," he explained, "well, because of my aunt Maria." When he sat down +again in the Sheraton chair Mrs. Shirley shifted her story to the plane +of the smile. + +"I don't know how late it was when Madame Normand popped her head out of +the balcony door." + +"'Who was then surprised? It was the lady,' as dear old Brantome says?" + +"It was everybody. The company had gone and Mélanie the _bonne_ was +putting out the candles. + +"'Miss Stewart and I have just discovered that we are very nearly +related,' said he. + +"'But how delightful,' said Madame, thoroughly annoyed." + +"And the other time," Hugh hinted. What he wanted to say was, "So you +prevented it, you kept him here, God bless you!" His natural resilience +had asserted itself. Vistas were opening. The Hugh who accepted life for +what it was worth was again in the ascendant, but he found a second to +call up the other Hugh, whose legal residence was somewhere near the +threshold of consciousness, to take notice. He had always known that +there must have been something in Uncle Hugh's girl. + +"That was a few days later, the afternoon before I left Paris. I went +quite suddenly. Somebody was sick at home, and I had the chance to +travel with some friends who were going. He had sent me flowers--no, not +roses." + +"Narcissus?" + +"Yes. Old Monsieur Normand was scandalized; it seems one doesn't send +yellow flowers to a _jeune fille_. To me it was the most incredibly +thoughtful and original thing. All the other girls had gone with Madame +to a very special piano recital, in spite of a drizzling rain. It had +turned cool, too, I remember, because there was a wood fire in the +little sitting-room--not the _salon_, but the girls' room. Being an +American, Madame was almost lavish about fires. And it was a most +un-French room, the most careless little place, where the second-best +piano lived, and the lilacs, when they were taken in out of the cold. +There were sweet old curtains, and a long sofa in front of the fireplace +instead of the traditional armchairs. Anybody's books and bibelots lay +about. I was playing." + +"What?" This was important. + +"What would a girl play, over twenty years ago, in Paris? In the +_crépuscule_, with the lilacs that _embaument_, as they say there, and +with a sort of panic in her mind? Because, after all, the man to whom +one is engaged is a man whom one knows very slightly." + +"Absolutely," said Hugh. + +"And I didn't want to leave Paris.... Of course I was playing Chopin +bits, with an ache in my heart to match, that I couldn't bear and was +enjoying to the utmost. What do girls play now? Then all of us had +attacks of Chopin. Madame used to laugh and say, 'I hear the harbour bar +still moaning,' and order that particular girl's favourite dessert. She +spoiled us. And Monsieur would say something about _si jeunesse savait_. +He was a nice old man, not very successful; his colleagues patronized +him. Oh yes he was obvious! + +"And then Mélanie opened the door and announced, '_Monsieur, le cousin +de Mademoiselle_.' I don't know what made her do it except a general +wish to be kind. She remembered from the other night, and, besides, she +hated to attempt English names; she made salmi of them." + +Hugh had ceased to hold her eyes long ago. They looked into the window's +square of light. He had no wish to intrude his presence. She was finding +it natural to tell him, just as he had acknowledged her right to explore +the intimate places of his soul. Things simply happened that way +sometimes, and one was humbly thankful. + +"'Go on,' he said. 'Don't stop.' He sat in a corner of the sofa, and for +a while the impetus of my start carried me on. Then the bottom dropped +out of Chopin. I went over and sat in the other corner. It was a long +sofa; it felt as long as the world. + +"Do you remember that heart-breakingly beautiful voice of his that could +make you feel anything he was feeling? It was like magic. He said at +last: + +"'So you are going home to be married?' + +"I nodded. + +"'Betty,' he said, 'are you happy, quite happy, about--everything?' + +"'Oh yes!' I said. 'Oh yes, Professor Fowler!' The curious thing about +it was that I spoke the truth when I considered it seriously. + +"He said, 'Then that's all right.' Then he laughed a little and said, +'Do you always call me Professor Fowler, even when you shut your door on +the world at night and are all alone with God and the silence?' + +"'And Claudia Jones,' I added, stupidly. + +"He considered that seriously and said, 'I didn't know about Claudia +Jones; she may inhibit even the silence and the other ingredient. I +suppose you call me Teacher.' + +"I cried out at that. 'I might call you _cher maître_, as they do her.' + +"He said, 'That may do for the present.' + +"'We looked into the fire and the lilacs filled the pause as adequately +as Chopin could have done. All at once he got up and came over to me--it +seemed the most natural thing in the world--across that wilderness of +sofa. + +"'I suppose,' he said, 'that you won't let me off that promise.' + +"'No, no!' I cried, all my old panic flooding over me again. I threw my +hands out, and suddenly he had caught them in his and was holding me +half away from him, and he was saying, in that tragic voice of his: + +"'No, no! But give me something to make it bearable.'" + +"Allah, the compassionate!" sighed Hugh, in ecstasy. He had never dared +hope for all this. His very being went on tiptoe for fear of breathing +too loud. + +"We sat there for ages and ages, gazing into the fire, not saying a +word. Then he spoke ... every now and then. He said: + +"'The horrible thing would have been never to have known you. Now that +I've touched you I'm magnetized for life. I can't lose you again.' + +"'It isn't I,' I told him. 'It's only what you think me.' + +"'You are the only creature outside of myself that I ever found myself +in,' he said. 'And I could look into you like Narcissus until I died. +You are home and Nirvana. That's what you are. When I look at you I +believe in God. You gallantest, most foolhardy, little, fragile thing, +you, you're not afraid of anything. You trust this rotten life, don't +you? You expect to find lovely things everywhere, and you will, just +because they'll spring up around your feet. You'll save your world like +all redeemers simply by being in it.' + +"No woman ever had such things said to her as he said to me. But most +of the time we said nothing. There wasn't any past or future; there was +only the touch of his shoulder and his hands all around mine. It was +like coming in out of the cold; it was like being on a hill above the +sea, and listening to the wind in the pines until you don't know which +is the wind and which is you.... + +"It couldn't last forever. After a while something like a little point +of pain began worrying my mind. + +"'But there won't be.... This is good-bye,' I cried. + +"'Don't you believe it,' he said. 'God Himself couldn't make us say +good-bye again.' He got up and drew me with him. It was quite dark now +except for the fire, and his eyes ... they were like those of the Djinns +who were made out of elemental fire instead of earth. 'You'll come to me +in the blessed sunshine,' he said, 'and in music, and in the best +impulses of my own soul. If I were an old-fashioned lover I should +promise to wait for you in heaven.... Betty, Betty, I have you in heaven +now and forever!' ... I felt his cheek on mine. Then he was gone. That +was all; that was every bit of all." + +"And he had that to live on for the rest of his life." Hugh broke the +silence under his breath. "Well, thank God he had _something_!" + +The little woman fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief and shamelessly +dried her eyes. As she moved, a brown object fell from the corner of the +couch across her lap. Hugh held his hand out for the morocco portfolio. + +"It seems to have the homing instinct," he observed; then, abruptly, +"Wait a moment; I'm going to call them back." He paused, as usual, +before his favourite confidant, the window. "The larger consciousness, +the Universal Togetherness," he muttered. "I really believe he must have +touched it that once. O Lord! how--" His spacious vocabulary gave it up. + +When he followed his uncle and aunt into the room Mrs. Shirley came +forward, her thin veil again covering her face. + +"I must go," she said. "Thank you once more for letting me come." + +With a curious young touch of solemnity Hugh laid the brown case in her +hands. "This belongs to you," he said, "and I wanted them to see you +receive it." + + * * * * * + +"And you intend to permit this, Winthrop?" + +Miss Fowler turned on her brother. She had suppressed her emotions +before the intruder; she had even said some proper things without unduly +speeding the parting guest. But if you can't be hateful to your own +family, to whom, in the name of the domestic pieties, can you be +hateful? + +Mr. Fowler swiveled on her the glassy eye of one who does not suffer +fools gladly. "I permit anything," he responded, icily, "that will keep +that boy ... sane." He retired anew behind the monastic newspaper and +rattled it. + +Miss Maria received a sudden chill apprehension that Winthrop was +looking much older lately. "But--" she faltered. Then she resolutely +returned to the baiting. "I suppose you recall her saying that she has a +daughter. Probably," admitted Miss Maria, grudgingly, "an attractive +daughter." + +"It might be a very good thing," said the world-weary voice, and left +her gasping. "Two excellent Virginia families." He faced his sister's +appalled expression. "He might do something much more impossible--marry +a cheap actress or go into a monastery. His behaviour to-day prepares me +for anything. And"--a note of difficulty came into what Hugh had once +called his uncle's chiselled voice--"you do not appear to realize, +Maria, that what Mrs. Shirley has done is rather a remarkable thing, a +thing that you and I, with our undoubted appreciation of the value of +money, should probably have felt that we could not afford to do." + +Hugh came in blithely, bringing a spring-smelling whiff of outdoors with +him. "I got her a taxi," he announced, "and she asked me to come down to +their place for Easter. There's a hunting club. Oh cheer up, Aunt Maria! +At least she left the money behind." + +"Look at my needle!" cried the long-suffering lady. "_You_ did that. I +must say, Hugh, I find your conduct most disrespectful." + +"All right, I grovel," Hugh agreed, pleasantly. He picked up the cat and +rubbed her tenderly the wrong way. + +"As for the money, I don't see how her conscience could have allowed her +to accept everything. And she married somebody else, too." + +"So did Dante's girl. That doesn't seem to make all the difference. +Conscience?" Hugh went on, absently. "Conscience? Haven't I heard that +word somewhere before? You are the only person I know, Aunt Maria, who +has a really good, staunch, weather-proof one, because, like the laws of +the Medes and Persians, it altereth not." + +"I should hope not, indeed," said Miss Fowler, half mollified. + +Hugh smiled sleepily. The cat opened one yellow eye and moved mystified +whiskers. She profoundly distrusted this affectionate young admirer. Was +she being stroked the wrong way or ruffled the right way? + +"Tiger, tiger, burning bright," murmured Hugh. "Puzzle, Kitty: find the +Adventuress." + + + + +THE KITCHEN GODS + + +BY G.F. ALSOP + +From _Century Magazine_ + +The lilies bloomed that day. Out in the courtyard in their fantastic +green-dragoned pots, one by one the tiny, ethereal petals opened. +Dong-Yung went rapturously among them, stooping low to inhale their +faint fragrance. The square courtyard, guarded on three sides by the +wings of the house, facing the windowless blank wall on the fourth, was +mottled with sunlight. Just this side of the wall a black shadow, as +straight and opaque as the wall itself, banded the court with darkness; +but on the hither side, where the lilies bloomed and Dong-Yung moved +among them, lay glittering, yellow sunlight. The little box of a house +where the gate-keeper lived made a bulge in the uniform blackness of the +wall and its shadow. The two tall poles, with the upturned baskets, the +devil-catches, rose like flagstaffs from both sides of the door. A huge +china griffon stood at the right of the gate. From beyond the wall came +the sounds of early morning--the click of wooden sandals on cobbled +streets and the panting cries of the coolies bringing in fresh +vegetables or carrying back to the denuded land the refuse of the city. +The gate-keeper was awake, brushing out his house with a broom of twigs. +He was quite bald, and the top of his head was as tanned and brown as +the legs of small summer children. + +"Good morning, Honourable One," he called. "It is a good omen. The +lilies have opened." + +An amah, blue-trousered, blue-jacketed, blue-aproned, cluttered across +the courtyard with two pails of steaming water. + +"Good morning, Honourable One. The water for the great wife is hot and +heavy." She dropped her buckets, the water splashing over in runnels +and puddles at her feet, and stooped to smell the lilies. "It is an +auspicious day." + +From the casement-window in the right balcony a voice called: + +"Thou dunce! Here I am waiting already half the day. Quicker! quicker!" + +It sounded elderly and querulous a voice accustomed to be obeyed and to +dominate. The great wife's face appeared a moment at the casement. Her +eyes swept over the courtyard scene--over the blooming lilies, and +Dong-Yung standing among them. + +"Behold the small wife, cursed of the gods!" she cried in her high, +shrill voice. "Not even a girl can she bear her master. May she eat +bitterness all her days!" + +The amah shouldered the steaming buckets and splashed across the bare +boards of the ancestral hall beyond. + +"The great wife is angry," murmured the gate-keeper. "Oh, Honourable +One, shall I admit the flower-girl? She has fresh orchids." + +Dong-Yung nodded. The flower girl came slowly in under the guarded +gateway. She was a country child, with brown cheeks and merry eyes. Her +shallow basket was steadied by a ribbon over one shoulder, and caught +between an arm and a swaying hip. In the flat, round basket, on green +little leaves, lay the wired perfumed orchids. + +"How many? It is an auspicious day. See, the lilies have bloomed. One +for the hair and two for the buttonholes. They smell sweet as the breath +of heaven itself." + +Dong-Yung smiled as the flower-girl stuck one of the fragrant, fragile, +green-striped orchids in her hair, and hung two others, caught on +delicate loops of wire, on the jade studs of her jacket, buttoned on the +right shoulder. + +"Ah, you are beautiful-come-death!" said the flower-girl. "Great +happiness be thine!" + +"Even a small wife can be happy at times." Dong-Yung took out a little +woven purse and paid over two coppers apiece to the flower-girl. + +At the gate the girl and the gate-keeper fell a-talking. + +"Is the morning rice ready?" called a man's voice from the room behind. + +Dong-Yung turned quickly. Her whole face changed. It had been smiling +and pleased before at the sight of the faint, white lily-petals and the +sunlight on her feet and the fragrance of the orchids in her hair; but +now it was lit with an inner radiance. + +"My beloved Master!" Dong-Yung made a little instinctive gesture toward +the approaching man, which in a second was caught and curbed by Chinese +etiquette. Dressed, as she was, in pale-gray satin trousers, loose, and +banded at the knee with wide blue stripes, and with a soft jacket to +match, she was as beautiful in the eyes of the approaching man as the +newly opened lilies. What he was in her eyes it would be hard for any +modern woman to grasp: that rapture of adoration, that bliss of worship, +has lingered only in rare hearts and rarer spots on the earth's surface. + +Foh-Kyung came out slowly through the ancestral hall. The sunlight edged +it like a bright border. The floors were wide open, and Dong-Yung saw +the decorous rows of square chairs and square tables set rhythmically +along the walls, and the covered dais at the head for the guest of +honour. Long crimson scrolls, sprawled with gold ideographs, hung from +ceiling to floor. A rosewood cabinet, filled with vases, peach bloom, +imperial yellow, and turquoise blue, gleamed like a lighted lamp in the +shadowy morning light of the room. + +Foh-Kyung stooped to smell the lilies. + +"They perfume the very air we breathe. Little Jewel, I love our old +Chinese ways. I love the custom of the lily-planting and the day the +lilies bloom. I love to think the gods smell them in heaven, and are +gracious to mortals for their fragrance's sake." + +"I am so happy!" Dong-Yung said, poking the toe of her slipper in and +out the sunlight. She looked up at the man before her, and saw he was +tall and slim and as subtle-featured as the cross-legged bronze Buddha +himself. His long thin hands were hid, crossed and slipped along the +wrists within the loose apricot satin sleeves of his brocaded garment. +His feet, in their black satin slippers and tight-fitting white muslin +socks, were austere and aristocratic. Dong-Yung, when he was absent, +loved best to think of him thus, with his hands hidden and his eyes +smiling. + +"The willow-leaves will bud soon," answered Dong-Yung, glancing over her +shoulder at the tapering, yellowing twigs of the ancient tree. + +"And the beech-blossoms," continued Foh-Kyung. "'The earth is the +Lord's, and the fullness thereof.'" + +"The foreign devil's wisdom," answered Dong-Yung. + +"It is greater than ours, Dong-Yung; greater and lovelier. To-day, +to-day, I will go to their hall of ceremonial worship and say to their +holy priest that I think and believe the Jesus way." + +"Oh, most-beloved Master, is it also permitted to women, to a small +wife, to believe the Jesus way?" + +"I will believe for thee, too, little Lotus Flower in the Pond." + +"Tell me, O Teacher of Knowledge--tell me that in my heart and in my +mind I may follow a little way whither thou goest in thy heart and in +thy mind!" + +Foh-Kyung moved out of the shadow of the ancestral hall and stood in the +warm sunlight beside Dong-Yung, his small wife. His hands were still +withheld and hidden, clasping his wrists within the wide, loose apricot +sleeves of his gown, but his eyes looked as if they touched her. +Dong-Yung hid her happiness even as the flowers hide theirs, within +silent, incurving petals. + +"The water is cold as the chill of death. Go, bring me hot water--water +hot enough to scald an egg." + +Foh-Kyung and Dong-Yung turned to the casement in the upper right-hand +wing and listened apprehensively. The quick chatter of angry voices +rushed out into the sunlight. + +"The honourable great wife is very cross this morning." Dong-Yung +shivered and turned back to the lilies. "To-day perhaps she will beat me +again. Would that at least I had borne my lord a young prince for a +son; then perhaps--" + +"Go not near her, little Jewel. Stay in thine own rooms. Nay, I have +sons a-plenty. Do not regret the childlessness. I would not have your +body go down one foot into the grave for a child. I love thee for +thyself. + +"Now my lord speaks truly, as do the foreign devils to the shameless, +open-faced women. I like the ways of the outside kingdom well. Tell me +more of them, my Master." + +Foh-Kyung moved his hands as if he would have withdrawn them from his +apricot-coloured sleeves. Dong-Yung saw the withheld motion, and swayed +nearer. For a moment Dong-Yung saw the look in his eyes that engulfed +her in happiness; then it was gone, and he looked away past her, across +the opening lily-buds and the black rampart of the wall, at something +distant, yet precious. Foh-Kyung moved closer. His face changed. His +eyes held that hidden rapture that only Dong-Yung and the foreign-born +priest had seen. + +"Little Jewel, wilt thou go with me to the priest of the foreign-born +faith? Come!" He withdrew his hand from his sleeve and touched Dong-Yung +on the shoulder. "Come, we will go hand in hand, thou and I, even as the +men and women of the Jesus thinking; not as Chinese, I before, and thou +six paces behind. Their God loves men and women alike." + +"Is it permitted to a small wife to worship the foreign-born God?" +Dong-Yung lifted her eyes to the face of Foh-Kyung. "Teach me, O my Lord +Master! My understanding is but young and fearful--" + +Foh-Kyung moved into the sunlight beside her. + +"Their God loves all the world. Their God is different, little Flower, +from the painted images, full of blessings, not curses. He loves even +little girl babies that mothers would throw away. Truly his heart is +still more loving than the heart of a mother." + +"And yet I am fearful--" Dong-Yung looked back into the shadows of the +guest-hall, where the ancestral tablets glowed upon the wall, and +crimson tapers stood ready before them. "Our gods I have touched and +handled." + +"Nay, in the Jesus way there is no fear left." Foh-Kyung's voice dropped +lower. Its sound filled Dong-Yung with longing. "When the wind screams +in the chimneys at night, it is but the wind, not evil spirits. When the +summer breeze blows in at the open door, we need not bar it. It is but +the summer breeze from the rice-fields, uninhabited by witch-ghosts. +When we eat our morning rice, we are compelled to make no offering to +the kitchen gods in the stove corner. They cannot curse our food. Ah, in +the Jesus way there is no more fear!" + +Dong-Yung drew away from her lord and master and looked at him +anxiously. He was not seeing her at all. His eyes looked beyond, across +the fragile, lily-petals, through the solid black wall, at a vision he +saw in the world. Dong-Yung bent her head to sniff the familiar sweet +springtime orchid hanging from the jade stud on her shoulder. + +"Your words are words of good hearing, O beloved Teacher. Nevertheless, +let me follow six paces behind. I am not worthy to touch your hand. Six +paces behind, when the sun shines in your face, my feet walk in the +shadow of your garments." + +Foh-Kyung gathered his gaze back from his visions and looked at his +small wife, standing in a pool of sunshine before him. Overhead the lazy +crows flew by, winging out from their city roosts to the rice-fields for +the day's food. + +"Tea-boiled eggs!" cried a vender from beyond the wall. A man stopped at +the gate, put down his shoulder-tray of food, and bargained with the +ancient, mahogany-scalped gate-keeper. Faint odours of food frying in +oil stole out from the depths of the house behind him. And Dong-Yung, +very quiet and passive in the pose of her body, gazed up at Foh-Kyung +with those strange, secretive, ardent eyes. All around him was China, +its very essence and sound and smell. Dong-Yung was a part of it all; +nay, she was even the very heart of it, swaying there in the yellow +light among the lily-petals. + +"Precious Jewel! Yet it is sweeter to walk side by side, our feet +stepping out into the sunlight together, and our shadows mingling +behind. I want you beside me." + +The last words rang with sudden warmth. Dong-Yung trembled and +crimsoned. It was not seemly that a man speak to a woman thus, even +though that man was a husband and the woman his wife, not even though +the words were said in an open court, where the eyes of the great wife +might spy and listen. And yet Dong-Yung thrilled to those words. + +An amah called, "The morning rice is ready." + +Dong-Yung hurried into the open room, where the light was still faint, +filtering in through a high-silled window and the door. A round, brown +table stood in the center of the room. In the corner of the room behind +stood the crescentic, white plaster stove, with its dull wooden +kettle-lids and its crackling straw. Two cooks, country women, sat in +the hidden corner behind the stove, and poked in the great bales of +straw and gossiped. Their voices and the answers of the serving amah +filled the kitchen with noise. In their decorous niche at the upper +right hand of the stove sat the two kitchen gods, small ancient idols, +with hidden hands and crossed feet, gazing out upon a continually hungry +world. Since time was they had sat there, ensconced at the very root of +life, seemingly placid and unseeing and unhearing, yet venomously +watching to be placated with food. Opposite the stove, on the white +wall, hung a row of brass hooks, from which dangled porcelain spoons +with pierced handles. On a serving-table stood the piled bowls for the +day, blue-and-white rice patterns, of a thin, translucent ware, showing +the delicate light through the rice seeds; red-and-green dragoned bowls +for the puddings; and tiny saucer-like platters for the vegetables. The +tea-cups, saucered and lidded, but unhandled, stood in a row before the +polished brass hot-water kettle. + +The whole room was full of a stirring, wakening life, of the crackling +straw fire, of the steaming rice, all white and separate-kerneled in its +great, shallow, black iron kettles lidded with those heavy hand-made +wooden lids while the boiling tea water hissed, and spat out a snake of +white steam. + +With that curious democracy of China, where high and low alike are +friendly, Dong-Yung hurried into her beloved kitchen. + +"Has the master come?" asked the serving maid. + +"Coming, coming," Dong-Yung answered, "I myself will take in his morning +rice, after I have offered the morning oblations to the gods." + +Dong-Yung selected two of the daintiest blue-and-white rice-pattern +bowls. The cook lifted off the wooden lid of the rice-kettle, and +Dong-Yung scooped up a dipperful of the snow-white kernels. On the tiny +shelf before each god, the father and mother god of the household, +Dong-Yung placed her offering. She stood off a moment, surveying them in +pleased satisfaction--the round, blue bowls, with the faint tracery of +light; the complacent gods above, red and green and crimson, so +age-long, comfortably ensconced in their warm stove corner. She made +swift obeisance with her hands and body before those ancient idols. A +slant of sunshine swept in from the high windows and fell over her in a +shaft of light. The thoughts of her heart were all warm and mixed and +confused. She was happy. She loved her kitchen, her gods, all the +familiar ways of Chinese life. She loved her silken, satin clothes, +perfumed and embroidered and orchid-crowned, yet most of all she loved +her lord and master. Perhaps it was this love for him that made all the +rest of life so precious, that made each bowl of white rice an oblation, +each daily act a glorification. So she flung out her arms and bent her +head before the kitchen gods, the symbol of her ancient happiness. + +"Dong-Yung, I do not wish you to do this any more." + +Dong-Yung turned, her obeisance half arrested in mid-air. Foh-Kyung +stood in the doorway. + +"My lord," stammered Dong-Yung, "I did not understand your meaning." + +"I know that, little Flower in my House. The new meaning is hard to +understand. I, too, am but a blind child unused to the touch of the +road. But the kitchen gods matter no more; we pray to a spirit." + +Foh-Kyung, in his long apricot-coloured garment, crossed the threshold +of the kitchen, crossed the shadow and sunlight that stripped the bare +board floor, and stood before the kitchen gods. His eyes were on a level +with theirs, strange, painted wooden eyes that stared forth inscrutably +into the eating centuries. Dong-Yung stood half bowed, breathless with a +quick, cold fear. The cook, one hand holding a shiny brown dipper, the +other a porcelain dish, stood motionless at the wooden table under the +window. From behind the stove peeped the frightened face of one of the +fire-tenders. The whole room was turned to stone, motionless, expectant, +awaiting the releasing moment of arousement--all, that is, but the +creeping sunshine, sliding nearer and nearer the crossed feet of the +kitchen gods; and the hissing steam fire, warming, coddling the hearts +of the gods. Sun at their feet, fire at their hearts, food before them, +and mortals turned to stone! + +Foh-Kyung laughed softly, standing there, eye-level with the kitchen +gods. He stretched out his two hands, and caught a god in each. A +shudder ran through the motionless room. + +"It is wickedness!" The porcelain dish fell from the hand of the cook, +and a thousand rice-kernels, like scattered pearls, ran over the floor. + +"A blasphemer," the fire-tender whispered, peering around the stove with +terrified eyes. "This household will bite off great bitterness." + +Foh-Kyung walked around the corner of the stove. The fire sparked and +hissed. The sunshine filled the empty niche. Not since the building of +the house and the planting of the tall black cypress-trees around it, a +hundred years ago, had the sunlight touched the wall behind the kitchen +gods. + +Dong-Yung sprang into life. She caught Foh-Kyung's sleeve. + +"O my Lord and Master, I pray you, do not utterly cast them away into +the burning, fiery furnace! I fear some evil will befall us." + +Foh-Kyung, a green-and-gold god in each hand, stopped and turned. His +eyes smiled at Dong-Yung. She was so little and so precious and so +afraid! Dong-Yung saw the look of relenting. She held his sleeve the +tighter. + +"Light of my Eyes, do good deeds to me. My faith is but a little faith. +How could it be great unto thy great faith? Be gentle with my kitchen +gods. Do not utterly destroy them. I will hide them." + +Foh-Kyung smiled yet more, and gave the plaster gods into her hands as +one would give a toy to a child. + +"They are thine. Do with them as thou wilt, but no more set them up in +this stove corner and offer them morning rice. They are but painted, +plastered gods. I worship the spirit above." + +Foh-Kyung sat down at the men's table in the men's room beyond. An amah +brought him rice and tea. Other men of the household there was none, and +he ate his meal alone. From the women's room across the court came a +shrill round of voices. The voice of the great wife was loudest and +shrillest. The voices of the children, his sons and daughters, rose and +fell with clear childish insistence among the older voices. The amah's +voice laughed with an equal gaiety. + +Dong-Yung hid away the plastered green-and-gold gods. Her heart was +filled with a delicious fear. Her lord was even master of the gods. He +picked them up in his two hands, he carried them about as carelessly as +a man carries a boy child astride his shoulder; he would even have cast +them into the fire! Truly, she shivered with delight. Nevertheless, she +was glad she had hidden them safely away. In the corner of the kitchen +stood a box of white pigskin with beaten brass clasps made like the +outspread wings of a butterfly. Underneath the piles of satin she had +hidden them, and the key to the butterfly clasps was safe in her +belt-jacket. + +Dong-Yung stood in the kitchen door and watched Foh-Kyung. + +"Does my lord wish for anything?" + +Foh-Kyung turned, and saw her standing there in the doorway. Behind her +were the white stove and the sun-filled, empty niche. The light flooded +through the doorway. Foh-Kyung set down his rice-bowl from his left hand +and his ivory chop-sticks from his right. He stood before her. + +"Truly, Dong-Yung, I want thee. Do not go away and leave me. Do not +cross to the eating-room of the women and children. Eat with me." + +"It has not been heard of in the Middle Kingdom for a woman to eat with +a man." + +"Nevertheless, it shall be. Come!" + +Dong-Yung entered slowly. The light in this dim room was all gathered +upon the person of Foh-Kyung, in the gleaming patterned roses of his +gown, in his deep amethyst ring, in his eyes. Dong-Yung came because of +his eyes. She crossed the room slowly, swaying with that peculiar grace +of small-footed women, till she stood at the table beside Foh-Kyung. She +was now even more afraid than when he would have cast the kitchen gods +into the fire. They were but gods, kitchen gods, that he was about to +break; this was the primeval bondage of the land, ancient custom. + +"Give me thy hand and look up with thine eyes and thy heart." + +Dong-Yung touched his hand. Foh-Kyung looked up as if he saw into the +ether beyond, and there saw a spirit vision of ineffable radiance. But +Dong-Yung watched him. She saw him transfigured with an inner light. His +eyes moved in prayer. The exaltation spread out from him to her, it +tingled through their finger-tips, it covered her from head to foot. + +Foh-Kyung drooped her hand and moved. Dong-Yung leaned nearer. + +"I, too, would believe the Jesus way." + +In the peculiar quiet of mid-afternoon, when the shadows begin to creep +down from the eaves of the pagodas and zigzag across the rice-fields to +bed, Foh-Kyung and Dong-Yung arrived at the camp-ground of the +foreigners. The lazy native streets were still dull with the end of +labour. At the gate of the camp-ground the rickshaw coolies tipped down +the bamboo shafts, to the ground. Dong-Yung stepped out quickly, and +looked at her lord and master. He smiled. + +"Nay, I do not fear," Dong-Yung answered, with her eyes on his face. +"Yet this place is strange, and lays a coldness around my heart." + +"Regard not their awkward ways," said Foh-Kyung, as he turned in at the +gate; "in their hearts they have the secret of life." + +The gate-keeper bowed, and slipped the coin, warm from Foh-Kyung's hand, +into his ready pocket. + +"Walk beside me, little Wife of my Heart." Foh-Kyung stopped in the wide +gravelled road and waited for Dong-Yung. Standing there in the sunlight, +more vivid yet than the light itself, in his imperial yellow robes he +was the end of life, nay, life itself, to Dong-Yung. "We go to the house +of the foreign priest to seek until we find the foreign God. Let us go +side by side." + +Dong-Yung, stepping with slow, small-footed grace, walked beside him. + +"My understanding is as the understanding of a little child, beloved +Teacher; but my heart lies like a shell in thy hand, its words but as +the echo of thine. My honour is great that thou do not forget me in the +magnitude of the search." + +Dong-Yung's pleated satin skirts swayed to and fro against the imperial +yellow of Foh-Kyung's robe. Her face coloured like a pale spring +blossom, looked strangely ethereal above her brocade jacket. Her heart +still beat thickly, half with fear and half with the secret rapture of +their quest and her lord's desire for her. + +Foh-Kyung took a silken and ivory fan from an inner pocket and spread it +in the air. Dong-Yung knew the fan well. It came from a famous +jeweller's on Nanking Road, and had been designed by an old court poet +of long ago. The tiny ivory spokes were fretted like ivy-twigs in the +North, but on the leaves of silk was painted a love-story of the South. +There was a tea-house, with a maiden playing a lute, and the words of +the song, fantastic black ideographs, floated off to the ears of her +lover. Foh-Kyung spread out its leaves in the sun, and looked at it and +smiled." + +"Never is the heart of man satisfied," he said, "alone. Neither when the +willow fuzz flies in the spring, or when the midnight snow silvers the +palms. Least of all is it satisfied when it seeks the presence of God +above. I want thee beside me." + +Dong-Yung hid her delight. Already for the third time he said those +words--those words that changed all the world from one of a loving +following-after to a marvelous oneness. + +So they stepped across the lawn together. It was to Dong-Yung as if she +stepped into an unknown land. She walked on flat green grass. Flowers in +stiff and ordered rows went sedately round and round beneath a lurid red +brick wall. A strange, square-cornered, flat-topped house squatted in +the midst of the flat green grass. On the lawn at one side was a +white-covered table, with a man and a woman sitting beside it. The four +corners of the table-cloth dripped downward to the flat green grass. It +was all very strange and ugly. Perhaps it was a garden, but no one would +have guessed it. Dong-Yung longed to put each flower plant in a dragon +bowl by itself and place it where the sun caught its petals one by one +as the hours flew by. She longed for a narrow, tile-edged patch to guide +her feet through all that flat green expanse. A little shiver ran over +her. She looked back, down the wide gravelled way, through the gate, +where the gate-keeper sat, tipped back against the wall on his stool, to +the shop of the money-changer's opposite. A boy leaned half across the +polished wood counter and shook his fist in the face of the +money-changer. "Thou thief!" he cried. "Give me my two cash!" Dong-Yung +was reassured. Around her lay all the dear familiar things; at her side +walked her lord and master. And he had said they were seeking a new +freedom, a God of love. Her thoughts stirred at her heart and caught her +breath away. + +The foreigners rose to greet them. Dong-Yung touched the hand of an +alien man. She did not like it at all. The foreign-born woman made her +sit down beside her, and offered her bitter, strong tea in delicate, +lidless cups, with handles bent like a twisted flower-branch. + +"I have been meaning to call for a long time, Mrs. Li," said the +foreign-born woman. + +"The great wife will receive thee with much honour," Dong-Yung answered. + +"I am so glad you came with your husband." + +"Yes," Dong-Yung answered, with a little smile. "The customs of the +foreign-born are pleasant to our eyes." + +"I am glad you like them," said the foreign-born woman. "I couldn't bear +not to go everywhere with my husband." + +Dong-Yung liked her suddenly on account of the look that sprang up a +moment in her eyes and vanished again. She looked across at the priest, +her husband, a man in black, with thin lips and seeing eyes. The eyes of +the foreign woman, looking at the priest, her husband, showed how much +she loved him. "She loves him even as a small wife loves," Dong-Yung +thought to herself. Dong-Yung watched the two men, the one in imperial +yellow, the one in black, sitting beside each other and talking. +Dong-Yung knew they were talking of the search. The foreign-born woman +was speaking to her again. + +"The doctor told me I would die if I came to China, but John felt he had +a call. I would not stand in his way." + +The woman's face was illumined. + +"And now you are very happy?" Dong-Yung announced. + +"And now I am very happy; just as you will be very happy." + +"I am always happy since my lord took me for his small wife." Dong-Yung +matched her happiness with the happiness of the foreign-born woman, +proudly, with assurance. In her heart she knew no woman, born to eat +bitterness, had ever been so happy as she in all the worlds beneath the +heavens. She looked around her, beyond the failure of the foreign +woman's garden, at the piled, peaked roofs of China looking over the +wall. The fragrance of a blossoming plum-tree stole across from a +Chinese courtyard, and a peach-branch waved pink in the air. A wonder of +contentment filled Dong-Yung. + +All the while Foh-Kyung was talking. Dong-Yung turned back from all the +greenness around her to listen. He sat very still, with his hands hid in +his sleeves. The wave-ridged hem of his robe--blue and green and purple +and red and yellow--was spread out decorously above his feet. Dong-Yung +looked and looked at him, so still and motionless and so gorgeously +arrayed. She looked from his feet, long, slim, in black satin slippers, +and close-fitting white muslin socks, to the feet of the foreign priest. +His feet were huge, ugly black things. From his feet Dong-Yung's eyes +crept up to his face, over his priestly black clothes, rimmed with stiff +white at wrist and throat. Yes, his face was even as the face of a +priest, of one who serves between the gods and men, a face of seeing +eyes and a rigid mouth. Dong-Yung shuddered. + +"And so we have come, even as the foreign-born God tells us, a man and +his wife, to believe the Jesus way." + +Foh-Kyung spoke in a low voice, but his face smiled. Dong-Yung smiled, +too, at his open, triumphant declarations. She said over his words to +herself, under her breath, so that she would remember them surely when +she wanted to call them back to whisper to her heart in the dark of some +night. "We two, a man and his wife"--only dimly, with the heart of a +little child, did Dong-Yung understand and follow Foh-Kyung; but the +throb of her heart answered the hidden light in his eyes. + +The foreign-born priest stood up. The same light shone in his eyes. It +was a rapture, an exaltation. Suddenly an unheard-of thing happened. The +outside kingdom woman put her arms around Dong-Yung! Dong-Yung was +terrified. She was held tight against the other woman's shoulder. The +foreign-born woman used a strange perfume. Dong-Yung only half heard her +whispered words. + +"We are like that, too. We could not be separated. Oh, you will be +happy!" + +Dong-Yung thought of the other woman. "In her heart she is humble and +seemly. It is only her speech and her ways that are unfitting." + +"We are going into the chapel a moment," said the priest. "Will you +come, too?" + +Dong-Yung looked at Foh-Kyung, a swift upward glance, like the sudden +sweep of wings. She read his answer in his eyes. He wanted her to come. +Not even in the temple of the foreign-born God did he wish to be without +her. + +A coolie called the foreign-born woman away. + +The priest, in his tight trousers, and jacket, black and covered with a +multitude of round flat buttons, stood up, and led the way into the +house and down a long corridor to a closed door at the end. Dong-Yung +hurried behind the two men. At the door the priest stood aside and held +it open for her to pass in first. She hesitated. Foh-Kyung nodded. + +"Do not think fearful things, little Princess," he whispered. "Enter, +and be not afraid. There is no fear in the worship of Jesus." + +So Dong-Yung crossed the threshold first. Something caught her breath +away, just as the chanting of the dragon priests always did. She took a +few steps forward and stood behind a low-backed bench. Before her, the +light streamed into the little chapel through one luminous window of +coloured glass above the altar. It lay all over the grey-tiled floor in +roses and sunflowers of pink and god. A deep purple stripe fell across +the head of the black-robed priest. Dong-Yung was glad of that. It made +his robe less hideous, and she could not understand how one could serve +a god unless in beautiful robes. On the altar beneath the window of +coloured flowers were two tall silver candlesticks, with smooth white +tapers. A wide-mouthed vase filled with Chinese lilies stood between +them. The whole chapel was faintly fragrant with their incense. So even +the foreign-born worshipers lit candles, and offered the scent of the +lilies to their spirit God. Truly, all the gods of all the earth and in +the sky are lovers of lit candles and flowers. Also, one prays to all +gods. + +The place was very quiet and peaceful, mottled with the gorgeous, +flowerlike splashes of colour. The waiting candles, the echoes of many +prayers, the blossom of worship filled the tiny chapel. Dong-Yung liked +it, despite herself, despite the strangeness of the imageless altar, +despite the clothes of the priest. She stood quite still behind the +bench flooded and filled with an all-pervading sense of happiness. + +Foh-Kyung and the black-robed priest walked past her, down the little +aisle, to a shiny brass railing that went like a fence round before the +altar. The foreign-born priest laid one hand on the railing as if to +kneel down, but Foh-Kyung turned and beckoned with his chin to Dong-Yung +to come. She obeyed at once. She was surprisingly unafraid. Her feet +walked through the patterns of colour, which slid over her head and +hands, gold from the gold of a cross and purple from the robe of a king. +As if stepping through a rainbow, she came slowly down the aisle to the +waiting men, and in her heart and in her eyes lay the light of all love +and trust. + +Foh-Kyung caught her hand. + +"See, I take her hand," he said to the priest, "even as you would take +the hand of your wife, proud and unashamed in the presence of your God. +Even as your love is, so shall ours be. Where the thoughts of my heart +lead, the heart of my small wife follows. Give us your blessing." + +Foh-Kyung drew Dong-Yung to her knees beside him. His face was hidden, +after the manner of the foreign worshipers; but hers was uplifted, her +eyes gazing at the glass with the colours of many flowers and the shapes +of men and angels. She was happier than she had ever been--happier even +than when she had first worshiped the ancestral tablets with her lord +and master, happier even than at the feast of the dead, when they laid +their food offerings on the shaven grave-mounds. She felt closer to +Foh-Kyung than in all her life before. + +She waited. The silence grew and grew till in the heart of it something +ominous took the place of its all-pervading peace. Foh-Kyung lifted his +face from his hands and rose to his feet. Dong-Yung turned, still +kneeling, to scan his eyes. The black-robed priest stood off and looked +at them with horror. Surely it was horror! Never had Dong-Yung really +liked him. Slowly she rose, and stood beside and a little behind +Foh-Kyung. He had not blessed them. Faintly, from beyond the walls of +the Christian chapel came the beating of drums. Devil-drums they were. +Dong-Yung half smiled at the long-known familiar sound. + +"Your small wife?" said the priest. "Have you another wife?" + +"Assuredly," Foh-Kyung answered. "All men have a great wife first; but +this, my small wife, is the wife of my heart. Together we have come to +seek and find the Jesus way." + +The priest wiped his hand across his face. Dong-Yung saw that it was wet +with tiny round balls of sweat. His mouth had suddenly become one thin +red line, but in his eyes lay pain. + +"Impossible," he said. His voice was quite different now, and sounded +like bits of metal falling on stone. "No man can enter the church while +living in sin with a woman other than his lawful wife. If your desire is +real, put her away." + +With instant response, Foh-Kyung made a stately bow. "Alas! I have made +a grievous mistake. The responsibility will be on my body. I thought all +were welcome. We go. Later on, perhaps, we may meet again." + +The priest spoke hurriedly. + +"I do not understand your meaning. Is this belief of such light weight +that you will toss it away for a sinful woman? Put her away, and come +and believe." But Foh-Kyung did not hear his words. As he turned away, +Dong-Yung followed close behind her lord and master, only half +comprehending, yet filled with a great fear. They went out again into +the sunshine, out across the flat green grass, under the iron gateway, +back into the Land of the Flowery Kingdom. Foh-Kyung did not speak until +he put Dong-Yung in the rickshaw. + +"Little Wife of my Heart," he said, "stop at the jeweller's and buy thee +new ear-rings, these ear-rings of the sky-blue stone and sea-tears, and +have thy hair dressed and thy gowns perfumed, and place the two red +circles on the smile of thy cheeks. To-night we will feast. Hast thou +forgotten that to-night is the Feast of the Lanterns, when all good +Buddhists rejoice?" + +He stood beside her rickshaw, in his imperial yellow garment hemmed with +the rainbow waves of the sea, and smiled down into her eyes. + +"But the spirit God of love, the foreign-born spirit God?" said +Dong-Yung. "Shall we feast to him too?" + +"Nay, it is not fitting to feast to two gods at once," said Foh-Kyung. +"Do as I have said." + +He left her. Dong-Yung, riding through the sun-splashed afternoon, +buying coloured jewels and flowery perfume and making herself beautiful, +yet felt uneasy. She had not quite understood. A dim knowledge advanced +toward her like a wall of fog. She pressed her two hands against it and +held it off--held it off by sheer mental refusal to understand. In the +courtyard at home the children were playing with their lighted animals, +drawing their gaudy paper ducks, luminous with candle-light, to and fro +on little standards set on four wheels. At the gate hung a tall +red-and-white lantern, and over the roof floated a string of candle-lit +balloons. In the ancestral hall the great wife had lit the red candles, +speared on their slender spikes, before the tablets. In the kitchen the +cooks and amahs were busy with the feast-cooking. Candles were stuck +everywhere on the tables and benches. They threw little pools of light +on the floor before the stove and looked at the empty niche. In the +night it was merely a black hole in the stove filled with formless +shadow. She wished-- + +"Dong-Yung, Flower in the House, where hast thou hidden the kitchen +gods? Put them in their place." Foh-Kyung, still in imperial yellow, +stood like a sun in the doorway. + +Dong-Yung turned. + +"But--" + +"Put them back, little Jewel in the Hair. It is not permitted to worship +the spirit God. There are bars and gates. The spirit of man must turn +back in the searching, turn back to the images of plaster and paint." + +Dong-Yung let the wall of fog slide over her. She dropped her +resistance. She knew. + +"Nay, not the spirit of man. It is but natural that the great God does +not wish the importunings of a small wife. Worship thou alone the great +God, and the shadow of that worship will fall on my heart." + +"Nay, I cannot worship alone. My worship is not acceptable in the sight +of the foreign God. My ways are not his ways." + +Foh-Kyung's face was unlined and calm, yet Dong-Yung felt the hidden +agony of his soul, flung back from its quest upon gods of plaster and +paint. + +"But I know the thoughts of thy heart, O Lord and Master, white and +fragrant as the lily-buds that opened to-day. Has thy wish changed?" + +"Nay, my wish is even the same, but it is not permitted to a man of two +wives to be a follower of the spirit God." + +Dong-Yung had known it all along. This knowledge came with no surprise. +It was she who kept him from the path of his desire! + +"Put back the kitchen gods," said Foh-Kyung. "We will live and believe +and die even as our fathers have done. The gate to the God of love is +closed." + +The feast was served. In the sky one moon blotted out a world of stars. +Foh-Kyung sat alone, smoking. Laughter and talk filled the women's wing. +The amahs and coolies were resting outside. A thin reed of music crept +in and out among the laughter and talk, from the reed flute of the cook. +The kitchen was quite empty. One candle on the table sent up a long +smoky tongue of flame. The fire still smouldered in the corner. A little +wind shook the cypress-branches without, and carried the scent of the +opened lilies into the room. + +Dong-Yung, still arrayed for feasting, went to the pigskin trunk in the +corner, fitted the key from her belt into the carven brass wings of the +butterfly, and lifted out the kitchen gods. One in each hand, she held +them, green and gold. She put them back in their niche, and lifted up a +bowl of rice to their feet, and beat her head on the ground before them. + +"Forgive me, O my kitchen gods, forgive my injurious hands and heart; +but the love of my master is even greater than my fear of thee. Thou and +I, we bar the gates of heaven from him." + +When she had finished, she tiptoed around the room, touching the chairs +and tables with caressing fingers. She stole out into the courtyard, and +bent to inhale the lily fragrance, sweeter by night than by day. "An +auspicious day," the gate-keeper had said that morning. Foh-Kyung had +stood beside her, with his feet in the sunshine; she remembered the +light in his eyes. She bent her head till the fingers of the lily-petals +touched her cheek. She crept back through the house, and looked at +Foh-Kyung smoking. His eyes were dull, even as are the eyes of sightless +bronze Buddhas. No, she would never risk going in to speak to him. If +she heard the sound of his voice, if he called her "little Flower of the +House," she would never have the strength to go. So she stood in the +doorway and looked at him much as one looks at a sun, till wherever else +one looks, one sees the same sun against the sky. + +In the formless shadow she made a great obeisance, spreading out her +arms and pressing the palms of her hands against the floor. + +"O my Lord and Master," she said, with her lips against the boards of +the floor, softly, so that none might hear her--"O my Lord and Master, I +go. Even a small wife may unbar the gates of heaven." + +First, before she went, she cast the two kitchen gods, green and gold, +of ancient plaster, into the embers of the fire. There in the morning +the cook-rice amahs found the onyx stones that had been their eyes. The +house was still unlocked, the gate-keeper at the feast. Like a shadow +she moved along the wall and through the gate. The smell of the lilies +blew past her. Drums and chants echoed up the road, and the sounds of +manifold feastings. She crept away down by the wall, where the moon laid +a strip of blackness, crept away to unbar the gates of heaven for her +lord and master. + + + + +APRIL 25TH, AS USUAL + + +By EDNA FERBER + +From _Ladies Home Journal_ + +Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster always cleaned house in September and April. She +started with the attic and worked her purifying path down to the cellar +in strict accordance with Article I, Section I, Unwritten Rules for +House Cleaning. For twenty-five years she had done it. For twenty-five +years she had hated it--being an intelligent woman. For twenty-five +years, towel swathed about her head, skirt pinned back, sleeves rolled +up--the costume dedicated to house cleaning since the days of +What's-Her-Name, mother of Lemuel (see Proverbs)--Mrs. Brewster had gone +through the ceremony twice a year. + +Furniture on the porch, woolens on the line, mattresses in the +yard--everything that could be pounded, beaten, whisked, rubbed, +flapped, shaken or aired was dragged out and subjected to one or all of +these indignities. After which, completely cowed, they were dragged in +again and set in their places. Year after year, in attic and in cellar, +things had piled up higher and higher--useless things, sentimental +things; things in trunks; things in chests; shelves full of things +wrapped up in brown-paper parcels. + +And boxes--oh, above all, boxes; pasteboard boxes, long and flat, square +and oblong, each bearing weird and cryptic pencilings on one end; +cryptic, that, is to anyone except Mrs. Brewster and you who have owned +an attic. Thus "H's Fshg Tckl" jabberwocked one long slim box. Another +stunned you with "Cur Ted Slpg Pch." A cabalistic third hid its contents +under "Slp Cov Pinky Rm." To say nothing of such curt yet intriguing +fragments as "Blk Nt Drs" and "Sun Par Val." Once you had the code key +they translated themselves simply enough into such homely items as +Hosey's fishing tackle, canvas curtains for Ted's sleeping porch, +slip-covers for Pinky's room, black net dress, sun-parlour valence. + +The contents of those boxes formed a commentary on normal American +household life as lived by Mr. and Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster, of Winnebago, +Wisconsin. Hosey's rheumatism had prohibited trout fishing these ten +years; Ted wrote from Arizona that "the li'l' ol' sky" was his +sleeping-porch roof and you didn't have to worry out there about the +neighbours seeing you in your pyjamas; Pink's rose-cretonne room had +lacked an occupant since Pinky left the Winnebago High School for the +Chicago Art Institute, thence to New York and those amazingly successful +magazine covers that stare up at you from your table--young lady, hollow +chested (she'd need to be with that décolletage), carrying feather fan. +You could tell a Brewster cover at sight, without the fan. That leaves +the black net dress and sun-parlour valance. The first had grown too +tight under the arms (Mrs. Brewster's arms); the second had faded. + +Now don't gather from this that Mrs. Brewster was an ample, pie-baking, +ginghamed old soul who wore black silk and a crushed-looking hat with a +palsied rose atop it. Nor that Hosea C. Brewster was spectacled and +slippered. Not at all. The Hosea C. Brewsters, of Winnebago, Wisconsin, +were the people you've met on the veranda of the Moana Hotel at +Honolulu, or at the top of Pike's Peak, or peering into the restless +heart of Vesuvius. They were the prosperous Middle-Western type of +citizen who runs down to Chicago to see the new plays and buy a hat, and +to order a dozen Wedgwood salad plates at Field's. + +Mrs. Brewster knew about Dunsany and Georgette and alligator pears; and +Hosea Brewster was in the habit of dropping around to the Elks' Club, up +above Schirmer's furniture store on Elm Street, at about five in the +afternoon on his way home from the cold-storage plant. The Brewster +house was honeycombed with sleeping porches and sun parlours and linen +closets, and laundry chutes and vegetable bins and electric surprises +as well-to-do Middle Western home is likely to be. + +That home had long ago grown too large for the two of them--physically, +that is. But as the big frame house had expanded, so had +they--intolerance and understanding humanness--until now, as you talked +with them, you felt that there was room and to spare of sun-filled +mental chambers, and shelves well stored with experience, and pantries +and bins and closets for all your worries and confidences. + +But the attic! And the cellar! The attic was the kind of attic every +woman longs for who hasn't one and every woman loathes who has. "If I +only had some place to put things in!" wails the first. And, "If it +weren't for the attic I'd have thrown this stuff away long ago," +complains the second. Mrs. Brewster herself had helped plan it. Hardwood +floored, spacious light, the Brewster attic revealed to you the social, +aesthetic, educational and spiritual progress of the entire family as +clearly as if a sociologist had chartered it. + +Take, for example (before we run down to the cellar for a minute), the +crayon portraits of Gran'ma and Gran'pa Brewster. When Ted had been a +junior and Pinky a freshman at the Winnebago High School the crayon +portraits had beamed down upon them from the living-room wall. To each +of these worthy old people the artist had given a pair of hectic pink +cheeks. Gran'ma Brewster especially, simpering down at you from the +labyrinthian scrolls of her sextuple gold frame, was rouged like a +soubrette and further embellished with a pair of gentian-blue eyes +behind steel-bowed specs. Pinky--and in fact the entire Brewster +household--had thought these massive atrocities the last word in +artistic ornament. By the time she reached her sophomore year, Pinky had +prevailed upon her mother to banish them to the dining-room. Then two +years later, when the Chicago decorator did over the living-room and the +dining-room, the crayons were relegated to the upstairs hall. + +Ted and Pinky, away at school, began to bring their friends back with +them for the vacations Pinky's room had been done over in cream enamel +and rose-flowered cretonne. She said the chromos in the hall spoiled the +entire second floor. So the gold frames, glittering undimmed, the checks +as rosily glowing as ever, found temporary resting-places in a +nondescript back chamber known as the serving room. Then the new +sleeping porch was built for Ted, and the portraits ended their +journeying in the attic. + +One paragraph will cover the cellar. Stationary tubs, laundry stove. +Behind that, bin for potatoes, bin for carrots, bins for onions, apples, +cabbages. Boxed shelves for preserves. And behind that Hosea C. +Brewster's _bête noir_ and plaything, tyrant and slave--the furnace. +"She's eating up coal this winter," Hosea Brewster would complain. Or: +"Give her a little more draft, Fred." Fred, of the furnace and lawn +mower, would shake a doleful head. "She ain't drawin' good. I do' know +what's got into her." + +By noon of this particular September day--a blue-and-gold Wisconsin +September day--Mrs. Brewster had reached that stage in the cleaning of +the attic when it looked as if it would never be clean and orderly +again. Taking into consideration Miz' Merz (Mis' Merz by-the-day, you +understand) and Gussie, the girl, and Fred, there was very little +necessity for Mrs. Brewster's official house-cleaning uniform. She might +have unpinned her skirt, unbound her head, rolled down her sleeves and +left for the day, serene in the knowledge that no corner, no chandelier, +no mirror, no curlicue so hidden, so high, so glittering, so ornate that +it might hope to escape the rag or brush of one or the other of this +relentless and expert crew. + +Every year, twice a year, as this box, that trunk or chest was opened +and its contents revealed, Mis' Merz would say "You keepin' this, Miz' +Brewster?" + +"That? Oh, dear yes!" Or: "Well--I don't know. You can take that home +with you if you want it. It might make over for Minnie." + +Yet why, in the name of all that's ridiculous, did she treasure the +funeral wheat wreath in the walnut frame? Nothing is more _passé_ than +a last summer's hat, yet the leghorn and pink-cambric-rose thing in the +tin trunk was the one Mrs. Brewster had worn when a bride. Then the +plaid kilted dress with the black velvet monkey jacket that Pinky had +worn when she spoke her first piece at the age of seven--well, these +were things that even the rapacious eye of Miz' Merz (by-the-day) passed +by unbrightened by covetousness. + +The smell of soap and water, and cedar, and moth balls, and dust, and +the ghost of a perfumery that Pinky used to use pervaded the hot attic. +Mrs. Brewster, head and shoulders in a trunk, was trying not to listen +and not to seem not to listen to Miz' Merz' recital of her husband's +relations' latest flagrancy. + +"'Families is nix,' I says. 'I got my own family to look out fuh,' I +says. Like that. 'Well,' s's he, 'w'en it comes to _that_,' s's he, 'I +guess I got some--'" Punctuated by thumps, spatterings, swashings and +much heavy breathing, so that the sound of light footsteps along the +second-floor hallway, a young clear voice calling, then the same +footsteps, fleeter now, on the attic stairway, were quite unheard. + +Pinky's arm were around her mother's neck and for one awful moment it +looked as if both were to be decapitated by the trunk lid, so violent +had been Mrs. Brewster's start of surprise. + +Incoherent little cries, and sentences unfinished. + +"Pinky! Why--my baby! We didn't get your telegram. Did you--" + +"No; I didn't. I just thought I--Don't look so dazed, mummy--You're all +smudged too--what in the world!" Pinky straightened her hat and looked +about the attic. "Why, mother! You're--you're house cleaning!" There was +a stunned sort of look on her face. Pinky's last visit home had been in +June, all hammocks, and roses, and especially baked things, and motor +trips into the country. + +"Of course. This is September. But if I'd known you were coming--Come +here to the window. Let mother see you. Is that the kind of hat +they're--why, its a winter one, isn't it? Already! Dear me, I've just +got used to the angle of my summer one. You must telephone father." + +Miz' Merz damply calicoed, rose from a corner and came forward, wiping a +moist and parboiled hand on her skirt. "Ha' do, Pinky? Ain't forgot your +old friends, have you?" + +"It's Mrs. Merz!" Pinky put her cool, sweet fingers into the other +woman's spongy clasp. "Why, hello, Mrs. Merz! Of course when there's +house cleaning--I'd forgotten all about house cleaning--that there was +such a thing, I mean." + +"It's got to be done," replied Miz' Merz severely. + +Pinky, suddenly looking like one of her own magazine covers (in tailor +clothes), turned swiftly to her mother. "Nothing of the kind," she said +crisply. She looked about the hot, dusty, littered room. She included +and then banished it all with one sweeping gesture. "Nothing of the +kind. This is--this is an anachronism." + +"Mebbe so," retorted Miz' Merz with equal crispness. "But it's got to be +cleaned just the same. Yessir; it's got to be cleaned." + +They smiled at each other then, the mother and daughter. They descended +the winding attic stairs happily, talking very fast and interrupting +each other. + +Mrs. Brewster's skirt was still pinned up. Her hair was bound in the +protecting towel. "You must telephone father. No, let's surprise him. +You'll hate the dinner--built around Miz' Merz; you know--boiled. Well, +you know what a despot she is." + +It was hot for September, in Wisconsin. As they came out to the porch +Pinky saw that there were tiny beads of moisture under her mother's eyes +and about her chin. The sight infuriated her somehow. "Well, really, +mother!" + +Mrs. Brewster unpinned her skirt and smoothed it down and smiled at +Pinky, all unconscious that she looked like a plump, pink Sister of +Mercy with that towel bound tightly about her hair. With a swift +movement Pinky unpinned the towel, unwound it, dabbed with it tenderly +at her mother's chin and brow, rolled it into a vicious wad and hurled +it through the open doorway. + +"Now just what does that mean?" said Mrs. Brewster equably. "Take off +your hat and coat, Pinky, but don't treat them that way--unless that's +the way they're doing in New York. Everything is so informal since the +war." She had a pretty wit of her own, Mrs. Brewster. + +Of course Pinky laughed then, and kissed her mother and hugged her hard. +"It's just that it seems idiotic--your digging around in an attic in +this day and age! Why it's--it's--" Pinky could express herself much +more clearly in colours than in words. "There is no such thing as an +attic. People don't clean them any more. I never realized before--this +huge house. It has been wonderful to come back to, of course. But just +you and dad." She stopped. She raised two young fists high in important +anger. "Do you _like_ cleaning the attic?" + +"Why, no. I hate it." + +"Then why in the world--" + +"I've always done it, Pinky. And while they may not be wearing attics in +New York, we haven't taken them off in Winnebago. Come on up to your +room, dear. It looks bare. If I'd known you were coming--the slip +covers--" + +"Are they in the box in the attic labeled 'Slp Cov Pinky Rum'?" She +succeeded in slurring it ludicrously. + +It brought an appreciative giggle from Mrs. Brewster. A giggle need not +be inconsistent with fifty years, especially if one's nose wrinkles up +delightfully in the act. But no smile curved the daughter's stern young +lips. Together they went up to Pinky's old room (the older woman stopped +to pick up the crumpled towel on the hall floor). On the way they paused +at the door of Mrs. Brewster's bedroom, so cool, so spacious, all soft +greys and blues. + +Suddenly Pinky's eyes widened with horror. She pointed an accusing +forefinger at a large dark object in a corner near a window. "That's the +old walnut desk! she exclaimed. + +"I know it." + +The girl turned, half amused, half annoyed. "Oh, mother dear! That's +the situation in a nutshell. Without a shadow of doubt, there's an +eradicable streak of black walnut in your grey-enamel make-up." + +"Eradicable! That's a grand word, Pinky. Stylish! I never expected to +meet it out of a book. And fu'thermore, as Miz' Merz would say, I didn't +know there was any situation." + +"I meant the attic. And it's more than a situation. It's a state of +mind." + +Mrs. Brewster had disappeared into the depths of her clothes closet. Her +voice sounded muffled. "Pinky, you're talking the way they did at that +tea you gave for father and me when we visited New York last winter." +She emerged with a cool-looking blue kimono. "Here. Put this on. +Father'll be home at twelve-thirty, for dinner, you know. You'll want a +bath, won't you, dear?" + +"Yes. Mummy, is it boiled--honestly?--on a day like this?" + +"With onions," said Mrs. Brewster firmly. + +Fifteen minutes later Pinky, splashing in a cool tub, heard the voice of +Miz' Merz, high-pitched with excitement and a certain awful joy: "Miz' +Brewster! Oh, Miz' Brewster! I found a moth in Mr. Brewster's winter +flannels!" + +"Oh!" in choked accents of fury from Pinky; and she brought a hard young +fist down in the water--spat!--so that it splashed ceiling, hair and +floor impartially. + +Still, it was a cool and serene young daughter who greeted Hosea +Brewster as he came limping up the porch stairs. He placed the flat of +the foot down at each step, instead of heel and ball. It gave him a +queer, hitching gait. The girl felt a sharp little constriction of her +throat as she marked that rheumatic limp. "It's the beastly Wisconsin +winters," she told herself. Then, darting out at him from the corner +where she had been hiding: "S'prise! S'prise!" + +His plump blond face, flushed with the unwonted heat went darkly red. He +dropped his hat. His arms gathered her in. Her fresh young cheek was +pressed against his dear, prickly one. So they stood for a long +minute--close. + +"Need a shave, dad." + +"Well gosh how did I know my best girl was coming!" He held her off. +"What's the matter, Pink? Don't they like your covers any more?" + +"Not a thing, Hosey. Don't get fresh. They're redecorating my +studio--you know--plasterers and stuff. I couldn't work. And I was +lonesome for you." + +Hosea Brewster went to the open doorway and gave a long whistle with a +little quirk at the end. Then he came back to Pinky in the wide-seated +porch swing. "You know," he said, his voice lowered confidentially, "I +thought I'd take mother to New York for ten days or so. See the shows, +and run around and eat at the dens of wickedness. She likes it for a +change." + +Pinky sat up, tense. "For a change? Dad, I want to talk to you about +that. Mother needs--" + +Mrs. Brewster's light footstep sounded in the hall. She wore an +all-enveloping gingham apron. "How did you like your surprise, father?" +She came over to him and kissed the top of his head. "I'm getting dinner +so that Gussie can go on with the attic. Everything's ready if you want +to come in. I didn't want to dish up until you were at the table, so's +everything would be hot." She threw a laughing glance at Pinky. + +But when they were seated, there appeared a platter of cold, thinly +sliced ham for Pinky, and a crisp salad, and a featherweight cheese +soufflé, and iced tea, and a dessert coolly capped with whipped cream. + +"But, mother, you shouldn't have--" feebly. + +"There are always a lot of things in the house. You know that. I just +wanted to tease you." + +Father Brewster lingered for an unwonted hour after the midday meal. But +two o'clock found him back at the cold-storage plant. Pinky watched him +go, a speculative look in her eyes. + +She visited the attic that afternoon at four, when it was again neat, +clean, orderly, smelling of soap and sunshine. Standing there in the +centre of the big room, freshly napped, smartly coiffed, blue-serged, +trim, the very concentrated essence of modernity, she eyed with stern +deliberation the funeral wheat wreath in its walnut frame; the trunks; +the chests; the boxes all shelved and neatly inscribed with their "H's +Fshg Tckl" and "Blk Nt Drs." + +"Barbaric!" she said aloud, though she stood there alone. "Medieval! +Mad! It has got to be stopped. Slavery!" After which she went downstairs +and picked golden glow for the living-room vases and scarlet salvia for +the bowl in the dining-room. + +Still, as one saw Mrs. Brewster's tired droop at supper that night, +there is no denying that there seemed some justification for Pinky's +volcanic remarks. + +Hosea Brewster announced, after supper, that he and Fred were going to +have a session with the furnace; she needed going over in September +before they began firing up for the winter. + +"I'll go down with you," said Pinky. + +"No, you stay up here with mother. You'll get all ashes and coal dust." + +But Pinky was firm. "Mother's half dead. She's going straight up to bed, +after that darned old attic. I'll come up to tuck you in, mummy." + +And though she did not descend to the cellar until the overhauling +process was nearly completed she did come down in time for the last of +the scene. She perched at the foot of the stairs and watched the two +men, overalled, sooty, tobacco-wreathed and happy. When finally, Hosea +Brewster knocked the ashes out of his stubby black pipe, dusted his +sooty hands together briskly and began to peel his overalls, Pinky came +forward. + +She put her hand on his arm. "Dad, I want to talk to you." + +"Careful there. Better not touch me. I'm all dirt. G'night, Fred." + +"Listen, dad. Mother isn't well." + +He stopped then, with one overall leg off and the other on, and looked +at her. "Huh? What d'you mean--isn't well? Mother." His mouth was open. +His eyes looked suddenly strained. + +"This house--it's killing her. She could hardly keep here eyes open at +supper. It's too much for her. She ought to be enjoying herself--like +those huge rooms. And you're another." + +"Me?" feebly. + +"Yes. A slave to his furnace. You said yourself to Fred, just now, that +it was all worn out, and needed new pipes or something--I don't know +what. And that coal was so high it would be cheaper using dollar bills +for fuel. Oh, I know you were just being funny. But it was partly true. +Wasn't it? Wasn't it?" + +"Yeh, but listen here, Paula." He never called her Paula unless he was +terribly disturbed. "About mother--you said--" + +"You and she ought to go away this winter--not just for a trip, but to +stay. You"--she drew a long breath and made the plunge--"you ought to +give up the house." + +"Give up--" + +"Permanently. Mother and you are buried alive here. You ought to come to +New York to live. Both of you will love it when you are there for a few +days. I don't mean to come to a hotel. I mean to take a little +apartment, a furnished apartment at first to see how you like it--two +rooms and kitchenette, like a play-house." + +Hosey Brewster looked down at his own big bulk. Then around the great +furnace room. "Oh, but listen--" + +"No, I want you to listen first. Mother's worn out, I tell you. It isn't +as if she were the old-fashioned kind; she isn't. She loves the +theatres, and pretty hats, and shoes with buckles, and lobster, and +concerts." + +He broke in again: "Sure; she likes 'em for change. But for a steady +diet--Besides, I've got a business to 'tend to. My gosh! I've got a +business to--" + +"You know perfectly well that Wetzler practically runs the whole +thing--or could, if you'd let him." Youth is cruel like that, when it +wants its way. + +He did not even deny it. He seemed suddenly old. Pinky's heart smote her +a little. "It's just that you've got so used to this great barracks you +don't know how unhappy it's making you. Why, mother said to-day that she +hated it. I asked about the attic--the cleaning and all--and she said +that she hated it." + +"Did she say that, Paula?" + +"Yes." + +He dusted his hands together, slowly, spiritlessly. His eyes looked +pained and dull. "She did, h'm? You say she did?" He was talking to +himself, and thinking, thinking. + +Pinky, sensing victory, left him. She ran lightly up the cellar stairs, +through the first-floor rooms and up to the second floor. Her mother's +bedroom door was open. + +A little mauve lamp shed its glow upon the tired woman in one of the +plump, grey-enamel beds. "No, I'm not sleeping. Come here, dear. What in +the world have you been doing in the cellar all this time?" + +"Talking to dad." She came over and perched herself on the side of the +bed. She looked down at her mother. Then she bent and kissed her. Mrs. +Brewster looked incredibly girlish with the lamp's rosy glow on her face +and her hair, warmly brown and profuse, rippling out over the pillow. +Scarcely a thread of grey in it. "You know, mother, I think dad isn't +well. He ought to go away." + +As if by magic the youth and glow faded out of the face on the pillow. +As she sat up, clutching her nightgown to her breast, she looked +suddenly pinched and old. "What do you mean, Pinky! Father--but he isn't +sick. He--" + +"Not sick. I don't mean sick exactly. But sort of worn out. That +furnace. He's sick and tired of the thing; that's what he said to Fred. +He needs a change. He ought to retire and enjoy life. He could. This +house is killing both of you. Why in the world don't you close it up, or +sell it, and come to New York?" + +"But we do. We did. Last winter--" + +"I don't mean just for a little trip. I mean to live. Take a little +two-room apartment in one of the new buildings--near my studio--and +relax. Enjoy yourselves. Meet new men and women. Live! You're in a +rut--both of you. Besides, dad needs it. That rheumatism of his, with +these Wisconsin winters--" + +"But California--we could go to California--" + +"That's only a stop-gap. Get your little place in New York all settled, +and then run away whenever you like, without feeling that this great +bulk of a house is waiting for you. Father hates it; I know it." + +"Did he ever say so?" + +"Well, practically. He thinks you're fond of it. He--" + +Slow steps ascending the stairs--heavy, painful steps. The two women +listened in silence. Every footfall seemed to emphasize Pinky's words. +The older woman turned her face toward the sound, her lips parted, her +eyes anxious, tender. + +"How tired he sounds," said Pinky; "and old. And he's only--why, dad's +only fifty-eight." + +"Fifty-seven," snapped Mrs. Brewster sharply, protectingly. + +Pinky leaned forward and kissed her. "Good night, mummy dear. You're so +tired, aren't you?" + +Her father stood in the doorway. + +"Good night, dear. I ought to be tucking you into bed. It's all turned +around, isn't it? Biscuits and honey for breakfast, remember." + +So Pinky went off to her own room (_sans_ "slp cov") and slept soundly, +dreamlessly, as does one whose work is well done. + +Three days later Pinky left. She waved a good-bye from the car platform, +a radiant, electric, confident Pinky, her work well done. + +"_Au 'voir!_ The first of November! Everything begins then. You'll love +it. You'll be real New Yorkers by Christmas. Now, no changing your +minds, remember." + +And by Christmas, somehow, miraculously, there they were, real New +Yorkers; or as real and as New York as anyone can be who is living in a +studio apartment (duplex) that has been rented (furnished) from a lady +who turned out to be from Des Moines. + +When they arrived, Pinky had four apartments waiting for their +inspection. She told them this in triumph and well she might, it being +the winter after the war when New York apartments were as scarce as +black diamonds and twice as costly. + +Father Brewster, on hearing the price, emitted a long low whistle and +said: "How many rooms did you say?" + +Two--and a kitchenette, of course." + +"Well, then, all I can say is the furniture ought to be solid gold for +that; inlaid with rubies and picked out with platinum." + +But it wasn't. In fact, it wasn't solid anything, being mostly of a very +impermanent structure and style. Pinky explained that she had kept the +best for the last. The thing that worried Father Brewster was that, no +matter at what hour of the day they might happen to call on the +prospective lessor, that person was always feminine and hatted. Once it +was eleven in the morning. Once five in the afternoon. + +"Do these New York women wear hats in the house all the time?" demanded +Hosea Brewster worriedly. "I think they sleep in 'em. It's a wonder they +ain't bald. Maybe they are. Maybe that's why. Anyway, it makes you feel +like a book agent." + +He sounded excited and tired. "Now, father!" said Mrs. Brewster, +soothingly. + +They were in the elevator that was taking them up to the fourth and +(according to Pinky) choicest apartment. The building was what is known +as a studio apartment, in the West Sixties. The corridors were done in +red flagstones, with grey-tone walls. The metal doors were painted grey. + +Pinky was snickering. "Now she'll say: 'Well, we've been very +comfortable here.' They always do. Don't look too eager." + +"No fear," put in Hosey Brewster. + +"It's really lovely. And a real fireplace. Everything new and good. +She's asking two hundred and twenty-five. Offer her one seventy-five. +She'll take two hundred" + +"You bet she will," growled Hosea. + +She answered the door--hatted; hatted in henna, that being the season's +chosen colour. A small dark foyer, overcrowded with furniture; a studio +living-room, bright, high-ceilinged, smallish; one entire side was +window. There were Japanese prints, and a baby grand piano, and a lot of +tables, and a davenport placed the way they do it on the stage, with its +back to the room and its arms to the fireplace, and a long table just +behind it, with a lamp on it, and books, and a dull jar thing, just as +you've seen it in the second-act library. + +Hosea Brewster twisted his head around and up to gaze at the lofty +ceiling. "Feel's if I was standing at the bottom of a well," he +remarked. + +But the hatted one did not hear him. "No; no dining-room," she was +saying briskly. "No, indeed. I always use this gate-legged table. You +see? It pulls out like this. You can easily seat six--eight, in fact." + +"Heaven forbid!" in fervent _sotto voce_ from Father Brewster. + +"It's an enormous saving in time and labour." + +"The--kitchen!" inquired Mrs. Brewster. + +The hat waxed playful. "You'll never guess where the kitchen is!" She +skipped across the room. "You see this screen?" They saw it. A really +handsome affair, and so placed at one end of the room that it looked a +part of it. "Come here." They came. The reverse side of the screen was +dotted with hooks, and on each hook hung a pot, a pan, a ladle, a spoon. +And there was the tiny gas range, the infinitesimal ice chest, the +miniature sink. The whole would have been lost in one corner of the +Brewster's Winnebago china closet. + +"Why, how--how wonderful!" breathed Mrs. Brewster. + +"Isn't it? So complete--and so convenient. I've cooked roasts, steaks, +chops, everything, right here. It's just play." + +A terrible fear seized upon Father Brewster. He eyed the sink and the +tiny range with a suspicious eye. "The beds," he demanded, "where are +the beds?" + +She opened the little oven door and his heart sank. But, "They're +upstairs," she said. "This is a duplex, you know." + +A little flight of winding stairs ended in a balcony. The rail was hung +with a gay mandarin robe. Two more steps and you were in the bedroom--a +rather breathless little bedroom, profusely rose-coloured, and with +whole battalions of photographs in flat silver frames standing about on +dressing table, shelf, desk. The one window faced a grey brick wall. + +They took the apartment. And thus began a life of ease and gayety for +Mr. and Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster, of Winnebago, Wisconsin. + +Pinky had dinner with them the first night, and they laughed a great +deal, what with one thing and another. She sprang up to the balcony, and +let down her bright hair, and leaned over the railing, _à la Juliet_, +having first decked Hosey out in a sketchy but effective Romeo costume, +consisting of a hastily snatched up scarf over one shoulder, Pinky's +little turban, and a frying pan for a lute. Mother Brewster did the +Nurse, and by the time Hosea began his limping climb up the balcony, the +turban over one eye and the scarf winding itself about his stocky legs, +they ended by tumbling in a heap of tearful laughter. + +After Pinky left there came upon them, in that cozy, little, two-room +apartment, a feeling of desolation and vastness, and a terrible +loneliness such as they had never dreamed of in the great twelve-room +house in Winnebago. They kept close to each other. They toiled up the +winding stairs together and stood a moment on the balcony, feigning a +light-heartedness that neither of them felt. + +They lay very still in the little stuffy rose-coloured room and the +street noises of New York came up to them--a loose chain flapping +against the mud guard of a Taxi; the jolt of a flat-wheeled Eighth +Avenue street car the roar of an L train; laughter; the bleat of a motor +horn; a piano in the apartment next door, or upstairs or down. + +She thought, as she lay there, choking of the great gracious +grey-and-blue room at home, many-windowed, sweet-smelling, quiet. Quiet! + +He thought, as he lay there, choking, of the gracious grey-blue room at +home; many-windowed, sweet-smelling, quiet. Quiet! + +Then, as he had said that night in September: "Sleeping, mother?" + +"N-no. Not yet. Just dozing off." + +"It's the strange beds, I guess. This is going to be great, though. +Great!" + +"My, yes!" agreed Mrs. Brewster, heartily. + +They awoke next morning unrefreshed. Pa Brewster, back home in +Winnebago, always whistled mournfully off key, when he shaved. The more +doleful his tune the happier his wife knew him to be. Also, she had +learned to mark his progress by this or that passage in a refrain. +Sometimes he sang, too (also off key), and you heard his genial roar all +over the house. The louder he roared, and the more doleful the tune, the +happier his frame of mind. Milly Brewster knew this. She had never known +that she knew it. Neither had he. It was just one of those subconscious +bits of marital knowledge that make for happiness and understanding. + +When he sang "The Dying Cowboy's Lament" and came to the passage, "Oh, +take me to the churchyard and lay the sod o-o-over me," Mrs. Brewster +used to say: "Gussie, Mr. Brewster'll be down in ten minutes. You can +start the eggs." + +In the months of their gay life in Sixty-seventh Street, Hosey Brewster +never once sang "The Dying Cowboy's Lament," nor whistled "In the Sweet +By-and-By." No; he whistled not at all, or, when he did, gay bits of +jazz heard at the theatre or in a restaurant the night before. He +deceived no one, least of all himself. Sometimes his voice would trail +off into nothingness, but he would catch the tune and toss it up again, +heavily, as though it were a physical weight. + +Theatres! Music! Restaurants! Teas! Shopping! The gay life! + +"Enjoying yourself, Milly?" he would say. + +"Time of my life, father." + +She had had her hair dressed in those geometrical, undulations without +which no New York audience feels itself clothed. They saw Pinky less +frequently as time went on and her feeling or responsibility lessened. +Besides, the magazine covers took most of her day. She gave a tea for +her father and mother at her own studio, and Mrs. Brewster's hat, +slippers, gown and manner equalled in line, style, cut and texture those +of any other woman present, which rather surprised her until she had +talked to five or six of them. + +She and Hosey drifted together and compared notes. + +"Say, Milly," he confided, "they're all from Wisconsin--or +approximately; Michigan and Minnesota, and Iowa, and around. Far's I can +make out there's only one New Yorker, really, in the whole caboodle of +'em." + +"Which one?" + +"That kind of plain little one over there--sensible looking, with the +blue suit. I was talking to her. She was born right here in New York, +but she doesn't live here--that is, not in the city. Lives in some place +in the country, in a house." + +A sort of look came into Mrs. Brewster's eyes. "Is that so? I'd like to +talk to her, Hosey. Take me over." + +She did talk to the quiet little woman in the plain blue suit. And the +quiet little woman said: "Oh, dear, yes!" She ignored her r's +fascinatingly, as New Yorkers do". We live in Connecticut. You see, you +Wisconsin people have crowded us out of New York; no breathing space. +Besides, how can one live here? I mean to say--live. And then the +children--it's no place for children, grown up or otherwise. I love +it--oh, yes indeed. I love it. But it's too difficult." + +Mrs. Brewster defended it like a true Westerner. "But if you have just a +tiny apartment, with a kitchenette--" + +The New York woman laughed. There was nothing malicious about her. But +she laughed. "I tried it. There's one corner of my soul that's still +wrinkled from the crushing. Everything in a heap. Not to speak of the +slavery of it. That--that deceitful, lying kitchenette." + +This was the first woman that Mrs. Brewster had talked to--really talked +to--since leaving Winnebago. And she liked women. She missed them. At +first she had eyed wonderingly, speculatively, the women she saw on +Fifth Avenue. Swathed luxuriously in precious pelts, marvelously coiffed +and hatted, wearing the frailest of boots and hose, exhaling a +mysterious heady scent they were more like strange exotic birds than +women. + +The clerks in the shops, too--they were so remote, so contemptuous. When +she went into Gerretson's, back home Nellie Monahan was likely to say: +"You've certainly had a lot of wear out of that blue, Mrs. Brewster. +Let's see, you've had it two--three years this spring? My land! Let me +show you our new taupes." + +Pa Brewster had taken to conversing with the doorman. That adamantine +individual, unaccustomed to being addressed as a human being, was +startled at first, surly and distrustful. But he mellowed under Hosey's +simple and friendly advances. They became quite pals, these two--perhaps +two as lonely men as you could find in all lonely New York. + +"I guess you ain't a New Yorker, huh?" Mike said. + +"Me? No." + +"Th' most of the folks in th' buildin' ain't." + +"Ain't!" Hosea Brewster was startled into it. "They're artists, aren't +they? Most of 'em?" + +"No! Out-of-town folks, like you. West, East an' Californy, an' around +there. Livin' here, though. Seem t' like it better'n where they come +from. I dunno." + +Hosey Brewster took to eying them as Mrs. Brewster had eyed the women. +He wondered about them, these tight, trim men, rather short of breath, +buttoned so snugly into their shining shoes and their tailored clothes, +with their necks bulging in a fold of fat above the back of their white +linen collar. He knew that he would never be like them. It wasn't his +square-toe shoes that made the difference, or his grey hat, or his baggy +trousers. It was something inside him--something he lacked, he thought. +It never occurred to him that it was something he possessed that they +did not. + +"Enjoying yourself, Milly?" + +"I should say I am, father." + +"That's good. No housework and responsibility to this, is there?" + +"It's play." + +She hated the toy gas stove, and the tiny ice chest and the screen +pantry. All her married life she had kept house in a big, bounteous way; +apples in barrels; butter in firkins; flour in sacks; eggs in boxes; +sugar in bins; cream in crocks. Sometimes she told herself, bitterly, +that it was easier to keep twelve rooms tidy and habitable than one +combination kitchen-dining-and-living room. + +"Chops taste good, Hosey?" + +"Grand. But you oughtn't to be cooking around like this. We'll eat out +to-morrow night somewhere, and go to a show." + +"You're enjoying it, aren't you, Hosey, h'm?" + +"It's the life, mother! It's the life!" + +His ruddy colour began to fade. He took to haunting department-store +kitchenware sections. He would come home with a new kind of cream +whipper, or a patent device for the bathroom. He would tinker happily +with this, driving a nail, adjusting a screw. At such times he was even +known to begin to whistle some scrap of a doleful tune such as he used +to hum. But he would change, quickly, into something lovely. The price +of butter, eggs, milk, cream and the like horrified his Wisconsin +cold-storage sensibilities. He used often to go down to Fulton Market +before daylight and walk about among the stalls and shops, piled with +tons of food of all kinds. He would talk to the marketmen, and the +buyers and grocers, and come away feeling almost happy for a time. + +Then, one day, with a sort of shock, he remembered a farmer he had known +back home in Winnebago. He knew the farmers for miles around, naturally, +in his business. This man had been a steady butter-and-egg acquaintance, +one of the wealthy farmers in that prosperous farming community. For +his family's sake he had moved into town, a ruddy, rufous-bearded, +clumping fellow, intelligent, kindly. They had sold the farm with a fine +profit and had taken a boxlike house on Franklin Street. He had nothing +to do but enjoy himself. You saw him out on the porch early, very early +summer mornings. + +You saw him ambling about the yard, poking at a weed here, a plant +there. A terrible loneliness was upon him; a loneliness for the soil he +had deserted. And slowly, resistlessly, the soil pulled at him with its +black strength and its green tendrils, down, down, until he ceased to +struggle and lay there clasped gently to her breast, the mistress he had +thought to desert and who had him again at last, and forever. + +"I don't know what ailed him," his widow had said, weeping. "He just +seemed to kind of pine away." + +It was one morning in April--one soft, golden April morning--when this +memory had struck Hosey Brewster. He had been down at Fulton Market. +Something about the place--the dewy fresh vegetables, the crates of +eggs, the butter, the cheese--had brought such a surge of homesickness +to him as to amount to an actual nausea. Riding uptown in the subway he +had caught a glimpse of himself in a slot-machine mirror. His face was +pale and somehow shrunken. He looked at his hands. The skin hung loose +where the little pads of fat had plumped them out. + +"Gosh!" he said. "Gosh, I--" + +He thought, then, of the red-faced farmer who used to come clumping into +the cold-storage warehouse in his big boots and his buffalo coat. A +great fear swept over him and left him weak and sick. + +The chill grandeur of the studio-building foyer stabbed him. The +glittering lift made him dizzy, somehow, this morning. He shouldn't have +gone out without some breakfast perhaps. He walked down the flagged +corridor softly; turned the key ever so cautiously. She might still be +sleeping. He turned the knob, gently; tiptoed in and, turning, fell over +a heavy wooden object that lay directly in his path in the dim little +hall. A barked shin. A good round oath. + +"Hosey! What's the matter? What--" She came running to him. She led him +into the bright front room. + +"What was that thing? A box or something, right there in front of the +door. What the--" + +"Oh, I'm so sorry, Hosey. You sometimes have breakfast downtown. I +didn't know-" + +Something in her voice--he stopped rubbing the injured shin to look up +at her. Then he straightened slowly, his mouth ludicrously open. Her +head was bound in a white towel. Her skirt was pinned back. Her sleeves +were rolled up. Chairs, tables, rugs, ornaments were huddled in a +promiscuous heap. Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster was cleaning house. + +"Milly!" he began, sternly. "And that's just the thing you came here to +get away from. If Pinky--" + +"I didn't mean to, father. But when I got up this morning there was a +letter--a letter from the woman who owns this apartment, you know. She +asked if I'd go to the hall closet--the one she reserved for her own +things, you know--and unlock it, and get out a box she told me about, +and have the hall boy express it to her. And I did, and--look!" + +Limping a little he followed her. She turned on the light that hung in +the closet. Boxes--pasteboard boxes--each one bearing a cryptic +penciling on the end that stared out at you. "Drp Stud Win," said one; +"Sum Slp Cov Bedrm," another; "Toil. Set & Pic. Frms." + +Mrs Brewster turned to her husband, almost shamefacedly, and yet with a +little air of defiance. "It--I don't know--it made me--not homesick, +Hosey. Not homesick, exactly; but--well, I guess I'm not the only woman +with a walnut streak in her modern make-up. Here's the woman--she came +to the door with her hat on, and yet--" + +Truth--blinding, white-hot truth--burst in upon him. "Mother," he +said--and he stood up, suddenly robust, virile, alert--"mother, let's go +home." + +Mechanically she began to unpin the looped-back skirt. + +"When?" + +"Now." + +"But, Hosey! Pinky--this flat--until June--" + +"Now! Unless you want to stay. Unless you like it here in this--this +make-believe, double-barreled, duplex do-funny of a studio thing. Let's +go home, mother. Let's go home--and breathe." + +In Wisconsin you are likely to find snow in April--snow or slush. The +Brewsters found both. Yet on their way up from the station in 'Gene +Buck's flivver taxi, they beamed out at it as if it were a carpet of +daisies. + +At the corner of Elm and Jackson Streets Hosey Brewster stuck his head +out of the window. "Stop here a minute, will you, 'Gene?" + +They stopped in front of Hengel's meat market, and Hosey went in. Mrs. +Brewster leaned back without comment. + +Inside the shop. "Well, I see you're back from the East," said Aug +Hengel. + +"Yep." + +"We thought you'd given us the go-by, you stayed away so long." + +"No, sir-ree! Say, Aug, give me that piece of bacon--the big piece. And +send me up some corned beef to-morrow, for corned beef and cabbage. I'll +take a steak along for to-night. Oh, about four pounds. That's right." + +It seemed to him that nothing less than a side of beef could take out of +his mouth the taste of those fiddling little lamb chops and the +restaurant fare of the past six months. + +All through the winter Fred had kept up a little heat in the house, with +an eye to frozen water pipes. But there was a chill upon the place as +they opened the door now. It was late afternoon. The house was very +still, with the stillness of a dwelling that has long been uninhabited. +The two stood there a moment, peering into the darkened rooms. Then +Hosea Brewster strode forward, jerked up this curtain, that curtain with +a sharp snap, flap! He stamped his feet to rid them of slush. He took +off his hat and threw it high in the air and opened his arms wide and +emitted a whoop of sheer joy and relief. + +"Welcome home! Home!" + +She clung to him. "Oh, Hosey, isn't it wonderful? How big it looks! +Huge!" + +"Land, yes." He strode from hall to dining-room, from kitchen to +library. "I know how a jack-in-the-box feels when the lid's opened. No +wonder it grins and throws out its arms." + +They did little talking after that. By five o'clock he was down in the +cellar. She heard him making a great sound of rattling and bumping and +shaking and pounding and shoveling. She smelled the acrid odour of his +stubby black pipe. + +"Hosey!"--from the top of the cellar stairs. "Hosey bring up a can of +preserves when you come." + +"What?" + +"Can of preserves." + +"What kind?" + +"Any kind you like." + +"Can I have two kinds?" + +He brought up quince marmalade and her choicest damson plums. He put +them down on the kitchen table and looked around, spatting his hands +together briskly to rid them of dust. "She's burning pretty good now. +That Fred! Don't any more know how to handle a boiler than a baby does. +Is the house getting warmer?" + +He clumped into the dining-room, through the butler's pantry, but he was +back again in a wink, his eyes round. "Why, say, mother! You've got out +the best dishes, and the silver, and the candles and all. And the +tablecloth with the do-dads on it. Why--" + +"I know it" She opened the oven door, took out a pan of biscuits and +slid it deftly to one side. "It seems as if I can't spread enough. I'm +going to use the biggest platter, and I've got two extra boards in the +table. It's big enough to seat ten. I want everything big somehow. I've +cooked enough potatoes for a regiment, and I know it's wasteful, and I +don't care. I'll eat in my kitchen apron, if you'll keep on your +overalls. Come on." + +He cut into the steak--a great thick slice. He knew she could never eat +it, and she knew she could never eat it. But she did eat it all, +ecstatically. And in a sort of ecstatic Nirvana the quiet and vastness +and peace of the big old frame house settled down upon them. + +The telephone in the hall rang startlingly, unexpectedly. + +"Let me go, Milly." + +"But who in the world! Nobody knows we're--" + +He was at the telephone. "Who? Who? Oh." He turned: "It's Miz' Merz. She +says her little Minnie went by at six and saw a light in the house. +She--Hello! What?... She says she wants to know if she's to save time +for you at the end of the month for the April cleaning." + +Mrs. Brewster took the receiver from him: "The twenty-fifth, as usual, +Miz' Merz. The twenty-fifth, as usual. The attic must be a sight." + + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories +of 1919, by Various + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12094 *** 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..a01f43a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12094 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12094) diff --git a/old/12094-8.txt b/old/12094-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d4e07b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12094-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12714 @@ +Project Gutenberg's O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919, by Various + +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: O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: April 20, 2004 [EBook #12094] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK O HENRY MEMORIAL PRIZES *** + + + + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Gene Smethers and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + +O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD + +PRIZE STORIES + +of 1919 + + + + +CHOSEN BY THE SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES + + + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + +BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS + +1924 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +ENGLAND TO AMERICA. By Margaret Prescott Montague + +"FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO." By Wilbur Daniel Steele + +THEY GRIND EXCEEDING SMALL. By Ben Ames Williams + +ON STRIKE. By Albert Payson Terhune. + +THE ELEPHANT REMEMBERS. By Edison Marshall + +TURKEY RED. By Frances Gilchrist Wood + +FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD. By Melville Davisson Post + +THE BLOOD OF THE DRAGON. By Thomas Grant Springer + +"HUMORESQUE." By Fannie Hurst + +THE LUBBENY KISS. By Louise Rice. + +THE TRIAL IN TOM BELCHER'S STORE. By Samuel A. Derieux + +PORCELAIN CUPS. By James Branch Cabell + +THE HIGH COST OF CONSCIENCE. By Beatrice Ravenel + +THE KITCHEN GODS. By G.F. Alsop + +APRIL 25TH, AS USUAL. By Edna Ferber + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +On April 18, 1918, the Society of Arts and Sciences of New York City +paid tribute to the memory of William Sydney Porter at a dinner in +honour of his genius. In the ball-room of the Hotel McAlpin there +gathered, at the speakers' table, a score of writers, editors and +publishers who had been associated with O. Henry during the time he +lived in Manhattan; in the audience, many others who had known him, and +hundreds yet who loved his short stories. + +Enthusiasm, both immediate and lasting, indicated to the Managing +Director of the Society, Mr. John F. Tucker, that he might progress +hopefully toward an ideal he had, for some time, envisioned. The goal +lay in the establishing of a memorial to the author who had transmuted +realistic New York into romantic Bagdad-by-the-Subway. + +When, therefore, in December, 1918, Mr. Tucker called a committee for +the purpose of considering such a memorial, he met a glad response. The +first question, "What form shall the monument assume?" drew tentative +suggestions of a needle in Gramercy Square, or a tablet affixed to the +corner of O. Henry's home in West Twenty-sixth Street. But things of +iron and stone, cold and dead, would incongruously commemorate the +dynamic power that moved the hearts of living men and women, "the master +pharmacist of joy and pain," who dispensed "sadness tinctured with a +smile and laughter that dissolves in tears." + +In short, then, it was decided to offer a minimum prize of $250 for the +best short story published in 1919, and the following Committee of Award +was appointed: + + BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, Ph.D. + EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt.D. + ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD + ROBERT WILSON NEAL, M.A. + MERLE ST. CROIX WRIGHT, D.D. + +It is significant that this committee had no sooner begun its round +table conferences than the Society promised, through the Director, funds +for two prizes. The first was fixed at $500, the second at $250. + +At a meeting in January, 1919, the Committee of Award agreed upon the +further conditions that the story must be the work of an American +author, and must first appear in 1919 in an American publication. At the +same time an Honorary Committee was established, composed of writers and +editors, whose pleasure it might be to offer advice and propose stories +for consideration. The Honorary Committee consisted of + + GERTRUDE ATHERTON + EDWARD J. O'BRIEN + FANNIE HURST + JOHN MACY + BURGES JOHNSON + MRS. EDWIN MARKHAM + ROBERT MORSS LOVETT + JOHN S. PHILLIPS + WILLIAM MARION REEDY + VIRGINIA RODERICK + WALTER ROBERTS + CHARLES G. NORRIS + EDWARD E. HALE + MAX EASTMAN + CHARLES CALDWELL DOBIE + MARGARET SHERWOOD + HAMLIN GARLAND + JAMES BRANCH CABELL + STUART P. SHERMAN + WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + STEPHEN LEACOCK + MAJOR RUPERT HUGHES + EUGENE MANLOVE RHODES + +The Committee of Award read throughout the year, month by month, scores +of stories, rejecting many, debating over others, and passing up a +comparative few for final judgment. In January, out of the hundred or +more remaining, they salvaged the following: + + 1. The Kitchen Gods, by Guglielma Alsop (_Century_, September). + + 2. Facing It, by Edwina Stanton Babcock (_Pictorial Review_, June). + + 3. The Fairest Sex, by Mary Hastings Bradley (_Metropolitan_, March). + + 4. Bargain Price, by Donn Byrne (_Cosmopolitan_, March). + + 5. Porcelain Cups, by James Branch Cabell (_Century_, November). + + 6. Gum Shoes, 4-B, by Forrest Crissey (_Harper's_, December). + + 7. The Trial in Tom Belcher's Store, by Samuel A. Derieux (_American_, + June). + + 8. April Twenty-fifth As Usual, by Edna Ferber (_Ladies Home Journal_, + July). + + 9. The Mottled Slayer, by George Gilbert (_Sunset_, August). + +10. Dog Eat Dog, by Ben Hecht (_The Little Review_, April). + +11. Blue Ice, by Joseph Hergesheimer (_Saturday Evening Post_, December + 13). + +12. Innocence, by Rupert Hughes (_Cosmopolitan_, September). + +13. Humoresque, by Fannie Hurst (_Cosmopolitan_, March). + +14. The Yellow Streak, by Ellen La Motte (_Century_, March). + +15. The Elephant Remembers, by Edison Marshall (_Everybody's_, October). + +16. England to America, by Margaret Prescott Montague (_Atlantic_, + September). + +17. Five Thousand Dollars Reward, by Melville D. Post (_Saturday Evening + Post_, February 15). + +18. The Lubbeny Kiss, by Louise Rice (_Ainslee's_, October). + +19. The High Cost of Conscience, by Beatrice Ravenel (_Harper's_, + January). + +20. The Red Mark, by John Russell (_Collier's_, April 15). + +21. The Trap, by Myra Sawhill (_American_, May). + +22. Evening Primroses, by Anne D. Sedgwick (_Atlantic_, July). + +23. Autumn Crocuses, by Anne D. Sedgwick (_Atlantic_, August). + +24. The Blood of the Dragon, by Thomas Grant Springer (_Live Stories_, + May). + +25. Contact, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Harper's_, March). + +26. For They Know not What They Do, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Pictorial + Review_, July). + +27. La Guiablesse, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Harpers_, September). + +28. On Strike, by Albert Payson Terhune (_The Popular Magazine_, + October). + +29. The Other Room, by Mary Heaton Vorse (_McCall's_, April). + +30. They Grind Exceeding Small, by Ben Ames Williams (_Saturday Evening + Post_, September 13). + +31. On the Field of Honour, by Ben Ames Williams (_American_, March). + +32. Turkey Red, by Frances Gilchrist Wood (_Pictorial Review_, + November). + +Although the exiguity of the vessel forbids inclusion of all these +stories, yet the Committee wish to record them as worthy of preservation +under covers. Publishing by title, therefore, carries all the honour +attached to publishing the complete story. + +Awarding the prizes proved difficult. No title stood first on all the +lists: rated best by one judge, any story lost rank through lower rating +by another. But the following held from first place to fifth place on +the separate final lists: "La Guiablesse," "England to America," "For +They Know not What They Do," "Evening Primroses," "Autumn Crocuses," +"Humoresque," "The Red Mark," "They Grind Exceeding Small," "On Strike," +"The Elephant Remembers," "Contact," and "Five Thousand Dollars Reward." +It will be observed that three of Wilbur Daniel Steele's narratives +appear. If the prize had been announced as going to the author of more +stories rated first, he would have received it. But by the predetermined +conditions, it must fall to the author of the best story, and according +to a recognized system of counts,[A] the best is "England to America"; +the second best, "For They Know not What They Do." The first award, +therefore, goes to Miss Margaret Prescott Montague; the second to Mr. +Wilbur Daniel Steele. + +[Footnote A: +Since there were five judges, the system used was the following: + + A story of place 1 was given 5 points + " " " " 2 " " 4 " + " " " " 3 " " 3 " + " " " " 4 " " 2 " + " " " " 5 " " 1 point.] + +The Committee were remarkably unanimous in answering the question, "What +is a short-story?"; but they differed, rather violently, over the +fulfilment of requirements by the various illustrations. Without doubt, +the most provocative of these was Mr. Steele's "Contact." Three of the +Committee think it a short-story; two declare it an article; all agree +that no finer instance of literature in brief form was published in +1919. + +Their diverging views, however, challenged curiosity: what did the +publishers think about it? The editor of _Harper's_ wrote: + +"Contact" was written by Mr. Steele after a personal visit to the North +Sea fleet. It is a faithful portrayal of the work done by our destroyers +and therefore falls under the category of "articles." + +And the Author: + +I am not quite sure what to say. The piece, "Contact," of which you +speak, was in a sense drawn from life, that is to say it is made up of a +number of impressions gained while I was at sea with the U.S. destroyers +off the coast of France. The characters are elaborations of real +characters, and the "contact" told of was such a one as I actually +witnessed. Otherwise, the chronology of events, conversations, etc., +were gathered from various sources and woven to the best of my ability +so as to give a picture of the day's work of our convoying forces in the +War. + +These data reconcile, in part, the conflicting points of view, or at +least show the tenability of each. + +In addition to the first requisite of _struggle_, "the story's the +thing," the judges sought originality, excellence in organization of +plot incidents, skill in characterization, power in moving +emotions--and, again, they differed over their findings. One member +would have awarded the prize to "La Guiablesse" on its original motif--a +ship is jealous of a woman--on its masterful employment of suggestion, +unique presentation of events, and on all the other counts. Another, +while recognizing the essential bigness of the tale, regards it as +somewhat crudely constructed and as extending the use of suggestion into +the mist of obscurity. + +Or, take characterization. Mary Hastings Bradley's "The Fairest Sex" +represents, in the climax, a reporter's fiancee betraying the +whereabouts of a young woman who is, technically, a criminal. One of the +Committee held that, under the circumstances, the psychology is false: +others "believed" that particular girl did that particular thing. + +Best narrative always compels belief: the longer the period of belief +the greater the story. This business of convincing the reader requires +more labour than the average writer seems to care about performing. Any +reader is willing to be held--for a time. But how many stories compel +recollection of plot and characters as indubitably a part of all that +one has met? + +Too frequently the writer neglects the value of atmosphere, forgetful of +its weight in producing conviction. The tale predominantly of atmosphere +(illustrated in the classic "Fall of the House of Usher"), revealing +wherever found the ability of the author to hold a dominant mood in +which as in a calcium light characters and arts are coloured, this tale +occurs so rarely as to challenge admiration when it does occur. "For +They Know not What They Do" lures the reader into its exotic air and +holds him until he, too, is suffused, convinced. + +... The Committee were not insensible to style. But expert phrasing, +glowing appreciation of words and exquisite sense of values, the texture +of the story fabric--all dropped into the abyss of the unimportant after +the material they incorporated had been judged. No man brings home +beefsteak in silk or sells figs as thistles. + +The Committee accepted style as the fit medium for conveying the +matter.... + +Since the Committee confess to catholicity of taste, the chosen stories +reveal predilection for no one type. They like detective stories, and +particularly those of Melville Davisson Post. A follower of the founder +of this school of fiction, he has none the less advanced beyond his +master and has discovered other ways than those of the Rue Morgue. "Five +Thousand Dollars Reward" in its brisk action, strong suspense, and +humorous denouement carries on the technique so neatly achieved in "The +Doomdorf Mystery" and other tales about Uncle Abner. + +The Committee value, also, the story about animals: universal interest +in puzzles, in the science of ratiocination, is not more pronounced than +the interest in rationalizing the brute. "The Mottled Slayer" and "The +Elephant Remembers" offer sympathetic studies of struggles in the animal +world. Mr. Marshall's white elephant will linger as a memory, even as +his ghost remains, longer than the sagacious play-fellow of Mr. +Gilbert's little Indian; but nobody can forget the battle the latter +fought with the python. + +For stories about the home the Committee have a weakness: Miss Ferber's +"April Twenty-fifth As Usual," cheerfully proclaiming the inevitableness +of spring cleaning, might be published with the sub-title, An Epic of +the Housekeeper. + +They were alert for reflections of life--in America and elsewhere. The +politics of "Gum Shoes, 4-B"; the local court of law in "Tom Belcher's +Store"; the frozen west of "Turkey Red" seemed to them to meet the +demand that art must hold the mirror up to nature. + +In particular, the Committee hoped to find good stories of the war. Now +that fiction containing anything of the Great Struggle is anathema to +editors, and must wait for that indefinite time of its revival, it was +like getting a last bargain to read "Facing It," "Humoresque," +"Contact," "Autumn Crocuses," and "England to America." In these small +masterpieces is celebrated either manhood which keeps a rendezvous with +death. + +The Committee accepted style as the fit medium for conveying the +matter.... + +Since the Committee confess to catholicity of taste, the chosen stories +reveal predilection for no one type. They like detective stories, and +particularly those of Melville Davisson Post. A follower of the founder +of this school of fiction, he has none the less advanced beyond his +master and has discovered other ways than those of the Rue Morgue. "Five +Thousand Dollars Reward" in its brisk action, strong suspense, and +humorous denouement carries on the technique so neatly achieved in "The +Doomdorf Mystery" and other tales about Uncle Abner. + +The Committee value, also, the story about animals: universal interest +in puzzles, in the science of ratiocination, is not more pronounced than +the interest in rationalizing the brute. "The Mottled Slayer" and "The +Elephant Remembers" offer sympathetic studies of struggles in the animal +world. Mr. Marshall's white elephant will linger as a memory, even as +his ghost remains, longer than the sagacious play-fellow of Mr. +Gilbert's little Indian; but nobody can forget the battle the latter +fought with the python. + +For stories about the home the Committee have a weakness: Miss Ferber's +"April Twenty-fifth As Usual," cheerfully proclaiming the inevitableness +of spring cleaning, might be published with the sub-title, An Epic of +the Housekeeper. + +They were alert for reflections of life--in America and elsewhere. The +politics of "Gum Shoes, 4-B"; the local court of law in "Tom Belcher's +Store"; the frozen west of "Turkey Red" seemed to them to meet the +demand that art must hold the mirror up to nature. + +In particular, the Committee hoped to find good stories of the war. Now +that fiction containing anything of the Great Struggle is anathema to +editors, and must wait for that indefinite time of its revival, it was +like getting a last bargain to read "Facing It," "Humoresque," +"Contact," "Autumn Crocuses," and "England to America." In these small +masterpieces is celebrated either manhood which keeps a rendezvous with +death, womanhood which endures, or the courage of men and women which +meets bodily misfortune and the anguish of personal loss. Leon Kantor of +"Humoresque" and the young Virginian of "England to America" will bring +back, to all who read, their own heroes. It is fitting that Miss +Montague's story should have received the first prize: poignant, short +in words, great in significance, it will stand a minor climactic peak in +that chain of literature produced during the actual progress of the +World War. + + * * * * * + +In the estimation of the Committee the year 1919 was not one of +pre-eminent short stories. Why? There are several half-satisfactory +explanations. Some of the acknowledged leaders, seasoned authors, have +not been publishing their average annual number of tales. Alice Brown, +Donn Byrne, Irvin Cobb, Edna Ferber, Katharine Gerould, Fannie Hurst and +Mary W. Freeman are represented by spare sheaves. Again, a number of new +and promising writers have not quite attained sureness of touch; +although that they are acquiring it is manifest in the work of Ben Ames +Williams, Edison Marshall, Frances Wood, Samuel Derieux, John Russell, +Beatrice Ravenel and Myra Sawhill. Too frequently, there is "no story": +a series of episodes however charmingly strung out is not a story; a +sketch, however clever or humorous, is not a story; an essay, however +wisely expounding a truth, is not a story. So patent are these facts, +they are threadbare from repetition; yet of them succeeding aspirants +seem to be as ignorant as were their predecessors--who at length found +knowledge. For obvious reasons, names of authors who succeed in a +certain literary form, but who produce no story are omitted. + +Again, some stories just miss the highest mark. A certain one, praised +by a magazine editor as the best of the year, suffers in the opinion of +the Committee, or part of the Committee, from an introduction too long +and top-heavy. It not only mars the symmetry of the whole, this +introduction, but starts the reader in the wrong direction. One thing +the brief story must not do is to begin out of tone, to promise what it +does not fulfil, or to lead out a subordinate character as though he +were chief.... Another story suffers from plethora of phrasing, and even +of mere diction. Stevenson believed few of his words too precious to be +cut; contemporary writers hold their utterances in greater esteem.... A +third story shows by its obvious happy ending that the author has +catered to magazine needs or what he conceives to be editorial policies. +Such an author requires a near "Smart Set" sparkle or a pseudo-Atlantic +Monthly sobriety; he develops facility, but at the expense, ultimately, +of conventionality, dullness and boredom. + +According to the terms which omit foreign authors from possible +participation in the prize, the work of Achmed Abdullah, Britten Austin, +Elinor Mordaunt and others was in effect non-existent for the Committee. +"Reprisal," by Mr. Austin, ranks high as a specimen of real short-story +art, strong in structure, rich in suggestion. "The Honourable +Gentleman," by the mage from Afghanistan, in reflecting Oriental life in +the Occident, will take its place in literary history. Elinor Mordaunt's +modernized biblical stories--"The Strong Man," for instance--in showing +that the cycles repeat themselves and that today is as one of five +thousand years ago exemplify the universality of certain motifs, fables, +characters. + +But, having made allowance for the truths just recounted, the Committee +believe that the average of stories here bound together is high. They +respond to the test of form and of life. "The Kitchen Gods" grows from +five years of service to the women of China--service by the author, who +is a doctor of medicine. "Porcelain Cups" testifies to the interest a +genealogist finds in the Elizabethan Age and, more definitely, in the +life of Christopher Marlowe. The hardships of David, in the story by Mr. +Derieux, are those of a boy in a particular Southern neighbourhood the +author knows. Miss Louise Rice, who boasts a strain of Romany blood, +spends part of her year with the gypsies. Mr. Terhune is familiar, from +the life, with his prototypes of "On Strike." "Turkey Red" relates a +real experience, suited to fiction or to poetry--if Wordsworth was +right--for it is an instance of emotion remembered in tranquility. In +these and all the others, the story's the thing. + +Some of them, perhaps, were produced _because_ their creators were +consciously concerned about the art of creation. "Blue Ice," by Joseph +Hergesheimer, proclaims itself a study in technique, a thing of careful +workmanship. "Innocence," by Rupert Hughes, with "Read It Again" and +"The Story I Can't Write" boldly announce his desire to get the most out +of the material. "For They Know not What They Do," an aspiration of +spirit, is fashioned as firmly as the Woolworth Tower. + +Just here it may be observed that the Committee noticed a tendency of +the present day story which only the future can reveal as significant or +insignificant. It is this: in spite of the American liking for the brief +tale, as Poe termed it--the conte, as the French know it--in spite of an +occasional call from magazines for stories of fewer than 5,000 words, +yet the number of these narratives approaching perfection is +considerably less than that of the longer story. Whether the long +short-story gives greater entertainment to the greater number may be +questioned. To state that it is farthest from the practice of O. Henry +invites a logical and inevitable conclusion. He wrote two hundred +stories averaging about fifteen pages each. Whether it may be greater +literature is another matter; if it escapes tediousness it may impress +by its weight. If the Committee had selected for publication all the +longest stories in the list of thirty-two, this volume would contain the +same number of words, but only half the titles. + +The Honorary Committee expressed, some of them, to the Committee of +Award certain preferences. William Marion Reedy wrote: "I read and +printed one very good story called 'Baby Fever.' I think it is one of +the best stories of the year." John Phillips, though stating that he had +not followed short stories very closely, thought the best one he had +read "The Theatrical Sensation of Springtown," by Bess Streeter Aldrich +(_American_, December). Mrs. Edwin Markham commended Charles Finger's +"Canassa" (_Reedy's Mirror_, October 30). W. Adolphe Roberts submitted +a number of stories from _Ainslee's:_ "Young Love," by Nancy Boyd; "The +Token from the Arena," by June Willard; "The Light," by Katherine +Wilson. He also drew attention to "Phantom," by Mildred Cram (_Green +Book_, March). That the Committee of Award, after a careful study of +these and other recommendations, failed to confirm individual high +estimates is but another illustration of the disagreement of doctors. To +all those of the Honorary Committee who gave encouragement and aid the +Committee of Award is most grateful. + +There remains the pleasure of thanking, also, the authors and publishers +who have kindly granted permission for the reprinting of the stories +included in this volume. The Committee of Award would like them to know +that renewal of the O. Henry prize depends upon their generous +cooperation. + +BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS. + +NEW YORK CITY, February 29, 1920. + + + + +_O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES 1919_ + + + +ENGLAND TO AMERICA + + +By MARGARET PRESCOTT MONTAGUE + +From _Atlantic Monthly_ + + +I. + +"Lord, but English people are funny!" + +This was the perplexed mental ejaculation that young Lieutenant +Skipworth Cary, of Virginia, found his thoughts constantly reiterating +during his stay in Devonshire. Had he been, he wondered, a confiding +fool, to accept so trustingly Chev Sherwood's suggestion that he spend a +part of his leave, at least, at Bishopsthorpe, where Chev's people +lived? But why should he have anticipated any difficulty here, in this +very corner of England which had bred his own ancestors, when he had +always hit it off so splendidly with his English comrades at the Front? +Here, however, though they were all awfully kind,--at least, he was sure +they meant to be kind,--something was always bringing him up short: +something that he could not lay hold of, but which made him feel like a +blind man groping in a strange place, or worse, like a bull in a +china-shop. He was prepared enough to find differences in the American +and English points of view. But this thing that baffled him did not seem +to have to do with that; it was something deeper, something very +definite, he was sure--and yet, what was it? The worst of it was that he +had a curious feeling as if they were all--that is, Lady Sherwood and +Gerald; not Sir Charles so much--protecting him from himself--keeping +him from making breaks, as he phrased it. That hurt and annoyed him, and +piqued his vanity. Was he a social blunderer, and weren't a Virginia +gentleman's manners to be trusted in England without leading-strings? +He had been at the Front for several months with the Royal Flying +Corps, and when his leave came, his Flight Commander, Captain Cheviot +Sherwood, discovering that he meant to spend it in England, where he +hardly knew a soul, had said his people down in Devonshire would be +jolly glad to have him stop with them; and Skipworth Cary, knowing that, +if the circumstances had been reversed, his people down in Virginia +would indeed have been jolly glad to entertain Captain Sherwood, had +accepted unhesitatingly. The invitation had been seconded by a letter +from Lady Sherwood,--Chev's mother,--and after a few days sight-seeing +in London, he had come down to Bishopsthorpe, very eager to know his +friend's family, feeling as he did about Chev himself. "He's the finest +man that ever went up in the air," he had written home; and to his own +family's disgust, his letters had been far more full of Chev Sherwood +than they had been of Skipworth Cary. + +And now here he was, and he almost wished himself away--wished almost +that he was back again at the Front, carrying on under Chev. There, at +least, you knew what you were up against. The job might be hard enough, +but it wasn't baffling and queer, with hidden undercurrents that you +couldn't chart. It seemed to him that this baffling feeling of +constraint had rushed to meet him on the very threshold of the +drawing-room, when he made his first appearance. + +As he entered, he had a sudden sensation that they had been awaiting him +in a strained expectancy, and that, as he appeared, they adjusted unseen +masks and began to play-act at something. "But English people don't +play-act very well," he commented to himself, reviewing the scene +afterward. + +Lady Sherwood had come forward and greeted him in a manner which would +have been pleasant enough, if he had not, with quick sensitiveness, felt +it to be forced. But perhaps that was English stiffness. + +Then she had turned to her husband, who was standing staring into the +fireplace, although, as it was June, there was no fire there to stare +at. + +"Charles," she said, "here is Lieutenant Cary"; and her voice had a +certain note in it which at home Cary and his sister Nancy were in the +habit of designating "mother-making-dad-mind-his-manners." + +At her words the old man--and Cary was startled to see how old and +broken he was--turned round and held out his hand, "How d'you do?" he +said jerkily, "how d'you do?" and then turned abruptly back again to the +fireplace. + +"Hello! What's up! The old boy doesn't like me!" was Cary's quick, +startled comment to himself. + +He was so surprised by the look the other bent upon him that he +involuntarily glanced across to a long mirror to see if there was +anything wrong with his uniform. But no, that appeared to be all right. +It was himself, then--or his country; perhaps the old sport didn't fall +for Americans. + +"And here is Gerald," Lady Sherwood went on in her low remote voice, +which somehow made the Virginian feel very far away. + +It was with genuine pleasure, though with some surprise, that he turned +to greet Gerald Sherwood, Chev's younger brother, who had been, +tradition in the corps said, as gallant and daring a flyer as Chev +himself, until he got his in the face five months ago. + +"I'm mighty glad to meet you," he said eagerly, in his pleasant, muffled +Southern voice, grasping the hand the other stretched out, and looking +with deep respect at the scarred face and sightless eyes. + +Gerald laughed a little, but it was a pleasant laugh, and his hand-clasp +was friendly. + +"That's real American, isn't it?" he said. "I ought to have remembered +and said it first. Sorry." + +Skipworth laughed too. "Well," he conceded, "we generally are glad to +meet people in my country, and we don't care who says it first. But," he +added. "I didn't think I'd have the luck to find you here." + +He remembered that Chev had regretted that he probably wouldn't see +Gerald, as the latter was at St. Dunstan's, where they were re-educating +the blinded soldiers. + +The other hesitated a moment, and then said rather awkwardly, "Oh, I'm +just home for a little while; I only got here this morning, in fact." + +Skipworth note the hesitation. Did the old people get panicky at the +thought of entertaining a wild man from Virginia, and send an SOS for +Gerald, he wondered. + +"We are so glad you could come to us," Lady Sherwood said rather hastily +just then. And again he could not fail to note that she was prompting +her husband. + +The latter reluctantly turned round, and said, "Yes, yes, quite so. +Welcome to Bishopsthorpe, my boy," as if his wife had pulled a string, +sand he responded mechanically, without quite knowing what he said. +Then, as his eyes rested a moment on his guest, he looked as if he would +like to bolt out of the room. He controlled himself, however, and, +jerking round again to the fireplace, went on murmuring, "Yes, yes, +yes," vaguely--just like the dormouse at the Mad Tea-Party, who went to +sleep, saying, "Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle," Cary could not help thinking +to himself. + +But after all, it wasn't really funny, it was pathetic. Gosh, how +doddering the poor old boy was! Skipworth wondered, with a sudden twist +at his heart, if the war was playing the deuce with his home people, +too. Was his own father going to pieces like this, and had his mother's +gay vivacity fallen into that still remoteness of Lady Sherwood's? But +of course not! The Carys hadn't suffered as the poor Sherwoods had, with +their youngest son, Curtin, killed early in the war, and now Gerald +knocked out so tragically. Lord, he thought, how they must all bank on +Chev! And of course they would want to hear at once about him. "I left +Chev as fit as anything, and he sent all sorts of messages," he +reported, thinking it more discreet to deliver Chev's messages thus +vaguely than to repeat his actual carefree remark, which had been, "Oh, +tell 'em I'm jolly as a tick." + +But evidently there was something wrong with the words as they were, for +instantly he was aware of that curious sense of withdrawal on their +part. Hastily reviewing them, he decided that they had sounded too +familiar from a stranger and a younger man like himself. He supposed he +ought not to have spoken of Chev by his first name. Gee, what sticklers +they were! Wouldn't his family--dad and mother and Nancy--have fairly +lapped up any messages from him, even if they had been delivered a bit +awkwardly? However, he added, as a concession to their point of view, +"But of course, you'll have had later news of Captain Sherwood." + +To which, after a pause, Lady Sherwood responded, "Oh, yes," in that +remote and colourless voice which might have meant anything or nothing. + +At this point dinner was announced. + +Lady Sherwood drew her husband away from the empty fireplace, and Gerald +slipped his arm through the Virginian's, saying pleasantly, "I'm +learning to carry on fairly well at St. Dunstan's, but I confess I still +like to have a pilot." + +To look at the tall young fellow beside him, whose scarred face was so +reminiscent of Chev's untouched good looks, who had known all the +immense freedom of the air, but who was now learning to carry on in the +dark, moved Skipworth Cary to generous homage. + +"You know my saying I'm glad to meet you isn't just American," he said +half shyly, but warmly. "It's plain English, and the straight truth. +I've wanted to meet you awfully. The oldsters are always holding up your +glorious exploits to us newcomers. Withers never gets tired telling +about that fight of yours with the four enemy planes. And besides," he +rushed on eagerly, "I'm glad to have a chance to tell Chev's +brother--Captain Sherwood's brother, I mean--what I think of him. Only +as a matter of fact, I can't," he broke off with a laugh. "I can't put +it exactly into words, but I tell you I'd follow that man straight into +hell and out the other side--or go there alone if he told me to. He is +the finest chap that ever flew." + +And then he felt as if a cold douche had been flung in his face, for +after a moment's pause, the other returned, "That's awfully good of +you," in a voice so distant and formal that the Virginian could have +kicked himself. What an ass he was to be so darned enthusiastic with an +Englishman! He supposed it was bad form to show any pleasure over praise +of a member of your family. Lord, if Chev got the V.C., he reckoned it +would be awful to speak of it. Still, you would have thought Gerald +might have stood for a little praise of him. But then, glancing sideways +at his companion, he surprised on his face a look so strange and +suffering that it came to him almost violently what it must be never to +fly again; to be on the threshold of life, with endless days of +blackness ahead. Good God! How cruel he had been to flaunt Chev in his +face! In remorseful and hasty reparation he stumbled on. "But the old +fellows are always having great discussions as to which was the +best--you or your brother. Withers always maintains you were." + +"Withers lies, then!" the other retorted. "I never touched Chev--never +came within a mile of him, and never could have." + +They reached the dinner-table with that, and young Cary found himself +bewildered and uncomfortable. If Gerald hadn't liked praise of Chev, he +had liked praise of himself even less, it seemed. + +Dinner was not a success. The Virginian found that, if there was to be +conversation, the burden of carrying it on was upon him, and gosh! they +don't mind silences in this man's island, do they? he commented +desperately to himself, thinking how different it was from America. Why, +there they acted as if silence was an egg that had just been laid, and +everyone had to cackle at once to cover it up. But here the talk +constantly fell to the ground, and nobody but himself seemed concerned +to pick it up. His attempt to praise Chev had not been successful, and +he could understand their not wanting to hear about flying and the war +before Gerald. + +So at last, in desperation, he wandered off into descriptions of +America, finding to his relief, that he had struck the right note at +last. They were glad to hear about the States, and Lady Sherwood +inquired politely if the Indians still gave them much trouble; and when +he assured her that in Virginia, except for the Pocahontas tribe, they +were all pretty well subdued, she accepted his statement with complete +innocency. And he was so delighted to find at last a subject to which +they were evidently cordial, that he was quite carried away, and would +up by inviting them all to visit his family in Richmond, as soon as soon +as the war was over. + +Gerald accepted at once, with enthusiasm; Lady Sherwood made polite +murmurs, smiling at him in quite a warm and almost, indeed, maternal +manner. Even Sir Charles, who had been staring at the food on his plate +as if he did not quite know what to make of it, came to the surface long +enough to mumble, "Yes, yes, very good idea. Countries must carry on +together--What?" + +But that was the only hit of the whole evening, and when the Virginian +retired to his room, as he made an excuse to do early, he was so +confused and depressed that he fell into an acute attack of +homesickness. + +Heavens, he thought, as he tumbled into bed, just suppose, now, this was +little old Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A., instead of being Bishopsthorpe, +Avery Cross near Wick, and all the rest of it! And at that, he grinned +to himself. England wasn't such an all-fired big country that you'd +think they'd have to ticket themselves with addresses a yard long, for +fear they'd get lost--now, would you? Well, anyway, suppose it was +Richmond, and his train just pulling into the Byrd Street Station. He +stretched out luxuriously, and let his mind picture the whole familiar +scene. The wind was blowing right, so there was the mellow homely smell +of tobacco in the streets, and plenty of people all along the way to +hail him with outstretched hands and shouts of "Hey, Skip Cary, when did +you get back?" "Welcome home, my boy!" "Well, will you _look_ what the +cat dragged in!" And so he came to his own front door-step, and, walking +straight in, surprised the whole family at breakfast; and yes--doggone +it! if it wasn't Sunday, and they having waffles! And after that his +obliging fancy bore him up Franklin Street, through Monroe Park, and so +to Miss Sally Berkeley's door. He was sound asleep before he reached it, +but in his dreams, light as a little bird, she came flying down the +broad stairway to meet him, and-- + +But when he waked next morning, he did not find himself in Virginia, +but in Devonshire, where, to his unbounded embarrassment, a white +housemaid was putting up his curtains and whispering something about his +bath. And though he pretended profound slumber, he was well aware that +people do not turn brick-red in their sleep. And the problem of what was +the matter with the Sherwood family was still before him. + + +II + +"They're playing a game," he told himself after a few days. "That is, +Lady Sherwood and Gerald are--poor old Sir Charles can't make much of a +stab at it. The game is to make me think they are awfully glad to have +me, when in reality there's something about me, or something I do, that +gets them on the raw." + +He almost decided to make some excuse and get away; but after all, that +was not easy. In English novels, he remembered, they always had a wire +calling them to London; but, darn it all! the Sherwoods knew mighty well +there wasn't any one in London who cared a hoot about him. + +The thing that got his goat most, he told himself, was that they +apparently didn't like his friendship with Chev. Anyway they didn't seem +to want him to talk about him; and whenever he tried to express his warm +appreciation for all that the older man had done for him, he was +instantly aware of a wall of reserve on their part, a holding of +themselves aloof from him. That puzzled and hurt him, and put him on his +dignity. He concluded that they thought it was cheeky of a youngster +like him to think that a man like Chev could be his friend; and if that +was the way they felt, he reckoned he'd jolly well better shut up about +it. + +But whatever it was that they didn't like about him, they most certainly +did want him to have a good time. He and his pleasure appeared to be for +the time being their chief consideration. And after the first day or so +he began indeed to enjoy himself extremely. For one thing, he came to +love the atmosphere of the old place and of the surrounding country, +which he and Gerald explored together. He liked to think that ancestors +of his own had been inheritors of these green lanes, and pleasant mellow +stretches. Then, too, after the first few days, he could not help seeing +that they really began to like him, which of course was reassuring, and +tapped his own warm friendliness, which was always ready enough to be +released. And besides, he got by accident what he took to be a hint as +to the trouble. He was passing the half-open door of Lady Sherwood's +morning-room, when he heard Sir Charles's voice break out, "Good God, +Elizabeth, I don't see how you stand it! When I see him so straight and +fine-looking, and so untouched, beside our poor lad, and think--and +think--" + +Skipworth hurried out of earshot, but now he understood that look of +aversion in the old man's eyes which had so startled him at first. Of +course, the poor old boy might easily hate the sight of him beside +Gerald. With Gerald himself he really got along famously. He was a most +delightful companion, full of anecdotes and history of the countryside, +every foot of which he had apparently explored in the old days with Chev +and the younger brother, Curtin. Yet even with Gerald, Cary sometimes +felt that aloofness and reserve, and that older protective air that they +all showed him. Take, for instance, that afternoon when they were +lolling together on the grass in the park. The Virginian, running on in +his usual eager manner, had plunged without thinking into an account of +a particularly daring bit of flying on Chev's part, when suddenly he +realized that Gerald had rolled over on the grass and buried his face in +his arms, and interrupted himself awkwardly. "But, of course," he said, +"he must have written home about it himself." + +"No, or if he did, I didn't hear of it. Go on," Gerald said in a muffled +voice. + +A great rush of compassion and remorse overwhelmed the Virginian, and he +burst out penitently, "What a brute I am! I'm always forgetting and +running on about flying, when I know it must hurt like the very devil!" + +The other drew a difficult breath. "Yes," he admitted, "what you say +does hurt in a way--in a way you can't understand. But all the same I +like to hear you. Go on about Chev." + +So Skipworth went on and finished his account, winding up, "I don't +believe there's another man in the service who could have pulled it +off--but I tell you your brother's one in a million." + +"Good God, don't I know it!" the other burst out. "We were all three the +jolliest pals together," he got out presently in a choked voice, "Chev +and the young un and I; and now--" + +He did not finish, but Cary guessed his meaning. Now the young un, +Curtin, was dead, and Gerald himself knocked out. But, heavens! the +Virginian though, did Gerald think Chev would go back on him now on +account of his blindness? Well, you could everlastingly bet he wouldn't! + +"Chev thinks the world and all of you!" he cried in eager defense of his +friend's loyalty. "Lots of times when we're all awfully jolly together, +he makes some excuse and goes off by himself; and Withers told me it was +because he was so frightfully cut up about you. Withers said he told him +once that he'd a lot rather have got it himself--so you can +everlastingly bank on him!" + +Gerald gave a terrible little gasp. "I--I knew he'd feel like that," he +got out. "We've always cared such a lot for each other." And then he +pressed his face harder than ever into the grass, and his long body +quivered all over. But not for long. In a moment he took fierce hold on +himself, muttering, "Well, one must carry on, whatever happens," and +apologized disjointedly. "What a fearful fool you must think me! +And--and this isn't very pippy for you, old chap." Presently, after +that, he sat up, and said, brushing it all aside, "We're facing the old +moat, aren't we? There's an interesting bit of tradition about it that I +must tell you." + +And there you were, Cary thought: no matter how much Gerald might be +suffering from his misfortune, he must carry on just the same, and see +that his visitor had a pleasant time. It made the Virginian feel like +an outsider and very young as if he were not old enough for them to show +him their real feelings. + +Another thing that he noticed was that they did not seem to want him to +meet people. They never took him anywhere to call and if visitors came +to the house, they showed an almost panicky desire to get him out of the +way. That again hurt his pride. What in heaven's name was the matter +with him anyway! + + +III + +However on the last afternoon of his stay at Bishopsthorpe, he told +himself with a rather rueful grin, that his manners must have improved a +little, for they took him to tea at the rectory. + +He was particularly glad to go there because, from certain jokes of +Withers's, who had known the Sherwoods since boyhood, he gathered that +Chev and the rector's daughter were engaged. And just as he would have +liked Chev to meet Sally Berkeley, so he wanted to meet Miss Sybil +Gaylord. + +He had little hope of having a tête-à-tête with her, but as it fell out +he did. They were all in the rectory garden together, Gerald and the +rector a little behind Miss Gaylord and himself, as they strolled down a +long walk with high hedges bordering it. On the other side of the hedge +Lady Sherwood and her hostess still sat at the tea-table, and then it +was that Cary heard Mrs. Gaylord say distinctly, "I'm afraid the strain +has been too much for you--you should have let us have him." + +To which Lady Sherwood returned quickly. "Oh, no, that would have been +impossible with--" + +"Come--come this way--I must show you the view from the arbor," Miss +Gaylord broke in breathlessly; and laying a hand on his arm, she turned +abruptly into a side path. + +Glancing down at her the Southerner could not but note the panic and +distress in her fair face. It was so obvious that the overheard words +referred to him, and he was so bewildered by the whole situation that +he burst out impulsively, "I say, what _is_ the matter with me? Why do +they find me so hard to put up with? Is it something I do--or don't they +like Americans? Honestly, I wish you'd tell me." + +She stood still at that, looking at him, her blue eyes full of distress +and concern. + +"Oh, I am so sorry," she cried. "They would be so sorry to have you +think anything like that." + +"But what is it?" her persisted. "Don't they like Americans?" + +"Oh, no, it isn't like that--Oh, quite the contrary!" she returned +eagerly. + +"Then it's something about me they don't like?" + +"Oh, no, no! Least of all, that--_don't_ think that!" she begged. + +"But what am I to think then?" + +"Don't think anything just yet," she pleaded. "Wait a little, and you +will understand." + +She was so evidently distressed that he could not press her further; and +fearing she might think him unappreciative, he said, "Well, whatever it +is, it hasn't prevented me from having a ripping good time. They've seen +to that, and just done everything for my pleasure." + +She looked up quickly, and to his relief he saw that for once he had +said the right thing. + +"You enjoyed it, then?" she questioned eagerly. + +"Most awfully," he assured her warmly. "I shall always remember what a +happy leave they gave me." + +She gave a little sigh of satisfaction, "I am so glad," she said. "They +wanted you to have a good time--that was what we all wanted." + +He looked at her gratefully, thinking how sweet she was in her fair +English beauty, and how good to care that he should have enjoyed his +leave. How different she was too from Sally Berkeley--why she would have +made two of his little girl! And how quiet! Sally Berkeley, with her +quick glancing vivacity, would have been all around her and off again +like a humming-bird before she could have uttered two words. And yet he +was sure that they would have been friends, just as he and Chev were. +Perhaps they all would be, after the war. And then he began to talk +about Chev, being sure that, had the circumstances been reversed, Sally +Berkeley would have wanted news of him. Instantly he was aware of a +tense listening stillness on her part. That pleased him. Well, she did +care for the old fellow all right, he thought; and though she made no +response, averting her face and plucking nervously at the leaves of the +hedge as they passed slowly along, he went on pouring out his eager +admiration for his friend. + +At last they came to a seat in an arbour, from which one looked out upon +a green beneficent landscape. It was an intimate secluded little +spot--and oh, if Sally Berkeley were only there to sit beside him! And +as he thought of this, it came to him whimsically that in all +probability she must be longing for Chev, just as he was for Sally. + +Dropping down on the bench beside her, he leaned over, and said with a +friendly, almost brotherly, grin of understanding, "I reckon you're +wishing Captain Sherwood was sitting here, instead of Lieutenant Cary." + +The minute the impulsive words were out of his mouth, he knew he had +blundered, been awkward, and inexcusably intimate. She gave a little +choked gasp, and her blue eyes stared up at him, wide and startled. Good +heavens, what a break he had made! No wonder the Sherwoods couldn't +trust him in company! There seemed no apology that he could offer in +words, but at least, he thought, he would show her that he would not +intruded on her secret without being willing to share his with her. With +awkward haste he put his hand into his breast-pocket, and dragged forth +the picture of Sally Berkley he always carried there. + +"This is the little girl I'm thinking about," he said, turning very red, +yet boyishly determined to make amends, and also proudly confident of +Sally Berkeley's charms. "I'd like mighty well for you two to know one +another." + +She took the picture in silence, and for a long moment stared down at +the soft little face, so fearless, so confident and gay, that smiled +appealingly back at her. Then she did something astonishing,--something +which seemed to him wholly un-English,--and yet he thought it the +sweetest thing he had ever seen. Cupping her strong hands about the +picture with a quick protectiveness, she suddenly raised it to her lips, +and kissed it lightly. "O little girl!" she cried. "I hope you will be +very happy!" + +The little involuntary act, so tender, so sisterly and spontaneous, +touched the Virginian extremely. + +"Thanks, awfully," he said unsteadily. "She'll think a lot of that, just +as I do--and I know she'd wish you the same." + +She made no reply to that, and as she handed the picture back to him, he +saw that her hands were trembling, and he had a sudden conviction that, +if she had been Sally Berkeley, her eyes would have been full of tears. +As she was Sybil Gaylord, however, there were no tears there, only a +look that he never forgot. The look of one much older, protective, +maternal almost, and as if she were gazing back at Sally Berkeley and +himself from a long way ahead on the road of life. He supposed it was +the way most English people felt nowadays. He had surprised it so often +on all their faces, that he could not help speaking of it. + +"You all think we Americans are awfully young and raw, don't you?" he +questioned. + +"Oh, no, not that," she deprecated. "Young perhaps for these days, +yes--but it is more that you--that your country is so--so unsuffered. +And we don't want you to suffer!" she added quickly. + +Yes, that was it! He understood now, and, heavens, how fine it was! Old +England was wounded deep--deep. What she suffered herself she was too +proud to show; but out of it she wrought a great maternal care for the +newcomer. Yes, it _was_ fine--he hoped his country would understand. + +Miss Gaylord rose. "There are Gerald and father looking for you," she +said, "and I must go now." She held out her hand. "Thank you for letting +me see her picture, and for everything you said about Captain +Sherwood--for _everything_, remember--I want you to remember." + +With a light pressure of her fingers she was gone, slipping away +through the shrubbery, and he did not see her again. + + +IV + +So he came to his last morning at Bishopsthorpe; and as he dressed, he +wished it could have been different; that he were not still conscious of +that baffling wall of reserve between himself and Chev's people, for +whom, despite all, he had come to have a real affection. + +In the breakfast-room he found them all assembled, and his last meal +there seemed to him as constrained and difficult as any that had +preceded it. It was over finally, however, and in a few minutes he would +be leaving. + +"I can never thank you enough for the splendid time I've had here," he +said as he rose. "I'll be seeing Chev to-morrow, and I'll tell him all +about everything." + +Then he stopped dead. With a smothered exclamation, old Sir Charles had +stumbled to his feet, knocking over his chair, and hurried blindly out +of the room; and Gerald said, "_Mother_!" in a choked appeal. + +As if it were a signal between them, Lady Sherwood pushed her chair back +a little from the table, her long delicate fingers dropped together +loosely in her lap; she gave a faint sigh as if a restraining mantle +slipped from her shoulders, and, looking up at the youth before her, her +fine pale face lighted with a kind of glory, she said, "No, dear lad, +no. You can never tell Chev, for he is gone." + +"_Gone_!" he cried. + +"Yes," she nodded back at him, just above a whisper; and now her face +quivered, and the tears began to rush down her cheeks. + +"Not _dead_!" he cried. "Not Chev--not that! O my God, Gerald, not +_that_!" + +"Yes," Gerald said. "They got him two days after you left." + +It was so overwhelming, so unexpected and shocking, above all so +terrible, that the friend he had so greatly loved and admired was gone +out of his life forever, that young Cary stumbled back into his seat, +and, crumpling over, buried his face in his hands, making great uncouth +gasps as he strove to choke back his grief. + +Gerald groped hastily around the table, and flung an arm about his +shoulders. + +"Steady on, dear fellow, steady," he said, though his own voice broke. + +"When did you hear?" Cary got out at last. + +"We got the official notice just the day before you came--and Withers +has written us particulars since." + +"And you _let_ me come in spite of it! And stay on, when every word I +said about him must have--have fairly _crucified_ each one of you! Oh, +forgive me! forgive me!" he cried distractedly. He saw it all now; he +understood at last. It was not on Gerald's account that they could not +talk of flying and of Chev, it was because--because their hearts were +broken over Chev himself. "Oh, forgive me!" he gasped again. + +"Dear lad, there is nothing to forgive," Lady Sherwood returned. "How +could we help loving your generous praise of our poor darling? We loved +it, and you for it; we wanted to hear it, but we were afraid. We were +afraid we might break down, and that you would find out." + +The tears were still running down her cheeks. She did not brush them +away now; she seemed glad to have them there at last. + +Sinking down on his knees, he caught her hands. "Why did you _let_ me do +such a horrible thing?" he cried. "Couldn't you have trusted me to +understand? Couldn't you _see_ I loved him just as you did--No, no!" he +broke down humbly. "Of course I couldn't love him as his own people did. +But you must have seen how I felt about him--how I admired him, and +would have followed him anywhere--and _of course_ if I had known, I +should have gone away at once." + +"Ah, but that was just what we were afraid of," she said quickly. "We +were afraid you would go away and have a lonely leave somewhere. And in +these days a boy's leave is so precious a thing that nothing must spoil +it--_nothing_," she reiterated; and her tears fell upon his hands like +a benediction. "But we didn't do it very well, I'm afraid," she went on +presently, with gentle contrition. "You were too quick and +understanding; you guessed there was something wrong. We were sorry not +to manage better," she apologized. + +"Oh, you wonderful, wonderful people!" he gasped. "Doing everything for +my happiness, when all the time--all the time--" + +His voice went out sharply, as his mind flashed back to scene after +scene: to Gerald's long body lying quivering on the grass; to Sybil +Gaylord wishing Sally Berkeley happiness out of her own tragedy; and to +the high look on Lady Sherwood's face. They seemed to him themselves, +and yet more than themselves--shining bits in the mosaic of a great +nation. Disjointedly there passed through his mind familiar +words--"these are they who have washed their garments--having come out +of great tribulation." No wonder they seemed older. + +"We--we couldn't have done it in America," he said humbly. + +He had a desperate desire to get away to himself; to hide his face in +his arms, and give vent to the tears that were stifling him; to weep for +his lost friend, and for this great heartbreaking heroism of theirs. + +"But why did you do it?" he persisted. "Was it because I was his +friend?" + +"Oh, it was much more than that," Gerald said quickly. "It was a matter +of the two countries. Of course, we jolly well knew you didn't belong to +us, and didn't want to, but for the life of us we couldn't help a sort +of feeling that you did. And when America was in at last, and you +fellows began to come, you seemed like our very own come back after many +years, and," he added a throb in his voice, "we were most awfully glad +to see you--we wanted a chance to show you how England felt." + +Skipworth Cary rose to his feet. The tears for his friend were still wet +upon his lashes. Stooping, he took Lady Sherwood's hands in his and +raised them to his lips. "As long as I live, I shall never forget," he +said. "And others of us have seen it too in other ways--be sure America +will never forget, either." + +She looked up at his untouched youth out of her beautiful sad eyes, the +exalted light still shining through her tears. "Yes," she said, "you see +it was--I don't know exactly how to put it--but it was England to +America." + + + + +"FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO" + + +BY WILBUR DANIEL STEELE + +From _Pictorial Review_ + +When Christopher Kain told me his story, sitting late in his +dressing-room at the Philharmonic I felt that I ought to say something, +but nothing in the world seemed adequate. It was one of those times when +words have no weight: mine sounded like a fly buzzing in the tomb of +kings. And after all, he did not hear me; I could tell that by the look +on his face as he sat there staring into the light, the lank, dark hair +framing his waxen brow, his shoulders hanging forward, his lean, strong, +sentient fingers wrapped around the brown neck of "Ugo," the 'cello, +tightly. + +Agnes Kain was a lady, as a lady was before the light of that poor worn +word went out. Quiet, reserved, gracious, continent, bearing in face and +form the fragile beauty of a rose-petal come to its fading on a windless +ledge, she moved down the years with the stedfast sweetness of the +gentlewoman--gentle, and a woman. + +They knew little about her in the city, where she had come with her son. +They did not need to. Looking into her eyes, into the transparent soul +behind them they could ask no other credential for the name she bore and +the lavender she wore for the husband of whom she never spoke. + +She spoke of him, indeed, but that was in privacy, and to her son. As +Christopher grew through boyhood, she watched him; in her enveloping +eagerness she forestalled the hour when he would have asked, and told +him about his father, Daniel Kain. + +It gave them the added bond of secret-sharers. The tale grew as the boy +grew. Each night when Christopher crept into his mother's bed for the +quiet hour of her voice, it was as if he crept in to another world, the +wind-blown, sky-encompassed kingdom of the Kains, Daniel, his father, +and Maynard, _his_ father, another Maynard before _him_, and all the +Kains--and the Hill and the House, the Willow Wood, the Moor Under the +Cloud, the Beach where the gray seas pounded, the boundless Marsh, the +Lilac hedge standing against the stars. + +He knew he would have to be a man of men to measure up to that heritage, +a man strong, grave, thoughtful, kind with the kindness that never +falters, brave with the courage of that dark and massive folk whose +blood ran in his veins. Coming as it did, a world of legend growing up +side by side with the matter-of-fact world of Concord Street, it never +occurred to him to question. He, the boy, was _not_ massive, strong, +or brave; he saw things in the dark that frightened him, his thin +shoulders were bound to droop, the hours of practise on his violin left +him with no blood in his legs and a queer pallor on his brow. + +Nor was he always grave, thoughtful, kind. He did not often lose his +temper, the river of his young life ran too smooth and deep. But there +were times when he did. Brief passions swept him, blinded him, twisted +his fingers, left him sobbing, retching, and weak as death itself. He +never seemed to wonder at the discrepancy in things, however, any more +than he wondered at the look in his mother's eyes, as she hung over him, +waiting, in those moments of nausea after rage. She had not the look of +the gentlewoman then; she had more the look, a thousand times, of the +prisoner led through the last gray corridor in the dawn. + +He saw her like that once when he had not been angry. It was on a day +when he came into the front hall unexpectedly as a stranger was going +out of the door. The stranger was dressed in rough, brown homespun; in +one hand he held a brown velour hat, in the other a thorn stick without +a ferrule. Nor was there anything more worthy of note in his face, an +average-long face with hollowed cheeks, sunken gray eyes, and a high +forehead, narrow, sallow, and moist. + +No, it was not the stranger that troubled Christopher. It was his +mother's look at his own blundering entrance, and, when the man was out +of hearing, the tremulous haste of her explanation. + +"He came about some papers, you know." + +"You mean our _Morning Post?_" Christopher asked her. + +She let her breath out all at once and colour flooded her face. + +"Yes," she told him. "Yes, yes." + +Neither of them said anything more about it. + +It was that same day, toward evening, that Christopher broke one of his +long silences, reverting to a subject always near to them both. + +"Mother, you've never told me where it is--on the _map_, I mean." + +She was looking the other way. She did not turn around. + +"I--Chris--I--I haven't a map in the house." + +He did not press the matter. He went out into the back yard presently, +under the grape-trellis, and there he stood still for a long time, +staring at nothing particular. + +He was growing up. + +He went away to boarding-school not long after this, taking with him the +picture of his adored mother, the treasured epic of his dark, strong +fathers, his narrow shoulders, his rare, blind bursts of passion, his +newborn wonder, and his violin. At school they thought him a queer one. + +The destinies of men are unaccountable things. Five children in the +village of Deer Bay came down with diphtheria. That was why the academy +shut up for a week, and that was what started Christopher on his way +home for an unexpected holiday. And then it was only by one chance in a +thousand that he should glimpse his mother's face in the down-train +halted at the junction where he himself was changing. + +She did not see till he came striding along the aisle of her coach, his +arms full of his things, face flushed, eyes brimming with the surprise +and pleasure of seeing her; his lips trembling questions. + +"Why, Mother, what in earth? Where are you going? I'm to have a week at +least, Mother; and here you're going away, and you didn't tell me, and +what is it, and everything?" + +His eager voice trailed off. The colour drained out of his face and +there was a shadow in his eyes. He drew back from her the least way. + +"What is it, Mother? _Mother!_" + +Somewhere on the platform outside the conductor's droning "--_board_" +ran along the coaches. Agnes Kain opened her white lips. + +"Get off before it's too late, Christopher. I haven't time to explain +now. Go home, and Mary will see you have everything. I'll be back in a +day or so. Kiss me, and go quickly. Quickly!" + +He did not kiss her. He would not have kissed her for worlds. He was to +bewildered, dazed, lost, too inexpressibly hurt. On the platform +outside, had she turned ever so little to look, she might have seen his +face again for an instant as the wheels ground on the rails. Colour was +coming back to it again, a murky colour like the shadow of a red cloud. + +They must have wondered, in the coach with her, at the change in the +calm, unobtrusive, well-gowned gentlewoman, their fellow-passenger. +Those that were left after another two hours saw her get down at a +barren station where an old man waited in a carriage. The halt was +brief, and none of them caught sight of the boyish figure that slipped +down from the rearmost coach to take shelter for himself and his dark, +tempest-ridden face behind the shed at the end of the platform-- + +Christopher walked out across a broad, high, cloudy plain, following a +red road, led by the dust-feather hanging over the distant carriage. + +He walked for miles, creeping ant-like between the immensities of the +brown plain and the tumbled sky. Had he been less implacable, less +intent, he might have noticed many things, the changing conformation of +the clouds, the far flight of a gull, the new perfume and texture of the +wind that flowed over his hot temples. But as it was, the sea took him +by surprise. Coming over a little rise, his eyes focused for another +long, dun fold of the plain, it seemed for an instant as if he had lost +his balance over a void; for a wink he felt the passing of a strange +sickness. He went off a little way to the side of the road and sat down +on a flat stone. + +The world had become of a sudden infinitely simple, as simple as the +inside of a cup. The land broke down under him, a long, naked slope +fringed at the foot of a ribbon of woods. Through the upper branches he +saw the shingles and chimneys of a pale grey village clinging to a white +beach, a beach which ran up to the left in a bolder flight of cliffs, +showing on their crest a cluster of roofs and dull-green gable-ends +against the sea that lifted vast, unbroken, to the rim of the cup. + +Christopher was fifteen, and queer even for that queer age. He had a +streak of the girl in him at his adolescence, and, as he sat there in a +huddle, the wind coming out of this huge new gulf of life seemed to pass +through him, bone and tissue, and tears rolled down his face. + +The carriage bearing his strange mother was gone, from sight and from +mind. His eyes came down from the lilac-crowned hill to the beach, where +it showed in white patches through the wood, and he saw that the wood +was of willows. And he remembered the plain behind him, the wide, brown +moor under the could. He got up on his wobbly legs. There were stones +all about him on the whispering wire-grass, and like them the one he had +been sitting on bore a blurred inscription. He read it aloud, for some +reason, his voice borne away faintly on the river of air: + + Here Lie The Earthly Remains Of + MAYNARD KAIN, SECOND + Born 1835--Died 1862 For the Preservation of the Union + +His gaze went on to another of those worn stones. + + MAYNARD KAIN, ESQUIRE + 1819-1849 + + This Monument Erected in His Memory By His Sorrowing + Widow, Harriet Burnam Kain + + The windy Gales of the West Indias + Laid claim to His Noble Soul + And Took him on High to his Creator + Who made him Whole. + +There was no moss or lichen on this wind-scoured slope. In the falling +dusk the old white stones stood up like the bones of the dead +themselves, and the only sound was the rustle of the wire-grass creeping +over them in a dry tide. The boy had taken off his cap; the sea-wind +moving under the mat of his damp hair gave it the look of some somber, +outlandish cowl. With the night coming on, his solemnity had an elfin +quality. He found what he was looking for at last, and his fingers had +to help his eyes. + + DANIEL KAIN + + Beloved Husband of Agnes Willoughby Kain + + Born 1860--Died 1886 + + Forgive them, for they know not what they do. + +Christopher Kain told me that he left the naked graveyard repeating it +to himself, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do," conscious +less of the words than of the august rhythm falling in with the pulse of +his exaltation. + +The velvet darkness that hangs under cloud had come down over the hill +and the great marsh stretching away to the south of it. Agnes Kain stood +in the open doorway, one hand on the brown wood, the other pressed to +her cheek. + +"You heard it _that_ time, Nelson?" + +"No, ma'am." The old man in the entrance-hall behind her shook his +head. In the thin, blown light of the candelabra which he held high, the +worry and doubt of her deepened on his singularly-unlined face. + +"And you might well catch your death in that draft, ma'am." + +But she only continued to stare out between the pillars where the +lilac-hedge made a wall of deeper blackness across the night. + +"What am I thinking of?" she whispered, and then: _"There!"_ + +And this time the old man heard it, a nearer, wind-blown hail. + +"Mother! Oh, Mother!" + +The boy came striding through the gap of the gate in the hedge. + +"It's I, Mother! Chris! Aren't you surprised?" + +She had no answer. As he came she turned and moved away from the door, +and the old man, peering from under the flat candle flames, saw her face +like wax. And he saw the boy, Christopher, in the doorway, his hands +flung out, his face transfigured. + +"Mother! I'm here! Don't you understand?" + +He touched her shoulder. She turned to him, as it were, lazily. + +"Yes," she breathed. "I see." + +He threw his arms about her, and felt her shaking from head to foot. But +he was shaking, too. + +"I knew the way!" he cried. "I knew it, Mother, I knew it! I came down +from the Moor and there was the Willow Wood, and I knew the way home. +And when I came, Mother, it was like the trees bowing down their +branches in the dark. And when I came by the Beach, Mother, it was like +a roll of drums beating for me, and when I came to the Hill I saw the +Hedge standing against the sky, and I came, and here I am!" + +She expressed no wonder, asked no question. + +"Yes," was all she said, and it was as if she spoke of a tree coming to +its leaf, the wind to its height, the tide to its flood. + +Had he been less rapt and triumphant he must have wondered more at that +icy lassitude, and at the cloak of ceremony she wrapped about her to +hide a terror. It was queer to hear the chill urbanity of her: "This is +Christopher, Nelson; Christopher, this is your father's servant, +Nelson." It was queerer still to see the fastidious decorum with which +she led him over this, the familiar house of his fathers. + +He might have been a stranger, come with a guide-book in his hand. When +he stood on his heels in the big drawing-room, staring up with all his +eyes at the likenesses of those men he had known so well, it was strange +to hear her going on with all the patter of the gallery attendant, names +of painters, prices, dates. He stood before the portrait of Daniel Kain, +his father, a dark-skinned, longish face with a slightly-protruding +nether lip, hollow temples, and a round chin, deeply cleft. As in all +the others, the eyes, even in the dead pigment, seemed to shine with an +odd, fixed luminosity of their own, and like the others from first to +last of the line, it bore upon it the stamp of an imperishable youth. +And all the while he stood there, drinking it in, detail by detail, his +mother spoke, not of the face, but of the frame, some obscure and +unsuspected excellence in the gold-leaf on the frame. + +More than once in that stately tour of halls and chambers he found +himself protesting gaily, "I know, Mother! I know, I know!" + +But the contagion of his glory did not seem to touch her. Nothing seemed +to touch her. Only once was the fragile, bright shell of her punctilio +penetrated for a moment, and that was when Christopher, lagging, turned +back to a door they were about to pass and threw it open with the happy +laugh of a discoverer. And then, even before she could have hushed him, +the laughter on his lips died of itself. + +A man lay on a bed in the room, his face as colourless and still as the +pillow behind it. His eyes were open, but they did not move from the +three candles burning on the high bureau, and he seemed unconscious of +any intrusion. + +"I didn't know!" Christopher whispered, shocked, and shamed. + +When the door was closed again his mother explained. She explained at +length, concisely, standing quite still, with one frail, fine hand +worrying the locket she wore at her throat. Nelson stood quite still +too, his attention engrossed in his candle-wicks. And Christopher stood +quite still, and all their shadows--That man was the caretaker, the man, +Christopher was to understand, who had been looking after the place. His +name was Sanderson. He had fallen ill, very ill. In fact, he was dying. +And that was why his mother had had to come down, post-haste, without +warning. To see about some papers. Some papers. Christopher was to +understand-- + +Christopher understood. Indeed there was not much to understand. And +yet, when they had gone on, he was bothered by it. Already, so young he +was, so ruthless, and so romantic, he had begun to be a little ashamed +of that fading, matter-of-fact world of Concord Street. And it was with +just that world which he wished to forget, that the man lying ill in the +candle-lit chamber was linked in Christopher's memory. For it was the +same man he had seen in the doorway that morning months ago, with a +brown hat in one hand and a thorn stick in the other. + +Even a thing like that may be half put aside, though--for a while. And +by the time Christopher went to his room for the night the thought of +the interloper had retired into the back of his mind, and they were all +Kains there on the Hill, inheritors of romance. He found himself bowing +to his mother with a courtliness he had never known, and an "I wish you +a good night," sounding a century old on his lips. He saw the remote, +patrician figure bow as gravely in return, a petal of colour as hard as +paint on the whiteness of either cheek. He did not see her afterward, +though, when the merciful door was closed. + +Before he slept he explored the chamber, touching old objects with +reverent finger-tips. He came on a leather case like an absurdly +overgrown beetle, hidden in a corner, and a violoncello was in it. He +had seen such things before, but he had never touched one, and when he +lifted it from the case he had a moment of feeling very odd at the pit +of his stomach. Sitting in his underthings on the edge of the bed, he +held the wine-coloured creature in the crook of his arm for a long time, +the look in his round eyes, half eagerness, half pain, of one pursuing +the shadow of some ghostly and elusive memory. + +He touched the C-string by and by with an adventuring thumb. I have +heard "Ugo" sing, myself, and I know what Christopher meant when he said +that the sound did not come out of the instrument, but that it came +_in_ to it, sweeping home from all the walls and corners of the +chamber, a slow, rich, concentric wind of tone. He felt it about him, +murmurous, pulsating, like the sound of surf borne from some far-off +coast. + +And then it was like drums, still farther off. And then it was the feet +of marching men, massive, dark, grave men with luminous eyes, and the +stamp on their faces of an imperishable youth. + +He sat there so lost and rapt that he heard nothing of his mother's +footsteps hurrying in the hall; knew nothing till he saw her face in the +open doorway. She had forgotten herself this time; that fragile defense +of gentility was down. For a moment they stared at each other across a +gulf of silence, and little by little the boy's cheeks grew as white as +hers, his hands as cold, his lungs as empty of breath. + +"What is it, Mother?" + +"Oh, Christopher, Christopher--Go to bed, dear." + +He did not know why, but of a sudden he felt ashamed and a little +frightened, and, blowing out the candle, he crept under the covers. + +The afternoon was bright with a rare sun and the world was quiet. +Christopher lay full-spread on the turf, listening idly to the +"clip-clip" of Nelson's shears as the old man trimmed the hedge. + +"And was my father _very_ strong?" he asked with a drowsy pride. + +"No, not so very." Nelson stopped clipping and was immediately lost in +the past. + +"Only when he was _that_ way five strong men couldn't turn him. I'll +say that. No, if they had to get him with a shotgun that day, 'twas +nobody's fault nor sin. If Guy Bullard seen Daniel there on the sand +with an ax in his hand and foam-like on his lips, and the little ones +cornered where he caught them between cliff and water--Guy's own baby +amongst them--and knowing the sickness of the Kains as he and everybody +else did--why, I'm free and willing to say 'twas his bounden duty to +hold a true aim and pull a steady trigger on Daniel, man of his though I +was, and man of his poor father before him-- + +"No, I can't make it right to lay blame on any man for it, no more than +I can on them, his brother officers, that broke Maynard's neck with +their tent-pegs the night after Gettysburg. No, no--" + +It was evidently a time-worn theme, an argument, an _apologia_, accepted +after years of bitterness and self-searching. He went on with the remote +serenity of age, that has escaped the toils of passion, pursuing the +old, worn path of his mind, his eyes buried in vacancy. + +"No, 'twas a mercy to the both of them, father and son, and a man must +see it so. 'Twould be better of course if they could have gone easier, +same as the _old_ Maynard went, thinking himself the Lord our God to +walk on water and calm the West Indy gale. That's better, better for all +hands round. But if it had to come so, in violence and fear, then nobody +need feel the sin of it on his soul--nobody excepting the old man +Bickers, him that told Daniel. For 'twas from that day he began to take +it on. + +"I saw it myself. There was Daniel come home from other parts where his +mother had kept him, out of gossip's way, bright as you please and +knowing nothing wrong with the blood of the Kains. And so I say the sin +lays on the loose-wagging tongue of Bickers, for from the day he let it +out to Daniel, Daniel changed. 'Twas like he'd heard his doom, and went +to it. Bickers is dead a long time now, but may the Lord God lay eternal +damnation on his soul!" + +Even then there was no heat; the curse had grown a formula. Having come +to the end, the old man's eyes tumbled down painlessly out of the void +and discovered the shears in his hand. + +"Dear me, that's so," he said to himself. One thought was enough at a +time. He fell to work again. The steady "clip-clip-clip" moved off +slowly along the hedge. Not once did he remember; not once as the +indefatigable worker shuffled himself out of sight around the house did +he look back with any stirring of recollection at the boyish figure +lying there as still as a shadow cast in the deep grass. + +A faintly lop-sided moon swam in the zenith. For three days now that +rare clarity had hung in the sky, and for three nights the moon had +grown. Its benign, poisonous illumination flowed down steeply through +the windows of the dark chamber where Christopher huddled on the bed's +edge, three pale, chill islands spread on the polished floor. + +Once again the boy brought the bow home across the shivering strings, +and, as if ears could be thirsty as a drunkard's throat, he drank his +fill of the 'cello's deep, full-membered chord. The air was heavy with +the resonance of marching feet, ghostly feet marching and marching down +upon him in slow, inexorable crescendo as the tides ebbed later among +the sedges on the marsh and the moon grew big. And above the pulse of +the march he seemed to hear another cadence, a thin laughter. + +He laughed too, giving himself up to that spectral contagion. He saw the +fat, iridescent bubble with the Hill in it, the House of dreams, the +Beach and the Moor and Willow Wood of fancy, and all the grave, strong, +gentle line of Kains to whom he had been made bow down in worship. He +saw himself taken in, soul and body, by a thin-plated fraud, a cheap +trick of mother's words, as before him, his father had been. And the +faint exhalations from the moon-patches on the floor showed his face +contorted with a still, set grimace of mirth. + +Anger came over him in a white veil, twitching his lips and his toes and +bending his fingers in knots. Through the veil a sound crept, a sound he +knew well by this time, secret footfalls in the hall, faltering, +retreating, loitering returning to lag near the door. + +How he hated her! It is curious that not once did his passion turn +against his blighted fathers; it was against the woman who had borne +him, the babe, and lied to him, the boy--against her, and against that +man, that interloper, dying in a room below. + +The thought that had been willing to creep out of sight into the +back-country of his mind on that first night came out now like a red, +devouring cloud. Who was that man? + +What was he dying of--or _supposed_ to be dying of? What had he been +doing that morning in Concord Street? What was he doing here, in the +house of the men who had never grown old and of the boy who would never +grow old? Why had his mother come down here, where he was, so queerly, +so secretly, so frightened? + +Christopher would have liked to kill that man. He shivered and licked +his lips. He would have liked to do something bloody and abominable to +that face with the hollow cheeks, the sunken grey eyes, and the +forehead, high, sallow, and moist. He would have liked to take an ax in +his hand and run along the thundering beach and catch that face in a +corner somewhere between cliff and water. The desire to do this thing +possessed him and blinded him like the kiss of lightning. + +He found himself on the floor at the edge of the moonlight, full of +weakness and nausea. He felt himself weeping as he crawled back to the +bed, his cheeks and neck bathed in a flood of painless tears. He threw +himself down, dazed with exhaustion. + +It seemed to him that his mother had been calling a long while. +"Christopher! What is it? What is it, boy?" + +He had heard no footsteps, going or coming; she must have been there all +the time, waiting, listening, her ear pressed to the thick, old paneling +of the door. The thought was like wine; the torment of her whispering +was sweet in his ears. + +"Oh, Chris, Chris! You're making yourself sick!" + +"Yes," he said. He lifted on an elbow and repeated in a voice which +must have sounded strange enough to the listener beyond the door. "Yes!" +he said. "Yes!" + +"Go away!" he cried of a sudden, making a wide, dim, imperious gesture +in the dark. + +"No, no," the imploring whisper crept in. "You're making yourself +sick--Christopher--all over nothing--nothing in the world. It's so +foolish--so foolish--foolish! Oh, if I could only tell you, +Christopher--if I could tell you--" + +"Tell me _what_?" He shuddered with the ecstasy of his own irony. "Who +that man is? That 'caretaker'? What he's doing here? What _you're_ doing +here?--" He began to scream in a high, brittle voice: "_Go away from +that door! Go away!_" + +This time she obeyed. He heard her retreating, soft-footed and +frightened, along the hall. She was abandoning him--without so much as +trying the door, just once again, to see if it were still bolted against +her. + +She did not care. She was sneaking off--down the stairs--Oh, yes, he +knew where. + +His lips began to twitch again and his finger nails scratched on the +bedclothes. If only he had something, some weapon, an axe, a broad, +keen, glittering axe! He would show them! He was strong, incredibly +strong! Five men could not have turned him back from what he was going +to do--if only he had something. + +His hand, creeping, groping, closed on the neck of the 'cello leaning by +the bed. He laughed. + +Oh, yes, he would stop her from going down there; he would hold her, +just where she was on the dark stair nerveless, breathless, as long as +he liked, if he liked he would bring her back, cringing, begging. + +He drew the bow, and laughed higher and louder yet to hear the booming +discord rocking in upon him from the shadows. Swaying from side to side, +he lashed the hollow creature to madness. They came in the press of the +gale, marching, marching, the wild, dark pageant of his fathers, nearer +and nearer through the moon-struck night. + +"Tell me _what_?" he laughed. "_What_?" + +And abruptly he slept, sprawled crosswise on the covers, half-clothed, +dishevelled, triumphant. + + * * * * * + +It was not the same night, but another; whether the next or the next but +one, or two, Christopher can not say. But he was out of doors. + +He had escaped from the house at dusk; he knew that. + +He had run away, through the hedge and down the back side of the hill, +torn between the two, the death, warm and red like life, and the birth, +pale, chill, and inexorable as death. + +Most of that daft night-running will always be blank in Christopher's +mind; moments and moments, like islands of clarity, remain. He brings +back one vivid interval when he found himself seated on his father's +gravestone among the whispering grasses, staring down into the pallid +bowl of the world. And in that moment he knew what Daniel Kain had felt, +and Maynard Kain before him; a passionate and contemptuous hatred for +all the dullards in the world who never dreamed dreams or saw visions or +sang wordless songs or ran naked-hearted in the flood of the full-blown +moon. He hated them because they could not by any possibility comprehend +his magnificent separation, his starry sanity, his kinship with the +gods. And he had a new thirst to obliterate the whole creeping race of +dust-dwellers with one wide, incomparably bloody gesture. + +It was late when he found himself back again before the house, and an +ink-black cloud touched the moon's edge. After the airless evening a +wind had sprang up in the east; it thrashed among the lilac-stems as he +came through them and across the turf, silent-footed as an Indian. In +his right hand he had a bread-knife, held butt to thumb, dagger-wise. +Where he had come by the rust-bitten thing no one knows, least of all +himself. In the broken light his eyes shone with a curious luminosity of +their own, absorbed, introspective. + +All the windows were dark, and the entrance-hall, when he slipped in +between the pillars, but across its floor he saw light thrown in a +yellow ribbon from the half-closed door of the drawing-room. + +It took his attention, laid hands on his imagination. He began to +struggle against it. + +He would _not_ go into that room. He was going to another room. To stay +him, he made a picture of the other room in his tumbled mind--the high, +bleak walls, the bureau with the three candles burning wanly, the bed, +the face of the man on the bed. And when his rebellious feet, +surrendering him up to the lure of that beckoning ribbon, had edged as +far as the door, and he had pushed it a little further ajar to get his +head in, he saw that the face itself was there in the drawing-room. + +He stood there for some time, his shoulder pressed against the +door-jamb, his eyes blinking. + +His slow attention moved from the face to the satin pillows that wedged +it in, and then to the woman that must have been his mother, kneeling +beside the casket with her arms crooked on the shining cover and her +head down between them. And across from her leaned "Ugo," the 'cello, +come down from his chamber to stand vigil at the other shoulder of the +dead. + +The first thing that came into his groping mind was a bitter sense of +abandonment. The little core of candle-light hanging in the gloom left +him out. Its unstirring occupants, the woman, the 'cello, and the clay, +seemed sufficient to themselves. His mother had forgotten him. Even +"Ugo," that had grown part and parcel of his madness, had forgotten him. + +Bruised, sullen, moved by some deep-lying instinct of the clan, his eyes +left them and sought the wall beyond, where there were those who would +not forget him, come what might, blood of his blood and mind of his own +queer mind. And there among the shadowed faces he searched for one in +vain. As if that candle-lit tableau, somehow holy and somehow +abominable, were not for the eyes of one of them, the face of Daniel, +the wedded husband, had been turned to the wall. + +Here was something definite, something Christopher could take hold of, +and something that he would not have. + +His mother seemed not to have known he was near till he flung the door +back and came stalking into the light with the rusty bread-knife in his +hand. One would not have imagined there were blood enough left in her +wasted heart, but her face went crimson when she lifted it and saw him. + +It brought him up short--the blush, where he had looked for fright. It +shocked him, and, shocking him more than by a thousand laboured words of +explanation, it opened a window in his disordered brain. He stood +gawking with the effort of thought, hardly conscious of his mother's +cry: + +"Christopher, I never meant you to know!" + +He kept on staring at the ashen face between the pillows, long (as his +own was long), sensitive, worn; and at the 'cello keeping incorruptible +vigil over its dead. And then slowly his eyes went down to his own left +hand, to which that same old wine-brown creature had come home from the +first with a curious sense of fitness and authority and right. + +"Who is this man?" + +"Don't look at me so! Don't, Chris!" + +But he did look at her. Preoccupied as he was, he was appalled at sight +of the damage the half-dozen of days had done. She had been so much the +lady, so perfectly the gentlewoman. To no one had the outward gesture +and symbol of purity been more precious. No whisper had ever breathed +against her. If there had been secrets behind her, they had been dead; +if a skeleton, the closet had been closed. And now, looking down on her, +he was not only appalled, he was a little sickened, as one might be to +find squalor and decay creeping into a familiar and once immaculate +room. + +"Who is this man?" he repeated. + +"He grew up with me." She half raised herself on her knees in the +eagerness of her appeal. "We were boy and girl together at home in +Maryland. We were meant for each other, Chris. We were always to +marry--always, Chris. And when I went away, and when I married +your--when I married Daniel Kain, _he_ hunted and he searched and he +found me here. He was with me, he stood by me through that awful +year--and--that was how it happened. I tell you, Christopher, darling, +we were meant for each other, John Sanderson and I. He loved me more +than poor Daniel ever did or could, loved me enough to throw away a life +of promise, just to hang on here after every one else was gone, alone +with his 'cello and is one little memory. And I loved him enough +to--to--_Christopher, don't look at me so!"_ + +His eyes did not waver. You must remember his age, the immaculate, +ruthless, mid-Victorian 'teens; and you must remember his bringing-up. + +"And so this was my father," he said. And then he went on without +waiting, his voice breaking into falsetto with the fierceness of his +charge. "And you would have kept on lying to me! If I hadn't happened, +just happened, to find you here, now, you would have gone on keeping me +in the dark! You would have stood by and seen me--well--_go crazy!_ Yes, +go crazy, thinking I was--well, thinking I was meant for it! And all to +save your precious--" + +She was down on the floor again, what was left of the gentlewoman, +wailing. + +"But you don't know what it means to a woman, Chris! You don't know what +it means to a woman!" + +A wave of rebellion brought her up and she strained toward him across +the coffin. + +"Isn't it something, then, that I gave you a father with a _mind_? And +if you think you've been sinned against, think of _me_! Sin! You call it +_sin_! Well, isn't it _anything at all_ that by my 'sin' my son's blood +came down to him _clean_? Tell me that!" + +He shook himself, and his flame turned to sullenness. + +"It's not so," he glowered. + +All the girl in him, the poet, the hero-worshipping boy, rebelled. His +harassed eyes went to the wall beyond and the faces there, the ghosts of +the doomed, glorious, youth-ridden line, priceless possessions of his +dreams. He would not lose them: he refused to be robbed of a tragic +birthright. He wanted some gesture puissant enough to turn back and +blot out all that had been told him. + +"It's not his!" he cried. And reaching out fiercely he dragged the +'cello away from the coffin's side. He stood for an instant at bay, +bitter, defiant. + +"It's not his! It's mine! It's--it's--_ours!_" + +And then he fled out into the dark of the entrance-hall and up the black +stairs. In his room there was no moonlight now, for the cloud ran over +the sky and the rain had come. + +"It isn't so, it isn't so!" It was like a sob in his throat. + +He struck on the full strings. And listening breathless through the +dying discord he heard the liquid whispers of the rain, nothing more. He +lashed with a wild bow, time and again. But something was broken, +something was lost: out of the surf of sound he could no longer fashion +the measure of marching feet. The mad Kains had found him out, and cast +him out. No longer could he dream them in dreams or run naked-hearted +with them in the flood of the moon, for he was no blood of theirs, and +they were gone. And huddling down on the edge of the bed, he wept. + +The tears washed his eyes and falling down bathed his strengthless +hands. And beyond the phantom windows, over the marsh and the moor and +the hill that were not his, the graves of strangers and the lost Willow +Wood, lay the healing rain. He heard it in gurgling rivulets along the +gutters overhead. He heard the soft impact, like a kiss, brushing the +reedy cheeks of the marsh, the showery shouldering of branches, the +aspiration of myriad drinking grasses, the far whisper of waters coming +home to the waters of the sea--the long, low melody of the rain. + +And by and by he found it was "Ugo," the 'cello, and he was playing. + +They went home the following afternoon, he and his mother. Or rather, +she went home, and he with her as far as the Junction, where he changed +for school. + +They had not much to say to each other through the journey. The boy had +to be given time. Five years younger, or fifteen years older, it would +have been easier for him to look at his mother. You must remember what +his mother had meant to him, and what, bound up still in the fierce and +sombre battle of adolescence, she must mean to him now. + +As for Agnes Kain, she did not look at him, either. Through the changing +hours her eyes rested on the transparent hands lying crossed in her lap. +She seemed very tired and very white. Her hair was not done as tidily, +her lace cuffs were less fresh than they had used to be. About her whole +presence there was a troubling hint of let-down, something obscurely +slovenly, a kind of awkward and unlovely nakedness. + +She really spoke to him for the first time at the Junction, when he +stood before her, slim and uncouth under the huge burden of "Ugo," +fumbling through his leave-taking. + +"Christopher," she said, "try not to think of me--always--as--as--well, +when you're older, Christopher, you'll know what I mean." + +That was the last time he ever heard her speak. He saw her once again, +but the telegram was delayed and his train was late, and when he came +beside her bed she said nothing. She looked into his eyes searchingly, +for a long while, and died. + + * * * * * + +That space stands for the interval of silence that fell after +Christopher had told me the story. I thought he had quite finished. He +sat motionless, his shoulders fallen forward, his eyes fixed in the +heart of the incandescent globe over the dressing-table, his long +fingers wrapped around the neck of the 'cello. + +"And so she got me through those years," he said. "Those nip-and-tuck +years that followed. By her lie. + +"Insanity is a queer thing," he went on, still brooding into the light. +"There's more of it about than we're apt to think. It works in so many +ways. In hobbies, arts, philosophies. Music is a kind of insanity. I +know. I've got mine penned up in the music now, and I think I can keep +it there now, and save my soul." + +"Yours?" + +"Yes, mine. I know now--now that it's safe for me to know. I was down +at that village by the beach a year or so ago. I'm a Kain, of course, +one of the crazy Kains, after all. John Sanderson was born in the +village and lived there till his death. Only once that folks could +remember had he been away, and that was when he took some papers to the +city for Mrs. Kain to sign. He was caretaker at the old 'Kain place' the +last ten years of his life, and deaf, they said, since his tenth +year--'deaf as a post.' And they told me something else. They said there +was a story that before my father, Daniel, married her, my mother had +been an actress. An actress! You'll understand that I needed no one to +tell me _that_! + +"They told me that they had heard a story that she was a _great_ +actress. Dear God, if they could only know! When I think of that night +and that setting, that scene! It killed her, and it got me over the +wall--" + + + + +THEY GRIND EXCEEDING SMALL + + +By BEN AMES WILLIAMS + +From _Saturday Evening Post_ + +I telephoned down the hill to Hazen Kinch. "Hazen," I asked, "are you +going to town to-day?" + +"Yes, yes," he said abruptly in his quick, harsh fashion. "Of course I'm +going to town." + +"I've a matter of business," I suggested. + +"Come along," he invited brusquely. "Come along." + +There was not another man within forty miles to whom he would have given +that invitation. + +"I'll be down in ten minutes," I promised him; and I went to pull on my +Pontiacs and heavy half boots over them and started downhill through the +sandy snow. It was bitterly cold; it had been a cold winter. The bay--I +could see it from my window--was frozen over for a dozen miles east and +west and thirty north and south; and that had not happened in close to a +score of years. Men were freighting across to the islands with heavy +teams. Automobiles had beaten a rough road along the course the steamers +took in summer. A man who had ventured to stock one of the lower islands +with foxes for the sake of their fur, counting on the water to hold them +prisoners, had gone bankrupt when his stock in trade escaped across the +ice. Bitterly cold and steadily cold, and deep snow lay upon the hills, +blue-white in the distance. The evergreens were blue-black blotches on +this whiteness. The birches, almost indistinguishable, were like trees +in camouflage. To me the hills are never so grand as in this winter coat +they wear. It is easy to believe that a brooding God dwells upon them. I +wondered as I ploughed my way down to Hazen Kinch's farm whether God did +indeed dwell among these hills; and I wondered what He thought of Hazen +Kinch. + +This was no new matter of thought with me. I had given some thought to +Hazen in the past. I was interested in the man and in that which should +come to him. He was, it seemed to me, a problem in fundamental ethics; +he was, as matters stood, a demonstration of the essential uprightness +of things as they are. The biologist would have called him a sport, a +deviation from type, a violation of all the proper laws of life. That +such a man should live and grow great and prosper was not fitting; in a +well-regulated world it could not be. Yet Hazen Kinch did live; he had +grown--in his small way--great; and by our lights he had prospered. +Therefore I watched him. There was about the man the fascination which +clothes a tight-rope walker above Niagara; an aeronaut in the midst of +the nose dive. The spectator stares with half-caught breath, afraid to +see and afraid to miss seeing the ultimate catastrophe. Sometimes I +wondered whether Hazen Kinch suspected this attitude on my part. It was +not impossible. There was a cynical courage in the man; it might have +amused him. Certainly I was the only man who had in any degree his +confidence. + +I have said there was not another within forty miles whom he would have +given a lift to town; I doubt if there was another man anywhere for whom +he would have done this small favour. + +He seemed to find a mocking sort of pleasure in my company. + +When I came to his house he was in the barn harnessing his mare to the +sleigh. The mare was a good animal, fast and strong. She feared and she +hated Hazen. I could see her roll her eyes backward at him as he +adjusted the traces. He called to me without turning: + +"Shut the door! Shut the door! Damn the cold!" + +I slid the door shut behind me. There was within the barn the curious +chill warmth which housed animals generate to protect themselves against +our winters. + +"It will snow," I told Hazen. "I was not sure you would go." + +He laughed crookedly, jerking at the trace. + +"Snow!" he exclaimed. "A man would think you were the personal manager +of the weather. Why do you say it will snow?" + +"The drift of the clouds--and it's warmer," I told him. + +"I'll not have it snowing," he said, and looked at me and cackled. He +was a little, thin, old man with meager whiskers and a curious precision +of speech; and I think he got some enjoyment out of watching my +expression at such remarks as this. He elaborated his assumption that +the universe was conducted for his benefit, in order to see my silent +revolt at the suggestion. "I'll not have it snowing." he said. "Open the +door." + +He led the mare out and stopped by the kitchen door. + +"Come in," he said. "A hot drink." + +I went with him into the kitchen. His wife was there, and their child. +The woman was lean and frail; and she was afraid of him. The countryside +said he had taken her in payment of a bad debt. Her father had owed him +money which he could not pay. + +"I decided it was time I had a wife," Hazen used to say to me. + +The child was on the floor. The woman had a drink of milk and egg and +rum, hot and ready for us. We drank, and Hazen knelt beside the child. A +boy baby, not yet two years old. It is an ugly thing to say, but I hated +this child. There was evil malevolence in his baby eyes. I have +sometimes thought the grey devils must have left just such hate-bred +babes as this in France. Also, he was deformed--a twisted leg. The women +of the neighbourhood sometimes said he would be better dead. But Hazen +Kinch loved him. He lifted him in his arms now with a curious passion in +his movement, and the child stared at him sullenly. When the mother came +near the baby squalled at her, and Hazen said roughly: + +"Stand away! Leave him alone!" + +She moved back furtively; and Hazen asked me, displaying the child: "A +fine boy, eh?" + +I said nothing, and in his cracked old voice he mumbled endearments to +the baby. I had often wondered whether his love for the child redeemed +the man; or merely made him vulnerable. Certainly any harm that might +come to the baby would be a crushing blow to Hazen. + +He put the child down on the floor again and he said to the woman +curtly: "Tend him well." She nodded. There was a dumb submission in her +eyes; but through this blank veil I had seen now and then a blaze of +pain. + +Hazen went out of the door without further word to her, and I followed +him. We got into the sleigh, bundling ourselves into the robes for the +six-mile drive along the drifted road to town. There was a feeling of +storm in the air. I looked at the sky and so did Hazen Kinch. He guessed +what I would have said and he answered me before I could speak. + +"I'll not have it snowing," he said, and leered at me. + +Nevertheless, I knew the storm would come. The mare turned out of the +barnyard and ploughed through a drift and struck hard-packed road. Her +hoofs beat a swift tattoo; our runners sang beneath us. We dropped to +the little bridge and across and began the mile-long climb to the top of +Rayborn Hill. The road from Hazen's house to town is compounded of such +ups and downs. + +At the top of the hill we paused for a moment to breathe the mare; +paused just in front of the big old Rayborn house, that has stood there +for more years than most of us remember. It was closed and shuttered and +deserted; and Hazen dipped his whip toward it and said meanly: + +"An ugly, improvident lot, the Rayborns were." + +I had known only one of them--the eldest son. A fine man, I had thought +him. Picking apples in his orchard, he fell one October and broke his +neck. His widow tried to make a go of the place, but she borrowed of +Hazen and he had evicted her this three months back. It was one of the +lesser evils he had done. I looked at the house and at him, and he +clucked to the mare and we dipped down into the steep valley below the +hill. + +The wind had a sweep in that valley and there was a drift of snow across +it and across the road. This drift was well packed by the wind, but when +we drove over its top our left-hand runner broke through the coaming and +we tumbled into the snow, Hazen and I. We were well entangled in the +rugs. The mare gave a frightened start, but Hazen had held the reins and +the whip so that she could not break away. We got up together, he and I, +and we righted the sleigh and set it upon the road again. I remember +that it was becoming bitter cold and the sun was no longer shining. +There was a steel-grey veil drawn across the bay. + +When the sleigh was upright Hazen went forward and stood beside the +mare. Some men, blaming the beast without reason, would have beaten her. +They would have cursed, cried out upon her. That was not the cut of +Hazen Kinch. But I could see that he was angry and I was not surprised +when he reached up and gripped the horse's ear. He pulled the mare's +head down and twisted the ear viciously. All in a silence that was +deadly. + +The mare snorted and tried to rear back and Hazen clapped the butt of +his whip across her knees. She stood still, quivering, and he wrenched +at her ear again. + +"Now," he said softly, "keep the road." + +And he returned and climbed to his place beside me in the sleigh. I said +nothing. I might have interfered, but something had always impelled me +to keep back my hand from Hazen Kinch. + +We drove on and the mare was lame. Though Hazen pushed her, we were slow +in coming to town and before we reached Hazen's office the swirling snow +was whirling down--a pressure of driving, swirling flakes like a heavy +white hand. + +I left Hazen at the stair that led to his office and I went about my +business of the day. He said as I turned away: + +"Be here at three." + +I nodded. But I did not think we should drive home that afternoon. I +had some knowledge of storms. + +That which had brought me to town was not engrossing. I found time to go +to the stable and see Hazen's mare. There was an ugly welt across her +knees and some blood had flowed. The stablemen had tended the welt, and +cursed Hazen in my hearing. It was still snowing, and the stable boss, +looking out at the driving flakes, spat upon the ground and said to me: + +"Them legs'll go stiff. That mare won't go home to-night." + +"I think you are right," I agreed. + +"The white-whiskered skunk!" he said, and I knew he spoke of Hazen. + +At a quarter of three I took myself to Hazen Kinch's office. It was not +much of an office; not that Hazen could not have afforded a better. But +it was up two flights--an attic room ill lighted. A small air-tight +stove kept the room stifling hot. The room was also air-tight. Hazen had +a table and two chairs, and an iron safe in the corner. He put a +pathetic trust in that safe. I believe I could have opened it with a +screwdriver. I met him as I climbed the stairs. He said harshly: + +"I'm going to telephone. They say the road's impassable." + +He had no telephone in his office; he used one in the store below. A +small economy fairly typical of Hazen. + +"I'll wait in the office," I told him. + +"Go ahead," he agreed, halfway down the stairs. + +I went up to his office and closed the drafts of the stove--it was +red-hot--and tried to open the one window, but it was nailed fast. Then +Hazen came back up the stairs grumbling. + +"Damn the snow!" he said. "The wire is down." + +"Where to?" I asked. + +"My house, man! To my house!" + +"You wanted to telephone home that you--" + +"I can't get home to-night. You'll have to go to the hotel." + +I nodded good-naturedly. + +"All right. You, too, I suppose." + +"I'll sleep here," he said. + +I looked round. There was no bed, no cot, nothing but the two stiff +chairs. He saw my glance and said angrily: "I've slept on the floor +before." + +I was always interested in the man's mental processes. + +"You wanted to telephone Mrs. Kinch not to worry?" I suggested. + +"Pshaw, let her fret!" said Hazen. "I wanted to ask after my boy." His +eyes expanded, he rubbed his hands a little, cackling. "A fine boy, sir! +A fine boy!" + +It was then we heard Doan Marshey coming up the stairs. We heard his +stumbling steps as he began the last flight and Hazen seemed to cock his +ears as he listened. Then he sat still and watched the door. The steps +climbed nearer; they stopped in the dim little hall outside the door and +someone fumbled with the knob. When the door opened we saw who it was. I +knew Marshey. He lived a little beyond Hazen on the same road. Lived in +a two-room cabin--it was little more--with his wife and his five +children; lived meanly and pitiably, grovelling in the soil for daily +bread, sweating life out of the earth--life and no more. A thin man, +racking thin; a forward-thrusting neck and a bony face and a sad and +drooping moustache about his mouth. His eyes were meek and weary. + +He stood in the doorway blinking at us; and with his gloved hands--they +were stiff and awkward with the cold--he unwound the ragged muffler that +was about his neck and he brushed weakly at the snow upon his head and +his shoulders. Hazen said angrily: + +"Come in! Do you want my stove to heat the town?" + +Doan shuffled in and he shut the door behind him. He said: "Howdy, Mr. +Kinch." And he smiled in a humble and placating way. + +Hazen said: "What's your business? Your interest is due." + +Doan nodded. + +"Yeah. I know, Mr. Kinch. I cain't pay it all." + +Kinch exclaimed impatiently: "An old story! How much can you pay?" + +"Eleven dollars and fifty cents," said Doan. + +"You owe twenty." + +"I aim to pay it when the hens begin to lay." + +Hazen laughed scornfully. + +"You aim to pay! Damn you, Marshey, if your old farm was worth taking +I'd have you out in this snow, you old scamp!" + +Doan pleaded dully: "Don't you do that, Mr Kinch! I aim to pay." + +Hazen clapped his hands on the table. + +"Rats! Come! Give me what you've got! And Marshey, you'll have to get +the rest. I'm sick of waiting on you." + +Marshey came shuffling toward the table. Hazen was sitting with the +table between him and the man and I was a little behind Hazen at one +side. Marshey blinked as he came nearer, and his weak nearsighted eyes +turned from Hazen to me. I could see that the man was stiff with the +cold. + +When he came to the table in front of Hazen he took off his thick +gloves. His hands were blue. He laid the gloves on the table and reached +into an inner pocket of his torn coat and drew out a little cloth pouch +and he fumbled into this and I heard the clink of coins. He drew out two +quarters and laid them on the table before Hazen, and Hazen picked them +up. I saw that Marshey's fingers moved stiffly; I could almost hear them +creak with the cold. Then he reached into the pouch again. + +Something dropped out of the mouth of the little cloth bag and fell +soundlessly on the table. It looked to me like a bill, a piece of paper +currency. I was about to speak, but Hazen, without an instant's +hesitation, had dropped his hand on the thing and drawn it +unostentatiously toward him. When he lifted his hand the money--if it +was money--was gone. + +Marshey drew out a little roll of worn bills. Hazen took them out of his +hand and counted them swiftly. + +"All right." he said. "Eleven-fifty. I'll give you a receipt. But you +mind me, Doan Marshey, you get the rest before the month's out. I've +been too slack with you." + +Marshey, his dull eyes watching Hazen write the receipt, was folding +the little pouch and putting it away. Hazen tore off the bit of paper +and gave it to him. Doan took it and he said humbly: "Thank'e, sir." + +Hazen nodded. + +"Mind now," he exclaimed, and Marshey said: "I'll do my best, Mr. +Kinch." + +Then he turned and shuffled across the room and out into the hall and we +heard him descending the stairs. + +When he was gone I asked Hazen casually: "What was it that he dropped +upon the table?" + +"A dollar," said Hazen promptly. "A dollar bill. The miserable fool!" + +Hazen's mental processes were always of interest to me. + +"You mean to give it back to him?" I asked. + +He stared at me and he laughed. "No! If he can't take care of his own +money--that's why he is what he is." + +"Still it is his money." + +"He owes me more than that." + +"Going to give him credit for it?" + +"Am I a fool?" Hazen asked me. "Do I look like so much of a fool?" + +"He may charge you with finding it." + +"He loses a dollar; I find one. Can he prove ownership? Pshaw!" Hazen +laughed again. + +"If there is any spine in him he will lay the thing to you as a theft," +I suggested. I was not afraid of angering Hazen. He allowed me open +speech; he seemed to find a grim pleasure in my distaste for him and for +his way of life. + +"If there were any backbone in the man he would not be paying me eighty +dollars a year on a five-hundred-dollar loan--discounted." + +Hazen grinned at me triumphantly. + +"I wonder if he will come back," I said. + +"Besides," Hazen continued, "he lied to me. He told me the eleven-fifty +was all he had." + +"Yes," I agreed. "There is no doubt he lied to you." + +Hazen had a letter to write and he bent to it. I sat by the stove and +watched him and considered. He had not yet finished the letter when we +heard Marshey returning. His dragging feet on the stair were +unmistakable. At the sound of his weary feet some tide of indignation +surged up in me. + +I was minded to do violence to Hazen Kinch. But--a deeper impulse held +my hand from the man. + +Marshey came in and his weary eyes wandered about the room. They +inspected the floor; they inspected me; they inspected Hazen Kinch's +table, and they rose at last humbly to Hazen Kinch. + +"Well?" said Hazen. + +"I lost a dollar," Marshey told him. "I 'lowed I might have dropped it +here." + +Hazen frowned. + +"You told me eleven-fifty was all you had." + +"This here dollar wa'n't mine." + +The money-lender laughed. + +"Likely! Who would give you a dollar? You lied to me, or you're lying +now. I don't believe you lost a dollar." + +Marshey reiterated weakly: "I lost a dollar." + +"Well," said Hazen, "there's no dollar of yours here." + +"It was to git medicine," Marshey said. "It wa'n't mine." + +Hazen Kinch exclaimed: "By God, I believe you're accusing me!" + +Marshey lifted both hands placatingly. + +"No, Mr. Kinch. No, sir." His eyes once more wandered about the room. +"Mebbe I dropped it in the snow," he said. + +He turned to the door. Even in his slow shuffle there was a hint of +trembling eagerness to escape. He went out and down the stairs. Hazen +looked at me, his old face wrinkling mirthfully. + +"You see?" he said. + +I left him a little later and went out into the street. On the way to +the hotel I stopped for a cigar at the drug store. Marshey was there, +talking with the druggist. + +I heard the druggist say: "No, Marshey, I'm sorry. I've been stung too +often." + +Marshey nodded humbly. + +"I didn't 'low you'd figure to trust me." he agreed. "It's all right. I +didn't 'low you would." + +It was my impulse to give him the dollar he needed, but I did not do it. +An overpowering compulsion bade me keep my hands off in this matter. I +did not know what I expected, but I felt the imminence of the fates. +When I went out into the snow it seemed to me the groan of the gale was +like the slow grind of millstones, one upon the other. + +I thought long upon the matter of Hazen Kinch before sleep came that +night. + +Toward morning the snow must have stopped; and the wind increased and +carved the drifts till sunrise, then abruptly died. I met Hazen at the +postoffice at ten and he said: "I'm starting home." + +I asked: "Can you get through?" + +He laughed. + +"I will get through," he told me. + +"You're in haste." + +"I want to see that boy of mine," said Hazen Kinch. "A fine boy, man! A +fine boy!" + +"I'm ready," I said. + +When we took the road the mare was limping. But she seemed to work out +the stiffness in her knees and after a mile or so of the hard going she +was moving smoothly enough. We made good time. + +The day, as often happens after a storm, was full of blinding sunlight. +The glare of the sun upon the snow was almost unbearable. I kept my eyes +all but closed but there was so much beauty abroad in the land that I +could not bear to close them altogether. The snow clung to twigs and to +fences and to wires, and a thousand flames glinted from every crystal +when the sun struck down upon the drifts. The pine wood upon the eastern +slope of Rayborn Hill was a checkerboard of rich colour. Green and blue +and black and white, indescribably brilliant. When we crossed the bridge +at the foot of the hill we could hear the brook playing beneath the ice +that sheathed it. On the white pages of the snow wild things had writ +here and there the fine-traced tale of their morning's adventuring. We +saw once where a fox had pinned a big snowshoe rabbit in a drift. + +Hazen talked much of that child of his on the homeward way. I said +little. From the top of the Rayborn Hill we sighted his house and he +laid the whip along the mare and we went down that last long descent at +a speed that left me breathless. I shut my eyes and huddled low in the +robes for protection against the bitter wind, and I did not open them +again till we turned into Hazen's barnyard, ploughing through the +unpacked snow. + +When we stopped Hazen laughed. + +"Ha!" he said. "Now, come in, man, and warm yourself and see the baby! A +fine boy!" + +He was ahead of me at the door; I went in upon his heels. We came into +the kitchen together. + +Hazen's kitchen was also living-room and bedroom in the cold of winter. +The arrangement saved firewood. There was a bed against the wall +opposite the door. As we came in a woman got up stiffly from this bed +and I saw that this woman was Hazen's wife. But there was a change in +her. She was bleak as cold iron and she was somehow strong. + +Hazen rasped at this woman impatiently: "Well, I'm home! Where is the +boy?" + +She looked at him and her lips moved soundlessly. She closed them, +opened them again. This time she was able to speak. + +"The boy?" she said to Hazen. "The boy is dead!" + +The dim-lit kitchen was very quiet for a little time. I felt myself +breathe deeply, almost with relief. The thing for which I had waited--it +had come. And I looked at Hazen Kinch. + +He had always been a little thin man. He was shrunken now and very white +and very still. Only his face twitched. A muscle in one cheek jerked and +jerked and jerked at his mouth. It was as though he controlled a desire +to smile. That jerking, suppressed smile upon his white and tortured +countenance was terrible. I could see the blood drain down from his +forehead, down from his cheeks. He became white as death itself. + +After a little he tried to speak. I do not know what he meant to say. +But what he did was to repeat--as though he had not heard her words--the +question which he had flung at her in the beginning. He said huskily: +"Where is the boy?" + +She looked toward the bed and Hazen looked that way; and then he went +across to the bed with uncertain little steps. I followed him. I saw the +little twisted body there. The woman had been keeping it warm with her +own body. It must have been in her arms when we came in. The tumbled +coverings, the crushed pillows spoke mutely of a ferocious intensity of +grief. + +Hazen looked down at the little body. He made no move to touch it, but I +heard him whisper to himself: "Fine boy." + +After a while he looked at the woman. She seemed to feel an accusation +in his eyes. She said: "I did all I could." + +He asked "What was it?" + +I had it in me--though I had reason enough to despise the little man--to +pity Hazen Kinch. + +"He coughed," said the woman. "I knew it was croup. You know I asked you +to get the medicine--ipecac. You said no matter--no need--and you had +gone." + +She looked out of the window. + +"I went for help--to Annie Marshey. Her babies had had it. Her husband +was going to town and she said he would get the medicine for me. She did +not tell him it was for me. He would not have done it for you. He did +not know. So I gave her a dollar to give him--to bring it out to me. + +"He came home in the snow last night. Baby was bad by that time, so I +was watching for Doan. I stopped him in the road and I asked for the +medicine. When he understood he told me. He had not brought it." + +The woman was speaking dully, without emotion. + +"It would have been in time, even then," she said. "But after a while, +after that, baby died." + +I understood in that moment the working of the mills. And when I looked +at Hazen Kinch I saw that he, too, was beginning to understand. There +is a just mercilessness in an aroused God. Hazen Kinch was driven to +questions. + +"Why--didn't Marshey fetch it?" he asked. + +She said slowly: "They would not trust him--at the store." + +His mouth twitched, he raised his hands. + +"The money!" he cried. "The money! What did he do with that?" + +"He said," the woman answered, "that he lost it--in your office; lost +the money there." + +After a little the old money-lender leaned far back like a man wrenched +with agony. His body was contorted, his face was terrible. His dry mouth +opened wide. + +He screamed! + + * * * * * + +Halfway up the hill to my house I stopped to look back and all round. +The vast hills in their snowy garments looked down upon the land, upon +the house of Hazen Kinch. Still and silent and inscrutable. + +I knew now that a just and brooding God dwelt among these hills. + + + + +ON STRIKE + + +BY ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE + +From _The Popular Magazine_ + +"Furthermore, howadji," ventured Najib, who had not spoken for fully +half an hour, but had been poring over a sheaf of shipment items +scribbled in Arabic, "furthermore, I am yearnful to know who was the +unhappy person the wicked general threatened. Or, of a perhaps, it was +that poor general himself who was bethreatened by his padishah or by +the--" + +"What on earth are you babbling about, Najib?" absent-mindedly asked +Logan Kirby, as he looked up from a month-old New York paper which had +arrived by muleteer that day and which the expatriated American had been +reading with pathetic interest. + +Now, roused from his perusal by Najib's query, Logan saw that the little +Syrian has ceased wrestling with the shipment items and was peering over +his employer's shoulder, his beady eyes fixed in keen curiosity on the +printed page. + +"I enseeched you to tell me, howadji," said Najib, "who has been +threatening that poor general. Or, perchancely, who has been made to +cower himself undertheneath of that fierce general's threatenings. See, +it is there, howadji. There, in the black line at the left top end of +the news. See?" + +Following the guidance of Najib's stubby, unwashed finger, Kirby read +the indicated headline: + + GENERAL STRIKE THREATENED + +"Oh!" he answered, choking back a grin, "I see. There isn't any +'general,' Najib. And he isn't threatened. It means--" + +"May the faces of all liars be blackened!" cried Najib in virtuous +indignation. "And may the maker of the becurst newspage lie be doubly +afflictioned! May his camels die and his wives cast dust upon his bared +head! For he has befooled me, by what he has here enprinted. My heart +went out with a sweet sorrowfulness for that poor general or for the +folk he bethreatened. Whichever it might chance itself to be. And now +the news person has made a jest of the truth. But he--" + +Kirby's attempt at self-control went to pieces. He guffawed. Najib eyed +him sourly; then said in icy reproof: + +"It is known to all, howadji, that Sidi-ben-Hassan, the sheikh, was the +wisest of men. And did not Sidi-ben-Hassan make known, in his book, that +'_Laughter is for women and for hyenas_'? Furthermore--" + +"I'm sorry I laughed at you, Najib," returned Kirby, with due penitence, +"I don't wonder you got such an idea, from the headline. You see, I have +read the story that goes under it. That's how I happen to know what it +means. It means that several thousand workmen of several allied trades +threatened to go on strike. That will tie up a lot of business, you see; +along a lot of lines. It will mean a general tie-up--a--" + +From Najib's blank face, the American saw his more or less technical +explanation was going wide. Still remorseful at having hurt his +factotum's feelings, Kirby laid the paper aside and undertook to +simplify the matter. + +"It's like this," said he. "We'll say a gang of men aren't satisfied +with the pay or the hours they are getting. They asked for more money or +for shorter hours; or for both. If the demand is refused, they stop +working. They won't go back to their jobs till they get the cash and the +hours they want. That is known as 'going on strike.' When a number of +concerns are involved in it, it's sometimes called 'a general strike.' +This paper says a general strike is threatened. That means--" + +"I apperceive it, howadji!" exclaimed Najib. "I am onward to it, now. I +might have known the printed page cannot lie. But, oh, my heart berends +itself when I think of the sad fate of those poor folk who do the +stroking! Of an assuredly, Allah hath deprived them of wisdom! + +"Not necessarily," argued Kirby, wondering at his henchman's outburst of +sympathy for union labourers so many thousand miles away. "They may win, +you know; or, at least, get a compromise. And their unions will support +them while they are out of work. Of course, they may lose. And then--" + +"But when they make refusal to do their work," urged Najib, "will not +the soldiers of the pasha cut them to ribbons with the kourbash and +drive them back to their toil? Or if the pasha of that pashalik is a +brutesome man, will not he cast those poor fellaheen into the prison and +beseize their goods? And I answer, howadji, he will. Wherefore my eyes +are tearing, for the men who have so unlucklessly--" + +"Hold on!" exhorted Kirby; albeit despairing of opening the mind of a +man whose forebears for thousands of years had lived in a land where the +_corvée_--forced labour--was a hallowed institution; and where the money +of employers could always enlist the aid of government soldiery to keep +the fellaheen at their tasks. "Hold on! That sort of thing is dead and +done with. Even in the East. Chinese Gordon stamped out the last of it, +in Egypt, years ago. If a man doesn't want to work, he can't be forced +to. All his boss can do is to fire him and try to get some one in his +place. When a whole factory of men strike--especially if there are any +big contract orders to fill in a rush--the employers sometimes find it +cheaper to give them what they want than to call in untrained +strikebreakers. On the other hand, sometimes, the boss can bring the men +to terms. It all depends." + +Yielding to the human joy of imparting instruction to so interested a +listener, Kirby launched forth into an elaboration of his theme; trying +to expound something of the capital-and-labour situation to his +follower; and secretly wondering at the keen zest wherewith his words +were listened to. + +Seldom was Kirby so successful in making Najib follow so long an +oration. And he was pleased with his own new-found powers of explaining +Occidental customs to an Oriental mind. + +Now, Logan Kirby knew the tangled Syrian character and its myriad queer +slants, as well as it can be given to a white man to know it. Kirby's +father had been a missionary, at Nablous. He himself had been born +there, and had spent his boyhood at the mission. That was why--after he +had completed his engineering course at Columbia's school of mines and +had served an apprenticeship in Colorado and Arizona--the Cabell +Smelting Company of New York had sent him out to the Land of Moab, as +manager of its new-acquired little antimony mine. + +The mine--a mere prospect shaft--was worked by about thirty +fellaheen--native labourers--supervised by a native guard of twelve +Turkish soldiers. Small as was the plant, it was a rich property and it +was piling up dividends for the Cabells. Antimony, in the East, is used +in a score of ways--from its employment in the form of kohl, for the +darkening of women's eyes, to the chemical by-products, always in demand +by Syrian apothecaries. + +This was the only antimony mine between Aden and Germany. Its shipments +were in constant demand. Its revenues were a big item on the credit side +of the Cabell ledger. + +Kirby's personal factotum, as well as superintendent of the mine, was +this squat little Syrian, Najib, who had once spent two blissfully +useless years with an All Nations Show, at Coney Island; and who there +had picked up a language which he proudly believed to be English; and +which he spoke exclusively when talking with the manager. + +Kirby's rare knowledge of the East had enabled the mine to escape ruin a +score of times where a manager less conversant with Oriental ways must +have blundered into some fatal error in the handling of his men or in +dealing with the local authorities. + +Remember, please, that in the East it is the seemingly insignificant +things which bring disaster to the feringhee, or foreigner. For example, +many an American or European has met unavenged death because he did not +realize that he was heaping vile affront upon his Bedouin host by eating +with his left hand. Many a foreign manager of labour has lost instant +and complete control over his fellaheen by deigning to wash his own +shirt in the near-by river or for brushing the dirt from his own +clothes. Thereby he has proved himself a labourer, instead of a master +of men. Many a foreigner has been shot or stabbed for speaking to a +native whom he thought afflicted with a fit and who was really engaged +in prayer. Many more have lost life or authority by laughing at the +wrong time or by glancing--with entire absence of interest, perhaps--at +some passing woman. + +Yes, Kirby had been invaluable to his employers by virtue of his inborn +knowledge of Syrian ways. Yet, now, he was not enough of an Oriental to +understand why his lecture on the strike system should thrill his +listener. + +He did not pause to realize that the idea of strikes was one which +carries a true appeal to the Eastern imagination. It has all the +elements of revenge, of coercion, and of trapping, of wily +give-and-take, and of simple and logical gambling uncertainty, which +characterize the most popular of the Arabian Nights yarns and which have +made those tales remain as Syrian classics for more than ten centuries. + +"It is of an assuredly a pleasing and noble plan," applauded Najib when +Kirby finished the divers ramifications of his discourse. "And I do not +misdoubt but what that cruel general betrembled himself inside of his +boots when they threatened to strike. If the stroking ones may not be +lawfully attackled by the pashalik troops, indeed must the general--" + +"I told you there wasn't any general!" interrupted Kirby, jarred that +his luminous explanations had still left Najib more or less where it +found him, so far as any lucid idea was concerned. "And I've wasted +enough time trying to ding the notion of the thing into your thick head. +If you've got those shipment items catalogued, go back to the shaft and +check off the inventory. The first load ought to be on the way to the +coast before sunrise to-morrow. Chase!" + +As he picked up the duplicate sets of the list and ran over their items +once more, Kirby tried to forget his own silly annoyance at his failure +to make the dull little Syrian comprehend a custom that had never +reached the Land of Moab. + +Presently, in his absorption in his work, the American forgot the whole +incident. It was the beginning of a rush period at the mine--the busiest +month in its history was just setting in. The Alexandretta-bound +shipment of the morrow was but the first of twelve big shipments +scheduled for the next twenty-nine days. + +The restoration of peace and the shutting out of several Central +European rivals had thrown an unprecedented sheaf of rush orders on the +Cabell mine. It was such a chance as Kirby had longed for; a chance to +show his rivals' customers the quality of the Cabell product and the +speed and efficiency wherewith orders could and would be filled by him. +If he could but fill these new customers' orders in quicker and more +satisfactory fashion than the firms were accustomed to receiving, it +might well mean that the new buyers would stick to the Cabells, after +the other mines should again be in operation. + +It was a big chance, as Kirby had explained at some length to Najib, +during the past few weeks. At his behest, the little superintendent had +used every known method to get extra work and extra speed out of the +fellaheen; and, by judicious baksheesh, had even impressed to the toil +several members of the haughty, Turkish guard and certain folk from the +nearest hill village. + +As a result, the first shipment was ready for the muleteers to carry +coastward a full week ahead of schedule time. And the contract chanced +to be one for which the eager wholesalers at Alexandretta had agreed to +pay a bonus for early arrival. The men were even now busy getting a +second shipment in shape for transportation by mule train to Tiberias +and thence by railway to Damascus. + +The work was progressing finely. Kirby thrilled at the thought. And he +was just a little ashamed of his own recent impatience at Najib, when he +remembered how the superintendent was pushing the relays of consignments +along. After all, he mused, it was no reflection on Najib's intelligence +that the poor little chap could not grasp the whole involved Occidental +strike system in one hasty lecture; and that his simple mind clung to +the delusion that there was some fierce general involved in it. In the +Arabian Nights was there not always a scheming sultan or a baffled +wazir, in every clash with the folk of the land? Was it unnatural that +Najib should have substituted for these the mythical general of whom he +thought he had seen mention in the news headline? + +But, soon after dusk, Kirby had reason to know that his words had not +all fallen on barren soil. At close of the working day, Najib had +brought the manager the usual diurnal report from the mine. Now, after +supper, Kirby, glancing over the report again, found a gap of terse yet +complete reports. And occasionally Kirby was obliged to summon his +henchman to correct or amend the day's tally sheet. + +Wherefore, the list in his hand, the American strolled down from his own +knoll-top tent toward Najib's quarters. As Najib was superintendent, and +thus technically an official, Kirby could make such domiciliary visits +without loss of prestige, instead of summoning the Syrian to his +presence by handclap of by messenger, as would have been necessary in +dealing with any of the other employees. + +Najib's hut lay a hundred yards beyond the hollow where the fellaheen +and soldiers were encamped. For Najib, too, had a dignity to uphold. He +might no more lodge or break bread with his underlings than might Kirby +with him. Yet, at times, preparatory to pattering up the knoll for his +wonted evening chat with the American at the latter's campfire, Najib +would so far unbend as to pause at the fellaheen's camp for a native +discussion of many gestures and much loud talking. + +So it was to-night. Just outside the radius of the fellaheen's +firelight, Kirby paused. For he heard Najib's shrill voice uplifted in +speech. And amusedly he halted and prepared to turn back. He had no wish +to break in upon a harangue so interesting as the speaker seemed to find +this one. + +Najib's voice was pitched far above the tones of normal Eastern +conversation;--louder and more excited even than that of a professional +story-teller. In Syria it is hard to believe that these professionals +are merely telling an oft-heard Arabian Nights narrative; and not +indulging in delirium or apoplexy. + +Yet at a stray word of Najib's, Kirby checked involuntarily his own +retreat; and paused again to look back. There stood Najib, in the center +of the firelit circle; hands and head in wild motion. Around him, +spell-bound, squatted the ring of his dark-faced and unwashed hearers. +The superintendent, being with his own people, was orating in pure +Arabic--or, rather, in the colloquial vernacular which is as close to +pure Arabic as one can expect to hear, except among the remoter +Bedouins. + +"Thus it is!" he was declaiming. "Even as I have sought to show you, oh, +addle-witted offspring of mangy camels and one-eyed mules! In that far +country, when men are dissatisfied with their wage, they take counsel +together and they say, one unto the other: 'Lo, we shall labour no more, +unless our hire be greater and our toil hours less!' Then go they to +their sheikh or whomever he be who hath hired them, and they say to him: +'Oh, favoured of Allah, behold we must have such and such wage and such +and such hours of labour!' Then doth their sheikh cast ashes upon his +beard and rend his garments. For doth he not know his fate is upon him +and that his breath is in his nostrils? Yet will they not listen to his +prayers; but at once they make 'strike.' + +"Then doth their sheikh betake himself to the pasha with his grievance; +beseeching the pasha, with many rich gifts, that he will throw those +strike-making labourers into prison and scourge their kinsmen with the +kourbash. But the pasha maketh answer, with tears: 'Lo, I am helpless! +What saith the law? It saith that a man may make strike at will; and +that his employer must pay what is demanded!' Now, this pasha is named +'General.' And his heart is as gall within him that he may not accept +the rich gifts offered by the sheikh; and punish the labourers. Yet the +law restraineth him. Then the sheikh, perchance, still refuseth the +demands of his toilers. And they say to him then: 'If you will not +employ us and on the terms we ordain, then shall ye hire none others, +for we shall overthrow those whom you set in our places. And perchance +we shall destroy your warehouses or barns or shops!' This say they, when +they know he hath greatest need of them. Then boweth their master his +head upon his breast and saith: 'Be it even as ye will, my hirelings! +For I must obey!' And he giveth them, of his substance, whatsoever they +may require. And all are glad. And under the new law, even in this land +of ours, none may imprison or beat those who will not work. And all may +demand and receive what wage they will. And--" + +And Kirby waited to hear no more. With a groan of disgust at the +orator's imbecility, he went back, up the hill, to his own tent. + +There, he drew forth his rickety sea chair and placed it in front of a +patch of campfire that twinkled in the open space in front of the tent +door. For, up there in the hills, the nights had an edge of chill to +them; be the days ever so hot. + +Stretching himself out lazily in his long chair, Kirby exhumed from a +shirt pocket his disreputable brier pipe, and filled and lighted it. The +big white Syrian stars glinted down on him from a black velvet sky. +Along the nearer peaks and hollows of the Moab Mountains, the knots of +prowling jackals kept up a running chorus of yapping--a discordant chant +punctuated now and then by the far-away howl of a hunting wolf; or, by +the choking "laugh" of a hyena in the valley below, who thus gave forth +the news of some especially delicious bit of carrion discovered among +the rocks. + +And Kirby was reminded of Najib's quoted dictum that "laughter is for +women and for hyenas." The memory brought back to him his squat +henchman's weird jumbling of the strike system. And he smiled in +reminiscent mirth. + +The Syrian had been his comrade in many a vicissitude And he knew that +Najib's fondness for him was as sincere as can be that of any Oriental +for a foreigner, an affection based not wholly on self-interest. Kirby +enjoyed his evening powwows with superintendent beside the campfire; and +the little man's amazing faculty for mangling the English tongue. + +He rather missed Najib's presence to-night. But he was not to miss it +for long. Just as he was about to knock out his pipe and go to bed, the +native came pattering up the slope on excitedly rapid feet; and squatted +as usual on the ground beside the American's lounging chair. In Najib's +manner there was a scarce-repressed jubilant thrill. His beady eyes +shone wildly. Hardly had he seated himself when he broke the custom of +momentary grave silence by blurting forth: + +"Furthermore, howadji, I am the bearer of gladly tidings which will make +you to beshout yourself aloud for joyfulness and leap about and +besclaim: 'Pretty fair!' and other words of a grand rapture. For the +bird will sing gleesome dirges in your heart!" + +"Well?" queried Kirby in no especial excitement. "I'm listening. But if +the news is really so wonderful you surely took your time in bringing +it. I've been here all evening, while you've stayed below there, trying +to increase those fellaheens' stock of ignorance. What's the idea?" + +"Oh, I prythee you, do not let my awayness beget your goat, howadji!" +pleaded Najib, ever sensitive to any hint of reproof from his master. +"It was that which made the grand tidings. If I had not of been where I +have been this evening--and doing what I have done--there would not be +any tidings at all. I made the tidings myself. Both of them. And I made +them for _you._ Is it that I may now tell them to you, howadji?" + +"Go ahead," adjured Kirby, humouring the wistful eagerness of the man. +"What's the news you have for me?" + +"It is more than just a 'news,' howadji," corrected Najib with jealous +regard for shades of meaning. "It is a tidings. And it is this: You and +my poor self and the fellaheen and even those hell-selected pashalik +soldiers--we are all to be rich. Most especially _you,_ howadji. +Wealthiness bewaits us all. No longer shall any of us be downward and +outward from povertude. No more shall any of us toil early and +belatedly. We shall all live in easiness of hours and with much payment. +_Inshallah! Alhandulillah!"_ he concluded, his rising excitement for +once bursting the carefully nourished bounds of English and overflowing +into Arabic expletive. + +Noting his own lapse into his native language, he looked sheepishly at +Kirby, as though hoping the American had not heard the break. Then, with +mounting eagerness, Najib struck the climax of his narrative. + +"To speak with a briefness, howadji," he proclaimed grandiloquently. "We +have all stroked ourselfs!" + +"You've all done--what?" asked the puzzled Kirby. + +"Not we alone, howadji," amended Najib, "but you also! We would not +berich ourselves and leave you outward in the plan. It is you also who +are to stroke yourself. And--" + +"For the love of Heaven!" exclaimed Kirby in sudden loss of patience. +"What are you driving at? What do you mean about 'stroking yourselves'? +Say it in Arabic. Then perhaps I can find what you mean." + +"It is not to be said in the Arabic, howadji," returned Najib, wincing +at this slur on his English. "For there is not such a thing in the +Arabic as to make strike. We make strike. Thus I say it we 'stroke +ourselves.' If it is the wrong way for saying it--" + +"Strike?" repeated Kirby, perplexed. "What do you mean? Are you still +thinking about what I told you to-day? If you are going--" + +"I have bethought of it, howadji, ever since," was the reply. "And it is +because of my much bethoughting that I found my splenderous plan. That +is my tidings. I bethought it all out with tremense clearness and +wiseness. Then I told those others, down yonder. At first they were of a +stupidity. For it was so new. But at last I made them understand. And +they rejoiced of it. So it is all settled most sweetly. You may not fear +that they will not stand by it. As soon as that was made sure I came to +you to tell--" + +"Najib!" groaned Kirby, his head awhirl. "_Will_ you stop chewing chunks +of indigestible language, and tell me what you are jabbering about? What +was it you thought over? And what is 'all settled'? What will--" + +"The strike, of an assuredly," explained Najib, as if in pity of his +chief's denseness. "To-night we make strike. All of us. That is one +tiding. And you, too, make strike with us. That is the other tiding. +Making two tidings. We make strike. To-morrow we all sleep late. No work +is to be made. And so it shall be, on each dear and nice and happy day, +until Cabell Effendi--be his sons an hundred and his wives true!--shall +pay us the money we ask and make short our hours of toil. Then--" + +Kirby sought to speak. But his breath was gone. He only gobbled. Taking +the wordless sound for a token of high approval, Najib hastened on, more +glibly, with his program. + +"On the to-morrow's morning, howadji," he said, "we enseech that you +will write a sorrowsome letter to Cabell Effendi, in the Broad Street of +New York; and say to him that all of us have made strike and that we +shall work no more until we have from his hands a writing that our +payment shall be two mejidie for every mejidie we have been capturing +from his company. Also and likewise that we shall work but half time. +And that you, howadji, are to receive even as we; save only that _your_ +wage is to be enswollen to three times over than what it is now. And say +to him, howadji, that unless he does our wish in this striking we shall +slay all others whom he may behire in our place and that we shall +dynamitely destroy that nice mine. Remind him, howadji--if perchancely +he does not know of such things--that the law is with us. Say, +moreoverly, that there be many importanceful shipments and contracts +just now. And say he will lose all if he be so bony of head as to refuse +us. Furthermore, howadji, tell him, I prythee you, that we--" + +A veritable yell from Kirby broke in on the smug instructions. The +American had recovered enough of his breath to expend a lungful of it in +one profane bellow. In a flash he visualized the whole scene at the +fellaheens' quarters--Najib's crazy explanation of the strike system and +of the supposed immunity from punishment that would follow sabotage and +other violence; the fellaheens' duller brains gradually seizing on the +idea until it had become as much a part of their mucilaginous mentality +as the Koran itself; and Najib's friendly desire that Kirby might share +in the golden benefits of the new scheme. + +Yes, the American grasped the whole thing at once; his knowledge of the +East foretelling to him its boundless possibilities for mischief and for +the ruin of the mine's new prosperity. He fairly strangled with the gust +of wrath and impotent amaze which gripped him. + +Najib smiled up at him as might a dog that had just performed some +pretty new trick, or a child who has brought to its father a gift. But +the aspect of Kirby's distorted face there in the dying firelight +shocked the Syrian into a grunt of terror. Scrambling to his feet, he +sputtered quaveringly. + +"Tame yourself, howadji, I enseech you! Why are you not rejoiceful? Will +it not mean much money for you; and--" + +"You mangy brown rat!" shouted Kirby in fury. "What in blazes have you +done? You know, as well as I do, that such an idea will never get out of +those fellaheens' skulls, once it's really planted there. They'll +believe every word of that wall-eyed rot you've been telling them! And +they'll go on a _genuine_ strike on the strength of it. They'll--" + +"Of an assuredly, howadji, they will," assented the bewildered Najib. "I +made me very assured of that. Four times I told it all over to them, +until even poor Imbarak--whose witfulness hath been beblown out from his +brain by the breath of the Most High--until even Imbarak understood. But +why it should enrouse you to a lionsome raging I cannot think. I +bethought you would be pleasured--" + +"Listen to me!" ordered Kirby, fighting hard for self-control and +forcing himself to speak with unnatural slowness. "You've done more +damage than if you had dynamited the whole mine and then turned a river +into the shaft. This kind of news spreads. In a week there won't be a +worker east of the Jordan who won't be a strike fan. And these people +here will work the idea a step farther. I know them. They'll decide that +if one strike is good, two strikes are better. And they will strike +every week--loafing between times." + +This prospect brought a grin of pure bliss to Najib's swarthy face. He +looked in new admiration upon his farsighted chief. Kirby went on: + +"Not that that will concern us. For this present strike will settle the +Cabell mine. It means ruin to our business here, and the loss of all +your jobs, as well as my own. Why, you idiot, can't you see what you've +done? If you don't take that asinine grin off your ugly face, I'll knock +it off!" he burst out, his hard-held patience momentarily fraying. + +Then, taking new hold on his self-control, Kirby began again to talk. As +if addressing a defective child, which, as a matter of fact, he was +doing, he expounded the hideous situation. + +He explained the disloyalty to the Cabells of such a move as Najib had +planned. He pointed out the pride he and Najib had taken in the new +business they had secured for the home office; and the fact that this +new business had brought an increase of pay to them both as well as to +the fellaheen. He showed how great a triumph for the mine was this vast +increase of business; and the stark necessity of impressing the new +customers by the promptitude and uniform excellence of all shipments. He +pointed out the utter collapse to this and to all the rest of the mine's +connections which a strike would entail. Najib listened unmoved. + +Hopeless of hammering American ethics into the brain of an Oriental, +Kirby set off at a new angle. He explained the loss of prestige and +position which he himself would suffer. He would be +discharged--probably by cable--for allowing the mine's bourgeoning +prosperity to go to pieces in such fashion. Another and less lenient and +understanding manager would be sent out to take his place. A manager +whose first official act would probably be the discharging of Najib as +the cause of the whole trouble. + +Najib listened to this with a new interest, but with no great +conviction. + +Even Kirby's declaration that the ridiculous strike be a failure, and +that the government would assuredly punish any damage done to the Cabell +property, did not serve to impress him. Najib was a Syrian. An idea once +firm-rooted in his mind, was loathe to let itself be torn thence by mere +words. Kirby waxed desperate. + +"You have wrecked this whole thing!" he stormed. "You got an idiotically +wrong slant on what I told you about strikes to-day; and you have ruined +us all. Even if you should go down there to the quarters this minute and +tell the men that you were mistaken and that the strike is off--you know +they wouldn't believe you. And you know they would go straight ahead +with the thing. That's the Oriental of it. They'd refuse to go on +working. And our shipments wouldn't be delivered. None of the ore for +the next shipments would be mined. The men would just hang about, +peacefully waiting for the double pay and the half time that you've +promised them." + +"Of an assuredly, that is true, howadji," conceded Najib. "They would--" + +"They _will_!" corrected Kirby with grim hopelessness. + +"But soon Cabell Effendi will reply to your letter," went on Najib. "And +then the double paying--" + +"To my letter!" mocked the raging Kirby. + +Then he paused, a sudden inspiration smiting him. + +"Najib," he continued after a minute of concentrated thought, "you have +sense enough to know one thing: You have sense enough to know you people +can't get that extra pay till I write to Mr. Cabell and demand it for +you. There's not another one of you who can write English. There's no +one here but yourself who can speak or understand it or make shift to +spell out a few English words in print And Mr. Cabell doesn't know a +word of Arabic--let alone the Arabic script. And your own two years at +Coney Island must have shown you that no New Yorkers would know how to +read an Arabic letter to him. Now I swear to you, by every Christian and +Moslem oath, that _I_ shan't write such a letter! So how are you going +to get word to him that you people are on strike and that you won't do +another lick of work till you get double pay and half time? How are you +going to do that?" + +Najib's solid face went blank. Here at last was an argument that struck +home. He had known Kirby for years, long enough to know that the +American was most emphatically a man of his word. If Kirby swore he +would not act as the men's intermediary with the company, then +decisively Kirby would keep his oath. And Najib realized the futility of +getting any one else to write such a letter in any language which the +Cabell Smelting Company's home office would decipher. + +He peered up at Kirby with disconsolate astonishment. Quick to take +advantage of the change, the manager hurried on: + +"Now, the men are on strike. That's understood. Well what are you and +they going to do about it? When the draft for the monthly pay roll comes +to the bank, at Jerusalem as usual, I shall refuse to indorse it. I give +you my oath on that, too. I am not going to distribute the company's +cash among a bunch of strikers. Without my signature, the bank won't +cash the draft. You know that. Well, how are you going to live, all of +you, on nothing a month? When the present stock of provisions gives out +I'm not going to order them renewed. And the provision people in +Jerusalem won't honour any one's order for them but mine. This is the +only concern in Syria to-day that pays within forty per cent, of the +wages you chaps are getting. With no pay and no food you're due to find +your strike rather costly. For when the mine shuts down I'm going back +to America. There'll be nothing to keep me here. I'll be ruined, in any +case. You people will find yourself without money or provisions. And if +you go elsewhere for work it will be at a pay that is only a little more +than half what you are getting now. Your lookout isn't cheery, my +striking friend!" + +He made as though to go into his tent. After a brief pause of horror, +Najib pattered hurriedly and beseechingly in his wake. + +"Howadji!" pleaded the Syrian shakily. _"Howadji!_ You would not, in the +untamefulness of your mad, desertion us like that? Not _me_, at anyhow? +Not me, who have loved you as Daoud the Emir loved Jonathan of old! You +would not forsook me, to starve myself! _Aie! Ohé!_" + +"Shut up that ungodly racket!" snapped Kirby, entering his tent and +lighting his lamp, as the first piercing notes of the traditional +mourner chant exploded through the unhappy Najib's wide-flung jaws. +"Shut up! You'll start every hyena and jackal in the mountains to +howling! It's bad enough as it is without adding a native concert to the +rest of the mess." + +"But, howadji!" pleaded Najib. + +_"Tamán!"_ growled Kirby, summarily speaking the age-hallowed Arabic +word for the ending of all interviews. + +"But I shall be beruinated, howadji!" tearfully insisted Najib. + +Covertly the American watched his henchman while pretending to make +ready for bed. If he had fully and permanently scared Najib into a +conviction that the strike would spell ruin for the Syrian himself, then +the little man's brain might possibly be jarred into one of its rare +intervals of uncanny craftiness; and Najib might hit upon some way of +persuading the fellaheen that the strike was off. + +This was Kirby's sole hope. And he knew it. Unless the fellaheen could +be so convinced, it meant the strike would continue until it should +break the mine as well as the mine's manager. Kirby knew of no way to +persuade the men. The same arguments which had crushed Najib would mean +nothing to them. All their brains could master at one time, without the +aid of some uprooting shock, was that henceforth they were to get double +pay and half labour. + +A calm fatalism of hopelessness, bred perhaps of his long residence in +the homeland of fatalism began to creep over Kirby. In one hour his +golden ambitions for the mine and for himself had been smashed. At best +he saw no hope of getting the obsessed mine crew to work soon enough to +save his present contracts. He would be lucky if, on non-receipt of +their demanded increase, they did not follow Najib's muddled preachments +to the point of sabotage. + +The more he thought of it, the less possible did it seem to Kirby that +Najib could undo the damage he had so blithely done. Ordering the +blubbering little fellow out of the tent and refusing to speak or listen +further, Kirby went to bed. + +Oddly enough, he slept. There was nothing to worry about. When a man's +job or fortune are imperilled sleep vanishes. But after the catastrophe +what sense is there in lying awake? Depression and nervous fatigue threw +Kirby into a troubled slumber. Only once in the night was he roused. + +Perhaps two hours before dawn he started up at sound of a humble +scratching at the open door flap of his tent. On the threshold cowered +Najib. + +"Furthermore, howadji," came the Syrian's woe-begone voice through the +gloom, "could I borrow me a book if I shall use it with much +carefulness?" + +Too drowsy to heed the absurdity of such a plea at such an hour, Kirby +grumbled a surly assent, and dozed again as he heard Najib rumbling, in +the dark, among the shelves of the packing-box bookcase in a far corner +of the tent. Here were stored nearly a hundred old volumes which had +once been a part of the missionary library belonging to Kirby's father +at Nablous. A few years earlier, at the moving of the mission, the dead +missionary's scanty library had been shipped across country to his son. + +Kirby awoke at greyest daylight. Through force of habit he woke at this +hour; in spite of the workless day which he knew confronted him. It was +his custom to get up and take his bath in the rain cistern at this time, +and to finish dressing just as the men piled out for the morning's work. + +Yet now the first sounds that smote his ears as he opened his eyes were +the rhythmic creak of the mine windlass and equally rhythmic, if less +tuneful, chant of the men who were working it; + +_"All-ah sa-eed!--Ne-bi sa-eed! Ohé! Sa-eed! Sa-eed! Sa-EED!"_ + +In the distance, dying away, he heard the plodding hoofs of a string of +pack mules. From the direction of the mine came the hoodlum racket which +betokens, in Syria, the efforts of a number of honest labourers to +perform their daily tasks in an efficient and orderly way. + +Kirby, in sleepy amaze, looked at his watch in the dim dawn light. He +saw it was still a full half hour before the men were due to begin work. +And by the sounds he judged that the day's labour was evidently well +under way. Yes, and to-day there was to have been no work done! + +Kirby jumped out of bed and strode dazedly to his tent door. At the mine +below him his fellaheen were as busy as so many dirty and gaudy bees. +Even the lordly lazy Turkish soldiers were lending a hand at windlass +and crane. Over the nick of the pass, leading toward Jerusalem, the last +animal of a mule train was vanishing. Najib, who had as usual escorted +the departing shipment of ore to the opening in the pass, was trotting +back toward camp. + +At sight of Kirby in the tent door the little superintendent veered from +his course toward the mine and increased his pace to a run as he bore +down upon the American. Najib's swart face was aglow. But his eyes were +those of a man who has neglected to sleep. His cheeks still bore flecks +of the dust he had thrown on his head when Kirby had explained the wreck +of his scheme and of his future. There, in all likelihood, the dust +smears would remain until the next rain should wash them off. But, +beyond these tokens of recent mental strife, Najib's visage shone like +a full moon that is streaked by dun dust clouds. + +"Furthermore, howadji!" he hailed his chief as soon as he was within +earshot, "the shipment for Alexandretta is on its wayward--over than an +hour earlier than it was due to bestart itself. And those poor +hell-selected fellaheen are betoiling themselfs grand. Have I done well, +oh, howadji?" + +"Najib!" stammered Kirby, still dazed. + +"And here is that most sweet book of great worthiness and wit, which I +borrowed me of you in the night, howadji," pursued Najib, taking from +the soiled folds of his abieh a large old volume, bound in stout +leather, after the manner of religious or scientific books of a +half-century ago. On the brown back a scratched gold lettering +proclaimed the gruesome title: + +"Martyrs of Ancient and Modern Error." + +Well did Kirby know the tome. Hundreds of times, as a child, had he sat +on the stone floor of his father's cell-like mission study at Nablous, +and had pored in shuddering fascination over its highly coloured +illustrations. The book was a compilation--chiefly in the form of +multichrome pictures with accompanying borders of text--of all the +grisly scenes of martyrdom which the publishers had been able to scrape +together from such classics as "Fox's Book of Martyrs" and the like. +Twice this past year he had surprised Najib scanning the gruesome pages +in frank delight. + +"I betook the book to their campfire, howadji, and I smote upon my +breast and I bewept me and I wailed aloud and I would not make comfort. +Till at last they all awoken and they came out of their huts and they +reviled at me for disturbing them as they slept themselfs so happily. +Then I spake much to them. And all the time I teared with my eyes and +moaned aloudly. + +"But," put in Kirby, "I don't see what this--" + +"In a presently you shall, howadji. Yesterday I begot your goat. To-day +I shall make you to frisk with peacefulness of heart. Those fellaheen +cannot read. They are not of an education, as I am. And they know my +wiseness in reading. For over than a trillion times I have told them. +And they believe. Pictures also they believe. Just as men of an +education believe the printed word; knowing full well it could not be +printed if it were not Allah's own truth. Well, these folk believe a +picture, if it be in a book. So I showed them pictures. And I read the +law which was beneath the pictures. They heard me read. And they saw the +pictures with their own eyesight. So what could they do but believe? And +they did. Behold, howadji!" + +Opening the volume with respectful care, Najib thumbed the yellowing +pages. Presently he paused at a picture which represented in glaring +detail a stricken battlefield strewn with dead and dying Orientals of +vivid costume. In the middle distance a regiment of prisoners was being +slaughtered in a singularly bloodthirsty fashion. The caption, above the +cut, read: + +_"Destruction of Sennacherib's Assyrian Hosts, by the People of +Israel."_ + +"While yet they gazed joyingly on this noble picture," remarked Najib, +"I read to them the words of the law about it. I read aloudly, thus: +'This shall be the way of punishing all folk who make strike hereafter +this date.' Then," continued Najib, "I showed to them another pretty and +splendid picture. See!" + +_"Martyrdom of John Rogers, His Wife and Their Nine Children."_ + +"And," proclaimed Najib, "of this sweet portrait I read thus the law: +'So shall the wifes and the offsprungs of all strike-makers be put to +death; and those wicked strike-makers themselfs along with them.' By the +time I had shown them six or fifteen of such pictures and read them the +law for each of them, those miserable fellaheen and guards were +beweeping themselfs harder and louder and sadder than I had seemed to. +Why, howadji, it was with a difficultness that I kept them from running +away and enhiding themselfs in the mountains, lest the soldiers of the +pasha come upon them at once and punish them for trying to make strike! +But I said I would intercede with you to make you merciful of heart +toward them, to spare them and not to tell the law what they had so +sinsomely planned to do I said I would do this, for mine own sake as +well as for theirs, and that I knew I could wake you to pity. But I said +it would perchancely soften your heart toward them, if all should work +harder to atone themselfs for the sin they had beplotted. Wherefore, +howadji, they would consent to sleep no more; but they ran henceforthly +and at once to the mine. They have been onto the job ever since. And, +howadji, they are jobbing harder than ever I have seen men bejob +themselfs. Am I forgiven, howadji?" he finished timidly. + +"Forgiven!" yelled Kirby, when he could speak. "Why, you eternal little +liar, you're a genius! My hat is off to you! This ought to be worth a +fifty-mejidie bonus. And--" + +"Instead of the bonus, howadji," ventured Najib, scared at his own +audacity, yet seeking to take full advantage of this moment of +expansiveness, "could I have this pleasing book as a baksheesh gift?" + +"Take it!" vouchsafed Kirby. "The thing gives me bad dreams. Take it!" + +"May the houris make soft your bed in the Paradise of the Prophet!" +jabbered Najib, in a frenzy of gratitude, as he hugged the treasured +gift to his breast. "And--and, howadji, there be more pictures I did not +show. They will be of a nice convenience, if ever again it be needsome +to make a new law for the mine." + +"But--" + +"Oh, happy and pretty decent hour!" chortled the little man, petting his +beloved volume as if it were a loved child and executing a shuffling and +improvised step-dance of unalloyed rapture. "This book has been +donationed to me because I was brave enough to request for it while yet +your heart was warm at me, howadji. It is even as your sainted feringhee +proverb says: 'Never put off till to-morrow the--the--man who may be +done, to-day!'" + + + + +THE ELEPHANT REMEMBERS + + +By EDISON MARSHALL + +From _Everybody's Magazine_ + +An elephant is old on the day he is born, say the natives of Burma, and +no white man is ever quite sure just what they mean. Perhaps they refer +to his pink, old-gentleman's skin and his droll, fumbling, old-man ways +and his squeaking treble voice. And maybe they mean he is born with a +wisdom such as usually belongs only to age. And it is true that if any +animal in the world has had a chance to acquire knowledge it is the +elephant, for his breed are the oldest residents of this old world. + +They are so old that they don't seem to belong to the twentieth century +at all. Their long trunks, their huge shapes, all seem part of the +remote past. They are just the remnants of a breed that once was great. + +Long and long ago, when the world was very young indeed, when the +mountains were new, and before the descent of the great glaciers taught +the meaning of cold, they were the rulers of the earth, but they have +been conquered in the struggle for existence. Their great cousins, the +mastodon and the mammoth, are completely gone, and their own tribe can +now be numbered by thousands. + +But because they have been so long upon the earth, because they have +wealth of experience beyond all other creatures, they seem like +venerable sages in a world of children. They are like the last veterans +of an old war, who can remember scenes and faces that all others have +forgotten. + +Far in a remote section of British India, in a strange, wild province +called Burma, Muztagh was born. And although he was born in captivity, +the property of a mahout, in his first hour he heard the far-off call +of the wild elephants in the jungle. + +The Burmans, just like the other people of India, always watch the first +hour of a baby's life very closely. They know that always some incident +will occur that will point, as a weather-vane points in the wind, to the +baby's future. Often they have to call a man versed in magic to +interpret, but sometimes the prophecy is quite self-evident. No one +knows whether or not it works the same with baby elephants, but +certainly this wild, far-carrying call, not to be imitated by any living +voice, did seem a token and an omen in the life of Muztagh. And it is a +curious fact that the little baby lifted his ears at the sound and +rocked back and forth on his pillar legs. + +Of all the places in the great world, only a few remain wherein a +captive elephant hears the call of his wild brethren at birth. Muztagh's +birthplace lies around the corner of the Bay of Bengal, not far from the +watershed of the Irawadi, almost north of Java. It is strange and wild +and dark beyond the power of words to tell. There are great dark +forests, unknown, slow-moving rivers, and jungles silent and dark and +impenetrable. + +Little Muztagh weighed a flat two hundred pounds at birth. But this was +not the queerest thing about him. Elephant babies, although usually +weighing not more than one hundred and eighty, often touch two hundred. +The queerest thing was a peculiarity that probably was completely +overlooked by his mother. If she saw it out of her dull eyes, she took +no notice of it. It was not definitely discovered until the mahout came +out of his hut with a lighted fagot for a first inspection. + +He had been wakened by the sound of the mother's pain. "_Hai!_" he had +exclaimed to his wife. "Who has ever heard a cow bawl so loud in labour? +The little one that to-morrow you will see beneath her belly must weigh +more than you!" + +This was rather a compliment to his plump wife. She was not offended at +all. Burman women love to be well-rounded. But the mahout was not +weighing the effect of his words. He was busy lighting his firebrand, +and his features seemed sharp and intent when the beams came out. Rather +he was already weighing the profits of little Muztagh. He was an +elephant-catcher by trade, in the employ of the great white Dugan Sahib, +and the cow that was at this moment bringing a son into the world was +his own property. If the baby should be of the Kumiria-- + +The mahout knew elephants from head to tail, and he was very well +acquainted with the three grades that compose the breed. The least +valuable of all are the Mierga--a light, small-headed, thin-skinned, +weak-trunked and unintelligent variety that are often found in the best +elephant herds. They are often born of the most noble parents, and they +are as big a problem to elephant men as razor-backs to hog-breeders. +Then there is a second variety, the Dwasala, that compose the great bulk +of the herd--a good, substantial, strong, intelligent grade of elephant. +But the Kumiria is the best of all; and when one is born in a captive +herd it is a time for rejoicing. He is the perfect elephant--heavy, +symmetrical, trustworthy and fearless--fitted for the pageantry of +kings. + +He hurried out to the lines, for now he knew that the baby was born. The +mother's cries had ceased. The jungle, dark and savage beyond ever the +power of man to tame, lay just beyond. He could feel its heavy air, its +smells; its silence was an essence. And as he stood, lifting the fagot +high, he heard the wild elephants trumpeting from the hills. + +He turned his head in amazement. A Burman, and particularly one who +chases the wild elephants in their jungles, is intensely superstitious, +and for an instant it seemed to him that the wild trumpeting must have +some secret meaning, it was so loud and triumphant and prolonged. It was +greatly like the far-famed elephant salute--ever one of the mysteries of +those most mysterious of animals--that the great creatures utter at +certain occasions and times. + +"Are you saluting this little one?" he cried. "He is not a wild tusker +like you. He is not a wild pig of the jungle. He is born in bonds, such +as you will wear too, after the next drive!" + +They trumpeted again, as if in scorn of his words. Their great strength +was given them to rule the jungle, not to haul logs and pull chains! The +man turned back to the lines and lifted higher his light. + +Yes--the little elephant in the light-glow was of the Kumiria. Never had +there been a more perfect calf. The light of greed sprang again in his +eyes. And as he held the fagot nearer so that the beams played in the +elephant's eyes and on his coat, the mahout sat down and was still, lest +the gods observe his good luck, and, being jealous, turn it into evil. + +The coat was not pinky dark, as is usual in baby elephants. It was +distinctly light-coloured--only a few degrees darker than white. + +The man understood at once. In the elephants, as well as in all other +breeds, an albino is sometimes born. A perfectly white elephant, up to a +few years ago, had never been seen, but on rare occasions elephants are +born with light-coloured or clouded hides. Such creatures are bought at +fabulous prices by the Malay and Siamese princes, to whom a white +elephant is the greatest treasure that a king can possess. + +Muztagh was a long way from being an albino, yet a tendency in that +direction had bleached his hide. And the man knew that on the morrow +Dugan Sahib would pay him a lifetime's earnings for the little wabbly +calf, whose welcome had been the wild cries of the tuskers in the +jungle. + + +II + +Little Muztagh (which means White Mountain in an ancient tongue) did not +enjoy his babyhood at all. He was born with the memory of jungle +kingdoms, and the life in the elephant lines almost killed him with +dulness. + +There was never anything to do but nurse of the strong elephant milk and +roam about in the _keddah_ or along the lines. He had been bought the +second day of his life by Dugan Sahib, and the great white heaven-born +saw to it that he underwent none of the risks that are the happy fate +of most baby elephants. His mother was not taken on the elephant drives +into the jungles, so he never got a taste of this exciting sport. Mostly +she was kept chained in the lines, and every day Langur Dass, the +low-caste hillman in Dugan's employ, grubbed grass for her in the +valleys. All night long, except the regular four hours of sleep, he +would hear her grumble and rumble and mutter discontent that her little +son shared with her. + +Muztagh's second year was little better. Of course he had reached the +age where he could eat such dainties as grass and young sugar-cane, but +these things could not make up for the fun he was missing in the hills. +He would stand long hours watching their purple tops against the skies, +and his little dark eyes would glow. He would see the storms break and +flash above them, behold the rains lash down through the jungles, and he +was always filled with strange longings and desires that he was too +young to understand or to follow. He would see the white haze steam up +from the labyrinth of wet vines, and he would tingle and scratch for the +feel of its wetness on his skin. And often, when the mysterious Burman +night came down, it seemed to him that he would go mad. He would hear +the wild tuskers trumpeting in the jungles a very long way off, and all +the myriad noises of the mysterious night, and at such times even his +mother looked at him with wonder. + +"Oh, little restless one," Langur Dass would say, "thou and that old cow +thy mother and I have one heart between us. We know the burning--we +understand, we three!" + +It was true that Langur Dass understood more of the ways of the forest +people than any other hillman in the encampment. But his caste was low, +and he was drunken and careless and lazy beyond words, and the hunters +had mostly only scorn for him. They called him Langur after a +grey-bearded breed of monkeys along the slopes of the Himalayas, rather +suspecting he was cursed with evil spirits, for why should any sane man +have such mad ideas as to the rights of elephants? He never wanted to +join in the drives--which was a strange thing indeed for a man raised in +the hills. Perhaps he was afraid--but yet they could remember a certain +day in the bamboo thickets, when a great, wild buffalo had charged their +camp and Langur Dass acted as if fear were something he had never heard +of and knew nothing whatever about. + +One day they asked him about it. "Tell us, Langur Dass," they asked, +mocking the ragged, dejected looking creature, "If thy name speaks +truth, thou art brother to many monkey-folk, and who knows the jungle +better than thou or they? None but the monkey-folk and thou canst talk +with my lord the elephant. _Hai!_ We have seen thee do it, Langur Dass. +How is it that when we go hunting, thou art afraid to come?" + +Langur looked at them out of his dull eyes, and evaded their question +just as long as he could. "Have you forgotten the tales you heard on +your mothers' breasts?" he asked at last. "Elephants are of the jungle. +You are of the cooking-pots and thatch! How should such folk as ye are +understand?" + +This was flat heresy from their viewpoint. There is an old legend among +the elephant-catchers to the effect that at one time men were subject to +the elephants. + +Yet mostly the elephants that these men knew were patient and contented +in their bonds. Mostly they loved their mahouts, gave their strong backs +willingly to toil, and were always glad and ready to join in the chase +after others of their breed. Only on certain nights of the year, when +the tuskers called from the jungles, and the spirit of the wild was +abroad, would their love of liberty return to them. But to all this +little Muztagh was distinctly an exception. Even though he had been born +in captivity, his desire for liberty was with him just as constantly as +his trunk or his ears. + +He had no love for the mahout that rode his mother. He took little +interest in the little brown boys and girls that played before his +stall. He would stand and look over their heads into the wild, dark +heart of the jungle that no man can ever quite understand. And being +only a beast, he did not know anything about the caste and prejudices +of the men he saw, but he did know that one of them, the low-caste +Langur Dass, ragged and dirty and despised, wakened a responsive chord +in his lonely heart. + +They would have long talks together, that is, Langur would talk and +Muztagh would mumble. "Little calf, little fat one," the man would say, +"can great rocks stop a tree from growing? Shall iron shackles stop a +prince from being king? Muztagh--jewel among jewels! Thy heart speaks +through those sleepless eyes of thine! Have patience--what thou knowest, +who shall take away from thee?" + +But most of the mahouts and catchers noticed the rapidity with which the +little Muztagh acquired weight and strength. He outweighed, at the age +of three, any calf of his season in the encampment by a full two hundred +pounds. And of course three in an elephant is no older than three in a +human child. He was still just a baby, even if he did have the wild +tuskers' love of liberty. + +"Shalt thou never lie the day long in the cool mud, little one? Never +see a storm break on the hills? Nor feel a warm rain dripping through +the branches? Or are these matters part of thee that none may steal?" +Langur Dass would ask him, contented to wait a very long time for his +answer. "I think already that thou knowest how the tiger steals away at +thy shrill note; how thickets feel that crash beneath thy hurrying +weight! A little I think thou knowest how the madness comes with the +changing seasons. How knowest thou these things? Not as I know them, who +have seen--nay, but as a king knows conquering; it's in thy blood! Is a +bundle of sugar-cane tribute enough for thee, Kumiria? Shall purple +trappings please thee? Shall some fat rajah of the plains make a beast +of burden of thee? Answer, lord of mighty memories!" + +And Muztagh answered in his own way, without sound or emphasis, but +giving his love to Langur Dass, a love as large as the big elephant +heart from which it had sprung. No other man could even win his +friendship. The smell of the jungle was on Langur Dass. The mahouts and +hunters smelt more or less of civilization and were convinced for their +part that the disposition of the little light-coloured elephant was +beyond redemption. + +"He is a born rogue," was their verdict, and they meant by that, a +particular kind of elephant, sometimes a young male, more often an old +and savage tusker alone in the jungle--apart from the herd. Solitariness +doesn't improve their dispositions, and they were generally expelled +from a herd for ill-temper to begin with. "Woe to the fool prince who +buys this one!" said the grey-beard catchers. "There is murder in his +eyes." + +But Langur Dass would only look wise when he heard these remarks. He +knew elephants. The gleam in the dark eyes of Muztagh was not +viciousness, but simply inheritance, a love of the wide wild spaces that +left no room for ordinary friendships. + +But calf-love and mother-love bind other animals as well as men, and +possibly he might have perfectly fulfilled the plans Dugan had made for +him but for a mistake the sahib made in the little calf's ninth year. + +He sold Muztagh's mother to an elephant-breeder from a distant province. +Little Muztagh saw her march away between two tuskers--down the long +elephant trail into the valley and the shadow. + +"Watch the little one closely to-night," Dugan Sahib said to his mahout. +So when they had led him back and forth along the lines, they saw that +the ends of his ropes were pegged down tightly. They were horsehair +ropes, far beyond the strength of any normal nine-year-old elephant to +break. Then they went to the huts and to their women and left him to +shift restlessly from foot to foot, and think. + +Probably he would have been satisfied with thinking, for Muztagh did not +know his strength, and thought he was securely tied. The incident that +upset the mahout's plans was simply that the wild elephants trumpeted +again from the hills. + +Muztagh heard the sound, long drawn and strange from the silence of the +jungle. He grew motionless. The great ears pricked forward, the whipping +tail stood still. It was a call never to be denied. The blood was +leaping in his great veins. + +He suddenly rocked forward with all his strength. The rope spun tight, +hummed, and snapped--very softly indeed. Then he padded in silence out +among the huts, and nobody who had not seen him do it would believe how +silently an elephant can move when he sees fit. + +There was no thick jungle here--just soft grass, huts, approaching dark +fringe that was jungle. None of the mahouts was awake to see him. No +voice called him back. The grass gave way to bamboo thickets, the smell +of the huts to the wild, bewitching perfumes of the jungle. + +Then, still in silence, because there are decencies to be observed by +animals no less than men, he walked forward with his trunk outstretched +into the primordial jungle and was born again. + + +III + +Muztagh's reception was cordial from the very first. The great bulls of +the herd stood still and lifted their ears when they heard him grunting +up the hill. But he slipped among them and was forgotten at once. They +had no dealings with the princes of Malay and Siam, and his +light-coloured coat meant nothing whatever to them. If they did any +thinking about him at all, it was just to wonder why a calf with all the +evident marks of a nine-year-old should be so tall and weigh so much. + +One can fancy that the great old wrinkled tusker that led the herd +peered at him now and then out of his little red eyes and wondered. A +herd-leader begins to think about future contestants for his place as +soon as he acquires the leadership. But _Hai!_ This little one would not +have his greatest strength for fifteen years. + +It was a compact, medium-sized herd--vast males, mothers, old-maid +elephants, long-legged and ungainly, young males just learning their +strength and proud of it beyond words, and many calves. They ranged all +the way in size from the great leader, who stood ten feet and weighed +nearly nine thousand pounds, to little two-hundred-and-fifty-pound +babies that had been born that season. And before long the entire herd +began its cautious advance into the deeper hills. + +The first night in the jungle--and Muztagh found it wonderful past all +dreams. The mist on his skin was the same cool joy he had expected. +There were sounds, too, that set his great muscles aquiver. He heard the +sound that the bamboos make--the little click-click of the stems in the +wind--the soft rustle and stir of many leafy tendrils entwining and +touching together, and the whisper of the wind over the jungle grass. +And he knew because it was his heritage, what every single one of these +sounds meant. + +The herd threaded through the dark jungle, and now they descended into a +cool river. A herd of deer--either the dark sambur or black buck--sprang +from the misty shore-line and leaped away into the bamboos. Farther +down, he could hear the grunt of buffalo. + +It was simply a caress--the touch of the soft, cool water on his flanks. +Then they reared out, like great sea-gods rising from the deep, and +grunted and squealed their way up the banks into the jungle again. + +But the smells were the book that he read best; he understood them even +better than the sounds of green things growing. Flowers that he could +not see hung like bells from the arching branches. Every fern and every +seeding grass had its own scent that told sweet tales. The very mud that +his four feet sank into emitted scent that told the history of +jungle-life from the world's beginnings. When dawn burst over the +eastern hills, he was weary in every muscle of his young body, but much +too happy to admit it. + +This day was just the first of three thousand joyous days. The jungle, +old as the world itself, is ever new. Not even the wisest elephant, who, +after all, is king of the jungle, knows what will turn up at the next +bend in the elephant trail. It may be a native woodcutter, whose long +hair is stirred with fright. It may easily be one of the great breed of +bears, large as the American grizzly, that some naturalists believe are +to be found in the Siamese and Burman jungles. It may be a herd of wild +buffalo, always looking for a fight, or simply some absurd +armadillo-like thing, to make him shake his vast sides with mirth. + +The herd was never still. They ranged from one mysterious hill to +another, to the ranges of the Himalayas and back again. There were no +rivers that they did not swim, no jungles that they did not penetrate, +no elephant trails that they did not follow, in the whole northeastern +corner of British India. And all the time Muztagh's strength grew upon +him until it became too vast a thing to measure or control. + +Whether or not he kept with the herd was by now a matter of supreme +indifference to him. He no longer needed its protection. Except for the +men who came with the ropes and guns and shoutings, there was nothing in +the jungle for him to fear. He was twenty years old, and he stood nearly +eleven feet to the top of his shoulders. He would have broken any scales +in the Indian Empire that tried to weigh him. + +He had had his share of adventures, yet he knew that life in reality had +just begun. The time would come when he would want to fight the great +arrogant bull for the leadership of the herd. He was tired of fighting +the young bulls of his own age. He always won, and to an elephant +constant winning is almost as dull as constant losing. He was a great +deal like a youth of twenty in any breed of any land--light-hearted, +self-confident, enjoying every minute of wakefulness between one +midnight and another. He loved the jungle smells and the jungle sounds, +and he could even tolerate the horrible laughter of the hyenas that +sometimes tore to shreds the silence of the grassy plains below. + +But India is too thickly populated by human beings for a wild elephant +to escape observation entirely. Many natives had caught sight of him, +and at last the tales reached a little circle of trackers and hunters in +camp on a distant range of hills. They did not work for Dugan Sahib, for +Dugan Sahib was dead long since. They were a determined little group, +and one night they sat and talked softly over their fire. If Muztagh's +ears had been sharp enough to hear their words across the space of +hills, he wouldn't have gone to his mud-baths with such complacency the +next day. But the space between them was fifty miles of sweating jungle, +and of course he did not hear. + +"You will go, Khusru," said the leader, "for there are none here half so +skilful with horsehair rope as you. If you do not come back within +twelve months we shall know you have failed." + +Of course all of them knew what he meant. If a man failed in the effort +to capture a wild elephant by the hair-rope method, he very rarely lived +to tell of it. + +"In that case," Ahmad Din went on, "there will be a great drive after +the monsoon of next year. Picked men will be chosen. No detail will be +overlooked. It will cost more, but it will be sure. And our purses will +be fat from the selling-price of this king of elephants with a white +coat!" + + +IV + +There is no need to follow Khusru on his long pursuit through the +elephant trails. He was an able hunter and, after the manner of the +elephant-trackers, the scared little man followed Muztagh through jungle +and river, over hill and into dale, for countless days, and at last, as +Muztagh slept, he crept up within a half-dozen feet of him. He intended +to loop a horsehair rope about his great feet--one of the oldest and +most hazardous methods of elephant-catching. But Muztagh wakened just in +time. + +And then a curious thing happened. The native could never entirely +believe it, and it was one of his best stories to the day he died. Any +other wild tusker would have charged in furious wrath, and there would +have been a quick and certain death beneath his great knees. Muztagh +started out as if he had intended to charge. He lifted his trunk out of +the way--the elephant trunk is for a thousand uses, but fighting is not +one of them--and sprang forward. He went just two paces. Then his little +eyes caught sight of the brown figure fleeing through the bamboos. And +at once the elephant set his great feet to brake himself, and drew to a +sliding halt six feet beyond. + +He did not know why. He was perfectly aware that this man was an enemy, +jealous of his most-loved liberty. He knew perfectly it was the man's +intention to put him back into his bonds. He did not feel fear, +either--because an elephant's anger is too tremendous an emotion to +leave room for any other impulse such as fear. It seemed to him that +memories came thronging from long ago, so real and insistent that he +could not think of charging. + +He remembered his days in the elephant lines. These brown creatures had +been his masters then. They had cut his grass for him in the jungle, and +brought him bundles of sugar-cane. The hill people say that the elephant +memory is the greatest single marvel in the jungle, and it was that +memory that saved Khusru then. It wasn't deliberate gratitude for the +grass-cutting of long ago. It wasn't any particular emotion that he +could reach out his trunk and touch. It was simply an impulse--another +one of the thousand mysteries that envelop, like a cloud, the mental +processes of these largest of forest creatures. + +These were the days when he lived apart from the herd. He did it from +choice. He liked the silence, the solitary mud-baths, the constant +watchfulness against danger. + +One day a rhino charged him--without warning or reason. This is quite a +common thing for a rhino to do. They have the worst tempers in the +jungle, and they would just as soon charge a mountain if they didn't +like the look of it. Muztagh had awakened the great creature from his +sleep, and he came bearing down like a tank over "no man's land." + +Muztagh met him squarely, with the full shock of his tusks, and the +battle ended promptly. Muztagh's tusk, driven by five tons of might +behind it, would have pierced a ship's side, and the rhino limped away +to let his hurt grow well and meditate revenge. Thereafter for a full +year, he looked carefully out of his bleary, drunken eyes and chose a +smaller objective before he charged. + +Month after month Muztagh wended alone through the elephant trails, and +now and then rooted up great trees just to try his strength. Sometimes +he went silently, and sometimes like an avalanche. He swam alone in the +deep holes, and sometimes shut his eyes and stood on the bottom, just +keeping the end of his trunk out of the water. One day he was obliged to +kneel on the broad back of an alligator who tried to bite off his foot. +He drove the long body down into the muddy bottom, and no living +creature, except possibly the catfish that burrow in the mud, ever saw +it again. + +He loved the rains that flashed through the jungles, the swift-climbing +dawns in the east, the strange, tense, breathless nights. And at +midnight he loved to trumpet to the herd on some far-away hill, and +hear, fainter than the death-cry of a beetle, its answer come back to +him. At twenty-five he had reached full maturity; and no more +magnificent specimen of the elephant could be found in all of British +India. At last he had begun to learn his strength. + +Of course he had known for years his mastery over the inanimate things +of the world. He knew how easy it was to tear a tree from its roots, to +jerk a great tree-limb from its socket. He knew that under most +conditions he had nothing to fear from the great tigers, although a +fight with a tiger is a painful thing and well to avoid. But he did not +know that he had developed a craft and skill that would avail him in +battle against the greatest of his own kind. He made the discovery one +sunlit day beside the Manipur River. + +He was in the mud-bath, grunting and bubbling with content. It was a +bath with just room enough for one. And seeing that he was young, and +perhaps failing to measure his size, obscured as it was in the mud, a +great "rogue" bull came out of the jungles to take the bath for himself. + +He was a huge creature--wrinkled and yellow-tusked and scarred from the +wounds of a thousand fights. His little red eyes looked out malignantly, +and he grunted all the insults the elephant tongue can compass to the +youngster that lolled in the bath. He confidently expected that Muztagh +would yield at once, because as a rule young twenty-five-year-olds do +not care to mix in battle with the scarred and crafty veterans of sixty +years. But he did not know Muztagh. + +The latter had been enjoying the bath to the limit, and he had no desire +whatever to give it up. Something hot and raging seemed to explode in +his brain and it was as if a red glare, such as sometimes comes in the +sunset, had fallen over all the stretch of river and jungle before his +eyes. He squealed once, reared up with one lunge out of the bath--and +charged. They met with a shock. + +Of all the expressions of power in the animal world, the elephant fight +is the most terrible to see. It is as if two mountains rose up from +their roots of strata and went to war. It is terrible to hear, too. The +jungle had been still before. The river glided softly, the wind was +dead, the mid-afternoon silence was over the thickets. + +The jungle people were asleep. A thunder-storm would not have broken +more quickly, or could not have created a wilder pandemonium. The jungle +seemed to shiver with the sound. + +They squealed and bellowed and trumpeted and grunted and charged. Their +tusks clicked like the noise of a giant's game of billiards. The +thickets cracked and broke beneath their great feet. + +It lasted only a moment. It was so easy, after all. In a very few +seconds indeed, the old rogue became aware that he had made a very +dangerous and disagreeable mistake. There were better mud-baths on the +river, anyway. + +He had not been able to land a single blow. And his wrath gave way to +startled amazement when Muztagh sent home his third. The rogue did not +wait for the fourth. + +Muztagh chased him into the thickets. But he was too proud to chase a +beaten elephant for long. He halted, trumpeting, and swung back to his +mud-bath. + +But he did not enter the mud again. All at once he remembered the herd +and the fights of his calfhood. All at once he knew that his craft and +strength and power were beyond that of any elephant in all the jungle. +Who was the great, arrogant herd-leader to stand against him? What +yellow tusks were to meet his and come away unbroken? + +His little eyes grew ever more red as he stood rocking back and forth, +his trunk lifted to catch the sounds and smells of the distant jungle. +Why should he abide alone, when he could be the ruler of the herd and +the jungle king? Then he grunted softly and started away down the river. +Far away, beyond the mountains and rivers and the villages of the +hillfolk, the herd of his youth roamed in joyous freedom. He would find +them and assert his mastery. + + +V + +The night fire of a little band of elephant-catchers burned fitfully at +the edge of the jungle. They were silent men--for they had lived long on +the elephant trails--and curiously scarred and sombre. They smoked their +cheroots, and waited for Ahmad Din to speak. + +"You have all heard?" he asked at last. + +All but one of them nodded. Of course this did not count the most +despised one of them all--old Langur Dass--who sat at the very edge of +the shadow. His long hair was grey, and his youth had gone where the sun +goes at evening. They scarcely addressed a word to him, or he to them. +True, he knew the elephants, but was he not possessed of evil spirits? +He was always without rupees, too, a creature of the wild that could not +seem to understand the gathering of money. As a man, according to the +standards of men, he was an abject failure. + +"Khusru has failed to catch White-Skin, but he has lived to tell many +lies about it. He comes to-night." + +It was noticeable that Langur Dass, at the edge of the circle, pricked +up his ears. + +"Do you mean the white elephant of which the Manipur people tell so many +lies?" he asked. "Do you, skilled catchers that you are, believe that +such an elephant is still wild in the jungle?" + +Ahmad Din scowled. "The Manipur people tell of him, but for once they +tell the truth," was the reply. "He is the greatest elephant, the +richest prize, in all of Burma. Too many people have seen him to doubt. +I add my word to theirs, thou son of immorality!" + +Ahmad Din hesitated before he continued. Perhaps it was a mistake to +tell of the great, light-coloured elephant until this man should have +gone away. But what harm could this wanderer do them? All men knew that +the jungle had maddened him. + +Langur Dass's face lit suddenly. "Then it could be none but Muztagh, +escaped from Dugan Sahib fifteen years ago. That calf was also white. He +was also overgrown for his years." + +One of the trackers suddenly gasped. "Then that is why he spared +Khusru!" he cried. "He remembered men." + +The others nodded gravely. "They never forget," said Langur Dass. + +"You will be silent while I speak," Ahmad Din went on. Langur grew +silent as commanded, but his thoughts were flowing backward twenty +years, to days at the elephant lines in distant hills. Muztagh was the +one living creature that in all his days had loved Langur Dass. The man +shut his eyes, and his limbs seemed to relax as if he had lost all +interest in the talk. The evil one took hold of him at such times, the +people said, letting understanding follow his thoughts back into the +purple hills and the far-off spaces of the jungle. But to-night he was +only pretending. He meant to hear every word of the talk before he left +the circle. + +"He tells a mad story, as you know, of the elephant sparing him when he +was beneath his feet," Ahmad Din went on; "that part of his story does +not matter to us. _Hai!_ He might have been frightened enough to say +that the sun set at noon. But what matters to us more is that he knows +where the herd is--but a day's journey beyond the river. And there is no +time to be lost." + +His fellows nodded in agreement. + +"So to-morrow we will break camp. There can be no mistake this time. +There must be no points overlooked. The chase will cost much, but it +will return a hundredfold. Khusru says that at last the white one has +started back toward his herd, so that all can be taken in the same +_keddah_. And the white sahib that holds the license is not to know that +White-Coat is in the herd at all." + +The circle nodded again, and contracted toward the speaker. + +"We will hire beaters and drivers, the best that can be found. To-morrow +we will take the elephants and go." + +Langur Dass pretended to waken. "I have gone hungry many days," he said. +"If the drive is on, perhaps you will give your servant a place among +the beaters." + +The circle turned and stared at him. It was one of the stories of Langur +Dass that he never partook in the elephant hunts. Evidently poor living +had broken his resolutions. + +"You shall have your wish, if you know how to keep a closed mouth," +Ahmad Din replied. "There are other hunting parties in the hills." + +Langur nodded. He was very adept indeed at keeping a closed mouth. It is +one of the first lessons of the jungle. + +For another long hour they sat and perfected their plans. Then they lay +down by the fire together, and sleep dropped over them one by one. At +last Langur sat by the fire alone. + +"You will watch the flame to-night," Ahmad Din ordered. "We did not feed +you to-night for pity on your grey hairs. And remember--a gipsy died in +a tiger's claws on this very slope--not six months past." + +Langur Dass was left alone with his thoughts. Soon he got up and stole +out into the velvet darkness. The mists were over the hills as always. + +"Have I followed the tales of your greatness all these years for this?" +he muttered. "It is right for pigs with the hearts of pigs to break +their backs in labour. But you, my Muztagh! Jewel among elephants! King +of the jungle! Thou art of the true breed! Moreover I am minded that thy +heart and mine are one! + +"Thou art born ten thousand years after thy time, Muztagh," he went on. +"Thou art of the breed of masters, not of slaves! We are of the same +womb, thou and I. Can I not understand? These are not my people--these +brown men about the fire. I have not thy strength, Muztagh, or I would +be out there with thee! Yet is not the saying that brother shall serve +brother?" + +He turned slowly back to the circle of the firelight. Then his brown, +scrawny fingers clenched. + +"Am I to desert my brother in his hour of need? Am I to see these brown +pigs put chains around him, in the moment of his power? A king, falling +to the place of a slave? Muztagh, we will see what can be done! Muztagh, +my king, my pearl, my pink baby, for whom I dug grass in the long ago! +Thy Langur Dass is old, and his whole strength is not that of thy trunk, +and men look at him as a worm in the grass. But _hai!_ perhaps thou wilt +find him an ally not to be despised!" + + +VI + +The night had just fallen, moist and heavy over the jungle, when Muztagh +caught up with his herd. He found them in an open grassy glade, +encircled by hills, and they were all waiting, silent, as he sped down +the hills toward them. They had heard him coming a long way. He was not +attempting silence. The jungle people had not got out of his way. + +The old bull that led the herd, seventy years of age and at the pride of +his wisdom and strength, scarred, yellow-tusked and noble past any +elephant patriarch in the jungle, curled up his trunk when he saw him +come. He knew very well what would happen. And because no one knows +better than the jungle people what a good thing it is to take the +offensive in all battles, and because it was fitting his place and +dignity, he uttered the challenge himself. + +The silence dropped as something from the sky. The little pink calves +who had never seen the herd grow still in this same way before, felt the +dawn of the storm that they could not understand, and took shelter +beneath their mothers' bellies. But they did not squeal. The silence +was too deep for them to dare to break. + +It is always an epoch in the life of the herd when a young bull contests +for leadership. It is a much more serious thing than in the herds of +deer and buffalo. The latter only live a handful of years, then grow +weak and die. A great bull who has attained strength and wisdom enough +to obtain the leadership of an elephant herd may often keep it for forty +years. Kings do not rise and fall half so often as in the kingdoms of +Europe. For, as most men know, an elephant is not really old until he +has seen a hundred summers come and go. Then he will linger fifty years +more, wise and grey and wrinkled and strange and full of memories of a +time no man can possibly remember. + +Long years had passed since the leader's place had been questioned. The +aristocracy of strength is drawn on quite inflexible lines. It would +have been simply absurd for an elephant of the Dwasala or Mierga grades +to covet the leadership. They had grown old without making the attempt. +Only the great Kumiria, the grand dukes in the aristocracy, had ever +made the trial at all. And besides, the bull was a better fighter after +thirty years of leadership than on the day he had gained the honour. + +The herd stood like heroic figures in stone for a long moment--until +Muztagh had replied to the challenge. He was so surprised that he +couldn't make any sound at all at first. He had expected to do the +challenging himself. The fact that the leader had done it shook his +self-confidence to some slight degree. Evidently the old leader still +felt able to handle any young and arrogant bulls that desired his place. + +Then the herd began to shift. The cows drew back with their calves, the +bulls surged forward, and slowly they made a hollow ring, not greatly +different from the pugilistic ring known to fight-fans. The calves began +to squeal, but their mothers silenced them. Very slowly and grandly, +with infinite dignity, Muztagh stamped into the circle. His tusks +gleamed. His eyes glowed red. And those appraising old bulls in the ring +knew that such an elephant had not been born since the time of their +grandfathers. + +They looked him over from tail to trunk. They marked the symmetrical +form, the legs like mighty pillars, the sloping back, the wide-apart, +intelligent eyes. His shoulders were an expression of latent +might--power to break a tree-trunk at its base; by the conformity of his +muscles he was agile and quick as a tiger. And knowing these things, and +recognizing them, and honouring them, devotees of strength that they +were, they threw their trunks in the air till they touched their +foreheads and blared their full-voiced salute. + +They gave it the same instant--as musicians strike the same note at +their leader's signal. It was a perfect explosion of sound, a terrible +blare, that crashed out through the jungles and wakened every sleeping +thing. The dew fell from the trees. A great tawny tiger, lingering in +hope of an elephant calf, slipped silently away. The sound rang true and +loud to the surrounding hills and echoed and re-echoed softer and +softer, until it was just a tiny tremour in the air. + +Not only the jungle folk marvelled at the sound. At an encampment three +miles distant Ahmad Din and his men heard the wild call, and looked with +wondering eyes upon each other. Then out of the silence spoke Langur +Dass. + +"My lord Muztagh has come back to his herd--that is his salute," he +said. + +Ahmad Din looked darkly about the circle. "And how long shall he stay?" +he asked. + +The trap was almost ready. The hour to strike had almost come. + +Meanwhile the grand old leader stamped into the circle, seeming +unconscious of the eyes upon him, battle-scarred and old. Even if this +fight were his last, he meant to preserve his dignity. + +Again the salute sounded--shattering out like a thunderclap over the +jungle. Then challenger and challenged closed. + +At first the watchers were silent. Then as the battle grew ever fiercer +and more terrible, they began to grunt and squeal, surging back and +forth, stamping the earth and crashing the underbrush. All the +jungle-folk for miles about knew what was occurring. And Ahmad Din +wished his _keddah_ were completed, for never could there be a better +opportunity to surround the herd than at the present moment, when they +had forgotten all things except the battling monsters in the centre of +the ring. + +The two bulls were quite evenly matched. The patriarch knew more of +fighting, had learned more wiles, but he had neither the strength nor +the agility of Muztagh. The late twilight deepened into the intense +dark, and the stars of midnight rose above the eastern hills. + +All at once, Muztagh went to his knees. But as might a tiger, he sprang +aside in time to avoid a terrible tusk blow to his shoulder. And his +counter-blow, a lashing cut with the head, shattered the great leader to +the earth. The elephants bounded forward, but the old leader had a trick +left in his trunk. As Muztagh bore down upon him he reared up beneath, +and almost turned the tables. Only the youngster's superior strength +saved him from immediate defeat. + +But as the night drew to morning, the bulls began to see that the tide +of the battle had turned. Youth was conquering--too mighty and agile to +resist. The rushes of the patriarch were ever weaker. He still could +inflict punishment, and the hides of both of them were terrible to see, +but he was no longer able to take advantage of his openings. Then +Muztagh did a thing that reassured the old bulls as to his craft and +wisdom. Just as a pugilist will invite a blow to draw his opponent +within range, Muztagh pretended to leave his great shoulder exposed. The +old bull failed to see the plot. He bore down, and Muztagh was ready +with flashing tusk. + +What happened thereafter occurred too quickly for the eyes of the +elephants to follow. They saw the great bull go down and Muztagh stand +lunging above him. And the battle was over. + +The great leader, seriously hurt, backed away into the shadowed jungle. +His trunk was lowered in token of defeat. Then the ring was empty except +for a great red-eyed elephant, whose hide was no longer white, standing +blaring his triumph to the stars. + +Three times the elephant salute crashed out into the jungle silence--the +full voiced salaam to a new king. Muztagh had come into his birthright. + + +VII + +The _keddah_ was built at last. It was a strong stockade, opening with +great wings spreading out one hundred yards, and equipped with the great +gate that lowered like a portcullis at the funnel end of the wings. The +herd had been surrounded by the drivers and beaters, and slowly they had +been driven, for long days, toward the _keddah_ mouth. They had guns +loaded with blank cartridges, and firebrands ready to light. At a given +signal they would close down quickly about the herd, and stampede it +into the yawning mouth of the stockade. + +No detail had been overlooked. No expense had been spared. The profit +was assured in advance, not only from the matchless Muztagh, but from +the herd as well. The king of the jungle, free now as the winds or the +waters, was about to go back to his chains. These had been such days! He +had led the herd through the hills, and had known the rapture of living +as never before. It had been his work to clear the trail of all dangers +for the herd. It was his pride to find them the coolest watering-places, +the greenest hills. One night a tiger had tried to kill a calf that had +wandered from its mother's side. Muztagh lifted his trunk high and +charged down with great, driving strides--four tons and over of majestic +wrath. The tiger leaped to meet him, but the elephant was ready. He had +met tigers before. He avoided the terrible stroke of outstretched claws, +and his tusks lashed to one side as the tiger was in midspring. Then he +lunged out, and the great knees descended slowly, as a hydraulic press +descends on yellow apples. And soon after that the kites were dropping +out of the sky for a feast. + +His word was law in the herd. And slowly he began to overcome the doubt +that the great bulls had of him--doubt of his youth and experience. If +he had had three months more of leadership, their trust would have been +absolute. But in the meantime, the slow herding toward the _keddah_ had +begun. + +"We will need brave men to stand at the end of the wings of the +_keddah_," said Ahmad Din. He spoke no less than truth. The man who +stands at the end of the wings, or wide-stretching gates, of the +_keddah_ is of course in the greatest danger of being charged and +killed. The herd, mad with fright, is only slightly less afraid of the +spreading wings of the stockade than of the yelling, whooping beaters +behind. Often they will try to break through the circle rather than +enter the wings. + +"For two rupees additional I will hold one of the wings," replied old +Langur Dass. Ahmad Din glanced at him--at his hard, bright eyes and +determined face. Then he peered hard, and tried in vain to read the +thoughts behind the eyes. "You are a madman, Langur Dass," he said +wonderingly. "But thou shalt lie behind the right-wing men to pass them +torches. I have spoken." + +"And the two extra rupees?" Langur asked cunningly. + +"Maybe." One does not throw away rupees in Upper Burma. + +Within the hour the signal of _"Maîl, maîl!"_ (Go on, go on!) was given, +and the final laps of the drive began. + +The hills grew full of sound. The beaters sprang up with firebrand and +rifle, and closed swiftly about the herd. The animals moved slowly at +first. The time was not quite ripe to throw them into a panic. Many +times the herd would leave their trail and start to dip into a valley or +a creek-bed, but always there was a new crowd of beaters to block their +path. But presently the beaters closed in on them. Then the animals +began a wild descent squarely toward the mouth of the _keddah_. + +_"Hai!"_ the wild men cried. "Oh, you forest pigs! On, on! Block the way +through that valley, you brainless sons of jackals! Are you afraid? +_Ai!_ Stand close! Watch, Puran! Guard your post, Khusru! Now on, on--do +not let them halt! _Arre! Aihai!_" + +Firebrands waved, rifles cracked, the wild shout of beaters increased +in volume. The men closed in, driving the beasts before them. + +But there was one man that did not raise his voice. Through all the +turmoil and pandemonium he crouched at the end of the stockade wing, +tense, and silent and alone. To one that could have looked into his +eyes, it would have seemed that his thoughts were far and far away. It +was just old Langur Dass, named for a monkey and despised of men. + +He was waiting for the instant that the herd would come thundering down +the hill, in order to pass lighted firebrands to the bold men who held +that corner. He was not certain that he could do the thing he had set +out to do. Perhaps the herd would sweep past him, through the gates. If +he did win, he would have to face alone the screaming, infuriated +hillmen, whose knives were always ready to draw. But knives did not +matter now. Langur Dass had only his own faith and his own creed, and no +fear could make him betray them. + +Muztagh had lost control of his herd. At their head ran the old leader +that he had worsted. In their hour of fear they had turned back to him. +What did this youngster know of elephant-drives? Ever the waving +firebrands drew nearer, the beaters lessened their circle, the avenues +of escape became more narrow. The yawning arms of the stockade stretched +just beyond. + +"Will I win, jungle gods?" a little grey man at the _keddah_ wing was +whispering to the forests. "Will I save you, great one that I knew in +babyhood? Will you go down into chains before the night is done? _Ai!_ I +hear the thunder of your feet! The moment is almost here. And now--your +last chance, Muztagh!" + +"Close down, close down!" Ahmad Din was shouting to his beaters. "The +thing is done in another moment. Hasten, pigs of the hills! Raise your +voice! Now! _Aihai!_" + +The herd was at the very wings of the stockade. They had halted an +instant, milling, and the beaters increased their shouts. Only one of +all the herd seemed to know the danger--Muztagh himself, and he had +dropped from the front rank to the very rear. He stood with uplifted +trunk, facing the approaching rows of beaters. And there seemed to be +no break in the whole line. + +The herd started to move on into the wings of captitivity; and they did +not heed his warning squeals to turn. The circle of fire drew nearer. +Then his trunk seemed to droop, and he turned, too. He could not break +the line. He turned, too, toward the mouth of the _keddah_. + +But even as he turned, a brown figure darted toward him from the end of +the wing. A voice known long ago was calling to him--a voice that +penetrated high and clear above the babble of the beaters. "Muztagh!" it +was crying. "Muztagh!" + +But it was not the words that turned Muztagh. An elephant cannot +understand words, except a few elemental sounds such as a horse or dog +can learn. Rather it was the smell of the man, remembered from long ago, +and the sound of his voice, never quite forgotten. For an elephant never +forgets. + +"Muztagh! Muztagh!" + +The elephant knew him now. He remembered his one friend among all the +human beings that he knew in his calfhood; the one mortal from whom he +had received love and given love in exchange. + +"More firebrands!" yelled the men who held that corner of the wing. +"Firebrands! Where is Langur Dass?" but instead of firebrands that would +have frightened beast and aided men, Langur Dass stepped out from behind +a tree and beat at the heads of the right-wing guards with a bamboo cane +that whistled and whacked and scattered them into panic--yelling all the +while--"Muztagh! O my Muztagh! Here is an opening! Muztagh, come!". + +And Muztagh did come--trumpeting--crashing like an avalanche, with +Langur Dass hard after him afraid, now that he had done the trick. And +hot on the trail of Langur Dass ran Ahmad Din, with his knife drawn not +meaning to let that prize be lost to him at less than the cost of the +trickster's life. + +But it was not written that the knife should ever enter the flesh of +Langur Dass. + +The elephant never forgets, and Muztagh was monarch of his breed. He +turned back two paces, and struck with his trunk. Ahmad Din was knocked +aside as the wind whips a straw. + +For an instant elephant and man stood front to front. To the left of +them the gates of the stockade dropped shut behind the herd. The +elephant stood with trunk slightly lifted, for the moment motionless. +The long-haired man who saved him stood lifting upstretched arms. + +It was such as scene as one might remember in an old legend, wherein +beasts and men were brothers, or such as sometimes might steal, likely +something remembered from another age, into a man's dreams. Nowhere but +in India, where men have a little knowledge of the mystery of the +elephant, could it have taken place at all. + +For Langur Dass was speaking to my lord the elephant: + +"Take me with thee, Muztagh! Monarch of the hills! Thou and I are not of +the world of men, but of the jungle and the rain, the silence, and the +cold touch of rivers. We are brothers, Muztagh. O beloved, wilt thou +leave me here to die!" + +The elephant slowly turned his head and looked scornfully at the group +of beaters bearing down on Langur Dass, murder shining no less from +their knives than from their lighted eyes. + +"Take me," the old man pleaded; "thy herd is gone." + +The elephant seemed to know what he was asking. He had lifted him to his +great shoulders many times, in the last days of his captivity. And +besides, his old love for Langur Dass had never been forgotten. It all +returned, full and strong as ever. For an elephant never can forget. + +It was not one of the man-herd that stood pleading before him. It was +one of his own jungle people, just as, deep in his heart, he had always +known. So with one motion light as air, he swung him gently to his +shoulder. + +The jungle, vast and mysterious and still, closed its gates behind them. + + + + +TURKEY RED + + +BY FRANCES GILCHRIST WOOD + +From _Pictorial Review_ + +The old mail-sled running between Haney and Le Beau, in the days when +Dakota was still a Territory, was nearing the end of its hundred-mile +route. + +It was a desolate country in those days; geographers still described it +as The Great American Desert, and in looks it deserved the title. Never +was there anything so lonesome as that endless stretch of snow reaching +across the world until it cut into a cold grey sky, excepting the same +desert burned to a brown tinder by the hot wind of summer. + +Nothing but sky and plain and its voice, the wind, unless you might +count a lonely sod shack blocked against the horizon, miles away from a +neighbour, miles from anywhere, its red-curtained square of window +glowing through the early twilight. + +There were three men in the sled; Dan, the mail-carrier, crusty, +belligerently Western, the self-elected guardian of every one on his +route; Hillas, a younger man, hardly more than a boy, living on his +pre-emption claim near the upper reaches of the stage line; the third a +stranger from that part of the country vaguely defined as "the East." He +was travelling, had given him name as Smith, and was as inquisitive +about the country as he was reticent about his business there. Dan +plainly disapproved of him. + +They had driven the last cold miles in silence when the stage-driver +turned to his neighbour. "Letter didn't say anything about coming out in +the spring to look over the country, did it?" + +Hillas shook his head. "It was like all the rest, Dan. Don't want to +build a railroad at all until the country's settled." + +"God! Can't they see the other side of it? What it means to the folks +already here to wait for it?" + +The stranger thrust a suddenly interested profile above the handsome +collar of his fur coat. He looked out over the waste of snow. + +"You say there's no timber here?" + +Dan maintained unfriendly silence and Hillas answered: "Nothing but +scrub on the banks of the creeks. Years of prairie fires have burned out +the trees, we think." + +"Any ores--mines?" + +The boy shook his head as he slid farther down in his worn buffalo coat +of the plains. + +"We're too busy rustling for something to eat first. And you can't +develop mines without tools." + +"Tools?" + +"Yes, a railroad first of all." + +Dan shifted the lines from one fur-mittened hand to the other, swinging +the freed numbed arm in rhythmic beating against his body as he looked +along the horizon a bit anxiously. The stranger shivered visibly. + +"It's a god-forsaken country. Why don't you get out?" + +Hillas, following Dan's glance around the blurred sky line, answered +absently, "Usual answer is 'Leave? It's all I can do to stay here.'" + +Smith regarded him irritably. "Why should any sane man ever have chosen +this frozen wilderness?" + +Hillas closed his eyes wearily. "We came in the spring." + +"I see!" The edged voice snapped, "Visionaries!" + +Hillas's eyes opened again, wide, and then the boy was looking beyond +the man with the far-seeing eyes of the plainsman. He spoke under his +breath as if he were alone. + +"Visionary, pioneer, American. That was the evolution in the beginning. +Perhaps that is what we are." Suddenly the endurance in his voice went +down before a wave of bitterness. "The first pioneers had to wait, too. +How could they stand it so long!" + +The young shoulders drooped as he thrust stiff fingers deep within the +shapeless coat pockets. He slowly withdrew his right hand holding a +parcel wrapped in brown paper. He tore a three-cornered flap in the +cover, looked at the brightly coloured contents, replaced the flap and +returned the parcel, his chin a little higher. + +Dan watched the northern sky-line restlessly. "It won't be snow. Look +like a blizzard to you, Hillas?" + +The traveller sat up. "Blizzard?" + +"Yes," Dan drawled in willing contribution to his uneasiness, "the real +Dakota article where blizzards are made. None of your eastern +imitations, but a ninety-mile wind that whets slivers of ice off the +frozen drifts all the way down from the North Pole. Only one good thing +about a blizzard--it's over in a hurry. You get to shelter or you freeze +to death." + +A gust of wind flung a powder of snow stingingly against their faces. +The traveller withdrew his head turtlewise within the handsome collar in +final condemnation. "No man in his senses would ever have deliberately +come here to live." + +Dan turned. "Wouldn't, eh?" + +"No." + +"You're American?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"I was born here. It's my country." + +"Ever read about your Pilgrim Fathers?" + +"Why, of course." + +"Frontiersmen, same as us. You're living on what they did. We're getting +this frontier ready for those who come after. Want our children to have +a better chance than we had. Our reason's same as theirs. Hillas told +you the truth. Country's all right if we had a railroad." + +"Humph!" With a contemptuous look across the desert. "Where's your +freight, your grain, cattle--" + +"_West_-bound freight, coal, feed, seed-grain, work, and more +neighbours." + +"One-sided bargain. Road that hauls empties one way doesn't pay. No +company would risk a line through here." + +The angles of Dan's jaw showed white. "Maybe. Ever get a chance to pay +your debt to those Pilgrim pioneers? Ever take it? Think the stock was +worth saving?" + +He lifted his whip-handle toward a pin-point of light across the stretch +of snow. "Donovan lives over there and Mis' Donovan. We call them 'old +folks' now; their hair has turned white as these drifts in two years. +All they've got is here. He's a real farmer and a lot of help to the +country, but they won't last long like this." + +Dan swung his arm toward a glimmer nor' by nor'east. "Mis' Clark lives +there, a mile back from the stage road. Clark's down in Yankton earning +money to keep them going. She's alone with her baby holding down the +claim." Dan's arm sagged. "We've had women go crazy out here." + +The whip-stock followed the empty horizon half round the compass to a +lighted red square not more than two miles away. "Mis' Carson died in +the spring. Carson stayed until he was too poor to get away. There's +three children--oldest's Katy, just eleven." Dan's words failed, but his +eyes told. "Somebody will brag of them as ancestors some day. They'll +deserve it if they live through this." + +Dan's jaw squared as he leveled his whip-handle straight at the +traveller. "I've answered your questions, now you answer mine! We know +your opinion of the country--you're not travelling for pleasure or your +health. What are you here for?" + +"Business. My own!" + +"There's two kinds of business out here this time of year. Tain't +healthy for either of them." Dan's words were measured and clipped. +"You've damned the West and all that's in it good and plenty. Now I say, +damn the people anywhere in the whole country that won't pay their debts +from pioneer to pioneer; that lets us fight the wilderness barehanded +and die fighting; that won't risk--" + +A grey film dropped down over the world, a leaden shroud that was not +the coming of twilight. Dan jerked about, his whip cracked out over the +heads of the leaders and they broke into a quick trot. The shriek of the +runners along the frozen snow cut through the ominous darkness. + +"Hillas," Dan's voice came sharply, "stand up and look for the light on +Clark's guide-pole about a mile to the right. God help us if it ain't +burning." + +Hillas struggled up, one clumsy mitten thatching his eyes from the +blinding needles. "I don't see it, Dan. We can't be more than a mile +away. Hadn't you better break toward it?" + +"Got to keep the track 'til we--see--light!" + +The wind tore the words from his mouth as it struck them in lashing +fury. The leaders had disappeared in a wall of snow, but Dan's lash +whistled forward in reminding authority. There was a moment's lull. + +"See it, Hillas?" + +"No, Dan." + +Tiger-like the storm leaped again, bandying them about in its paws like +captive mice. The horses swerved before the punishing blows, bunched, +backed, tangled. Dan stood up shouting his orders of menacing appeal +above the storm. + +Again a breathing space before the next deadly impact. As it came Hillas +shouted, "I see it--there, Dan! It's a red light. She's in trouble." + +Through the whirling smother and chaos of Dan's cries and the struggling +horses the sled lunged out of the road into unbroken drifts. Again the +leaders swung sidewise before the lashing of a thousand lariats of ice +and bunched against the wheel-horses. Dan swore, prayed, mastered them +with far-reaching lash, then the off leader went down. Dan felt behind +him for Hillas and shoved the reins against his arm. + +"I'll get him up--or cut leaders--loose! If I don't--come back--drive to +light. _Don't--get--out!_" + +Dan disappeared in the white fury. There were sounds of a struggle; the +sled jerked sharply and stood still. Slowly it strained forward. + +Hillas was standing, one foot outside on the runner, as they travelled +a team's length ahead. He gave a cry--"Dan! Dan!" and gripped a furry +bulk that lumbered up out of the drift. + +"All--right--son." Dan reached for the reins. + +Frantically they fought their slow way toward the blurred light, +staggering on in a fight with the odds too savage to last. They stopped +abruptly as the winded leaders leaned against a wall interposed between +themselves and insatiable fury. + +Dan stepped over the dashboard, groped his way along the tongue between +the wheel-horses and reached the leeway of a shadowy square. "It's the +shed, Hillas. Help get the team in." The exhausted animals crowded into +the narrow space without protest. + +"Find the guide-rope to the house, Dan?" + +"On the other side, toward the shack. Where's--Smith?" + +"Here, by the shed." + +Dan turned toward the stranger's voice. + +"We're going 'round to the blizzard-line tied from shed to shack. Take +hold of it and don't let go. If you do you'll freeze before we can find +you. When the wind comes, turn your back and wait. Go on when it dies +down and never let go the rope. Ready? The wind's dropped. Here, Hillas, +next to me." + +Three blurs hugged the sod walls around to the north-east corner. The +forward shadow reached upward to a swaying rope, lifted the hand of the +second who guided the third. + +"Hang on to my belt, too, Hillas. Ready--Smith? Got the rope?" + +They crawled forward, three barely visible figures, six, eight, ten +steps. With a shriek the wind tore at them, beat the breath from their +bodies, cut them with stinging needle-points and threw them aside. Dan +reached back to make sure of Hillas who fumbled through the darkness for +the stranger. + +Slowly they struggled ahead, the cold growing more intense; two steps, +four, and the mounting fury of the blizzard reached its zenith. The +blurs swayed like battered leaves on a vine that the wind tore in two +at last and flung the living beings wide. Dan, clinging to the broken +rope, rolled over and found Hillas with the frayed end of the line in +his hand, reaching about through the black drifts for the stranger. Dan +crept closer, his mouth at Hillas's ear, shouting, "Quick! Right behind +me if we're to live through it!" + +The next moment Hillas let go the rope. Dan reached madly. "Boy, you +can't find him--it'll only be two instead of one! Hillas! Hillas!" + +The storm screamed louder than the plainsman and began heaping the snow +over three obstructions in its path, two that groped slowly and one that +lay still. Dan fumbled at his belt, unfastened it, slipped the rope +through the buckle, knotted it and crept its full length back toward the +boy. A snow-covered something moved forward guiding another, one arm +groping in blind search, reached and touched the man clinging to the +belt. + +Beaten and buffeted by the ceaseless fury that no longer gave quarter, +they slowly fought their way hand-over-hand along the rope, Dan now +crawling last. After a frozen eternity they reached the end of the line +fastened man-high against a second haven of wall. Hillas pushed open the +unlocked door, the three men staggered in and fell panting against the +side of the room. + +The stage-driver recovered first, pulled off his mittens, examined his +fingers and felt quickly of nose, ears, and chin. He looked sharply at +Hillas and nodded. Unceremoniously they stripped off the stranger's +gloves, reached for a pan, opened the door, dipped it into the drift and +plunged Smith's fingers down in the snow. + +"Your nose is white, too. Thaw it out." + +Abruptly Dan indicated a bench against the wall where the two men seated +would take up less space. + +"I'm--" The stranger's voice was unsteady. "I--," but Dan had turned his +back and his attention to the homesteader. + +The eight by ten room constituted the entire home. A shed roof slanted +from eight feet high on the door and window side to a bit more than five +on the other. A bed in one corner took up most of the space, and the +remaining necessities were bestowed with the compactness of a ship's +cabin. The rough boards of the roof and walls had been hidden by a +covering of newspapers, with a row of illustrations pasted picture +height. Cushions and curtains of turkey-red calico brightened the homely +shack. + +The driver had slipped off his buffalo coat and was bending over a baby +exhaustedly fighting for breath that whistled shrilly through a closing +throat. The mother, scarcely more than a girl, held her in tensely +extended arms. + +"How long's she been this way?" + +"She began to choke up day before yesterday, just after you passed on +the down trip." + +The driver laid big finger tips on the restless wrist. + +"She always has the croup when she cuts a tooth, Dan, but this is +different. I've used all the medicines I have--nothing relieves the +choking." + +The girl lifted heavy eyelids above blue semicircles of fatigue and the +compelling terror back of her eyes forced a question through dry lips. + +"Dan, do you know what membranous croup is like? Is this it?" + +The stage-driver picked up the lamp and held it close to the child's +face, bringing out with distressing clearness the blue-veined pallour, +sunken eyes, and effort of impeded breathing. He frowned, putting the +lamp back quickly. + +"Mebbe it is, Mis' Clark, but don't you be scared. We'll help you a +spell." + +Dan lifted the red curtain from the cupboard, found an emptied +lard-pail, half filled it with water and placed it on an oil-stove that +stood in the center of the room. He looked questioningly about the four +walls, discovered a cleverly contrived tool-box beneath the cupboard +shelves, sorted out a pair of pincers and bits of iron, laying the +latter in a row over the oil blaze. He took down a can of condensed +milk, poured a spoonful of the thick stuff into a cup of water and made +room for it near the bits of heating iron. + +He turned to the girl, opened his lips as if to speak and stood with a +face full of pity. + +Along the four-foot space between the end of the bed and the opposite +wall the girl walked, crooning to the sick child she carried. As they +watched, the low song died away, her shoulder rubbed heavily against the +boarding, her eyelids dropped and she stood sound asleep. The next +hard-drawn breath of the baby roused her and she stumbled on, crooning a +lullaby. + +Smith clutched the younger man's shoulder. "God, Hillas, look where +she's marked the wall rubbing against it! Do you suppose she's been +walking that way for three days and nights? Why, she's only a child--no +older than my own daughter!" + +Hillas nodded. + +"Where are her people? Where's her husband?" + +"Down in Yankton, Dan told you, working for the winter. Got to have the +money to live." + +"Where's the doctor?" + +"Nearest one's in Haney--four days' trip away by stage." + +The traveller stared, frowningly. + +Dan was looking about the room again and after prodding the gay seat in +the corner, lifted the cover and picked up a folded blanket, shaking out +the erstwhile padded cushion. He hung the blanket over the back of a +chair. + +"Mis' Clark, there's nothing but steam will touch membreenous croup. We +saved my baby that way last year. Set here and I'll fix things." + +He put the steaming lard-pail on the floor beside the mother and lifted +the blanket over the baby's head. She put up her hand. + +"She's so little, Dan, and weak. How am I going to know if she--if +she--" + +Dan rearranged the blanket tent. "Jest get under with her yourself, Mis' +Clark, then you'll know all that's happening." + +With the pincers he picked up a bit of hot iron and dropped it hissing +into the pail, which he pushed beneath the tent. The room was +oppressively quiet, walled in by the thick sod from the storm. The +blanket muffled the sound of the child's breathing and the girl no +longer stumbled against the wall. + +Dan lifted the corner of the blanket and another bit of iron hissed as +it struck the water. The older man leaned toward the younger. + +"Stove--fire?" with a gesture of protest against the inadequate oil +blaze. + +Hillas whispered, "Can't afford it. Coal is $9.00 in Haney, $18.00 +here." + +They sat with heads thrust forward, listening in the intolerable +silence. Dan lifted the blanket, hearkened a moment, then--"pst!" +another bit of iron fell into the pail. Dan stooped to the tool-chest +for a reserve supply when a strangling cough made him spring to his feet +and hurriedly lift the blanket. + +The child was beating the air with tiny fists, fighting for breath. The +mother stood rigid, arms out. + +"Turn her this way!" Dan shifted the struggling child, face out. "Now +watch out for the--" + +The strangling cough broke and a horrible something--"It's the membrane! +She's too weak--let me have her!" + +Dan snatched the child and turned it face downward. The blue-faced baby +fought in a supreme effort--again the horrible something--then Dan laid +the child, white and motionless, in her mother's arms. She held the limp +body close, her eyes wide with fear. + +"Dan, is--is she--?" + +A faint sobbing breath of relief fluttered the pale lips that moved in +the merest ghost of a smile. The heavy eyelids half-lifted and the child +nestled against its mother's breast. The girl swayed, shaking with sobs, +"Baby--baby!" + +She struggled for self-control and stood up straight and pale. "Dan, I +ought to tell you. When it began to get dark with the storm and time to +put up the lantern, I was afraid to leave the baby. If she strangled +when I was gone--with no one to help her--she would die!" + +Her lips quivered as she drew the child closer. "I didn't go right away +but--I did--at last. I propped her up in bed and ran. If I hadn't--" Her +eyes were wide with the shadowy edge of horror, "if I hadn't--you'd have +been lost in the blizzard and--my baby would have died!" + +She stood before the men as if for judgment, her face wet with unchecked +tears. Dan patted her shoulder dumbly and touched a fresh, livid bruise +that ran from the curling hair on her temple down across cheek and chin. + +"Did you get this then?" + +She nodded. "The storm threw me against the pole when I hoisted the +lantern. I thought I'd--never--get back!" + +It was Smith who translated Dan's look of appeal for the cup of warm +milk and held it to the girl's lips. + +"Drink it, Mis' Clark, you need it." + +She made heroic attempts to swallow, her head drooped lower over the cup +and fell against the driver's rough sleeve. "Poor kid, dead asleep!" + +Dan guided her stumbling feet toward the bed that the traveller sprang +to open. She guarded the baby in the protecting angle of her arm into +safety upon the pillow, then fell like a log beside her. Dan slipped off +the felt boots, lifted her feet to the bed and softly drew covers over +mother and child. + +"Poor kid, but she's grit, clear through!" + +Dan walked to the window, looked out at the lessening storm, then at the +tiny alarm-clock on the cupboard. "Be over pretty soon now!" He seated +himself by the table, dropped his head wearily forward on folded arms +and was asleep. + +The traveller's face had lost some of its shrewdness. It was as if the +white frontier had seized and shaken him into a new conception of life. +He moved restlessly along the bench, then stepped softly to the side of +the bed and straightened the coverlet into greater nicety while his lips +twitched. + +With consuming care he folded the blanket and restored the corner seat +to its accustomed appearance of luxury. He looked about the room, picked +up the grey kitten sleeping contentedly on the floor and settled it on +the red cushion with anxious attention to comfort. + +He examined with curiosity the few books carefully covered on a corner +shelf, took down an old hand-tooled volume and lifted his eyebrows at +the ancient coat of arms on the book plate. He tiptoed across to the +bench and pointed to the script beneath the plate. "Edward Winslow (7) +to his dear daughter, Alice (8)." + +He motioned toward the bed. "Her name?" + +Hillas nodded, Smith grinned. "Dan's right. Blood will tell, even to +damning the rest of us." + +He sat down on the bench. "I understand more than I did Hillas, +since--you crawled back after me--out there. But how can you stand it +here? I know you and the Clarks are people of education and, oh, all the +rest; you could make your way anywhere." + +Hillas spoke slowly. "I think you have to live here to know. It means +something to be a pioneer. You can't be one if you've got it in you to +be a quitter. The country will be all right some day." He reached for +his greatcoat, bringing out a brown-paper parcel. He smiled at it oddly +and went on as if talking to himself. + +"When the drought and the hot winds come in the summer and burn the +buffalo grass to a tinder and the monotony of the plains weighs on you +as it does now, there's a common, low-growing cactus scattered over the +prairie that blooms into the gayest red flower you ever saw. + +"It wouldn't count for much anywhere else, but the pluck of it, without +rain for months, dew even. It's the 'colours of courage.'" + +He turned the torn parcel, showing the bright red within, and looked at +the cupboard and window with shining, tired eyes. + +"Up and down the frontier in these shacks, homes, you'll find things +made of turkey-red calico, cheap, common elsewhere--" He fingered the +three-cornered flap. "Its our 'colours.'" He put the parcel back in his +pocket. "I bought two yards yesterday after--I got a letter at Haney." + +Smith sat looking at the gay curtains before him. The fury of the storm +was dying down into fitful gusts. Dan stirred, looked quickly toward the +bed, then the window, and got up quietly. + +"I'll hitch up. We'll stop at Peterson's and tell her to come over." He +closed the door noiselessly. + +The traveller was frowning intently. Finally he turned toward the boy +who sat with his head leaning back against the wall, eyes closed. + +"Hillas," his very tones were awkward, "they call me a shrewd business +man. I am, it's a selfish job and I'm not reforming now. But twice +to-night you--children have risked your lives, without thought for a +stranger. I've been thinking about that railroad. Haven't you raised any +grain or cattle that could be used for freight?" + +The low answer was toneless. "Drought killed the crops, prairie fires +burned the hay, of course the cattle starved." + +"There's no timber, ore, nothing that could be used for east-bound +shipment?" + +The plainsman looked searchingly into the face of the older man. +"There's no timber this side the Missouri. Across the river it's +reservation--Sioux. We--" He frowned and stopped. + +Smith stood up, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. "I admitted I was +shrewd, Hillas, but I'm not yellow clear through, not enough to betray +this part of the frontier anyhow. I had a man along here last fall +spying for minerals. That's why I'm out here now. If you know the +location, and we both think you do, I'll put capital in your way to +develop the mines and use what pull I have to get the road in." + +He looked down at the boy and thrust out a masterful jaw. There was a +ring of sincerity no one could mistake when he spoke again. + +"This country's a desert now, but I'd back the Sahara peopled with your +kind. This is on the square, Hillas, don't tell me you won't believe +I'm--American enough to trust?" + +The boy tried to speak. With stiffened body and clenched hands he +struggled for self-control. Finally in a ragged whisper, "If I try to +tell you what--it means--I can't talk! Dan and I know of outcropping +coal over in the Buttes." He nodded in the direction of the Missouri, +"but we haven't had enough money to file mining claims." + +"Know where to dig for samples under this snow?" + +The boy nodded. "Some in my shack too. I--" His head went down upon the +crossed arms. Smith laid an awkward hand on the heaving shoulders, then +rose and crossed the room to where the girl had stumbled in her vigil. +Gently he touched the darkened streak where her shoulders had rubbed and +blurred the newspaper print. He looked from the relentless white desert +outside to the gay bravery within and bent his head. +"Turkey-red--calico!" + +There was the sound of jingling harness and the crunch of runners. The +men bundled into fur coats. + +"Hillas, the draw right by the house here," Smith stopped and looked +sharply at the plainsman, then went on with firm carelessness, "This +draw ought to strike a low grade that would come out near the river +level. Does Dan know Clark's address?" Hillas nodded. + +They tiptoed out and closed the door behind them softly. The wind had +swept every cloud from the sky and the light of the northern stars +etched a dazzling world. Dan was checking up the leaders as Hillas +caught him by the shoulder and shook him like a clumsy bear. + +"Dan, you blind old mole, can you see the headlight of the Overland +Freight blazing and thundering down that draw over the Great Missouri +and Eastern?" + +Dan stared. + +"I knew you couldn't!" Hillas thumped him with furry fist. "Dan," the +wind might easily have drowned the unsteady voice, "I've told Mr. Smith +about the coal--for freight. He's going to help us get capital for +mining and after that the road." + +"Smith! Smith! Well, I'll be--aren't you a claim spotter?" + +He turned abruptly and crunched toward the stage. His passengers +followed. Dan paused with his foot on the runner and looked steadily at +the traveller from under lowered, shaggy brows. + +"You're going to get a road out here?" + +"I've told Hillas I'll put money in your way to mine the coal. Then the +railroad will come." + +Dan's voice rasped with tension. "We'll get out the coal. Are you going +to see that the road is built?" + +Unconsciously the traveller held up his right hand. "I am!" + +Dan searched his face sharply. Smith nodded. "I'm making my bet on the +people--friend!" + +It was a new Dan who lifted his bronzed face to a white world. His voice +was low and very gentle. "To bring a road here," he swung his +whip-handle from Donovan's light around to Carson's square, sweeping in +all that lay behind, "out here to them--" The pioneer faced the wide +desert that reached into a misty space ablaze with stars, "would be +like--playing God!" + +The whip thudded softly into the socket and Dan rolled up on the +driver's seat. Two men climbed in behind him. The long lash swung out +over the leaders as Dan headed the old mail-sled across the drifted +right-of-way of the Great Missouri and Eastern. + + + + +FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD + + +By MELVILLE DAVISSON POST + +From _Saturday Evening Post_ + +I was before one of those difficult positions unavoidable to a man of +letters. My visitor must have some answer. He had come back for the +manuscript of his memoir and for my opinion. It was the twilight of an +early Washington winter. The lights in the great library, softened with +delicate shades, had been turned on. Outside, Sheridan Circle was almost +a thing of beauty in its vague outline; even the squat ridiculous bronze +horse had a certain dignity in the blue shadow. + +If one had been speculating on the man, from his physical aspect one +would have taken Walker for an engineer of some sort, rather than the +head of the United States Secret Service. His lean face and his angular +manner gave that impression. Even now, motionless in the big chair +beyond the table, he seemed--how shall I say it?--mechanical. + +And that was the very defect in his memoir. He had cut the great cases +into a dry recital. There was no longer in them any pressure of a human +impulse. The glow of inspired detail had been dissected out. Everything +startling and wonderful had been devitalized. + +The memoir was a report. + +The bulky typewritten manuscript lay on the table beside the electric +lamp, and I stood about uncertain how to tell him. + +"Walker," I said, "did nothing wonderful ever happen to you in the +adventure of these cases?" + +"What precisely do you mean?" he replied. + +The practical nature of the man tempted me to extravagance. + +"Well," I said, "for example, were you never kissed in a lonely street +by a mysterious woman and the flash of your dark lantern reveal a face +of startling beauty?" + +"No," he said, as though he were answering a sensible question, "that +never happened to me." + +"Then," I continued, "perhaps you have found a prince of the church, +pale as alabaster, sitting in his red robe, who put together the +indicatory evidence of the crime that baffled you with such uncanny +acumen that you stood aghast at his perspicacity?" + +"No," he said; and then his face lighted. "But I'll tell you what I did +find. I found a drunken hobo at Atlantic City who was the best detective +I ever saw." + +I sat down and tapped the manuscript with my fingers. + +"It's not here," I said. "Why did you leave it out?" + +He took a big gold watch out of his pocket and turned it about in his +hand. The case was covered with an inscription. + +"Well," he said, "the boys in the department think a good deal of me. I +shouldn't like them to know how a dirty tramp faked me at Atlantic City. +I don't mind telling you, but I couldn't print it in a memoir." + +He went directly ahead with the story and I was careful not to interrupt +him: + +"I was sitting in a rolling chair out there on the Boardwalk before the +Traymore. I was nearly all in, and I had taken a run to Atlantic for a +day or two of the sea air. The fact is the whole department was down and +out. You may remember what we were up against; it finally got into the +newspapers. + +"The government plates of the Third Liberty Bond issue had disappeared. +We knew how they had gotten out and we thought we knew the man at the +head of the thing. It was a Mulehaus job, as we figured it. + +"It was too big a thing for a little crook. With the government plates +they could print Liberty Bonds just as the Treasury would. And they +could sow the world with them." + +He paused and moved his gold-rimmed spectacles a little closer in on his +nose. + +"You see these war bonds are scattered all over the country. They are +held by everybody. It's not what it used to be, a banker's business +that we could round up. Nobody could round up the holders of these +bonds. + +"A big crook like Mulehaus could slip a hundred million of them into the +country and never raise a ripple." + +He paused and drew his fingers across his bony protruding chin. + +"I'll say this for Mulehaus: He's the hardest man to identify in the +whole kingdom of crooks. Scotland Yard, the Service de la Sûreté, +everybody, says that. I don't mean dime-novel disguises--false whiskers +and a limp. I mean the ability to be the character he pretends--the +thing that used to make Joe Jefferson Rip Van Winkle--and not an actor +made up to look like it. That's the reason nobody could keep track of +Mulehaus, especially in South American cities. He was a French banker in +the Egypt business and a Swiss banker in the Argentine." + +He turned back from the digression: + +"And it was a clean job. They had got away with the plates. We didn't +have a clue. We thought, naturally, that they'd make for Mexico or some +South American country to start their printing press. And we had the +ports and the border netted up. Nothing could have gone out across the +border or through any port. All the customs officers were working with +us, and every agent of the Department of Justice." + +He looked at me steadily across the table. + +"You see the government had to get those plates back before the crook +started to print, or else take up every bond of that issue over the +whole country. It was a hell of a thing! + +"Of course we had gone right after the record of all the big crooks to +see whose line this sort of job was. And the thing narrowed down to +Mulehaus or old Vronsky. We soon found out it wasn't Vronsky. He was in +Joliet. It was Mulehaus. But we couldn't find him. + +"We didn't even know that Mulehaus was in America. He's a big crook with +a genius for selecting men. He might be directing the job from Rio or a +Mexican port. But we were sure it was a Mulehaus job. He sold the +French securities in Egypt in '90; and he's the man who put the bogus +Argentine bonds on our market--you'll find the case in the 115th Federal +Reporter. + +"Well," he went on, "I was sitting out there in the rolling chair, +looking at the sun on the sea and thinking about the thing, when I +noticed this hobo that I've been talking about. He was my chair +attendant, but I hadn't looked at him before. He had moved round from +behind me and was now leaning against the galvanized-pipe railing. + +"He was a big human creature, a little stooped, unshaved and dirty; his +mouth was slack and loose, and he had a big mobile nose that seemed to +move about like a piece of soft rubber. He had hardly any clothing; a +cap that must have been fished out of an ash barrel, no shirt whatever, +merely an old ragged coat buttoned round him, a pair of canvas breeches +and carpet slippers tied on to his feet with burlap, and wrapped round +his ankles to conceal the fact that he wore no socks. + +"As I looked at him he darted out, picked up the stump of a cigarette +that someone had thrown down, and came back to the railing to smoke it, +his loose mouth and his big soft nose moving like kneaded putty. + +"Altogether this tramp was the worst human derelict I ever saw. And it +occurred to me that this was the one place in the whole of America where +any sort of a creature could get a kind of employment and no questions +asked. + +"Anything that could move and push a chair could get fifteen cents an +hour from McDuyal. Wise man, poor man, beggar man, thief, it as all one +to McDuyal. And the creatures could sleep in the shed behind the rolling +chairs. + +"I suppose an impulse to offer the man a garment of some sort moved me +to address him. 'You're nearly naked,' I said. + +"He crossed one leg over the other with the toe of the carpet slipper +touching the walk, in the manner a burlesque actor, took the cigarette +out of his mouth with a little flourish, and replied to me: 'Sure, +Governor, I ain't dolled up like John Drew.' + +"There was a sort of cocky unconcern about the creature that gave his +miserable state a kind of beggarly distinction. He was in among the very +dregs of life, and he was not depressed about it. + +"'But if I had a sawbuck,' he continued, 'I could bulge your eye.... +Couldn't point the way to one?' + +"He arrested my answer with the little flourish of his fingers holding +the stump of the cigarette. + +"'Not work, Governor,' and he made a little duck of his head, 'and not +murder.... Go as far as you please between 'em.' + +"The fantastic manner of the derelict was infectious. + +"'O.K.,' I said. 'Go out and find me a man who is a deserter from the +German Army, was a tanner in Bâle and began life as a sailor, and I'll +double your money--I'll give you a twenty-dollar bill.' + +"The creature whistled softly in two short staccato notes. + +"'Some little order,' he said. And taking a toothpick out of his pocket +he stuck it into the stump of the cigarette which had become too short +to hold between his fingers. + +"At this moment a boy from the postoffice came to me with the daily +report from Washington, and I got out of the chair, tipped the creature, +and went into the hotel, stopping to pay McDuyal as I passed. + +"There was nothing new from the department except that our organization +over the country was in close touch. We had offered five thousand +dollars reward for the recovery of the plates, and the Postoffice +Department was now posting the notice all over America in every office. +The Secretary thought we had better let the public in on it and not keep +it an underground offer to the service. + +"I had forgotten the hobo, when about five o'clock he passed me a little +below the Steel Pier. He was in a big stride and he had something +clutched in his hand. + +"He called to me as he hurried along: 'I got him, Governor.... See you +later!' + +"'See me now,' I said. 'What's the hurry?' + +"He flashed his hand open, holding a silver dollar with his thumb +against the palm. + +"'Can't stop now, I'm going to get drunk. See you later.' + +"I smiled at the disingenuous creature. He was saving me for the dry hour. +He could point out Mulehaus in any passing chair, and I would give some +coin to be rid of his pretension." + +Walker paused. Then he went on: + +"I was right. The hobo was waiting for me when I came out of the hotel +the following morning. + +"'Howdy, Governor,' he said; 'I located your man.' + +"I was interested to see how he would frame up his case. + +"'How did you find him?' I said. + +"He grinned, moving his lip and his loose nose. + +"'Some luck, Governor, and some sleuthin'. It was like this: I thought +you was stringin' me. But I said to myself I'll keep out an eye; maybe +it's on the level--any damn thing can happen.' + +"He put up his hand as though to hook his thumb into the armhole of his +vest, remembered that he had only a coat buttoned round him and dropped +it. + +"'And believe me or not, Governor, it's the God's truth. About four +o'clock up toward the Inlet I passed a big, well-dressed, banker-looking +gent walking stiff from the hip and throwing out his leg. "Come eleven!" +I said to myself. "It's the goose-step!" I had an empty roller, and I +took a turn over to him. + +"'"Chair, Admiral?" I said. + +"'He looked at me sort of queer. + +"'"What makes you think I'm an admiral, my man?" he answers. + +"'"Well," I says, lounging over on one foot reflective like, "nobody +could be a-viewin' the sea with that lovin', ownership look unless he'd +bossed her a bit.... If I'm right, Admiral, you takes the chair." + +"'He laughed, but he got in. "I'm not an admiral," he said, "but it is +true that I've followed the sea."' + +"The hobo paused, and put up his first and second fingers spread like a +V. + +"'Two points, Governor--the gent had been a sailor and a soldier; now +how about the tanner business?' + +"He scratched his head, moving the ridiculous cap. + +"'That sort of puzzled me, and I pussyfooted along toward the Inlet +thinkin' about it. If a man was a tanner, and especially a foreign, +hand-workin' tanner, what would his markin's be? + +"'I tried to remember everybody that I'd ever seen handlin' a hide, and +all at once I recollected that the first thing a dago shoemaker done +when he picked up a piece of leather was to smooth it out with his +thumbs. An' I said to myself, now that'll be what a tanner does, only he +does it more ... he's always doing it. Then I asks myself what would be +the markin's?' + +"The hobo paused, his mouth open, his head twisted to one side. Then he +jerked up as under a released spring. + +"'And right away, Governor, I got the answer to it--flat thumbs!' + +"The hobo stepped back with an air of victory and flashed his hand up. + +"'And he had 'em! I asked him what time it was so I could keep the hour +straight for McDuyal, I told him, but the real reason was so I could see +his hands.'" + +Walker crossed one leg over the other. + +"It was clever," he said, "and I hesitated to shatter it. But the +question had to come. + +"'Where is your man?' I said. + +"The hobo executed a little deprecatory step, with his fingers picking +at his coat pockets. + +"'That's the trouble, Governor,' he answered; 'I intended to sleuth him +for you, but he give me a dollar and I got drunk ... you saw me. That +man had got out at McDuyal's place not five minutes before. I was +flashin' to the booze can when you tried to stop me.... Nothin' doin' +when I get the price.'" + +Walker paused. + +"It was a good fairy story and worth something. I offered him half a +dollar. Then I got a surprise. + +"The creature looked eagerly at the coin in my fingers, and he moved +toward it. He was crazy for the liquor it would buy. But he set his +teeth and pulled up. + +"'No, Governor,' he said, 'I'm in it for the sawbuck. Where'll I find +you about noon?' + +"I promised to be on the Boardwalk before Heinz's Pier at two o clock +and he turned to shuffle away. I called an inquiry after him.... You see +there were two things in his story: How did he get a dollar tip, and how +did he happen to make his imaginary man banker-looking? Mulehaus had +been banker-looking in both the Egypt and the Argentine affairs. I left +the latter point suspended, as we say. But I asked about the dollar. He +came back at once. + +"'I forgot about that, Governor,' he said. 'It was like this: The +admiral kept looking out at the sea where an old freighter was going +South. You know, the fruit line to New York. One of them goes by every +day or two. And I kept pushing him along. Finally we got up to the +Inlet, and I was about to turn when he stopped me. You know the neck of +ground out beyond where the street cars loop; there's an old board fence +by the road, then sand to the sea, and about halfway between the fence +and the water there's a shed with some junk in it. You've seen it. They +made the old America out there and the shed was a tool house. + +"'When I stopped the admiral says: "Cut across to the hole in that old +board fence and see if an automobile has been there, and I'll give you a +dollar." An' I done it, an' I got it.' + +"Then he shuffled off. + +"'Be on the spot, Governor, an' I'll lead him to you.'" + +Walker leaned over, rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, and +linked his fingers together. + +"That gave me a new flash on the creature. He was a slicker article than +I imagined. I was not to get off with a tip. He was taking some pains to +touch me for a greenback. I thought I saw his line. It would not account +for his hitting the description of Mulehaus in the make-up of his straw +man, but it would furnish the data for the dollar story. I had drawn the +latter a little before he was ready. It belonged in what he planned to +give me at two o'clock. But I thought I saw what the creature was about. +And I was right." + +Walker put out his hand and moved the pages of his memoir on the table. +Then he went on: + +"I was smoking a cigar on a bench at the entrance to Heinz's Pier when +the hobo shuffled up. He came down one of the streets from Pacific +Avenue, and the direction confirmed me in my theory. It also confirmed +me in the opinion that I was all kinds of a fool to let this dirty hobo +get a further chance at me. + +"I was not in a very good humour. Everything I had set going after +Mulehaus was marking time. The only report was progress in linking +things up; not only along the Canadian and Mexican borders and the +custom houses, but we had also done a further unusual thing, we had an +agent on every ship going out of America to follow through to the +foreign port and look out for anything picked up on the way. + +"It was a plan I had set at immediately the robbery was discovered. It +would cut out the trick of reshipping at sea from some fishing craft or +small boat. The reports were encouraging enough in that respect. We had +the whole country as tight as a drum. But it was slender comfort when +the Treasury was raising the devil for the plates and we hadn't a clue +to them." + +Walker stopped a moment. Then he went on: + +"I felt like kicking the hobo when he got to me, he was so obviously the +extreme of all worthless creatures, with that apologetic, confidential +manner which seems to be an abominable attendant on human degeneracy. +One may put up with it for a little while, but it presently becomes +intolerable. + +"'Governor,' he began, when he shuffled up, 'you won't get mad if I say +a little somethin'?' + +"'Go on and say it,' I said. + +"The expression on his dirty unshaved face became, if possible, more +foolish. + +"'Well, then, Governor, askin' your pardon, you ain't Mr. Henry P. +Johnson, from Erie; you're the Chief of the United States Secret +Service, from Washington.'" + +Walker moved in his chair. + +"That made me ugly," he went on, "the assurance of the creature and my +unspeakable carelessness in permitting the official letters brought to +me on the day before by the postoffice messenger to be seen. In my +relaxation I had forgotten the eye of the chair attendant. I took the +cigar out of my teeth and looked at him. + +"'And I'll say a little something myself!' I could hardly keep my foot +clear of him. 'When you got sober this morning and remembered who I was, +you took a turn up round the postoffice to make sure of it, and while +you were in there you saw the notice of the reward for the stolen bond +plates. That gave you the notion with which you pieced out your fairy +story about how you got the dollar tip. Having discovered my identity +through a piece of damned carelessness on my part and having seen the +postal notice of the reward, you undertook to enlarge your little game. +That's the reason you wouldn't take fifty cents. It was your notion in +the beginning to make a touch for a tip. And it would have worked. But +now you can't get a damned cent out of me.' Then I threw a little brush +into him: 'I'd have stood a touch for your finding the fake tanner, +because there isn't any such person.' + +"I intended to put the hobo out of business," Walker went on, "but the +effect of my words on him were even more startling than I anticipated. +His jaw dropped and he looked at me in astonishment. + +"'No such person!' he repeated. 'Why, Governor, before God, I found a +man like that, an' he was a banker--one of the big ones, sure as there's +a hell!'" + +Walker put out his hands in a puzzled gesture. + +"There it was again, the description of Mulehaus! And it puzzled me up. +Every motion of this hobo's mind in every direction about this affair +was perfectly clear to me. I saw his intention in every turn of it and +just where he got the material for the details of his story. But this +absolutely distinguishing description of Mulehaus was beyond me. +Everybody, of course, knew that we were looking for the lost plates, for +there was the reward offered by the Treasury; but no human soul outside +of the trusted agents of the department knew that we were looking for +Mulehaus." + +Walker did not move, but he stopped in his recital for a moment. + +"The tramp shuffled up a step closer to the bench where I sat The +anxiety in his big slack face was sincere beyond question. + +"'I can't find the banker man, Governor; he's skipped the coop. But I +believe I can find what he's hid.' + +"'Well' I said, 'go on and find it.' + +"The hobo jerked out his limp hands in a sort of hopeless gesture. + +"'Now, Governor,' he whimpered, 'what good would it do me to find them +plates?' + +"'You'd get five thousand dollars,' I said. + +"'I'd git kicked into the discard by the first cop that got to me,' he +answered, 'that's what I'd git.' + +"The creature's dirty, unshaved jowls began to shake, and his voice +became wholly a whimper. + +"'I've got a line on this thing, Governor, sure as there's a hell. That +banker man was viewin' the layout. I've thought it all over, an' this is +the way it would be. They're afraid of the border an' they're afraid of +the custom houses, so they runs the loot down here in an automobile, +hides it up about the Inlet, and plans to go out with it to one of them +fruit steamers passing on the way to Tampico. They'd have them plates +bundled up in a sailor's chest most like. + +"'Now, Governor, you'd say why ain't they already done it; an' I'd +answer, the main guy--this banker man--didn't know the automobile had +got here until he sent me to look, and there ain't been no ship along +since then.... I've been special careful to find that out.' And then the +creature began to whine. 'Have a heart, Governor, come along with me. +Gimme a show!' + +"It was not the creature's plea that moved me, nor his pretended +deductions; I'm a bit old to be soft. It was the 'banker man' sticking +like a bur in the hobo's talk. I wanted to keep him in right until I +understood where he got it. No doubt that seems a slight reason for +going out to the Inlet with the creature; but you must remember that +slight things are often big signboards in our business." + +He continued, his voice precise and even: "We went directly from the +end of the Boardwalk to the old shed; it was open, an unfastened door on +a pair of leather hinges. The shed is small, about twenty feet by +eleven, with a hard dirt floor packed down by the workmen who had used +it, a combination of clay and sand like the Jersey roads put in to make +a floor. All round it, from the sea to the board fence was soft sand. +There were some pieces of old junk lying about in the shed; but nothing +of value or it would have been nailed up. + +"The hobo led right off with his deductions. There was the track of a +man, clearly outlined in the soft sand, leading from the board fence to +the shed and returning, and no other track anywhere about. + +"'Now, Governor,' he began, when he had taken a look at the tracks, 'the +man that made them tracks carried something into this shed, and he left +it here, and it was something heavy.' + +"I was fairly certain that the hobo had salted the place for me, made +the tracks himself; but I played out a line to him. + +"'How do you know that?' I said. + +"'Well, Governor,' he answered, 'take a look at them two line of tracks. +In the one comin' to the shed the man was walkin' with his feet apart +and in the one goin' back he was walkin' with his feet in front of one +another; that's because he was carryin' somethin' heavy when he come an' +nothin' when he left.' + +"It was an observation on footprints," he went on, "that had never +occurred to me. The hobo saw my awakened interest, and he added: + +"'Did you never notice a man carryin a heavy load? He kind of totters, +walkin' with his feet apart to keep his balance. That makes his foot +tracks side by side like, instead of one before the other as he makes +them when he's goin' light.'" + +Walker interrupted his narrative with a comment: "It's the truth I've +verified it a thousand times since that hobo put me onto it. A line +running through the center of the heel prints of a man carrying a heavy +burden will be a zigzag, while one through the heel prints of the same +man without the burden will be almost straight. + +"The tramp went right on with his deductions: + +"'If it come in and didn't go out, it's here.' + +"And he began to go over the inside of the shed. He searched it like a +man searching a box for a jewel. He moved the pieces of old castings and +he literally fingered the shed from end to end. He would have found a +bird's egg. + +"Finally he stopped and stood with hand spread out over his mouth. And I +selected this critical moment to touch the powder off under his game. + +"'Suppose,' I said, 'that this man with the heavy load wished to mislead +us; suppose that instead of bringing something here he took one of these +old castings away?' + +"The hobo looked at me without changing his position. + +"'How could he, Governor; he was pointin' this way with the load?' + +"'By walking backward,' I said. For it had occurred to me that perhaps +the creature had manufactured this evidence for the occasion, and I +wished to test the theory." + +Walker went on in his slow, even voice: + +"The test produced more action than I expected. The hobo dived out +through the door. I followed to see him disappear. But he was not in +flight; he was squatting down over the foot prints. And a moment later +he rocked back on his haunches with a little exultant yelp. + +"'Dope's wrong, Governor,' he said; 'he was sure comin' this way.' Then +he explained: 'If a man's walkin' forward in sand or mud or snow the toe +of his shoe flirts out a little of it, an' if he's walkin' backward his +heel flirts it out.' + +"At this point I began to have some respect for the creature's ability. +He got up and came back into the shed. And there he stood, in his old +position, with his fingers over his mouth, looking round at the empty +shed, in which, as I have said, one could not have concealed a bird's +egg. + +"I watched him without offering any suggestion, for my interest in the +thing had awakened and was curious to see what he would do. He stood +perfectly motionless for about a minute; and then suddenly he snapped +his fingers and the light came into his face. + +"'I got it, Governor!' Then he came over to where I stood. 'Gimme a +quarter to get a bucket' + +"I gave him the coin, for I was now profoundly puzzled, and he went out. +He was gone perhaps twenty minutes, and when he came in he had a bucket +of water. But he had evidently been thinking on the way, for he set the +bucket down carefully, wiped his hands on his canvas breeches, and began +to speak, with a little apologetic whimper in his voice. + +"'Now look here, Governor,' he said, 'I'm a-goin' to talk turkey; do I +get the five thousand if I find this stuff?' + +"'Surely,' I answered him. + +"'An' there'll be no monkey'n', Governor; you'll take me down to a bank +yourself an' put the money in my hand?' + +"'I promise you that,' I assured him. + +"But he was not entirely quiet in his mind about it. He shifted uneasily +from one foot to the other, and his soft rubber nose worked. + +"'Now, Governor,' he said, 'I'm leery about jokers--I gotta be. I don't +want any string to this money. If I get it I want to go and blow it in. +I don't want you to hand me the roll an' then start any reformin' +stunt--a-holdin' of it in trust an' a probation officer a-pussy-footin' +me, or any funny business. I want the wad an' a clear road to the bright +lights with no word passed along to pinch me. Do I git it?' + +"'It's a trade!" I said. + +"'O.K.,' he answered, and he took up the bucket. He began at the door +and poured the water carefully on the hard tramped earth. When the +bucket was empty he brought another and another. Finally about midway of +the floor space he stopped. + +"'Here it is!' he said. + +"I was following beside him, but I saw nothing to justify his words. + +"Why do you think the plates are buried here?' I said. + +"'Look at the air bubbles comin' up, Governor,' he answered." + +Walker stopped, then he added: + +"It's a thing which I did not know until that moment, but it's the +truth. If hard-packed earth is dug up and repacked air gets into it, and +if one pours water on the place air bubbles will come up." + +He did not go on, and I flung the big query of his story at him. + +"And you found the plates there?" + +"Yes," he replied, "in the false bottom of an old steamer trunk." + +"And the hobo got the money?" + +"Certainly," he answered. "I put it into his hand, and let him go with +it, as I promised." + +Again he was silent, and I turned toward him in astonishment. + +"Then," I said, "why did you begin this story by saying the hobo faked +you? I don't see the fake; he found the plates and he was entitled to +the reward." + +Walker put his hand into his pocket, took out a leather case, selected a +paper from among its contents and handed it to me. "I didn't see the +fake either," he said, "until I got this letter." + +I unfolded the letter carefully. It was neatly written in a hand like +copper plate and dated from Buenos Aires: + +_Dear Colonel Walker_: When I discovered that you were planting an agent +on every ship I had to abandon the plates and try for the reward. Thank +you for the five thousand; it covered expenses. Very sincerely yours, + +D. MULEHAUS. + + + + +THE BLOOD OF THE DRAGON + + +BY THOMAS GRANT SPRINGER + +From _Live Stories_ + +Kan Wong, the sampan boatman, sat in the bow of his tiny craft, looking +with dream-misted eyes upon the oily, yellow flood of the Yangtze River. +Far across on the opposite shore, blurred by the mist that the alchemy +of the setting sun transmuted from miasmic vapour to a veil of gold, +rose the purple-shadowed, stone-tumbled ruins of Hang Gow, ruins that +had been a proud, walled city in the days before the Tai-ping Rebellion. + +Viewing its slowly dimming powers as they sank into the fading gold of +the mist that the coming night thickened and darkened as it wiped out +the light with a damp hand, Kan Wong dreamed over the stories that his +father's father--now revered dust somewhere off toward the hills that +dimly met the melting sky line--had told him of that ruined city, +wherein he, Kan Wong, had not Fate made men mad, would now be ruling a +lordly household, even wearing the peacock feather and embroidered +jacket that were his by right of the Dragon's blood, that blood now +hidden under the sun-browned skin of a river coolie. Kan Wong stuffed +fine-cut into his brass-bowled pipe and struck a spark from his tinder +box. Through his wide nostrils twin streamers of smoke writhed out, +twisting fantastically together and mixing slowly with the rising river +mist. His pipe became a wand of dreams summoning the genii of glorious +memory. The blood of the Dragon in his veins quickened from the lethargy +to which drudgery had cooled it, and raced hotly as he thought of the +battle past of his forefathers. Off Somewhere along the river's winding +length, where it crawled slowly to the sea, lay the great coast cities. +The lazy ripples, light-tipped, beckoned with luring fingers. There was +naught to stay him. His sampan was his home and movable, therefore the +morrow would see him turning its bow downstream to seek that strange +city where he had heard, dwelt many Foreign Devils who now and then +scattered wealth with a prodigal hand. + +In that pale hour when the mist, not yet dissipated by the rising sun, +lay in a cold, silver veil upon the night-chilled water, he pushed out +from the shore and pointed the sampan's prow downstream. Days it took +him to reach salt water. He loitered for light cargoes at village edges, +or picked up the price of his daily rice at odd tasks ashore, but +always, were it day or night for travel, his tiny craft bore surely +seaward. Mile after slow mile dropped behind him, like the praying beads +of a lama's chain, but at last the river salted slightly, and his tiny +craft was lifted by the slow swell of the sea's hand reaching for +inland. + +The river became more populous. The crowding sampans, houseboats, and +junks stretched far out into its oily, oozy flow, making a floating city +as he neared the congested life of the coast, where the ever-increasing +population failed to find ground space in its maggoty swarming. As the +stream widened until the farther bank disappeared in the artificial mist +of rising smoke and man-stirred dust, the Foreign Devils' fire junks +appeared, majestically steaming up and down--swift swans that scorned +the logy, lumbering native craft, the mat sails and toiling sweeps of +which made them appear motionless by comparison. A day or two of this +and then the coast, with Shanghai sprawling upon the bank, writhing with +life, odoriferous, noisy, perpetually awake. + +Kan Wong slid into its waterfront turmoil, an infinitesimal human atom +added to it. His tiny craft fixed itself upon the outer edge of the +wriggling river life like a coral cell attaching itself to a slow +growing atoll. From there he worked his way inshore, crawling over the +craft that stretched out from the low banks as a water beetle might move +over the flotsam and jetsam caught in the back-water of a sluggish +stream. Once in the narrow, crowded streets of the city itself, he +roamed aimlessly, open-eyed to its wonders, dreamily observant. Out of +the native quarter and into the foreign section he moved, accustoming +himself to these masters of mystery whom he was about to serve, calling +sluggish memory to his aid as his cars strove to reconstruct The meaning +of the barbarous jargon. + +Into the quarter where the Foreign Devils and the native population came +together to barter and to trade, he strayed one day. A Foreign Devil in +a strangely unattractive uniform was addressing a crowd of coolies in +their own tongue. Kan Wong attached himself to the outer edge of the +impassively curious throng, his ears alert, his features, as ever, an +imperturbable mask. The foreign officer, for such he seemed to be, was +making an offer to the assemblage for contract labour: one dollar a day, +with rice, fish, and tea rations, for work in a foreign land. Kan Wong +translated the money quickly into _yens_. The sum seemed incredible to +him. What service would he not perform for such payment? Why, within a +year, or two at the very most, with careful frugality, he might return +and buy himself a junk worthy of his Dragon dreams of the river. And +then ... + +The officer talked on, persuading, holding out the glittering lure of +profit and adventure. Kan Wong listened eagerly. He had thought there +was a ban on contract labour, but perhaps this new Republican +Government, so friendly to the Foreign Devil, had removed it. Surely one +who wore the uniform of a soldier and an officer could not thus publicly +solicit coolies without the sanction of the mandarins, or escape their +notice. + +Kan Wong studied the crowd. It contained a few Chinese soldiers, who +were obviously keeping order. He was satisfied, and edged his way closer +to the speaker. There, already, ranged to one side was a line of his own +kind, jabbering to a Celestial who put down their names on slips of rice +paper and accepted their marks, which they made with a bamboo brush, +that they bonded themselves to the adventure. Kan Wong gained the +signing table. Picking up the brush, he set his name, the name of one +of the Dragon's blood, to the contract, accepted a duplicate, and +stepped back into the waiting line. + +His pay and his rations, he was told, would begin two days hence, when +he was to report to the fire junk now lying at the dock, awaiting the +human cargo of which he was a part. Kan Wong memorized the directions as +he turned away from his instructing countryman. Of the Foreign Devil he +took no further notice. Time enough for that when he passed into +service. The God of Luck had smiled upon his boldness, and, reflecting +upon it Kan Wong turned back to the river and the sampan that had so +long been his floating home. No sentimental memories, however, clung +about it for him. Its freight of dreams he had landed here in Shanghai, +marketing them for a realization. The sampan now was but the empty shell +of a water beetle, that had crawled upon the bank into the sun of +Fortune to spill forth a dragon fly to try newly found wings of +adventure. + +He found a customer, and, with much haggling after the manner of his +kind, disposed of his boat, the last tie, if tie there was, that bound +him to his present life. Waterman he had always been, and now had come +to him the call of the Father of All Waters. The tang of the salt in his +nostrils conjured up dreams as magical as those invoked by the wand of +the poppy god. Wrapped in their rosy mantle, he walked the streets for +the next two days, and on the third he took his way to the dock where +lay the fire junk that was to bear him forth into the wonders of the +Foreign Devils' land. Larger she loomed than any he had ever seen, +larger, oh, much larger, than those which had steamed up the Yangtze in +swanlike majesty. But this huge bulk was grey--grey and squat and +powerful. Once aboard, he found it crowded with an army of chattering +coolies. They swarmed in the hold like maggots. Every inch of space was +given over to them, an army, it seemed to Kan Wong, in which he was all +but lost. + +Day after day across the waste of water the ship took its eastern way. +Never had Kan Wong dreamed there was so much water in the world. The +broad, long river that had been his life's path seemed but a narrow +trickle on the earth's face compared with this stretch of sea that never +ended, though the days ran into weeks. The land coolies chafed and found +much sickness in the swell but Kan Wong, used ever to a moving deck, +round the way none too long, and smiled softly to himself as he counted +up the dollars they were paying him for the keenest pleasure he had ever +known. + +At last land appeared. The ship swung into the dock, disclosing to the +questioning eyes of Kan Won and his kind a new strange land. In orderly +discipline they were marched off the vessel and on to the dock. But rest +was not theirs as yet, nor was this their final destination. From the +fire junk they boarded the flying iron horse of the Foreign Devils; +again they were on the move. Swiftly across the land they went, over +high mountains crowded with eternal snow, thence down upon brown, +rolling plains as wide as the flat stretches of the broad Yangtze +Valley; eastward, ever eastward, through a land sparsely peopled for all +its virgin fertility. Behind their flying progress the days +dropped--one, two, three, four, at last five; and then they entered a +more populous region. Kan Wong, his nose flattened against the glass +that held the moving picture as in a frame, wondered much at the magic +that unrolled to his never-sated eyes. Yet the journey's end was beyond +his questioning. + +Once more they came to a seaport. Marching from the carriages, once more +they beheld the sea. But this time it was different--more turbulent, +harsher, more sombre with the hint of waiting storms. Was there, then, +more than one ocean, Kan Wong asked himself? He found that it was indeed +so when once more a fire junk received them. This one was greyer than +the first that they had known. Upon her decks were guns and at her side +were other junks, low, menacing, with a demon flurry of vicious speed, +and short, squat funnels that belched dense smoke clouds. Within the +town were many Foreign Devils, all dressed alike in strange drab +uniforms; on the docks and here and there at other places they bore +arms and other unmistakable equipment of fighting men, which even Kan +Wong could not but notice. + +The grey ship moved into a cold grey fog. With it other ships as grey +and as crowded, ships that crawled with men, strange Foreign Devils who +clanked with weapons as they walked aboard. Again a waste of water, +through which the ship seemed to crawl with a caution that Kan Wong +felt, but did not understand. With it on either side, moved those other +junks--squat, menacing, standing low on the horizon, but as haunting as +dark ghosts. Where were they bound, this strangely mixed fleet? Often +Kan Wong pondered this, but gave it no tongue to his fellow-passengers, +holding a bit aloof from them by virtue of his caste. + +Again they neared the shore, where other boats, low-built and bristling +with guns, flew swiftly out to meet them like fierce ocean birds of +prey. Now they skirted high, bleak cliffs, their feet hid in a lather of +white foam; then they rounded the cliffs and passed into a storm-struck +stretch of sea through which they rolled to a more level land, off which +they cast anchor. The long ocean journey was finished at last. + +There was a frantic bustle at this port, increasing a hundredfold when +once they set foot upon the land. Men--men were everywhere; men in +various uniforms, men who spoke various tongues in a confusing babel, +yet they all seemed intent upon one purpose, the import of which Kan +Wong could but vaguely guess. All about them was endless movement, but +no confusion, and once ashore their work commenced immediately. + +From the fleet of fire junks various cargoes were to be unloaded with +all speed, and at this the coolies toiled. Numberless crates, boxes, and +bags came ashore to be stowed away in long, low buildings, or loaded +into long lines of rough, boxlike carriages that then went scurrying off +behind countless snorting and puffing fire-horses to the east, always to +the east and north. Strange engines, which the Foreign Devils saw to it +that they handled most tenderly, were also much in evidence, and always, +at all hours the uniformed men with their bristling arms and clanking +equipment crowded into the carriages and were whisked off to the east, +always to the east and north. They went with much strange shouting and, +to Kan Wong's ears, discordant sounds that they mistook for music. Yet +now and then other strings of carriages came back from the east and +north, with other men--men broken, bloody, lacking limbs, groping in +blindness, their faces twisted with pain as they were loaded into the +waiting fire-junks to recross the rough sea. + +Then came the turn of the coolies to be crowded into the boxlike +carriages and to be whisked off to the east. With them went +tools--picks, shovels, and the like--for further work, upon the nature +of which Kan Wong, unquestioning, speculated. It was a slow, broken +journey that they made. Every now and then they stopped that other +traffic might pass them, going either way; mostly the strange men in +uniforms, bristling with guns, hurrying always to the east and north. + +At last they too turned north, and as they did so the country, which had +been smiling, low, filled with soft fields and pretty, nestling houses, +little towns and quiet, orderly cities, changed to bleak fields, cut and +seared as by a simoom's angry breath. Still there were little towns--or +what had been little towns, now tumbled ruins--fire-smitten, gutted, +their windows gaping like blind eyes in the face of a twisted cripple. +Off to the east hung angry clouds from which the thunder echoed +distantly; a thunder low, grumbling, continual, menacing, and through +the clouds at night were lightning flashes of an angry red. Toward this +storm it seemed that all the men were hurrying, and so too were the +coolies of whom Kan Wong was one. Often they chattered speculatively of +the storm beyond. What did it mean? Why did the men hurry toward instead +of away from it? Truly the ways of the Foreign Devils were strange! + +As they drew nearer to the storm, the river dreams of Kan Wong returned. +This was indeed the land of the Dragon's wrath. The torn and harrowed +fields, the empty, broken towns, the distant, grumbling storm, and the +armed men, hurrying, always hurrying toward the east and north where the +clouds darkened and spread--all this was in the tales that his father's +father had told him of those fifteen mad years when the Yangtze Valley +crouched trembling under the fiery breath of the Dragon's wrath. Here +once more he saw the crumbling towers and walls of Hang Gow in fresh +rain. Here was the ruthless wreck that even nature in her fiercest mood +could never make. Truly the lure of the Dragon's blood in him was +drawing him, magnet-like, to the glory of his ancestors. + +The one who had them in charge and spoke their tongue gave them their +tools and bade them dig narrow ditches head deep. From them they ran +tunnels into deep caves hollowed out far under the ground. They burrowed +like moles, cutting galleries here and there, reinforcing them with +timbers, and lining them with a stone which they made out of dust and +water. Many they cut, stretching far back behind the ever present storm +in front of them, while from that storm cloud, in swift and unseen +lightning bolts that roared and burst and destroyed their work often as +fast as it was completed, fell death among them, who were only +labourers, not soldiers, as Kan Wong now knew those Foreign Devils in +the strange and dirty uniforms to be. + +As the storm roared on, never ceasing, it stirred the Dragon's blood in +Kan Wong's veins. The pick and shovel irked his hands as he swung them; +his palms began to itch for the weapons that the soldiers bore. Now and +then he came upon a gun where it had dropped from its owner's useless +hands. He studied its mechanism, even asking the Foreign Devil overseer +how it was worked, and, being shown, he remembered and practised its use +whenever opportunity offered. He took to talking with his +fellow-workers, some of whom had themselves fought with the rebels of +New China, who, with just such Foreign Devils' tools, had clipped the +claws of the Manchu Dragon, freeing the Celestial Kingdom forever from +its crooked grip. He took much interest in these war implements. He +became more intimate and friendly with his fellows, feeling them now to +be brothers in a danger that had awakened the soldier soul beneath the +brown of his coolie skin. + +Little could he make of all the strife about him. All of which he was +sure was that this was the Dragon's Field, and he, a Son of the Dragon, +had been guided to it to fulfil a destiny his forefathers had begun in +the Yangtze Valley when with the "Hairy Rebels" they had waged such war +as this. The flying death all about him that now and then claimed toll +of one of his own kind was but a part of it; but all the time he grew to +hate his humble work and long for a part, a real part, in the fighting +that raged ahead, where an unseen enemy, of whom he grew to think as his +own, hurled destruction among them. Often he spoke of this to the gang +under him, imbuing them with the spirit of the Dragon's blood that, +eager to fulfil its destiny, once more boiled within him. + +Then one day the storm grew more furious. The thunder was a continual +roll, and both from the front and rear flew the whining lightning bolts, +spewing out death and destruction. Many a coolie fell, his dust buried +under the dust of this fierce foreign land, never to be returned and +mixed with that of his own Flowery Kingdom. Now and then came "stink +pots," filling the air with such foul vapours that men coughed out their +lives in the putrid fumes. The breath of the Dragon, fresh from his +awful mouth, was wrapped about them in hot wrath. + +Past them the soldiers streamed, foul with fight, their hot guns +spitting viciously back into the rolling, pungent grey fog that followed +them malignantly. Confusion reigned, and in that confusion a perfect +riot of death. On all sides the soldiers fell, blighted by the Dragon's +breath. The coolies crouched in the heaped-up ruins of their newly dug +ditches, knowing not which way to turn, bereft of leadership since the +Foreign Devil who commanded them was gone, buried beneath a pile of +earth where a giant cracker had fallen. + +Suddenly Kan Wong noticed that there were no more soldiers save only +those who lay writhing or in still, twisted heaps upon the harrowed +ground. The coolie crowd huddled here alone, clutching their futile +picks and shovels, grovelling in helpless panic. Disaster had overtaken +them. The Dragon was upon them, and they were unprotected. All about +them in scattered heaps lay discarded equipment, guns, even the +sharp-barking death-spitting, tiny instrument that the soldiers handled +so lovingly and so gently when it was not in action. But those who +manned the weapons had passed on, back through the thick curtain of +smoke that hung between them and the comparative safety of the rear. + +Kan Wong's eyes were ahead, striving to pierce the pungent veil that hid +the enemy. Suddenly his keen eyes noted them--the strange uniforms and +stranger faces, ducking forward here and there through the hell of their +own making. The blood of the Dragon within him boiled up, now that the +enemy was really near enough to feel the teeth and claws of the Dragon's +whelps. This was the hour for which he had lived. This was the Tai-ping +glory come again for him to share. Reaching down, he picked up the rifle +of a fallen soldier, fondled its mechanism lovingly for a moment, and +then, cuddling it tenderly beneath his chin, his finger bade it spit +death at the misty grey figures crawling through the greyer fog in +front. + +When the magazine was exhausted he filled it with fresh clips and turned +with the authority he had always wielded, and a new one that they +instantly recognized, upon his shivering countrymen. + +"What are ye?" he yelled with withering scorn. "Sons of pigs who root in +the dung of this Foreign Devil's land, or men of the Dragon's blood? Are +ye the scum of the Yangtze River or honourable descendants of the Hairy +Rebels? Would ye avenge your brothers who have choked to death in the +breath of the stink-pots that have been flung among us? Will ye let +escape this horde of Foreign Devil enemies who have hurled at us giant +crackers that have spit death, now that they are near enough to feel how +the Dragon's blood can strike? Here are the Dragon's claws!" He waved +his bayoneted gun aloft. "Will ye die like men, or like slinking rats +stamped into the earth? All who are not cowards--come!" He waved the way +through the smoke to the grey figures emerging from it. + +The Chinaman is no coward when once aroused. Death he faces as he faces +life, stoically, imperturbably. The coolies, reaching for the nearest +weapons, followed the man who showed the Dragon's blood. Many of them +understood the use of arms, having borne them for New China. Death was +upon them, and they went to meet it with death in their hands. + +Kan Wong dragged up an uninjured machine gun the crew of which lay about +it. Fitting the bands of cartridges as he had seen the gunners do, he +turned the crank and swung it round on its revolving tripod. Before its +vicious rain he saw the grey figures fall, and a great joy welled up in +his breast. He signalled for other belts and worked the gun faster. +Round him the coolies rallied; others beyond the sound of his voice +joined in from pure instinct. The grey figures wavered, hesitated, +melted back into the smoke, and then strove to work around the fire of +the death-spitting group. But the Dragon's blood was up, the voice of +the Dragon's son cheered and directed the snarling, roused whelps to +whom war was an old, old trade, forgotten, and now remembered in this +strange, wild land. The joy of slaughter came savagely upon them. The +death that they had received they now gave back. In the place the white +men had fled, the yellow men now stood, descendants of the Tai-pings, as +fierce and wild as their once Hairy brothers. + +Meanwhile, behind them the retreating line halted, stiffened by hurried +reinforcements. The officers rallied their men, paused and looked back +through the smoke. The line had given way and they must meet the +oncoming wave. Quickly reforming, they picked their ground for a stand +and waited. The moments passed, but no sign of the victors. + +"What the hell is up?" snarled one of the reinforcing officers. "I +thought the line had given way." + +"It has," replied the panting, battle-torn commander. "My men are all +back here; there's no one in front but the enemy!" + +"What's that ahead, then?" The sharp bark of rifles, the _rat-a-tat_ of +machine guns, the boom of bursting grenades, and the yells, groans, +screams and shouts of the hand-to-hand conflict came through the +curtaining smoke in a mad jumble of savage sound. + +"Damned if I know! We'd better find out!" They began moving their now +rallied men back into it. + +Suddenly they came upon it--a writhing mass of jeans-clad coolies, +wild-eyed, their teeth bared in devilish, savage grins, their hands busy +with the implements of death, standing doggedly at bay before grey waves +that broke upon them as a sullen sea breaks and recedes before a jutting +point of land ... + +With the reinforcements the tide turned, ebbing back in a struggling, +writhing fury, and soon the ground was clear again of all save the wreck +that such a wave leaves behind it. Once the line was re-established and +the soldiers holding it steadily, the coolies, once more the wielders of +pick and shovel, returned to the work of trench repairing, leaving the +fighting to those to whom it belonged. + +The officers were puzzled. What had started them? What had injected that +mad fighting spirit into their yellow hides? What had caused them to +make that swift, wild, wonderful stand? + +"Hey, you, John!" The commanding officer addressed one of them when a +lull came and they were busy again at the tumbled earth. "What you fight +for, hey?" + +The coolie grinned foolishly. + +"Him say fight. Him heap big man, alle same have Dlagon's blood. Him say +fight, we fight, _sabe_?" And he pointed to Kan Wong--Kan Wong, his head +bleeding from a wound, his eyes glowing with a green fury from between +their narrow lids, his long, strong hands, red with blood other than his +own, still clutching his rifle with a grip that had a tenderly savage +joy _in_ it. + +The officer approached him. + +"Are you the man who rallied the coolies and held the line?" he asked +shortly. + +Kan Wong stiffened with a dignity to which he now felt he had a right. + +"Me fight," he said quietly--"me fight, coolie fight, too. Me belong +Dlagon's blood. One time my people fighting men; long time I wait." + +"You'll wait no longer," said the officer. He unpinned the cross from +his tunic and fastened it to the torn, bloody blouse of Kan Wong. "Off +to the east are men of your own race, fighting-men from China, +Cochin-China. That is the place for a man of the Dragon's blood--and +that is the tool that belongs in your hand till we're done with this +mess." He pointed to the rifle that Kan Wong still held with a stiff, +loving, lingering grip. + +And so, on the other side of the world, the son of the Dragon came to +his own and realized the dreams of a glory he had missed. + + + + +"HUMORESQUE" + + +By FANNIE HURST + +From _Cosmopolitan_ + +On either side of the Bowery, which cuts through like a drain to catch +its sewage, Every Man's Land, a reeking march of humanity and humidity, +steams with the excrement of seventeen languages, flung in _patois_ from +tenement windows, fire-escapes, curbs, stoops, and cellars whose walls +are terrible and spongy with fungi. + +By that impregnable chemistry of race whereby the red blood of the +Mongolian and the red blood of the Caucasian become as oil and water in +the mingling, Mulberry Street, bounded by sixteen languages, runs its +intact Latin length of push-carts, clothes-lines, naked babies, drying +vermicelli; black-eyed women in rhinestone combs and perennially big +with child; whole families of button-hole makers, who first saw the +blue-and-gold light of Sorrento, bent at home work around a single gas +flare; pomaded barbers of a thousand Neapolitan amours. And then, just +as suddenly, almost without osmosis and by the mere stepping-down from +the curb, Mulberry becomes Mott Street, hung in grill-work balconies, +the mouldy smell of poverty touched up with incense. Orientals, whose +feet shuffle and whose faces are carved out of satinwood. Forbidden +women, their white, drugged faces behind upper windows. Yellow children, +incongruous enough in Western clothing. A drafty areaway with an oblique +of gaslight and a black well of descending staircase. Show-windows of +jade and tea and Chinese porcelains. + +More streets emanating out from Mott like a handful of crooked, +rheumatic fingers, then suddenly the Bowery again, cowering beneath +elevated trains, where men, burned down to the butt end of soiled lives, +pass in and out and out and in of the knee-high swinging doors--a +veiny-nosed, acid-eaten race in themselves. + +Allen Street, too, still more easterly and half as wide, is straddled +its entire width by the steely, long-legged skeleton of elevated +traffic, so that its third-floor windows no sooner shudder into silence +from the rushing shock of one train than they are shaken into chatter by +the passage of another. Indeed, third-floor dwellers of Allen Street, +reaching out, can almost touch the serrated edges of the elevated +structure, and in summer the smell of its hot rails becomes an actual +taste in the mouth. Passengers, in turn, look in upon this horizontal of +life as they whiz by. Once, in fact, the blurry figure of what might +have been a woman leaned out as she passed to toss into one Abrahm +Kantor's apartment a short-stemmed pink carnation. It hit softly on +little Leon Kantor's crib, brushing him fragrantly across the mouth and +causing him to pucker up. + +Beneath, where, even in August noonday, the sun cannot find its way by a +chink, and babies lie stark naked in the cavernous shade, Allen Street +presents a sort of submarine and greenish gloom, as if its humanity were +actually moving through a sea of aqueous shadows, faces rather bleached +and shrunk from sunlessness as water can bleach and shrink. And then, +like a shimmering background of orange-finned and copper-flanked marine +life, the brass shops of Allen Street, whole rows of them, burn +flamelessly and without benefit of fuel. + +To enter Abrahm Kantor's--Brasses--was three steps down, so that his +casement show-window, at best filmed over with the constant rain of dust +ground down from the rails above, was obscure enough, but crammed with +the copied loot of khedive and of czar. The seven-branch candlestick so +Biblical and supplicating of arms. An urn, shaped like Rebecca's, of +brass all beaten over with little poks. Things: cups, trays, knockers, +ikons, gargoyles, bowls, and teapots. A symphony of bells in graduated +sizes. Jardinières with fat sides. A pot-bellied samovar. A swinging +lamp for the dead, star-shaped. Against the door, an octave of tubular +chimes, prisms of voiceless harmony and of heatless light. + +Opening this door, they rang gently, like melody heard through water +and behind glass. Another bell rang, too, in tilted singsong from a +pulley operating somewhere in the catacomb rear of this lambent vale of +things and things and things. In turn, this pulley set in toll still +another bell, two flights up in Abrahm Kantor's tenement, which +overlooked the front of whizzing rails and a rear wilderness of +gibbet-looking clothes-lines, dangling perpetual specters of flapping +union suits in a mid-air flaky with soot. + +Often at lunch, or even the evening meal, this bell would ring in on +Abrahm Kantor's digestive well-being, and while he hurried down, napkin +often bib-fashion still about his neck, and into the smouldering lanes +of copper, would leave an eloquent void at the head of his +well-surrounded table. + +This bell was ringing now, jingling in upon the slumber of a still newer +Kantor, snuggling peacefully enough within the ammoniac depths of a +cradle recently evacuated by Leon, heretofore impinged upon you. + +On her knees before an oven that billowed forth hotly into her face, +Mrs. Kantor, fairly fat and not yet forty, and at the immemorial task of +plumbing a delicately swelling layer-cake with broom-straw, raised her +face, reddened and faintly moist. + +"Isadore, run down and say your papa is out until six. If it's a +customer, remember the first asking-price is the two middle figures on +the tag, and the last asking-price is the two outside figures. See once, +with your papa out to buy your little brother his birthday present, and +your mother in a cake, if you can't make a sale for first price." + +Isadore Kantor, aged eleven and hunched with a younger Kantor over an +oilcloth-covered table, hunched himself still deeper in barter for a +large crystal marble with a candy stripe down its center. + +"Izzie, did you hear me?" + +"Yes'm." + +"Go down this minute--do you hear? Rudolph, stop always letting your big +brother get the best of you in marbles. Iz-zy!" + +"In--a--minute." + +"Don't let me have to ask you again, Isadore Kantor!" + +"Aw, ma; I got some 'rithmetic to do. Let Esther go." + +"Always Esther! Your sister stays right in the front room with her +spelling." + +"Aw, ma; I got spelling, too." + +"Every time I ask that boy he should do me one thing, right away he gets +lessons! With me, that lessons-talk don't go no more. Every time you get +put down in school, I'm surprised there's a place left lower where they +can put you. Working-papers for such a boy like you!" + +"I'll woik--" + +"How I worried myself! Violin lessons yet--thirty cents lesson out of +your papa's pants while he slept! That's how I wanted to have in the +family a profession--maybe a musician on the violin. Lessons for you out +of money I had to lie to your papa about! Honest, when I think of it--my +own husband--it's a wonder I don't potch you just for remembering it. +Rudolph, will you stop licking that cake-pan? It's saved for your little +brother Leon. Ain't you ashamed even on your little brother's birthday +to steal from him?" + +"Ma, gimme the spoon?" + +"I'll give you the spoon, Isadore Kantor, where you don't want it. If +you don't hurry down the way that bell is ringing, not one bite out of +your little brother's birthday-cake to-night!" + +"I'm goin', ain't I?" + +"Always on my children's birthdays a meanness sets into this house! +Ru-dolph, will you put down that bowl? Iz-zy--for the last time I ask +you--for the last time--" + +Erect now, Mrs. Kantor lifted a portentous hand, letting it hover. + +"I'm goin', ma; for golly sakes, I'm goin'!" said her recalcitrant one, +shuffling off toward the staircase, shuffling, shuffling. + +Then Mrs. Kantor resumed her plumbing, and through the little apartment, +its middle and only bedroom of three beds and a crib lighted vicariously +by the front room and kitchen, began to wind the warm, the golden-brown +fragrance of cake in the rising. + +By six o'clock, the shades were drawn against the dirty dusk of Allen +Street, and the oilcloth-covered table dragged out center and spread by +Esther Kantor, nine in years, in the sturdy little legs bulging over +shoe-tops, in the pink cheeks that sagged slightly of plumpness, and in +the utter roundness of face and gaze, but mysteriously older in the +little-mother lore of crib and knee-dandling ditties and in the ropy +length and thickness of the two brown plaits down her back. + +There was an eloquence to that waiting, laid-out table, the print of the +family already gathered about it; the dynastic high chair, throne of +each succeeding Kantor; an armchair drawn up before the paternal +moustache-cup; the ordinary kitchen chair of Mannie Kantor, who spilled +things, an oilcloth sort of bib dangling from its back; the little chair +of Leon Kantor, cushioned in an old family album that raised his chin +above the table. Even in cutlery, the Kantor family was not lacking in +variety. Surrounding a centerpiece of thick Russian lace were Russian +spoons washed in washed-off gilt, forks of one, two, and three tines. +Steel knives with black handles. A hart's-horn carving-knife. +Thick-lipped china in stacks before the armchair. A round +four-pound-loaf of black bread waiting to be torn, and to-night, on the +festive mat of cotton lace, a cake of pinkly gleaming icing, encircled +with five pink little twisted candles. + +At slightly after six, Abrahm Kantor returned, leading by a resisting +wrist Leon Kantor, his stemlike little legs, hit midship, as it were, by +not sufficiently cut-down trousers and so narrow and birdlike of face +that his eyes quite obliterated the remaining map of his features, like +those of a still wet nestling. All except his ears. They poised at the +sides of Leon's shaved head of black bristles, as if butterflies had +just lighted there, whispering, with very spread wings, their message, +and presently would fly off again. By some sort of muscular contraction, +he could wiggle these ears at will, and would do so for a penny, a +whistle, and upon one occasion for his brother Rudolph's dead rat, so +devised as to dangle from string and window before the unhappy +passer-by. They were quivering now, these ears, but because the entire +little face was twitching back tears and gulp of sobs. + +"Abrahm--Leon--what is it?" Her hands and her forearms instantly out +from the business of kneading something meaty and floury, Mrs. Kantor +rushed forward, her glance quick from one to the other of them. "Abrahm, +what's wrong?" + +"I'll feedle him! I'll feedle him!" + +The little pulling wrist still in clutch, Mr. Kantor regarded his wife, +the lower half of his face, well covered with reddish bristles, +undershot, his free hand and even his eyes violently lifted. To those +who see in a man a perpetual kinship to that animal kingdom of which he +is supreme, there was something undeniably anthropoidal about Abrahm +Kantor, a certain simian width between the eyes and long, rather agile +hands with hairy backs. + +"Hush it!" cried Mr. Kantor, his free hand raised in threat of descent +and cowering his small son to still more undersized proportions. "Hush +it, or, by golly, I'll--" + +"Abrahm--Abrahm--what is it?" + +Then Mr. Kantor gave vent in acridity of word and feature. + +"_Schlemmil!_" he cried. "_Momser! Ganef! Nebich!_" By which Abrahm +Kantor, in smiting mother tongue, branded his offspring with attributes +of apostate and ne'er-do-well, of idiot and thief. + +"Abrahm!" + +"_Schlemmil!_" repeated Mr. Abrahm, swinging Leon so that he described a +large semi-circle that landed him into the meaty and waiting embrace of +his mother. "Take him! You should be proud of such a little _Momser_ for +a son! Take him--and here you got back his birthday dollar. A feedle! +Honest--when I think on it--a feedle!" + +Such a rush of outrage seemed fairly to strangle Mr. Kantor that he +stood, hand still upraised, choking and inarticulate above the now +frankly howling huddle of his son. + +"Abrahm you should just once touch this child! How he trembles! +Leon--mamma's baby--what is it--is this how you come back when papa +takes out to buy your birthday present? Ain't you ashamed?" + +Mouth distended to a large and blackly hollow O, Leon between terrifying +spells of breath-holding, continued to howl. + +"All the way to Naftel's toy store I drag him. A birthday present for a +dollar his mother wants he should have--all right, a birthday present! I +give you my word till I'm ashamed for Naftel, every toy on his shelves +is pulled down. Such a cow--that shakes with his head--" + +"No--no--no!" This from young Leon, beating at his mother's skirts. + +Again the upraised but never quite descending hand of his father. + +"By golly, I'll 'no--no' you!" + +"Abrahm--go way! Baby, what did papa do?" + +Then Mr. Kantor broke into an actual tarantella of rage, his hands palms +up and dancing. + +"'What did papa do?' she asks. She's got easy asking. 'What did papa +do?' The whole shop, I tell you. A sheep with a baa inside when you +squeeze on him--games--a horn so he can holler my head off--such a knife +like Izzy's with a scissors in it! 'Leon,' I said, ashamed for Naftel, +'that's a fine knife like Izzy's so you can cut up with.' 'All right +then'--when I see how he hollers--'such a box full of soldiers to have +war with.' 'Dollar seventy-five,' says Naftel. 'All right then,' I +says--when I seen how he keeps hollering--'give you a dollar fifteen for +'em.' I should make myself small for fifteen cents more. 'Dollar +fifteen,' I says--anything so he should shut up with his hollering for +what he seen in the window." + +"He seen something in the window he wanted, Abrahm?" + +"Didn't I tell you? A feedle! A four-dollar feedle! A moosiker, so we +should have another feedler in the family for some thirty-cents +lessons." + +"Abrahm--you mean--he--our Leon--wanted a violin?" + +"'Wanted,' she says. I could potch him again this minute for how he +wanted it! _Du_--you little bum you--_Chammer_--_Momser_--I'll feedle +you!" + +Across Mrs. Kantor's face as she knelt there in the shapeless +cotton-stuff uniform of poverty, through the very tenement of her body, +a light had flashed up into her eyes. She drew her son closer, crushing +his puny cheek up against hers, cupping his bristly little head in her +by no means immaculate palms. + +"He wanted a violin--it's come, Abrahm! The dream of all my life--it's +come! I knew it must be one of my children if I waited long enough--and +prayed enough. A musician! He wants a violin. He cried for a violin. My +baby! Why, darlink, mamma'll sell her clothes off her back to get you a +violin. He's a musician, Abrahm! I should have known it the way he's +fooling always around the chimes and the bells in the store!" + +Then Mrs. Kantor took to rocking his head between her palms. + +"_Oi--oi!_ The mother is crazier as her son. A moosican! A _Fresser_ you +mean. Such an eater, it's a wonder he ain't twice too big instead of +twice too little for his age." + +"That's a sign, Abrahm; they all eat big. For all we know he's a genius. +I swear to you, Abrahm, all the months before he was born, I prayed for +it. Each one before they came, I prayed it should be the one. I thought +that time the way our Isadore ran after the organ-grinder he would be +the one. How could I know it was the monkey he wanted? When Isadore +wouldn't take it, I prayed my next one and then my next one should have +the talent. I've prayed for it, Abrahm. If he wants a violin, please, he +should have it." + +"Not with my money." + +"With mine! I've got enough saved, Abrahm. Them three extra dollars +right here inside my own waist, that I saved toward that cape down on +Grand Street. I wouldn't have it now the way they say the wind blows up +them--" + +"I tell you the woman's crazy!" + +"I feel it! I know he's got talent! I know my children so well. A--a +father don't understand. I'm so next to them. It's like I can tell +always everything that will happen to them--it's like a pain--somewheres +here--in back of my heart." + +"A pain in the heart she gets!" + +"For my own children I'm always a prophet, I tell you. You think I +didn't know that--that terrible night after the pogrom after we got out +of Kief to cross the border! You remember, Abrahm, how I predicted it to +you then--how our Mannie would be born too soon and--and not right from +my suffering? Did it happen on the ship to America just the way I said +it would? Did it happen just exactly how I predicted our Izzy would +break his leg that time playing on the fire-escape? I tell you, Abrahm, +I get a real pain here under my heart that tells me what comes to my +children. Didn't I tell you how Esther would be the first in her +confirmation-class and our baby Boris would be red-headed? At only five +years, our Leon all by himself cries for a fiddle--get it for him, +Abrahm--get it for him!" + +"I tell you, Sarah, I got a crazy woman for a wife! It ain't enough we +celebrate eight birthdays a year with one-dollar presents each time and +copper goods every day higher. It ain't enough that right to-morrow I +got a fifty-dollar note over me from Sol Ginsberg--a four-dollar present +she wants for a child that don't even know the name of a feedle!" + +"Leon baby, stop hollering--papa will go back and get the fiddle for you +now before supper. See--mamma's got money here in her waist--" + +"Papa will go back for the feedle not--three dollars she's saved for +herself he can holler out of her for a feedle!" + +"Abrahm, he's screaming so he--he'll have a fit." + +"He should have two fits." + +"Darlink--" + +"I tell you the way you spoil your children it will some day come back +on us." + +"It's his birthday night, Abrahm--five years since his little head +first lay on the pillow next to me." + +"All right--all right--drive me crazy because he's got a birthday." + +"Leon baby--if you don't stop hollering you'll make yourself sick. +Abrahm, I never saw him like this--he's green--" + +"I'll green him. Where is that old feedle from Isadora--that +seventy-five-cents one?" + +"I never thought of that! You broke it that time you got mad at +Isadore's lessons. I'll run down. Maybe it's with the junk behind the +store. I never thought of that fiddle, Leon darlink--wait--mamma'll run +down and look--wait, Leon, till mamma finds you a fiddle." + +The raucous screams stopped then suddenly, and on their very lustiest +crest, leaving an echoing gash across silence. On willing feet of haste, +Mrs. Kantor wound down backward the high, ladderlike staircase that led +to the brass shop. + +Meanwhile, to a gnawing consciousness of dinner-hour, had assembled the +house of Kantor. Attuned to the intimate atmosphere of the tenement +which is so constantly rent with cry of child, child-bearing, delirium, +delirium-tremens, Leon Kantor had howled no impression into the motley +din of things. Isadore, already astride his chair, well into +center-table, for first vociferous tear at the four-pound loaf; Esther +Kantor, old at chores, settled an infant into the high chair, careful of +tiny fingers in lowering the wooden bib. + +"Papa, Izzy's eating first again." + +"Put down that loaf and wait until your mother dishes up or you'll get a +potch you won't soon forget." + +"Say, pop--" + +"Don't 'say pop' me! I don't want no street-bum freshness from you!" + +"I mean, papa, there was an uptown swell in, and she bought one of them +seventy-five-cent candlesticks for the first price," + +"_Schlemmil--Chammer!_" said Mr. Kantor, rinsing his hands at the sink. +"Didn't I always tell you it's the first price times two when you see +up-town business come in? Haven't I learned it to you often enough a +slummer must pay for her nosiness?" + +There entered then, on poor shuffling feet, Mannie Kantor so marred in +the mysterious and ceramic process of life that the brain and the soul +had stayed back sooner than inhabit him. Seventeen in years, in the down +upon his face, and in growth unretarded by any great nervosity of +system, his vacuity of face was not that of childhood but rather as if +his light eyes were peering out from some hinterland and wanting so +terribly and so dumbly to communicate what they beheld to brain-cells +closed against himself. + +At sight of Mannie, Leon Kantor, the tears still wetly and dirtily down +his cheeks, left off his black, fierce-eyed stare of waiting long enough +to smile, darkly, it is true, but sweetly. + +"Giddy-ap!" he cried. "Giddy-ap!" + +And then Mannie, true to habit, would scamper and scamper. + +Up out of the traplike stair-opening came the head of Mrs. Kantor, +disheveled and a smudge of soot across her face, but beneath her arm, +triumphant, a violin of one string and a broken back. + +"See, Leon--what mamma got! A violin! A fiddle! Look--the bow, too, I +found. It ain't much, baby, but it's a fiddle." + +"Aw, ma--that's my old violin--gimme--I want it--where'd you find--" + +"Hush up, Izzy! This ain't yours no more. See, Leon, what mamma brought +you! A violin!" + +"Now, you little _Chammer_, you got a feedle, and if you ever let me +hear you holler again for a feedle, by golly if I don't--" + +From his corner, Leon Kantor reached out, taking the instrument and +fitting it beneath his chin, the bow immediately feeling, surely and +lightly for string. + +"Look, Abrahm! He knows how to hold it! What did I tell you? A child +that never in his life seen a fiddle, except a beggar's on the street!" + +Little Esther suddenly cantered down-floor, clapping her chubby hands. + +"Looky--looky--Leon!" + +The baby ceased clattering his spoon against the wooden bib. A silence +seemed to shape itself. + +So black and so bristly of head, his little clawlike hands hovering over +the bow, Leon Kantor withdrew a note, strangely round and given up +almost sobbingly from the single string. A note of warm twining quality, +like a baby's finger. + +"Leon--darlink!" + +Fumbling for string and for notes the instrument could not yield up to +him, the birdlike mouth began once more to open widely and terribly into +the orificial O. + +It was then Abrahm Kantor came down with a large hollow resonance of +palm against the aperture, lifting his small son and depositing him plop +upon the family album. + +"Take that! By golly, one more whimper out of you and if I don't make +you black-and-blue, birthday or no birthday! Dish up, Sarah, quick, or +I'll give him something to cry about." + +The five pink candles had been lighted, burning pointedly and with +slender little smoke wisps. Regarding them owlishly, the tears dried on +Leon's face, his little tongue licking up at them. + +"Look how solemn he is, like he was thinking of something a million +miles away except how lucky he is he should have a pink birthday-cake! +Uh--uh--uh! Don't you begin to holler again--Here, I'm putting the +feedle next to you--uh--uh--uh!" + +To a meal plentifully ladled out directly from stove to table, the +Kantor family drew up, dipping first into the rich black soup of the +occasion. All except Mrs. Kantor. + +"Esther, you dish up; I'm going somewhere. I'll be back in a minute." + +"Where you going, Sarah? Won't it keep until--" + +But even in the face of query, Sarah Kantor was two flights down and +well through the lambent aisles of the copper shop. Outside, she broke +into a run, through two blocks of the indescribable bazaar atmosphere of +Grand Street, then one block to the right. + +Before Naftel's show-window, a jet of bright gas burned into a +jibberwock land of toys. There was that in Sarah Kantor's face that was +actually lyrical, as, fumbling at the bosom of her dress, she entered. + +To Leon Kantor, by who knows what symphonic scheme of things, life was a +chromatic scale, yielding up to him through throbbing, living nerves of +sheep-gut, the sheerest semitones of man's emotions. + +When he tucked his Stradivarius beneath his chin, the Book of Life +seemed suddenly translated to him in melody. Even Sarah Kantor, who +still brewed for him, on a small portable stove carried from city to +city and surreptitiously unpacked in hotel suites, the blackest of +soups, and, despite his protestation, would incase his ears of nights in +an old home-made device against their flightiness, would often times +bleed inwardly at this sense of his isolation. + +There was a realm into which he went alone, leaving her as detached as +the merest ticket purchaser at the box-office. + +At seventeen, Leon Kantor had played before the crowned heads of Europe, +the aching heads of American capital, and even the shaved head of a +South Sea prince. There was a layout of anecdotal gifts, from the molar +tooth of the South Sea prince set in a South Sea pearl to a +blue-enamelled snuff-box encrusted with the rearing-lion coat of arms of +a very royal house. + +At eighteen, came the purchase of a king's Stradivarius for a king's +ransom, and acclaimed by Sunday supplements to repose of nights in an +ivory cradle. + +At nineteen, under careful auspices of press-agent, the ten singing +digits of the son of Abrahm Kantor were insured at ten thousand dollars +the finger. + +At twenty, he had emerged surely and safely from the perilous quicksands +which have sucked down whole Lilliputian worlds of infant prodigies. + +At twenty-one, when Leon Kantor played a Sunday-night concert, there was +a human queue curling entirely around the square block of the +opera-house, waiting its one, two, even three and four hours for the +privilege of standing-room only. + +Usually these were Leon Kantor's own people pouring up from the lowly +lands of the East Side to the white lands of Broadway, parched for +music, these burning brethren of his--old men in that line, frequently +carrying their own little folding camp-chairs, not against weariness of +the spirit but of the flesh; youth with Slavic eyes and cheek-bones. +These were the six-deep human phalanx which would presently slant down +at him from tiers of steepest balconies and stand frankly emotional and +jammed in the unreserved space behind the railing which shut them off +from the three-dollar seats of the reserved. + +At a very special one of these concerts, dedicated to the meager purses +of just these, and held in New York's super-opera-house, the +Amphitheater, a great bowl of humanity, the metaphor made perfect by +tiers of seats placed upon the stage, rose from orchestra to dome. A +gigantic Colosseum of a cup, lined in stacks and stacks of faces. From +the door of his dressing-room, leaning out, Leon Kantor could see a +great segment of it, buzzing down into adjustment, orchestra twitting +and tuning into it. + +In a bare little room, illuminated by a sheaf of roses just arrived, +Mrs. Kantor drew him back by the elbow. + +"Leon, you're in a draft." + +The amazing years had dealt kindly with Mrs. Kantor. Stouter, softer, +apparently even taller, she was full of small new authorities that could +shut out cranks, newspaper reporters, and autograph fiends. A +fitted-over-corsets black taffeta and a high comb in the greying hair +had done their best with her. Pride, too, had left its flush upon her +cheeks, like two round spots of fever. + +"Leon, it's thirty minutes till your first number. Close that door. Do +you want to let your papa and his excitement in on you?" + +The son of Sarah Kantor obeyed, leaning on his short, rather narrow form +in silhouette against the closed door. In spite of slimly dark evening +clothes worked out by an astute manager to the last detail in boyish +effects, there was that about him which defied long-haired precedent. +Slimly and straightly he had shot up into an unmannered, a short, even +a bristly-haired young manhood, disqualifying by a close shave for the +older school of hirsute virtuosity. + +But his nerves did not spare him. On concert nights they seemed to +emerge almost to the surface of him and shriek their exposure. + +"Just feel my hands, ma. Like ice." + +She dived down into her large silk what-not of a reticule. + +"I've got your fleece-lined gloves here, son." + +"No--no. For God's--sake--not those things! No!" + +He was back at the door again, opening it to a slit, peering through. + +"They're bringing more seats on the stage. If they crowd me in I won't +go on. I can't play if I hear them breathe. Hi--out there--no more +chairs--pa--Hancock--" + +"Leon, Leon, ain't you ashamed to get so worked up? Close that door. +Have you got a manager who is paid just to see to your comfort? When +papa comes, I'll have him go out and tell Hancock you don't want chairs +so close to you. Leon, will you mind mamma and sit down?" + +"It's a bigger house than the royal concert in Madrid, ma. Why, I never +saw anything like it! It's a stampede. God, this is real--this is what +gets me, playing for my own! I should have given a concert like this +three years ago. I'll do it every year now. I'd rather play before them +than all the crowned heads on earth. It's the biggest night of my +life--they're rioting out there, ma--rioting to get in." + +"Leon, Leon, won't you sit down if mamma begs you to?" + +He sat then, strumming with all ten fingers upon his knees. + +"Try to get quiet, son. Count--like you always do. One--two--three--" + +"Please ma--for God's sake--please--please!" + +"Look--such beautiful roses! From Sol Ginsberg, an old friend of papa's +he used to buy brasses from eighteen years ago. Six years he's been +away with his daughter in Munich. Such a beautiful mezzo, they say, +engaged already for Metropolitan next season." + +"I hate it, ma, if they breathe on my neck." + +"Leon darlink, did mamma promise to fix it? Have I ever let you plan a +concert where you wouldn't be comfortable?" + +His long, slim hands suddenly prehensile and cutting a long, upward +gesture, Leon Kantor rose to his feet, face whitening. + +"Do it now! Now, I tell you! I won't have them breathe on me. Do you +hear me? Now! Now! Now!" + +Risen also, her face soft and tremulous for him, Mrs. Kantor put out a +gentle, a sedative hand upon his sleeve. + +"Son," she said, with an edge of authority even behind her smile, "don't +holler at me." + +He grasped her hand with his two, and, immediately quiet, placed a close +string of kisses along it. + +"Mamma," he said, kissing them again and again into the palm, +"mamma--mamma!" + +"I know, son; it's nerves." + +"They eat me, ma. Feel--I'm like ice. I didn't mean it; you know I +didn't mean it." + +"My baby," she said, "my wonderful boy, it's like I can never get used +to the wonder of having you! The greatest one of them all should be +mine--a plain woman's like mine!" + +He teased her, eager to conciliate and ride down his own state of +quivering. + +"Now, ma--now--now--don't forget Rimsky!" + +"'Rimsky!' A man three times your age who was playing concerts before +you was born! Is that a comparison? From your clippings-books I can show +Rimsky who the world considers the greatest violinist. Rimsky he rubs +into me!" + +"All right then, the press-clippings, but did Elsass, the greatest +manager of them all, bring me a contract for thirty concerts at two +thousand a concert? Now I've got you! Now!" + +She would not meet his laughter. + +"'Elsass!' Believe me, he'll come to you yet. My boy should worry if he +makes fifty thousand a year more or less. Rimsky should have that +honour--for so long as he can hold it. But he won't hold it long. +Believe me, I don't rest easy in my bed till Elsass comes after you. Not +for so big a contract like Rimsky's, but bigger--not for thirty concerts +but for fifty!" + +"_Brava! Brava!_ There's a woman for you. More money than she knows what +to do with, and then not satisfied!" + +She was still too tremulous for banter. + +"'Not satisfied?' Why, Leon, I never stop praying my thanks for you!" + +"All right then," he cried, laying his icy fingers on her cheek; +"to-morrow we'll call a _Mignon_--a regular old-fashioned Allen Street +prayer-party!" + +"Leon, you mustn't make fun." + +"Make fun of the sweetest girl in this room?" + +"'Girl!' Ah, if I could only hold you by me this way, Leon! Always a +boy--with me--your poor old mother--your only girl. That's a fear I +suffer with, Leon--to lose you to a--girl! That's how selfish the mother +of such a wonder-child like mine can get to be." + +"All right. Trying to get me married off again. Nice! Fine!" + +"Is it any wonder I suffer, son? Twenty-one years to have kept you by me +a child. A boy that's never in his life was out after midnight except to +catch trains. A boy that never has so much as looked at a girl and could +have looked at princesses. To have kept you all these years--mine--is it +any wonder, son, I never stop praying my thanks for you? You don't +believe Hancock, son, the way he keeps teasing you always you should +have a--what he calls--affair--a love-affair? Such talk is not nice, +Leon--an affair!" + +"Love-affair poppycock!" said Leon Kantor, lifting his mothers face and +kissing her on eyes about ready to tear. "Why, I've got something, ma, +right here in my heart for you that--" + +"Leon, be careful your shirt-front!" + +"That's so--so what you call 'tender,' for my best sweetheart that +I--oh, love affair--poppycock!" + +She would not let her tears come. "My boy--my wonder-boy!" + +"There goes the overture, ma." + +"Here, darlink--your glass of water." + +"I can't stand it in here; I'm suffocating!" + +"Got your mute in your pocket, son?" + +"Yes, ma; for God's sake, yes! Yes! Don't keep asking things." + +"Ain't you ashamed, Leon, to be in such an excitement? For every concert +you get worse." + +"The chairs--they'll breathe on my neck." + +"Leon, did mamma promise you those chairs would be moved?" + +"Where's Hancock?" + +"Say--I'm grateful if he stays out. It took me enough work to get this +room cleared. You know your papa he likes to drag in the whole world to +show you off--always just before you play. The minute he walks in the +room, right away he gets everybody to trembling just from his own +excitements. I dare him this time he should bring people--no dignity has +that man got, the way he brings everyone." + +Even upon her words came a rattling of door, of door-knob and a voice +through the clamour. + +"Open--quick--Sarah! Leon!" + +A stiffening raced over Mrs. Kantor, so that she sat rigid on her +chair-edge, lips compressed, eye darkly upon the shivering door. + +"Open--Sarah!" + +With a narrowing glance, Mrs. Kantor laid to her lips a forefinger of +silence. + +"Sarah, it's me! Quick, I say!" + +Then Leon Kantor sprang up, the old prehensile gesture of curving +fingers shooting up. + +"For God's sake, ma, let him in! I can't stand that infernal battering." + +"Abrahm, go away! Leon's got to have quiet before his concert." + +"Just a minute, Sarah. Open quick!" + +With a spring, his son was at the door, unlocking and flinging it back. + +"Come in, pa." + +The years had weighed heavily upon Abrahm Kantor in avoirdupois only. He +was himself plus eighteen years, fifty pounds, and a new sleek pomposity +that was absolutely oleaginous. It shone roundly in his face, doubling +of chin, in the bulge of waistcoat, heavily gold-chained, and in eyes +that behind the gold-rimmed glasses gave sparklingly forth his estate of +well-being. + +"Abrahm, didn't I tell you not to dare to--" + +On excited balls of feet that fairly bounced him, Abrahm Kantor burst +in. + +"Leon--mamma--I got out here an old friend--Sol Ginsberg--you remember, +mamma, from brasses--" + +"Abrahm--not now--" + +"Go way with your 'not now!' I want Leon should meet him. Sol, this is +him--a little grown-up from such a _Nebich_ like you remember him--_nu_? +Sarah, you remember Sol Ginsberg? Say--I should ask you if you remember +your right hand? Ginsberg & Esel, the firm. This is his girl, a five +years' contract signed yesterday--five hundred dollars an opera for a +beginner--six rôles--not bad--_nu_?" + +"Abrahm, you must ask Mr. Ginsberg please to excuse Leon until after his +concert--" + +"Shake hands with him, Ginsberg. He's had his hand shook enough in his +life, and by kings, too--shake it once more with an old bouncer like +you!" + +Mr. Ginsberg, not unlike his colleague in rotundities, held out a short, +a dimpled hand. + +"It's a proud day," he said, "for me to shake the hands from mine old +friend's son and the finest violinist living to-day. My little +daughter--" + +"Yes, yes, Gina. Here shake hands with him. Leon, they say a voice like +a fountain. Gina Berg--eh, Ginsberg--is how you stage-named her? You +hear, mamma, how fancy--Gina Berg? We go hear her, eh?" + +There was about Miss Gina Berg, whose voice could soar to the +tirra-lirra of a lark and then deepen to mezzo, something of the actual +slimness of the poor, maligned Elsa so long buried beneath the buxomness +of divas. She was like a little flower that in its crannied nook keeps +dewy longest. + +"How do you do, Leon Kantor?" + +There was a whir through her English of three acquired languages. + +"How do _you_ do?" + +"We--father and I--travelled once all the way from Brussels to Dresden +to hear you play. It was worth it. I shall never forget how you played +the 'Humoresque.' It made me laugh and cry." + +"You like Brussels?" + +She laid her little hand to her heart, half closing her eyes. + +"I will never be so happy again as with the sweet little people of +Brussels." + +"I, too, love Brussels. I studied there four years with Ahrenfest." + +"I know you did. My teacher, Lyndahl, in Berlin, was his +brother-in-law." + +"You have studied with Lyndahl?" + +"He is my master." + +"I--will I sometime hear you sing?" + +"I am not yet great. When I am foremost like you, yes." + +"Gina--Gina Berg, that is a beautiful name to make famous." + +"You see how it is done? Gins--Berg. Gina Berg. + +"Clev-er!" + +They stood then smiling across a chasm of the diffidence of youth, she +fumbling at the great fur pelt out of which her face flowered so dewily. + +"I--well--we--we are in the fourth box--I guess we had better be +going--fourth box left." He wanted to find words, but for consciousness +of self could not "It's a wonderful house out there waiting for you, +Leon Kantor, and you--you're wonderful, too!" + +"The--flowers--thanks!" + +"My father, he sent them. Come, father--quick!" + +Suddenly there was a tight tensity that seemed to crowd up the little +room. + +"Abrahm--quick--get Hancock--that first rows of chairs has got to be +moved--there he is, in the wings--see the piano ain't dragged down too +far! Leon, got your mute on your pocket? Please Mr. Ginsberg--you must +excuse--Here, Leon, is your glass of water. Drink it, I say. Shut that +door out there, boy, so there ain't a draft in the wings. Here, Leon, +your violin. Got neckerchief? Listen how they're shouting--it's for +you--Leon--darlink--go!" + +In the center of that vast human bowl which had finally shouted itself +out, slim, boylike, and in his supreme isolation, Leon Kantor drew bow +and a first thin, pellucid, and perfect note into a silence breathless +to receive it. + +Throughout the arduous flexuosities of the Mendelssohn E-minor concerto, +singing, winding from tonal to tonal climax, and out of the slow +movement, which is like a tourniquet twisting the heart into the +spirited _allegro molto vivace_, it was as if beneath Leon Kantor's +fingers the strings were living vein-cords, youth, vitality, and the +very foam of exuberance racing through them. + +That was the power of him--the Vichy and the sparkle of youth, so that, +playing, the melody poured round him like wine and went down seething +and singing into the hearts of his hearers. + +Later, and because these were his people and because they were dark and +Slavic with his Slavic darkness, he played, as if his very blood were +weeping, the "Kol Nidre," which is the prayer of his race for atonement. + +And then the super-amphitheater, filled with those whose emotions lie +next to the surface and whose pores have not been closed over with a +water-tight veneer, burst into its cheers and its tears. + +There were fifteen recalls from the wings, Abrahm Kantor standing +counting them off on his fingers, and trembling to receive the +Stradivarius. Then, finally, and against the frantic negative pantomime +of his manager, a scherzo, played so lacily that it swept the house in +lightest laughter. + +When Leon Kantor finally completed his program, they were loath to let +him go, crowding down the aisles upon him, applauding up, down, round +him, until the great disheveled house was like the roaring of a sea, +and he would laugh and throw out his arm in wide-spread helplessness, +and always his manager in the background, gesticulating against too much +of his precious product for the money, ushers already slamming up +chairs, his father's arms out for the Stradivarius, and, deepest in the +gloom of the wings, Sarah Kantor, in a rocker especially dragged out for +her, and from the depths of the black-silk reticule, darning his socks. + +"_Bravo_--_bravo_! Give us the 'Humoresque'--Chopin +nocturne--polonaise--'Humoresque'! _Bravo_--_bravo_!" + +And even as they stood, hatted and coated, importuning and pressing in +upon him, and with a wisp of a smile to the fourth left box, Leon Kantor +played them the "Humoresque" of Dvorak, skedaddling, plucking, +quirking--that laugh on life with a tear behind it. Then suddenly, +because he could escape no other way, rushed straight back for his +dressing-room, bursting in upon a flood of family already there before +him. Isadora Kantor, blue-shaven, aquiline, and already greying at the +temples; his five-year-old son, Leon; a soft little pouter-pigeon of a +wife, too, enormous of bust, in glittering ear-drops and a wrist-watch +of diamonds half buried in chubby wrist; Miss Esther Kantor, pink and +pretty; Rudolph; Boris, not yet done with growing-pains. + +At the door, Miss Kantor met her brother, her eyes as sweetly moist as +her kiss. + +"Leon, darling, you surpassed even yourself!" + +"Quit crowding, children! Let him sit down. Here, Leon, let mamma give +you a fresh collar. Look how the child's perspired! Pull down that +window, Boris. Rudolph, don't let no one in. I give you my word if +to-night wasn't as near as I ever came to seeing a house go crazy. Not +even that time in Milan, darlink--when they broke down the doors, was it +like to-night--" + +"Ought to seen, ma, the row of police outside--" + +"Hush up, Roody! Don't you see your brother is trying to get his +breath?" + +From Mrs. Isadore Kantor: "You ought to seen the balconies, mother. +Isadore and I went up just to see the jam." + +"Six thousand dollars in the house to-night if there was a cent," said +Isadore Kantor. + +"Hand me my violin please, Esther. I must have scratched it, the way +they pushed." + +"No, son; you didn't. I've already rubbed it up. Sit quiet, darlink!" + +He was limply white, as if the vitality had flowed out of him. + +"God! Wasn't it--tremendous?" + +"Six thousand if there was a cent," repeated Isadore Kantor; "more than +Rimsky ever played to in his life!" + +"Oh, Izzy, you make me sick, always counting--counting." + +"Your sister's right, Isadore. You got nothing to complain of if there +was only six hundred in the house. A boy whose fiddle has made already +enough to set you up in such a fine business, his brother Boris in such +a fine college, automobiles--style--and now because Vladimir Rimsky, +three times his age, gets signed up with Elsass for a few thousand more +a year, right away the family gets a long face--" + +"Ma, please; Isadore didn't mean it that way!" + +"Pa's knocking, ma; shall I let him in?" + +"Let him in, Roody. I'd like to know what good it will do to try to keep +him out." + +In an actual rain of perspiration, his tie slid well under one ear, +Abrahm Kantor burst in, mouthing the words before his acute state of +strangulation would let them out. + +"Elsass--it's Elsass outside--he--wants--to sign--Leon--fifty +concerts--coast to coast--two thousand--next season--he's got the +papers--already drawn up--the pen outside waiting--" + +"Abrahm!" + +"Pa!" + +In the silence that followed, Isadore Kantor, a poppiness of stare and a +violent redness set in, suddenly turned to his five-year-old son, sticky +with lollypop, and came down soundly and with smack against the +infantile, the slightly outstanding, and unsuspecting ear. + +"_Momser!_" he cried. "_Chammer! Lump! Ganef!_ You hear that? Two +thousand! Two thousand! Didn't I tell you--didn't I tell you to +practise?" + +Even as Leon Kantor put pen to this princely document, Francis Ferdinand +of Austria, the assassin's bullet true, lay dead in state, and let slip +were the dogs of war. + +In the next years, men, forty deep, were to die in piles; hayricks of +fields to become human hayricks of battlefields; Belgium disembowelled, +her very entrails dragging to find all the civilized world her champion, +and between the poppies of Flanders, crosses, thousands upon thousands +of them, to mark the places where the youth of her allies fell, avenging +outrage. Seas, even when calmest, were to become terrible, and men's +heart-beats, a bit sluggish with the fatty degeneration of a sluggard +peace, to quicken and then to throb with the rat-a-tat-tat, the +rat-a-tat-tat of the most peremptory, the most reverberating call to +arms in the history of the world. + +In June, 1917, Leon Kantor, answering that rat-a-tat-tat, enlisted. + +In November, honed by the interim of training to even a new leanness, +and sailing orders heavy and light in his heart, Lieutenant Kantor, on +two day's home-leave, took leave of his home, which can be cruelest when +it is tenderest. + +Standing there in the expensive, the formal, the enormous French parlour +of his up-town apartment de luxe, from not one of whose chairs would his +mother's feet touch floor, a wall of living flesh, mortared in blood, +was throbbing and hedging him in. + +He would pace up and down the long room, heavy with the faces of those +who mourn, with a laugh too ready, too facetious in his fear for them. + +"Well, well, what is this, anyway, a wake? Where's the coffin? Who's +dead?" + +His sister-in-law shot out her plump, watch-incrusted wrist. + +"Don't, Leon" she cried. "Such talk is a sin! It might come true." + +"Rosie-Posy-butter-ball," he said pausing beside her chair to pinch her +deeply soft cheek. "Cry-baby-roly-poly, you can't shove me off in a +wooden kimono that way." + +From his place before the white-and-gold mantel, staring steadfastly at +the floor-tiling, Isadore Kantor turned suddenly, a bit whiter and older +at the temples. + +"Don't get your comedy, Leon. + +"'Wooden kimono'--Leon?" + +"That's the way the fellows at camp joke about coffins, ma. I didn't +mean anything but fun. Great Scott--can't anyone take a joke?" + +"O God! O God!" His mother fell to swaying, softly hugging herself +against shivering. + +"Did you sign over power of attorney to pa, Leon?" + +"All fixed, Izzy." + +"I'm so afraid, son, you don't take with you enough money in your +pockets. You know how you lose it. If only you would let mamma sew that +little bag inside your uniform with a little place for bills and a +little place for the asfitidy!" + +"Now, please, ma--please! If I needed more, wouldn't I take it? Wouldn't +I be a pretty joke among the fellows, tied up in that smelling stuff? +Orders are orders, ma; I know what to take and what not to take." + +"Please, Leon, don't get mad at me, but if you will let me put in your +suitcase just one little box of that salve for your finger tips, so they +don't crack--" + +Pausing as he paced to lay cheek to her hair, he patted her. + +"Three boxes if you want. Now, how's that?" + +"And you won't take it out so soon as my back is turned?" + +"Cross my heart." + +His touch seemed to set her trembling again, all her illy concealed +emotions rushing up. + +"I can't stand it! Can't! Can't! Take my life--take my blood, but don't +take my boy--don't take my boy--" + +"Mamma, mamma, is that the way you're going to begin all over again +after your promise?" + +She clung to him, heaving against the rising storm of sobs. + +"I can't help it--can't--cut out my heart from me, but let me keep my +boy--my wonder-boy--" + +"Oughtn't she be ashamed of herself? Just listen to her, Esther! What +will we do with her? Talks like she had a guarantee I wasn't coming +back. Why I wouldn't be surprised if by spring I wasn't tuning up again +for a coast-to-coast tour--" + +"'Spring'--that talk don't fool me--without my boy, the springs in my +life are over--" + +"Why, ma, you talk like every soldier who goes to war was killed. +There's only the smallest percentage of them die in battle--" + +"'Spring,' he says; 'spring!' Crossing the seas from me! To live through +months with that sea between us--my boy maybe shot--my--" + +"Mamma, please!" + +"I can't help it, Leon; I'm not one of those fine mothers that can be so +brave. Cut out my heart, but leave my boy--my wonder-boy--my child I +prayed for!" + +"There's other mothers, ma, with sons." + +"Yes, but not wonder-sons! A genius like you could so easy get excused, +Leon. Give it up. Genius it should be the last to be sent to--the +slaughter-pen. Leon darlink--don't go!" + +"Ma, ma--you don't mean what you're saying. You wouldn't want me to +reason that way. You wouldn't want me to hide behind my--violin." + +"I would! Would! You should wait for the draft. With my Roody and even +my baby Boris enlisted, ain't it enough for one mother? Since they got +to be in camp, all right I say, let them be there, if my heart breaks +for it, but not my wonder-child! You get the exemption, Leon, right away +for the asking. Stay with me Leon! Don't go away! The people at home got +to be kept happy with music. That's being a soldier, too, playing their +troubles away. Stay with me, Leon! Don't go leave me--don't--don't--" + +He suffered her to lie, tear-drenched, back into his arms, holding her +close in his compassion for her, his own face twisting. + +"God, ma, his--is awful! Please--you make us ashamed--all of us! I +don't know what to say. Esther, come quiet her--for God's sake quiet +her!" + +From her place in the sobbing circle, Esther Kantor crossed to kneel +beside her mother. + +"Mamma, darling, you're killing yourself! What if every family went on +this way? You want papa to come in and find us all crying? Is this the +way you want Leon to spend his last hour with us--" + +"O God--God!" + +"I mean his last hour until he comes back, darling. Didn't you just hear +him say, darling, it may be by spring?" + +"'Spring'--'spring'--never no more springs for me--" + +"Just think, darling, how proud we should be. Our Leon, who could so +easily have been excused, not even to wait for the draft." + +"It's not too late yet--please, Leon--" + +"Our Roody and Boris both in camp, too, training to serve their country. +Why, mamma, we ought to be crying for happiness! As Leon says, surely +the Kantor family who fled out of Russia to escape massacre should know +how terrible slavery can be. That's why we must help our boys, mamma, in +their fight to make the world free. Right, Leon?"--trying to smile with +her red-rimmed eyes. + +"We've got no fight with no one! Not a child of mine was ever raised to +so much as lift a finger against no one. We've got no fight with no +one." + +"We have got a fight with some one. With autocracy! Only, this time it +happens to be Hunnish autocracy. You should know it, mamma; oh, you +should know it deeper down in you than any of us, the fight our family +right here has got with autocracy!" + +"Leon's right, mamma darling, the way you and papa were beaten out of +your country--" + +"There's not a day in your life you don't curse it without knowing it! +Every time we three boys look at your son and our brother Mannie, born +an--an imbecile--because of autocracy, we know what we're fighting for. +We know. You know, too. Look at him over there, even before he was +born, ruined by autocracy! Know what I'm fighting for? Why, this whole +family knows! What's music, what's art, what's life itself in a world +without freedom? Every time, ma, you get to thinking we've got a fight +with no one, all you have to do is look at our poor Mannie. He's the +answer! He's the answer!" + +In a foaming sort of silence, Mannie Kantor smiled softly from his chair +beneath the pink-and-gold shade of the piano-lamp. The heterogeneous +sounds of women weeping had ceased. Straight in her chair, her great +shelf of bust heaving, sat Rosa Kantor, suddenly dry of eye; Isadore +Kantor head up. Erect now, and out from the embrace of her daughter, +Sarah looked up at her son. + +"What time do you leave, Leon?" she asked, actually firm of lip. + +"Any minute, ma. Getting late." + +This time she pulled her lips to a smile, waggling her forefinger. + +"Don't let them little devils of French girls fall in love with my dude +in his uniform." + +Her pretense at pleasantry was almost more than he could bear. + +"Hear! Hear! Our mother thinks I'm a regular lady-killer! Hear that, +Esther?"--pinching her cheek. + +"You are, Leon--only--only, you don't know it." + +"Don't you bring down too many beaus while I'm gone, either, Miss +Kantor!" + +"I--won't, Leon." + +_Sotto voce_ to her: "Remember, Esther, while I'm gone, the royalties +from the Discaphone records are yours. I want you to have them for +pin-money and--maybe a dowry?" + +She turned from him. + +"Don't, Leon--don't--" + +"I like him! Nice fellow, but too slow! Why, if I were in his shoes, I'd +have popped long ago." + +She smiled with her lashes dewy. + +There entered then, in a violet-scented little whirl, Miss Gina Berg, +rosy with the sting of a winter's night, and, as usual, swathed in the +high-napped furs. + +"Gina!" + +She was for greeting everyone, a wafted kiss to Mrs. Kantor, and then +arms wide, a great bunch of violets in one outstretched hand, her glance +straight sure and sparkling for Leon Kantor. + +"Surprise--everybody--surprise!" + +"Why, Gina--we read--we thought you were singing in Philadelphia +to-night!" + +"So did I, Esther darling, until a little bird whispered to me that +Lieutenant Kantor was home on farewell leave." + +He advanced to her down the great length of room, lowering his head over +her hand, his puttee-clad legs clicked together. + +"You mean, Miss Gina--Gina--you didn't sing?" + +"Of course I didn't! Hasn't every prima donna a larynx to hid behind?" +She lifted off her fur cap, spilling curls. + +"Well, I--I'll be hanged!" said Lieutenant Kantor, his eyes lakes of her +reflected loveliness. + +She let her hand linger in his. + +"Leon--you--really going--how--terrible--how--how--wonderful!" + +"How wonderful--your coming!" + +"I--you think it was not nice of me--to come?" + +"I think it was the nicest thing that ever happened in the world." + +"All the way here in the train, I kept saying--crazy--crazy--running to +tell Leon--Lieutenant--Kantor good-bye--when you haven't even seen him +three times in three years--" + +"But each--each of those three times we--we've remembered, Gina." + +"But that's how I feel toward all the boys, Leon--our fighting +boys--just like flying to them to kiss them each one good-bye." + +"Come over, Gina. You'll be a treat to our mother. I--well, I'm +hanged--all the way from Philadelphia!" + +There was even a sparkle to talk then, and a let-up of pressure. After +a while, Sarah Kantor looked up at her son, tremulous but smiling. + +"Well, son, you going to play--for your old mother before--you go? It'll +be many a month--spring--maybe longer before I hear my boy again except +on the discaphone." + +He shot a quick glance to his sister. + +"Why, I--I don't know. I--I'd love it, ma if--if you think, Esther, I'd +better." + +"You don't need to be afraid of me, darlink. There's nothing can give me +strength to bear--what's before me like--like my boy's music. That's my +life, his music." + +"Why, yes; if mamma is sure she feels that way, play for us, Leon." + +He was already at the instrument, where it lay swathed, atop the grand +piano. + +"What'll it be, folks?" + +"Something to make ma laugh, Leon--something light, something funny." + +"'Humoresque'?" he said, with a quick glance for Miss Berg. + +"'Humoresque,'" she said, smiling back at him. + +He capered through, cutting and playful of bow, the melody of Dvorak's, +which is as ironic as a grinning mask. + +Finished, he smiled at his parent, her face still untearful. + +"How's that?" + +"It's like life, son, that piece. Laughing and making fun of--the way +just as we think we got--we ain't got." + +"Play that new piece, Leon, the one you set to music. You know. The +words by that young boy in the war who wrote such grand poetry before he +was killed. The one that always makes poor Mannie laugh. Play it for +him, Leon." + +Her plump little unlined face innocent of fault, Mrs. Isadore Kantor +ventured her request, her smile tired with tears." + +"No, no--Rosa--not now--ma wouldn't want that." + +"I do, son; I do! Even Mannie should have his share of good-bye." + +To Gina Berg: "They want me to play that little setting of mine of +Allan Seeger's poem, 'I have a rendezvous.'" + +"It--it's beautiful, Leon! I was to have sung it on my program +to-night--only, I'm afraid you had better not--" + +"Please, Leon! Nothing you play can ever make me as sad as it makes me +glad. Mannie should have too his good-bye." + +"All right then, ma, if--if you're sure you want it. Will you sing it, +Gina?" + +She had risen. + +"Why, yes, Leon." + +She sang it then, quite purely, her hands clasped simply together and +her glance mistily off, the beautiful, the heroic, the lyrical prophecy +of a soldier-poet and a poet-soldier. + + But I've a rendezvous with Death + On some scarred slope of battered hill, + When spring comes round again this year + And the first meadow-flowers appear. + +In the silence that followed, a sob burst out stifled from Esther +Kantor, this time her mother holding her in arms that were strong. + +"That, Leon, is the most beautiful of all your compositions. What does +it mean, son, that word, 'rondy-voo'?" + +"Why, I--I don't exactly know. A rendezvous--it's a sort of meeting, an +engagement, isn't it, Miss Gina? Gina?" + +"That's it, Leon--an engagement." + +"Have I an engagement with you, Gina?" + +"Oh, how--how I hope you have, Leon!" + +"When?" + +"In the spring?" + +"That's it--in the spring." + +Then they smiled, these two, who had never felt more than the merest +butterfly wings of love brushing them, light as lashes. No word between +them, only an unfinished sweetness, waiting to be linked up. + +Suddenly there burst in Abrahm Kantor. + +"Quick, Leon! I got the car downstairs. Just fifteen minutes to make the +ferry. Quick! The sooner we get him over there the sooner we get him +back! I'm right, mamma? Now--now--no water-works! Get your brother's +suitcase, Isadore. Now--now--no nonsense--quick!" + +With a deftly manoeuvred round of good-byes, a grip-laden dash for door, +a throbbing moment of turning back when it seemed as though Sarah +Kantor's arms could not unlock their deadlock of him, Leon Kantor was +out and gone, the group of faces point-etched into the silence behind +him. The poor mute face of Mannie, laughing softly. Rosa Kantor crying +into her hands. Esther, grief-crumpled, but rich in the enormous hope of +youth. The sweet Gina, to whom the waiting months had already begun +their reality. + +Not so, Sarah Kantor. In a bedroom adjoining, its high-ceilinged +vastness as cold as a cathedral to her lowness of stature, sobs dry and +terrible were rumbling up from her, only to dash against lips tightly +restraining them. + +On her knees beside a chest of drawers, and unwrapping it from +swaddling-clothes, she withdrew what at best had been a sorry sort of +fiddle. Cracked of back and solitary of string it was as if her +trembling arms, raising it above her head, would make of themselves and +her swaying body the tripod of an altar. The old twisting and prophetic +pain was behind her heart. Like the painted billows of music that the +old Italian masters loved to do, there wound and wreathed about her +clouds of song. + + But I've a rendezvous with Death + On some scarred slope of battered hill, + When spring comes round again this year + And the first meadow-flowers appear. + + + + +THE LUBBENY KISS + + +BY LOUISE RICE + +From _Ainslee's Magazine_ + +For many hours the hot July sun had beaten down upon the upland meadows +and the pine woods of the lower New Jersey hills. So, when the dew began +to fall, there arose from them a heady brew, distilled from blossoming +milkweed and fruiting wild raspberry canes and mountain laurel and dried +pine needles. + +The Princess Dora Parse took this perfume into her lusty young lungs and +blew it out again in a long sigh, after which she bent her first finger +over her thumb as one must when one returns what all Romanys know to be +"the breath of God." She did this almost unconsciously, for all her +faculties were busied in another matter. + +The eyes of a gorgio, weakened by an indoor life, would never have been +able to distinguish the small object for which the princess looked, for +she was perched up on the high seat of the red Romany _wardo_, and she +drove her two strong, shaggy horses with a free and careless hand. But +to Dora Parse the blur of vague shadows gliding by each wheel was not +vague at all. Suddenly she checked her horses and sprang down. + +The patteran for which she was looking was laid beneath a clump of the +flowering weed which the Romanys call "stars in the sky." The gorgios +know it as Queen Ann's lace, and the farmers curse it by the name of the +wild carrot. The patteran was like a miniature log cabin without a roof, +and across the top one large stick was laid, pointing upward along the +mountain road. + +Two brown and slender fingers on the big braid which dropped over her +shoulder, the princess meditated, a shiver of fear running through her. +What, she asked herself, could this mean? Why, for the first time in +years, were the wagons to go to the farm of Jan Jacobus? Even if it were +only a chance happening, it was a most unfortunate one, for young Jan, +the fair-haired, giant son of old Jacobus, with his light blue eyes and +his drawling, insolent speech, was the last person in the world that she +wanted to see, especially with her man near. + +For she had meant no harm. Many and many a time she had smiled into the +eyes of men and felt pride in her power over them. Still--and yet--The +princess scattered the patteran with her foot, for she knew that all the +wagons must be ahead of her, since she had lagged so, and she leaped to +her seat with one easy, lithe swing and drove on up the darkening road. + +Jan Jacobus, like several other descendants of the Dutch settlers of New +Jersey, held his upland farm on shares with John Lane's tribe of +gypsies. Jacobuses and Bantas and Koppfs, they made no bones about +having business dealings with the tribe of English Romanys which had +followed a regular route, twice a year, from Maryland to the upper part +of New Jersey, since before the beginning of the Revolutionary days. The +descendants of the English settlers, the Hardys, the Lesters, the +Vincents, and the Farrands, looked with still persisting English reserve +upon the roamers of the woods and would have no traffic with them, +though a good many of their sons and daughters had to know the few +Romany young people who were left, by twos and threes in the towns for +occasional years of schooling. + +The tribe, trading in land in the two States which they frequented, and +breeding horses, was very rich, but not very many people knew that. +However, they were conceded to be shrewd bargainers, and when old John +bought Martin Debbins' upland and rocky farm one year, with the money +that he had made by a lucky purchase of a gangling colt whose owner had +failed rightly to appraise its possibilities as a racer, Boonton and +Dover and Morristown laughed. + +"_Sal_ away," old John retorted pleasantly to the cashier of the bank in +Boonton, where the tube had deposited its surplus funds for many years, +"but you won't _sal_ so much when you _dik_ what I will make out of +that joke." + +The cashier thereupon looked thoughtful. It might well be that he and +others would not laugh when they saw good fortune which might have been +theirs following this genial old outlaw. + +That summer the wagons camped on the Debbins place, and old John stocked +it with a lot of fine hogs, for which the land was especially adapted. +They fattened on the many acres, wooded with wild nut trees, and +Jacobus--as keen a bargainer as any Romany, upon whom John Lane had had +his eye all the time--took the farm on shares, and every year thereafter +the cashier at the bank added a neat little total to the big balance +which the tribe was rolling up. + +And every year, as the wagons beat up toward Dover in July, old John +would drive on ahead and spend a night of mingled business and pleasure +with old Jan, reckoning up the profits on the Berkshires for which the +farm was now famous, and putting down big mugs of the "black drink" for +which Aunty Alice Lee, John Lane's ancient cousin, was equally famous. +The amount of this fiery and head-splitting liquor which the two old men +thus got away with was afterward gleefully recounted in the wagons and +fearfully whispered of in the little Dutch church at Horse's Neck which +the Jacobuses had attended for over a hundred years. + +But never, as wagon after wagon had gone up the turning that led to the +upward farm, had there been a patteran pointing that way. Always, it had +shown the way onward and downward, to the little hamlet of Rockaway, +where there was an old and friendly camping place, back of the +blacksmith shop beyond the church. Old John never encouraged the wagons +to visit any of the properties held by the tribe. + +"Silver blackens the salt of friendship," he would say. + +Dora Parse was driving her own _wardo_, a very fine one which had +belonged to her mother. Lester Montague, of Sea Tack, Maryland, who +makes the wagons of Romanys for all the Atlantic coast tribes, like his +father before him, had done an especially good job of it. The princess +had been certified, by the Romany rites, to old John's eldest son, +George, for she had flatly refused to be married according to the gorgio +ways. Not having been married a full year, he was not yet entitled to +carry the heavy, silver-topped stick which is the badge of the married +man, nor could he demand a place in his wife's tent or wagon unless she +expressly invited him. Dora Parse and George Lane were passionately in +love with each other, and their meeting and mating had been the +flowering romance of the tribe, the previous summer. + +The princess, being descended from a very old Romany family, as her name +showed, was far higher in rank than any one in the Lane tribe. Her +aristocratic lineage showed in the set of her magnificent head, in the +small, delicate fingers of her hand, and in the fire and richness of her +eyes. Also, her skin was of the colour of old ivory upon which is cast a +distant, faint reflection of the sunset, and her mouth, thinner than +those of most Romanys, was of the colour of a ripe pomegranate. + +"A _rauni, a puro rauni_," all the tribes of the eastern coast murmured +respectfully, when Dora Parse's name was mentioned. + +She was, indeed, a very great lady, but she was a flirtatious and +headstrong girl. She was one of the few modern gypsies who still hold to +the unadulterated worship of "those." All the members of John Lane's +tribe were Methodists--had been since before they had migrated from +England. In every wagon, save Dora's, a large illustrated Bible lay on a +little table, and those who could, read them aloud to the rest of a +Sunday afternoon. This did not mean, however, that the Romanys had +descended to gorgio ways, or that they had wholly left off their +attentions to "those". They combined the two. Old John was known as a +fervent and eloquent leader in prayer at the Wednesday-night prayer +meetings in the Maryland town where his church membership was held, but +he had not ceased to carry the "box of meanings," as befitted the chief +of the tribe. + +This was a very beautifully worked box of pure gold, made by the great +Nikola of Budapest, whose boxes can be found inside the shirt of every +gypsy chief, where they are always carried. In them are some grains of +wheat, garnered by moonlight, a peacock's feather, and a small silver +bell with a coiled snake for a handle. When anything is to be decided, a +few of the grains are taken out and counted. If they are even, the omen +is bad, but if they are odd, all is well. Old John had an elastic and +accommodating mind, like all Romanys, so he never thought it strange +that he should ask the "box of meanings" whether or not it was going to +storm on prayer-meeting nights. + +Dora Parse thought of the box now, and wished that she might have the +peacock's feather for a minute, so that her uneasy sense of impending +bad luck would leave her. Then she stopped beside a cross-barred gate +where an old man was evidently waiting for her. + +"Lane was gettin' troubled about yuh," he said, as he turned the horses +and peered curiously up at her. He knew who she was, not only because +John Lane had said who it was who was late, but because Dora Parse's +appearance was well known to the whole countryside. She was the only +member of the tribe who kept to the full Romany dress. There were big +gold loops in her small ears, and on her arms, many gold bracelets, +whose lightness testified to their freedom from alloy. Her skirt was of +red, heavily embroidered in blue, and her waist, with short sleeves, was +of sheer white cloth, with an embroidered bolero. Her hair she wore in +the ancient fashion, in two braids on either side of her face. She could +well afford to, the chis muttered among themselves. Any girl with hair +like that-- + +There was a long lane leading to the barns and to the meadow back of +them, and there, said Jan, the tribe was to camp. As the princess drove +along the short distance, she swiftly snatched off her little bolero, +put it on wrong side out, and then snatched it off and righted it. That +much, at least, she could do to avert ill luck. And her heart bounded as +she drove in among the other wagons, for her husband came running to +meet her and held out his arms. + +She dropped into them and laid each finger tip, delicately, in +succession, upon his eyes and his ears and his mouth, the seal of a +betrothal and the sign whereby a Romany chal may know that a chi intends +to accept him when he speaks for her before the tribe; a sign that +lovers repeat as a sacred and intimate caress. She leaned, hard, into +his arms, and he held her, pressing the tender, confidential kiss that +is given to children behind her little ear. + +Dora Parse suddenly ran both hands through his thick hair and gave it a +little pull. She always did that when her spirits rose. Then she turned +and looked at the scene, and at once she knew that there was to be some +special occasion. Aunty Alice Lee was seated by a cooking fire, on which +stood the enormous iron pot in which the "big meals" were prepared, when +the tribe was to eat together and not in separate groups, as it usually +did. There were some boards laid on wooden horses, and Pyramus Lee, +aunty's grandson, was bringing blocks of wood from the woodshed for +seats. Dora Parse clapped her hands with delight and looked at her man. + +"_Tetcho_!" she exclaimed, approvingly, using the word that spells all +degrees of satisfaction. "And what is it for, stickless one? Is it a +talk over silver?" + +"Yes, it is some business," George Lane replied, "but first there will +be a _gillie shoon_." + +A _gillie shoon_ has its counterpart in the English word "singsong," as +it is beginning to be used now, with this exception: Romanys have few +"fixed" songs. They have strains which are set, which every one knows, +but a _gillie shoon_ means that the performers improvise coninually; and +in this sense it is a mystic ceremony, never held at an appointed time, +except a "time of Mul-cerus," which really means a sort of religious +wave of feeling, which strikes tribe after tribe, usually in the spring. + +"Marda has come back," Aunty Lee called out to Dora Parse. No one ever +called her by her full name of Marda Lee, because she was a Lee only by +courtesy, having been adopted from a distant wagon when both her parents +were killed in a thunderstorm. Marda, wearing the trim tailored skirt +and waist that were her usual costume, was putting the big red +tablecloth of the "big meals" on the boards. Dora went quickly toward +the young girl and embraced her. + +"How is our little scholar?" she asked affectionately. + +"I am very well, Dora Parse, but a little tired," Marda answered. + +"And did you receive another paper?" + +"Yes. I passed my exams. It will save me half a year in Dover." + +"That is good," Dora Parse replied, although she had only the dimmest +idea of what Marda meant. The young girl knew that. She had just come +from taking a special course in Columbia, and she was feeling the breach +between herself and her people to be especially wide. Because of that, +perhaps, she also felt more loving toward all of them than she ever had, +and especially toward Dora about whom she knew something that was most +alarming. Dora Parse noted the pale, grave face of her favourite friend +with concern. + +"Smile, bird of my heart," she entreated, "for we are to have a _gillie +shoon_. Sit near me, that I may follow your heaven voice." + +There was no flattery meant. The Romanys call the soprano "the heaven +voice," the tenor "the sky voice," the contralto "the earth voice," and +the basso "the sea voice." Dora had a really wonderful earth voice, +almost as wonderful as Marda's heaven voice, which would have been +remarkable even among opera singers, and the two were known everywhere +for their improvisations. In answer to the remark of the princess, Marda +gave her a strange look and said: + +"I shall be near you, Dora Parse. Do not forget." + +Her manner was certainly peculiar, the princess thought, as she walked +away. But then one never knew what Marda was thinking about. Her great +education set her apart from others. Any chi who habitually read herself +to sleep over those most _puro libros_, "The Works of William +Shakespeare, in Eight Volumes, Complete, with Glossary and Appendix," +must not be judged by ordinary standards. The princess knew the full +title of those _puro libros_, having painfully spelled it out, all one +rainy afternoon, in Marda's mother's wagon, with repeated assitance and +explanations from Marda, which had left the princess with a headache. + +Now Aunty Lee took off the heavy iron cover of the pot and the odour of +Romany duck stew, than which there is nothing in the world more +appetizing, mingled with the sweet fragrance of the drying hay. Aunty +thrust a fork as long as a poker into the bubbling mass and then gave +the call that brings the tribe in a hurry. + +"Empo!" she said in her shrill, cracked voice. "Empo! Empo!" + +Laughing, teasing, jostling, talking, they all came, spilling out from +the wagons, running from the barn, sauntering in, the lovers, by twos, +and sat down before the plates heaped high with the duck and the +vegetables with which it was cooked and the big loaves of Italian bread +which the Romanys like and always buy as they pass through towns where +there are Italian bakeries. + +But they sat quiet then, and each one looked toward the princess, as +politeness demanded, since she was the highest in rank among them. + +She drew a sliver of meat from her plate and tossed it over her +shoulder. + +"To the great _ré_" she said. + +"To the _shule_," each one murmured. Then, having paid their compliments +to the sun and the moon, as all good Romanys must before eating, they +fell to with heartiness. + +When they were through, the mothers and the old men cleared away the +tables and put the younger children to bed in the wagons, and the +princess and George Lane and Marda and young Adam Lane, George's +youngest brother, walked up and down, outside the glow from the cooking +fire, taking the deep, full breaths which cleanse the mouth and prepare +the soul for the ecstasy of song. + +The men took away the table and the lanterns which had been standing +about, and put out the cooking fire, for the big moon was rolling up +over the treetops, and Romanys sing by her light alone, if they can. +Frogs were calling in the shallow stretches of the Upper Rockaway. +People began to sit down in a big circle. + +Then Marda started the _gillie shoon_. At first you could not have been +sure whether the sound was far or near, for she "covered" her tones, in +a way that many a gorgio gives years and much silver to learn. Then the +wonderful tone swelled out, as if an organ stop were being pulled open, +and one by one, the four leaders cast in the dropping notes which +followed and sustained the theme that Marda was weaving: + +"Lal--la--ai--lala--lalu! Ai--l-a-a-a--lalu!" + +Old John, who had not appeared before, slid into the circle, holding by +the sleeve a giant of a man who seemed to come half unwillingly. Dora +Parse saw him, and she could not repress the shiver that ran through her +at the sight of young Jan Jacobus, yet she sang on. The deep, majestic +basses throbbed out the foundation of the great fuguelike chorus, and +the sopranos soared and soared until they were singing falsetto, +according to gorgio standards, only it sounded like the sweetly piercing +high notes of violins, and the tenors and contraltos wove a garland of +glancing melody between the two. They were all singing now. Rocking back +and forth a little, swaying gently from side to side, lovers clasped +together, mothers in their young sons' arms, and fathers clasping their +daughters, they sent out to the velvet arch above them the heart cry of +a race, proud and humble, cleanly voluptuous, strong and cruel, +passionate and loving, elemental like the north wind and subtle as the +fragrance of the poppy. + +"Ai--lallu! Ai--lala--lala! Ai--lallu!" + +Jan Jacobus sat with his big jaw dropping. Stupid boor that he was, he +could not have explained the terrifying effect which this wild music and +those tense, uplifting faces had upon him, but he would have given +anything to be back in his mother's kitchen, with the lamp lit and the +dark, unfamiliar night shut out. + +As suddenly as the singing had begun, it stopped. People coughed, moved +a little, whispered to one another. Then George Lane stood upon his +feet, pulling Dora Parse with him. + +"You see her?" he asked them all, holding out his wife in his arms. + +Dora Parse knew then, for he was beginning the ritual of the man or +woman who accuses a partner, before the tribe, of unfaithfulness. He was +using the most _puro_ Romany _jib_, for only so can the serious affairs +of the tribe tribunal be conducted. Dora Parse struggled in the strong +hands of her man. + +"No! No!" she cried. "No--no!" + +"You see her?" George Lane repeated to the circle. + +"We see her," they answered in a murmur that ran around from end to end. + +"She is mine?" + +"She is yours." + +"What shall be done to her if she has lost the spirit of our love?" + +Again Dora Parse furiously struggled, but George Lane held her. + +"What shall be done with her? If that is so?" + +Aunty Lee, as the oldest woman present, now took up the replies, as was +her right and duty: + +"Let her go to that other, if she wishes, and do you close your tent and +your wagon against her." + +"And if she does not wish?" + +"Then punish her." + +"What shall be done to the man?" + +"Is he a Romany?" + +"No." + +Jan Jacobus half started up, but strong hands instantly jerked him down. + +"He is a gorgio?" + +"Yes." + +"Do nothing. We do not soil our hands with gorgios. Let the woman bear +the blame. She is a Romany. She should have known better. She is a +woman, the wiser sex. It is her fault. Let her be punished." + +"Do you all say so?" George Lane demanded. + +"We say so." Again the rippling murmur. + +Jan Jacobus made a desperate attempt to get on his feet, but, for all +his strength, he might as well have tried to uncoil the folds of a great +snake as to unbind the many hands that held him, for the Romanys have +as many secret ways of restraining a person as the Japanese. + +George Lane drew his wife tenderly close to him. + +"She shall be punished," he said, "but first she shall hear, before you +all, that I love her and that I know she has not lost the spirit of our +love. Her fault was born of lightness of heart and vanity, not of evil." + +"What is her fault? Name it," commanded Aunty Lee. + +George Lane looked over at Jan. + +"Her fault is that she trusted a gorgio to understand the ways of a +Romany. For our girls have the spirit of love in their eyes, but no man +among us would kiss a girl unless he received the sign from her. But the +gorgio men are without honour. To-day, as this woman who is mine stopped +to talk with a gorgio, among some trees where I waited, thinking to +enter her wagon there, he kissed her, and she kissed him, in return." + +"Not with the _lubbeny_ kiss--not with that kiss!" Dora Parse cried. +"May I be lost as Pharaoh was in the sea if I speak not the truth!" + +The solemn oath, never taken by any Romany lightly and never falsely +sworn to, rang out on the still night air. A cold, but firm little hand +was slipped into Dora Parse's. Marda was near, as she had promised, and +the hot palm of the princess closed gratefully upon it. + +George Lane drew his wife upon his breast, and over her glossy head he +looked for encouragement to Aunty Lee, who knew what he must do. He was +very pale, but he must not hesitate. + +"Kiss me, my love," he said, loudly and clearly, "here before my people, +that I may punish you. Give me the kiss of love, when tongues and lips +meet, that you may know your fault." + +Now Dora Parse grew very pale, too, and she leaned far back against her +man's arms, her eyes wide with terror. And no one spoke, for in all the +history of the tribe this thing had never happened before, though every +one had heard of it. Dora Parse knew that, if she refused, her oath +would be considered false, and she would be cast out, not only from her +husband's tent and wagon, but from all Romany tribes. And slowly she +leaned forward, and George Lane bent down. + +Jan Jacobus, although he had not understood the words of the ritual, +thought he knew what had happened. The gypsy fool was forgiving his +pretty wife. The young Dutchman settled back on his haunches, suddenly +aware that he was no longer held. And then, with all the others, he +sprang to his feet, for Dora Parse was hanging in her husband's arms, +with blood pouring from her mouth and George Lane was sobbing aloud as +he called her name. + +"What--what--what happened?" Jan stammered. "Gawd--did he kill her?" + +Old John Lane, his serene face unruffled, turned the bewildered and +frightened boy toward the lane and spoke, in the silky, incisive tones +which were half of his enchanting charm. + +"Nothing much has happened. One of our girls allowed a gorgio to kiss +her, so her man bit off the tip of her tongue. It is not necessary, +often, to do it, but it is not a serious matter. It will soon heal. She +will be able to talk--a little. It is really nothing, but I thought you +might like to see it. It is seldom that gorgios are allowed to see a +thing like that. + +"Please say to your father that I will spend the evening as usual with +him. My people will pass on." + + + + +THE TRIAL IN TOM BELCHER'S STORE + + +BY SAMUEL A. DERIEUX + +From _The American Magazine_ + +It was a plain case of affinity between Davy Allen and Old Man +Thornycroft's hound dog Buck. Davy, hurrying home along the country road +one cold winter afternoon, his mind intent on finishing his chores +before dark, looking back after passing Old Man Thornycroft's house to +find Buck trying to follow him--_trying_ to, because the old man, who +hated to see anybody or anything but himself have his way, had chained a +heavy block to him to keep him from doing what nature had intended him +to do--roam the woods and poke his long nose in every briar patch after +rabbits. + +At the sight Davy stopped, and the dog came on, dragging behind him in +the road the block of wood fastened by a chain to his collar, and trying +at the same time to wag his tail. He was tan-coloured, lean as a rail, +long-eared, a hound every inch; and Davy was a ragged country boy who +lived alone with his mother, and who had an old single-barrel shotgun at +home, and who had in his grave boy's eyes a look, clear and +unmistakable, of woods and fields. + +To say it was love at first sight when that hound, dragging his prison +around with him, looked up into the boy's face, and when that ragged boy +who loved the woods and had a gun at home looked down into the hound's +eyes, would hardly be putting it strong enough. It was more than +love--it was perfect understanding, perfect comprehension. "I'm your +dog," said the hound's upraised, melancholy eyes. "I'll jump rabbits and +bring them around for you to shoot. I'll make the frosty hills echo with +music for you. I'll follow you everywhere you go. I'm your dog if you +want me--yours to the end of my days." + +And Davy looking down into those upraised beseeching eyes, and at that +heavy block of wood, and at the raw place the collar had worn on the +neck, then at Old Man Thornycroft's bleak, unpainted house on the hill, +with the unhomelike yard and the tumble-down fences, felt a great pity, +the pity of the free for the imprisoned, and a great longing to own, not +a dog, but _this_ dog. + +"Want to come along?" he grinned. + +The hound sat down on his haunches, elevated his long nose and poured +out to the cold winter sky the passion and longing of his soul. Davy +understood, shook his head, looked once more into the pleading eyes, +then at the bleak house from which this prisoner had dragged himself. + +"That ol' devil!" he said. "He ain't fitten to own a dog. Oh, I wish he +was mine!" + +A moment he hesitated there in the road, then he turned and hurried away +from temptation. + +"He _ain't_ mine," he muttered. "Oh' dammit all!" + +But temptation followed him as it has followed many a boy and man. A +little way down the road was a pasture through which by a footpath he +could cut off half a mile of the three miles that lay between him and +home. Poised on top of the high rail fence that bordered the road, he +looked back. The hound was still trying to follow, walking +straddle-legged, head down, all entangled with the taut chain that +dragged the heavy block. The boy watched the frantic efforts, pity and +longing on his face; then he jumped off the fence inside the pasture and +hurried on down the hill, face set straight ahead. + +He had entered a pine thicket when he heard behind the frantic, choking +yelps of a dog in dire distress. Knowing what had happened, he ran back. +Within the pasture the hound, only his hind feet touching the ground, +was struggling and pawing at the fence. He had jumped, the block had +caught, and was hanging him. Davy rushed to him. Breathing fast, he +unclicked the chain. The block an chain fell on the other side of the +fence, and the dog was free. Shrewdly the boy looked back up the road; +the woods hid the old man's house from view, and no one was to be seen. +With a little grin of triumph he turned and broke into a run down the +pasture hill toward the pines, the wind blowing gloriously into his +face, the dog galloping beside him. + +Still running, the two came out into the road that led home, and +suddenly Davy stopped short and his face flushed. Yonder around the bend +on his grey mare jogged Squire Kirby toward them, his pipe in his mouth, +his white beard stuck cozily inside the bosom of his big overcoat There +was no use to run, no use to try to make the dog hide, no use to try to +hide himself--the old man had seen them both. Suppose he knew whose dog +this was! Heart pounding, Davy waited beside the road. + +Mr. Kirby drew rein opposite them and looked down with eyes that +twinkled under his bushy white brows. He always stopped to ask the boy +how his mother was, and how they were getting along. Davy had been to +his house many a time with eggs and chickens to sell, or with a load of +seasoned oak wood. Many a time he had warmed before Mr. Kirby's fire in +the big living- and bedroom combined, and eaten Mrs. Kirby's fine white +cake covered with frosting. Never before had he felt ill at ease in the +presence of the kindly old man. + +"That's a genuine hound you got there, son, ain't it?" + +"Yes, sir," said Davy. + +"Good for rabbits an' 'possums an' coons, eh?" + +"He shore is!" + +"Well, next big fat 'possum you an' him ketch, you bring that 'possum +'round an' me an' you'll talk business. Maybe we'll strike a bargain. +Got any good sweet potatoes? Well, you bring four or five bushels along +to eat that 'possum with. Haulin' any wood these days? Bring me a load +or two of good, dry oak--pick it out, son, hear? How's your ma? All +right? That's good. Here--" + +He reached deep down in a pocket of his enormous faded overcoat, brought +out two red apples, and leaned down out of his saddle, that creaked +under the strain of his weight. + +"Try one of 'em yourself, an' take one of 'em home to your ma. Git up, +Mag!" + +He jogged on down the road, and the boy, sobered walked on. One thing +was certain, though, Mr Kirby hadn't known whose dog this was. What +difference did it make anyhow? He hadn't stolen anything. He couldn't +let a dog choke to death before his eyes. What did Old Man Thornycroft +care about a dog, anyhow, the hard-hearted old skin-flint! + +He remembered the trouble his mother had had when his father died and +Old Man Thornycroft pushed her for a note he had given. He had heard +people talk about it at the time, and he remembered how white his +mother's face had been. Old Man Thornycroft had refused to wait, and his +mother had had to sell five acres of the best land on the little farm to +pay the note. It was after the sale that Mr. Kirby, who lived five miles +away, had ridden over. + +"Why didn't you let me know, Mrs. Allen!" he had demanded. "I would have +loaned you the money--gladly, gladly!" He had risen from the fire and +pulled on the same overcoat he wore now. It was faded then, and that was +two years ago. + +It was sunset when Davy reached home to find his mother out in the +clean-swept yard picking up chips in her apron. From the bedroom window +of the little one-storied unpainted house came a bright red glow, and +from the kitchen the smell of cooking meat. His mother straightened up +from her task with a smile when with his new-found partner he entered +the yard. + +"Why, Davy," she asked, "where did you get him?" + +"He--he just followed me, Ma." + +"But whose dog is he?" + +"He's mine, Ma--he just took up with me." + +"Where, Davy?" + +"Oh, way back down the road--in a pasture." + +"He must belong to somebody." + +"He's just a ol' hound dog, Ma, that's all he is. Lots of hounds don't +belong to nobody--everybody knows that, Ma. Look at him, Ma. Mighty nigh +starved to death. Lemme keep him. We can feed him on scraps. He can +sleep under the house. Me an' him will keep you in rabbits. You won't +have to kill no more chickens. Nobody don't want him but me!" + +From her gaunt height she looked down into the boy's eager eyes, then at +the dog beside him. "All right, son," she said. "If he don't belong to +anybody." + +That night Davy alternately whistled and talked to the dog beside him as +he husked the corn he had raised with his own hands, and chopped the +wood he had cut and hauled--for since his father's death he had kept +things going. He ate supper in a sort of haze; he hurried out with a tin +plate of scraps; he fed the grateful, hungry dog on the kitchen steps. +He begged some vaseline from his mother and rubbed it on the sore neck. +Then he got two or three empty gunnysacks out of the corncrib, crawled +under the house to a warm place beside the chimney and spread them out +for a bed. He went into the house whistling; he didn't hear a word of +the chapter his mother read out of the Bible. Before he went to bed in +the shed-room, he raised the window. + +"You all right, old feller?" he called. + +Underneath the house he heard the responsive tap-tap of a tail in the +dry dust. He climbed out of his clothes, leaving them in a pile in the +middle of the floor, tumbled into bed, and pulled the covers high over +him. + +"Golly!" he said. "Oh, golly!" + +Next day he hunted till sundown. The Christmas holidays were on and +there was no thought of school. He went only now and then, anyway, for +since his father's death there was too much for him to do at home. He +hunted in the opposite direction from Old Man Thornycroft's. It was +three miles away; barriers of woods and bottoms and hills lay between, +and the old man seldom stirred beyond the boundaries of his own farm; +but Davy wanted to be on the safe side. + +There were moments, though, when he thought of the old man, and wondered +if he had missed the dog and whether he would make any search for him. +There were sober moments, too, when he thought of his mother and Mr. +Kirby, and wished he had told them the truth. But then the long-drawn +bay of the hound would come from the bottoms ahead, and he would hurry +to the summons, his face flushed and eager. The music of the dog +running, the sound of the shots, and his own triumphant yells started +many an echo among the silent frosted hills that day. He came home with +enough meat to last a week--six rabbits. As he hurried into the yard he +held them up for the inspection of his mother, who was feeding the +chickens. + +"He's the finest rabbit dog ever was, Ma! Oh, golly, he can follow a +trail! I never see anything like it, Ma, I never did! I'll skin 'em an' +clean 'em after supper. You ought to have saw him, Ma! Golly!" + +And while he chopped the wood and milked the cow and fed the mule, and +skinned the rabbits, he saw other days ahead like this, and whistled and +sang and talked to the hound, who followed close at his heels every step +he took. + +Then one afternoon, while he was patching the lot fence, with Buck +sunning himself near the woodpile, came Old Man Thornycroft. Davy +recognized his buggy as it turned the bend in the road. He quickly +dropped his tools, called Buck to him and got behind the house where he +could see without being seen. The buggy stopped in the road, and the old +man, his hard, pinched face working, his buggy whip in his hand, came +down the walk and called Mrs. Alien out on the porch. + +"I just come to tell you," he cried, "that your boy Davy run off with my +dog las' Friday evenin'! There ain't no use to deny it. I know all about +it. I seen him when he passed in front of the house. I found the block I +had chained to the dog beside the road. I heered Squire Jim Kirby +talkin' to some men in Tom Belcher's sto' this very mornin'; just +happened to overhear him as I come in. 'A boy an' a dog,' he says, 'is +the happiest combination in nater.' Then he went on to tell about your +boy an' a tan dog. He had met 'em in the road. Met 'em when? Last Friday +evenin'. Oh, there ain't no use to deny it, Mrs. Allen! Your boy +Davy--he _stole_ my dog!" + +"Mr. Thornycroft"--Davy could not see his mother, but he could hear her +voice tremble--"he did _not_ know whose dog it was!" + +"He didn't? He didn't?" yelled the old man. "An' him a boy that knows +ever' dog for ten miles around! Right in front of my house, I tell +you--that's where he picked him up--that's where he tolled him off! +Didn't I tell you, woman, I seen him pass? Didn't I tell you I found he +block down the road? Didn't know whose dog it was? Ridiculous, +ridiculous! Call him, ask him, face him with it. Likely he'll lie--but +you'll see his face. Call him, that's all I ask. Call him!" + +"Davy!" called Mrs. Allen. "Davy!" + +Just a moment the boy hesitated. Then he went around the house. The +hound stuck very close to him, eyes full of terror, tail tucked as he +looked at the old man. + +"There he is--with my dog!" cried the old man. "You didn't know whose +dog it was, did you, son? Eh? You didn't know, now, did you?" + +"Yes!" cried the boy "I knowed!" + +"Hear that, Mrs. Allen? Did he know? What do you say now? He stole my +dog, didn't he? That's what he done, didn't he? Answer me, woman! You +come here!" he yelled, his face livid, and started, whip raised, toward +boy and dog. + +There were some smooth white stones the size of hen eggs arranged around +a flower bed in the yard, and Davy stood near these stones--and now, +quick as a flash, he stooped down and picked one up. + +"You stop!" he panted, his face very white. + +His mother cried out and came running toward him, but Thornycroft had +stopped. No man in his right mind wants to advance on a country boy with +a rock. Goliath tried it once. + +"All right!" screamed the old man. "You steal first--then you try to +assault an old man! I didn't come here to raise no row. I just came hear +to warn you, Mrs. Allen. I'll have the law on that boy--I'll have the +law on him before another sun sets!" + +He turned and hurried toward the buggy. Davy dropped the rock. Mrs. +Allen stood looking at the old miser, who was clambering into his +buggy, with a sort of horror. Then she ran toward the boy. + +"Oh, Davy! run after him. Take the dog to him. He's terrible, Davy, +terrible! Run after him--anything--anything!" + +But the boy looked up at her with grim mouth and hard eyes. + +"I ain't a-goin' to do it, Ma!" he said. + +It was after supper that very night that the summons came. Bob Kelley, +rural policeman, brought it. + +"Me an' Squire Kirby went to town this mornin'," he said, "to look up +some things about court in the mornin.' This evenin' we run into Old Man +Thornycroft on the street, lookin' for us. He was awful excited. He had +been to Mr. Kirby's house, an' found out Mr. Kirby was in town, an' +followed us. He wanted a warrant swore out right there. Mr. Kirby tried +to argue with him, but it warn't no use. So at last Mr. Kirby turned to +me. 'You go on back, Bob,' he said. 'This'll give me some more lookin' +up to do. Tell my wife I'll just spend the night with Judge Fowler, an' +git back in time for court in Belcher's sto' in the mornin'. An', Bob, +you just stop by Mrs. Allen's--she's guardian of the boy--an' tell her I +say to bring him to Belcher's sto' to-morrow mornin' at nine. You be +there, too, Mr. Thornycroft--an,' by the way, bring that block of wood +you been talkin' about." + +That was all the squire had said, declared the rural policeman. No, he +hadn't sent any other message--just said he would read up on the case. +The rural policeman went out and closed the door behind him. It had been +informal, hap-hazard, like the life of the community in which they +lived. But, for all that, the law had knocked at the door of the Widow +Allen, and left a white-faced mother and a bewildered boy behind. + +They tried to resume their usual employments. Mrs. Allen sat down beside +the table, picked up her sewing and put her glasses on, but her hands +trembled when she tried to thread the needle. Davy sat on a split-bottom +chair in the corner, his feet up on the rungs, and tried to be still; +but his heart was pounding fast and there was a lump in his throat. +Presently he got up and went out of doors, to get in some kindling on +the back porch before it snowed, he told his mother. But he went because +he couldn't sit there any longer, because he was about to explode with +rage and grief and fear and bitterness. + +He did not go toward the woodpile--what difference did dry kindling make +now? At the side of the house he stooped down and softly called Buck. +The hound came to him, wriggling along under the beams, and he leaned +against the house and lovingly pulled the briar-torn ears. A long time +he stayed there, feeling on his face already the fine mist of snow. +To-morrow the ground would be white; it didn't snow often in that +country; day after to-morrow everybody would hunt rabbits--everybody but +him and Buck. + +It was snowing hard when at last he went back into the warm room, so +warm that he pulled off his coat. Once more he tried to sit still in the +split-bottom chair. But there is no rage that consumes like the rage of +a boy. In its presence he is so helpless! If he were a man, thought +Davy, he would go to Old Man Thornycroft's house that night, call him +out, and thrash him in the road. If he were a man, he would curse, he +would do something. He looked wildly about the room, the hopelessness of +it all coming over him in a wave. Then suddenly, because he wasn't a +man, because he couldn't do what he wanted to do, he began to cry, not +as a boy cries, but more as a man cries, in shame and bitterness, his +shoulders shaken by great convulsive sobs, his head buried in his hands, +his fingers running through his tangled mop of hair. + +"Davy, Davy!" The sewing and the scissors slipped to the floor. His +mother was down on her knees beside him, one arm about his shoulders, +trying to pry his face from his hands, trying to look into his eyes. +"You're my man, Davy! You're the only man, the only help I've got. +You're my life, Davy. Poor boy! Poor child!" + +He caught hold of her convulsively, and she pressed his head against her +breast. Then he saw that she was crying, and he grew quiet, and wiped +his eyes with his ragged coat sleeve. + +"I'm all right now, Ma," he said; but he looked at her wildly. + +She did not follow him into his little unceiled bedroom. She must have +known that he had reached that age where no woman could help him. It +must be a man now to whom he could pin his faith. And while he lay +awake, tumbling and tossing, along with bitter thoughts of Old Man +Thornycroft came other bitter thoughts of Mr. Kirby, whom, deep down in +his boy's heart he had worshipped--Mr. Kirby, who had sided with Old Man +Thornycroft and sent a summons with--no message for him. "God!" he said. +"God!" And pulled his hair, down there under the covers; and he hated +the law that would take a dog from him and give it back to that old +man--the law that Mr. Kirby represented. + +It was still snowing when next morning he and his mother drove out of +the yard and he turned the head of the reluctant old mule in the +direction of Belcher's store. A bitter wind cut their faces, but it was +not as bitter as the heart of the boy. Only twice on that five-mile ride +did he speak. The first time was when he looked back to find Buck, whom +they had left at home, thinking he would stay under the house on such a +day, following very close behind the buggy. + +"Might as well let him come on," said the boy. + +The second time was when they came in sight of Belcher's store, dim +yonder through the swirling snow. Then he looked up into his mother's +face. + +"Ma," he said grimly, "I ain't no thief!" + +She smiled as bravely as she could with her stiffened face and with the +tears so near the surface. She told him that she knew it, and that +everybody knew it. But there was no answering smile on the boys set +face. + +The squire's gray mare, standing huddled up in the midst of other horses +and of buggies under the shed near the store, told that court had +probably already convened. Hands numb, the boy hitched the old mule to +the only rack left under the shed, then made Buck lie down under the +buggy. Heart pounding, he went up on the store porch with his mother and +pushed the door open. + +There was a commotion when they entered. The men, standing about the +pot-bellied stove, their overcoats steaming, made way for them. Old Man +Thornycroft looked quickly and triumphantly around. In the rear of the +store the squire rose from a table, in front of which was a cleared +space. + +"Pull up a chair nigh the stove for Mrs. Allen, Tom Belcher," he said. +"I'm busy tryin' this chicken-stealin' nigger. When I get through, Mrs. +Allen, if you're ready I'll call your case." + +Davy stood beside his mother while the trial of the negro proceeded. +Some of the fight had left him now, crowded down here among all these +grown men, and especially in the presence of Mr. Kirby, for it is hard +for a boy to be bitter long. But with growing anxiety he heard the sharp +questions the magistrate asked the negro; he saw the frown of justice; +he heard the sentence "sixty days on the gang." And the negro had stolen +only a chicken--and he had run off with another man's dog! + +"The old man's rough this mornin'," a man whispered to another above +him; and he saw the furtive grin on the face of Old Man Thornycroft, who +leaned against the counter, waiting. + +His heart jumped into his mouth when after a silence the magistrate +spoke: "Mr. Thornycroft, step forward, sir. Put your hand on the book +here. Now tell us about that dog of yours that was stole." + +Looking first at the magistrate, then at the crowd, as if to impress +them also, the old man told in a high-pitched, excited voice all the +details--his seeing Davy Allen pass in front of his house last Friday +afternoon, his missing the dog, his finding the block of wood down the +road beside the pasture fence, his over-hearing the squire's talk right +here in the store, his calling on Mrs. Allen, the boy's threatening him. + +"I tell you," he cried, "that's a dangerous character--that boy!" + +"Is that all you've got to say?" asked the squire. + +"It's enough, ain't it?" demanded Thornycroft angrily. + +The squire nodded and spat into the cuspidor between his feet. "I think +so," he said quietly, "Stand aside. Davy Alien step forward. Put your +hand on the book here, son. Davy, how old are you?" + +The boy gulped. "Thirteen years old, goin' on fo'teen." + +"You're old enough, son, to know the nater of the oath you're about to +take. For over two years you've been the mainstay an' support of your +mother. You've had to carry the burdens and responsibilities of a man, +Davy. The testimony you give in this case will be the truth, the whole +truth an' nothin' but the truth, so help you God. What about it?" + +Davy nodded, his face very white. + +"All right now. Tell us about it. Talk loud so we can hear--all of us." + +The boy's eyes never left Mr. Kirby's while he talked. Something in them +held him, fascinated him, overawed him. Very large and imposing he +looked there behind his little table, with his faded old overcoat on, +and there was no sound in the room but the boy's clear voice. + +"An' you come off an' left the dog at first?" + +"Yes, sir," + +"An' you didn't unfasten the chain from the block till the dog got +caught in the fence?" + +"No, sir, I didn't." + +"Did you try to get him to follow you then?" + +"No, sir, he wanted to." + +"Ask him, Mr. Kirby," broke in Thornycroft angrily, "if he tried to +drive him home!" + +"I'll ask him whatever seems fit an' right to me, sir," said Mr. Kirby. +"What did you tell your ma, Davy, when you got home?" + +"I told her he followed me." + +"Did you tell her whose dog he was? + +"No, sir." + +"Ain't that what you ought to have done? Ain't it?" + +Davy hesitated. "Yes, sir." + +There was a slight shuffling movement amoung the men crowded about. +Somebody cleared his throat. Mr. Kirby resumed. + +"This block you been tellin' about--how was it fastened to the dog?" + +"Thar was a chain fastened to the block by a staple. The other end was +fastened to the collar." + +"How heavy do you think that block was?" + +"About ten pound. I reckon." + +"Five," broke in Old Man Thornycroft with a sneer. + +Mr. Kirby turned to him. "You fetched it with you, didn't you? I told +you to. It's evidence. Bob Kelley, go out to Mr. Thornycroft's buggy an' +bring that block of wood into court." + +The room was silent while the rural policeman was gone. Davy still stood +in the cleared space before Mr. Kirby, his ragged overcoat on, his +tattered hat in his hand, breathing fast, afraid to look at his mother. +Everybody turned when Kelley came in with the block of wood. Everybody +craned their necks to watch, while at the magistrate's order Kelley +weighed the block of wood on the store's scales, which he put on the +magistrate's table. + +"Fo'teen punds," said Mr. Kirby. "Take the scales away." + +"It had rubbed all the skin off'n the dog's neck," broke in Davy +impulsively. "It was all raw an' bleedin'." + +"Aw, that ain't so!" cried Thornycroft. + +"Is the dog out there?" asked Mr. Kirby. + +"Yes, sir, under the buggy." + +"Bob Kelley, you go out an' bring that dog into court." + +The rural policeman went out, and came back with the hound, who looked +eagerly up from one face to the other, then, seeing Davy, came to him +and stood against him, still looking around with that expression of +melancholy on his face that a hound dog always wears except when he's in +action. + +"Bring the dog here, son!" commanded Mr. Kirby. He examined the raw +place on the neck. "Any of you gentlemen care to take a look?" he asked. + +"It was worse than that," declared Davy, "till I rubbed vase-leen on +it." + +Old Man Thornycroft pushed forward, face quivering. "What's all this got +to do with the boy stealin' the dog?" he demanded. "That's what I want +to know--what's it got to do?" + +"Mr. Thornycroft," said Kirby, "at nine o'clock this mornin' this place +ceased to be Tom Belcher's sto', an' become a court of justice. Some +things are seemly in a court, some not. You stand back there!" + +The old man stepped back to the counter, and stood julling his chin, his +eyes running over the crowd of faces. + +"Davy Allen," spoke Mr. Kirby, "you stand back there with your ma. Tom +Belcher make way for him. And, Tom, s'pose you put another stick of wood +in that stove an' poke up the fire." He took off his glasses, blew on +them, polished them with his handkerchief and readjusted them. Then, +leaning back in his chair, he spoke. + +"Gentlemen, from the beginnin' of time, as fur back as records go, a +dog's been the friend, companion, an' protector of man. Folks say he +come from the wolf, but that ain't no reflection on him, seem' that we +come from monkeys ourselves, an' I believe, takin' all things into +account, I'd as soon have a wolf for a ancestor as a monkey, an' a +little ruther. + +"Last night in the libery of my old friend Judge Fowler in town, I +looked up some things about this dog question. I find that there have +been some queer decisions handed down by the courts, showin' that the +law does recognize the fact that a dog is different from other +four-footed critters. For instance, it has been held that a dog has a +right to protect not only his life but his dignity; that where a man +worries a dog beyond what would be reasonable to expect any self +respectin' critter to stand, that dog has a right to bite that man, an' +that man can't collect any damages--provided the bitin' is done at the +time of the worryin' an' in sudden heat an' passion. That has been held +in the courts, gentlemen. The law that holds for man holds for dogs. + +"Another thing: If the engineer of a railroad train sees a cow or a +horse or a sheep on the track, or a hog, he must stop the train or the +road is liable for any damage done 'em. But if he sees a man walkin' +along the track he has a right to presume that the man, bein' a critter +of more or less intelligence, will git off, an' he is not called on to +stop under ordinary circumstances. The same thing holds true of a dog. +The engineer has a right to presume that the dog, bein' a critter of +intelligence, will get off the track. Here again the law is the same for +dog an' man. + +"_But_--if the engineer has reason to believe that the man's mind is +took up with some object of an engrossin' nater, he is supposed to stop +the train till the man comes to himself an' looks around. The same thing +holds true of a dog. If the engineer has reason to suspect that the +dog's mind is occupied with some engrossin' topic, he must stop the +train. That case has been tested in this very state, where a dog was on +the track settin' a covey of birds in the adjoinin' field. The railroad +was held responsible for the death of that dog, because the engineer +ought to have known by the action of the dog that his mind was on +somethin' else beside railroad trains an' locomotives." + +Again the magistrate spat into the cuspidor between his feet. Davy, +still watching him, felt his mother's grip on his arm. Everyone was +listening so closely that the whispered sneering comment of Old Man +Thornycroft to the man next to him was audible, "What's all this got to +do with the case?" + +"The p'int I'm gettin' to is this," went on Mr. Kirby, not paying +attention to him: "a dog is not like a cow or a horse or any four-footed +critter. He's a individual, an' so the courts have held in spirit if not +in actual words. Now this court of mine here in Tom Belcher's sto, ain't +like other courts. I have to do the decidin' myself; I have to interpret +the true spirit of the law, without technicalities an' quibbles such as +becloud it in other an' higher courts. An' I hold that since a dog is +_de facto_ an' _de jure_ an individual, he has a right to life, liberty +an' the pursuit of happiness. + +"Therefore, gentlemen, I hold that that houn' dog, Buck, had a perfect +right to follow that boy, Davy Allen, there; an' I hold that Davy Allen +was not called on to drive that dog back, or interfere in any way with +that dog followin' him if the dog so chose. You've heard the evidence of +the boy. You know, an' I know, he has spoke the truth this day, an' +there ain't no evidence to the contrary. The boy did not entice the dog. +He even went down the road, leavin' him behind. He run back only when +the dog was in dire need an' chokin' to death. He wasn't called on to +put that block an' chain back on the dog. He couldn't help it if the dog +followed him. He no more stole that dog than I stole him. He's no more a +thief than I am. I dismiss this case, Mr. Thornycroft, this case you've +brought against Davy Allen. I declare him innocent of the charge of +theft. I set it down right here on the records of this court." + +"Davy!" gasped Mrs. Allen. "Davy!" + +But, face working, eyes blazing, Old Man Thornycroft started forward, +and the dog, panting, shrank between boy and mother. "Jim Kirby!" cried +the old man, stopping for a moment in the cleared space. "You're +magistrate. What you say goes. But that dog thar--he's mine! He's my +property--mine by law!" He jerked a piece of rope out of his overcoat +pocket and came on toward the cowering dog. "Tom Belcher, Bob Kelley! +Stop that dog! He's mine!" + +"Davy!" Mrs. Alien was holding the boy. "Don't--don't say anything. +You're free to go home. Your record's clear. The dog's his!" + +"Hold on!" Mr. Kirby had risen from his chair. "You come back here, Mr. +Thornycroft. This court's not adjourned yet. If you don't get back, I'll +stick a fine to you for contempt you'll remember the rest of your days. +You stand where you are, sir! Right there! Don't move till I'm through!" + +Quivering the old man stood where he was. Mr. Kirby sat down, face +flushed, eyes blazing. "Punch up that fire, Tom Belcher," he said. "I +ain't through yet." + +The hound came trembling back to Davy, looked up in his face, licked his +hand, then sat down at the side opposite his former master, looking +around now and then at the old man, terror in his eyes. In the midst of +a deathly silence the magistrate resumed. + +"What I was goin' to say, gentlemen, is this: I'm not only magistrate, +I'm an officer in an organization that you country fellers likely don't +know of, an organization known as the Society for the Prevention of +Cruelty to Animals. As such an officer it's my duty to report an' bring +to trial any man who treats a dumb brute in a cruel an' inhuman way. Mr +Thornycroft, judgin' by the looks of that houn', you ain't give him +enough to eat to keep a cat alive--an' a cat we all know, don't eat +much, just messes over her vittles. You condemned that po' beast, for no +fault of his own, to the life of a felon. A houn' that ain't happy at +best, he's melancholy; an' a houn' that ain't allowed to run free is of +all critters the wretchedest. This houn's neck is rubbed raw. God only +knows what he's suffered in mind an' body. A man that would treat a dog +that way ain't fitten to own one. An' I hereby notify you that, on the +evidence of this boy, an' the evidence before our eyes, I will indict +you for breakin' the law regardin' the treatment of animals; an' I +notify you, furthermore, that as magistrate I'll put the law on you for +that same thing. An' it might be interestin' to you to know, sir, that I +can find you as much as five hundred dollars, or send you to jail for +one year, or both, if I see fit--an' there ain't no tellin' but what I +will see fit, sir." + +He looked sternly at Thornycroft. + +"Now I'm goin' to make a proposition that I advise you to jump at like +you never jumped at anything before. If you will give up that houn' +Buck--to me, say, or to anybody I decide will be kind to him--I will let +the matter drop. If you will go home like a peaceable citizen, you won't +hear no more about it from me; but if you don't--" + +"Git out of my way!" cried Old Man Thornycroft. "All of you! I'm +goin'--I'm goin'!" + +"Hold on!" said Mr. Kirby, when he had got almost to the door. "Do you, +in the presence of these witnesses, turn over this dog to me, +relinquishin' all claims to him, on the conditions named? Answer Yes or +No?" + +There was a moment's silence; then the old man cried out: + +"Take the old hound! He ain't wuth the salt in his vittles!" + +He jerked the door open. + +"Yes or no?" called Mr. Kirby inexorably. + +"Yes!" yelled the old man, and slammed the door behind him. + +"One minute, gentlemen," said Mr. Kirby, rising from the table and +gathering his papers and records together. "Just one more thing: If +anybody here has any evidence, or knows of any, tendin' to show that +this boy Davy Allen is not the proper person to turn over a houn' dog +to, I hope he will speak up." He waited a moment. "In the absence of any +objections, an' considerin' the evidence that's been given here this +mornin', I think I'll just let that dog go back the way he come. Thank +you, gentlemen. Court's adjourned!" + + + + +PORCELAIN CUPS + + +BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL + +From _Century Magazine_ + + +I + +OF GREATNESS INTIMATELY VIEWED + +"Oh, but they are beyond praise," said Cynthia Allonby, enraptured, "and +certainly you should have presented them to the Queen." + +"Her majesty already possesses a cup of that ware," replied Lord +Pevensey. "It was one of her New Year's gifts, from Robert Cecil. Hers +is, I believe, not quite so fine as either of yours; but then, they tell +me, there is not the like of this pair in England, nor indeed on the +hither side of Cataia." + +He set the two pieces of Chinese pottery upon the shelves in the south +corner of the room. These cups were of that sea-green tint called +céladon, with a very wonderful glow and radiance. Such oddities were the +last vogue at court in this year of grace 1593: and Cynthia could not +but speculate as to what monstrous sum Lord Pevensey had paid for this +his last gift to her. + +Now he turned, smiling, a really superb creature in his blue and gold. +"I had another message from the Queen--" + +"George," Cynthia said, with fond concern, "it frightens me to see you +thus foolhardy, in tempting alike the Queen's anger and the Plague." + +"Eh, as goes the Plague, it spares nine out of ten," he answered, +lightly. "The Queen, I grant you, is another pair of sleeves, for an +irritated Tudor spares nobody." + +But Cynthia Allonby kept silence, and did not exactly smile, while she +appraised her famous young kinsman. She was flattered by, and a little +afraid of, the gay self-confidence which led anybody to take such +chances. Two weeks ago it was that the painted terrible old Queen had +named Lord Pevensey to go straightway into France, where rumour had it, +King Henri was preparing to renounce the Reformed Religion, and making +his peace with the Pope: and for two weeks Pevensey had lingered, on one +pretence or another, at his house in London, with the Plague creeping +about the city like an invisible incalculable flame, and the Queen +asking questions at Windsor. Of all the monarchs that had ever reigned +in England, Elizabeth was the least used to having her orders +disregarded. Meanwhile Lord Pevensey came every day to the Marquis of +Falmouth's lodgings at Deptford; and every day Lord Pevensey pointed out +to the marquis's daughter that Pevensey, whose wife had died in +childbirth a year back, did not intend to go into France, for nobody +could foretell how long a stay, as a widower. Certainly it was all very +flattering ... + +"Yes, and you would be an excellent match," said Cynthia, aloud, "if +that were all. And yet, what must I reasonably expect in marrying, sir, +the famous Earl of Pevensey?" + +"A great deal of love and petting, my dear. And if there were anything +else to which you had a fancy, I would get it for you." + +Her glance went to those lovely cups and lingered fondly. "Yes, dear +Master Generosity, if it could be purchased or manufactured, you would +get it for me--" + +"If it exists I will get it for you," he declared. + +"I think that it exists. But I am not learned enough to know what it is. +George, if I married you I would have money and fine clothes and soft +hours and many lackeys to wait on me, and honour from all men. And you +would be kind to me, I know when you returned from the day's work at +Windsor--or Holyrood or the Louvre. But do you not see that I would +always be to you only a rather costly luxury, like those cups, which the +Queen's minister could afford to keep for his hours of leisure?" + +He answered: "You are all in all to me. You know it. Oh, very well do +you know and abuse your power, you adorable and lovely baggage, who have +kept me dancing attendance for a fortnight, without ever giving me an +honest yes or no." He gesticulated. "Well, but life is very dull in +Deptford village, and it amuses you to twist a Queen's adviser around +your finger! I see it plainly, you minx, and I acquiesce because, it +delights me to give you pleasure, even at the cost of some dignity. Yet +I may no longer shirk the Queen's business,--no, not even to amuse you, +my dear." + +"You said you had heard from her--again?" + +"I had this morning my orders, under Glorianna's own fair hand, either +to depart to-morrow into France or else to come to-morrow to Windsor. I +need not say that in the circumstances I consider France the more +wholesome." + +Now the girl's voice was hurt and wistful. "So, for the thousandth time, +is it proven the Queen's business means more to you than I do. Yes, +certainly it is just as I said, George." + +He observed, unruffled: "My dear, I scent unreason. This is a high +matter. If the French King compounds with Rome, it means war for +Protestant England. Even you must see that." + +She replied, sadly: "Yes, even I! oh, certainly, my lord, even a +half-witted child of seventeen can perceive as much as that." + +"I was not speaking of half-witted persons, as I remember. Well, it +chances that I am honoured by the friendship of our gallant Béarnais, +and am supposed to have some claim upon him, thanks to my good fortune +last year in saving his life from the assassin Barrière. It chances that +I may perhaps become, under providence, the instrument of preserving my +fellow countrymen from much grief and trumpet-sounding and +throat-cutting. Instead of pursuing that chance, two weeks ago--as was +my duty--I have dangled at your apron-strings, in the vain hope of +softening the most variable and hardest heart in the world. Now, +clearly, I have not the right to do that any longer." + +She admired the ennobled, the slightly rapt look which, she knew, +denoted that George Bulmer was doing his duty as he saw it, even in her +disappointment. "No, you have not the right. You are wedded to your +state-craft, to your patriotism, to your self-advancement, or christen +it what you will. You are wedded, at all events, to your man's business. +You have not time for such trifles as giving a maid that foolish and +lovely sort of wooing to which every maid looks forward in her heart of +hearts. Indeed, when you married the first time it was a kind of +infidelity; and I am certain that poor dear mouse-like Mary must have +felt that often and over again. Why, do you not see, George, even now, +that your wife will always come second to your real love?" + +"In my heart, dear sophist, you will always come first. But it is not +permitted that any loyal gentleman devote every hour of his life to +sighing and making sonnets, and to the general solacing of a maid's +loneliness in this dull little Deptford. Nor would you, I am sure, +desire me to do so." + +"I hardly know what I desire," she told him ruefully. "But I know that +when you talk of your man's business I am lonely and chilled and far +away from you. And I know that I cannot understand more than half your +fine high notions about duty and patriotism and serving England and so +on," the girl declared: and she flung wide her lovely little hands, in a +despairing gesture. "I admire you, sir, when you talk of England. It +makes you handsomer--yes, even handsomer!--somehow. But all the while I +am remembering that England is just an ordinary island inhabited by a +number of ordinary persons, for the most of whom I have no particular +feeling one way or the other.". + +Pevensey looked at her for a while with queer tenderness. Then he +smiled. "No, I could not quite make you understand, my dear. But, ah, +why fuddle that quaint little brain by trying to understand such matters +as lie without your realm? For a woman's kingdom is the home, my dear, +and her throne is in the heart of her husband--" + +"All this is but another way of saying your lordship would have us cups +upon a shelf," she pointed out--"in readiness for your leisure." + +He shrugged, said "Nonsense!" and began more lightly to talk of other +matters. Thus and thus he would do in France, such and such trinkets he +would fetch back--"as toys for the most whimsical, the loveliest and the +most obstinate child in all the world," he phrased it. And they would be +married, Pevensey declared, in September: nor (he gaily said) did he +propose to have any further argument about it. Children should be +seen--the proverb was dusty, but it particularly applied to pretty +children. + +Cynthia let him talk. She was just a little afraid of his self +confidence, and of this tall nobleman's habit of getting what he wanted, +in the end: but she dispiritedly felt that Pevensey had failed her. He +treated her as a silly infant: and his want of her, even in that +capacity, was a secondary matter: he was going into France, for all his +petting talk, and was leaving her to shift as she best might, until he +could spare the time to resume his love-making.... + + +II + +WHAT COMES OF SCRIBBLING + +Now when Pevensey had gone the room seemed darkened by the withdrawal of +so much magnificence. Cynthia watched from the window as the tall earl +rode away, with three handsomely clad retainers. Yes, George was very +fine and admirable, no doubt of it: even so, there was relief in the +reflection that for a month or two she was rid of him. + +Turning, she faced a lean dishevelled man who stood by the Magdalen +tapestry scratching his chin. He had unquiet bright eyes, this +out-at-elbows poet whom a marquis's daughter was pleased to patronize, +and his red hair to-day was unpardonably puzzled. Nor were his manners +beyond reproach, for now, without saying anything, he too went to the +window. He dragged one foot a little as he walked. + +"So my lord Pevensey departs! Look how he rides in triumph! like lame +Tamburlaine, with Techelles and Usumcasane and Theridamas to attend him, +and with the sunset turning the dust raised by their horses' hoofs into +a sort of golden haze about them. It is a beautiful world. And truly, +Mistress Cyn," the poet said, reflectively, "that Pevensey is a very +splendid ephemera. If not a king himself, at least he goes magnificently +to settle the affairs of kings. Were modesty not my failing Mistress +Cyn, I would acclaim you as strangely lucky, in being beloved by two +fine fellows that have not their like in England." + +"Truly you are not always thus modest, Kit Marlowe--" + +"But, Lord, how seriously Pevensey takes it all! and himself in +particular! Why, there departs from us, in befitting state, a personage +whose opinion as to every topic in the world is written legibly in the +carriage of those fine shoulders, even when seen from behind and from so +considerable a distance. And in not one syllable do any of these +opinions differ from the opinions of his great-great-grandfathers. Oho, +and hark to Deptford! now all the oafs in the Corn-market are cheering +this bulwark of Protestant England, this rising young hero of a people +with no nonsense about them. Yes, it is a very quaint and rather +splendid ephemera." + +A marquis's daughter could not quite approve of the way in which this +shoemaker's son, however talented, railed at his betters. "Pevensey will +be the greatest man in these kingdoms some day. Indeed, Kit Marlowe, +there are those who say he is that much already." + +"Oh very probably! Still, I am puzzled by human greatness. A century +hence what will he matter, this Pevensey? His ascent and his declension +will have been completed, and his foolish battles and treaties will have +given place to other foolish battles and treaties and oblivion will have +swallowed this glistening bluebottle, plumes and fine lace and stately +ruff and all. Why, he is but an adviser to the queen of half an island, +whereas my Tamburlaine was lord of all the golden ancient East: and what +does my Tamburlaine matter now, save that he gave Kit Marlowe the +subject of a drama? Hah, softly though! for does even that very greatly +matter? Who really cares to-day about what scratches were made upon wax +by that old Euripides, the latchet of whose sandals I am not worthy to +unloose? No, not quite worthy, as yet!" + +And thereupon the shabby fellow sat down in the tall leather-covered +chair which Pevensey had just vacated: and this Marlowe nodded his +flaming head portentously. "Hoh, look you, I am displeased, Mistress +Cyn, I cannot lend my approval to this over-greedy oblivion that gapes +for all. No, it is not a satisfying arrangement that I should teeter +insecurely through the void on a gob of mud, and be expected bye and bye +to relinquish even that crazy foothold. Even for Kit Marlowe death lies +in wait! and it may be, not anything more after death, not even any +lovely words to play with. Yes, and this Marlowe may amount to nothing, +after all: and his one chance of amounting to that which he intends may +be taken away from him at any moment!" + +He touched the breast of a weather-beaten doublet. He gave her that +queer twisted sort of smile which the girl could not but find +attractive, somehow. He said: "Why but this heart thumping here inside +me may stop any moment like a broken clock. Here is Euripides writing +better than I: and here in my body, under my hand, is the mechanism upon +which depend all those masterpieces that are to blot the Athenian from +the reckoning, and I have no control of it!" + +"Indeed, I fear that you control few things," she told him, "and that +least of all do you control your taste for taverns and bad women. Oh, I +hear tales of you!" And Cynthia raised a reproving fore-finger. + +"True tales, no doubt." He shrugged. "Lacking the moon he vainly cried +for, the child learns to content himself with a penny whistle." + +"Ah, but the moon is far away," the girl said, smiling--"too far to hear +the sound of human crying: and besides, the moon, as I remember it, was +never a very amorous goddess--" + +"Just so," he answered: "also she was called Cynthia, and she, too, was +beautiful." + +"Yet is it the heart that cries to me, my poet?" she asked him, softly, +"or just the lips?" + +"Oh, both of them, most beautiful and inaccessible of goddesses." Then +Marlowe leaned toward her, laughing and shaking that disreputable red +head. "Still you are very foolish, in your latest incarnation, to be +wasting your rays upon carpet earls who will not outwear a century. Were +modesty not my failing, I repeat, I could name somebody who will last +longer. Yes, and--if, but I lacked that plaguey virtue--I would advise +you to go a-gypsying with that nameless somebody, so that two manikins +might snatch their little share of the big things that are eternal, just +as the butterfly fares intrepidly and joyously, with the sun for his +torch-boy, through a universe wherein thought cannot estimate the +unimportance of a butterfly, and wherein not even the chaste moon is +very important. Yes, certainly I would advise you to have done with this +vanity of courts and masques, of satins and fans and fiddles, this +dallying with tinsels and bright vapours; and very movingly I would +exhort you to seek out Arcadia, travelling hand in hand with that still +nameless somebody." And of a sudden the restless man began to sing. + +Sang Kit Marlowe: + + "Come live with me and be my love, + And we will all the pleasures prove + That hills and valleys, dales and fields, + Woods or sleepy mountain yields. + + "And we will sit upon the rocks, + And see the shepherds feed their flocks + By shallow rivers, to whose falls + Melodious birds sing madrigals--" + +But the girl shook her small, wise head decisively. "That is all very +fine, but, as it happens, there is no such place as this Arcadia, where +people can frolic in perpetual sunlight the year round, and find their +food and clothing miraculously provided. No, nor can you, I am afraid, +give me what all maids really, in their heart of hearts, desire far +more than any sugar-candy Arcadia. Oh, as I have so often told you, Kit, +I think you love no woman. You love words. And your seraglio is tenanted +by very beautiful words, I grant you, thought there is no longer any +Sestos builded of agate and crystal, either, Kit Marlowe. For, as you +may perceive, sir, I have read all that lovely poem you left with me +last Thursday--" + +She saw how interested he was, saw how he almost smirked. "Aha, so you +think it not quite bad, eh, the conclusion of my 'Hero and Leander'?" + +"It is your best. And your middlemost, my poet, is better than aught +else in English," she said, politely, and knowing how much he delighted +to hear such remarks. + +"Come, I retract my charge of foolishness, for you are plainly a wench +of rare discrimination. And yet you say I do not love you! Cynthia, you +are beautiful, you are perfect in all things. You are that heavenly +Helen of whom I wrote, some persons say, acceptably enough--How strange +it was I did not know that Helen was dark-haired and pale! for certainly +yours is that immortal loveliness which must be served by poets in life +and death." + +"And I wonder how much of these ardours," she thought, "is kindled by my +praise of his verses?" She bit her lip, and she regarded him with a hint +of sadness. She said, aloud: "But I did not, after all, speak to Lord +Pevensey concerning the printing of your poem. Instead, I burned your +'Hero and Leander'." + +She saw him jump, as under a whip-lash. Then he smiled again, in that +wry fashion of his. "I lament the loss to letters, for it was my only +copy. But you knew that." + +"Yes, Kit, I knew it was your only copy." + +"Oho! and for what reason did you burn it, may one ask?" + +"I thought you loved it more than you loved me. It was my rival, I +thought--" The girl was conscious of remorse, and yet it was remorse +commingled with a mounting joy. + +"And so you thought a jingle scribbled upon a bit of paper could be +your rival with me!" + +Then Cynthia no longer doubted, but gave a joyous little sobbing laugh, +for the love of her disreputable dear poet was sustaining the stringent +testing she had devised. She touched his freckled hand caressingly, and +her face was as no man had ever seen it, and her voice, too, caressed +him. + +"Ah, you have made me the happiest of women, Kit! Kit, I am almost +disappointed in you, though, that you do not grieve more for the loss of +that beautiful poem." + +His smiling did not waver; yet the lean, red-haired man stayed +motionless. "Do I appear perturbed?" he said. "Why, but see how lightly +I take the destruction of my life-work in this, my masterpiece! For I +can assure you it was a masterpiece, the fruit of two years' toil and of +much loving repolishment--" + +"Ah, but you love me better than such matters, do you not?" she asked +him, tenderly. "Kit Marlowe, I adore you! Sweetheart, do you not +understand that a woman wants to be loved utterly and entirely? She +wants no rivals, not even paper rivals. And so often when you talked of +poetry I have felt lonely and chilled and far away from you, and I have +been half envious, dear, of your Heros and your Helens, and your other +good-for-nothing Greek minxes. But now I do not mind them at all. And I +will make amends, quite prodigal amends, for my naughty jealousy; and my +poet shall write me some more lovely poems, so he shall--" + +He said "You fool!" + +And she drew away from him, for this man was no longer smiling. + +"You burned my 'Hero and Leander'! You! you big-eyed fool! You lisping +idiot! you wriggling, cuddling worm! you silken bag of guts! had not +even you the wit to perceive it was immortal beauty which would have +lived long after you and I were stinking dirt? And you, a half-witted +animal, a shining, chattering parrot, lay claws to it!" Marlowe had +risen in a sort of seizure, in a condition which was really quite +unreasonable when you considered that only a poem was at stake, even a +rather long poem. + +And Cynthia began to smile, with tremulous hurt-looking young lips. "So +my poet's love is very much the same as Pevensey's love! And I was +right, after all." + +"Oh, oh!" said Marlowe, "that ever a poet should love a woman! What +jokes does the lewd flesh contrive!" Of a sudden he was calmer: and then +rage fell from him like a dropped cloak and he viewed her as with +respectful wonder. "Why, but you sitting there, with goggling innocent +bright eyes, are an allegory of all that is most droll and tragic. Yes, +and indeed there is no reason to blame you. It is not your fault that +every now and then is born a man who serves an idea which is to him the +most important thing in the world. It is not your fault that this man +perforce inhabits a body to which the most important thing in the world +is a woman. Certainly it is not your fault that this compost makes yet +another jumble of his two desires, and persuades himself that the two +are somehow allied. The woman inspires, the woman uplifts, the woman +strengthens him for his high work, saith he! Well, well, perhaps there +are such women, but by land and sea I have encountered none of them." + +All this was said while Marlowe shuffled about the room, with bent +shoulders, and nodding his tousled red head, and limping as he walked. +Now Marlowe turned, futile and shabby-looking, just where Pevensey had +loomed resplendent a while since. Again she saw the poet's queer, +twisted, jeering smile. + +"What do you care for my ideals? What do you care for the ideals of that +tall earl whom you have held from his proper business for a fortnight? +or for the ideals of any man alive? Why, not one thread of that dark +hair, not one snap of those white little fingers, except when ideals +irritate you by distracting a man's attention from Cynthia Allonby. +Otherwise, he is welcome enough to play with his incomprehensible toys." + +He jerked a thumb toward the shelves behind him. + +"Oho, you virtuous pretty ladies! what all you value is such matters as +those cups: they please the eye, they are worth sound money, and people +envy you the possession of them. So you cherish your shiny mud cups, and +you burn my 'Hero and Leander': and I declaim all this dull nonsense, +over the ashes of my ruined dreams, thinking at bottom of how pretty you +are, and of how much I would like to kiss you. That is the real tragedy, +the immortal tragedy, that I should still hanker after you, my +Cynthia--" + +His voice dwelt tenderly upon her name. His fever-haunted eyes were +tender, too, for just a moment. Then he grimaced. + +"No, I am wrong--the tragedy strikes deeper. The root of it is that +there is in you and in all your glittering kind no malice, no will to do +harm nor to hurt anything, but just a bland and invincible and, upon the +whole, a well-meaning stupidity, informing a bright and soft and +delicately scented animal. So you work ruin among those men who serve +ideals, not foreplanning ruin, not desiring to ruin anything, not even +having sufficient wit to perceive the ruin when it is accomplished. You +are, when all is done, not even detestable, not even a worthy peg +whereon to hang denunciatory sonnets, you shallow-pated pretty creatures +whom poets--oh, and in youth all men are poets!--whom poets, now and +always, are doomed to hanker after to the detriment of their poesy. No, +I concede it: you kill without premeditation, and without ever +suspecting your hands to be anything but stainless. So in logic I must +retract all my harsh words; and I must, without any hint or reproach, +endeavour to bid you a somewhat more civil farewell." + +She had regarded him, throughout this preposterous and uncalled-for +harangue, with sad composure, with a forgiving pity. Now she asked him, +very quietly, "Where are you going, Kit?" + +"To the Golden Hind, O gentle, patient and unjustly persecuted virgin +martyr!" he answered, with an exaggerated how--"since that is the part +in which you now elect to posture." + +"Not to that low, vile place again!" + +"But certainly I intend in that tavern to get tipsy as quickly as +possible: for then the first woman I see will for the time become the +woman whom I desire and who exists nowhere." And with that the +red-haired man departed, limping and singing as he went to look for a +trull in a pot-house. + +Sang Kit Marlowe: + + "And I will make her beds of roses + And a thousand fragrant posies; + A cap of flowers, and a kirtle + Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle. + + "A gown made of the finest wool + Which from our pretty lambs we pull; + Fair-linèd slippers for the cold, + With buckles of the purest gold--" + + +III + +ECONOMICS OF EGERIA + +She sat quite still when Marlowe had gone. + +"He will get drunk again," she thought despondently. "Well, and why +should it matter to me if he does, after all that outrageous ranting? He +has been unforgivably insulting--Oh, but none the less, I do not want to +have him babbling of the roses and gold of that impossible fairy world +which the poor, frantic child really believes in, to some painted woman +of the town who will laugh at him. I loathe the thought of her laughing +at him--and kissing him! His notions are wild foolishness; but I at +least wish that they were not foolishness, and that hateful woman will +not care one way or the other." + +So Cynthia sighed, and to comfort her forlorn condition fetched a +hand-mirror from the shelves whereon glowed her green cups. She touched +each cup caressingly in passing; and that which she found in the mirror, +too, she regarded not unappreciatively, from varying angles.... Yes +after all, dark hair and a pale skin had their advantages at a court +where pink and yellow women were so much the fashion as to be common. +Men remembered you more distinctively. Though nobody cared for men, in +view of their unreasonable behaviour, and their absolute +self-centeredness.... Oh, it was pitiable, it was grotesque, she +reflected sadly, how Pevensey and Kitt Marlowe had both failed her, +after so many pretty speeches. + +Still, there was a queer pleasure in being wooed by Kit: his insane +notions went to one's head like wine. She would send Meg for him again +to-morrow. And Pevensey was, of course, the best match imaginable.... +No, it would be too heartless to dismiss George Bulmer outright. It was +unreasonable of him to desert her because a Gascon threatened to go to +mass; but, after all, she would probably marry George in the end. He was +really almost unendurably silly, though, about England and freedom and +religion, and right and wrong things like that. Yes, it would be tedious +to have a husband who often talked to you as though he were addressing a +public meeting.... However, he was very handsome, particularly in his +highflown and most tedious moments; that year-old son of his was sickly +and would probably die soon, the sweet, forlorn little pet, and not be a +bother to anybody: and her dear old father would be profoundly delighted +by the marriage of his daughter to a man whose wife could have at will a +dozen céladon cups, and anything else she chose to ask for.... + +But now the sun had set, and the room was growing quite dark. So Cynthia +stood a-tiptoe, and replaced the mirror upon the shelves, setting it +upright behind those wonderful green cups which had anew reminded her of +Pevensey's wealth and generosity. She smiled a little, to think of what +fun it had been to hold George back, for two whole weeks, from +discharging that horrible old queen's stupid errands. + + +IV + +TREATS PHILOSOPHICALLY OF BREAKAGE + +The door opened. Stalwart young Captain Edward Musgrave came with a +lighted candle, which he placed carefully upon the table in the room's +centre. + +He said: "They told me you were here. I come from London. I bring news +for you." + +"You bring no pleasant tidings, I fear--" + +"As Lord Pevensey rode through the Strand this afternoon, on his way +home, the Plague smote him. That is my sad news. I grieve to bring such +news, for your cousin was a worthy gentleman and universally respected." + +"Ah," Cynthia said, very quiet, "so Pevensey is dead. But the Plague +kills quickly!" + +"Yes, yes, that is a comfort, certainly. Yes, he turned quite black in +the face, they report, and before his men could reach him had fallen +from his horse. It was all over almost instantly. I saw him afterward, +hardly a pleasant sight. I came to you as soon as I could. I was +vexatiously detained--" + +"So George Bulmer is dead, in a London gutter! It seems strange, because +he was here, befriended by monarchs, and very strong and handsome and +self-confident, hardly two hours ago. Is that his blood upon your +sleeve?" + +"But of course not! I told you I was vexatiously detained, almost at +your gates. Yes, I had the ill luck to blunder into a disgusting +business. The two rapscallions tumbled out of a doorway under my horse's +very nose, egad! It was a near thing I did not ride them down. So I +stopped, naturally. I regretted stopping, afterward, for I was too late +to be of help. It was at the Golden Hind, of course. Something really +ought to be done about that place. Yes, and that rogue Marler bled all +over a new doublet, as you see. And the Deptford constables held me with +their foolish interrogatories--" + +"So one of the fighting men was named Marlowe! Is he dead, too, dead in +another gutter?" + +"Marlowe or Marler, or something of the sort--wrote plays and sonnets +and such stuff, they tell me. I do not know anything about him--though, +I give you my word now, those greasy constables treated me as though I +were a noted frequenter of pot-houses. That sort of thing is most +annoying. At all events, he was drunk as David's sow, and squabbling +over, saving your presence, a woman of the sort one looks to find in +that abominable hole. And so, as I was saying, this other drunken rascal +dug a knife into him--" + +But now, to Captain Musgrave's discomfort, Cynthia Allonby had begun to +weep heartbrokenly. + +So he cleared his throat, and he patted the back of her hand. "It is a +great shock to you, naturally--oh, most naturally, and does you great +credit. But come now, Pevensey is gone, as we must all go some day, and +our tears cannot bring him back, my dear. We can but hope he is better +off, poor fellow, and look on it as a mysterious dispensation and that +sort of thing, my dear--" + +"Oh, Ned, but people are so cruel! People will be saying that it was I +who kept poor Cousin George in London this past two weeks, and that but +for me he would have been in France long ago. And then the Queen, +Ned!--why, that pig-headed old woman will be blaming it on me, that +there is nobody to prevent that detestable French King from turning +Catholic and dragging England into new wars, and I shall not be able to +go to any of the court dances! nor to the masque!" sobbed Cynthia, "nor +anywhere!" + +"Now you talk tender-hearted and angelic nonsense. It is noble of you to +feel that way, of course. But Pevensey did not take proper care of +himself, and that is all there is to it. Now I have remained in London +since the Plague's outbreak. I stayed with my regiment, naturally. We +have had a few deaths, of course. People die everywhere. But the Plague +has never bothered me. And why has it never bothered me? Simply because +I was sensible, took the pains to consult an astrologer, and by his +advice wear about my neck, night and day, a bag of dried toad's blood +and powdered cinnamon. It is an infallible specific for men born in +February. No, not for a moment do I wish to speak harshly of the dead, +but sensible persons cannot but consider Lord Pevensey's death to have +been caused by his own carelessness." + +"Now, certainly that is true," the girl said, brightening. "It was +really his own carelessness, and his dear, lovable rashness. And +somebody could explain it to the Queen. Besides, I often think that wars +are good for the public spirit of a nation, and bring out its true +manhood. But then it upset me, too, a little, Ned, to hear about this +Marlowe--for I must tell you that I knew the poor man, very slightly. So +I happen to know that today he flung off in a rage, and began drinking, +because somebody, almost by pure accident, had burned a packet of his +verses--" + +Thereupon Captain Musgrave raised heavy eyebrows, and guffawed so +heartily that the candle flickered. "To think of the fellow's putting it +on that plea! when he could so easily have written some more verses. +That is the trouble with these poets, if you ask me: they are not +practical even in their ordinary, everyday lying. No, no, the truth of +it was that the rogue wanted a pretext for making a beast of himself, +and seized the first that came to hand. Egad, my dear, it is a daily +practice with these poets. They hardly draw a sober breath. Everybody +knows that." + +Cynthia was looking at him in the half-lit room with very flattering +admiration.... Seen thus, with her scarlet lips a little +parted--disclosing pearls--and with her naïve dark eyes aglow, she was +quite incredibly pretty and caressable. She had almost forgotten until +now that this stalwart soldier, too, was in love with her. But now her +spirits were rising venturously, and she knew that she liked Ned +Musgrave. He had sensible notions; he saw things as they really were, +and with him there would never be any nonsense about top-lofty ideas. +Then, too, her dear old white-haired father would be pleased, because +there was a very fair estate.... + +So Cynthia said: "I believe you are right, Ned. I often wonder how they +can be so lacking in self-respect. Oh, I am certain you must be right, +for it is just what I felt without being able quite to express it You +will stay for supper with us, of course. Yes, but you must, because it +is always a great comfort for me to talk with really sensible persons. I +do not wonder that you are not very eager to stay, though, for I am +probably a fright, with my eyes red, and with my hair all tumbling down, +like an old witch's. Well, let us see what can be done about it, sir! +There was a hand-mirror--" + +And thus speaking, she tripped, with very much the reputed grace of a +fairy, toward the far end of the room, and standing a-tiptoe, groped at +the obscure shelves, with a resultant crash of falling china. + +"Oh, but my lovely cups!" said Cynthia, in dismay. "I had forgotten they +were up there: and now I have smashed both of them, in looking for my +mirror, sir, and trying to prettify myself for you. And I had so fancied +them, because they had not their like in England!" + +She looked at the fragments, and then at Musgrave, with wide, innocent +hurt eyes. She was honestly grieved by the loss of her quaint toys. But +Musgrave, in his sturdy, common-sense way, only laughed at her +seriousness over such kickshaws. + +"I am for an honest earthenware tankard myself!" he said, jovially, as +the two went in to supper. + + + + +THE HIGH COST OF CONSCIENCE + + +_BY BEATRICE RAVENEL_ + +From _Harper's Magazine_ + +"Any woman who can accept money from a gentleman who is in no way +related to her--" Miss Fowler delivered judgment. + +"My dear Aunt Maria, you mean a gentleman's disembodied spirit," Hugh's +light, pleasant tones intervened. + +"A legacy, Maria, is not quite the same thing. Mr. Winthrop Fowler's +perfect intonation carried its usual implication that the subject was +closed. + +"---- is what I call an adventuress," Miss Fowler summed up. She had a +way of ignoring objections, of reappearing beyond them like a submarine +with the ultimate and detonating answer. "And now she wants to reopen +the matter when the whole thing's over and done with. After three years. +Extraordinary taste." She hitched her black-velvet Voltaire arm-chair a +little away from the fire and spread a vast knitting-bag of Chinese +brocade over her knees. "I suppose she isn't satisfied; she wants more." + +"Naturally. I cannot imagine what other reason she could have for +insisting on a personal interview," her brother agreed, dryly. He +retired into the _Transcript_ as a Trappist withdraws into his vows. A +chastened client of Mr. Fowler's once observed that a half-hour's +encounter with him resulted in a rueful of asphyxiated topics. + +Miss Maria, however, preferred disemboweling hers, "I shouldn't have +consented," she snapped. "Hugh, if you would be so good as to sit down. +You are obstructing the light. And the curtain-cord. If you could +refrain from twisting it for a few moments." + +Hugh let his long, high-shouldered figure lapse into the window-seat. +"And besides, we're all dying to know what she looks like," he +suggested. + +"Speak for yourself, please," said Miss Fowler, with the vivacity of the +lady who protests too much. + +"I do, I do! Good Lord! I'm just as bad as the rest of you. All my life +I've been consumed to know what Uncle Hugh could have seen in a +perfectly obscure little person to make him do what he did. There must +have been something." His eyes travelled to a sketch in pencil of a +man's head which hung in the shadow of the chimneypiece, a sketch whose +uncanny suggestion might have come from the quality of the sitter or +merely from a smudging of the medium. "Everything he did always seemed +to me perfectly natural," he went on, as though conscious of new +discovery. "Even those years when he was knocking about the world, +hiding his address. Even when he had that fancy that people were +persecuting him. Most people did worry him horribly." + +A glance flashed between the two middle-aged listeners. It was a +peculiar glance, full of a half-denied portent. Then Miss Fowler's +fingers, true to their traditions, loosened their grip on her needles +and casually smoothed out her work. + +"I have asked you not to speak of that," she mentioned, quietly. + +"I know. But of course there was no doubt at all that he was sa--was +entirely recovered before his death. Don't you think so, sir?" + +His uncle laid down the paper and fixed the young man with the gray, +unsheathed keenness that had sent so many witnesses grovelling to the +naked truth. "No doubt whatever. I always held, and so did both the +physicians, that his lack of balance was a temporary and sporadic thing, +brought on by overwork--and certain unhappy conditions of his life. +There has never been any such taint in our branch of the family." + +"No-o, so they say," Hugh agreed. "One of our forebears did see ghosts, +but that was rather the fashion. And his father, that old Johnnie over +the fireplace--you take after him, Aunt Maria--he was the prize +witch-smeller of his generation, and he condemned all the young and +pretty ones. That hardly seems well-balanced." + +"Collaterals on the distaff side," Mr. Fowler put in hastily. "If you +would read Mendel--" + +"Mendel? I have read about him." He raised the forefinger of his right +hand. "Very suggestive. If your father was a black rabbit"--he raised +the forefinger of his left--"and your mother was a white rabbit, then +your male children would be"--he raised all the other fingers and paused +as though taken aback by the size of the family--"would be blue +guinea-pigs, with a tendency to club-foot and astigmatism, but your +female children might only be rather clumsy tangoists with a weakness +for cutting their poor relations. That's all I remember, but I _do_ know +that because I studied the charts." + +"Very amusing," said Mr. Fowler, indulgently. + +Hugh flushed. + +"I am sure it can't be that way." Miss Maria flapped her knitting over. +"But everything has changed since my day, and _not_ for the better. The +curtain-cord." + +"Beg pardon," muttered Hugh. His mind went on churning nonsense. "There +are two days it is useless to flee from--the day of your death and the +day when your family doesn't care for your jokes. + + "For a joke is an intellectual thing, + And a _mot_ is the sword of an angel king. + +"Good old Blake. Why do the best people always see jokes? Why does a +really good one make a whole frozen crowd feel jolly and united all of a +sudden?" He pondered on the beneficence of the comic spirit. Hugh was a +born Deist. It gave him no trouble at all to believe that since the +paintings of Velasquez and the great outdoors which he had seen, were +beautiful, so much the more beautiful must be that God whom he had not +seen. It seemed reasonable. As for the horrors like Uncle Hugh's +affair--well, they must be put in for chiaroscuro. A thing couldn't be +all white without being blank. The thought of the shadows, however, +always made him profoundly uncomfortable, and his instinct +right-about-faced to the lighter surface of life. "Anyhow," he broke +silence, "the daughter of Heth must be game. Three to one, and on our +native heath." + +He looked appraisingly about the room, pausing at the stiff, +distinguished, grey-haired couple, one on either side of the fire. The +effect was of a highly finished genre picture: the rich wainscot between +low book-shelves, the brooding portraits, the black-blue rug bordered by +a veiled Oriental motive, the black-velvet cushions that brought out the +watery reflections of old Sheraton as even the ancient horsehair had not +done; the silver candlesticks, the miniatures, and on the mantel those +two royal flower-pots whose precarious existence was to his aunt a very +fearful joy. Even the tortoise-shell cat, sprawled between the two +figures like a tiny tiger-skin, was in the picture. It was a room that +gently put you into your place. Hugh recalled with a faint grin certain +meetings here of philanthropic ladies whose paths had seldom turned into +the interiors of older Beacon Street. The state of life to which it had +pleased their Maker to call them, he reflected, would express itself +preferably in gilding and vast pale-tinted upholstery and pink +bibelots--oh, quite a lot of pink. This place had worried them into a +condition of disconcerted awe. + +He tried to fancy what it was going to do to the unbidden, resented +guest. A queer protest against its enmity, an impulse to give her a +square deal, surged up in him from nowhere. After all, whatever else she +might be, she was Uncle Hugh's girl. Like all the world, Hugh loved the +dispossessed lover. He knew what it felt like. One does not reach the +mature age of twenty-four without having at least begun the passionate +pilgrimage. His few tindery and tinselly affairs suspected of following +the obvious formula: three parts curiosity, three parts the literary +sense, three parts crude young impulse, one part distilled moonshine. +The real love of his life had been Uncle Hugh. + +He sprang up with an abruptness to which his elders seemed to be used. +He stopped before a brass-trimmed desk and jerked at the second drawer. +"Where are those letters, sir?" + +"You mean--" + +"Yes, the one you wrote her about the money, and her answer. You put +them with his papers, didn't you? Where's the key?" + +The older man drew from his waistcoat pocket a carved bit of brass. +"What do you want with them?" he asked, cautiously. + +"I want to refresh my memory--and Aunt Maria's." He took out a neat +little pile of papers and began to sort them intently. "Here they are on +top." He laid out a docketed envelope on the desk. "And here are the +essays and poems that you wouldn't publish. I considered them the best +things he ever did." + +"You were not his literary executor," said his uncle, coldly. Another +stifled glance passed between the seniors, but this time Miss Maria made +no effort to restore the gloss of the surface. She sat idle, staring at +the papers with a sort of horror. + +"Put them back," she said. "Winthrop, I do think you might burn them. If +you keep things like that too long the wrong people are sure to get +them." + +"Wait a bit. I haven't seen them for years, not since you published the +collected works--with Hamlet left out." The young man lifted a worn +brown-morocco portfolio tied with a frazzled red ribbon. "And here"--his +voice dropped--"here is It--the letters he wrote to her and never sent. +It was a sort of diary, wasn't it, going on for years? What a howling +pity we couldn't print that!" + +"Hugh!" + +"Don't faint, Aunt Maria. You wouldn't catch me doing anything so +indecent. But suppose Dante's dear family had suppressed the _Vita +Nuova_. And it ought to be one of the most extraordinary human documents +in the world, perfectly intimate, all the bars down, full of those +flashes of his. Just the man, _ipsissimus_, that never happened but that +once. Uncle Winthrop, don't you think that I might read it?" + +"Do you think so? I never did." + +"Oh, if you put it up to me like that! Of course I can't. But what luck +that he didn't ask you to send it to her--supposing she's the wrong +kind--wasn't it ..." His voice trailed off, leaving his lips foolishly +open. "You don't mean--he did?" + +"Yes, at the end, after you had left the room," said Mr. Fowler, firmly. + +"And you--didn't? Why not?" + +"As you said, for fear she was the wrong kind" + +"It was too much to hope that she would be anything else," his aunt +broke in, harshly. "Shut your mouth, Hugh; you look like a fool. Think +what she might have done with them--she and some of those unspeakable +papers." + +"Oh, I see! I see!" groaned the young man. "But how awful not to do the +very last thing he wanted! Did you ever try to find out what kind of a +person she was?" + +"She took the money. That was enough," cried Miss Fowler. "She got her +share, just as though she had been his legal wife." + +Hugh gave her a dazed look. "You don't mean that she was his illegal +one? I never--" + +"Oh no, no!" Mr. Fowler interposed. "We have no reason to think that she +was otherwise than respectable. Maria, you allow most unfortunate +implications to result from your choice of words. We know very little, +really." + +"He met her in Paris when he gave that course of lectures over there. We +know that much. And she was an American student--from Virginia, wasn't +it? But that was over twenty years ago. Didn't he see her after that?" + +"I am sure he did not." + +"She wasn't with him when he was knocking about Europe?" + +"Certainly not. She came home that very year and married. As her letter +states, she was a widow with three children at the time of his death." + +"I have always considered it providential that he didn't know she was a +widow," observed Miss Maria, primly. + +Her nephew shot her a look that admitted his intermittent amusement in +his aunt Maria, but definitely gave her up. He carefully leaned the +portfolio inside the arm of the sofa that neighboured the desk, and +picked up the long envelope. + +"A copy of my letter," said Mr. Fowler. + +To his sister, watching him as he watched Hugh, came the unaccountable +impression that his sure and chiselled surface covered a nervous +anxiety. Then Miss Maria, being a product of the same school, dismissed +the idea as absurd. + +Hugh raised bewildered eyes from the letters. "I can't exactly +remember," he said. "I was so cut up at the time. Did I ever actually +read this before or was I merely told about it? I went back for +Midyear's, you know, almost at once. I know my consent was asked, but--" + +"You--did not see it." + +"And you, Aunt Maria, of course you knew about it!" + +"Certainly," said Miss Fowler, on the defensive. "As usual in business +matters, your uncle decided for me. We have been accustomed to act as a +family always. To me the solidarity of the family it more than the +interest of any member of it." + +"Oh, I know that the Fowler family is the noblest work of God." The +young man looked from one to the other as he might have regarded two +strangers whose motives it was his intention to find out. "I've been +brought up on that. But what I want to know now is the whyness of this +letter." + +"What do you mean?" Mr. Fowler's voice cut the pause like a trowel +executing the middle justice on an earthworm. + +"Why--why--" Hugh began, desperately. "I mean, why wasn't the money +turned over to her at once--all of it?" + +"It is customary to notify legatees." + +"And she wasn't even a legatee," added Miss Maria, grimly. He never made +a will." + +"No," said Hugh, with an ugly laugh, "he merely trusted to our +promises." + +There was a brief but violent silence. + +"I think, Winthrop," Miss Maria broke it, "that instead of questioning +the propriety of my language, you might do well to consider your +nephew's." + +Hugh half-tendered the letter. "You're so confoundedly clever. Uncle +Winthrop. You--you just put the whole thing up to the poor woman. I +can't pick out a word to show where you said it, but the tone of your +letter is exactly this, 'Here's the money for you, and if you take it +you're doing an unheard-of thing.' _She_ saw it right enough. Her answer +is just defence of why she has to take it--some of it. She's a mother +with three children, struggling to keep above water. She's a human +animal fighting for her young. So she takes, most apologetically, most +unhappily, a part of what he left her, and she hates to take that. It's +the most pitiful thing--" + +"Piteous," corrected Miss Maria, in a tone like a bite. + +Mr. Fowler laid the tips of his fingers very delicately on his nephew's +knee. "Will you show me the place or places where I make these very +damaging observations?" + +"That's just it. I can't pick them out, but--" + +"I am sure that you cannot, because they exist only in your +somewhat--shall we say, lyrical imagination? I laid the circumstances +before the woman and she acted as she saw fit to act. Hugh, my dear boy, +I wish that you would try to restrain your--your growing tendency to +excitability. I know that this is a trying day for all of us." + +"O Lord, yes! It brings it all back," said Hugh, miserably. "I'm sorry +if I said anything offensive sir, but--" He gave it up. "You know I have +a devil, sometimes." He gave a half-embarrassed laugh. + +"Offensive--if you have said anything offensive?" Miss Fowler boiled +over. "Is that all you are going to say, Winthrop? If so--" + +Mr. Fowler lifted a warning hand. The house door was opening. Then the +discreet steps of Gannett came up the hall, followed by something +lighter and more resilient. + +"At least don't give me away to the lady the very first thing," said +Hugh, lightly. He shoved the papers into the drawers and swung it shut. +His heart was beating quite ridiculously. He would know at last--What +wouldn't he know? "Uncle Hugh's girl, Uncle Hugh's girl," he told +himself, and his temperamental responsiveness to the interest and the +mystery of life expanded like a sea-anemone in the Gulf Stream. + +Gannett opened the door, announced in his impeccable English, "Mrs. +Shirley," and was not. + + * * * * * + +A very small, very graceful woman hesitated in the doorway. Hugh's first +impression was surprise that there was so little of her. Then his always +alert subconsciousness registered: + +"A lady, yes, but a country lady; not _de par le monde_. Pleasantly +rather than well dressed; those veils are out." He had met her at once +with outstretched hand and the most cordial, "I am glad to see you, Mrs. +Shirley." Then he mentioned the names of his aunt and uncle. He did not +dare to leave anything to Aunt Maria. + +That lady made a movement that might or might not have been a gesture of +recognition. Mr. Fowler, who had risen, inclined his handsome head with +a polite murmur and indicated a chair which faced the light. Mrs. +Shirley sat, instead, upon the edge of the sofa, which happened to be +nearer. With her coming Hugh's expansiveness had suffered a sudden +rebuff. A feeling of dismal conventionality permeated the room like a +fog. He plumbed it in vain for the wonder and the magic that ought to +have been the inescapable aura of Uncle Hugh's girl. Was this the mighty +ocean, was this all? She was a little nervous, too. That was a pity. +Nervousness in social relations was one of the numerous things that Aunt +Maria never forgave. + +Then the stranger spoke, and Hugh's friendliness went out to the sound +as to something familiar for which he had been waiting. + +"It is very good of you to let me come," she said. + +"But she must be over forty," Hugh told himself, "and her voice is +young. So was his always." It was also very natural and moving and not +untinged by what Miss Fowler called the Southern patois. "And her feet +are young." + +Mr. Fowler uttered another polite murmur. There was no help from that +quarter. She made another start. + +"It seemed to me--" she addressed Miss Fowler, who looked obdurate. She +cast a helpless glance at the cat, who opened surprising topaz eyes and +looked supercilious. Then she turned to Hugh. "It seemed to me," she +said, steadily, "that I could make you understand--I mean I could +express myself more clearly if I could see you, than I could by writing, +but--it is rather difficult." + +The overheated, inclement room waited. Hugh restrained his foot from +twitching. Why didn't Aunt Maria say something? She was behaving +abominably. She was still seething with her suppressed outburst like a +tea-kettle under the cozy of civilization. And it was catching. + +"I explained at the time, three years ago," Mrs. Shirley made the +plunge, "why I took the--money at all." The hard word was out, and Hugh +relaxed. "I don't know what you thought of me, but at the time it seemed +like the mercy of Heaven. I had to educate the children. We were +horribly poor. I was almost in despair. And I felt that if I could take +it from any one I could take it from him ..." + +"Yes," said Hugh, unhappily. The depression that dropped on him at +intervals seemed waiting to pounce. He glanced at his uncle's judicial +mask, knowing utterly the distaste for sentimental encounters that it +covered. He detested his aunt's aloofness. He was almost angry with this +little woman's ingenuousness that put her so candidly at their cynical +mercy. + +"But now," she went on, "some land we have that seemed worth nothing at +the time has become very valuable. The town grew out in that direction. +And my eldest boy is doing very well indeed, and my daughter is studying +for a library position." + +"The short and simple annals of the poor," sighed Hugh to Hugh. + +"And so," said little Mrs. Shirley, with astounding simplicity, "I came +to ask you please to take it back again." She gave an involuntary sigh +of relief, as though she had returned a rather valuable umbrella. Mr. +Fowl's eyeglasses dropped from his nose as his eyebrows shot up. + +"Good Lord!" ejaculated Miss Maria with all the unexpectedness of +Galatea. "You don't really mean it?" Her bag slid to the floor and the +cat became thoroughly intrigued. + +"Do I understand you to say"--Mr. Fowler's voice was almost +stirred--"that you wish to return my brother's legacy to the family?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Shirley, "only, it wasn't a legacy. It was merely +kindness that let me have it. You never can know how kind it was. But we +can get on without it now." + +Mr. Fowler cleared his throat. To Hugh his manner faintly suggested the +cat busy with the yarn, full of a sort of devout curiosity. "Pardon me," +he said, gently, "but are you sure--have you given this matter +sufficient thought? The sum is a considerable one. Your children--" + +"I have talked it over with them. They feel just as I do." + +"A very proper feeling," said Miss Fowler, approvingly. "I must say that +I never expected it. I shall add part of my share of it to the Marian +Fowler Ward in the Home for Deficient Children. A most worthy charity. +Perhaps I could interest you--" + +"Oh, that would be lovely!" cried Mrs. Shirley. "Anything for +children.... I've already spoken to my cousin, who is a lawyer, about +transferring the securities back to you." + +"I shall communicate with him at once," said Mr. Fowler. His court-room +manner had bourgeoned into his best drawing-room blend of faintly +implied gallantry and deep consideration. One almost caught Winter +getting out of the lap of Spring. Then the three heads which had +unconsciously leaned together suddenly straightened up and turned in the +same direction. + +Hugh stood almost over them. In one hand he held his aunt's knitting, +which he had mechanically rescued from the cat. Now he drew out one of +the ivory needles and snapped it into accurate halves. "This is +atrocious!" he said, with care and precision. His voice shook. "I shall +not touch a cent of it and"--he embraced his uncle and aunt in the same +devastating look--"neither will you if you have any sense of decency." + +"I think--" + +"It doesn't matter remotely what you--we think sir. What matters is what +Uncle Hugh thought." He turned to Mrs. Shirley with an extraordinary +softening of tone. "Couldn't you keep it? When he died ... in the room +over this"--with a little gasp her glance flew to the ceiling as though +this topographical detail had brought her a sharp realization of that +long-past scene--"he made us promise that you should have it, all of it. +He felt that you needed it; he worried about it." + +"Oh, how kind of him--how kind!" cried the little woman. The poignancy +of her voice cut into his disappointment like a sharp ray of light. +"Even then--to think of me. But don't you understand that he wouldn't +want me to--to take anything that I felt I ought not to take?" + +"That's the way out," rippled across Mr. Fowler's face. He was +experiencing a variety of mental disturbances, but this came to the +surface just in time for Hugh to catch it. + +"Oh well," he murmured, wearily. "Only, none for this deficient child, +thank you." He walked to the window and stood looking out into the blown +spring green of the elm opposite. His ebbed anger had left a residuum of +stubbornness. There was still an act of justice to be consummated and +the position of grand-justicer offered a certain righteous attraction. +As he reminded himself, if you put your will to work on a difficult +action you were fain to commit, after a while the will worked +automatically and your mind functioned without aid from you, and the +action bloomed of itself. This kinetic process was a constant device of +the freakish impulse that he called his devil. He deliberately laid the +train. + +"There is one more thing," the alien was saying. Her voice had gained a +wonderful fluency amid the general thaw. "I didn't dare to ask before, +but if we thought of me then--I have always hoped he left some message +for me ... a letter, perhaps." + +Hugh smiled agreeably. "In just a moment," he considered, "I am going to +do something so outrageous that I can't even imagine how my dear +families are going to take it." He was about to hurt them severely, but +that was all right. His uncle was a tempered weapon of war that despised +quarter; and as for Aunt Maria, he rather wanted to hurt Aunt Maria for +her own good. + +Into the eloquent and mendacious silence that was a gift of their caste +the voice fell humbly: "So there wasn't? I suppose I oughtn't to have +expected it." + +"Any time now, Gridley," Hugh signalled to his familiar. Like a +response, a thin breeze tickled the roots of his hair. He swung around +with the pivot of a definite purpose. With an economy of movement that +would have contented an efficiency expert he set a straight +fiddle-backed chair squarely in front of Uncle Hugh's girl and settled +himself in it with his back to his own people. + +"Mrs. Shirley," he began, quietly, "will you talk to me, please? I hope +I shan't startle you, but there are things I absolutely have to know, +and this is my one chance. I am entirely determined not to let it slip. +Talk to me, please, not to them. As you have doubtless noticed, though +excellent people where the things not flatly of this world are +concerned, my uncle is a graven image and my aunt is a deaf mute. As for +me, I am just unbalanced enough to understand anything." He was aware of +the rustle of consternation behind him and hurried on, ignoring that and +whatever else might be happening there. "That's what I'm banking on now. +I intend to say my say and they are going to allow it, because it is +dangerous to thwart queer people--very dangerous indeed. You know, they +thwarted Uncle Hugh in every possible way. My grandfather was a +composite of those two, and all of them adored my uncle and contradicted +him and watched him until he went over the border. And they're so dead +scared that I'm going to follow him some day that they let me do quite +as I please." He passed his hand across his eyes as though brushing away +cobwebs. "Will you be so good as to put your veil up." + +"Why--why, certainly!" Mrs. Shirley faltered. She uncovered her face and +Hugh nodded to the witness within. + +"Yes, he'd have liked that," he told himself. "Lots of expression and +those beautiful haunted shadows about the eyes." He laughed gently. +"Don't look so frightened. I don't bite. Just humour me, as Uncle +Winthrop is signalling you to do. You understand, don't you, that Uncle +Hugh was the romance and the adventure of my life? I'm still saturated +with him, but there was lots of him that I could never get through to. +There never was a creature better worth knowing, and he couldn't show +me, or else I had blind spots. There were vast tracts of undiscovered +country in him, as far as I was concerned--lands of wonder, east of the +sun and west of the moon--that sort of thing. But I knew that there was +a certain woman who must have been there, who held the heart of the +mystery, and to-day, when this incredible chance came--when you came--I +made up my mind that I was not going to be restrained nor baffled by the +customs of my tribe. I want the truth and I'm prepared to give it. From +the shoulder. If you will tell me everything you know about him I +promise to tell you everything I know. You'll want to--" The sound of +the closing door made him turn. The room behind him was empty. His +manner quieted instantly. "That's uncommonly tactful of them.... You +won't think that they meant any discourtesy by leaving?" he added, +anxiously. "They wouldn't do that." + +"Oh, I'm sure not! Your uncle made me understand," faltered Mrs. +Shirley. "They knew you could speak more freely without them." + +"He's wonderful with the wireless," Hugh agreed. "But they were in +terror, anyway, as to how freely I was about to speak before them. They +can't stand this. Everything really human seems pretty well alien to +Uncle Winthrop. He's exhibit A of the people who consider civilization +a mistake. And my aunt Maria is a truly good woman--charities and all +that--but if you put a rabbit in her brain it would incontinently curl +up and die in convulsions." + +She laughed helplessly, and Hugh reported an advance. + +"Nevertheless," he added quaintly, "we don't really dislike each other." + +"I'm the last of the family, you see; I'm the future.... Can't we skip +the preliminaries?" he broke out. "You don't feel that I am a stranger, +do you?" He halted on the verge of the confidence that he found no +barrier in her advanced age. He knew plenty of women of forty who had +never grown up much and who met him on perfectly equal terms. This, +however, was a case by itself. He plunged back into the memories of +Uncle Hugh. He spoke of his charm, his outlook on life, sometimes +curiously veiled, often uncannily clairvoyant; his periods of restless +suffering tending to queer, unsocial impulses; then the flowering of an +interval of hard work and its reward of almost supernatural joy. + +"He used to go around in a rainbow," said Hugh, "a sort of holy soap +bubble. I hardly dared to speak to him for fear of breaking it. It came +with a new inspiration, and while it lasted nothing on earth was so +important. Then when it was finished he never wanted to see the thing +again." + +"Go on," said his listener. Her grey eyes plumbed his with a child's +directness. He was conscious of his will playing on her. He was keeping +his part of the contract, but he was also breaking the way for hers. He +must not let them go for a moment, those grey eyes like a girl's that +grew absent-minded so easily. Only a little more and his mood would +curve around both them, a glamorous mist of feeling. + +"You go on," he murmured. "Can't you see how much I want you to? Can't +you feel how much I'm the right person to know?" + +"I could never tell any one. You want--" + +"Anything, everything. You must have known him better than anybody in +he world did." + +"I think so," she said, slowly "And I saw him alone only twice in my +life." + +For some time he had sat with his long fingers over his mouth, afraid of +checking her by an untimely word. + +"Of course I was in his classes. You know he had an extraordinary +success; he struck twelve at once, as they say there. The French really +discovered him as a poet, just as Mallarmé discovered Poe; some of them +used that parallel. And the girls--he was a matinée idol and a +cult--even the French girls. We went into that classroom thrilling as we +never went to any ball. I worked that winter for him harder than I had +ever worked in my life, and about Easter he began to single me out for +the most merciless fault-finding. That was his way of showing that he +considered you worth while. He had a habit of standing over you in +class, holding your paper like a knout. And once or twice--I called +myself a conceited little idiot--but once or twice--" + +Hugh nodded. His pulses were singing like morning stars at the spectacle +of a new world. + +"He used to say of a certain excited, happy feeling, a sort of fey +feeling, that you seemed to have swallowed a heavenly pigeon. And--well, +he looked like that. But I knocked my vanity on the head and told it, +'Down to the other dogs.' I was used to young men; I knew how little +such manifestations could mean. But after that I used to set little +lines in the things I wrote for him, very delicately, and sometimes I +fancied I had caught a fish. It was most exciting." + +Hugh again impersonated a Chinese mandarin. + +"You see, he allowed so few people to know him, he moved with such +difficulty in that formally laid-out small, professional world, with its +endless leaving of cards and showing yourself on the proper days. I +think they considered him a sort of Huron afflicted with genius, and +forgave him. He ran away from them, he fought them off. And to feel that +there was a magic spiderweb between this creature and me, new every day +and invisible to everybody else and dripping with poetry like dewdrops! +Can't you fancy the intoxication? I was nineteen.... I had engaged +myself to be married to Beverly Shirley. I had known him all my +life--before I left home--but I had absolutely no conviction of +disloyalty. This was different; this was another life." + +"Another you," agreed Hugh, as one who took exotic states of mind for +granted. + +"Well, yes.... It was one of the awful at-homes of Madame Normand's. She +took American girls _en pension_, and she was supposed to look after us +severely; but as she was an American herself, of course she gave us a +great deal of liberty. She was the wife of a _professeur_, and she had +rather an imposing _salon_, so she received just so often, and you had +to go or she never stopped asking you why. You have been to those French +receptions?" + +"Where they serve music and syrup and little hard cakes, and you carry +away the impression of a lordly function because of the scenery and the +manners? Indeed yes!" + +"I slid away after a while, out upon the iron balcony, filled with new +lilacs, that overhung the garden. Something had hurt my little feelings; +a letter hadn't come, perhaps. I remember how dark and warm the night +was, like a gulf under me, and the stars and the lights of Paris seemed +very much alike and rather disappointing. Then I heard his voice behind +me, and I was as overwhelmed as--as Daphne or Danaë or one of those +pagan ladies might have been when the god came. + +"He said, 'What are you doing, hanging over this dark, romantic chasm?' +And I just had presence of mind enough to play up. + +"'Naturally, I'm waiting for a phantom lover.' Then the answer to that +flashed on me and I said in a hurry, 'I thought you never came to these +things.' + +"'I came to see you'--he really said it--and then, 'And--am I +sufficiently demoniacal?' And he _had_ swallowed a pigeon. + +"'Oh dear, no!' said I. 'You are much too respectable. You are from +Boston.' + +"'And you from Virginia,' said he. 'I hear that a certain Stewart once +unjustifiably claimed kinship with your branch of the family and has +since been known as the Pretender.' + +"'That is quite true,' said I. 'And I hear that once when the Ark ran +aground a little voice was heard piping: 'Save me! save me! I am a +Fowler of Boston!' + +"That was the silly way we began. Isn't it incredible?" + +"He could be silly--that was one of the lovable things," Hugh mused. +"And he could say the most nakedly natural things. But he generally used +the mandarin dialect. He thought in it, I suppose." + +"No," the stranger corrected him. "He thought in thoughts. Brilliant +people always do. The words just wait like a--a--" + +"Layette," said Hugh. "What else did he say?" + +"The next I remember we were leaning together, all but touching. And he +was telling me about the little green gate." + +Hugh's hand shut. "He always called it that. Was he thinking of it even +then?" + +"Oh yes!" + +"He never was like a person of this world," said Hugh, under his breath. + +"The loneliest creature I ever knew." + +They fell silent, like two old friends whose sorrow is the same. + +"He believed," Hugh went on, after a moment, "that when life became +intolerable you had a perfect right to take the shortest way out. And he +thought of it as a little green gate, swinging with its shadow in the +twilight so that a touch would let you into the sweetest, dimmest old +garden." + +"But he loved life." + +"Sometimes. The colour of it and the unexpectedness. He believed the +word didn't have any definite plan, but just wandered along the road and +picked up adventures. And he loved that. He said God made a new earth +every day and he rather fancied a new heaven oftener. But he got so +dead tired at the end, homesick for the underground.... I wonder ..." + +The little woman was looking past him, straight into an evocation of a +vanished presence that was so real, so nearly tangible, that Hugh was +forced to lay violent hands upon his absurd impulse to glance over his +shoulder "I wouldn't let him," she said, in a tone the young man had +never heard before. + +"You mean ..." + +"I couldn't bear it. I made him promise me that he wouldn't. I can't +tell you that. We talked for a long time and the night was full of doom. +He was tired then, but that wasn't all. He felt what was coming--the +Shadow ... and he was in terror. What he dreaded most was that it might +change him in some way, make him something beastly and devilish--he who +had always loved whatever was lovely and merciful and of good report." + +Hugh got up with a shudder. "Hush!" he said, sharply. "It's too ghastly. +Don't tell me any more about it." He wandered across the room, pulling a +leaf from the azaleas, stopping at the window for a long look out. The +wind was blowing some riotous young clouds over the sky like +inarticulate shouts. There was an arrogant bird in the elm; there were +pert crocus-buds in the window-boxes. The place was full of foolhardy +little dare-devils who trusted their fate and might never find it out. +After all, that was the way to live--as long as one was allowed. He +turned suddenly with his whimsical smile. "I look out o' window quite a +bit," he explained, "well, because of my aunt Maria." When he sat down +again in the Sheraton chair Mrs. Shirley shifted her story to the plane +of the smile. + +"I don't know how late it was when Madame Normand popped her head out of +the balcony door." + +"'Who was then surprised? It was the lady,' as dear old Brantome says?" + +"It was everybody. The company had gone and Mélanie the _bonne_ was +putting out the candles. + +"'Miss Stewart and I have just discovered that we are very nearly +related,' said he. + +"'But how delightful,' said Madame, thoroughly annoyed." + +"And the other time," Hugh hinted. What he wanted to say was, "So you +prevented it, you kept him here, God bless you!" His natural resilience +had asserted itself. Vistas were opening. The Hugh who accepted life for +what it was worth was again in the ascendant, but he found a second to +call up the other Hugh, whose legal residence was somewhere near the +threshold of consciousness, to take notice. He had always known that +there must have been something in Uncle Hugh's girl. + +"That was a few days later, the afternoon before I left Paris. I went +quite suddenly. Somebody was sick at home, and I had the chance to +travel with some friends who were going. He had sent me flowers--no, not +roses." + +"Narcissus?" + +"Yes. Old Monsieur Normand was scandalized; it seems one doesn't send +yellow flowers to a _jeune fille_. To me it was the most incredibly +thoughtful and original thing. All the other girls had gone with Madame +to a very special piano recital, in spite of a drizzling rain. It had +turned cool, too, I remember, because there was a wood fire in the +little sitting-room--not the _salon_, but the girls' room. Being an +American, Madame was almost lavish about fires. And it was a most +un-French room, the most careless little place, where the second-best +piano lived, and the lilacs, when they were taken in out of the cold. +There were sweet old curtains, and a long sofa in front of the fireplace +instead of the traditional armchairs. Anybody's books and bibelots lay +about. I was playing." + +"What?" This was important. + +"What would a girl play, over twenty years ago, in Paris? In the +_crépuscule_, with the lilacs that _embaument_, as they say there, and +with a sort of panic in her mind? Because, after all, the man to whom +one is engaged is a man whom one knows very slightly." + +"Absolutely," said Hugh. + +"And I didn't want to leave Paris.... Of course I was playing Chopin +bits, with an ache in my heart to match, that I couldn't bear and was +enjoying to the utmost. What do girls play now? Then all of us had +attacks of Chopin. Madame used to laugh and say, 'I hear the harbour bar +still moaning,' and order that particular girl's favourite dessert. She +spoiled us. And Monsieur would say something about _si jeunesse savait_. +He was a nice old man, not very successful; his colleagues patronized +him. Oh yes he was obvious! + +"And then Mélanie opened the door and announced, '_Monsieur, le cousin +de Mademoiselle_.' I don't know what made her do it except a general +wish to be kind. She remembered from the other night, and, besides, she +hated to attempt English names; she made salmi of them." + +Hugh had ceased to hold her eyes long ago. They looked into the window's +square of light. He had no wish to intrude his presence. She was finding +it natural to tell him, just as he had acknowledged her right to explore +the intimate places of his soul. Things simply happened that way +sometimes, and one was humbly thankful. + +"'Go on,' he said. 'Don't stop.' He sat in a corner of the sofa, and for +a while the impetus of my start carried me on. Then the bottom dropped +out of Chopin. I went over and sat in the other corner. It was a long +sofa; it felt as long as the world. + +"Do you remember that heart-breakingly beautiful voice of his that could +make you feel anything he was feeling? It was like magic. He said at +last: + +"'So you are going home to be married?' + +"I nodded. + +"'Betty,' he said, 'are you happy, quite happy, about--everything?' + +"'Oh yes!' I said. 'Oh yes, Professor Fowler!' The curious thing about +it was that I spoke the truth when I considered it seriously. + +"He said, 'Then that's all right.' Then he laughed a little and said, +'Do you always call me Professor Fowler, even when you shut your door on +the world at night and are all alone with God and the silence?' + +"'And Claudia Jones,' I added, stupidly. + +"He considered that seriously and said, 'I didn't know about Claudia +Jones; she may inhibit even the silence and the other ingredient. I +suppose you call me Teacher.' + +"I cried out at that. 'I might call you _cher maître_, as they do her.' + +"He said, 'That may do for the present.' + +"'We looked into the fire and the lilacs filled the pause as adequately +as Chopin could have done. All at once he got up and came over to me--it +seemed the most natural thing in the world--across that wilderness of +sofa. + +"'I suppose,' he said, 'that you won't let me off that promise.' + +"'No, no!' I cried, all my old panic flooding over me again. I threw my +hands out, and suddenly he had caught them in his and was holding me +half away from him, and he was saying, in that tragic voice of his: + +"'No, no! But give me something to make it bearable.'" + +"Allah, the compassionate!" sighed Hugh, in ecstasy. He had never dared +hope for all this. His very being went on tiptoe for fear of breathing +too loud. + +"We sat there for ages and ages, gazing into the fire, not saying a +word. Then he spoke ... every now and then. He said: + +"'The horrible thing would have been never to have known you. Now that +I've touched you I'm magnetized for life. I can't lose you again.' + +"'It isn't I,' I told him. 'It's only what you think me.' + +"'You are the only creature outside of myself that I ever found myself +in,' he said. 'And I could look into you like Narcissus until I died. +You are home and Nirvana. That's what you are. When I look at you I +believe in God. You gallantest, most foolhardy, little, fragile thing, +you, you're not afraid of anything. You trust this rotten life, don't +you? You expect to find lovely things everywhere, and you will, just +because they'll spring up around your feet. You'll save your world like +all redeemers simply by being in it.' + +"No woman ever had such things said to her as he said to me. But most +of the time we said nothing. There wasn't any past or future; there was +only the touch of his shoulder and his hands all around mine. It was +like coming in out of the cold; it was like being on a hill above the +sea, and listening to the wind in the pines until you don't know which +is the wind and which is you.... + +"It couldn't last forever. After a while something like a little point +of pain began worrying my mind. + +"'But there won't be.... This is good-bye,' I cried. + +"'Don't you believe it,' he said. 'God Himself couldn't make us say +good-bye again.' He got up and drew me with him. It was quite dark now +except for the fire, and his eyes ... they were like those of the Djinns +who were made out of elemental fire instead of earth. 'You'll come to me +in the blessed sunshine,' he said, 'and in music, and in the best +impulses of my own soul. If I were an old-fashioned lover I should +promise to wait for you in heaven.... Betty, Betty, I have you in heaven +now and forever!' ... I felt his cheek on mine. Then he was gone. That +was all; that was every bit of all." + +"And he had that to live on for the rest of his life." Hugh broke the +silence under his breath. "Well, thank God he had _something_!" + +The little woman fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief and shamelessly +dried her eyes. As she moved, a brown object fell from the corner of the +couch across her lap. Hugh held his hand out for the morocco portfolio. + +"It seems to have the homing instinct," he observed; then, abruptly, +"Wait a moment; I'm going to call them back." He paused, as usual, +before his favourite confidant, the window. "The larger consciousness, +the Universal Togetherness," he muttered. "I really believe he must have +touched it that once. O Lord! how--" His spacious vocabulary gave it up. + +When he followed his uncle and aunt into the room Mrs. Shirley came +forward, her thin veil again covering her face. + +"I must go," she said. "Thank you once more for letting me come." + +With a curious young touch of solemnity Hugh laid the brown case in her +hands. "This belongs to you," he said, "and I wanted them to see you +receive it." + + * * * * * + +"And you intend to permit this, Winthrop?" + +Miss Fowler turned on her brother. She had suppressed her emotions +before the intruder; she had even said some proper things without unduly +speeding the parting guest. But if you can't be hateful to your own +family, to whom, in the name of the domestic pieties, can you be +hateful? + +Mr. Fowler swiveled on her the glassy eye of one who does not suffer +fools gladly. "I permit anything," he responded, icily, "that will keep +that boy ... sane." He retired anew behind the monastic newspaper and +rattled it. + +Miss Maria received a sudden chill apprehension that Winthrop was +looking much older lately. "But--" she faltered. Then she resolutely +returned to the baiting. "I suppose you recall her saying that she has a +daughter. Probably," admitted Miss Maria, grudgingly, "an attractive +daughter." + +"It might be a very good thing," said the world-weary voice, and left +her gasping. "Two excellent Virginia families." He faced his sister's +appalled expression. "He might do something much more impossible--marry +a cheap actress or go into a monastery. His behaviour to-day prepares me +for anything. And"--a note of difficulty came into what Hugh had once +called his uncle's chiselled voice--"you do not appear to realize, +Maria, that what Mrs. Shirley has done is rather a remarkable thing, a +thing that you and I, with our undoubted appreciation of the value of +money, should probably have felt that we could not afford to do." + +Hugh came in blithely, bringing a spring-smelling whiff of outdoors with +him. "I got her a taxi," he announced, "and she asked me to come down to +their place for Easter. There's a hunting club. Oh cheer up, Aunt Maria! +At least she left the money behind." + +"Look at my needle!" cried the long-suffering lady. "_You_ did that. I +must say, Hugh, I find your conduct most disrespectful." + +"All right, I grovel," Hugh agreed, pleasantly. He picked up the cat and +rubbed her tenderly the wrong way. + +"As for the money, I don't see how her conscience could have allowed her +to accept everything. And she married somebody else, too." + +"So did Dante's girl. That doesn't seem to make all the difference. +Conscience?" Hugh went on, absently. "Conscience? Haven't I heard that +word somewhere before? You are the only person I know, Aunt Maria, who +has a really good, staunch, weather-proof one, because, like the laws of +the Medes and Persians, it altereth not." + +"I should hope not, indeed," said Miss Fowler, half mollified. + +Hugh smiled sleepily. The cat opened one yellow eye and moved mystified +whiskers. She profoundly distrusted this affectionate young admirer. Was +she being stroked the wrong way or ruffled the right way? + +"Tiger, tiger, burning bright," murmured Hugh. "Puzzle, Kitty: find the +Adventuress." + + + + +THE KITCHEN GODS + + +BY G.F. ALSOP + +From _Century Magazine_ + +The lilies bloomed that day. Out in the courtyard in their fantastic +green-dragoned pots, one by one the tiny, ethereal petals opened. +Dong-Yung went rapturously among them, stooping low to inhale their +faint fragrance. The square courtyard, guarded on three sides by the +wings of the house, facing the windowless blank wall on the fourth, was +mottled with sunlight. Just this side of the wall a black shadow, as +straight and opaque as the wall itself, banded the court with darkness; +but on the hither side, where the lilies bloomed and Dong-Yung moved +among them, lay glittering, yellow sunlight. The little box of a house +where the gate-keeper lived made a bulge in the uniform blackness of the +wall and its shadow. The two tall poles, with the upturned baskets, the +devil-catches, rose like flagstaffs from both sides of the door. A huge +china griffon stood at the right of the gate. From beyond the wall came +the sounds of early morning--the click of wooden sandals on cobbled +streets and the panting cries of the coolies bringing in fresh +vegetables or carrying back to the denuded land the refuse of the city. +The gate-keeper was awake, brushing out his house with a broom of twigs. +He was quite bald, and the top of his head was as tanned and brown as +the legs of small summer children. + +"Good morning, Honourable One," he called. "It is a good omen. The +lilies have opened." + +An amah, blue-trousered, blue-jacketed, blue-aproned, cluttered across +the courtyard with two pails of steaming water. + +"Good morning, Honourable One. The water for the great wife is hot and +heavy." She dropped her buckets, the water splashing over in runnels +and puddles at her feet, and stooped to smell the lilies. "It is an +auspicious day." + +From the casement-window in the right balcony a voice called: + +"Thou dunce! Here I am waiting already half the day. Quicker! quicker!" + +It sounded elderly and querulous a voice accustomed to be obeyed and to +dominate. The great wife's face appeared a moment at the casement. Her +eyes swept over the courtyard scene--over the blooming lilies, and +Dong-Yung standing among them. + +"Behold the small wife, cursed of the gods!" she cried in her high, +shrill voice. "Not even a girl can she bear her master. May she eat +bitterness all her days!" + +The amah shouldered the steaming buckets and splashed across the bare +boards of the ancestral hall beyond. + +"The great wife is angry," murmured the gate-keeper. "Oh, Honourable +One, shall I admit the flower-girl? She has fresh orchids." + +Dong-Yung nodded. The flower girl came slowly in under the guarded +gateway. She was a country child, with brown cheeks and merry eyes. Her +shallow basket was steadied by a ribbon over one shoulder, and caught +between an arm and a swaying hip. In the flat, round basket, on green +little leaves, lay the wired perfumed orchids. + +"How many? It is an auspicious day. See, the lilies have bloomed. One +for the hair and two for the buttonholes. They smell sweet as the breath +of heaven itself." + +Dong-Yung smiled as the flower-girl stuck one of the fragrant, fragile, +green-striped orchids in her hair, and hung two others, caught on +delicate loops of wire, on the jade studs of her jacket, buttoned on the +right shoulder. + +"Ah, you are beautiful-come-death!" said the flower-girl. "Great +happiness be thine!" + +"Even a small wife can be happy at times." Dong-Yung took out a little +woven purse and paid over two coppers apiece to the flower-girl. + +At the gate the girl and the gate-keeper fell a-talking. + +"Is the morning rice ready?" called a man's voice from the room behind. + +Dong-Yung turned quickly. Her whole face changed. It had been smiling +and pleased before at the sight of the faint, white lily-petals and the +sunlight on her feet and the fragrance of the orchids in her hair; but +now it was lit with an inner radiance. + +"My beloved Master!" Dong-Yung made a little instinctive gesture toward +the approaching man, which in a second was caught and curbed by Chinese +etiquette. Dressed, as she was, in pale-gray satin trousers, loose, and +banded at the knee with wide blue stripes, and with a soft jacket to +match, she was as beautiful in the eyes of the approaching man as the +newly opened lilies. What he was in her eyes it would be hard for any +modern woman to grasp: that rapture of adoration, that bliss of worship, +has lingered only in rare hearts and rarer spots on the earth's surface. + +Foh-Kyung came out slowly through the ancestral hall. The sunlight edged +it like a bright border. The floors were wide open, and Dong-Yung saw +the decorous rows of square chairs and square tables set rhythmically +along the walls, and the covered dais at the head for the guest of +honour. Long crimson scrolls, sprawled with gold ideographs, hung from +ceiling to floor. A rosewood cabinet, filled with vases, peach bloom, +imperial yellow, and turquoise blue, gleamed like a lighted lamp in the +shadowy morning light of the room. + +Foh-Kyung stooped to smell the lilies. + +"They perfume the very air we breathe. Little Jewel, I love our old +Chinese ways. I love the custom of the lily-planting and the day the +lilies bloom. I love to think the gods smell them in heaven, and are +gracious to mortals for their fragrance's sake." + +"I am so happy!" Dong-Yung said, poking the toe of her slipper in and +out the sunlight. She looked up at the man before her, and saw he was +tall and slim and as subtle-featured as the cross-legged bronze Buddha +himself. His long thin hands were hid, crossed and slipped along the +wrists within the loose apricot satin sleeves of his brocaded garment. +His feet, in their black satin slippers and tight-fitting white muslin +socks, were austere and aristocratic. Dong-Yung, when he was absent, +loved best to think of him thus, with his hands hidden and his eyes +smiling. + +"The willow-leaves will bud soon," answered Dong-Yung, glancing over her +shoulder at the tapering, yellowing twigs of the ancient tree. + +"And the beech-blossoms," continued Foh-Kyung. "'The earth is the +Lord's, and the fullness thereof.'" + +"The foreign devil's wisdom," answered Dong-Yung. + +"It is greater than ours, Dong-Yung; greater and lovelier. To-day, +to-day, I will go to their hall of ceremonial worship and say to their +holy priest that I think and believe the Jesus way." + +"Oh, most-beloved Master, is it also permitted to women, to a small +wife, to believe the Jesus way?" + +"I will believe for thee, too, little Lotus Flower in the Pond." + +"Tell me, O Teacher of Knowledge--tell me that in my heart and in my +mind I may follow a little way whither thou goest in thy heart and in +thy mind!" + +Foh-Kyung moved out of the shadow of the ancestral hall and stood in the +warm sunlight beside Dong-Yung, his small wife. His hands were still +withheld and hidden, clasping his wrists within the wide, loose apricot +sleeves of his gown, but his eyes looked as if they touched her. +Dong-Yung hid her happiness even as the flowers hide theirs, within +silent, incurving petals. + +"The water is cold as the chill of death. Go, bring me hot water--water +hot enough to scald an egg." + +Foh-Kyung and Dong-Yung turned to the casement in the upper right-hand +wing and listened apprehensively. The quick chatter of angry voices +rushed out into the sunlight. + +"The honourable great wife is very cross this morning." Dong-Yung +shivered and turned back to the lilies. "To-day perhaps she will beat me +again. Would that at least I had borne my lord a young prince for a +son; then perhaps--" + +"Go not near her, little Jewel. Stay in thine own rooms. Nay, I have +sons a-plenty. Do not regret the childlessness. I would not have your +body go down one foot into the grave for a child. I love thee for +thyself. + +"Now my lord speaks truly, as do the foreign devils to the shameless, +open-faced women. I like the ways of the outside kingdom well. Tell me +more of them, my Master." + +Foh-Kyung moved his hands as if he would have withdrawn them from his +apricot-coloured sleeves. Dong-Yung saw the withheld motion, and swayed +nearer. For a moment Dong-Yung saw the look in his eyes that engulfed +her in happiness; then it was gone, and he looked away past her, across +the opening lily-buds and the black rampart of the wall, at something +distant, yet precious. Foh-Kyung moved closer. His face changed. His +eyes held that hidden rapture that only Dong-Yung and the foreign-born +priest had seen. + +"Little Jewel, wilt thou go with me to the priest of the foreign-born +faith? Come!" He withdrew his hand from his sleeve and touched Dong-Yung +on the shoulder. "Come, we will go hand in hand, thou and I, even as the +men and women of the Jesus thinking; not as Chinese, I before, and thou +six paces behind. Their God loves men and women alike." + +"Is it permitted to a small wife to worship the foreign-born God?" +Dong-Yung lifted her eyes to the face of Foh-Kyung. "Teach me, O my Lord +Master! My understanding is but young and fearful--" + +Foh-Kyung moved into the sunlight beside her. + +"Their God loves all the world. Their God is different, little Flower, +from the painted images, full of blessings, not curses. He loves even +little girl babies that mothers would throw away. Truly his heart is +still more loving than the heart of a mother." + +"And yet I am fearful--" Dong-Yung looked back into the shadows of the +guest-hall, where the ancestral tablets glowed upon the wall, and +crimson tapers stood ready before them. "Our gods I have touched and +handled." + +"Nay, in the Jesus way there is no fear left." Foh-Kyung's voice dropped +lower. Its sound filled Dong-Yung with longing. "When the wind screams +in the chimneys at night, it is but the wind, not evil spirits. When the +summer breeze blows in at the open door, we need not bar it. It is but +the summer breeze from the rice-fields, uninhabited by witch-ghosts. +When we eat our morning rice, we are compelled to make no offering to +the kitchen gods in the stove corner. They cannot curse our food. Ah, in +the Jesus way there is no more fear!" + +Dong-Yung drew away from her lord and master and looked at him +anxiously. He was not seeing her at all. His eyes looked beyond, across +the fragile, lily-petals, through the solid black wall, at a vision he +saw in the world. Dong-Yung bent her head to sniff the familiar sweet +springtime orchid hanging from the jade stud on her shoulder. + +"Your words are words of good hearing, O beloved Teacher. Nevertheless, +let me follow six paces behind. I am not worthy to touch your hand. Six +paces behind, when the sun shines in your face, my feet walk in the +shadow of your garments." + +Foh-Kyung gathered his gaze back from his visions and looked at his +small wife, standing in a pool of sunshine before him. Overhead the lazy +crows flew by, winging out from their city roosts to the rice-fields for +the day's food. + +"Tea-boiled eggs!" cried a vender from beyond the wall. A man stopped at +the gate, put down his shoulder-tray of food, and bargained with the +ancient, mahogany-scalped gate-keeper. Faint odours of food frying in +oil stole out from the depths of the house behind him. And Dong-Yung, +very quiet and passive in the pose of her body, gazed up at Foh-Kyung +with those strange, secretive, ardent eyes. All around him was China, +its very essence and sound and smell. Dong-Yung was a part of it all; +nay, she was even the very heart of it, swaying there in the yellow +light among the lily-petals. + +"Precious Jewel! Yet it is sweeter to walk side by side, our feet +stepping out into the sunlight together, and our shadows mingling +behind. I want you beside me." + +The last words rang with sudden warmth. Dong-Yung trembled and +crimsoned. It was not seemly that a man speak to a woman thus, even +though that man was a husband and the woman his wife, not even though +the words were said in an open court, where the eyes of the great wife +might spy and listen. And yet Dong-Yung thrilled to those words. + +An amah called, "The morning rice is ready." + +Dong-Yung hurried into the open room, where the light was still faint, +filtering in through a high-silled window and the door. A round, brown +table stood in the center of the room. In the corner of the room behind +stood the crescentic, white plaster stove, with its dull wooden +kettle-lids and its crackling straw. Two cooks, country women, sat in +the hidden corner behind the stove, and poked in the great bales of +straw and gossiped. Their voices and the answers of the serving amah +filled the kitchen with noise. In their decorous niche at the upper +right hand of the stove sat the two kitchen gods, small ancient idols, +with hidden hands and crossed feet, gazing out upon a continually hungry +world. Since time was they had sat there, ensconced at the very root of +life, seemingly placid and unseeing and unhearing, yet venomously +watching to be placated with food. Opposite the stove, on the white +wall, hung a row of brass hooks, from which dangled porcelain spoons +with pierced handles. On a serving-table stood the piled bowls for the +day, blue-and-white rice patterns, of a thin, translucent ware, showing +the delicate light through the rice seeds; red-and-green dragoned bowls +for the puddings; and tiny saucer-like platters for the vegetables. The +tea-cups, saucered and lidded, but unhandled, stood in a row before the +polished brass hot-water kettle. + +The whole room was full of a stirring, wakening life, of the crackling +straw fire, of the steaming rice, all white and separate-kerneled in its +great, shallow, black iron kettles lidded with those heavy hand-made +wooden lids while the boiling tea water hissed, and spat out a snake of +white steam. + +With that curious democracy of China, where high and low alike are +friendly, Dong-Yung hurried into her beloved kitchen. + +"Has the master come?" asked the serving maid. + +"Coming, coming," Dong-Yung answered, "I myself will take in his morning +rice, after I have offered the morning oblations to the gods." + +Dong-Yung selected two of the daintiest blue-and-white rice-pattern +bowls. The cook lifted off the wooden lid of the rice-kettle, and +Dong-Yung scooped up a dipperful of the snow-white kernels. On the tiny +shelf before each god, the father and mother god of the household, +Dong-Yung placed her offering. She stood off a moment, surveying them in +pleased satisfaction--the round, blue bowls, with the faint tracery of +light; the complacent gods above, red and green and crimson, so +age-long, comfortably ensconced in their warm stove corner. She made +swift obeisance with her hands and body before those ancient idols. A +slant of sunshine swept in from the high windows and fell over her in a +shaft of light. The thoughts of her heart were all warm and mixed and +confused. She was happy. She loved her kitchen, her gods, all the +familiar ways of Chinese life. She loved her silken, satin clothes, +perfumed and embroidered and orchid-crowned, yet most of all she loved +her lord and master. Perhaps it was this love for him that made all the +rest of life so precious, that made each bowl of white rice an oblation, +each daily act a glorification. So she flung out her arms and bent her +head before the kitchen gods, the symbol of her ancient happiness. + +"Dong-Yung, I do not wish you to do this any more." + +Dong-Yung turned, her obeisance half arrested in mid-air. Foh-Kyung +stood in the doorway. + +"My lord," stammered Dong-Yung, "I did not understand your meaning." + +"I know that, little Flower in my House. The new meaning is hard to +understand. I, too, am but a blind child unused to the touch of the +road. But the kitchen gods matter no more; we pray to a spirit." + +Foh-Kyung, in his long apricot-coloured garment, crossed the threshold +of the kitchen, crossed the shadow and sunlight that stripped the bare +board floor, and stood before the kitchen gods. His eyes were on a level +with theirs, strange, painted wooden eyes that stared forth inscrutably +into the eating centuries. Dong-Yung stood half bowed, breathless with a +quick, cold fear. The cook, one hand holding a shiny brown dipper, the +other a porcelain dish, stood motionless at the wooden table under the +window. From behind the stove peeped the frightened face of one of the +fire-tenders. The whole room was turned to stone, motionless, expectant, +awaiting the releasing moment of arousement--all, that is, but the +creeping sunshine, sliding nearer and nearer the crossed feet of the +kitchen gods; and the hissing steam fire, warming, coddling the hearts +of the gods. Sun at their feet, fire at their hearts, food before them, +and mortals turned to stone! + +Foh-Kyung laughed softly, standing there, eye-level with the kitchen +gods. He stretched out his two hands, and caught a god in each. A +shudder ran through the motionless room. + +"It is wickedness!" The porcelain dish fell from the hand of the cook, +and a thousand rice-kernels, like scattered pearls, ran over the floor. + +"A blasphemer," the fire-tender whispered, peering around the stove with +terrified eyes. "This household will bite off great bitterness." + +Foh-Kyung walked around the corner of the stove. The fire sparked and +hissed. The sunshine filled the empty niche. Not since the building of +the house and the planting of the tall black cypress-trees around it, a +hundred years ago, had the sunlight touched the wall behind the kitchen +gods. + +Dong-Yung sprang into life. She caught Foh-Kyung's sleeve. + +"O my Lord and Master, I pray you, do not utterly cast them away into +the burning, fiery furnace! I fear some evil will befall us." + +Foh-Kyung, a green-and-gold god in each hand, stopped and turned. His +eyes smiled at Dong-Yung. She was so little and so precious and so +afraid! Dong-Yung saw the look of relenting. She held his sleeve the +tighter. + +"Light of my Eyes, do good deeds to me. My faith is but a little faith. +How could it be great unto thy great faith? Be gentle with my kitchen +gods. Do not utterly destroy them. I will hide them." + +Foh-Kyung smiled yet more, and gave the plaster gods into her hands as +one would give a toy to a child. + +"They are thine. Do with them as thou wilt, but no more set them up in +this stove corner and offer them morning rice. They are but painted, +plastered gods. I worship the spirit above." + +Foh-Kyung sat down at the men's table in the men's room beyond. An amah +brought him rice and tea. Other men of the household there was none, and +he ate his meal alone. From the women's room across the court came a +shrill round of voices. The voice of the great wife was loudest and +shrillest. The voices of the children, his sons and daughters, rose and +fell with clear childish insistence among the older voices. The amah's +voice laughed with an equal gaiety. + +Dong-Yung hid away the plastered green-and-gold gods. Her heart was +filled with a delicious fear. Her lord was even master of the gods. He +picked them up in his two hands, he carried them about as carelessly as +a man carries a boy child astride his shoulder; he would even have cast +them into the fire! Truly, she shivered with delight. Nevertheless, she +was glad she had hidden them safely away. In the corner of the kitchen +stood a box of white pigskin with beaten brass clasps made like the +outspread wings of a butterfly. Underneath the piles of satin she had +hidden them, and the key to the butterfly clasps was safe in her +belt-jacket. + +Dong-Yung stood in the kitchen door and watched Foh-Kyung. + +"Does my lord wish for anything?" + +Foh-Kyung turned, and saw her standing there in the doorway. Behind her +were the white stove and the sun-filled, empty niche. The light flooded +through the doorway. Foh-Kyung set down his rice-bowl from his left hand +and his ivory chop-sticks from his right. He stood before her. + +"Truly, Dong-Yung, I want thee. Do not go away and leave me. Do not +cross to the eating-room of the women and children. Eat with me." + +"It has not been heard of in the Middle Kingdom for a woman to eat with +a man." + +"Nevertheless, it shall be. Come!" + +Dong-Yung entered slowly. The light in this dim room was all gathered +upon the person of Foh-Kyung, in the gleaming patterned roses of his +gown, in his deep amethyst ring, in his eyes. Dong-Yung came because of +his eyes. She crossed the room slowly, swaying with that peculiar grace +of small-footed women, till she stood at the table beside Foh-Kyung. She +was now even more afraid than when he would have cast the kitchen gods +into the fire. They were but gods, kitchen gods, that he was about to +break; this was the primeval bondage of the land, ancient custom. + +"Give me thy hand and look up with thine eyes and thy heart." + +Dong-Yung touched his hand. Foh-Kyung looked up as if he saw into the +ether beyond, and there saw a spirit vision of ineffable radiance. But +Dong-Yung watched him. She saw him transfigured with an inner light. His +eyes moved in prayer. The exaltation spread out from him to her, it +tingled through their finger-tips, it covered her from head to foot. + +Foh-Kyung drooped her hand and moved. Dong-Yung leaned nearer. + +"I, too, would believe the Jesus way." + +In the peculiar quiet of mid-afternoon, when the shadows begin to creep +down from the eaves of the pagodas and zigzag across the rice-fields to +bed, Foh-Kyung and Dong-Yung arrived at the camp-ground of the +foreigners. The lazy native streets were still dull with the end of +labour. At the gate of the camp-ground the rickshaw coolies tipped down +the bamboo shafts, to the ground. Dong-Yung stepped out quickly, and +looked at her lord and master. He smiled. + +"Nay, I do not fear," Dong-Yung answered, with her eyes on his face. +"Yet this place is strange, and lays a coldness around my heart." + +"Regard not their awkward ways," said Foh-Kyung, as he turned in at the +gate; "in their hearts they have the secret of life." + +The gate-keeper bowed, and slipped the coin, warm from Foh-Kyung's hand, +into his ready pocket. + +"Walk beside me, little Wife of my Heart." Foh-Kyung stopped in the wide +gravelled road and waited for Dong-Yung. Standing there in the sunlight, +more vivid yet than the light itself, in his imperial yellow robes he +was the end of life, nay, life itself, to Dong-Yung. "We go to the house +of the foreign priest to seek until we find the foreign God. Let us go +side by side." + +Dong-Yung, stepping with slow, small-footed grace, walked beside him. + +"My understanding is as the understanding of a little child, beloved +Teacher; but my heart lies like a shell in thy hand, its words but as +the echo of thine. My honour is great that thou do not forget me in the +magnitude of the search." + +Dong-Yung's pleated satin skirts swayed to and fro against the imperial +yellow of Foh-Kyung's robe. Her face coloured like a pale spring +blossom, looked strangely ethereal above her brocade jacket. Her heart +still beat thickly, half with fear and half with the secret rapture of +their quest and her lord's desire for her. + +Foh-Kyung took a silken and ivory fan from an inner pocket and spread it +in the air. Dong-Yung knew the fan well. It came from a famous +jeweller's on Nanking Road, and had been designed by an old court poet +of long ago. The tiny ivory spokes were fretted like ivy-twigs in the +North, but on the leaves of silk was painted a love-story of the South. +There was a tea-house, with a maiden playing a lute, and the words of +the song, fantastic black ideographs, floated off to the ears of her +lover. Foh-Kyung spread out its leaves in the sun, and looked at it and +smiled." + +"Never is the heart of man satisfied," he said, "alone. Neither when the +willow fuzz flies in the spring, or when the midnight snow silvers the +palms. Least of all is it satisfied when it seeks the presence of God +above. I want thee beside me." + +Dong-Yung hid her delight. Already for the third time he said those +words--those words that changed all the world from one of a loving +following-after to a marvelous oneness. + +So they stepped across the lawn together. It was to Dong-Yung as if she +stepped into an unknown land. She walked on flat green grass. Flowers in +stiff and ordered rows went sedately round and round beneath a lurid red +brick wall. A strange, square-cornered, flat-topped house squatted in +the midst of the flat green grass. On the lawn at one side was a +white-covered table, with a man and a woman sitting beside it. The four +corners of the table-cloth dripped downward to the flat green grass. It +was all very strange and ugly. Perhaps it was a garden, but no one would +have guessed it. Dong-Yung longed to put each flower plant in a dragon +bowl by itself and place it where the sun caught its petals one by one +as the hours flew by. She longed for a narrow, tile-edged patch to guide +her feet through all that flat green expanse. A little shiver ran over +her. She looked back, down the wide gravelled way, through the gate, +where the gate-keeper sat, tipped back against the wall on his stool, to +the shop of the money-changer's opposite. A boy leaned half across the +polished wood counter and shook his fist in the face of the +money-changer. "Thou thief!" he cried. "Give me my two cash!" Dong-Yung +was reassured. Around her lay all the dear familiar things; at her side +walked her lord and master. And he had said they were seeking a new +freedom, a God of love. Her thoughts stirred at her heart and caught her +breath away. + +The foreigners rose to greet them. Dong-Yung touched the hand of an +alien man. She did not like it at all. The foreign-born woman made her +sit down beside her, and offered her bitter, strong tea in delicate, +lidless cups, with handles bent like a twisted flower-branch. + +"I have been meaning to call for a long time, Mrs. Li," said the +foreign-born woman. + +"The great wife will receive thee with much honour," Dong-Yung answered. + +"I am so glad you came with your husband." + +"Yes," Dong-Yung answered, with a little smile. "The customs of the +foreign-born are pleasant to our eyes." + +"I am glad you like them," said the foreign-born woman. "I couldn't bear +not to go everywhere with my husband." + +Dong-Yung liked her suddenly on account of the look that sprang up a +moment in her eyes and vanished again. She looked across at the priest, +her husband, a man in black, with thin lips and seeing eyes. The eyes of +the foreign woman, looking at the priest, her husband, showed how much +she loved him. "She loves him even as a small wife loves," Dong-Yung +thought to herself. Dong-Yung watched the two men, the one in imperial +yellow, the one in black, sitting beside each other and talking. +Dong-Yung knew they were talking of the search. The foreign-born woman +was speaking to her again. + +"The doctor told me I would die if I came to China, but John felt he had +a call. I would not stand in his way." + +The woman's face was illumined. + +"And now you are very happy?" Dong-Yung announced. + +"And now I am very happy; just as you will be very happy." + +"I am always happy since my lord took me for his small wife." Dong-Yung +matched her happiness with the happiness of the foreign-born woman, +proudly, with assurance. In her heart she knew no woman, born to eat +bitterness, had ever been so happy as she in all the worlds beneath the +heavens. She looked around her, beyond the failure of the foreign +woman's garden, at the piled, peaked roofs of China looking over the +wall. The fragrance of a blossoming plum-tree stole across from a +Chinese courtyard, and a peach-branch waved pink in the air. A wonder of +contentment filled Dong-Yung. + +All the while Foh-Kyung was talking. Dong-Yung turned back from all the +greenness around her to listen. He sat very still, with his hands hid in +his sleeves. The wave-ridged hem of his robe--blue and green and purple +and red and yellow--was spread out decorously above his feet. Dong-Yung +looked and looked at him, so still and motionless and so gorgeously +arrayed. She looked from his feet, long, slim, in black satin slippers, +and close-fitting white muslin socks, to the feet of the foreign priest. +His feet were huge, ugly black things. From his feet Dong-Yung's eyes +crept up to his face, over his priestly black clothes, rimmed with stiff +white at wrist and throat. Yes, his face was even as the face of a +priest, of one who serves between the gods and men, a face of seeing +eyes and a rigid mouth. Dong-Yung shuddered. + +"And so we have come, even as the foreign-born God tells us, a man and +his wife, to believe the Jesus way." + +Foh-Kyung spoke in a low voice, but his face smiled. Dong-Yung smiled, +too, at his open, triumphant declarations. She said over his words to +herself, under her breath, so that she would remember them surely when +she wanted to call them back to whisper to her heart in the dark of some +night. "We two, a man and his wife"--only dimly, with the heart of a +little child, did Dong-Yung understand and follow Foh-Kyung; but the +throb of her heart answered the hidden light in his eyes. + +The foreign-born priest stood up. The same light shone in his eyes. It +was a rapture, an exaltation. Suddenly an unheard-of thing happened. The +outside kingdom woman put her arms around Dong-Yung! Dong-Yung was +terrified. She was held tight against the other woman's shoulder. The +foreign-born woman used a strange perfume. Dong-Yung only half heard her +whispered words. + +"We are like that, too. We could not be separated. Oh, you will be +happy!" + +Dong-Yung thought of the other woman. "In her heart she is humble and +seemly. It is only her speech and her ways that are unfitting." + +"We are going into the chapel a moment," said the priest. "Will you +come, too?" + +Dong-Yung looked at Foh-Kyung, a swift upward glance, like the sudden +sweep of wings. She read his answer in his eyes. He wanted her to come. +Not even in the temple of the foreign-born God did he wish to be without +her. + +A coolie called the foreign-born woman away. + +The priest, in his tight trousers, and jacket, black and covered with a +multitude of round flat buttons, stood up, and led the way into the +house and down a long corridor to a closed door at the end. Dong-Yung +hurried behind the two men. At the door the priest stood aside and held +it open for her to pass in first. She hesitated. Foh-Kyung nodded. + +"Do not think fearful things, little Princess," he whispered. "Enter, +and be not afraid. There is no fear in the worship of Jesus." + +So Dong-Yung crossed the threshold first. Something caught her breath +away, just as the chanting of the dragon priests always did. She took a +few steps forward and stood behind a low-backed bench. Before her, the +light streamed into the little chapel through one luminous window of +coloured glass above the altar. It lay all over the grey-tiled floor in +roses and sunflowers of pink and god. A deep purple stripe fell across +the head of the black-robed priest. Dong-Yung was glad of that. It made +his robe less hideous, and she could not understand how one could serve +a god unless in beautiful robes. On the altar beneath the window of +coloured flowers were two tall silver candlesticks, with smooth white +tapers. A wide-mouthed vase filled with Chinese lilies stood between +them. The whole chapel was faintly fragrant with their incense. So even +the foreign-born worshipers lit candles, and offered the scent of the +lilies to their spirit God. Truly, all the gods of all the earth and in +the sky are lovers of lit candles and flowers. Also, one prays to all +gods. + +The place was very quiet and peaceful, mottled with the gorgeous, +flowerlike splashes of colour. The waiting candles, the echoes of many +prayers, the blossom of worship filled the tiny chapel. Dong-Yung liked +it, despite herself, despite the strangeness of the imageless altar, +despite the clothes of the priest. She stood quite still behind the +bench flooded and filled with an all-pervading sense of happiness. + +Foh-Kyung and the black-robed priest walked past her, down the little +aisle, to a shiny brass railing that went like a fence round before the +altar. The foreign-born priest laid one hand on the railing as if to +kneel down, but Foh-Kyung turned and beckoned with his chin to Dong-Yung +to come. She obeyed at once. She was surprisingly unafraid. Her feet +walked through the patterns of colour, which slid over her head and +hands, gold from the gold of a cross and purple from the robe of a king. +As if stepping through a rainbow, she came slowly down the aisle to the +waiting men, and in her heart and in her eyes lay the light of all love +and trust. + +Foh-Kyung caught her hand. + +"See, I take her hand," he said to the priest, "even as you would take +the hand of your wife, proud and unashamed in the presence of your God. +Even as your love is, so shall ours be. Where the thoughts of my heart +lead, the heart of my small wife follows. Give us your blessing." + +Foh-Kyung drew Dong-Yung to her knees beside him. His face was hidden, +after the manner of the foreign worshipers; but hers was uplifted, her +eyes gazing at the glass with the colours of many flowers and the shapes +of men and angels. She was happier than she had ever been--happier even +than when she had first worshiped the ancestral tablets with her lord +and master, happier even than at the feast of the dead, when they laid +their food offerings on the shaven grave-mounds. She felt closer to +Foh-Kyung than in all her life before. + +She waited. The silence grew and grew till in the heart of it something +ominous took the place of its all-pervading peace. Foh-Kyung lifted his +face from his hands and rose to his feet. Dong-Yung turned, still +kneeling, to scan his eyes. The black-robed priest stood off and looked +at them with horror. Surely it was horror! Never had Dong-Yung really +liked him. Slowly she rose, and stood beside and a little behind +Foh-Kyung. He had not blessed them. Faintly, from beyond the walls of +the Christian chapel came the beating of drums. Devil-drums they were. +Dong-Yung half smiled at the long-known familiar sound. + +"Your small wife?" said the priest. "Have you another wife?" + +"Assuredly," Foh-Kyung answered. "All men have a great wife first; but +this, my small wife, is the wife of my heart. Together we have come to +seek and find the Jesus way." + +The priest wiped his hand across his face. Dong-Yung saw that it was wet +with tiny round balls of sweat. His mouth had suddenly become one thin +red line, but in his eyes lay pain. + +"Impossible," he said. His voice was quite different now, and sounded +like bits of metal falling on stone. "No man can enter the church while +living in sin with a woman other than his lawful wife. If your desire is +real, put her away." + +With instant response, Foh-Kyung made a stately bow. "Alas! I have made +a grievous mistake. The responsibility will be on my body. I thought all +were welcome. We go. Later on, perhaps, we may meet again." + +The priest spoke hurriedly. + +"I do not understand your meaning. Is this belief of such light weight +that you will toss it away for a sinful woman? Put her away, and come +and believe." But Foh-Kyung did not hear his words. As he turned away, +Dong-Yung followed close behind her lord and master, only half +comprehending, yet filled with a great fear. They went out again into +the sunshine, out across the flat green grass, under the iron gateway, +back into the Land of the Flowery Kingdom. Foh-Kyung did not speak until +he put Dong-Yung in the rickshaw. + +"Little Wife of my Heart," he said, "stop at the jeweller's and buy thee +new ear-rings, these ear-rings of the sky-blue stone and sea-tears, and +have thy hair dressed and thy gowns perfumed, and place the two red +circles on the smile of thy cheeks. To-night we will feast. Hast thou +forgotten that to-night is the Feast of the Lanterns, when all good +Buddhists rejoice?" + +He stood beside her rickshaw, in his imperial yellow garment hemmed with +the rainbow waves of the sea, and smiled down into her eyes. + +"But the spirit God of love, the foreign-born spirit God?" said +Dong-Yung. "Shall we feast to him too?" + +"Nay, it is not fitting to feast to two gods at once," said Foh-Kyung. +"Do as I have said." + +He left her. Dong-Yung, riding through the sun-splashed afternoon, +buying coloured jewels and flowery perfume and making herself beautiful, +yet felt uneasy. She had not quite understood. A dim knowledge advanced +toward her like a wall of fog. She pressed her two hands against it and +held it off--held it off by sheer mental refusal to understand. In the +courtyard at home the children were playing with their lighted animals, +drawing their gaudy paper ducks, luminous with candle-light, to and fro +on little standards set on four wheels. At the gate hung a tall +red-and-white lantern, and over the roof floated a string of candle-lit +balloons. In the ancestral hall the great wife had lit the red candles, +speared on their slender spikes, before the tablets. In the kitchen the +cooks and amahs were busy with the feast-cooking. Candles were stuck +everywhere on the tables and benches. They threw little pools of light +on the floor before the stove and looked at the empty niche. In the +night it was merely a black hole in the stove filled with formless +shadow. She wished-- + +"Dong-Yung, Flower in the House, where hast thou hidden the kitchen +gods? Put them in their place." Foh-Kyung, still in imperial yellow, +stood like a sun in the doorway. + +Dong-Yung turned. + +"But--" + +"Put them back, little Jewel in the Hair. It is not permitted to worship +the spirit God. There are bars and gates. The spirit of man must turn +back in the searching, turn back to the images of plaster and paint." + +Dong-Yung let the wall of fog slide over her. She dropped her +resistance. She knew. + +"Nay, not the spirit of man. It is but natural that the great God does +not wish the importunings of a small wife. Worship thou alone the great +God, and the shadow of that worship will fall on my heart." + +"Nay, I cannot worship alone. My worship is not acceptable in the sight +of the foreign God. My ways are not his ways." + +Foh-Kyung's face was unlined and calm, yet Dong-Yung felt the hidden +agony of his soul, flung back from its quest upon gods of plaster and +paint. + +"But I know the thoughts of thy heart, O Lord and Master, white and +fragrant as the lily-buds that opened to-day. Has thy wish changed?" + +"Nay, my wish is even the same, but it is not permitted to a man of two +wives to be a follower of the spirit God." + +Dong-Yung had known it all along. This knowledge came with no surprise. +It was she who kept him from the path of his desire! + +"Put back the kitchen gods," said Foh-Kyung. "We will live and believe +and die even as our fathers have done. The gate to the God of love is +closed." + +The feast was served. In the sky one moon blotted out a world of stars. +Foh-Kyung sat alone, smoking. Laughter and talk filled the women's wing. +The amahs and coolies were resting outside. A thin reed of music crept +in and out among the laughter and talk, from the reed flute of the cook. +The kitchen was quite empty. One candle on the table sent up a long +smoky tongue of flame. The fire still smouldered in the corner. A little +wind shook the cypress-branches without, and carried the scent of the +opened lilies into the room. + +Dong-Yung, still arrayed for feasting, went to the pigskin trunk in the +corner, fitted the key from her belt into the carven brass wings of the +butterfly, and lifted out the kitchen gods. One in each hand, she held +them, green and gold. She put them back in their niche, and lifted up a +bowl of rice to their feet, and beat her head on the ground before them. + +"Forgive me, O my kitchen gods, forgive my injurious hands and heart; +but the love of my master is even greater than my fear of thee. Thou and +I, we bar the gates of heaven from him." + +When she had finished, she tiptoed around the room, touching the chairs +and tables with caressing fingers. She stole out into the courtyard, and +bent to inhale the lily fragrance, sweeter by night than by day. "An +auspicious day," the gate-keeper had said that morning. Foh-Kyung had +stood beside her, with his feet in the sunshine; she remembered the +light in his eyes. She bent her head till the fingers of the lily-petals +touched her cheek. She crept back through the house, and looked at +Foh-Kyung smoking. His eyes were dull, even as are the eyes of sightless +bronze Buddhas. No, she would never risk going in to speak to him. If +she heard the sound of his voice, if he called her "little Flower of the +House," she would never have the strength to go. So she stood in the +doorway and looked at him much as one looks at a sun, till wherever else +one looks, one sees the same sun against the sky. + +In the formless shadow she made a great obeisance, spreading out her +arms and pressing the palms of her hands against the floor. + +"O my Lord and Master," she said, with her lips against the boards of +the floor, softly, so that none might hear her--"O my Lord and Master, I +go. Even a small wife may unbar the gates of heaven." + +First, before she went, she cast the two kitchen gods, green and gold, +of ancient plaster, into the embers of the fire. There in the morning +the cook-rice amahs found the onyx stones that had been their eyes. The +house was still unlocked, the gate-keeper at the feast. Like a shadow +she moved along the wall and through the gate. The smell of the lilies +blew past her. Drums and chants echoed up the road, and the sounds of +manifold feastings. She crept away down by the wall, where the moon laid +a strip of blackness, crept away to unbar the gates of heaven for her +lord and master. + + + + +APRIL 25TH, AS USUAL + + +By EDNA FERBER + +From _Ladies Home Journal_ + +Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster always cleaned house in September and April. She +started with the attic and worked her purifying path down to the cellar +in strict accordance with Article I, Section I, Unwritten Rules for +House Cleaning. For twenty-five years she had done it. For twenty-five +years she had hated it--being an intelligent woman. For twenty-five +years, towel swathed about her head, skirt pinned back, sleeves rolled +up--the costume dedicated to house cleaning since the days of +What's-Her-Name, mother of Lemuel (see Proverbs)--Mrs. Brewster had gone +through the ceremony twice a year. + +Furniture on the porch, woolens on the line, mattresses in the +yard--everything that could be pounded, beaten, whisked, rubbed, +flapped, shaken or aired was dragged out and subjected to one or all of +these indignities. After which, completely cowed, they were dragged in +again and set in their places. Year after year, in attic and in cellar, +things had piled up higher and higher--useless things, sentimental +things; things in trunks; things in chests; shelves full of things +wrapped up in brown-paper parcels. + +And boxes--oh, above all, boxes; pasteboard boxes, long and flat, square +and oblong, each bearing weird and cryptic pencilings on one end; +cryptic, that, is to anyone except Mrs. Brewster and you who have owned +an attic. Thus "H's Fshg Tckl" jabberwocked one long slim box. Another +stunned you with "Cur Ted Slpg Pch." A cabalistic third hid its contents +under "Slp Cov Pinky Rm." To say nothing of such curt yet intriguing +fragments as "Blk Nt Drs" and "Sun Par Val." Once you had the code key +they translated themselves simply enough into such homely items as +Hosey's fishing tackle, canvas curtains for Ted's sleeping porch, +slip-covers for Pinky's room, black net dress, sun-parlour valence. + +The contents of those boxes formed a commentary on normal American +household life as lived by Mr. and Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster, of Winnebago, +Wisconsin. Hosey's rheumatism had prohibited trout fishing these ten +years; Ted wrote from Arizona that "the li'l' ol' sky" was his +sleeping-porch roof and you didn't have to worry out there about the +neighbours seeing you in your pyjamas; Pink's rose-cretonne room had +lacked an occupant since Pinky left the Winnebago High School for the +Chicago Art Institute, thence to New York and those amazingly successful +magazine covers that stare up at you from your table--young lady, hollow +chested (she'd need to be with that décolletage), carrying feather fan. +You could tell a Brewster cover at sight, without the fan. That leaves +the black net dress and sun-parlour valance. The first had grown too +tight under the arms (Mrs. Brewster's arms); the second had faded. + +Now don't gather from this that Mrs. Brewster was an ample, pie-baking, +ginghamed old soul who wore black silk and a crushed-looking hat with a +palsied rose atop it. Nor that Hosea C. Brewster was spectacled and +slippered. Not at all. The Hosea C. Brewsters, of Winnebago, Wisconsin, +were the people you've met on the veranda of the Moana Hotel at +Honolulu, or at the top of Pike's Peak, or peering into the restless +heart of Vesuvius. They were the prosperous Middle-Western type of +citizen who runs down to Chicago to see the new plays and buy a hat, and +to order a dozen Wedgwood salad plates at Field's. + +Mrs. Brewster knew about Dunsany and Georgette and alligator pears; and +Hosea Brewster was in the habit of dropping around to the Elks' Club, up +above Schirmer's furniture store on Elm Street, at about five in the +afternoon on his way home from the cold-storage plant. The Brewster +house was honeycombed with sleeping porches and sun parlours and linen +closets, and laundry chutes and vegetable bins and electric surprises +as well-to-do Middle Western home is likely to be. + +That home had long ago grown too large for the two of them--physically, +that is. But as the big frame house had expanded, so had +they--intolerance and understanding humanness--until now, as you talked +with them, you felt that there was room and to spare of sun-filled +mental chambers, and shelves well stored with experience, and pantries +and bins and closets for all your worries and confidences. + +But the attic! And the cellar! The attic was the kind of attic every +woman longs for who hasn't one and every woman loathes who has. "If I +only had some place to put things in!" wails the first. And, "If it +weren't for the attic I'd have thrown this stuff away long ago," +complains the second. Mrs. Brewster herself had helped plan it. Hardwood +floored, spacious light, the Brewster attic revealed to you the social, +aesthetic, educational and spiritual progress of the entire family as +clearly as if a sociologist had chartered it. + +Take, for example (before we run down to the cellar for a minute), the +crayon portraits of Gran'ma and Gran'pa Brewster. When Ted had been a +junior and Pinky a freshman at the Winnebago High School the crayon +portraits had beamed down upon them from the living-room wall. To each +of these worthy old people the artist had given a pair of hectic pink +cheeks. Gran'ma Brewster especially, simpering down at you from the +labyrinthian scrolls of her sextuple gold frame, was rouged like a +soubrette and further embellished with a pair of gentian-blue eyes +behind steel-bowed specs. Pinky--and in fact the entire Brewster +household--had thought these massive atrocities the last word in +artistic ornament. By the time she reached her sophomore year, Pinky had +prevailed upon her mother to banish them to the dining-room. Then two +years later, when the Chicago decorator did over the living-room and the +dining-room, the crayons were relegated to the upstairs hall. + +Ted and Pinky, away at school, began to bring their friends back with +them for the vacations Pinky's room had been done over in cream enamel +and rose-flowered cretonne. She said the chromos in the hall spoiled the +entire second floor. So the gold frames, glittering undimmed, the checks +as rosily glowing as ever, found temporary resting-places in a +nondescript back chamber known as the serving room. Then the new +sleeping porch was built for Ted, and the portraits ended their +journeying in the attic. + +One paragraph will cover the cellar. Stationary tubs, laundry stove. +Behind that, bin for potatoes, bin for carrots, bins for onions, apples, +cabbages. Boxed shelves for preserves. And behind that Hosea C. +Brewster's _bête noir_ and plaything, tyrant and slave--the furnace. +"She's eating up coal this winter," Hosea Brewster would complain. Or: +"Give her a little more draft, Fred." Fred, of the furnace and lawn +mower, would shake a doleful head. "She ain't drawin' good. I do' know +what's got into her." + +By noon of this particular September day--a blue-and-gold Wisconsin +September day--Mrs. Brewster had reached that stage in the cleaning of +the attic when it looked as if it would never be clean and orderly +again. Taking into consideration Miz' Merz (Mis' Merz by-the-day, you +understand) and Gussie, the girl, and Fred, there was very little +necessity for Mrs. Brewster's official house-cleaning uniform. She might +have unpinned her skirt, unbound her head, rolled down her sleeves and +left for the day, serene in the knowledge that no corner, no chandelier, +no mirror, no curlicue so hidden, so high, so glittering, so ornate that +it might hope to escape the rag or brush of one or the other of this +relentless and expert crew. + +Every year, twice a year, as this box, that trunk or chest was opened +and its contents revealed, Mis' Merz would say "You keepin' this, Miz' +Brewster?" + +"That? Oh, dear yes!" Or: "Well--I don't know. You can take that home +with you if you want it. It might make over for Minnie." + +Yet why, in the name of all that's ridiculous, did she treasure the +funeral wheat wreath in the walnut frame? Nothing is more _passé_ than +a last summer's hat, yet the leghorn and pink-cambric-rose thing in the +tin trunk was the one Mrs. Brewster had worn when a bride. Then the +plaid kilted dress with the black velvet monkey jacket that Pinky had +worn when she spoke her first piece at the age of seven--well, these +were things that even the rapacious eye of Miz' Merz (by-the-day) passed +by unbrightened by covetousness. + +The smell of soap and water, and cedar, and moth balls, and dust, and +the ghost of a perfumery that Pinky used to use pervaded the hot attic. +Mrs. Brewster, head and shoulders in a trunk, was trying not to listen +and not to seem not to listen to Miz' Merz' recital of her husband's +relations' latest flagrancy. + +"'Families is nix,' I says. 'I got my own family to look out fuh,' I +says. Like that. 'Well,' s's he, 'w'en it comes to _that_,' s's he, 'I +guess I got some--'" Punctuated by thumps, spatterings, swashings and +much heavy breathing, so that the sound of light footsteps along the +second-floor hallway, a young clear voice calling, then the same +footsteps, fleeter now, on the attic stairway, were quite unheard. + +Pinky's arm were around her mother's neck and for one awful moment it +looked as if both were to be decapitated by the trunk lid, so violent +had been Mrs. Brewster's start of surprise. + +Incoherent little cries, and sentences unfinished. + +"Pinky! Why--my baby! We didn't get your telegram. Did you--" + +"No; I didn't. I just thought I--Don't look so dazed, mummy--You're all +smudged too--what in the world!" Pinky straightened her hat and looked +about the attic. "Why, mother! You're--you're house cleaning!" There was +a stunned sort of look on her face. Pinky's last visit home had been in +June, all hammocks, and roses, and especially baked things, and motor +trips into the country. + +"Of course. This is September. But if I'd known you were coming--Come +here to the window. Let mother see you. Is that the kind of hat +they're--why, its a winter one, isn't it? Already! Dear me, I've just +got used to the angle of my summer one. You must telephone father." + +Miz' Merz damply calicoed, rose from a corner and came forward, wiping a +moist and parboiled hand on her skirt. "Ha' do, Pinky? Ain't forgot your +old friends, have you?" + +"It's Mrs. Merz!" Pinky put her cool, sweet fingers into the other +woman's spongy clasp. "Why, hello, Mrs. Merz! Of course when there's +house cleaning--I'd forgotten all about house cleaning--that there was +such a thing, I mean." + +"It's got to be done," replied Miz' Merz severely. + +Pinky, suddenly looking like one of her own magazine covers (in tailor +clothes), turned swiftly to her mother. "Nothing of the kind," she said +crisply. She looked about the hot, dusty, littered room. She included +and then banished it all with one sweeping gesture. "Nothing of the +kind. This is--this is an anachronism." + +"Mebbe so," retorted Miz' Merz with equal crispness. "But it's got to be +cleaned just the same. Yessir; it's got to be cleaned." + +They smiled at each other then, the mother and daughter. They descended +the winding attic stairs happily, talking very fast and interrupting +each other. + +Mrs. Brewster's skirt was still pinned up. Her hair was bound in the +protecting towel. "You must telephone father. No, let's surprise him. +You'll hate the dinner--built around Miz' Merz; you know--boiled. Well, +you know what a despot she is." + +It was hot for September, in Wisconsin. As they came out to the porch +Pinky saw that there were tiny beads of moisture under her mother's eyes +and about her chin. The sight infuriated her somehow. "Well, really, +mother!" + +Mrs. Brewster unpinned her skirt and smoothed it down and smiled at +Pinky, all unconscious that she looked like a plump, pink Sister of +Mercy with that towel bound tightly about her hair. With a swift +movement Pinky unpinned the towel, unwound it, dabbed with it tenderly +at her mother's chin and brow, rolled it into a vicious wad and hurled +it through the open doorway. + +"Now just what does that mean?" said Mrs. Brewster equably. "Take off +your hat and coat, Pinky, but don't treat them that way--unless that's +the way they're doing in New York. Everything is so informal since the +war." She had a pretty wit of her own, Mrs. Brewster. + +Of course Pinky laughed then, and kissed her mother and hugged her hard. +"It's just that it seems idiotic--your digging around in an attic in +this day and age! Why it's--it's--" Pinky could express herself much +more clearly in colours than in words. "There is no such thing as an +attic. People don't clean them any more. I never realized before--this +huge house. It has been wonderful to come back to, of course. But just +you and dad." She stopped. She raised two young fists high in important +anger. "Do you _like_ cleaning the attic?" + +"Why, no. I hate it." + +"Then why in the world--" + +"I've always done it, Pinky. And while they may not be wearing attics in +New York, we haven't taken them off in Winnebago. Come on up to your +room, dear. It looks bare. If I'd known you were coming--the slip +covers--" + +"Are they in the box in the attic labeled 'Slp Cov Pinky Rum'?" She +succeeded in slurring it ludicrously. + +It brought an appreciative giggle from Mrs. Brewster. A giggle need not +be inconsistent with fifty years, especially if one's nose wrinkles up +delightfully in the act. But no smile curved the daughter's stern young +lips. Together they went up to Pinky's old room (the older woman stopped +to pick up the crumpled towel on the hall floor). On the way they paused +at the door of Mrs. Brewster's bedroom, so cool, so spacious, all soft +greys and blues. + +Suddenly Pinky's eyes widened with horror. She pointed an accusing +forefinger at a large dark object in a corner near a window. "That's the +old walnut desk! she exclaimed. + +"I know it." + +The girl turned, half amused, half annoyed. "Oh, mother dear! That's +the situation in a nutshell. Without a shadow of doubt, there's an +eradicable streak of black walnut in your grey-enamel make-up." + +"Eradicable! That's a grand word, Pinky. Stylish! I never expected to +meet it out of a book. And fu'thermore, as Miz' Merz would say, I didn't +know there was any situation." + +"I meant the attic. And it's more than a situation. It's a state of +mind." + +Mrs. Brewster had disappeared into the depths of her clothes closet. Her +voice sounded muffled. "Pinky, you're talking the way they did at that +tea you gave for father and me when we visited New York last winter." +She emerged with a cool-looking blue kimono. "Here. Put this on. +Father'll be home at twelve-thirty, for dinner, you know. You'll want a +bath, won't you, dear?" + +"Yes. Mummy, is it boiled--honestly?--on a day like this?" + +"With onions," said Mrs. Brewster firmly. + +Fifteen minutes later Pinky, splashing in a cool tub, heard the voice of +Miz' Merz, high-pitched with excitement and a certain awful joy: "Miz' +Brewster! Oh, Miz' Brewster! I found a moth in Mr. Brewster's winter +flannels!" + +"Oh!" in choked accents of fury from Pinky; and she brought a hard young +fist down in the water--spat!--so that it splashed ceiling, hair and +floor impartially. + +Still, it was a cool and serene young daughter who greeted Hosea +Brewster as he came limping up the porch stairs. He placed the flat of +the foot down at each step, instead of heel and ball. It gave him a +queer, hitching gait. The girl felt a sharp little constriction of her +throat as she marked that rheumatic limp. "It's the beastly Wisconsin +winters," she told herself. Then, darting out at him from the corner +where she had been hiding: "S'prise! S'prise!" + +His plump blond face, flushed with the unwonted heat went darkly red. He +dropped his hat. His arms gathered her in. Her fresh young cheek was +pressed against his dear, prickly one. So they stood for a long +minute--close. + +"Need a shave, dad." + +"Well gosh how did I know my best girl was coming!" He held her off. +"What's the matter, Pink? Don't they like your covers any more?" + +"Not a thing, Hosey. Don't get fresh. They're redecorating my +studio--you know--plasterers and stuff. I couldn't work. And I was +lonesome for you." + +Hosea Brewster went to the open doorway and gave a long whistle with a +little quirk at the end. Then he came back to Pinky in the wide-seated +porch swing. "You know," he said, his voice lowered confidentially, "I +thought I'd take mother to New York for ten days or so. See the shows, +and run around and eat at the dens of wickedness. She likes it for a +change." + +Pinky sat up, tense. "For a change? Dad, I want to talk to you about +that. Mother needs--" + +Mrs. Brewster's light footstep sounded in the hall. She wore an +all-enveloping gingham apron. "How did you like your surprise, father?" +She came over to him and kissed the top of his head. "I'm getting dinner +so that Gussie can go on with the attic. Everything's ready if you want +to come in. I didn't want to dish up until you were at the table, so's +everything would be hot." She threw a laughing glance at Pinky. + +But when they were seated, there appeared a platter of cold, thinly +sliced ham for Pinky, and a crisp salad, and a featherweight cheese +soufflé, and iced tea, and a dessert coolly capped with whipped cream. + +"But, mother, you shouldn't have--" feebly. + +"There are always a lot of things in the house. You know that. I just +wanted to tease you." + +Father Brewster lingered for an unwonted hour after the midday meal. But +two o'clock found him back at the cold-storage plant. Pinky watched him +go, a speculative look in her eyes. + +She visited the attic that afternoon at four, when it was again neat, +clean, orderly, smelling of soap and sunshine. Standing there in the +centre of the big room, freshly napped, smartly coiffed, blue-serged, +trim, the very concentrated essence of modernity, she eyed with stern +deliberation the funeral wheat wreath in its walnut frame; the trunks; +the chests; the boxes all shelved and neatly inscribed with their "H's +Fshg Tckl" and "Blk Nt Drs." + +"Barbaric!" she said aloud, though she stood there alone. "Medieval! +Mad! It has got to be stopped. Slavery!" After which she went downstairs +and picked golden glow for the living-room vases and scarlet salvia for +the bowl in the dining-room. + +Still, as one saw Mrs. Brewster's tired droop at supper that night, +there is no denying that there seemed some justification for Pinky's +volcanic remarks. + +Hosea Brewster announced, after supper, that he and Fred were going to +have a session with the furnace; she needed going over in September +before they began firing up for the winter. + +"I'll go down with you," said Pinky. + +"No, you stay up here with mother. You'll get all ashes and coal dust." + +But Pinky was firm. "Mother's half dead. She's going straight up to bed, +after that darned old attic. I'll come up to tuck you in, mummy." + +And though she did not descend to the cellar until the overhauling +process was nearly completed she did come down in time for the last of +the scene. She perched at the foot of the stairs and watched the two +men, overalled, sooty, tobacco-wreathed and happy. When finally, Hosea +Brewster knocked the ashes out of his stubby black pipe, dusted his +sooty hands together briskly and began to peel his overalls, Pinky came +forward. + +She put her hand on his arm. "Dad, I want to talk to you." + +"Careful there. Better not touch me. I'm all dirt. G'night, Fred." + +"Listen, dad. Mother isn't well." + +He stopped then, with one overall leg off and the other on, and looked +at her. "Huh? What d'you mean--isn't well? Mother." His mouth was open. +His eyes looked suddenly strained. + +"This house--it's killing her. She could hardly keep here eyes open at +supper. It's too much for her. She ought to be enjoying herself--like +those huge rooms. And you're another." + +"Me?" feebly. + +"Yes. A slave to his furnace. You said yourself to Fred, just now, that +it was all worn out, and needed new pipes or something--I don't know +what. And that coal was so high it would be cheaper using dollar bills +for fuel. Oh, I know you were just being funny. But it was partly true. +Wasn't it? Wasn't it?" + +"Yeh, but listen here, Paula." He never called her Paula unless he was +terribly disturbed. "About mother--you said--" + +"You and she ought to go away this winter--not just for a trip, but to +stay. You"--she drew a long breath and made the plunge--"you ought to +give up the house." + +"Give up--" + +"Permanently. Mother and you are buried alive here. You ought to come to +New York to live. Both of you will love it when you are there for a few +days. I don't mean to come to a hotel. I mean to take a little +apartment, a furnished apartment at first to see how you like it--two +rooms and kitchenette, like a play-house." + +Hosey Brewster looked down at his own big bulk. Then around the great +furnace room. "Oh, but listen--" + +"No, I want you to listen first. Mother's worn out, I tell you. It isn't +as if she were the old-fashioned kind; she isn't. She loves the +theatres, and pretty hats, and shoes with buckles, and lobster, and +concerts." + +He broke in again: "Sure; she likes 'em for change. But for a steady +diet--Besides, I've got a business to 'tend to. My gosh! I've got a +business to--" + +"You know perfectly well that Wetzler practically runs the whole +thing--or could, if you'd let him." Youth is cruel like that, when it +wants its way. + +He did not even deny it. He seemed suddenly old. Pinky's heart smote her +a little. "It's just that you've got so used to this great barracks you +don't know how unhappy it's making you. Why, mother said to-day that she +hated it. I asked about the attic--the cleaning and all--and she said +that she hated it." + +"Did she say that, Paula?" + +"Yes." + +He dusted his hands together, slowly, spiritlessly. His eyes looked +pained and dull. "She did, h'm? You say she did?" He was talking to +himself, and thinking, thinking. + +Pinky, sensing victory, left him. She ran lightly up the cellar stairs, +through the first-floor rooms and up to the second floor. Her mother's +bedroom door was open. + +A little mauve lamp shed its glow upon the tired woman in one of the +plump, grey-enamel beds. "No, I'm not sleeping. Come here, dear. What in +the world have you been doing in the cellar all this time?" + +"Talking to dad." She came over and perched herself on the side of the +bed. She looked down at her mother. Then she bent and kissed her. Mrs. +Brewster looked incredibly girlish with the lamp's rosy glow on her face +and her hair, warmly brown and profuse, rippling out over the pillow. +Scarcely a thread of grey in it. "You know, mother, I think dad isn't +well. He ought to go away." + +As if by magic the youth and glow faded out of the face on the pillow. +As she sat up, clutching her nightgown to her breast, she looked +suddenly pinched and old. "What do you mean, Pinky! Father--but he isn't +sick. He--" + +"Not sick. I don't mean sick exactly. But sort of worn out. That +furnace. He's sick and tired of the thing; that's what he said to Fred. +He needs a change. He ought to retire and enjoy life. He could. This +house is killing both of you. Why in the world don't you close it up, or +sell it, and come to New York?" + +"But we do. We did. Last winter--" + +"I don't mean just for a little trip. I mean to live. Take a little +two-room apartment in one of the new buildings--near my studio--and +relax. Enjoy yourselves. Meet new men and women. Live! You're in a +rut--both of you. Besides, dad needs it. That rheumatism of his, with +these Wisconsin winters--" + +"But California--we could go to California--" + +"That's only a stop-gap. Get your little place in New York all settled, +and then run away whenever you like, without feeling that this great +bulk of a house is waiting for you. Father hates it; I know it." + +"Did he ever say so?" + +"Well, practically. He thinks you're fond of it. He--" + +Slow steps ascending the stairs--heavy, painful steps. The two women +listened in silence. Every footfall seemed to emphasize Pinky's words. +The older woman turned her face toward the sound, her lips parted, her +eyes anxious, tender. + +"How tired he sounds," said Pinky; "and old. And he's only--why, dad's +only fifty-eight." + +"Fifty-seven," snapped Mrs. Brewster sharply, protectingly. + +Pinky leaned forward and kissed her. "Good night, mummy dear. You're so +tired, aren't you?" + +Her father stood in the doorway. + +"Good night, dear. I ought to be tucking you into bed. It's all turned +around, isn't it? Biscuits and honey for breakfast, remember." + +So Pinky went off to her own room (_sans_ "slp cov") and slept soundly, +dreamlessly, as does one whose work is well done. + +Three days later Pinky left. She waved a good-bye from the car platform, +a radiant, electric, confident Pinky, her work well done. + +"_Au 'voir!_ The first of November! Everything begins then. You'll love +it. You'll be real New Yorkers by Christmas. Now, no changing your +minds, remember." + +And by Christmas, somehow, miraculously, there they were, real New +Yorkers; or as real and as New York as anyone can be who is living in a +studio apartment (duplex) that has been rented (furnished) from a lady +who turned out to be from Des Moines. + +When they arrived, Pinky had four apartments waiting for their +inspection. She told them this in triumph and well she might, it being +the winter after the war when New York apartments were as scarce as +black diamonds and twice as costly. + +Father Brewster, on hearing the price, emitted a long low whistle and +said: "How many rooms did you say?" + +Two--and a kitchenette, of course." + +"Well, then, all I can say is the furniture ought to be solid gold for +that; inlaid with rubies and picked out with platinum." + +But it wasn't. In fact, it wasn't solid anything, being mostly of a very +impermanent structure and style. Pinky explained that she had kept the +best for the last. The thing that worried Father Brewster was that, no +matter at what hour of the day they might happen to call on the +prospective lessor, that person was always feminine and hatted. Once it +was eleven in the morning. Once five in the afternoon. + +"Do these New York women wear hats in the house all the time?" demanded +Hosea Brewster worriedly. "I think they sleep in 'em. It's a wonder they +ain't bald. Maybe they are. Maybe that's why. Anyway, it makes you feel +like a book agent." + +He sounded excited and tired. "Now, father!" said Mrs. Brewster, +soothingly. + +They were in the elevator that was taking them up to the fourth and +(according to Pinky) choicest apartment. The building was what is known +as a studio apartment, in the West Sixties. The corridors were done in +red flagstones, with grey-tone walls. The metal doors were painted grey. + +Pinky was snickering. "Now she'll say: 'Well, we've been very +comfortable here.' They always do. Don't look too eager." + +"No fear," put in Hosey Brewster. + +"It's really lovely. And a real fireplace. Everything new and good. +She's asking two hundred and twenty-five. Offer her one seventy-five. +She'll take two hundred" + +"You bet she will," growled Hosea. + +She answered the door--hatted; hatted in henna, that being the season's +chosen colour. A small dark foyer, overcrowded with furniture; a studio +living-room, bright, high-ceilinged, smallish; one entire side was +window. There were Japanese prints, and a baby grand piano, and a lot of +tables, and a davenport placed the way they do it on the stage, with its +back to the room and its arms to the fireplace, and a long table just +behind it, with a lamp on it, and books, and a dull jar thing, just as +you've seen it in the second-act library. + +Hosea Brewster twisted his head around and up to gaze at the lofty +ceiling. "Feel's if I was standing at the bottom of a well," he +remarked. + +But the hatted one did not hear him. "No; no dining-room," she was +saying briskly. "No, indeed. I always use this gate-legged table. You +see? It pulls out like this. You can easily seat six--eight, in fact." + +"Heaven forbid!" in fervent _sotto voce_ from Father Brewster. + +"It's an enormous saving in time and labour." + +"The--kitchen!" inquired Mrs. Brewster. + +The hat waxed playful. "You'll never guess where the kitchen is!" She +skipped across the room. "You see this screen?" They saw it. A really +handsome affair, and so placed at one end of the room that it looked a +part of it. "Come here." They came. The reverse side of the screen was +dotted with hooks, and on each hook hung a pot, a pan, a ladle, a spoon. +And there was the tiny gas range, the infinitesimal ice chest, the +miniature sink. The whole would have been lost in one corner of the +Brewster's Winnebago china closet. + +"Why, how--how wonderful!" breathed Mrs. Brewster. + +"Isn't it? So complete--and so convenient. I've cooked roasts, steaks, +chops, everything, right here. It's just play." + +A terrible fear seized upon Father Brewster. He eyed the sink and the +tiny range with a suspicious eye. "The beds," he demanded, "where are +the beds?" + +She opened the little oven door and his heart sank. But, "They're +upstairs," she said. "This is a duplex, you know." + +A little flight of winding stairs ended in a balcony. The rail was hung +with a gay mandarin robe. Two more steps and you were in the bedroom--a +rather breathless little bedroom, profusely rose-coloured, and with +whole battalions of photographs in flat silver frames standing about on +dressing table, shelf, desk. The one window faced a grey brick wall. + +They took the apartment. And thus began a life of ease and gayety for +Mr. and Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster, of Winnebago, Wisconsin. + +Pinky had dinner with them the first night, and they laughed a great +deal, what with one thing and another. She sprang up to the balcony, and +let down her bright hair, and leaned over the railing, _à la Juliet_, +having first decked Hosey out in a sketchy but effective Romeo costume, +consisting of a hastily snatched up scarf over one shoulder, Pinky's +little turban, and a frying pan for a lute. Mother Brewster did the +Nurse, and by the time Hosea began his limping climb up the balcony, the +turban over one eye and the scarf winding itself about his stocky legs, +they ended by tumbling in a heap of tearful laughter. + +After Pinky left there came upon them, in that cozy, little, two-room +apartment, a feeling of desolation and vastness, and a terrible +loneliness such as they had never dreamed of in the great twelve-room +house in Winnebago. They kept close to each other. They toiled up the +winding stairs together and stood a moment on the balcony, feigning a +light-heartedness that neither of them felt. + +They lay very still in the little stuffy rose-coloured room and the +street noises of New York came up to them--a loose chain flapping +against the mud guard of a Taxi; the jolt of a flat-wheeled Eighth +Avenue street car the roar of an L train; laughter; the bleat of a motor +horn; a piano in the apartment next door, or upstairs or down. + +She thought, as she lay there, choking of the great gracious +grey-and-blue room at home, many-windowed, sweet-smelling, quiet. Quiet! + +He thought, as he lay there, choking, of the gracious grey-blue room at +home; many-windowed, sweet-smelling, quiet. Quiet! + +Then, as he had said that night in September: "Sleeping, mother?" + +"N-no. Not yet. Just dozing off." + +"It's the strange beds, I guess. This is going to be great, though. +Great!" + +"My, yes!" agreed Mrs. Brewster, heartily. + +They awoke next morning unrefreshed. Pa Brewster, back home in +Winnebago, always whistled mournfully off key, when he shaved. The more +doleful his tune the happier his wife knew him to be. Also, she had +learned to mark his progress by this or that passage in a refrain. +Sometimes he sang, too (also off key), and you heard his genial roar all +over the house. The louder he roared, and the more doleful the tune, the +happier his frame of mind. Milly Brewster knew this. She had never known +that she knew it. Neither had he. It was just one of those subconscious +bits of marital knowledge that make for happiness and understanding. + +When he sang "The Dying Cowboy's Lament" and came to the passage, "Oh, +take me to the churchyard and lay the sod o-o-over me," Mrs. Brewster +used to say: "Gussie, Mr. Brewster'll be down in ten minutes. You can +start the eggs." + +In the months of their gay life in Sixty-seventh Street, Hosey Brewster +never once sang "The Dying Cowboy's Lament," nor whistled "In the Sweet +By-and-By." No; he whistled not at all, or, when he did, gay bits of +jazz heard at the theatre or in a restaurant the night before. He +deceived no one, least of all himself. Sometimes his voice would trail +off into nothingness, but he would catch the tune and toss it up again, +heavily, as though it were a physical weight. + +Theatres! Music! Restaurants! Teas! Shopping! The gay life! + +"Enjoying yourself, Milly?" he would say. + +"Time of my life, father." + +She had had her hair dressed in those geometrical, undulations without +which no New York audience feels itself clothed. They saw Pinky less +frequently as time went on and her feeling or responsibility lessened. +Besides, the magazine covers took most of her day. She gave a tea for +her father and mother at her own studio, and Mrs. Brewster's hat, +slippers, gown and manner equalled in line, style, cut and texture those +of any other woman present, which rather surprised her until she had +talked to five or six of them. + +She and Hosey drifted together and compared notes. + +"Say, Milly," he confided, "they're all from Wisconsin--or +approximately; Michigan and Minnesota, and Iowa, and around. Far's I can +make out there's only one New Yorker, really, in the whole caboodle of +'em." + +"Which one?" + +"That kind of plain little one over there--sensible looking, with the +blue suit. I was talking to her. She was born right here in New York, +but she doesn't live here--that is, not in the city. Lives in some place +in the country, in a house." + +A sort of look came into Mrs. Brewster's eyes. "Is that so? I'd like to +talk to her, Hosey. Take me over." + +She did talk to the quiet little woman in the plain blue suit. And the +quiet little woman said: "Oh, dear, yes!" She ignored her r's +fascinatingly, as New Yorkers do". We live in Connecticut. You see, you +Wisconsin people have crowded us out of New York; no breathing space. +Besides, how can one live here? I mean to say--live. And then the +children--it's no place for children, grown up or otherwise. I love +it--oh, yes indeed. I love it. But it's too difficult." + +Mrs. Brewster defended it like a true Westerner. "But if you have just a +tiny apartment, with a kitchenette--" + +The New York woman laughed. There was nothing malicious about her. But +she laughed. "I tried it. There's one corner of my soul that's still +wrinkled from the crushing. Everything in a heap. Not to speak of the +slavery of it. That--that deceitful, lying kitchenette." + +This was the first woman that Mrs. Brewster had talked to--really talked +to--since leaving Winnebago. And she liked women. She missed them. At +first she had eyed wonderingly, speculatively, the women she saw on +Fifth Avenue. Swathed luxuriously in precious pelts, marvelously coiffed +and hatted, wearing the frailest of boots and hose, exhaling a +mysterious heady scent they were more like strange exotic birds than +women. + +The clerks in the shops, too--they were so remote, so contemptuous. When +she went into Gerretson's, back home Nellie Monahan was likely to say: +"You've certainly had a lot of wear out of that blue, Mrs. Brewster. +Let's see, you've had it two--three years this spring? My land! Let me +show you our new taupes." + +Pa Brewster had taken to conversing with the doorman. That adamantine +individual, unaccustomed to being addressed as a human being, was +startled at first, surly and distrustful. But he mellowed under Hosey's +simple and friendly advances. They became quite pals, these two--perhaps +two as lonely men as you could find in all lonely New York. + +"I guess you ain't a New Yorker, huh?" Mike said. + +"Me? No." + +"Th' most of the folks in th' buildin' ain't." + +"Ain't!" Hosea Brewster was startled into it. "They're artists, aren't +they? Most of 'em?" + +"No! Out-of-town folks, like you. West, East an' Californy, an' around +there. Livin' here, though. Seem t' like it better'n where they come +from. I dunno." + +Hosey Brewster took to eying them as Mrs. Brewster had eyed the women. +He wondered about them, these tight, trim men, rather short of breath, +buttoned so snugly into their shining shoes and their tailored clothes, +with their necks bulging in a fold of fat above the back of their white +linen collar. He knew that he would never be like them. It wasn't his +square-toe shoes that made the difference, or his grey hat, or his baggy +trousers. It was something inside him--something he lacked, he thought. +It never occurred to him that it was something he possessed that they +did not. + +"Enjoying yourself, Milly?" + +"I should say I am, father." + +"That's good. No housework and responsibility to this, is there?" + +"It's play." + +She hated the toy gas stove, and the tiny ice chest and the screen +pantry. All her married life she had kept house in a big, bounteous way; +apples in barrels; butter in firkins; flour in sacks; eggs in boxes; +sugar in bins; cream in crocks. Sometimes she told herself, bitterly, +that it was easier to keep twelve rooms tidy and habitable than one +combination kitchen-dining-and-living room. + +"Chops taste good, Hosey?" + +"Grand. But you oughtn't to be cooking around like this. We'll eat out +to-morrow night somewhere, and go to a show." + +"You're enjoying it, aren't you, Hosey, h'm?" + +"It's the life, mother! It's the life!" + +His ruddy colour began to fade. He took to haunting department-store +kitchenware sections. He would come home with a new kind of cream +whipper, or a patent device for the bathroom. He would tinker happily +with this, driving a nail, adjusting a screw. At such times he was even +known to begin to whistle some scrap of a doleful tune such as he used +to hum. But he would change, quickly, into something lovely. The price +of butter, eggs, milk, cream and the like horrified his Wisconsin +cold-storage sensibilities. He used often to go down to Fulton Market +before daylight and walk about among the stalls and shops, piled with +tons of food of all kinds. He would talk to the marketmen, and the +buyers and grocers, and come away feeling almost happy for a time. + +Then, one day, with a sort of shock, he remembered a farmer he had known +back home in Winnebago. He knew the farmers for miles around, naturally, +in his business. This man had been a steady butter-and-egg acquaintance, +one of the wealthy farmers in that prosperous farming community. For +his family's sake he had moved into town, a ruddy, rufous-bearded, +clumping fellow, intelligent, kindly. They had sold the farm with a fine +profit and had taken a boxlike house on Franklin Street. He had nothing +to do but enjoy himself. You saw him out on the porch early, very early +summer mornings. + +You saw him ambling about the yard, poking at a weed here, a plant +there. A terrible loneliness was upon him; a loneliness for the soil he +had deserted. And slowly, resistlessly, the soil pulled at him with its +black strength and its green tendrils, down, down, until he ceased to +struggle and lay there clasped gently to her breast, the mistress he had +thought to desert and who had him again at last, and forever. + +"I don't know what ailed him," his widow had said, weeping. "He just +seemed to kind of pine away." + +It was one morning in April--one soft, golden April morning--when this +memory had struck Hosey Brewster. He had been down at Fulton Market. +Something about the place--the dewy fresh vegetables, the crates of +eggs, the butter, the cheese--had brought such a surge of homesickness +to him as to amount to an actual nausea. Riding uptown in the subway he +had caught a glimpse of himself in a slot-machine mirror. His face was +pale and somehow shrunken. He looked at his hands. The skin hung loose +where the little pads of fat had plumped them out. + +"Gosh!" he said. "Gosh, I--" + +He thought, then, of the red-faced farmer who used to come clumping into +the cold-storage warehouse in his big boots and his buffalo coat. A +great fear swept over him and left him weak and sick. + +The chill grandeur of the studio-building foyer stabbed him. The +glittering lift made him dizzy, somehow, this morning. He shouldn't have +gone out without some breakfast perhaps. He walked down the flagged +corridor softly; turned the key ever so cautiously. She might still be +sleeping. He turned the knob, gently; tiptoed in and, turning, fell over +a heavy wooden object that lay directly in his path in the dim little +hall. A barked shin. A good round oath. + +"Hosey! What's the matter? What--" She came running to him. She led him +into the bright front room. + +"What was that thing? A box or something, right there in front of the +door. What the--" + +"Oh, I'm so sorry, Hosey. You sometimes have breakfast downtown. I +didn't know-" + +Something in her voice--he stopped rubbing the injured shin to look up +at her. Then he straightened slowly, his mouth ludicrously open. Her +head was bound in a white towel. Her skirt was pinned back. Her sleeves +were rolled up. Chairs, tables, rugs, ornaments were huddled in a +promiscuous heap. Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster was cleaning house. + +"Milly!" he began, sternly. "And that's just the thing you came here to +get away from. If Pinky--" + +"I didn't mean to, father. But when I got up this morning there was a +letter--a letter from the woman who owns this apartment, you know. She +asked if I'd go to the hall closet--the one she reserved for her own +things, you know--and unlock it, and get out a box she told me about, +and have the hall boy express it to her. And I did, and--look!" + +Limping a little he followed her. She turned on the light that hung in +the closet. Boxes--pasteboard boxes--each one bearing a cryptic +penciling on the end that stared out at you. "Drp Stud Win," said one; +"Sum Slp Cov Bedrm," another; "Toil. Set & Pic. Frms." + +Mrs Brewster turned to her husband, almost shamefacedly, and yet with a +little air of defiance. "It--I don't know--it made me--not homesick, +Hosey. Not homesick, exactly; but--well, I guess I'm not the only woman +with a walnut streak in her modern make-up. Here's the woman--she came +to the door with her hat on, and yet--" + +Truth--blinding, white-hot truth--burst in upon him. "Mother," he +said--and he stood up, suddenly robust, virile, alert--"mother, let's go +home." + +Mechanically she began to unpin the looped-back skirt. + +"When?" + +"Now." + +"But, Hosey! Pinky--this flat--until June--" + +"Now! Unless you want to stay. Unless you like it here in this--this +make-believe, double-barreled, duplex do-funny of a studio thing. Let's +go home, mother. Let's go home--and breathe." + +In Wisconsin you are likely to find snow in April--snow or slush. The +Brewsters found both. Yet on their way up from the station in 'Gene +Buck's flivver taxi, they beamed out at it as if it were a carpet of +daisies. + +At the corner of Elm and Jackson Streets Hosey Brewster stuck his head +out of the window. "Stop here a minute, will you, 'Gene?" + +They stopped in front of Hengel's meat market, and Hosey went in. Mrs. +Brewster leaned back without comment. + +Inside the shop. "Well, I see you're back from the East," said Aug +Hengel. + +"Yep." + +"We thought you'd given us the go-by, you stayed away so long." + +"No, sir-ree! Say, Aug, give me that piece of bacon--the big piece. And +send me up some corned beef to-morrow, for corned beef and cabbage. I'll +take a steak along for to-night. Oh, about four pounds. That's right." + +It seemed to him that nothing less than a side of beef could take out of +his mouth the taste of those fiddling little lamb chops and the +restaurant fare of the past six months. + +All through the winter Fred had kept up a little heat in the house, with +an eye to frozen water pipes. But there was a chill upon the place as +they opened the door now. It was late afternoon. The house was very +still, with the stillness of a dwelling that has long been uninhabited. +The two stood there a moment, peering into the darkened rooms. Then +Hosea Brewster strode forward, jerked up this curtain, that curtain with +a sharp snap, flap! He stamped his feet to rid them of slush. He took +off his hat and threw it high in the air and opened his arms wide and +emitted a whoop of sheer joy and relief. + +"Welcome home! Home!" + +She clung to him. "Oh, Hosey, isn't it wonderful? How big it looks! +Huge!" + +"Land, yes." He strode from hall to dining-room, from kitchen to +library. "I know how a jack-in-the-box feels when the lid's opened. No +wonder it grins and throws out its arms." + +They did little talking after that. By five o'clock he was down in the +cellar. She heard him making a great sound of rattling and bumping and +shaking and pounding and shoveling. She smelled the acrid odour of his +stubby black pipe. + +"Hosey!"--from the top of the cellar stairs. "Hosey bring up a can of +preserves when you come." + +"What?" + +"Can of preserves." + +"What kind?" + +"Any kind you like." + +"Can I have two kinds?" + +He brought up quince marmalade and her choicest damson plums. He put +them down on the kitchen table and looked around, spatting his hands +together briskly to rid them of dust. "She's burning pretty good now. +That Fred! Don't any more know how to handle a boiler than a baby does. +Is the house getting warmer?" + +He clumped into the dining-room, through the butler's pantry, but he was +back again in a wink, his eyes round. "Why, say, mother! You've got out +the best dishes, and the silver, and the candles and all. And the +tablecloth with the do-dads on it. Why--" + +"I know it" She opened the oven door, took out a pan of biscuits and +slid it deftly to one side. "It seems as if I can't spread enough. I'm +going to use the biggest platter, and I've got two extra boards in the +table. It's big enough to seat ten. I want everything big somehow. I've +cooked enough potatoes for a regiment, and I know it's wasteful, and I +don't care. I'll eat in my kitchen apron, if you'll keep on your +overalls. Come on." + +He cut into the steak--a great thick slice. He knew she could never eat +it, and she knew she could never eat it. But she did eat it all, +ecstatically. And in a sort of ecstatic Nirvana the quiet and vastness +and peace of the big old frame house settled down upon them. + +The telephone in the hall rang startlingly, unexpectedly. + +"Let me go, Milly." + +"But who in the world! Nobody knows we're--" + +He was at the telephone. "Who? Who? Oh." He turned: "It's Miz' Merz. She +says her little Minnie went by at six and saw a light in the house. +She--Hello! What?... She says she wants to know if she's to save time +for you at the end of the month for the April cleaning." + +Mrs. Brewster took the receiver from him: "The twenty-fifth, as usual, +Miz' Merz. The twenty-fifth, as usual. The attic must be a sight." + + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories +of 1919, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK O HENRY MEMORIAL PRIZES *** + +***** This file should be named 12094-8.txt or 12094-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/0/9/12094/ + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Gene Smethers and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +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. 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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/12094-8.zip b/old/12094-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bdb4a27 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12094-8.zip diff --git a/old/12094.txt b/old/12094.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d92ca3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12094.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12714 @@ +Project Gutenberg's O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919, by Various + +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: O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: April 20, 2004 [EBook #12094] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK O HENRY MEMORIAL PRIZES *** + + + + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Gene Smethers and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + +O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD + +PRIZE STORIES + +of 1919 + + + + +CHOSEN BY THE SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES + + + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + +BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS + +1924 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +ENGLAND TO AMERICA. By Margaret Prescott Montague + +"FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO." By Wilbur Daniel Steele + +THEY GRIND EXCEEDING SMALL. By Ben Ames Williams + +ON STRIKE. By Albert Payson Terhune. + +THE ELEPHANT REMEMBERS. By Edison Marshall + +TURKEY RED. By Frances Gilchrist Wood + +FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD. By Melville Davisson Post + +THE BLOOD OF THE DRAGON. By Thomas Grant Springer + +"HUMORESQUE." By Fannie Hurst + +THE LUBBENY KISS. By Louise Rice. + +THE TRIAL IN TOM BELCHER'S STORE. By Samuel A. Derieux + +PORCELAIN CUPS. By James Branch Cabell + +THE HIGH COST OF CONSCIENCE. By Beatrice Ravenel + +THE KITCHEN GODS. By G.F. Alsop + +APRIL 25TH, AS USUAL. By Edna Ferber + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +On April 18, 1918, the Society of Arts and Sciences of New York City +paid tribute to the memory of William Sydney Porter at a dinner in +honour of his genius. In the ball-room of the Hotel McAlpin there +gathered, at the speakers' table, a score of writers, editors and +publishers who had been associated with O. Henry during the time he +lived in Manhattan; in the audience, many others who had known him, and +hundreds yet who loved his short stories. + +Enthusiasm, both immediate and lasting, indicated to the Managing +Director of the Society, Mr. John F. Tucker, that he might progress +hopefully toward an ideal he had, for some time, envisioned. The goal +lay in the establishing of a memorial to the author who had transmuted +realistic New York into romantic Bagdad-by-the-Subway. + +When, therefore, in December, 1918, Mr. Tucker called a committee for +the purpose of considering such a memorial, he met a glad response. The +first question, "What form shall the monument assume?" drew tentative +suggestions of a needle in Gramercy Square, or a tablet affixed to the +corner of O. Henry's home in West Twenty-sixth Street. But things of +iron and stone, cold and dead, would incongruously commemorate the +dynamic power that moved the hearts of living men and women, "the master +pharmacist of joy and pain," who dispensed "sadness tinctured with a +smile and laughter that dissolves in tears." + +In short, then, it was decided to offer a minimum prize of $250 for the +best short story published in 1919, and the following Committee of Award +was appointed: + + BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, Ph.D. + EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt.D. + ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD + ROBERT WILSON NEAL, M.A. + MERLE ST. CROIX WRIGHT, D.D. + +It is significant that this committee had no sooner begun its round +table conferences than the Society promised, through the Director, funds +for two prizes. The first was fixed at $500, the second at $250. + +At a meeting in January, 1919, the Committee of Award agreed upon the +further conditions that the story must be the work of an American +author, and must first appear in 1919 in an American publication. At the +same time an Honorary Committee was established, composed of writers and +editors, whose pleasure it might be to offer advice and propose stories +for consideration. The Honorary Committee consisted of + + GERTRUDE ATHERTON + EDWARD J. O'BRIEN + FANNIE HURST + JOHN MACY + BURGES JOHNSON + MRS. EDWIN MARKHAM + ROBERT MORSS LOVETT + JOHN S. PHILLIPS + WILLIAM MARION REEDY + VIRGINIA RODERICK + WALTER ROBERTS + CHARLES G. NORRIS + EDWARD E. HALE + MAX EASTMAN + CHARLES CALDWELL DOBIE + MARGARET SHERWOOD + HAMLIN GARLAND + JAMES BRANCH CABELL + STUART P. SHERMAN + WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + STEPHEN LEACOCK + MAJOR RUPERT HUGHES + EUGENE MANLOVE RHODES + +The Committee of Award read throughout the year, month by month, scores +of stories, rejecting many, debating over others, and passing up a +comparative few for final judgment. In January, out of the hundred or +more remaining, they salvaged the following: + + 1. The Kitchen Gods, by Guglielma Alsop (_Century_, September). + + 2. Facing It, by Edwina Stanton Babcock (_Pictorial Review_, June). + + 3. The Fairest Sex, by Mary Hastings Bradley (_Metropolitan_, March). + + 4. Bargain Price, by Donn Byrne (_Cosmopolitan_, March). + + 5. Porcelain Cups, by James Branch Cabell (_Century_, November). + + 6. Gum Shoes, 4-B, by Forrest Crissey (_Harper's_, December). + + 7. The Trial in Tom Belcher's Store, by Samuel A. Derieux (_American_, + June). + + 8. April Twenty-fifth As Usual, by Edna Ferber (_Ladies Home Journal_, + July). + + 9. The Mottled Slayer, by George Gilbert (_Sunset_, August). + +10. Dog Eat Dog, by Ben Hecht (_The Little Review_, April). + +11. Blue Ice, by Joseph Hergesheimer (_Saturday Evening Post_, December + 13). + +12. Innocence, by Rupert Hughes (_Cosmopolitan_, September). + +13. Humoresque, by Fannie Hurst (_Cosmopolitan_, March). + +14. The Yellow Streak, by Ellen La Motte (_Century_, March). + +15. The Elephant Remembers, by Edison Marshall (_Everybody's_, October). + +16. England to America, by Margaret Prescott Montague (_Atlantic_, + September). + +17. Five Thousand Dollars Reward, by Melville D. Post (_Saturday Evening + Post_, February 15). + +18. The Lubbeny Kiss, by Louise Rice (_Ainslee's_, October). + +19. The High Cost of Conscience, by Beatrice Ravenel (_Harper's_, + January). + +20. The Red Mark, by John Russell (_Collier's_, April 15). + +21. The Trap, by Myra Sawhill (_American_, May). + +22. Evening Primroses, by Anne D. Sedgwick (_Atlantic_, July). + +23. Autumn Crocuses, by Anne D. Sedgwick (_Atlantic_, August). + +24. The Blood of the Dragon, by Thomas Grant Springer (_Live Stories_, + May). + +25. Contact, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Harper's_, March). + +26. For They Know not What They Do, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Pictorial + Review_, July). + +27. La Guiablesse, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Harpers_, September). + +28. On Strike, by Albert Payson Terhune (_The Popular Magazine_, + October). + +29. The Other Room, by Mary Heaton Vorse (_McCall's_, April). + +30. They Grind Exceeding Small, by Ben Ames Williams (_Saturday Evening + Post_, September 13). + +31. On the Field of Honour, by Ben Ames Williams (_American_, March). + +32. Turkey Red, by Frances Gilchrist Wood (_Pictorial Review_, + November). + +Although the exiguity of the vessel forbids inclusion of all these +stories, yet the Committee wish to record them as worthy of preservation +under covers. Publishing by title, therefore, carries all the honour +attached to publishing the complete story. + +Awarding the prizes proved difficult. No title stood first on all the +lists: rated best by one judge, any story lost rank through lower rating +by another. But the following held from first place to fifth place on +the separate final lists: "La Guiablesse," "England to America," "For +They Know not What They Do," "Evening Primroses," "Autumn Crocuses," +"Humoresque," "The Red Mark," "They Grind Exceeding Small," "On Strike," +"The Elephant Remembers," "Contact," and "Five Thousand Dollars Reward." +It will be observed that three of Wilbur Daniel Steele's narratives +appear. If the prize had been announced as going to the author of more +stories rated first, he would have received it. But by the predetermined +conditions, it must fall to the author of the best story, and according +to a recognized system of counts,[A] the best is "England to America"; +the second best, "For They Know not What They Do." The first award, +therefore, goes to Miss Margaret Prescott Montague; the second to Mr. +Wilbur Daniel Steele. + +[Footnote A: +Since there were five judges, the system used was the following: + + A story of place 1 was given 5 points + " " " " 2 " " 4 " + " " " " 3 " " 3 " + " " " " 4 " " 2 " + " " " " 5 " " 1 point.] + +The Committee were remarkably unanimous in answering the question, "What +is a short-story?"; but they differed, rather violently, over the +fulfilment of requirements by the various illustrations. Without doubt, +the most provocative of these was Mr. Steele's "Contact." Three of the +Committee think it a short-story; two declare it an article; all agree +that no finer instance of literature in brief form was published in +1919. + +Their diverging views, however, challenged curiosity: what did the +publishers think about it? The editor of _Harper's_ wrote: + +"Contact" was written by Mr. Steele after a personal visit to the North +Sea fleet. It is a faithful portrayal of the work done by our destroyers +and therefore falls under the category of "articles." + +And the Author: + +I am not quite sure what to say. The piece, "Contact," of which you +speak, was in a sense drawn from life, that is to say it is made up of a +number of impressions gained while I was at sea with the U.S. destroyers +off the coast of France. The characters are elaborations of real +characters, and the "contact" told of was such a one as I actually +witnessed. Otherwise, the chronology of events, conversations, etc., +were gathered from various sources and woven to the best of my ability +so as to give a picture of the day's work of our convoying forces in the +War. + +These data reconcile, in part, the conflicting points of view, or at +least show the tenability of each. + +In addition to the first requisite of _struggle_, "the story's the +thing," the judges sought originality, excellence in organization of +plot incidents, skill in characterization, power in moving +emotions--and, again, they differed over their findings. One member +would have awarded the prize to "La Guiablesse" on its original motif--a +ship is jealous of a woman--on its masterful employment of suggestion, +unique presentation of events, and on all the other counts. Another, +while recognizing the essential bigness of the tale, regards it as +somewhat crudely constructed and as extending the use of suggestion into +the mist of obscurity. + +Or, take characterization. Mary Hastings Bradley's "The Fairest Sex" +represents, in the climax, a reporter's fiancee betraying the +whereabouts of a young woman who is, technically, a criminal. One of the +Committee held that, under the circumstances, the psychology is false: +others "believed" that particular girl did that particular thing. + +Best narrative always compels belief: the longer the period of belief +the greater the story. This business of convincing the reader requires +more labour than the average writer seems to care about performing. Any +reader is willing to be held--for a time. But how many stories compel +recollection of plot and characters as indubitably a part of all that +one has met? + +Too frequently the writer neglects the value of atmosphere, forgetful of +its weight in producing conviction. The tale predominantly of atmosphere +(illustrated in the classic "Fall of the House of Usher"), revealing +wherever found the ability of the author to hold a dominant mood in +which as in a calcium light characters and arts are coloured, this tale +occurs so rarely as to challenge admiration when it does occur. "For +They Know not What They Do" lures the reader into its exotic air and +holds him until he, too, is suffused, convinced. + +... The Committee were not insensible to style. But expert phrasing, +glowing appreciation of words and exquisite sense of values, the texture +of the story fabric--all dropped into the abyss of the unimportant after +the material they incorporated had been judged. No man brings home +beefsteak in silk or sells figs as thistles. + +The Committee accepted style as the fit medium for conveying the +matter.... + +Since the Committee confess to catholicity of taste, the chosen stories +reveal predilection for no one type. They like detective stories, and +particularly those of Melville Davisson Post. A follower of the founder +of this school of fiction, he has none the less advanced beyond his +master and has discovered other ways than those of the Rue Morgue. "Five +Thousand Dollars Reward" in its brisk action, strong suspense, and +humorous denouement carries on the technique so neatly achieved in "The +Doomdorf Mystery" and other tales about Uncle Abner. + +The Committee value, also, the story about animals: universal interest +in puzzles, in the science of ratiocination, is not more pronounced than +the interest in rationalizing the brute. "The Mottled Slayer" and "The +Elephant Remembers" offer sympathetic studies of struggles in the animal +world. Mr. Marshall's white elephant will linger as a memory, even as +his ghost remains, longer than the sagacious play-fellow of Mr. +Gilbert's little Indian; but nobody can forget the battle the latter +fought with the python. + +For stories about the home the Committee have a weakness: Miss Ferber's +"April Twenty-fifth As Usual," cheerfully proclaiming the inevitableness +of spring cleaning, might be published with the sub-title, An Epic of +the Housekeeper. + +They were alert for reflections of life--in America and elsewhere. The +politics of "Gum Shoes, 4-B"; the local court of law in "Tom Belcher's +Store"; the frozen west of "Turkey Red" seemed to them to meet the +demand that art must hold the mirror up to nature. + +In particular, the Committee hoped to find good stories of the war. Now +that fiction containing anything of the Great Struggle is anathema to +editors, and must wait for that indefinite time of its revival, it was +like getting a last bargain to read "Facing It," "Humoresque," +"Contact," "Autumn Crocuses," and "England to America." In these small +masterpieces is celebrated either manhood which keeps a rendezvous with +death. + +The Committee accepted style as the fit medium for conveying the +matter.... + +Since the Committee confess to catholicity of taste, the chosen stories +reveal predilection for no one type. They like detective stories, and +particularly those of Melville Davisson Post. A follower of the founder +of this school of fiction, he has none the less advanced beyond his +master and has discovered other ways than those of the Rue Morgue. "Five +Thousand Dollars Reward" in its brisk action, strong suspense, and +humorous denouement carries on the technique so neatly achieved in "The +Doomdorf Mystery" and other tales about Uncle Abner. + +The Committee value, also, the story about animals: universal interest +in puzzles, in the science of ratiocination, is not more pronounced than +the interest in rationalizing the brute. "The Mottled Slayer" and "The +Elephant Remembers" offer sympathetic studies of struggles in the animal +world. Mr. Marshall's white elephant will linger as a memory, even as +his ghost remains, longer than the sagacious play-fellow of Mr. +Gilbert's little Indian; but nobody can forget the battle the latter +fought with the python. + +For stories about the home the Committee have a weakness: Miss Ferber's +"April Twenty-fifth As Usual," cheerfully proclaiming the inevitableness +of spring cleaning, might be published with the sub-title, An Epic of +the Housekeeper. + +They were alert for reflections of life--in America and elsewhere. The +politics of "Gum Shoes, 4-B"; the local court of law in "Tom Belcher's +Store"; the frozen west of "Turkey Red" seemed to them to meet the +demand that art must hold the mirror up to nature. + +In particular, the Committee hoped to find good stories of the war. Now +that fiction containing anything of the Great Struggle is anathema to +editors, and must wait for that indefinite time of its revival, it was +like getting a last bargain to read "Facing It," "Humoresque," +"Contact," "Autumn Crocuses," and "England to America." In these small +masterpieces is celebrated either manhood which keeps a rendezvous with +death, womanhood which endures, or the courage of men and women which +meets bodily misfortune and the anguish of personal loss. Leon Kantor of +"Humoresque" and the young Virginian of "England to America" will bring +back, to all who read, their own heroes. It is fitting that Miss +Montague's story should have received the first prize: poignant, short +in words, great in significance, it will stand a minor climactic peak in +that chain of literature produced during the actual progress of the +World War. + + * * * * * + +In the estimation of the Committee the year 1919 was not one of +pre-eminent short stories. Why? There are several half-satisfactory +explanations. Some of the acknowledged leaders, seasoned authors, have +not been publishing their average annual number of tales. Alice Brown, +Donn Byrne, Irvin Cobb, Edna Ferber, Katharine Gerould, Fannie Hurst and +Mary W. Freeman are represented by spare sheaves. Again, a number of new +and promising writers have not quite attained sureness of touch; +although that they are acquiring it is manifest in the work of Ben Ames +Williams, Edison Marshall, Frances Wood, Samuel Derieux, John Russell, +Beatrice Ravenel and Myra Sawhill. Too frequently, there is "no story": +a series of episodes however charmingly strung out is not a story; a +sketch, however clever or humorous, is not a story; an essay, however +wisely expounding a truth, is not a story. So patent are these facts, +they are threadbare from repetition; yet of them succeeding aspirants +seem to be as ignorant as were their predecessors--who at length found +knowledge. For obvious reasons, names of authors who succeed in a +certain literary form, but who produce no story are omitted. + +Again, some stories just miss the highest mark. A certain one, praised +by a magazine editor as the best of the year, suffers in the opinion of +the Committee, or part of the Committee, from an introduction too long +and top-heavy. It not only mars the symmetry of the whole, this +introduction, but starts the reader in the wrong direction. One thing +the brief story must not do is to begin out of tone, to promise what it +does not fulfil, or to lead out a subordinate character as though he +were chief.... Another story suffers from plethora of phrasing, and even +of mere diction. Stevenson believed few of his words too precious to be +cut; contemporary writers hold their utterances in greater esteem.... A +third story shows by its obvious happy ending that the author has +catered to magazine needs or what he conceives to be editorial policies. +Such an author requires a near "Smart Set" sparkle or a pseudo-Atlantic +Monthly sobriety; he develops facility, but at the expense, ultimately, +of conventionality, dullness and boredom. + +According to the terms which omit foreign authors from possible +participation in the prize, the work of Achmed Abdullah, Britten Austin, +Elinor Mordaunt and others was in effect non-existent for the Committee. +"Reprisal," by Mr. Austin, ranks high as a specimen of real short-story +art, strong in structure, rich in suggestion. "The Honourable +Gentleman," by the mage from Afghanistan, in reflecting Oriental life in +the Occident, will take its place in literary history. Elinor Mordaunt's +modernized biblical stories--"The Strong Man," for instance--in showing +that the cycles repeat themselves and that today is as one of five +thousand years ago exemplify the universality of certain motifs, fables, +characters. + +But, having made allowance for the truths just recounted, the Committee +believe that the average of stories here bound together is high. They +respond to the test of form and of life. "The Kitchen Gods" grows from +five years of service to the women of China--service by the author, who +is a doctor of medicine. "Porcelain Cups" testifies to the interest a +genealogist finds in the Elizabethan Age and, more definitely, in the +life of Christopher Marlowe. The hardships of David, in the story by Mr. +Derieux, are those of a boy in a particular Southern neighbourhood the +author knows. Miss Louise Rice, who boasts a strain of Romany blood, +spends part of her year with the gypsies. Mr. Terhune is familiar, from +the life, with his prototypes of "On Strike." "Turkey Red" relates a +real experience, suited to fiction or to poetry--if Wordsworth was +right--for it is an instance of emotion remembered in tranquility. In +these and all the others, the story's the thing. + +Some of them, perhaps, were produced _because_ their creators were +consciously concerned about the art of creation. "Blue Ice," by Joseph +Hergesheimer, proclaims itself a study in technique, a thing of careful +workmanship. "Innocence," by Rupert Hughes, with "Read It Again" and +"The Story I Can't Write" boldly announce his desire to get the most out +of the material. "For They Know not What They Do," an aspiration of +spirit, is fashioned as firmly as the Woolworth Tower. + +Just here it may be observed that the Committee noticed a tendency of +the present day story which only the future can reveal as significant or +insignificant. It is this: in spite of the American liking for the brief +tale, as Poe termed it--the conte, as the French know it--in spite of an +occasional call from magazines for stories of fewer than 5,000 words, +yet the number of these narratives approaching perfection is +considerably less than that of the longer story. Whether the long +short-story gives greater entertainment to the greater number may be +questioned. To state that it is farthest from the practice of O. Henry +invites a logical and inevitable conclusion. He wrote two hundred +stories averaging about fifteen pages each. Whether it may be greater +literature is another matter; if it escapes tediousness it may impress +by its weight. If the Committee had selected for publication all the +longest stories in the list of thirty-two, this volume would contain the +same number of words, but only half the titles. + +The Honorary Committee expressed, some of them, to the Committee of +Award certain preferences. William Marion Reedy wrote: "I read and +printed one very good story called 'Baby Fever.' I think it is one of +the best stories of the year." John Phillips, though stating that he had +not followed short stories very closely, thought the best one he had +read "The Theatrical Sensation of Springtown," by Bess Streeter Aldrich +(_American_, December). Mrs. Edwin Markham commended Charles Finger's +"Canassa" (_Reedy's Mirror_, October 30). W. Adolphe Roberts submitted +a number of stories from _Ainslee's:_ "Young Love," by Nancy Boyd; "The +Token from the Arena," by June Willard; "The Light," by Katherine +Wilson. He also drew attention to "Phantom," by Mildred Cram (_Green +Book_, March). That the Committee of Award, after a careful study of +these and other recommendations, failed to confirm individual high +estimates is but another illustration of the disagreement of doctors. To +all those of the Honorary Committee who gave encouragement and aid the +Committee of Award is most grateful. + +There remains the pleasure of thanking, also, the authors and publishers +who have kindly granted permission for the reprinting of the stories +included in this volume. The Committee of Award would like them to know +that renewal of the O. Henry prize depends upon their generous +cooperation. + +BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS. + +NEW YORK CITY, February 29, 1920. + + + + +_O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES 1919_ + + + +ENGLAND TO AMERICA + + +By MARGARET PRESCOTT MONTAGUE + +From _Atlantic Monthly_ + + +I. + +"Lord, but English people are funny!" + +This was the perplexed mental ejaculation that young Lieutenant +Skipworth Cary, of Virginia, found his thoughts constantly reiterating +during his stay in Devonshire. Had he been, he wondered, a confiding +fool, to accept so trustingly Chev Sherwood's suggestion that he spend a +part of his leave, at least, at Bishopsthorpe, where Chev's people +lived? But why should he have anticipated any difficulty here, in this +very corner of England which had bred his own ancestors, when he had +always hit it off so splendidly with his English comrades at the Front? +Here, however, though they were all awfully kind,--at least, he was sure +they meant to be kind,--something was always bringing him up short: +something that he could not lay hold of, but which made him feel like a +blind man groping in a strange place, or worse, like a bull in a +china-shop. He was prepared enough to find differences in the American +and English points of view. But this thing that baffled him did not seem +to have to do with that; it was something deeper, something very +definite, he was sure--and yet, what was it? The worst of it was that he +had a curious feeling as if they were all--that is, Lady Sherwood and +Gerald; not Sir Charles so much--protecting him from himself--keeping +him from making breaks, as he phrased it. That hurt and annoyed him, and +piqued his vanity. Was he a social blunderer, and weren't a Virginia +gentleman's manners to be trusted in England without leading-strings? +He had been at the Front for several months with the Royal Flying +Corps, and when his leave came, his Flight Commander, Captain Cheviot +Sherwood, discovering that he meant to spend it in England, where he +hardly knew a soul, had said his people down in Devonshire would be +jolly glad to have him stop with them; and Skipworth Cary, knowing that, +if the circumstances had been reversed, his people down in Virginia +would indeed have been jolly glad to entertain Captain Sherwood, had +accepted unhesitatingly. The invitation had been seconded by a letter +from Lady Sherwood,--Chev's mother,--and after a few days sight-seeing +in London, he had come down to Bishopsthorpe, very eager to know his +friend's family, feeling as he did about Chev himself. "He's the finest +man that ever went up in the air," he had written home; and to his own +family's disgust, his letters had been far more full of Chev Sherwood +than they had been of Skipworth Cary. + +And now here he was, and he almost wished himself away--wished almost +that he was back again at the Front, carrying on under Chev. There, at +least, you knew what you were up against. The job might be hard enough, +but it wasn't baffling and queer, with hidden undercurrents that you +couldn't chart. It seemed to him that this baffling feeling of +constraint had rushed to meet him on the very threshold of the +drawing-room, when he made his first appearance. + +As he entered, he had a sudden sensation that they had been awaiting him +in a strained expectancy, and that, as he appeared, they adjusted unseen +masks and began to play-act at something. "But English people don't +play-act very well," he commented to himself, reviewing the scene +afterward. + +Lady Sherwood had come forward and greeted him in a manner which would +have been pleasant enough, if he had not, with quick sensitiveness, felt +it to be forced. But perhaps that was English stiffness. + +Then she had turned to her husband, who was standing staring into the +fireplace, although, as it was June, there was no fire there to stare +at. + +"Charles," she said, "here is Lieutenant Cary"; and her voice had a +certain note in it which at home Cary and his sister Nancy were in the +habit of designating "mother-making-dad-mind-his-manners." + +At her words the old man--and Cary was startled to see how old and +broken he was--turned round and held out his hand, "How d'you do?" he +said jerkily, "how d'you do?" and then turned abruptly back again to the +fireplace. + +"Hello! What's up! The old boy doesn't like me!" was Cary's quick, +startled comment to himself. + +He was so surprised by the look the other bent upon him that he +involuntarily glanced across to a long mirror to see if there was +anything wrong with his uniform. But no, that appeared to be all right. +It was himself, then--or his country; perhaps the old sport didn't fall +for Americans. + +"And here is Gerald," Lady Sherwood went on in her low remote voice, +which somehow made the Virginian feel very far away. + +It was with genuine pleasure, though with some surprise, that he turned +to greet Gerald Sherwood, Chev's younger brother, who had been, +tradition in the corps said, as gallant and daring a flyer as Chev +himself, until he got his in the face five months ago. + +"I'm mighty glad to meet you," he said eagerly, in his pleasant, muffled +Southern voice, grasping the hand the other stretched out, and looking +with deep respect at the scarred face and sightless eyes. + +Gerald laughed a little, but it was a pleasant laugh, and his hand-clasp +was friendly. + +"That's real American, isn't it?" he said. "I ought to have remembered +and said it first. Sorry." + +Skipworth laughed too. "Well," he conceded, "we generally are glad to +meet people in my country, and we don't care who says it first. But," he +added. "I didn't think I'd have the luck to find you here." + +He remembered that Chev had regretted that he probably wouldn't see +Gerald, as the latter was at St. Dunstan's, where they were re-educating +the blinded soldiers. + +The other hesitated a moment, and then said rather awkwardly, "Oh, I'm +just home for a little while; I only got here this morning, in fact." + +Skipworth note the hesitation. Did the old people get panicky at the +thought of entertaining a wild man from Virginia, and send an SOS for +Gerald, he wondered. + +"We are so glad you could come to us," Lady Sherwood said rather hastily +just then. And again he could not fail to note that she was prompting +her husband. + +The latter reluctantly turned round, and said, "Yes, yes, quite so. +Welcome to Bishopsthorpe, my boy," as if his wife had pulled a string, +sand he responded mechanically, without quite knowing what he said. +Then, as his eyes rested a moment on his guest, he looked as if he would +like to bolt out of the room. He controlled himself, however, and, +jerking round again to the fireplace, went on murmuring, "Yes, yes, +yes," vaguely--just like the dormouse at the Mad Tea-Party, who went to +sleep, saying, "Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle," Cary could not help thinking +to himself. + +But after all, it wasn't really funny, it was pathetic. Gosh, how +doddering the poor old boy was! Skipworth wondered, with a sudden twist +at his heart, if the war was playing the deuce with his home people, +too. Was his own father going to pieces like this, and had his mother's +gay vivacity fallen into that still remoteness of Lady Sherwood's? But +of course not! The Carys hadn't suffered as the poor Sherwoods had, with +their youngest son, Curtin, killed early in the war, and now Gerald +knocked out so tragically. Lord, he thought, how they must all bank on +Chev! And of course they would want to hear at once about him. "I left +Chev as fit as anything, and he sent all sorts of messages," he +reported, thinking it more discreet to deliver Chev's messages thus +vaguely than to repeat his actual carefree remark, which had been, "Oh, +tell 'em I'm jolly as a tick." + +But evidently there was something wrong with the words as they were, for +instantly he was aware of that curious sense of withdrawal on their +part. Hastily reviewing them, he decided that they had sounded too +familiar from a stranger and a younger man like himself. He supposed he +ought not to have spoken of Chev by his first name. Gee, what sticklers +they were! Wouldn't his family--dad and mother and Nancy--have fairly +lapped up any messages from him, even if they had been delivered a bit +awkwardly? However, he added, as a concession to their point of view, +"But of course, you'll have had later news of Captain Sherwood." + +To which, after a pause, Lady Sherwood responded, "Oh, yes," in that +remote and colourless voice which might have meant anything or nothing. + +At this point dinner was announced. + +Lady Sherwood drew her husband away from the empty fireplace, and Gerald +slipped his arm through the Virginian's, saying pleasantly, "I'm +learning to carry on fairly well at St. Dunstan's, but I confess I still +like to have a pilot." + +To look at the tall young fellow beside him, whose scarred face was so +reminiscent of Chev's untouched good looks, who had known all the +immense freedom of the air, but who was now learning to carry on in the +dark, moved Skipworth Cary to generous homage. + +"You know my saying I'm glad to meet you isn't just American," he said +half shyly, but warmly. "It's plain English, and the straight truth. +I've wanted to meet you awfully. The oldsters are always holding up your +glorious exploits to us newcomers. Withers never gets tired telling +about that fight of yours with the four enemy planes. And besides," he +rushed on eagerly, "I'm glad to have a chance to tell Chev's +brother--Captain Sherwood's brother, I mean--what I think of him. Only +as a matter of fact, I can't," he broke off with a laugh. "I can't put +it exactly into words, but I tell you I'd follow that man straight into +hell and out the other side--or go there alone if he told me to. He is +the finest chap that ever flew." + +And then he felt as if a cold douche had been flung in his face, for +after a moment's pause, the other returned, "That's awfully good of +you," in a voice so distant and formal that the Virginian could have +kicked himself. What an ass he was to be so darned enthusiastic with an +Englishman! He supposed it was bad form to show any pleasure over praise +of a member of your family. Lord, if Chev got the V.C., he reckoned it +would be awful to speak of it. Still, you would have thought Gerald +might have stood for a little praise of him. But then, glancing sideways +at his companion, he surprised on his face a look so strange and +suffering that it came to him almost violently what it must be never to +fly again; to be on the threshold of life, with endless days of +blackness ahead. Good God! How cruel he had been to flaunt Chev in his +face! In remorseful and hasty reparation he stumbled on. "But the old +fellows are always having great discussions as to which was the +best--you or your brother. Withers always maintains you were." + +"Withers lies, then!" the other retorted. "I never touched Chev--never +came within a mile of him, and never could have." + +They reached the dinner-table with that, and young Cary found himself +bewildered and uncomfortable. If Gerald hadn't liked praise of Chev, he +had liked praise of himself even less, it seemed. + +Dinner was not a success. The Virginian found that, if there was to be +conversation, the burden of carrying it on was upon him, and gosh! they +don't mind silences in this man's island, do they? he commented +desperately to himself, thinking how different it was from America. Why, +there they acted as if silence was an egg that had just been laid, and +everyone had to cackle at once to cover it up. But here the talk +constantly fell to the ground, and nobody but himself seemed concerned +to pick it up. His attempt to praise Chev had not been successful, and +he could understand their not wanting to hear about flying and the war +before Gerald. + +So at last, in desperation, he wandered off into descriptions of +America, finding to his relief, that he had struck the right note at +last. They were glad to hear about the States, and Lady Sherwood +inquired politely if the Indians still gave them much trouble; and when +he assured her that in Virginia, except for the Pocahontas tribe, they +were all pretty well subdued, she accepted his statement with complete +innocency. And he was so delighted to find at last a subject to which +they were evidently cordial, that he was quite carried away, and would +up by inviting them all to visit his family in Richmond, as soon as soon +as the war was over. + +Gerald accepted at once, with enthusiasm; Lady Sherwood made polite +murmurs, smiling at him in quite a warm and almost, indeed, maternal +manner. Even Sir Charles, who had been staring at the food on his plate +as if he did not quite know what to make of it, came to the surface long +enough to mumble, "Yes, yes, very good idea. Countries must carry on +together--What?" + +But that was the only hit of the whole evening, and when the Virginian +retired to his room, as he made an excuse to do early, he was so +confused and depressed that he fell into an acute attack of +homesickness. + +Heavens, he thought, as he tumbled into bed, just suppose, now, this was +little old Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A., instead of being Bishopsthorpe, +Avery Cross near Wick, and all the rest of it! And at that, he grinned +to himself. England wasn't such an all-fired big country that you'd +think they'd have to ticket themselves with addresses a yard long, for +fear they'd get lost--now, would you? Well, anyway, suppose it was +Richmond, and his train just pulling into the Byrd Street Station. He +stretched out luxuriously, and let his mind picture the whole familiar +scene. The wind was blowing right, so there was the mellow homely smell +of tobacco in the streets, and plenty of people all along the way to +hail him with outstretched hands and shouts of "Hey, Skip Cary, when did +you get back?" "Welcome home, my boy!" "Well, will you _look_ what the +cat dragged in!" And so he came to his own front door-step, and, walking +straight in, surprised the whole family at breakfast; and yes--doggone +it! if it wasn't Sunday, and they having waffles! And after that his +obliging fancy bore him up Franklin Street, through Monroe Park, and so +to Miss Sally Berkeley's door. He was sound asleep before he reached it, +but in his dreams, light as a little bird, she came flying down the +broad stairway to meet him, and-- + +But when he waked next morning, he did not find himself in Virginia, +but in Devonshire, where, to his unbounded embarrassment, a white +housemaid was putting up his curtains and whispering something about his +bath. And though he pretended profound slumber, he was well aware that +people do not turn brick-red in their sleep. And the problem of what was +the matter with the Sherwood family was still before him. + + +II + +"They're playing a game," he told himself after a few days. "That is, +Lady Sherwood and Gerald are--poor old Sir Charles can't make much of a +stab at it. The game is to make me think they are awfully glad to have +me, when in reality there's something about me, or something I do, that +gets them on the raw." + +He almost decided to make some excuse and get away; but after all, that +was not easy. In English novels, he remembered, they always had a wire +calling them to London; but, darn it all! the Sherwoods knew mighty well +there wasn't any one in London who cared a hoot about him. + +The thing that got his goat most, he told himself, was that they +apparently didn't like his friendship with Chev. Anyway they didn't seem +to want him to talk about him; and whenever he tried to express his warm +appreciation for all that the older man had done for him, he was +instantly aware of a wall of reserve on their part, a holding of +themselves aloof from him. That puzzled and hurt him, and put him on his +dignity. He concluded that they thought it was cheeky of a youngster +like him to think that a man like Chev could be his friend; and if that +was the way they felt, he reckoned he'd jolly well better shut up about +it. + +But whatever it was that they didn't like about him, they most certainly +did want him to have a good time. He and his pleasure appeared to be for +the time being their chief consideration. And after the first day or so +he began indeed to enjoy himself extremely. For one thing, he came to +love the atmosphere of the old place and of the surrounding country, +which he and Gerald explored together. He liked to think that ancestors +of his own had been inheritors of these green lanes, and pleasant mellow +stretches. Then, too, after the first few days, he could not help seeing +that they really began to like him, which of course was reassuring, and +tapped his own warm friendliness, which was always ready enough to be +released. And besides, he got by accident what he took to be a hint as +to the trouble. He was passing the half-open door of Lady Sherwood's +morning-room, when he heard Sir Charles's voice break out, "Good God, +Elizabeth, I don't see how you stand it! When I see him so straight and +fine-looking, and so untouched, beside our poor lad, and think--and +think--" + +Skipworth hurried out of earshot, but now he understood that look of +aversion in the old man's eyes which had so startled him at first. Of +course, the poor old boy might easily hate the sight of him beside +Gerald. With Gerald himself he really got along famously. He was a most +delightful companion, full of anecdotes and history of the countryside, +every foot of which he had apparently explored in the old days with Chev +and the younger brother, Curtin. Yet even with Gerald, Cary sometimes +felt that aloofness and reserve, and that older protective air that they +all showed him. Take, for instance, that afternoon when they were +lolling together on the grass in the park. The Virginian, running on in +his usual eager manner, had plunged without thinking into an account of +a particularly daring bit of flying on Chev's part, when suddenly he +realized that Gerald had rolled over on the grass and buried his face in +his arms, and interrupted himself awkwardly. "But, of course," he said, +"he must have written home about it himself." + +"No, or if he did, I didn't hear of it. Go on," Gerald said in a muffled +voice. + +A great rush of compassion and remorse overwhelmed the Virginian, and he +burst out penitently, "What a brute I am! I'm always forgetting and +running on about flying, when I know it must hurt like the very devil!" + +The other drew a difficult breath. "Yes," he admitted, "what you say +does hurt in a way--in a way you can't understand. But all the same I +like to hear you. Go on about Chev." + +So Skipworth went on and finished his account, winding up, "I don't +believe there's another man in the service who could have pulled it +off--but I tell you your brother's one in a million." + +"Good God, don't I know it!" the other burst out. "We were all three the +jolliest pals together," he got out presently in a choked voice, "Chev +and the young un and I; and now--" + +He did not finish, but Cary guessed his meaning. Now the young un, +Curtin, was dead, and Gerald himself knocked out. But, heavens! the +Virginian though, did Gerald think Chev would go back on him now on +account of his blindness? Well, you could everlastingly bet he wouldn't! + +"Chev thinks the world and all of you!" he cried in eager defense of his +friend's loyalty. "Lots of times when we're all awfully jolly together, +he makes some excuse and goes off by himself; and Withers told me it was +because he was so frightfully cut up about you. Withers said he told him +once that he'd a lot rather have got it himself--so you can +everlastingly bank on him!" + +Gerald gave a terrible little gasp. "I--I knew he'd feel like that," he +got out. "We've always cared such a lot for each other." And then he +pressed his face harder than ever into the grass, and his long body +quivered all over. But not for long. In a moment he took fierce hold on +himself, muttering, "Well, one must carry on, whatever happens," and +apologized disjointedly. "What a fearful fool you must think me! +And--and this isn't very pippy for you, old chap." Presently, after +that, he sat up, and said, brushing it all aside, "We're facing the old +moat, aren't we? There's an interesting bit of tradition about it that I +must tell you." + +And there you were, Cary thought: no matter how much Gerald might be +suffering from his misfortune, he must carry on just the same, and see +that his visitor had a pleasant time. It made the Virginian feel like +an outsider and very young as if he were not old enough for them to show +him their real feelings. + +Another thing that he noticed was that they did not seem to want him to +meet people. They never took him anywhere to call and if visitors came +to the house, they showed an almost panicky desire to get him out of the +way. That again hurt his pride. What in heaven's name was the matter +with him anyway! + + +III + +However on the last afternoon of his stay at Bishopsthorpe, he told +himself with a rather rueful grin, that his manners must have improved a +little, for they took him to tea at the rectory. + +He was particularly glad to go there because, from certain jokes of +Withers's, who had known the Sherwoods since boyhood, he gathered that +Chev and the rector's daughter were engaged. And just as he would have +liked Chev to meet Sally Berkeley, so he wanted to meet Miss Sybil +Gaylord. + +He had little hope of having a tete-a-tete with her, but as it fell out +he did. They were all in the rectory garden together, Gerald and the +rector a little behind Miss Gaylord and himself, as they strolled down a +long walk with high hedges bordering it. On the other side of the hedge +Lady Sherwood and her hostess still sat at the tea-table, and then it +was that Cary heard Mrs. Gaylord say distinctly, "I'm afraid the strain +has been too much for you--you should have let us have him." + +To which Lady Sherwood returned quickly. "Oh, no, that would have been +impossible with--" + +"Come--come this way--I must show you the view from the arbor," Miss +Gaylord broke in breathlessly; and laying a hand on his arm, she turned +abruptly into a side path. + +Glancing down at her the Southerner could not but note the panic and +distress in her fair face. It was so obvious that the overheard words +referred to him, and he was so bewildered by the whole situation that +he burst out impulsively, "I say, what _is_ the matter with me? Why do +they find me so hard to put up with? Is it something I do--or don't they +like Americans? Honestly, I wish you'd tell me." + +She stood still at that, looking at him, her blue eyes full of distress +and concern. + +"Oh, I am so sorry," she cried. "They would be so sorry to have you +think anything like that." + +"But what is it?" her persisted. "Don't they like Americans?" + +"Oh, no, it isn't like that--Oh, quite the contrary!" she returned +eagerly. + +"Then it's something about me they don't like?" + +"Oh, no, no! Least of all, that--_don't_ think that!" she begged. + +"But what am I to think then?" + +"Don't think anything just yet," she pleaded. "Wait a little, and you +will understand." + +She was so evidently distressed that he could not press her further; and +fearing she might think him unappreciative, he said, "Well, whatever it +is, it hasn't prevented me from having a ripping good time. They've seen +to that, and just done everything for my pleasure." + +She looked up quickly, and to his relief he saw that for once he had +said the right thing. + +"You enjoyed it, then?" she questioned eagerly. + +"Most awfully," he assured her warmly. "I shall always remember what a +happy leave they gave me." + +She gave a little sigh of satisfaction, "I am so glad," she said. "They +wanted you to have a good time--that was what we all wanted." + +He looked at her gratefully, thinking how sweet she was in her fair +English beauty, and how good to care that he should have enjoyed his +leave. How different she was too from Sally Berkeley--why she would have +made two of his little girl! And how quiet! Sally Berkeley, with her +quick glancing vivacity, would have been all around her and off again +like a humming-bird before she could have uttered two words. And yet he +was sure that they would have been friends, just as he and Chev were. +Perhaps they all would be, after the war. And then he began to talk +about Chev, being sure that, had the circumstances been reversed, Sally +Berkeley would have wanted news of him. Instantly he was aware of a +tense listening stillness on her part. That pleased him. Well, she did +care for the old fellow all right, he thought; and though she made no +response, averting her face and plucking nervously at the leaves of the +hedge as they passed slowly along, he went on pouring out his eager +admiration for his friend. + +At last they came to a seat in an arbour, from which one looked out upon +a green beneficent landscape. It was an intimate secluded little +spot--and oh, if Sally Berkeley were only there to sit beside him! And +as he thought of this, it came to him whimsically that in all +probability she must be longing for Chev, just as he was for Sally. + +Dropping down on the bench beside her, he leaned over, and said with a +friendly, almost brotherly, grin of understanding, "I reckon you're +wishing Captain Sherwood was sitting here, instead of Lieutenant Cary." + +The minute the impulsive words were out of his mouth, he knew he had +blundered, been awkward, and inexcusably intimate. She gave a little +choked gasp, and her blue eyes stared up at him, wide and startled. Good +heavens, what a break he had made! No wonder the Sherwoods couldn't +trust him in company! There seemed no apology that he could offer in +words, but at least, he thought, he would show her that he would not +intruded on her secret without being willing to share his with her. With +awkward haste he put his hand into his breast-pocket, and dragged forth +the picture of Sally Berkley he always carried there. + +"This is the little girl I'm thinking about," he said, turning very red, +yet boyishly determined to make amends, and also proudly confident of +Sally Berkeley's charms. "I'd like mighty well for you two to know one +another." + +She took the picture in silence, and for a long moment stared down at +the soft little face, so fearless, so confident and gay, that smiled +appealingly back at her. Then she did something astonishing,--something +which seemed to him wholly un-English,--and yet he thought it the +sweetest thing he had ever seen. Cupping her strong hands about the +picture with a quick protectiveness, she suddenly raised it to her lips, +and kissed it lightly. "O little girl!" she cried. "I hope you will be +very happy!" + +The little involuntary act, so tender, so sisterly and spontaneous, +touched the Virginian extremely. + +"Thanks, awfully," he said unsteadily. "She'll think a lot of that, just +as I do--and I know she'd wish you the same." + +She made no reply to that, and as she handed the picture back to him, he +saw that her hands were trembling, and he had a sudden conviction that, +if she had been Sally Berkeley, her eyes would have been full of tears. +As she was Sybil Gaylord, however, there were no tears there, only a +look that he never forgot. The look of one much older, protective, +maternal almost, and as if she were gazing back at Sally Berkeley and +himself from a long way ahead on the road of life. He supposed it was +the way most English people felt nowadays. He had surprised it so often +on all their faces, that he could not help speaking of it. + +"You all think we Americans are awfully young and raw, don't you?" he +questioned. + +"Oh, no, not that," she deprecated. "Young perhaps for these days, +yes--but it is more that you--that your country is so--so unsuffered. +And we don't want you to suffer!" she added quickly. + +Yes, that was it! He understood now, and, heavens, how fine it was! Old +England was wounded deep--deep. What she suffered herself she was too +proud to show; but out of it she wrought a great maternal care for the +newcomer. Yes, it _was_ fine--he hoped his country would understand. + +Miss Gaylord rose. "There are Gerald and father looking for you," she +said, "and I must go now." She held out her hand. "Thank you for letting +me see her picture, and for everything you said about Captain +Sherwood--for _everything_, remember--I want you to remember." + +With a light pressure of her fingers she was gone, slipping away +through the shrubbery, and he did not see her again. + + +IV + +So he came to his last morning at Bishopsthorpe; and as he dressed, he +wished it could have been different; that he were not still conscious of +that baffling wall of reserve between himself and Chev's people, for +whom, despite all, he had come to have a real affection. + +In the breakfast-room he found them all assembled, and his last meal +there seemed to him as constrained and difficult as any that had +preceded it. It was over finally, however, and in a few minutes he would +be leaving. + +"I can never thank you enough for the splendid time I've had here," he +said as he rose. "I'll be seeing Chev to-morrow, and I'll tell him all +about everything." + +Then he stopped dead. With a smothered exclamation, old Sir Charles had +stumbled to his feet, knocking over his chair, and hurried blindly out +of the room; and Gerald said, "_Mother_!" in a choked appeal. + +As if it were a signal between them, Lady Sherwood pushed her chair back +a little from the table, her long delicate fingers dropped together +loosely in her lap; she gave a faint sigh as if a restraining mantle +slipped from her shoulders, and, looking up at the youth before her, her +fine pale face lighted with a kind of glory, she said, "No, dear lad, +no. You can never tell Chev, for he is gone." + +"_Gone_!" he cried. + +"Yes," she nodded back at him, just above a whisper; and now her face +quivered, and the tears began to rush down her cheeks. + +"Not _dead_!" he cried. "Not Chev--not that! O my God, Gerald, not +_that_!" + +"Yes," Gerald said. "They got him two days after you left." + +It was so overwhelming, so unexpected and shocking, above all so +terrible, that the friend he had so greatly loved and admired was gone +out of his life forever, that young Cary stumbled back into his seat, +and, crumpling over, buried his face in his hands, making great uncouth +gasps as he strove to choke back his grief. + +Gerald groped hastily around the table, and flung an arm about his +shoulders. + +"Steady on, dear fellow, steady," he said, though his own voice broke. + +"When did you hear?" Cary got out at last. + +"We got the official notice just the day before you came--and Withers +has written us particulars since." + +"And you _let_ me come in spite of it! And stay on, when every word I +said about him must have--have fairly _crucified_ each one of you! Oh, +forgive me! forgive me!" he cried distractedly. He saw it all now; he +understood at last. It was not on Gerald's account that they could not +talk of flying and of Chev, it was because--because their hearts were +broken over Chev himself. "Oh, forgive me!" he gasped again. + +"Dear lad, there is nothing to forgive," Lady Sherwood returned. "How +could we help loving your generous praise of our poor darling? We loved +it, and you for it; we wanted to hear it, but we were afraid. We were +afraid we might break down, and that you would find out." + +The tears were still running down her cheeks. She did not brush them +away now; she seemed glad to have them there at last. + +Sinking down on his knees, he caught her hands. "Why did you _let_ me do +such a horrible thing?" he cried. "Couldn't you have trusted me to +understand? Couldn't you _see_ I loved him just as you did--No, no!" he +broke down humbly. "Of course I couldn't love him as his own people did. +But you must have seen how I felt about him--how I admired him, and +would have followed him anywhere--and _of course_ if I had known, I +should have gone away at once." + +"Ah, but that was just what we were afraid of," she said quickly. "We +were afraid you would go away and have a lonely leave somewhere. And in +these days a boy's leave is so precious a thing that nothing must spoil +it--_nothing_," she reiterated; and her tears fell upon his hands like +a benediction. "But we didn't do it very well, I'm afraid," she went on +presently, with gentle contrition. "You were too quick and +understanding; you guessed there was something wrong. We were sorry not +to manage better," she apologized. + +"Oh, you wonderful, wonderful people!" he gasped. "Doing everything for +my happiness, when all the time--all the time--" + +His voice went out sharply, as his mind flashed back to scene after +scene: to Gerald's long body lying quivering on the grass; to Sybil +Gaylord wishing Sally Berkeley happiness out of her own tragedy; and to +the high look on Lady Sherwood's face. They seemed to him themselves, +and yet more than themselves--shining bits in the mosaic of a great +nation. Disjointedly there passed through his mind familiar +words--"these are they who have washed their garments--having come out +of great tribulation." No wonder they seemed older. + +"We--we couldn't have done it in America," he said humbly. + +He had a desperate desire to get away to himself; to hide his face in +his arms, and give vent to the tears that were stifling him; to weep for +his lost friend, and for this great heartbreaking heroism of theirs. + +"But why did you do it?" he persisted. "Was it because I was his +friend?" + +"Oh, it was much more than that," Gerald said quickly. "It was a matter +of the two countries. Of course, we jolly well knew you didn't belong to +us, and didn't want to, but for the life of us we couldn't help a sort +of feeling that you did. And when America was in at last, and you +fellows began to come, you seemed like our very own come back after many +years, and," he added a throb in his voice, "we were most awfully glad +to see you--we wanted a chance to show you how England felt." + +Skipworth Cary rose to his feet. The tears for his friend were still wet +upon his lashes. Stooping, he took Lady Sherwood's hands in his and +raised them to his lips. "As long as I live, I shall never forget," he +said. "And others of us have seen it too in other ways--be sure America +will never forget, either." + +She looked up at his untouched youth out of her beautiful sad eyes, the +exalted light still shining through her tears. "Yes," she said, "you see +it was--I don't know exactly how to put it--but it was England to +America." + + + + +"FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO" + + +BY WILBUR DANIEL STEELE + +From _Pictorial Review_ + +When Christopher Kain told me his story, sitting late in his +dressing-room at the Philharmonic I felt that I ought to say something, +but nothing in the world seemed adequate. It was one of those times when +words have no weight: mine sounded like a fly buzzing in the tomb of +kings. And after all, he did not hear me; I could tell that by the look +on his face as he sat there staring into the light, the lank, dark hair +framing his waxen brow, his shoulders hanging forward, his lean, strong, +sentient fingers wrapped around the brown neck of "Ugo," the 'cello, +tightly. + +Agnes Kain was a lady, as a lady was before the light of that poor worn +word went out. Quiet, reserved, gracious, continent, bearing in face and +form the fragile beauty of a rose-petal come to its fading on a windless +ledge, she moved down the years with the stedfast sweetness of the +gentlewoman--gentle, and a woman. + +They knew little about her in the city, where she had come with her son. +They did not need to. Looking into her eyes, into the transparent soul +behind them they could ask no other credential for the name she bore and +the lavender she wore for the husband of whom she never spoke. + +She spoke of him, indeed, but that was in privacy, and to her son. As +Christopher grew through boyhood, she watched him; in her enveloping +eagerness she forestalled the hour when he would have asked, and told +him about his father, Daniel Kain. + +It gave them the added bond of secret-sharers. The tale grew as the boy +grew. Each night when Christopher crept into his mother's bed for the +quiet hour of her voice, it was as if he crept in to another world, the +wind-blown, sky-encompassed kingdom of the Kains, Daniel, his father, +and Maynard, _his_ father, another Maynard before _him_, and all the +Kains--and the Hill and the House, the Willow Wood, the Moor Under the +Cloud, the Beach where the gray seas pounded, the boundless Marsh, the +Lilac hedge standing against the stars. + +He knew he would have to be a man of men to measure up to that heritage, +a man strong, grave, thoughtful, kind with the kindness that never +falters, brave with the courage of that dark and massive folk whose +blood ran in his veins. Coming as it did, a world of legend growing up +side by side with the matter-of-fact world of Concord Street, it never +occurred to him to question. He, the boy, was _not_ massive, strong, +or brave; he saw things in the dark that frightened him, his thin +shoulders were bound to droop, the hours of practise on his violin left +him with no blood in his legs and a queer pallor on his brow. + +Nor was he always grave, thoughtful, kind. He did not often lose his +temper, the river of his young life ran too smooth and deep. But there +were times when he did. Brief passions swept him, blinded him, twisted +his fingers, left him sobbing, retching, and weak as death itself. He +never seemed to wonder at the discrepancy in things, however, any more +than he wondered at the look in his mother's eyes, as she hung over him, +waiting, in those moments of nausea after rage. She had not the look of +the gentlewoman then; she had more the look, a thousand times, of the +prisoner led through the last gray corridor in the dawn. + +He saw her like that once when he had not been angry. It was on a day +when he came into the front hall unexpectedly as a stranger was going +out of the door. The stranger was dressed in rough, brown homespun; in +one hand he held a brown velour hat, in the other a thorn stick without +a ferrule. Nor was there anything more worthy of note in his face, an +average-long face with hollowed cheeks, sunken gray eyes, and a high +forehead, narrow, sallow, and moist. + +No, it was not the stranger that troubled Christopher. It was his +mother's look at his own blundering entrance, and, when the man was out +of hearing, the tremulous haste of her explanation. + +"He came about some papers, you know." + +"You mean our _Morning Post?_" Christopher asked her. + +She let her breath out all at once and colour flooded her face. + +"Yes," she told him. "Yes, yes." + +Neither of them said anything more about it. + +It was that same day, toward evening, that Christopher broke one of his +long silences, reverting to a subject always near to them both. + +"Mother, you've never told me where it is--on the _map_, I mean." + +She was looking the other way. She did not turn around. + +"I--Chris--I--I haven't a map in the house." + +He did not press the matter. He went out into the back yard presently, +under the grape-trellis, and there he stood still for a long time, +staring at nothing particular. + +He was growing up. + +He went away to boarding-school not long after this, taking with him the +picture of his adored mother, the treasured epic of his dark, strong +fathers, his narrow shoulders, his rare, blind bursts of passion, his +newborn wonder, and his violin. At school they thought him a queer one. + +The destinies of men are unaccountable things. Five children in the +village of Deer Bay came down with diphtheria. That was why the academy +shut up for a week, and that was what started Christopher on his way +home for an unexpected holiday. And then it was only by one chance in a +thousand that he should glimpse his mother's face in the down-train +halted at the junction where he himself was changing. + +She did not see till he came striding along the aisle of her coach, his +arms full of his things, face flushed, eyes brimming with the surprise +and pleasure of seeing her; his lips trembling questions. + +"Why, Mother, what in earth? Where are you going? I'm to have a week at +least, Mother; and here you're going away, and you didn't tell me, and +what is it, and everything?" + +His eager voice trailed off. The colour drained out of his face and +there was a shadow in his eyes. He drew back from her the least way. + +"What is it, Mother? _Mother!_" + +Somewhere on the platform outside the conductor's droning "--_board_" +ran along the coaches. Agnes Kain opened her white lips. + +"Get off before it's too late, Christopher. I haven't time to explain +now. Go home, and Mary will see you have everything. I'll be back in a +day or so. Kiss me, and go quickly. Quickly!" + +He did not kiss her. He would not have kissed her for worlds. He was to +bewildered, dazed, lost, too inexpressibly hurt. On the platform +outside, had she turned ever so little to look, she might have seen his +face again for an instant as the wheels ground on the rails. Colour was +coming back to it again, a murky colour like the shadow of a red cloud. + +They must have wondered, in the coach with her, at the change in the +calm, unobtrusive, well-gowned gentlewoman, their fellow-passenger. +Those that were left after another two hours saw her get down at a +barren station where an old man waited in a carriage. The halt was +brief, and none of them caught sight of the boyish figure that slipped +down from the rearmost coach to take shelter for himself and his dark, +tempest-ridden face behind the shed at the end of the platform-- + +Christopher walked out across a broad, high, cloudy plain, following a +red road, led by the dust-feather hanging over the distant carriage. + +He walked for miles, creeping ant-like between the immensities of the +brown plain and the tumbled sky. Had he been less implacable, less +intent, he might have noticed many things, the changing conformation of +the clouds, the far flight of a gull, the new perfume and texture of the +wind that flowed over his hot temples. But as it was, the sea took him +by surprise. Coming over a little rise, his eyes focused for another +long, dun fold of the plain, it seemed for an instant as if he had lost +his balance over a void; for a wink he felt the passing of a strange +sickness. He went off a little way to the side of the road and sat down +on a flat stone. + +The world had become of a sudden infinitely simple, as simple as the +inside of a cup. The land broke down under him, a long, naked slope +fringed at the foot of a ribbon of woods. Through the upper branches he +saw the shingles and chimneys of a pale grey village clinging to a white +beach, a beach which ran up to the left in a bolder flight of cliffs, +showing on their crest a cluster of roofs and dull-green gable-ends +against the sea that lifted vast, unbroken, to the rim of the cup. + +Christopher was fifteen, and queer even for that queer age. He had a +streak of the girl in him at his adolescence, and, as he sat there in a +huddle, the wind coming out of this huge new gulf of life seemed to pass +through him, bone and tissue, and tears rolled down his face. + +The carriage bearing his strange mother was gone, from sight and from +mind. His eyes came down from the lilac-crowned hill to the beach, where +it showed in white patches through the wood, and he saw that the wood +was of willows. And he remembered the plain behind him, the wide, brown +moor under the could. He got up on his wobbly legs. There were stones +all about him on the whispering wire-grass, and like them the one he had +been sitting on bore a blurred inscription. He read it aloud, for some +reason, his voice borne away faintly on the river of air: + + Here Lie The Earthly Remains Of + MAYNARD KAIN, SECOND + Born 1835--Died 1862 For the Preservation of the Union + +His gaze went on to another of those worn stones. + + MAYNARD KAIN, ESQUIRE + 1819-1849 + + This Monument Erected in His Memory By His Sorrowing + Widow, Harriet Burnam Kain + + The windy Gales of the West Indias + Laid claim to His Noble Soul + And Took him on High to his Creator + Who made him Whole. + +There was no moss or lichen on this wind-scoured slope. In the falling +dusk the old white stones stood up like the bones of the dead +themselves, and the only sound was the rustle of the wire-grass creeping +over them in a dry tide. The boy had taken off his cap; the sea-wind +moving under the mat of his damp hair gave it the look of some somber, +outlandish cowl. With the night coming on, his solemnity had an elfin +quality. He found what he was looking for at last, and his fingers had +to help his eyes. + + DANIEL KAIN + + Beloved Husband of Agnes Willoughby Kain + + Born 1860--Died 1886 + + Forgive them, for they know not what they do. + +Christopher Kain told me that he left the naked graveyard repeating it +to himself, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do," conscious +less of the words than of the august rhythm falling in with the pulse of +his exaltation. + +The velvet darkness that hangs under cloud had come down over the hill +and the great marsh stretching away to the south of it. Agnes Kain stood +in the open doorway, one hand on the brown wood, the other pressed to +her cheek. + +"You heard it _that_ time, Nelson?" + +"No, ma'am." The old man in the entrance-hall behind her shook his +head. In the thin, blown light of the candelabra which he held high, the +worry and doubt of her deepened on his singularly-unlined face. + +"And you might well catch your death in that draft, ma'am." + +But she only continued to stare out between the pillars where the +lilac-hedge made a wall of deeper blackness across the night. + +"What am I thinking of?" she whispered, and then: _"There!"_ + +And this time the old man heard it, a nearer, wind-blown hail. + +"Mother! Oh, Mother!" + +The boy came striding through the gap of the gate in the hedge. + +"It's I, Mother! Chris! Aren't you surprised?" + +She had no answer. As he came she turned and moved away from the door, +and the old man, peering from under the flat candle flames, saw her face +like wax. And he saw the boy, Christopher, in the doorway, his hands +flung out, his face transfigured. + +"Mother! I'm here! Don't you understand?" + +He touched her shoulder. She turned to him, as it were, lazily. + +"Yes," she breathed. "I see." + +He threw his arms about her, and felt her shaking from head to foot. But +he was shaking, too. + +"I knew the way!" he cried. "I knew it, Mother, I knew it! I came down +from the Moor and there was the Willow Wood, and I knew the way home. +And when I came, Mother, it was like the trees bowing down their +branches in the dark. And when I came by the Beach, Mother, it was like +a roll of drums beating for me, and when I came to the Hill I saw the +Hedge standing against the sky, and I came, and here I am!" + +She expressed no wonder, asked no question. + +"Yes," was all she said, and it was as if she spoke of a tree coming to +its leaf, the wind to its height, the tide to its flood. + +Had he been less rapt and triumphant he must have wondered more at that +icy lassitude, and at the cloak of ceremony she wrapped about her to +hide a terror. It was queer to hear the chill urbanity of her: "This is +Christopher, Nelson; Christopher, this is your father's servant, +Nelson." It was queerer still to see the fastidious decorum with which +she led him over this, the familiar house of his fathers. + +He might have been a stranger, come with a guide-book in his hand. When +he stood on his heels in the big drawing-room, staring up with all his +eyes at the likenesses of those men he had known so well, it was strange +to hear her going on with all the patter of the gallery attendant, names +of painters, prices, dates. He stood before the portrait of Daniel Kain, +his father, a dark-skinned, longish face with a slightly-protruding +nether lip, hollow temples, and a round chin, deeply cleft. As in all +the others, the eyes, even in the dead pigment, seemed to shine with an +odd, fixed luminosity of their own, and like the others from first to +last of the line, it bore upon it the stamp of an imperishable youth. +And all the while he stood there, drinking it in, detail by detail, his +mother spoke, not of the face, but of the frame, some obscure and +unsuspected excellence in the gold-leaf on the frame. + +More than once in that stately tour of halls and chambers he found +himself protesting gaily, "I know, Mother! I know, I know!" + +But the contagion of his glory did not seem to touch her. Nothing seemed +to touch her. Only once was the fragile, bright shell of her punctilio +penetrated for a moment, and that was when Christopher, lagging, turned +back to a door they were about to pass and threw it open with the happy +laugh of a discoverer. And then, even before she could have hushed him, +the laughter on his lips died of itself. + +A man lay on a bed in the room, his face as colourless and still as the +pillow behind it. His eyes were open, but they did not move from the +three candles burning on the high bureau, and he seemed unconscious of +any intrusion. + +"I didn't know!" Christopher whispered, shocked, and shamed. + +When the door was closed again his mother explained. She explained at +length, concisely, standing quite still, with one frail, fine hand +worrying the locket she wore at her throat. Nelson stood quite still +too, his attention engrossed in his candle-wicks. And Christopher stood +quite still, and all their shadows--That man was the caretaker, the man, +Christopher was to understand, who had been looking after the place. His +name was Sanderson. He had fallen ill, very ill. In fact, he was dying. +And that was why his mother had had to come down, post-haste, without +warning. To see about some papers. Some papers. Christopher was to +understand-- + +Christopher understood. Indeed there was not much to understand. And +yet, when they had gone on, he was bothered by it. Already, so young he +was, so ruthless, and so romantic, he had begun to be a little ashamed +of that fading, matter-of-fact world of Concord Street. And it was with +just that world which he wished to forget, that the man lying ill in the +candle-lit chamber was linked in Christopher's memory. For it was the +same man he had seen in the doorway that morning months ago, with a +brown hat in one hand and a thorn stick in the other. + +Even a thing like that may be half put aside, though--for a while. And +by the time Christopher went to his room for the night the thought of +the interloper had retired into the back of his mind, and they were all +Kains there on the Hill, inheritors of romance. He found himself bowing +to his mother with a courtliness he had never known, and an "I wish you +a good night," sounding a century old on his lips. He saw the remote, +patrician figure bow as gravely in return, a petal of colour as hard as +paint on the whiteness of either cheek. He did not see her afterward, +though, when the merciful door was closed. + +Before he slept he explored the chamber, touching old objects with +reverent finger-tips. He came on a leather case like an absurdly +overgrown beetle, hidden in a corner, and a violoncello was in it. He +had seen such things before, but he had never touched one, and when he +lifted it from the case he had a moment of feeling very odd at the pit +of his stomach. Sitting in his underthings on the edge of the bed, he +held the wine-coloured creature in the crook of his arm for a long time, +the look in his round eyes, half eagerness, half pain, of one pursuing +the shadow of some ghostly and elusive memory. + +He touched the C-string by and by with an adventuring thumb. I have +heard "Ugo" sing, myself, and I know what Christopher meant when he said +that the sound did not come out of the instrument, but that it came +_in_ to it, sweeping home from all the walls and corners of the +chamber, a slow, rich, concentric wind of tone. He felt it about him, +murmurous, pulsating, like the sound of surf borne from some far-off +coast. + +And then it was like drums, still farther off. And then it was the feet +of marching men, massive, dark, grave men with luminous eyes, and the +stamp on their faces of an imperishable youth. + +He sat there so lost and rapt that he heard nothing of his mother's +footsteps hurrying in the hall; knew nothing till he saw her face in the +open doorway. She had forgotten herself this time; that fragile defense +of gentility was down. For a moment they stared at each other across a +gulf of silence, and little by little the boy's cheeks grew as white as +hers, his hands as cold, his lungs as empty of breath. + +"What is it, Mother?" + +"Oh, Christopher, Christopher--Go to bed, dear." + +He did not know why, but of a sudden he felt ashamed and a little +frightened, and, blowing out the candle, he crept under the covers. + +The afternoon was bright with a rare sun and the world was quiet. +Christopher lay full-spread on the turf, listening idly to the +"clip-clip" of Nelson's shears as the old man trimmed the hedge. + +"And was my father _very_ strong?" he asked with a drowsy pride. + +"No, not so very." Nelson stopped clipping and was immediately lost in +the past. + +"Only when he was _that_ way five strong men couldn't turn him. I'll +say that. No, if they had to get him with a shotgun that day, 'twas +nobody's fault nor sin. If Guy Bullard seen Daniel there on the sand +with an ax in his hand and foam-like on his lips, and the little ones +cornered where he caught them between cliff and water--Guy's own baby +amongst them--and knowing the sickness of the Kains as he and everybody +else did--why, I'm free and willing to say 'twas his bounden duty to +hold a true aim and pull a steady trigger on Daniel, man of his though I +was, and man of his poor father before him-- + +"No, I can't make it right to lay blame on any man for it, no more than +I can on them, his brother officers, that broke Maynard's neck with +their tent-pegs the night after Gettysburg. No, no--" + +It was evidently a time-worn theme, an argument, an _apologia_, accepted +after years of bitterness and self-searching. He went on with the remote +serenity of age, that has escaped the toils of passion, pursuing the +old, worn path of his mind, his eyes buried in vacancy. + +"No, 'twas a mercy to the both of them, father and son, and a man must +see it so. 'Twould be better of course if they could have gone easier, +same as the _old_ Maynard went, thinking himself the Lord our God to +walk on water and calm the West Indy gale. That's better, better for all +hands round. But if it had to come so, in violence and fear, then nobody +need feel the sin of it on his soul--nobody excepting the old man +Bickers, him that told Daniel. For 'twas from that day he began to take +it on. + +"I saw it myself. There was Daniel come home from other parts where his +mother had kept him, out of gossip's way, bright as you please and +knowing nothing wrong with the blood of the Kains. And so I say the sin +lays on the loose-wagging tongue of Bickers, for from the day he let it +out to Daniel, Daniel changed. 'Twas like he'd heard his doom, and went +to it. Bickers is dead a long time now, but may the Lord God lay eternal +damnation on his soul!" + +Even then there was no heat; the curse had grown a formula. Having come +to the end, the old man's eyes tumbled down painlessly out of the void +and discovered the shears in his hand. + +"Dear me, that's so," he said to himself. One thought was enough at a +time. He fell to work again. The steady "clip-clip-clip" moved off +slowly along the hedge. Not once did he remember; not once as the +indefatigable worker shuffled himself out of sight around the house did +he look back with any stirring of recollection at the boyish figure +lying there as still as a shadow cast in the deep grass. + +A faintly lop-sided moon swam in the zenith. For three days now that +rare clarity had hung in the sky, and for three nights the moon had +grown. Its benign, poisonous illumination flowed down steeply through +the windows of the dark chamber where Christopher huddled on the bed's +edge, three pale, chill islands spread on the polished floor. + +Once again the boy brought the bow home across the shivering strings, +and, as if ears could be thirsty as a drunkard's throat, he drank his +fill of the 'cello's deep, full-membered chord. The air was heavy with +the resonance of marching feet, ghostly feet marching and marching down +upon him in slow, inexorable crescendo as the tides ebbed later among +the sedges on the marsh and the moon grew big. And above the pulse of +the march he seemed to hear another cadence, a thin laughter. + +He laughed too, giving himself up to that spectral contagion. He saw the +fat, iridescent bubble with the Hill in it, the House of dreams, the +Beach and the Moor and Willow Wood of fancy, and all the grave, strong, +gentle line of Kains to whom he had been made bow down in worship. He +saw himself taken in, soul and body, by a thin-plated fraud, a cheap +trick of mother's words, as before him, his father had been. And the +faint exhalations from the moon-patches on the floor showed his face +contorted with a still, set grimace of mirth. + +Anger came over him in a white veil, twitching his lips and his toes and +bending his fingers in knots. Through the veil a sound crept, a sound he +knew well by this time, secret footfalls in the hall, faltering, +retreating, loitering returning to lag near the door. + +How he hated her! It is curious that not once did his passion turn +against his blighted fathers; it was against the woman who had borne +him, the babe, and lied to him, the boy--against her, and against that +man, that interloper, dying in a room below. + +The thought that had been willing to creep out of sight into the +back-country of his mind on that first night came out now like a red, +devouring cloud. Who was that man? + +What was he dying of--or _supposed_ to be dying of? What had he been +doing that morning in Concord Street? What was he doing here, in the +house of the men who had never grown old and of the boy who would never +grow old? Why had his mother come down here, where he was, so queerly, +so secretly, so frightened? + +Christopher would have liked to kill that man. He shivered and licked +his lips. He would have liked to do something bloody and abominable to +that face with the hollow cheeks, the sunken grey eyes, and the +forehead, high, sallow, and moist. He would have liked to take an ax in +his hand and run along the thundering beach and catch that face in a +corner somewhere between cliff and water. The desire to do this thing +possessed him and blinded him like the kiss of lightning. + +He found himself on the floor at the edge of the moonlight, full of +weakness and nausea. He felt himself weeping as he crawled back to the +bed, his cheeks and neck bathed in a flood of painless tears. He threw +himself down, dazed with exhaustion. + +It seemed to him that his mother had been calling a long while. +"Christopher! What is it? What is it, boy?" + +He had heard no footsteps, going or coming; she must have been there all +the time, waiting, listening, her ear pressed to the thick, old paneling +of the door. The thought was like wine; the torment of her whispering +was sweet in his ears. + +"Oh, Chris, Chris! You're making yourself sick!" + +"Yes," he said. He lifted on an elbow and repeated in a voice which +must have sounded strange enough to the listener beyond the door. "Yes!" +he said. "Yes!" + +"Go away!" he cried of a sudden, making a wide, dim, imperious gesture +in the dark. + +"No, no," the imploring whisper crept in. "You're making yourself +sick--Christopher--all over nothing--nothing in the world. It's so +foolish--so foolish--foolish! Oh, if I could only tell you, +Christopher--if I could tell you--" + +"Tell me _what_?" He shuddered with the ecstasy of his own irony. "Who +that man is? That 'caretaker'? What he's doing here? What _you're_ doing +here?--" He began to scream in a high, brittle voice: "_Go away from +that door! Go away!_" + +This time she obeyed. He heard her retreating, soft-footed and +frightened, along the hall. She was abandoning him--without so much as +trying the door, just once again, to see if it were still bolted against +her. + +She did not care. She was sneaking off--down the stairs--Oh, yes, he +knew where. + +His lips began to twitch again and his finger nails scratched on the +bedclothes. If only he had something, some weapon, an axe, a broad, +keen, glittering axe! He would show them! He was strong, incredibly +strong! Five men could not have turned him back from what he was going +to do--if only he had something. + +His hand, creeping, groping, closed on the neck of the 'cello leaning by +the bed. He laughed. + +Oh, yes, he would stop her from going down there; he would hold her, +just where she was on the dark stair nerveless, breathless, as long as +he liked, if he liked he would bring her back, cringing, begging. + +He drew the bow, and laughed higher and louder yet to hear the booming +discord rocking in upon him from the shadows. Swaying from side to side, +he lashed the hollow creature to madness. They came in the press of the +gale, marching, marching, the wild, dark pageant of his fathers, nearer +and nearer through the moon-struck night. + +"Tell me _what_?" he laughed. "_What_?" + +And abruptly he slept, sprawled crosswise on the covers, half-clothed, +dishevelled, triumphant. + + * * * * * + +It was not the same night, but another; whether the next or the next but +one, or two, Christopher can not say. But he was out of doors. + +He had escaped from the house at dusk; he knew that. + +He had run away, through the hedge and down the back side of the hill, +torn between the two, the death, warm and red like life, and the birth, +pale, chill, and inexorable as death. + +Most of that daft night-running will always be blank in Christopher's +mind; moments and moments, like islands of clarity, remain. He brings +back one vivid interval when he found himself seated on his father's +gravestone among the whispering grasses, staring down into the pallid +bowl of the world. And in that moment he knew what Daniel Kain had felt, +and Maynard Kain before him; a passionate and contemptuous hatred for +all the dullards in the world who never dreamed dreams or saw visions or +sang wordless songs or ran naked-hearted in the flood of the full-blown +moon. He hated them because they could not by any possibility comprehend +his magnificent separation, his starry sanity, his kinship with the +gods. And he had a new thirst to obliterate the whole creeping race of +dust-dwellers with one wide, incomparably bloody gesture. + +It was late when he found himself back again before the house, and an +ink-black cloud touched the moon's edge. After the airless evening a +wind had sprang up in the east; it thrashed among the lilac-stems as he +came through them and across the turf, silent-footed as an Indian. In +his right hand he had a bread-knife, held butt to thumb, dagger-wise. +Where he had come by the rust-bitten thing no one knows, least of all +himself. In the broken light his eyes shone with a curious luminosity of +their own, absorbed, introspective. + +All the windows were dark, and the entrance-hall, when he slipped in +between the pillars, but across its floor he saw light thrown in a +yellow ribbon from the half-closed door of the drawing-room. + +It took his attention, laid hands on his imagination. He began to +struggle against it. + +He would _not_ go into that room. He was going to another room. To stay +him, he made a picture of the other room in his tumbled mind--the high, +bleak walls, the bureau with the three candles burning wanly, the bed, +the face of the man on the bed. And when his rebellious feet, +surrendering him up to the lure of that beckoning ribbon, had edged as +far as the door, and he had pushed it a little further ajar to get his +head in, he saw that the face itself was there in the drawing-room. + +He stood there for some time, his shoulder pressed against the +door-jamb, his eyes blinking. + +His slow attention moved from the face to the satin pillows that wedged +it in, and then to the woman that must have been his mother, kneeling +beside the casket with her arms crooked on the shining cover and her +head down between them. And across from her leaned "Ugo," the 'cello, +come down from his chamber to stand vigil at the other shoulder of the +dead. + +The first thing that came into his groping mind was a bitter sense of +abandonment. The little core of candle-light hanging in the gloom left +him out. Its unstirring occupants, the woman, the 'cello, and the clay, +seemed sufficient to themselves. His mother had forgotten him. Even +"Ugo," that had grown part and parcel of his madness, had forgotten him. + +Bruised, sullen, moved by some deep-lying instinct of the clan, his eyes +left them and sought the wall beyond, where there were those who would +not forget him, come what might, blood of his blood and mind of his own +queer mind. And there among the shadowed faces he searched for one in +vain. As if that candle-lit tableau, somehow holy and somehow +abominable, were not for the eyes of one of them, the face of Daniel, +the wedded husband, had been turned to the wall. + +Here was something definite, something Christopher could take hold of, +and something that he would not have. + +His mother seemed not to have known he was near till he flung the door +back and came stalking into the light with the rusty bread-knife in his +hand. One would not have imagined there were blood enough left in her +wasted heart, but her face went crimson when she lifted it and saw him. + +It brought him up short--the blush, where he had looked for fright. It +shocked him, and, shocking him more than by a thousand laboured words of +explanation, it opened a window in his disordered brain. He stood +gawking with the effort of thought, hardly conscious of his mother's +cry: + +"Christopher, I never meant you to know!" + +He kept on staring at the ashen face between the pillows, long (as his +own was long), sensitive, worn; and at the 'cello keeping incorruptible +vigil over its dead. And then slowly his eyes went down to his own left +hand, to which that same old wine-brown creature had come home from the +first with a curious sense of fitness and authority and right. + +"Who is this man?" + +"Don't look at me so! Don't, Chris!" + +But he did look at her. Preoccupied as he was, he was appalled at sight +of the damage the half-dozen of days had done. She had been so much the +lady, so perfectly the gentlewoman. To no one had the outward gesture +and symbol of purity been more precious. No whisper had ever breathed +against her. If there had been secrets behind her, they had been dead; +if a skeleton, the closet had been closed. And now, looking down on her, +he was not only appalled, he was a little sickened, as one might be to +find squalor and decay creeping into a familiar and once immaculate +room. + +"Who is this man?" he repeated. + +"He grew up with me." She half raised herself on her knees in the +eagerness of her appeal. "We were boy and girl together at home in +Maryland. We were meant for each other, Chris. We were always to +marry--always, Chris. And when I went away, and when I married +your--when I married Daniel Kain, _he_ hunted and he searched and he +found me here. He was with me, he stood by me through that awful +year--and--that was how it happened. I tell you, Christopher, darling, +we were meant for each other, John Sanderson and I. He loved me more +than poor Daniel ever did or could, loved me enough to throw away a life +of promise, just to hang on here after every one else was gone, alone +with his 'cello and is one little memory. And I loved him enough +to--to--_Christopher, don't look at me so!"_ + +His eyes did not waver. You must remember his age, the immaculate, +ruthless, mid-Victorian 'teens; and you must remember his bringing-up. + +"And so this was my father," he said. And then he went on without +waiting, his voice breaking into falsetto with the fierceness of his +charge. "And you would have kept on lying to me! If I hadn't happened, +just happened, to find you here, now, you would have gone on keeping me +in the dark! You would have stood by and seen me--well--_go crazy!_ Yes, +go crazy, thinking I was--well, thinking I was meant for it! And all to +save your precious--" + +She was down on the floor again, what was left of the gentlewoman, +wailing. + +"But you don't know what it means to a woman, Chris! You don't know what +it means to a woman!" + +A wave of rebellion brought her up and she strained toward him across +the coffin. + +"Isn't it something, then, that I gave you a father with a _mind_? And +if you think you've been sinned against, think of _me_! Sin! You call it +_sin_! Well, isn't it _anything at all_ that by my 'sin' my son's blood +came down to him _clean_? Tell me that!" + +He shook himself, and his flame turned to sullenness. + +"It's not so," he glowered. + +All the girl in him, the poet, the hero-worshipping boy, rebelled. His +harassed eyes went to the wall beyond and the faces there, the ghosts of +the doomed, glorious, youth-ridden line, priceless possessions of his +dreams. He would not lose them: he refused to be robbed of a tragic +birthright. He wanted some gesture puissant enough to turn back and +blot out all that had been told him. + +"It's not his!" he cried. And reaching out fiercely he dragged the +'cello away from the coffin's side. He stood for an instant at bay, +bitter, defiant. + +"It's not his! It's mine! It's--it's--_ours!_" + +And then he fled out into the dark of the entrance-hall and up the black +stairs. In his room there was no moonlight now, for the cloud ran over +the sky and the rain had come. + +"It isn't so, it isn't so!" It was like a sob in his throat. + +He struck on the full strings. And listening breathless through the +dying discord he heard the liquid whispers of the rain, nothing more. He +lashed with a wild bow, time and again. But something was broken, +something was lost: out of the surf of sound he could no longer fashion +the measure of marching feet. The mad Kains had found him out, and cast +him out. No longer could he dream them in dreams or run naked-hearted +with them in the flood of the moon, for he was no blood of theirs, and +they were gone. And huddling down on the edge of the bed, he wept. + +The tears washed his eyes and falling down bathed his strengthless +hands. And beyond the phantom windows, over the marsh and the moor and +the hill that were not his, the graves of strangers and the lost Willow +Wood, lay the healing rain. He heard it in gurgling rivulets along the +gutters overhead. He heard the soft impact, like a kiss, brushing the +reedy cheeks of the marsh, the showery shouldering of branches, the +aspiration of myriad drinking grasses, the far whisper of waters coming +home to the waters of the sea--the long, low melody of the rain. + +And by and by he found it was "Ugo," the 'cello, and he was playing. + +They went home the following afternoon, he and his mother. Or rather, +she went home, and he with her as far as the Junction, where he changed +for school. + +They had not much to say to each other through the journey. The boy had +to be given time. Five years younger, or fifteen years older, it would +have been easier for him to look at his mother. You must remember what +his mother had meant to him, and what, bound up still in the fierce and +sombre battle of adolescence, she must mean to him now. + +As for Agnes Kain, she did not look at him, either. Through the changing +hours her eyes rested on the transparent hands lying crossed in her lap. +She seemed very tired and very white. Her hair was not done as tidily, +her lace cuffs were less fresh than they had used to be. About her whole +presence there was a troubling hint of let-down, something obscurely +slovenly, a kind of awkward and unlovely nakedness. + +She really spoke to him for the first time at the Junction, when he +stood before her, slim and uncouth under the huge burden of "Ugo," +fumbling through his leave-taking. + +"Christopher," she said, "try not to think of me--always--as--as--well, +when you're older, Christopher, you'll know what I mean." + +That was the last time he ever heard her speak. He saw her once again, +but the telegram was delayed and his train was late, and when he came +beside her bed she said nothing. She looked into his eyes searchingly, +for a long while, and died. + + * * * * * + +That space stands for the interval of silence that fell after +Christopher had told me the story. I thought he had quite finished. He +sat motionless, his shoulders fallen forward, his eyes fixed in the +heart of the incandescent globe over the dressing-table, his long +fingers wrapped around the neck of the 'cello. + +"And so she got me through those years," he said. "Those nip-and-tuck +years that followed. By her lie. + +"Insanity is a queer thing," he went on, still brooding into the light. +"There's more of it about than we're apt to think. It works in so many +ways. In hobbies, arts, philosophies. Music is a kind of insanity. I +know. I've got mine penned up in the music now, and I think I can keep +it there now, and save my soul." + +"Yours?" + +"Yes, mine. I know now--now that it's safe for me to know. I was down +at that village by the beach a year or so ago. I'm a Kain, of course, +one of the crazy Kains, after all. John Sanderson was born in the +village and lived there till his death. Only once that folks could +remember had he been away, and that was when he took some papers to the +city for Mrs. Kain to sign. He was caretaker at the old 'Kain place' the +last ten years of his life, and deaf, they said, since his tenth +year--'deaf as a post.' And they told me something else. They said there +was a story that before my father, Daniel, married her, my mother had +been an actress. An actress! You'll understand that I needed no one to +tell me _that_! + +"They told me that they had heard a story that she was a _great_ +actress. Dear God, if they could only know! When I think of that night +and that setting, that scene! It killed her, and it got me over the +wall--" + + + + +THEY GRIND EXCEEDING SMALL + + +By BEN AMES WILLIAMS + +From _Saturday Evening Post_ + +I telephoned down the hill to Hazen Kinch. "Hazen," I asked, "are you +going to town to-day?" + +"Yes, yes," he said abruptly in his quick, harsh fashion. "Of course I'm +going to town." + +"I've a matter of business," I suggested. + +"Come along," he invited brusquely. "Come along." + +There was not another man within forty miles to whom he would have given +that invitation. + +"I'll be down in ten minutes," I promised him; and I went to pull on my +Pontiacs and heavy half boots over them and started downhill through the +sandy snow. It was bitterly cold; it had been a cold winter. The bay--I +could see it from my window--was frozen over for a dozen miles east and +west and thirty north and south; and that had not happened in close to a +score of years. Men were freighting across to the islands with heavy +teams. Automobiles had beaten a rough road along the course the steamers +took in summer. A man who had ventured to stock one of the lower islands +with foxes for the sake of their fur, counting on the water to hold them +prisoners, had gone bankrupt when his stock in trade escaped across the +ice. Bitterly cold and steadily cold, and deep snow lay upon the hills, +blue-white in the distance. The evergreens were blue-black blotches on +this whiteness. The birches, almost indistinguishable, were like trees +in camouflage. To me the hills are never so grand as in this winter coat +they wear. It is easy to believe that a brooding God dwells upon them. I +wondered as I ploughed my way down to Hazen Kinch's farm whether God did +indeed dwell among these hills; and I wondered what He thought of Hazen +Kinch. + +This was no new matter of thought with me. I had given some thought to +Hazen in the past. I was interested in the man and in that which should +come to him. He was, it seemed to me, a problem in fundamental ethics; +he was, as matters stood, a demonstration of the essential uprightness +of things as they are. The biologist would have called him a sport, a +deviation from type, a violation of all the proper laws of life. That +such a man should live and grow great and prosper was not fitting; in a +well-regulated world it could not be. Yet Hazen Kinch did live; he had +grown--in his small way--great; and by our lights he had prospered. +Therefore I watched him. There was about the man the fascination which +clothes a tight-rope walker above Niagara; an aeronaut in the midst of +the nose dive. The spectator stares with half-caught breath, afraid to +see and afraid to miss seeing the ultimate catastrophe. Sometimes I +wondered whether Hazen Kinch suspected this attitude on my part. It was +not impossible. There was a cynical courage in the man; it might have +amused him. Certainly I was the only man who had in any degree his +confidence. + +I have said there was not another within forty miles whom he would have +given a lift to town; I doubt if there was another man anywhere for whom +he would have done this small favour. + +He seemed to find a mocking sort of pleasure in my company. + +When I came to his house he was in the barn harnessing his mare to the +sleigh. The mare was a good animal, fast and strong. She feared and she +hated Hazen. I could see her roll her eyes backward at him as he +adjusted the traces. He called to me without turning: + +"Shut the door! Shut the door! Damn the cold!" + +I slid the door shut behind me. There was within the barn the curious +chill warmth which housed animals generate to protect themselves against +our winters. + +"It will snow," I told Hazen. "I was not sure you would go." + +He laughed crookedly, jerking at the trace. + +"Snow!" he exclaimed. "A man would think you were the personal manager +of the weather. Why do you say it will snow?" + +"The drift of the clouds--and it's warmer," I told him. + +"I'll not have it snowing," he said, and looked at me and cackled. He +was a little, thin, old man with meager whiskers and a curious precision +of speech; and I think he got some enjoyment out of watching my +expression at such remarks as this. He elaborated his assumption that +the universe was conducted for his benefit, in order to see my silent +revolt at the suggestion. "I'll not have it snowing." he said. "Open the +door." + +He led the mare out and stopped by the kitchen door. + +"Come in," he said. "A hot drink." + +I went with him into the kitchen. His wife was there, and their child. +The woman was lean and frail; and she was afraid of him. The countryside +said he had taken her in payment of a bad debt. Her father had owed him +money which he could not pay. + +"I decided it was time I had a wife," Hazen used to say to me. + +The child was on the floor. The woman had a drink of milk and egg and +rum, hot and ready for us. We drank, and Hazen knelt beside the child. A +boy baby, not yet two years old. It is an ugly thing to say, but I hated +this child. There was evil malevolence in his baby eyes. I have +sometimes thought the grey devils must have left just such hate-bred +babes as this in France. Also, he was deformed--a twisted leg. The women +of the neighbourhood sometimes said he would be better dead. But Hazen +Kinch loved him. He lifted him in his arms now with a curious passion in +his movement, and the child stared at him sullenly. When the mother came +near the baby squalled at her, and Hazen said roughly: + +"Stand away! Leave him alone!" + +She moved back furtively; and Hazen asked me, displaying the child: "A +fine boy, eh?" + +I said nothing, and in his cracked old voice he mumbled endearments to +the baby. I had often wondered whether his love for the child redeemed +the man; or merely made him vulnerable. Certainly any harm that might +come to the baby would be a crushing blow to Hazen. + +He put the child down on the floor again and he said to the woman +curtly: "Tend him well." She nodded. There was a dumb submission in her +eyes; but through this blank veil I had seen now and then a blaze of +pain. + +Hazen went out of the door without further word to her, and I followed +him. We got into the sleigh, bundling ourselves into the robes for the +six-mile drive along the drifted road to town. There was a feeling of +storm in the air. I looked at the sky and so did Hazen Kinch. He guessed +what I would have said and he answered me before I could speak. + +"I'll not have it snowing," he said, and leered at me. + +Nevertheless, I knew the storm would come. The mare turned out of the +barnyard and ploughed through a drift and struck hard-packed road. Her +hoofs beat a swift tattoo; our runners sang beneath us. We dropped to +the little bridge and across and began the mile-long climb to the top of +Rayborn Hill. The road from Hazen's house to town is compounded of such +ups and downs. + +At the top of the hill we paused for a moment to breathe the mare; +paused just in front of the big old Rayborn house, that has stood there +for more years than most of us remember. It was closed and shuttered and +deserted; and Hazen dipped his whip toward it and said meanly: + +"An ugly, improvident lot, the Rayborns were." + +I had known only one of them--the eldest son. A fine man, I had thought +him. Picking apples in his orchard, he fell one October and broke his +neck. His widow tried to make a go of the place, but she borrowed of +Hazen and he had evicted her this three months back. It was one of the +lesser evils he had done. I looked at the house and at him, and he +clucked to the mare and we dipped down into the steep valley below the +hill. + +The wind had a sweep in that valley and there was a drift of snow across +it and across the road. This drift was well packed by the wind, but when +we drove over its top our left-hand runner broke through the coaming and +we tumbled into the snow, Hazen and I. We were well entangled in the +rugs. The mare gave a frightened start, but Hazen had held the reins and +the whip so that she could not break away. We got up together, he and I, +and we righted the sleigh and set it upon the road again. I remember +that it was becoming bitter cold and the sun was no longer shining. +There was a steel-grey veil drawn across the bay. + +When the sleigh was upright Hazen went forward and stood beside the +mare. Some men, blaming the beast without reason, would have beaten her. +They would have cursed, cried out upon her. That was not the cut of +Hazen Kinch. But I could see that he was angry and I was not surprised +when he reached up and gripped the horse's ear. He pulled the mare's +head down and twisted the ear viciously. All in a silence that was +deadly. + +The mare snorted and tried to rear back and Hazen clapped the butt of +his whip across her knees. She stood still, quivering, and he wrenched +at her ear again. + +"Now," he said softly, "keep the road." + +And he returned and climbed to his place beside me in the sleigh. I said +nothing. I might have interfered, but something had always impelled me +to keep back my hand from Hazen Kinch. + +We drove on and the mare was lame. Though Hazen pushed her, we were slow +in coming to town and before we reached Hazen's office the swirling snow +was whirling down--a pressure of driving, swirling flakes like a heavy +white hand. + +I left Hazen at the stair that led to his office and I went about my +business of the day. He said as I turned away: + +"Be here at three." + +I nodded. But I did not think we should drive home that afternoon. I +had some knowledge of storms. + +That which had brought me to town was not engrossing. I found time to go +to the stable and see Hazen's mare. There was an ugly welt across her +knees and some blood had flowed. The stablemen had tended the welt, and +cursed Hazen in my hearing. It was still snowing, and the stable boss, +looking out at the driving flakes, spat upon the ground and said to me: + +"Them legs'll go stiff. That mare won't go home to-night." + +"I think you are right," I agreed. + +"The white-whiskered skunk!" he said, and I knew he spoke of Hazen. + +At a quarter of three I took myself to Hazen Kinch's office. It was not +much of an office; not that Hazen could not have afforded a better. But +it was up two flights--an attic room ill lighted. A small air-tight +stove kept the room stifling hot. The room was also air-tight. Hazen had +a table and two chairs, and an iron safe in the corner. He put a +pathetic trust in that safe. I believe I could have opened it with a +screwdriver. I met him as I climbed the stairs. He said harshly: + +"I'm going to telephone. They say the road's impassable." + +He had no telephone in his office; he used one in the store below. A +small economy fairly typical of Hazen. + +"I'll wait in the office," I told him. + +"Go ahead," he agreed, halfway down the stairs. + +I went up to his office and closed the drafts of the stove--it was +red-hot--and tried to open the one window, but it was nailed fast. Then +Hazen came back up the stairs grumbling. + +"Damn the snow!" he said. "The wire is down." + +"Where to?" I asked. + +"My house, man! To my house!" + +"You wanted to telephone home that you--" + +"I can't get home to-night. You'll have to go to the hotel." + +I nodded good-naturedly. + +"All right. You, too, I suppose." + +"I'll sleep here," he said. + +I looked round. There was no bed, no cot, nothing but the two stiff +chairs. He saw my glance and said angrily: "I've slept on the floor +before." + +I was always interested in the man's mental processes. + +"You wanted to telephone Mrs. Kinch not to worry?" I suggested. + +"Pshaw, let her fret!" said Hazen. "I wanted to ask after my boy." His +eyes expanded, he rubbed his hands a little, cackling. "A fine boy, sir! +A fine boy!" + +It was then we heard Doan Marshey coming up the stairs. We heard his +stumbling steps as he began the last flight and Hazen seemed to cock his +ears as he listened. Then he sat still and watched the door. The steps +climbed nearer; they stopped in the dim little hall outside the door and +someone fumbled with the knob. When the door opened we saw who it was. I +knew Marshey. He lived a little beyond Hazen on the same road. Lived in +a two-room cabin--it was little more--with his wife and his five +children; lived meanly and pitiably, grovelling in the soil for daily +bread, sweating life out of the earth--life and no more. A thin man, +racking thin; a forward-thrusting neck and a bony face and a sad and +drooping moustache about his mouth. His eyes were meek and weary. + +He stood in the doorway blinking at us; and with his gloved hands--they +were stiff and awkward with the cold--he unwound the ragged muffler that +was about his neck and he brushed weakly at the snow upon his head and +his shoulders. Hazen said angrily: + +"Come in! Do you want my stove to heat the town?" + +Doan shuffled in and he shut the door behind him. He said: "Howdy, Mr. +Kinch." And he smiled in a humble and placating way. + +Hazen said: "What's your business? Your interest is due." + +Doan nodded. + +"Yeah. I know, Mr. Kinch. I cain't pay it all." + +Kinch exclaimed impatiently: "An old story! How much can you pay?" + +"Eleven dollars and fifty cents," said Doan. + +"You owe twenty." + +"I aim to pay it when the hens begin to lay." + +Hazen laughed scornfully. + +"You aim to pay! Damn you, Marshey, if your old farm was worth taking +I'd have you out in this snow, you old scamp!" + +Doan pleaded dully: "Don't you do that, Mr Kinch! I aim to pay." + +Hazen clapped his hands on the table. + +"Rats! Come! Give me what you've got! And Marshey, you'll have to get +the rest. I'm sick of waiting on you." + +Marshey came shuffling toward the table. Hazen was sitting with the +table between him and the man and I was a little behind Hazen at one +side. Marshey blinked as he came nearer, and his weak nearsighted eyes +turned from Hazen to me. I could see that the man was stiff with the +cold. + +When he came to the table in front of Hazen he took off his thick +gloves. His hands were blue. He laid the gloves on the table and reached +into an inner pocket of his torn coat and drew out a little cloth pouch +and he fumbled into this and I heard the clink of coins. He drew out two +quarters and laid them on the table before Hazen, and Hazen picked them +up. I saw that Marshey's fingers moved stiffly; I could almost hear them +creak with the cold. Then he reached into the pouch again. + +Something dropped out of the mouth of the little cloth bag and fell +soundlessly on the table. It looked to me like a bill, a piece of paper +currency. I was about to speak, but Hazen, without an instant's +hesitation, had dropped his hand on the thing and drawn it +unostentatiously toward him. When he lifted his hand the money--if it +was money--was gone. + +Marshey drew out a little roll of worn bills. Hazen took them out of his +hand and counted them swiftly. + +"All right." he said. "Eleven-fifty. I'll give you a receipt. But you +mind me, Doan Marshey, you get the rest before the month's out. I've +been too slack with you." + +Marshey, his dull eyes watching Hazen write the receipt, was folding +the little pouch and putting it away. Hazen tore off the bit of paper +and gave it to him. Doan took it and he said humbly: "Thank'e, sir." + +Hazen nodded. + +"Mind now," he exclaimed, and Marshey said: "I'll do my best, Mr. +Kinch." + +Then he turned and shuffled across the room and out into the hall and we +heard him descending the stairs. + +When he was gone I asked Hazen casually: "What was it that he dropped +upon the table?" + +"A dollar," said Hazen promptly. "A dollar bill. The miserable fool!" + +Hazen's mental processes were always of interest to me. + +"You mean to give it back to him?" I asked. + +He stared at me and he laughed. "No! If he can't take care of his own +money--that's why he is what he is." + +"Still it is his money." + +"He owes me more than that." + +"Going to give him credit for it?" + +"Am I a fool?" Hazen asked me. "Do I look like so much of a fool?" + +"He may charge you with finding it." + +"He loses a dollar; I find one. Can he prove ownership? Pshaw!" Hazen +laughed again. + +"If there is any spine in him he will lay the thing to you as a theft," +I suggested. I was not afraid of angering Hazen. He allowed me open +speech; he seemed to find a grim pleasure in my distaste for him and for +his way of life. + +"If there were any backbone in the man he would not be paying me eighty +dollars a year on a five-hundred-dollar loan--discounted." + +Hazen grinned at me triumphantly. + +"I wonder if he will come back," I said. + +"Besides," Hazen continued, "he lied to me. He told me the eleven-fifty +was all he had." + +"Yes," I agreed. "There is no doubt he lied to you." + +Hazen had a letter to write and he bent to it. I sat by the stove and +watched him and considered. He had not yet finished the letter when we +heard Marshey returning. His dragging feet on the stair were +unmistakable. At the sound of his weary feet some tide of indignation +surged up in me. + +I was minded to do violence to Hazen Kinch. But--a deeper impulse held +my hand from the man. + +Marshey came in and his weary eyes wandered about the room. They +inspected the floor; they inspected me; they inspected Hazen Kinch's +table, and they rose at last humbly to Hazen Kinch. + +"Well?" said Hazen. + +"I lost a dollar," Marshey told him. "I 'lowed I might have dropped it +here." + +Hazen frowned. + +"You told me eleven-fifty was all you had." + +"This here dollar wa'n't mine." + +The money-lender laughed. + +"Likely! Who would give you a dollar? You lied to me, or you're lying +now. I don't believe you lost a dollar." + +Marshey reiterated weakly: "I lost a dollar." + +"Well," said Hazen, "there's no dollar of yours here." + +"It was to git medicine," Marshey said. "It wa'n't mine." + +Hazen Kinch exclaimed: "By God, I believe you're accusing me!" + +Marshey lifted both hands placatingly. + +"No, Mr. Kinch. No, sir." His eyes once more wandered about the room. +"Mebbe I dropped it in the snow," he said. + +He turned to the door. Even in his slow shuffle there was a hint of +trembling eagerness to escape. He went out and down the stairs. Hazen +looked at me, his old face wrinkling mirthfully. + +"You see?" he said. + +I left him a little later and went out into the street. On the way to +the hotel I stopped for a cigar at the drug store. Marshey was there, +talking with the druggist. + +I heard the druggist say: "No, Marshey, I'm sorry. I've been stung too +often." + +Marshey nodded humbly. + +"I didn't 'low you'd figure to trust me." he agreed. "It's all right. I +didn't 'low you would." + +It was my impulse to give him the dollar he needed, but I did not do it. +An overpowering compulsion bade me keep my hands off in this matter. I +did not know what I expected, but I felt the imminence of the fates. +When I went out into the snow it seemed to me the groan of the gale was +like the slow grind of millstones, one upon the other. + +I thought long upon the matter of Hazen Kinch before sleep came that +night. + +Toward morning the snow must have stopped; and the wind increased and +carved the drifts till sunrise, then abruptly died. I met Hazen at the +postoffice at ten and he said: "I'm starting home." + +I asked: "Can you get through?" + +He laughed. + +"I will get through," he told me. + +"You're in haste." + +"I want to see that boy of mine," said Hazen Kinch. "A fine boy, man! A +fine boy!" + +"I'm ready," I said. + +When we took the road the mare was limping. But she seemed to work out +the stiffness in her knees and after a mile or so of the hard going she +was moving smoothly enough. We made good time. + +The day, as often happens after a storm, was full of blinding sunlight. +The glare of the sun upon the snow was almost unbearable. I kept my eyes +all but closed but there was so much beauty abroad in the land that I +could not bear to close them altogether. The snow clung to twigs and to +fences and to wires, and a thousand flames glinted from every crystal +when the sun struck down upon the drifts. The pine wood upon the eastern +slope of Rayborn Hill was a checkerboard of rich colour. Green and blue +and black and white, indescribably brilliant. When we crossed the bridge +at the foot of the hill we could hear the brook playing beneath the ice +that sheathed it. On the white pages of the snow wild things had writ +here and there the fine-traced tale of their morning's adventuring. We +saw once where a fox had pinned a big snowshoe rabbit in a drift. + +Hazen talked much of that child of his on the homeward way. I said +little. From the top of the Rayborn Hill we sighted his house and he +laid the whip along the mare and we went down that last long descent at +a speed that left me breathless. I shut my eyes and huddled low in the +robes for protection against the bitter wind, and I did not open them +again till we turned into Hazen's barnyard, ploughing through the +unpacked snow. + +When we stopped Hazen laughed. + +"Ha!" he said. "Now, come in, man, and warm yourself and see the baby! A +fine boy!" + +He was ahead of me at the door; I went in upon his heels. We came into +the kitchen together. + +Hazen's kitchen was also living-room and bedroom in the cold of winter. +The arrangement saved firewood. There was a bed against the wall +opposite the door. As we came in a woman got up stiffly from this bed +and I saw that this woman was Hazen's wife. But there was a change in +her. She was bleak as cold iron and she was somehow strong. + +Hazen rasped at this woman impatiently: "Well, I'm home! Where is the +boy?" + +She looked at him and her lips moved soundlessly. She closed them, +opened them again. This time she was able to speak. + +"The boy?" she said to Hazen. "The boy is dead!" + +The dim-lit kitchen was very quiet for a little time. I felt myself +breathe deeply, almost with relief. The thing for which I had waited--it +had come. And I looked at Hazen Kinch. + +He had always been a little thin man. He was shrunken now and very white +and very still. Only his face twitched. A muscle in one cheek jerked and +jerked and jerked at his mouth. It was as though he controlled a desire +to smile. That jerking, suppressed smile upon his white and tortured +countenance was terrible. I could see the blood drain down from his +forehead, down from his cheeks. He became white as death itself. + +After a little he tried to speak. I do not know what he meant to say. +But what he did was to repeat--as though he had not heard her words--the +question which he had flung at her in the beginning. He said huskily: +"Where is the boy?" + +She looked toward the bed and Hazen looked that way; and then he went +across to the bed with uncertain little steps. I followed him. I saw the +little twisted body there. The woman had been keeping it warm with her +own body. It must have been in her arms when we came in. The tumbled +coverings, the crushed pillows spoke mutely of a ferocious intensity of +grief. + +Hazen looked down at the little body. He made no move to touch it, but I +heard him whisper to himself: "Fine boy." + +After a while he looked at the woman. She seemed to feel an accusation +in his eyes. She said: "I did all I could." + +He asked "What was it?" + +I had it in me--though I had reason enough to despise the little man--to +pity Hazen Kinch. + +"He coughed," said the woman. "I knew it was croup. You know I asked you +to get the medicine--ipecac. You said no matter--no need--and you had +gone." + +She looked out of the window. + +"I went for help--to Annie Marshey. Her babies had had it. Her husband +was going to town and she said he would get the medicine for me. She did +not tell him it was for me. He would not have done it for you. He did +not know. So I gave her a dollar to give him--to bring it out to me. + +"He came home in the snow last night. Baby was bad by that time, so I +was watching for Doan. I stopped him in the road and I asked for the +medicine. When he understood he told me. He had not brought it." + +The woman was speaking dully, without emotion. + +"It would have been in time, even then," she said. "But after a while, +after that, baby died." + +I understood in that moment the working of the mills. And when I looked +at Hazen Kinch I saw that he, too, was beginning to understand. There +is a just mercilessness in an aroused God. Hazen Kinch was driven to +questions. + +"Why--didn't Marshey fetch it?" he asked. + +She said slowly: "They would not trust him--at the store." + +His mouth twitched, he raised his hands. + +"The money!" he cried. "The money! What did he do with that?" + +"He said," the woman answered, "that he lost it--in your office; lost +the money there." + +After a little the old money-lender leaned far back like a man wrenched +with agony. His body was contorted, his face was terrible. His dry mouth +opened wide. + +He screamed! + + * * * * * + +Halfway up the hill to my house I stopped to look back and all round. +The vast hills in their snowy garments looked down upon the land, upon +the house of Hazen Kinch. Still and silent and inscrutable. + +I knew now that a just and brooding God dwelt among these hills. + + + + +ON STRIKE + + +BY ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE + +From _The Popular Magazine_ + +"Furthermore, howadji," ventured Najib, who had not spoken for fully +half an hour, but had been poring over a sheaf of shipment items +scribbled in Arabic, "furthermore, I am yearnful to know who was the +unhappy person the wicked general threatened. Or, of a perhaps, it was +that poor general himself who was bethreatened by his padishah or by +the--" + +"What on earth are you babbling about, Najib?" absent-mindedly asked +Logan Kirby, as he looked up from a month-old New York paper which had +arrived by muleteer that day and which the expatriated American had been +reading with pathetic interest. + +Now, roused from his perusal by Najib's query, Logan saw that the little +Syrian has ceased wrestling with the shipment items and was peering over +his employer's shoulder, his beady eyes fixed in keen curiosity on the +printed page. + +"I enseeched you to tell me, howadji," said Najib, "who has been +threatening that poor general. Or, perchancely, who has been made to +cower himself undertheneath of that fierce general's threatenings. See, +it is there, howadji. There, in the black line at the left top end of +the news. See?" + +Following the guidance of Najib's stubby, unwashed finger, Kirby read +the indicated headline: + + GENERAL STRIKE THREATENED + +"Oh!" he answered, choking back a grin, "I see. There isn't any +'general,' Najib. And he isn't threatened. It means--" + +"May the faces of all liars be blackened!" cried Najib in virtuous +indignation. "And may the maker of the becurst newspage lie be doubly +afflictioned! May his camels die and his wives cast dust upon his bared +head! For he has befooled me, by what he has here enprinted. My heart +went out with a sweet sorrowfulness for that poor general or for the +folk he bethreatened. Whichever it might chance itself to be. And now +the news person has made a jest of the truth. But he--" + +Kirby's attempt at self-control went to pieces. He guffawed. Najib eyed +him sourly; then said in icy reproof: + +"It is known to all, howadji, that Sidi-ben-Hassan, the sheikh, was the +wisest of men. And did not Sidi-ben-Hassan make known, in his book, that +'_Laughter is for women and for hyenas_'? Furthermore--" + +"I'm sorry I laughed at you, Najib," returned Kirby, with due penitence, +"I don't wonder you got such an idea, from the headline. You see, I have +read the story that goes under it. That's how I happen to know what it +means. It means that several thousand workmen of several allied trades +threatened to go on strike. That will tie up a lot of business, you see; +along a lot of lines. It will mean a general tie-up--a--" + +From Najib's blank face, the American saw his more or less technical +explanation was going wide. Still remorseful at having hurt his +factotum's feelings, Kirby laid the paper aside and undertook to +simplify the matter. + +"It's like this," said he. "We'll say a gang of men aren't satisfied +with the pay or the hours they are getting. They asked for more money or +for shorter hours; or for both. If the demand is refused, they stop +working. They won't go back to their jobs till they get the cash and the +hours they want. That is known as 'going on strike.' When a number of +concerns are involved in it, it's sometimes called 'a general strike.' +This paper says a general strike is threatened. That means--" + +"I apperceive it, howadji!" exclaimed Najib. "I am onward to it, now. I +might have known the printed page cannot lie. But, oh, my heart berends +itself when I think of the sad fate of those poor folk who do the +stroking! Of an assuredly, Allah hath deprived them of wisdom! + +"Not necessarily," argued Kirby, wondering at his henchman's outburst of +sympathy for union labourers so many thousand miles away. "They may win, +you know; or, at least, get a compromise. And their unions will support +them while they are out of work. Of course, they may lose. And then--" + +"But when they make refusal to do their work," urged Najib, "will not +the soldiers of the pasha cut them to ribbons with the kourbash and +drive them back to their toil? Or if the pasha of that pashalik is a +brutesome man, will not he cast those poor fellaheen into the prison and +beseize their goods? And I answer, howadji, he will. Wherefore my eyes +are tearing, for the men who have so unlucklessly--" + +"Hold on!" exhorted Kirby; albeit despairing of opening the mind of a +man whose forebears for thousands of years had lived in a land where the +_corvee_--forced labour--was a hallowed institution; and where the money +of employers could always enlist the aid of government soldiery to keep +the fellaheen at their tasks. "Hold on! That sort of thing is dead and +done with. Even in the East. Chinese Gordon stamped out the last of it, +in Egypt, years ago. If a man doesn't want to work, he can't be forced +to. All his boss can do is to fire him and try to get some one in his +place. When a whole factory of men strike--especially if there are any +big contract orders to fill in a rush--the employers sometimes find it +cheaper to give them what they want than to call in untrained +strikebreakers. On the other hand, sometimes, the boss can bring the men +to terms. It all depends." + +Yielding to the human joy of imparting instruction to so interested a +listener, Kirby launched forth into an elaboration of his theme; trying +to expound something of the capital-and-labour situation to his +follower; and secretly wondering at the keen zest wherewith his words +were listened to. + +Seldom was Kirby so successful in making Najib follow so long an +oration. And he was pleased with his own new-found powers of explaining +Occidental customs to an Oriental mind. + +Now, Logan Kirby knew the tangled Syrian character and its myriad queer +slants, as well as it can be given to a white man to know it. Kirby's +father had been a missionary, at Nablous. He himself had been born +there, and had spent his boyhood at the mission. That was why--after he +had completed his engineering course at Columbia's school of mines and +had served an apprenticeship in Colorado and Arizona--the Cabell +Smelting Company of New York had sent him out to the Land of Moab, as +manager of its new-acquired little antimony mine. + +The mine--a mere prospect shaft--was worked by about thirty +fellaheen--native labourers--supervised by a native guard of twelve +Turkish soldiers. Small as was the plant, it was a rich property and it +was piling up dividends for the Cabells. Antimony, in the East, is used +in a score of ways--from its employment in the form of kohl, for the +darkening of women's eyes, to the chemical by-products, always in demand +by Syrian apothecaries. + +This was the only antimony mine between Aden and Germany. Its shipments +were in constant demand. Its revenues were a big item on the credit side +of the Cabell ledger. + +Kirby's personal factotum, as well as superintendent of the mine, was +this squat little Syrian, Najib, who had once spent two blissfully +useless years with an All Nations Show, at Coney Island; and who there +had picked up a language which he proudly believed to be English; and +which he spoke exclusively when talking with the manager. + +Kirby's rare knowledge of the East had enabled the mine to escape ruin a +score of times where a manager less conversant with Oriental ways must +have blundered into some fatal error in the handling of his men or in +dealing with the local authorities. + +Remember, please, that in the East it is the seemingly insignificant +things which bring disaster to the feringhee, or foreigner. For example, +many an American or European has met unavenged death because he did not +realize that he was heaping vile affront upon his Bedouin host by eating +with his left hand. Many a foreign manager of labour has lost instant +and complete control over his fellaheen by deigning to wash his own +shirt in the near-by river or for brushing the dirt from his own +clothes. Thereby he has proved himself a labourer, instead of a master +of men. Many a foreigner has been shot or stabbed for speaking to a +native whom he thought afflicted with a fit and who was really engaged +in prayer. Many more have lost life or authority by laughing at the +wrong time or by glancing--with entire absence of interest, perhaps--at +some passing woman. + +Yes, Kirby had been invaluable to his employers by virtue of his inborn +knowledge of Syrian ways. Yet, now, he was not enough of an Oriental to +understand why his lecture on the strike system should thrill his +listener. + +He did not pause to realize that the idea of strikes was one which +carries a true appeal to the Eastern imagination. It has all the +elements of revenge, of coercion, and of trapping, of wily +give-and-take, and of simple and logical gambling uncertainty, which +characterize the most popular of the Arabian Nights yarns and which have +made those tales remain as Syrian classics for more than ten centuries. + +"It is of an assuredly a pleasing and noble plan," applauded Najib when +Kirby finished the divers ramifications of his discourse. "And I do not +misdoubt but what that cruel general betrembled himself inside of his +boots when they threatened to strike. If the stroking ones may not be +lawfully attackled by the pashalik troops, indeed must the general--" + +"I told you there wasn't any general!" interrupted Kirby, jarred that +his luminous explanations had still left Najib more or less where it +found him, so far as any lucid idea was concerned. "And I've wasted +enough time trying to ding the notion of the thing into your thick head. +If you've got those shipment items catalogued, go back to the shaft and +check off the inventory. The first load ought to be on the way to the +coast before sunrise to-morrow. Chase!" + +As he picked up the duplicate sets of the list and ran over their items +once more, Kirby tried to forget his own silly annoyance at his failure +to make the dull little Syrian comprehend a custom that had never +reached the Land of Moab. + +Presently, in his absorption in his work, the American forgot the whole +incident. It was the beginning of a rush period at the mine--the busiest +month in its history was just setting in. The Alexandretta-bound +shipment of the morrow was but the first of twelve big shipments +scheduled for the next twenty-nine days. + +The restoration of peace and the shutting out of several Central +European rivals had thrown an unprecedented sheaf of rush orders on the +Cabell mine. It was such a chance as Kirby had longed for; a chance to +show his rivals' customers the quality of the Cabell product and the +speed and efficiency wherewith orders could and would be filled by him. +If he could but fill these new customers' orders in quicker and more +satisfactory fashion than the firms were accustomed to receiving, it +might well mean that the new buyers would stick to the Cabells, after +the other mines should again be in operation. + +It was a big chance, as Kirby had explained at some length to Najib, +during the past few weeks. At his behest, the little superintendent had +used every known method to get extra work and extra speed out of the +fellaheen; and, by judicious baksheesh, had even impressed to the toil +several members of the haughty, Turkish guard and certain folk from the +nearest hill village. + +As a result, the first shipment was ready for the muleteers to carry +coastward a full week ahead of schedule time. And the contract chanced +to be one for which the eager wholesalers at Alexandretta had agreed to +pay a bonus for early arrival. The men were even now busy getting a +second shipment in shape for transportation by mule train to Tiberias +and thence by railway to Damascus. + +The work was progressing finely. Kirby thrilled at the thought. And he +was just a little ashamed of his own recent impatience at Najib, when he +remembered how the superintendent was pushing the relays of consignments +along. After all, he mused, it was no reflection on Najib's intelligence +that the poor little chap could not grasp the whole involved Occidental +strike system in one hasty lecture; and that his simple mind clung to +the delusion that there was some fierce general involved in it. In the +Arabian Nights was there not always a scheming sultan or a baffled +wazir, in every clash with the folk of the land? Was it unnatural that +Najib should have substituted for these the mythical general of whom he +thought he had seen mention in the news headline? + +But, soon after dusk, Kirby had reason to know that his words had not +all fallen on barren soil. At close of the working day, Najib had +brought the manager the usual diurnal report from the mine. Now, after +supper, Kirby, glancing over the report again, found a gap of terse yet +complete reports. And occasionally Kirby was obliged to summon his +henchman to correct or amend the day's tally sheet. + +Wherefore, the list in his hand, the American strolled down from his own +knoll-top tent toward Najib's quarters. As Najib was superintendent, and +thus technically an official, Kirby could make such domiciliary visits +without loss of prestige, instead of summoning the Syrian to his +presence by handclap of by messenger, as would have been necessary in +dealing with any of the other employees. + +Najib's hut lay a hundred yards beyond the hollow where the fellaheen +and soldiers were encamped. For Najib, too, had a dignity to uphold. He +might no more lodge or break bread with his underlings than might Kirby +with him. Yet, at times, preparatory to pattering up the knoll for his +wonted evening chat with the American at the latter's campfire, Najib +would so far unbend as to pause at the fellaheen's camp for a native +discussion of many gestures and much loud talking. + +So it was to-night. Just outside the radius of the fellaheen's +firelight, Kirby paused. For he heard Najib's shrill voice uplifted in +speech. And amusedly he halted and prepared to turn back. He had no wish +to break in upon a harangue so interesting as the speaker seemed to find +this one. + +Najib's voice was pitched far above the tones of normal Eastern +conversation;--louder and more excited even than that of a professional +story-teller. In Syria it is hard to believe that these professionals +are merely telling an oft-heard Arabian Nights narrative; and not +indulging in delirium or apoplexy. + +Yet at a stray word of Najib's, Kirby checked involuntarily his own +retreat; and paused again to look back. There stood Najib, in the center +of the firelit circle; hands and head in wild motion. Around him, +spell-bound, squatted the ring of his dark-faced and unwashed hearers. +The superintendent, being with his own people, was orating in pure +Arabic--or, rather, in the colloquial vernacular which is as close to +pure Arabic as one can expect to hear, except among the remoter +Bedouins. + +"Thus it is!" he was declaiming. "Even as I have sought to show you, oh, +addle-witted offspring of mangy camels and one-eyed mules! In that far +country, when men are dissatisfied with their wage, they take counsel +together and they say, one unto the other: 'Lo, we shall labour no more, +unless our hire be greater and our toil hours less!' Then go they to +their sheikh or whomever he be who hath hired them, and they say to him: +'Oh, favoured of Allah, behold we must have such and such wage and such +and such hours of labour!' Then doth their sheikh cast ashes upon his +beard and rend his garments. For doth he not know his fate is upon him +and that his breath is in his nostrils? Yet will they not listen to his +prayers; but at once they make 'strike.' + +"Then doth their sheikh betake himself to the pasha with his grievance; +beseeching the pasha, with many rich gifts, that he will throw those +strike-making labourers into prison and scourge their kinsmen with the +kourbash. But the pasha maketh answer, with tears: 'Lo, I am helpless! +What saith the law? It saith that a man may make strike at will; and +that his employer must pay what is demanded!' Now, this pasha is named +'General.' And his heart is as gall within him that he may not accept +the rich gifts offered by the sheikh; and punish the labourers. Yet the +law restraineth him. Then the sheikh, perchance, still refuseth the +demands of his toilers. And they say to him then: 'If you will not +employ us and on the terms we ordain, then shall ye hire none others, +for we shall overthrow those whom you set in our places. And perchance +we shall destroy your warehouses or barns or shops!' This say they, when +they know he hath greatest need of them. Then boweth their master his +head upon his breast and saith: 'Be it even as ye will, my hirelings! +For I must obey!' And he giveth them, of his substance, whatsoever they +may require. And all are glad. And under the new law, even in this land +of ours, none may imprison or beat those who will not work. And all may +demand and receive what wage they will. And--" + +And Kirby waited to hear no more. With a groan of disgust at the +orator's imbecility, he went back, up the hill, to his own tent. + +There, he drew forth his rickety sea chair and placed it in front of a +patch of campfire that twinkled in the open space in front of the tent +door. For, up there in the hills, the nights had an edge of chill to +them; be the days ever so hot. + +Stretching himself out lazily in his long chair, Kirby exhumed from a +shirt pocket his disreputable brier pipe, and filled and lighted it. The +big white Syrian stars glinted down on him from a black velvet sky. +Along the nearer peaks and hollows of the Moab Mountains, the knots of +prowling jackals kept up a running chorus of yapping--a discordant chant +punctuated now and then by the far-away howl of a hunting wolf; or, by +the choking "laugh" of a hyena in the valley below, who thus gave forth +the news of some especially delicious bit of carrion discovered among +the rocks. + +And Kirby was reminded of Najib's quoted dictum that "laughter is for +women and for hyenas." The memory brought back to him his squat +henchman's weird jumbling of the strike system. And he smiled in +reminiscent mirth. + +The Syrian had been his comrade in many a vicissitude And he knew that +Najib's fondness for him was as sincere as can be that of any Oriental +for a foreigner, an affection based not wholly on self-interest. Kirby +enjoyed his evening powwows with superintendent beside the campfire; and +the little man's amazing faculty for mangling the English tongue. + +He rather missed Najib's presence to-night. But he was not to miss it +for long. Just as he was about to knock out his pipe and go to bed, the +native came pattering up the slope on excitedly rapid feet; and squatted +as usual on the ground beside the American's lounging chair. In Najib's +manner there was a scarce-repressed jubilant thrill. His beady eyes +shone wildly. Hardly had he seated himself when he broke the custom of +momentary grave silence by blurting forth: + +"Furthermore, howadji, I am the bearer of gladly tidings which will make +you to beshout yourself aloud for joyfulness and leap about and +besclaim: 'Pretty fair!' and other words of a grand rapture. For the +bird will sing gleesome dirges in your heart!" + +"Well?" queried Kirby in no especial excitement. "I'm listening. But if +the news is really so wonderful you surely took your time in bringing +it. I've been here all evening, while you've stayed below there, trying +to increase those fellaheens' stock of ignorance. What's the idea?" + +"Oh, I prythee you, do not let my awayness beget your goat, howadji!" +pleaded Najib, ever sensitive to any hint of reproof from his master. +"It was that which made the grand tidings. If I had not of been where I +have been this evening--and doing what I have done--there would not be +any tidings at all. I made the tidings myself. Both of them. And I made +them for _you._ Is it that I may now tell them to you, howadji?" + +"Go ahead," adjured Kirby, humouring the wistful eagerness of the man. +"What's the news you have for me?" + +"It is more than just a 'news,' howadji," corrected Najib with jealous +regard for shades of meaning. "It is a tidings. And it is this: You and +my poor self and the fellaheen and even those hell-selected pashalik +soldiers--we are all to be rich. Most especially _you,_ howadji. +Wealthiness bewaits us all. No longer shall any of us be downward and +outward from povertude. No more shall any of us toil early and +belatedly. We shall all live in easiness of hours and with much payment. +_Inshallah! Alhandulillah!"_ he concluded, his rising excitement for +once bursting the carefully nourished bounds of English and overflowing +into Arabic expletive. + +Noting his own lapse into his native language, he looked sheepishly at +Kirby, as though hoping the American had not heard the break. Then, with +mounting eagerness, Najib struck the climax of his narrative. + +"To speak with a briefness, howadji," he proclaimed grandiloquently. "We +have all stroked ourselfs!" + +"You've all done--what?" asked the puzzled Kirby. + +"Not we alone, howadji," amended Najib, "but you also! We would not +berich ourselves and leave you outward in the plan. It is you also who +are to stroke yourself. And--" + +"For the love of Heaven!" exclaimed Kirby in sudden loss of patience. +"What are you driving at? What do you mean about 'stroking yourselves'? +Say it in Arabic. Then perhaps I can find what you mean." + +"It is not to be said in the Arabic, howadji," returned Najib, wincing +at this slur on his English. "For there is not such a thing in the +Arabic as to make strike. We make strike. Thus I say it we 'stroke +ourselves.' If it is the wrong way for saying it--" + +"Strike?" repeated Kirby, perplexed. "What do you mean? Are you still +thinking about what I told you to-day? If you are going--" + +"I have bethought of it, howadji, ever since," was the reply. "And it is +because of my much bethoughting that I found my splenderous plan. That +is my tidings. I bethought it all out with tremense clearness and +wiseness. Then I told those others, down yonder. At first they were of a +stupidity. For it was so new. But at last I made them understand. And +they rejoiced of it. So it is all settled most sweetly. You may not fear +that they will not stand by it. As soon as that was made sure I came to +you to tell--" + +"Najib!" groaned Kirby, his head awhirl. "_Will_ you stop chewing chunks +of indigestible language, and tell me what you are jabbering about? What +was it you thought over? And what is 'all settled'? What will--" + +"The strike, of an assuredly," explained Najib, as if in pity of his +chief's denseness. "To-night we make strike. All of us. That is one +tiding. And you, too, make strike with us. That is the other tiding. +Making two tidings. We make strike. To-morrow we all sleep late. No work +is to be made. And so it shall be, on each dear and nice and happy day, +until Cabell Effendi--be his sons an hundred and his wives true!--shall +pay us the money we ask and make short our hours of toil. Then--" + +Kirby sought to speak. But his breath was gone. He only gobbled. Taking +the wordless sound for a token of high approval, Najib hastened on, more +glibly, with his program. + +"On the to-morrow's morning, howadji," he said, "we enseech that you +will write a sorrowsome letter to Cabell Effendi, in the Broad Street of +New York; and say to him that all of us have made strike and that we +shall work no more until we have from his hands a writing that our +payment shall be two mejidie for every mejidie we have been capturing +from his company. Also and likewise that we shall work but half time. +And that you, howadji, are to receive even as we; save only that _your_ +wage is to be enswollen to three times over than what it is now. And say +to him, howadji, that unless he does our wish in this striking we shall +slay all others whom he may behire in our place and that we shall +dynamitely destroy that nice mine. Remind him, howadji--if perchancely +he does not know of such things--that the law is with us. Say, +moreoverly, that there be many importanceful shipments and contracts +just now. And say he will lose all if he be so bony of head as to refuse +us. Furthermore, howadji, tell him, I prythee you, that we--" + +A veritable yell from Kirby broke in on the smug instructions. The +American had recovered enough of his breath to expend a lungful of it in +one profane bellow. In a flash he visualized the whole scene at the +fellaheens' quarters--Najib's crazy explanation of the strike system and +of the supposed immunity from punishment that would follow sabotage and +other violence; the fellaheens' duller brains gradually seizing on the +idea until it had become as much a part of their mucilaginous mentality +as the Koran itself; and Najib's friendly desire that Kirby might share +in the golden benefits of the new scheme. + +Yes, the American grasped the whole thing at once; his knowledge of the +East foretelling to him its boundless possibilities for mischief and for +the ruin of the mine's new prosperity. He fairly strangled with the gust +of wrath and impotent amaze which gripped him. + +Najib smiled up at him as might a dog that had just performed some +pretty new trick, or a child who has brought to its father a gift. But +the aspect of Kirby's distorted face there in the dying firelight +shocked the Syrian into a grunt of terror. Scrambling to his feet, he +sputtered quaveringly. + +"Tame yourself, howadji, I enseech you! Why are you not rejoiceful? Will +it not mean much money for you; and--" + +"You mangy brown rat!" shouted Kirby in fury. "What in blazes have you +done? You know, as well as I do, that such an idea will never get out of +those fellaheens' skulls, once it's really planted there. They'll +believe every word of that wall-eyed rot you've been telling them! And +they'll go on a _genuine_ strike on the strength of it. They'll--" + +"Of an assuredly, howadji, they will," assented the bewildered Najib. "I +made me very assured of that. Four times I told it all over to them, +until even poor Imbarak--whose witfulness hath been beblown out from his +brain by the breath of the Most High--until even Imbarak understood. But +why it should enrouse you to a lionsome raging I cannot think. I +bethought you would be pleasured--" + +"Listen to me!" ordered Kirby, fighting hard for self-control and +forcing himself to speak with unnatural slowness. "You've done more +damage than if you had dynamited the whole mine and then turned a river +into the shaft. This kind of news spreads. In a week there won't be a +worker east of the Jordan who won't be a strike fan. And these people +here will work the idea a step farther. I know them. They'll decide that +if one strike is good, two strikes are better. And they will strike +every week--loafing between times." + +This prospect brought a grin of pure bliss to Najib's swarthy face. He +looked in new admiration upon his farsighted chief. Kirby went on: + +"Not that that will concern us. For this present strike will settle the +Cabell mine. It means ruin to our business here, and the loss of all +your jobs, as well as my own. Why, you idiot, can't you see what you've +done? If you don't take that asinine grin off your ugly face, I'll knock +it off!" he burst out, his hard-held patience momentarily fraying. + +Then, taking new hold on his self-control, Kirby began again to talk. As +if addressing a defective child, which, as a matter of fact, he was +doing, he expounded the hideous situation. + +He explained the disloyalty to the Cabells of such a move as Najib had +planned. He pointed out the pride he and Najib had taken in the new +business they had secured for the home office; and the fact that this +new business had brought an increase of pay to them both as well as to +the fellaheen. He showed how great a triumph for the mine was this vast +increase of business; and the stark necessity of impressing the new +customers by the promptitude and uniform excellence of all shipments. He +pointed out the utter collapse to this and to all the rest of the mine's +connections which a strike would entail. Najib listened unmoved. + +Hopeless of hammering American ethics into the brain of an Oriental, +Kirby set off at a new angle. He explained the loss of prestige and +position which he himself would suffer. He would be +discharged--probably by cable--for allowing the mine's bourgeoning +prosperity to go to pieces in such fashion. Another and less lenient and +understanding manager would be sent out to take his place. A manager +whose first official act would probably be the discharging of Najib as +the cause of the whole trouble. + +Najib listened to this with a new interest, but with no great +conviction. + +Even Kirby's declaration that the ridiculous strike be a failure, and +that the government would assuredly punish any damage done to the Cabell +property, did not serve to impress him. Najib was a Syrian. An idea once +firm-rooted in his mind, was loathe to let itself be torn thence by mere +words. Kirby waxed desperate. + +"You have wrecked this whole thing!" he stormed. "You got an idiotically +wrong slant on what I told you about strikes to-day; and you have ruined +us all. Even if you should go down there to the quarters this minute and +tell the men that you were mistaken and that the strike is off--you know +they wouldn't believe you. And you know they would go straight ahead +with the thing. That's the Oriental of it. They'd refuse to go on +working. And our shipments wouldn't be delivered. None of the ore for +the next shipments would be mined. The men would just hang about, +peacefully waiting for the double pay and the half time that you've +promised them." + +"Of an assuredly, that is true, howadji," conceded Najib. "They would--" + +"They _will_!" corrected Kirby with grim hopelessness. + +"But soon Cabell Effendi will reply to your letter," went on Najib. "And +then the double paying--" + +"To my letter!" mocked the raging Kirby. + +Then he paused, a sudden inspiration smiting him. + +"Najib," he continued after a minute of concentrated thought, "you have +sense enough to know one thing: You have sense enough to know you people +can't get that extra pay till I write to Mr. Cabell and demand it for +you. There's not another one of you who can write English. There's no +one here but yourself who can speak or understand it or make shift to +spell out a few English words in print And Mr. Cabell doesn't know a +word of Arabic--let alone the Arabic script. And your own two years at +Coney Island must have shown you that no New Yorkers would know how to +read an Arabic letter to him. Now I swear to you, by every Christian and +Moslem oath, that _I_ shan't write such a letter! So how are you going +to get word to him that you people are on strike and that you won't do +another lick of work till you get double pay and half time? How are you +going to do that?" + +Najib's solid face went blank. Here at last was an argument that struck +home. He had known Kirby for years, long enough to know that the +American was most emphatically a man of his word. If Kirby swore he +would not act as the men's intermediary with the company, then +decisively Kirby would keep his oath. And Najib realized the futility of +getting any one else to write such a letter in any language which the +Cabell Smelting Company's home office would decipher. + +He peered up at Kirby with disconsolate astonishment. Quick to take +advantage of the change, the manager hurried on: + +"Now, the men are on strike. That's understood. Well what are you and +they going to do about it? When the draft for the monthly pay roll comes +to the bank, at Jerusalem as usual, I shall refuse to indorse it. I give +you my oath on that, too. I am not going to distribute the company's +cash among a bunch of strikers. Without my signature, the bank won't +cash the draft. You know that. Well, how are you going to live, all of +you, on nothing a month? When the present stock of provisions gives out +I'm not going to order them renewed. And the provision people in +Jerusalem won't honour any one's order for them but mine. This is the +only concern in Syria to-day that pays within forty per cent, of the +wages you chaps are getting. With no pay and no food you're due to find +your strike rather costly. For when the mine shuts down I'm going back +to America. There'll be nothing to keep me here. I'll be ruined, in any +case. You people will find yourself without money or provisions. And if +you go elsewhere for work it will be at a pay that is only a little more +than half what you are getting now. Your lookout isn't cheery, my +striking friend!" + +He made as though to go into his tent. After a brief pause of horror, +Najib pattered hurriedly and beseechingly in his wake. + +"Howadji!" pleaded the Syrian shakily. _"Howadji!_ You would not, in the +untamefulness of your mad, desertion us like that? Not _me_, at anyhow? +Not me, who have loved you as Daoud the Emir loved Jonathan of old! You +would not forsook me, to starve myself! _Aie! Ohe!_" + +"Shut up that ungodly racket!" snapped Kirby, entering his tent and +lighting his lamp, as the first piercing notes of the traditional +mourner chant exploded through the unhappy Najib's wide-flung jaws. +"Shut up! You'll start every hyena and jackal in the mountains to +howling! It's bad enough as it is without adding a native concert to the +rest of the mess." + +"But, howadji!" pleaded Najib. + +_"Taman!"_ growled Kirby, summarily speaking the age-hallowed Arabic +word for the ending of all interviews. + +"But I shall be beruinated, howadji!" tearfully insisted Najib. + +Covertly the American watched his henchman while pretending to make +ready for bed. If he had fully and permanently scared Najib into a +conviction that the strike would spell ruin for the Syrian himself, then +the little man's brain might possibly be jarred into one of its rare +intervals of uncanny craftiness; and Najib might hit upon some way of +persuading the fellaheen that the strike was off. + +This was Kirby's sole hope. And he knew it. Unless the fellaheen could +be so convinced, it meant the strike would continue until it should +break the mine as well as the mine's manager. Kirby knew of no way to +persuade the men. The same arguments which had crushed Najib would mean +nothing to them. All their brains could master at one time, without the +aid of some uprooting shock, was that henceforth they were to get double +pay and half labour. + +A calm fatalism of hopelessness, bred perhaps of his long residence in +the homeland of fatalism began to creep over Kirby. In one hour his +golden ambitions for the mine and for himself had been smashed. At best +he saw no hope of getting the obsessed mine crew to work soon enough to +save his present contracts. He would be lucky if, on non-receipt of +their demanded increase, they did not follow Najib's muddled preachments +to the point of sabotage. + +The more he thought of it, the less possible did it seem to Kirby that +Najib could undo the damage he had so blithely done. Ordering the +blubbering little fellow out of the tent and refusing to speak or listen +further, Kirby went to bed. + +Oddly enough, he slept. There was nothing to worry about. When a man's +job or fortune are imperilled sleep vanishes. But after the catastrophe +what sense is there in lying awake? Depression and nervous fatigue threw +Kirby into a troubled slumber. Only once in the night was he roused. + +Perhaps two hours before dawn he started up at sound of a humble +scratching at the open door flap of his tent. On the threshold cowered +Najib. + +"Furthermore, howadji," came the Syrian's woe-begone voice through the +gloom, "could I borrow me a book if I shall use it with much +carefulness?" + +Too drowsy to heed the absurdity of such a plea at such an hour, Kirby +grumbled a surly assent, and dozed again as he heard Najib rumbling, in +the dark, among the shelves of the packing-box bookcase in a far corner +of the tent. Here were stored nearly a hundred old volumes which had +once been a part of the missionary library belonging to Kirby's father +at Nablous. A few years earlier, at the moving of the mission, the dead +missionary's scanty library had been shipped across country to his son. + +Kirby awoke at greyest daylight. Through force of habit he woke at this +hour; in spite of the workless day which he knew confronted him. It was +his custom to get up and take his bath in the rain cistern at this time, +and to finish dressing just as the men piled out for the morning's work. + +Yet now the first sounds that smote his ears as he opened his eyes were +the rhythmic creak of the mine windlass and equally rhythmic, if less +tuneful, chant of the men who were working it; + +_"All-ah sa-eed!--Ne-bi sa-eed! Ohe! Sa-eed! Sa-eed! Sa-EED!"_ + +In the distance, dying away, he heard the plodding hoofs of a string of +pack mules. From the direction of the mine came the hoodlum racket which +betokens, in Syria, the efforts of a number of honest labourers to +perform their daily tasks in an efficient and orderly way. + +Kirby, in sleepy amaze, looked at his watch in the dim dawn light. He +saw it was still a full half hour before the men were due to begin work. +And by the sounds he judged that the day's labour was evidently well +under way. Yes, and to-day there was to have been no work done! + +Kirby jumped out of bed and strode dazedly to his tent door. At the mine +below him his fellaheen were as busy as so many dirty and gaudy bees. +Even the lordly lazy Turkish soldiers were lending a hand at windlass +and crane. Over the nick of the pass, leading toward Jerusalem, the last +animal of a mule train was vanishing. Najib, who had as usual escorted +the departing shipment of ore to the opening in the pass, was trotting +back toward camp. + +At sight of Kirby in the tent door the little superintendent veered from +his course toward the mine and increased his pace to a run as he bore +down upon the American. Najib's swart face was aglow. But his eyes were +those of a man who has neglected to sleep. His cheeks still bore flecks +of the dust he had thrown on his head when Kirby had explained the wreck +of his scheme and of his future. There, in all likelihood, the dust +smears would remain until the next rain should wash them off. But, +beyond these tokens of recent mental strife, Najib's visage shone like +a full moon that is streaked by dun dust clouds. + +"Furthermore, howadji!" he hailed his chief as soon as he was within +earshot, "the shipment for Alexandretta is on its wayward--over than an +hour earlier than it was due to bestart itself. And those poor +hell-selected fellaheen are betoiling themselfs grand. Have I done well, +oh, howadji?" + +"Najib!" stammered Kirby, still dazed. + +"And here is that most sweet book of great worthiness and wit, which I +borrowed me of you in the night, howadji," pursued Najib, taking from +the soiled folds of his abieh a large old volume, bound in stout +leather, after the manner of religious or scientific books of a +half-century ago. On the brown back a scratched gold lettering +proclaimed the gruesome title: + +"Martyrs of Ancient and Modern Error." + +Well did Kirby know the tome. Hundreds of times, as a child, had he sat +on the stone floor of his father's cell-like mission study at Nablous, +and had pored in shuddering fascination over its highly coloured +illustrations. The book was a compilation--chiefly in the form of +multichrome pictures with accompanying borders of text--of all the +grisly scenes of martyrdom which the publishers had been able to scrape +together from such classics as "Fox's Book of Martyrs" and the like. +Twice this past year he had surprised Najib scanning the gruesome pages +in frank delight. + +"I betook the book to their campfire, howadji, and I smote upon my +breast and I bewept me and I wailed aloud and I would not make comfort. +Till at last they all awoken and they came out of their huts and they +reviled at me for disturbing them as they slept themselfs so happily. +Then I spake much to them. And all the time I teared with my eyes and +moaned aloudly. + +"But," put in Kirby, "I don't see what this--" + +"In a presently you shall, howadji. Yesterday I begot your goat. To-day +I shall make you to frisk with peacefulness of heart. Those fellaheen +cannot read. They are not of an education, as I am. And they know my +wiseness in reading. For over than a trillion times I have told them. +And they believe. Pictures also they believe. Just as men of an +education believe the printed word; knowing full well it could not be +printed if it were not Allah's own truth. Well, these folk believe a +picture, if it be in a book. So I showed them pictures. And I read the +law which was beneath the pictures. They heard me read. And they saw the +pictures with their own eyesight. So what could they do but believe? And +they did. Behold, howadji!" + +Opening the volume with respectful care, Najib thumbed the yellowing +pages. Presently he paused at a picture which represented in glaring +detail a stricken battlefield strewn with dead and dying Orientals of +vivid costume. In the middle distance a regiment of prisoners was being +slaughtered in a singularly bloodthirsty fashion. The caption, above the +cut, read: + +_"Destruction of Sennacherib's Assyrian Hosts, by the People of +Israel."_ + +"While yet they gazed joyingly on this noble picture," remarked Najib, +"I read to them the words of the law about it. I read aloudly, thus: +'This shall be the way of punishing all folk who make strike hereafter +this date.' Then," continued Najib, "I showed to them another pretty and +splendid picture. See!" + +_"Martyrdom of John Rogers, His Wife and Their Nine Children."_ + +"And," proclaimed Najib, "of this sweet portrait I read thus the law: +'So shall the wifes and the offsprungs of all strike-makers be put to +death; and those wicked strike-makers themselfs along with them.' By the +time I had shown them six or fifteen of such pictures and read them the +law for each of them, those miserable fellaheen and guards were +beweeping themselfs harder and louder and sadder than I had seemed to. +Why, howadji, it was with a difficultness that I kept them from running +away and enhiding themselfs in the mountains, lest the soldiers of the +pasha come upon them at once and punish them for trying to make strike! +But I said I would intercede with you to make you merciful of heart +toward them, to spare them and not to tell the law what they had so +sinsomely planned to do I said I would do this, for mine own sake as +well as for theirs, and that I knew I could wake you to pity. But I said +it would perchancely soften your heart toward them, if all should work +harder to atone themselfs for the sin they had beplotted. Wherefore, +howadji, they would consent to sleep no more; but they ran henceforthly +and at once to the mine. They have been onto the job ever since. And, +howadji, they are jobbing harder than ever I have seen men bejob +themselfs. Am I forgiven, howadji?" he finished timidly. + +"Forgiven!" yelled Kirby, when he could speak. "Why, you eternal little +liar, you're a genius! My hat is off to you! This ought to be worth a +fifty-mejidie bonus. And--" + +"Instead of the bonus, howadji," ventured Najib, scared at his own +audacity, yet seeking to take full advantage of this moment of +expansiveness, "could I have this pleasing book as a baksheesh gift?" + +"Take it!" vouchsafed Kirby. "The thing gives me bad dreams. Take it!" + +"May the houris make soft your bed in the Paradise of the Prophet!" +jabbered Najib, in a frenzy of gratitude, as he hugged the treasured +gift to his breast. "And--and, howadji, there be more pictures I did not +show. They will be of a nice convenience, if ever again it be needsome +to make a new law for the mine." + +"But--" + +"Oh, happy and pretty decent hour!" chortled the little man, petting his +beloved volume as if it were a loved child and executing a shuffling and +improvised step-dance of unalloyed rapture. "This book has been +donationed to me because I was brave enough to request for it while yet +your heart was warm at me, howadji. It is even as your sainted feringhee +proverb says: 'Never put off till to-morrow the--the--man who may be +done, to-day!'" + + + + +THE ELEPHANT REMEMBERS + + +By EDISON MARSHALL + +From _Everybody's Magazine_ + +An elephant is old on the day he is born, say the natives of Burma, and +no white man is ever quite sure just what they mean. Perhaps they refer +to his pink, old-gentleman's skin and his droll, fumbling, old-man ways +and his squeaking treble voice. And maybe they mean he is born with a +wisdom such as usually belongs only to age. And it is true that if any +animal in the world has had a chance to acquire knowledge it is the +elephant, for his breed are the oldest residents of this old world. + +They are so old that they don't seem to belong to the twentieth century +at all. Their long trunks, their huge shapes, all seem part of the +remote past. They are just the remnants of a breed that once was great. + +Long and long ago, when the world was very young indeed, when the +mountains were new, and before the descent of the great glaciers taught +the meaning of cold, they were the rulers of the earth, but they have +been conquered in the struggle for existence. Their great cousins, the +mastodon and the mammoth, are completely gone, and their own tribe can +now be numbered by thousands. + +But because they have been so long upon the earth, because they have +wealth of experience beyond all other creatures, they seem like +venerable sages in a world of children. They are like the last veterans +of an old war, who can remember scenes and faces that all others have +forgotten. + +Far in a remote section of British India, in a strange, wild province +called Burma, Muztagh was born. And although he was born in captivity, +the property of a mahout, in his first hour he heard the far-off call +of the wild elephants in the jungle. + +The Burmans, just like the other people of India, always watch the first +hour of a baby's life very closely. They know that always some incident +will occur that will point, as a weather-vane points in the wind, to the +baby's future. Often they have to call a man versed in magic to +interpret, but sometimes the prophecy is quite self-evident. No one +knows whether or not it works the same with baby elephants, but +certainly this wild, far-carrying call, not to be imitated by any living +voice, did seem a token and an omen in the life of Muztagh. And it is a +curious fact that the little baby lifted his ears at the sound and +rocked back and forth on his pillar legs. + +Of all the places in the great world, only a few remain wherein a +captive elephant hears the call of his wild brethren at birth. Muztagh's +birthplace lies around the corner of the Bay of Bengal, not far from the +watershed of the Irawadi, almost north of Java. It is strange and wild +and dark beyond the power of words to tell. There are great dark +forests, unknown, slow-moving rivers, and jungles silent and dark and +impenetrable. + +Little Muztagh weighed a flat two hundred pounds at birth. But this was +not the queerest thing about him. Elephant babies, although usually +weighing not more than one hundred and eighty, often touch two hundred. +The queerest thing was a peculiarity that probably was completely +overlooked by his mother. If she saw it out of her dull eyes, she took +no notice of it. It was not definitely discovered until the mahout came +out of his hut with a lighted fagot for a first inspection. + +He had been wakened by the sound of the mother's pain. "_Hai!_" he had +exclaimed to his wife. "Who has ever heard a cow bawl so loud in labour? +The little one that to-morrow you will see beneath her belly must weigh +more than you!" + +This was rather a compliment to his plump wife. She was not offended at +all. Burman women love to be well-rounded. But the mahout was not +weighing the effect of his words. He was busy lighting his firebrand, +and his features seemed sharp and intent when the beams came out. Rather +he was already weighing the profits of little Muztagh. He was an +elephant-catcher by trade, in the employ of the great white Dugan Sahib, +and the cow that was at this moment bringing a son into the world was +his own property. If the baby should be of the Kumiria-- + +The mahout knew elephants from head to tail, and he was very well +acquainted with the three grades that compose the breed. The least +valuable of all are the Mierga--a light, small-headed, thin-skinned, +weak-trunked and unintelligent variety that are often found in the best +elephant herds. They are often born of the most noble parents, and they +are as big a problem to elephant men as razor-backs to hog-breeders. +Then there is a second variety, the Dwasala, that compose the great bulk +of the herd--a good, substantial, strong, intelligent grade of elephant. +But the Kumiria is the best of all; and when one is born in a captive +herd it is a time for rejoicing. He is the perfect elephant--heavy, +symmetrical, trustworthy and fearless--fitted for the pageantry of +kings. + +He hurried out to the lines, for now he knew that the baby was born. The +mother's cries had ceased. The jungle, dark and savage beyond ever the +power of man to tame, lay just beyond. He could feel its heavy air, its +smells; its silence was an essence. And as he stood, lifting the fagot +high, he heard the wild elephants trumpeting from the hills. + +He turned his head in amazement. A Burman, and particularly one who +chases the wild elephants in their jungles, is intensely superstitious, +and for an instant it seemed to him that the wild trumpeting must have +some secret meaning, it was so loud and triumphant and prolonged. It was +greatly like the far-famed elephant salute--ever one of the mysteries of +those most mysterious of animals--that the great creatures utter at +certain occasions and times. + +"Are you saluting this little one?" he cried. "He is not a wild tusker +like you. He is not a wild pig of the jungle. He is born in bonds, such +as you will wear too, after the next drive!" + +They trumpeted again, as if in scorn of his words. Their great strength +was given them to rule the jungle, not to haul logs and pull chains! The +man turned back to the lines and lifted higher his light. + +Yes--the little elephant in the light-glow was of the Kumiria. Never had +there been a more perfect calf. The light of greed sprang again in his +eyes. And as he held the fagot nearer so that the beams played in the +elephant's eyes and on his coat, the mahout sat down and was still, lest +the gods observe his good luck, and, being jealous, turn it into evil. + +The coat was not pinky dark, as is usual in baby elephants. It was +distinctly light-coloured--only a few degrees darker than white. + +The man understood at once. In the elephants, as well as in all other +breeds, an albino is sometimes born. A perfectly white elephant, up to a +few years ago, had never been seen, but on rare occasions elephants are +born with light-coloured or clouded hides. Such creatures are bought at +fabulous prices by the Malay and Siamese princes, to whom a white +elephant is the greatest treasure that a king can possess. + +Muztagh was a long way from being an albino, yet a tendency in that +direction had bleached his hide. And the man knew that on the morrow +Dugan Sahib would pay him a lifetime's earnings for the little wabbly +calf, whose welcome had been the wild cries of the tuskers in the +jungle. + + +II + +Little Muztagh (which means White Mountain in an ancient tongue) did not +enjoy his babyhood at all. He was born with the memory of jungle +kingdoms, and the life in the elephant lines almost killed him with +dulness. + +There was never anything to do but nurse of the strong elephant milk and +roam about in the _keddah_ or along the lines. He had been bought the +second day of his life by Dugan Sahib, and the great white heaven-born +saw to it that he underwent none of the risks that are the happy fate +of most baby elephants. His mother was not taken on the elephant drives +into the jungles, so he never got a taste of this exciting sport. Mostly +she was kept chained in the lines, and every day Langur Dass, the +low-caste hillman in Dugan's employ, grubbed grass for her in the +valleys. All night long, except the regular four hours of sleep, he +would hear her grumble and rumble and mutter discontent that her little +son shared with her. + +Muztagh's second year was little better. Of course he had reached the +age where he could eat such dainties as grass and young sugar-cane, but +these things could not make up for the fun he was missing in the hills. +He would stand long hours watching their purple tops against the skies, +and his little dark eyes would glow. He would see the storms break and +flash above them, behold the rains lash down through the jungles, and he +was always filled with strange longings and desires that he was too +young to understand or to follow. He would see the white haze steam up +from the labyrinth of wet vines, and he would tingle and scratch for the +feel of its wetness on his skin. And often, when the mysterious Burman +night came down, it seemed to him that he would go mad. He would hear +the wild tuskers trumpeting in the jungles a very long way off, and all +the myriad noises of the mysterious night, and at such times even his +mother looked at him with wonder. + +"Oh, little restless one," Langur Dass would say, "thou and that old cow +thy mother and I have one heart between us. We know the burning--we +understand, we three!" + +It was true that Langur Dass understood more of the ways of the forest +people than any other hillman in the encampment. But his caste was low, +and he was drunken and careless and lazy beyond words, and the hunters +had mostly only scorn for him. They called him Langur after a +grey-bearded breed of monkeys along the slopes of the Himalayas, rather +suspecting he was cursed with evil spirits, for why should any sane man +have such mad ideas as to the rights of elephants? He never wanted to +join in the drives--which was a strange thing indeed for a man raised in +the hills. Perhaps he was afraid--but yet they could remember a certain +day in the bamboo thickets, when a great, wild buffalo had charged their +camp and Langur Dass acted as if fear were something he had never heard +of and knew nothing whatever about. + +One day they asked him about it. "Tell us, Langur Dass," they asked, +mocking the ragged, dejected looking creature, "If thy name speaks +truth, thou art brother to many monkey-folk, and who knows the jungle +better than thou or they? None but the monkey-folk and thou canst talk +with my lord the elephant. _Hai!_ We have seen thee do it, Langur Dass. +How is it that when we go hunting, thou art afraid to come?" + +Langur looked at them out of his dull eyes, and evaded their question +just as long as he could. "Have you forgotten the tales you heard on +your mothers' breasts?" he asked at last. "Elephants are of the jungle. +You are of the cooking-pots and thatch! How should such folk as ye are +understand?" + +This was flat heresy from their viewpoint. There is an old legend among +the elephant-catchers to the effect that at one time men were subject to +the elephants. + +Yet mostly the elephants that these men knew were patient and contented +in their bonds. Mostly they loved their mahouts, gave their strong backs +willingly to toil, and were always glad and ready to join in the chase +after others of their breed. Only on certain nights of the year, when +the tuskers called from the jungles, and the spirit of the wild was +abroad, would their love of liberty return to them. But to all this +little Muztagh was distinctly an exception. Even though he had been born +in captivity, his desire for liberty was with him just as constantly as +his trunk or his ears. + +He had no love for the mahout that rode his mother. He took little +interest in the little brown boys and girls that played before his +stall. He would stand and look over their heads into the wild, dark +heart of the jungle that no man can ever quite understand. And being +only a beast, he did not know anything about the caste and prejudices +of the men he saw, but he did know that one of them, the low-caste +Langur Dass, ragged and dirty and despised, wakened a responsive chord +in his lonely heart. + +They would have long talks together, that is, Langur would talk and +Muztagh would mumble. "Little calf, little fat one," the man would say, +"can great rocks stop a tree from growing? Shall iron shackles stop a +prince from being king? Muztagh--jewel among jewels! Thy heart speaks +through those sleepless eyes of thine! Have patience--what thou knowest, +who shall take away from thee?" + +But most of the mahouts and catchers noticed the rapidity with which the +little Muztagh acquired weight and strength. He outweighed, at the age +of three, any calf of his season in the encampment by a full two hundred +pounds. And of course three in an elephant is no older than three in a +human child. He was still just a baby, even if he did have the wild +tuskers' love of liberty. + +"Shalt thou never lie the day long in the cool mud, little one? Never +see a storm break on the hills? Nor feel a warm rain dripping through +the branches? Or are these matters part of thee that none may steal?" +Langur Dass would ask him, contented to wait a very long time for his +answer. "I think already that thou knowest how the tiger steals away at +thy shrill note; how thickets feel that crash beneath thy hurrying +weight! A little I think thou knowest how the madness comes with the +changing seasons. How knowest thou these things? Not as I know them, who +have seen--nay, but as a king knows conquering; it's in thy blood! Is a +bundle of sugar-cane tribute enough for thee, Kumiria? Shall purple +trappings please thee? Shall some fat rajah of the plains make a beast +of burden of thee? Answer, lord of mighty memories!" + +And Muztagh answered in his own way, without sound or emphasis, but +giving his love to Langur Dass, a love as large as the big elephant +heart from which it had sprung. No other man could even win his +friendship. The smell of the jungle was on Langur Dass. The mahouts and +hunters smelt more or less of civilization and were convinced for their +part that the disposition of the little light-coloured elephant was +beyond redemption. + +"He is a born rogue," was their verdict, and they meant by that, a +particular kind of elephant, sometimes a young male, more often an old +and savage tusker alone in the jungle--apart from the herd. Solitariness +doesn't improve their dispositions, and they were generally expelled +from a herd for ill-temper to begin with. "Woe to the fool prince who +buys this one!" said the grey-beard catchers. "There is murder in his +eyes." + +But Langur Dass would only look wise when he heard these remarks. He +knew elephants. The gleam in the dark eyes of Muztagh was not +viciousness, but simply inheritance, a love of the wide wild spaces that +left no room for ordinary friendships. + +But calf-love and mother-love bind other animals as well as men, and +possibly he might have perfectly fulfilled the plans Dugan had made for +him but for a mistake the sahib made in the little calf's ninth year. + +He sold Muztagh's mother to an elephant-breeder from a distant province. +Little Muztagh saw her march away between two tuskers--down the long +elephant trail into the valley and the shadow. + +"Watch the little one closely to-night," Dugan Sahib said to his mahout. +So when they had led him back and forth along the lines, they saw that +the ends of his ropes were pegged down tightly. They were horsehair +ropes, far beyond the strength of any normal nine-year-old elephant to +break. Then they went to the huts and to their women and left him to +shift restlessly from foot to foot, and think. + +Probably he would have been satisfied with thinking, for Muztagh did not +know his strength, and thought he was securely tied. The incident that +upset the mahout's plans was simply that the wild elephants trumpeted +again from the hills. + +Muztagh heard the sound, long drawn and strange from the silence of the +jungle. He grew motionless. The great ears pricked forward, the whipping +tail stood still. It was a call never to be denied. The blood was +leaping in his great veins. + +He suddenly rocked forward with all his strength. The rope spun tight, +hummed, and snapped--very softly indeed. Then he padded in silence out +among the huts, and nobody who had not seen him do it would believe how +silently an elephant can move when he sees fit. + +There was no thick jungle here--just soft grass, huts, approaching dark +fringe that was jungle. None of the mahouts was awake to see him. No +voice called him back. The grass gave way to bamboo thickets, the smell +of the huts to the wild, bewitching perfumes of the jungle. + +Then, still in silence, because there are decencies to be observed by +animals no less than men, he walked forward with his trunk outstretched +into the primordial jungle and was born again. + + +III + +Muztagh's reception was cordial from the very first. The great bulls of +the herd stood still and lifted their ears when they heard him grunting +up the hill. But he slipped among them and was forgotten at once. They +had no dealings with the princes of Malay and Siam, and his +light-coloured coat meant nothing whatever to them. If they did any +thinking about him at all, it was just to wonder why a calf with all the +evident marks of a nine-year-old should be so tall and weigh so much. + +One can fancy that the great old wrinkled tusker that led the herd +peered at him now and then out of his little red eyes and wondered. A +herd-leader begins to think about future contestants for his place as +soon as he acquires the leadership. But _Hai!_ This little one would not +have his greatest strength for fifteen years. + +It was a compact, medium-sized herd--vast males, mothers, old-maid +elephants, long-legged and ungainly, young males just learning their +strength and proud of it beyond words, and many calves. They ranged all +the way in size from the great leader, who stood ten feet and weighed +nearly nine thousand pounds, to little two-hundred-and-fifty-pound +babies that had been born that season. And before long the entire herd +began its cautious advance into the deeper hills. + +The first night in the jungle--and Muztagh found it wonderful past all +dreams. The mist on his skin was the same cool joy he had expected. +There were sounds, too, that set his great muscles aquiver. He heard the +sound that the bamboos make--the little click-click of the stems in the +wind--the soft rustle and stir of many leafy tendrils entwining and +touching together, and the whisper of the wind over the jungle grass. +And he knew because it was his heritage, what every single one of these +sounds meant. + +The herd threaded through the dark jungle, and now they descended into a +cool river. A herd of deer--either the dark sambur or black buck--sprang +from the misty shore-line and leaped away into the bamboos. Farther +down, he could hear the grunt of buffalo. + +It was simply a caress--the touch of the soft, cool water on his flanks. +Then they reared out, like great sea-gods rising from the deep, and +grunted and squealed their way up the banks into the jungle again. + +But the smells were the book that he read best; he understood them even +better than the sounds of green things growing. Flowers that he could +not see hung like bells from the arching branches. Every fern and every +seeding grass had its own scent that told sweet tales. The very mud that +his four feet sank into emitted scent that told the history of +jungle-life from the world's beginnings. When dawn burst over the +eastern hills, he was weary in every muscle of his young body, but much +too happy to admit it. + +This day was just the first of three thousand joyous days. The jungle, +old as the world itself, is ever new. Not even the wisest elephant, who, +after all, is king of the jungle, knows what will turn up at the next +bend in the elephant trail. It may be a native woodcutter, whose long +hair is stirred with fright. It may easily be one of the great breed of +bears, large as the American grizzly, that some naturalists believe are +to be found in the Siamese and Burman jungles. It may be a herd of wild +buffalo, always looking for a fight, or simply some absurd +armadillo-like thing, to make him shake his vast sides with mirth. + +The herd was never still. They ranged from one mysterious hill to +another, to the ranges of the Himalayas and back again. There were no +rivers that they did not swim, no jungles that they did not penetrate, +no elephant trails that they did not follow, in the whole northeastern +corner of British India. And all the time Muztagh's strength grew upon +him until it became too vast a thing to measure or control. + +Whether or not he kept with the herd was by now a matter of supreme +indifference to him. He no longer needed its protection. Except for the +men who came with the ropes and guns and shoutings, there was nothing in +the jungle for him to fear. He was twenty years old, and he stood nearly +eleven feet to the top of his shoulders. He would have broken any scales +in the Indian Empire that tried to weigh him. + +He had had his share of adventures, yet he knew that life in reality had +just begun. The time would come when he would want to fight the great +arrogant bull for the leadership of the herd. He was tired of fighting +the young bulls of his own age. He always won, and to an elephant +constant winning is almost as dull as constant losing. He was a great +deal like a youth of twenty in any breed of any land--light-hearted, +self-confident, enjoying every minute of wakefulness between one +midnight and another. He loved the jungle smells and the jungle sounds, +and he could even tolerate the horrible laughter of the hyenas that +sometimes tore to shreds the silence of the grassy plains below. + +But India is too thickly populated by human beings for a wild elephant +to escape observation entirely. Many natives had caught sight of him, +and at last the tales reached a little circle of trackers and hunters in +camp on a distant range of hills. They did not work for Dugan Sahib, for +Dugan Sahib was dead long since. They were a determined little group, +and one night they sat and talked softly over their fire. If Muztagh's +ears had been sharp enough to hear their words across the space of +hills, he wouldn't have gone to his mud-baths with such complacency the +next day. But the space between them was fifty miles of sweating jungle, +and of course he did not hear. + +"You will go, Khusru," said the leader, "for there are none here half so +skilful with horsehair rope as you. If you do not come back within +twelve months we shall know you have failed." + +Of course all of them knew what he meant. If a man failed in the effort +to capture a wild elephant by the hair-rope method, he very rarely lived +to tell of it. + +"In that case," Ahmad Din went on, "there will be a great drive after +the monsoon of next year. Picked men will be chosen. No detail will be +overlooked. It will cost more, but it will be sure. And our purses will +be fat from the selling-price of this king of elephants with a white +coat!" + + +IV + +There is no need to follow Khusru on his long pursuit through the +elephant trails. He was an able hunter and, after the manner of the +elephant-trackers, the scared little man followed Muztagh through jungle +and river, over hill and into dale, for countless days, and at last, as +Muztagh slept, he crept up within a half-dozen feet of him. He intended +to loop a horsehair rope about his great feet--one of the oldest and +most hazardous methods of elephant-catching. But Muztagh wakened just in +time. + +And then a curious thing happened. The native could never entirely +believe it, and it was one of his best stories to the day he died. Any +other wild tusker would have charged in furious wrath, and there would +have been a quick and certain death beneath his great knees. Muztagh +started out as if he had intended to charge. He lifted his trunk out of +the way--the elephant trunk is for a thousand uses, but fighting is not +one of them--and sprang forward. He went just two paces. Then his little +eyes caught sight of the brown figure fleeing through the bamboos. And +at once the elephant set his great feet to brake himself, and drew to a +sliding halt six feet beyond. + +He did not know why. He was perfectly aware that this man was an enemy, +jealous of his most-loved liberty. He knew perfectly it was the man's +intention to put him back into his bonds. He did not feel fear, +either--because an elephant's anger is too tremendous an emotion to +leave room for any other impulse such as fear. It seemed to him that +memories came thronging from long ago, so real and insistent that he +could not think of charging. + +He remembered his days in the elephant lines. These brown creatures had +been his masters then. They had cut his grass for him in the jungle, and +brought him bundles of sugar-cane. The hill people say that the elephant +memory is the greatest single marvel in the jungle, and it was that +memory that saved Khusru then. It wasn't deliberate gratitude for the +grass-cutting of long ago. It wasn't any particular emotion that he +could reach out his trunk and touch. It was simply an impulse--another +one of the thousand mysteries that envelop, like a cloud, the mental +processes of these largest of forest creatures. + +These were the days when he lived apart from the herd. He did it from +choice. He liked the silence, the solitary mud-baths, the constant +watchfulness against danger. + +One day a rhino charged him--without warning or reason. This is quite a +common thing for a rhino to do. They have the worst tempers in the +jungle, and they would just as soon charge a mountain if they didn't +like the look of it. Muztagh had awakened the great creature from his +sleep, and he came bearing down like a tank over "no man's land." + +Muztagh met him squarely, with the full shock of his tusks, and the +battle ended promptly. Muztagh's tusk, driven by five tons of might +behind it, would have pierced a ship's side, and the rhino limped away +to let his hurt grow well and meditate revenge. Thereafter for a full +year, he looked carefully out of his bleary, drunken eyes and chose a +smaller objective before he charged. + +Month after month Muztagh wended alone through the elephant trails, and +now and then rooted up great trees just to try his strength. Sometimes +he went silently, and sometimes like an avalanche. He swam alone in the +deep holes, and sometimes shut his eyes and stood on the bottom, just +keeping the end of his trunk out of the water. One day he was obliged to +kneel on the broad back of an alligator who tried to bite off his foot. +He drove the long body down into the muddy bottom, and no living +creature, except possibly the catfish that burrow in the mud, ever saw +it again. + +He loved the rains that flashed through the jungles, the swift-climbing +dawns in the east, the strange, tense, breathless nights. And at +midnight he loved to trumpet to the herd on some far-away hill, and +hear, fainter than the death-cry of a beetle, its answer come back to +him. At twenty-five he had reached full maturity; and no more +magnificent specimen of the elephant could be found in all of British +India. At last he had begun to learn his strength. + +Of course he had known for years his mastery over the inanimate things +of the world. He knew how easy it was to tear a tree from its roots, to +jerk a great tree-limb from its socket. He knew that under most +conditions he had nothing to fear from the great tigers, although a +fight with a tiger is a painful thing and well to avoid. But he did not +know that he had developed a craft and skill that would avail him in +battle against the greatest of his own kind. He made the discovery one +sunlit day beside the Manipur River. + +He was in the mud-bath, grunting and bubbling with content. It was a +bath with just room enough for one. And seeing that he was young, and +perhaps failing to measure his size, obscured as it was in the mud, a +great "rogue" bull came out of the jungles to take the bath for himself. + +He was a huge creature--wrinkled and yellow-tusked and scarred from the +wounds of a thousand fights. His little red eyes looked out malignantly, +and he grunted all the insults the elephant tongue can compass to the +youngster that lolled in the bath. He confidently expected that Muztagh +would yield at once, because as a rule young twenty-five-year-olds do +not care to mix in battle with the scarred and crafty veterans of sixty +years. But he did not know Muztagh. + +The latter had been enjoying the bath to the limit, and he had no desire +whatever to give it up. Something hot and raging seemed to explode in +his brain and it was as if a red glare, such as sometimes comes in the +sunset, had fallen over all the stretch of river and jungle before his +eyes. He squealed once, reared up with one lunge out of the bath--and +charged. They met with a shock. + +Of all the expressions of power in the animal world, the elephant fight +is the most terrible to see. It is as if two mountains rose up from +their roots of strata and went to war. It is terrible to hear, too. The +jungle had been still before. The river glided softly, the wind was +dead, the mid-afternoon silence was over the thickets. + +The jungle people were asleep. A thunder-storm would not have broken +more quickly, or could not have created a wilder pandemonium. The jungle +seemed to shiver with the sound. + +They squealed and bellowed and trumpeted and grunted and charged. Their +tusks clicked like the noise of a giant's game of billiards. The +thickets cracked and broke beneath their great feet. + +It lasted only a moment. It was so easy, after all. In a very few +seconds indeed, the old rogue became aware that he had made a very +dangerous and disagreeable mistake. There were better mud-baths on the +river, anyway. + +He had not been able to land a single blow. And his wrath gave way to +startled amazement when Muztagh sent home his third. The rogue did not +wait for the fourth. + +Muztagh chased him into the thickets. But he was too proud to chase a +beaten elephant for long. He halted, trumpeting, and swung back to his +mud-bath. + +But he did not enter the mud again. All at once he remembered the herd +and the fights of his calfhood. All at once he knew that his craft and +strength and power were beyond that of any elephant in all the jungle. +Who was the great, arrogant herd-leader to stand against him? What +yellow tusks were to meet his and come away unbroken? + +His little eyes grew ever more red as he stood rocking back and forth, +his trunk lifted to catch the sounds and smells of the distant jungle. +Why should he abide alone, when he could be the ruler of the herd and +the jungle king? Then he grunted softly and started away down the river. +Far away, beyond the mountains and rivers and the villages of the +hillfolk, the herd of his youth roamed in joyous freedom. He would find +them and assert his mastery. + + +V + +The night fire of a little band of elephant-catchers burned fitfully at +the edge of the jungle. They were silent men--for they had lived long on +the elephant trails--and curiously scarred and sombre. They smoked their +cheroots, and waited for Ahmad Din to speak. + +"You have all heard?" he asked at last. + +All but one of them nodded. Of course this did not count the most +despised one of them all--old Langur Dass--who sat at the very edge of +the shadow. His long hair was grey, and his youth had gone where the sun +goes at evening. They scarcely addressed a word to him, or he to them. +True, he knew the elephants, but was he not possessed of evil spirits? +He was always without rupees, too, a creature of the wild that could not +seem to understand the gathering of money. As a man, according to the +standards of men, he was an abject failure. + +"Khusru has failed to catch White-Skin, but he has lived to tell many +lies about it. He comes to-night." + +It was noticeable that Langur Dass, at the edge of the circle, pricked +up his ears. + +"Do you mean the white elephant of which the Manipur people tell so many +lies?" he asked. "Do you, skilled catchers that you are, believe that +such an elephant is still wild in the jungle?" + +Ahmad Din scowled. "The Manipur people tell of him, but for once they +tell the truth," was the reply. "He is the greatest elephant, the +richest prize, in all of Burma. Too many people have seen him to doubt. +I add my word to theirs, thou son of immorality!" + +Ahmad Din hesitated before he continued. Perhaps it was a mistake to +tell of the great, light-coloured elephant until this man should have +gone away. But what harm could this wanderer do them? All men knew that +the jungle had maddened him. + +Langur Dass's face lit suddenly. "Then it could be none but Muztagh, +escaped from Dugan Sahib fifteen years ago. That calf was also white. He +was also overgrown for his years." + +One of the trackers suddenly gasped. "Then that is why he spared +Khusru!" he cried. "He remembered men." + +The others nodded gravely. "They never forget," said Langur Dass. + +"You will be silent while I speak," Ahmad Din went on. Langur grew +silent as commanded, but his thoughts were flowing backward twenty +years, to days at the elephant lines in distant hills. Muztagh was the +one living creature that in all his days had loved Langur Dass. The man +shut his eyes, and his limbs seemed to relax as if he had lost all +interest in the talk. The evil one took hold of him at such times, the +people said, letting understanding follow his thoughts back into the +purple hills and the far-off spaces of the jungle. But to-night he was +only pretending. He meant to hear every word of the talk before he left +the circle. + +"He tells a mad story, as you know, of the elephant sparing him when he +was beneath his feet," Ahmad Din went on; "that part of his story does +not matter to us. _Hai!_ He might have been frightened enough to say +that the sun set at noon. But what matters to us more is that he knows +where the herd is--but a day's journey beyond the river. And there is no +time to be lost." + +His fellows nodded in agreement. + +"So to-morrow we will break camp. There can be no mistake this time. +There must be no points overlooked. The chase will cost much, but it +will return a hundredfold. Khusru says that at last the white one has +started back toward his herd, so that all can be taken in the same +_keddah_. And the white sahib that holds the license is not to know that +White-Coat is in the herd at all." + +The circle nodded again, and contracted toward the speaker. + +"We will hire beaters and drivers, the best that can be found. To-morrow +we will take the elephants and go." + +Langur Dass pretended to waken. "I have gone hungry many days," he said. +"If the drive is on, perhaps you will give your servant a place among +the beaters." + +The circle turned and stared at him. It was one of the stories of Langur +Dass that he never partook in the elephant hunts. Evidently poor living +had broken his resolutions. + +"You shall have your wish, if you know how to keep a closed mouth," +Ahmad Din replied. "There are other hunting parties in the hills." + +Langur nodded. He was very adept indeed at keeping a closed mouth. It is +one of the first lessons of the jungle. + +For another long hour they sat and perfected their plans. Then they lay +down by the fire together, and sleep dropped over them one by one. At +last Langur sat by the fire alone. + +"You will watch the flame to-night," Ahmad Din ordered. "We did not feed +you to-night for pity on your grey hairs. And remember--a gipsy died in +a tiger's claws on this very slope--not six months past." + +Langur Dass was left alone with his thoughts. Soon he got up and stole +out into the velvet darkness. The mists were over the hills as always. + +"Have I followed the tales of your greatness all these years for this?" +he muttered. "It is right for pigs with the hearts of pigs to break +their backs in labour. But you, my Muztagh! Jewel among elephants! King +of the jungle! Thou art of the true breed! Moreover I am minded that thy +heart and mine are one! + +"Thou art born ten thousand years after thy time, Muztagh," he went on. +"Thou art of the breed of masters, not of slaves! We are of the same +womb, thou and I. Can I not understand? These are not my people--these +brown men about the fire. I have not thy strength, Muztagh, or I would +be out there with thee! Yet is not the saying that brother shall serve +brother?" + +He turned slowly back to the circle of the firelight. Then his brown, +scrawny fingers clenched. + +"Am I to desert my brother in his hour of need? Am I to see these brown +pigs put chains around him, in the moment of his power? A king, falling +to the place of a slave? Muztagh, we will see what can be done! Muztagh, +my king, my pearl, my pink baby, for whom I dug grass in the long ago! +Thy Langur Dass is old, and his whole strength is not that of thy trunk, +and men look at him as a worm in the grass. But _hai!_ perhaps thou wilt +find him an ally not to be despised!" + + +VI + +The night had just fallen, moist and heavy over the jungle, when Muztagh +caught up with his herd. He found them in an open grassy glade, +encircled by hills, and they were all waiting, silent, as he sped down +the hills toward them. They had heard him coming a long way. He was not +attempting silence. The jungle people had not got out of his way. + +The old bull that led the herd, seventy years of age and at the pride of +his wisdom and strength, scarred, yellow-tusked and noble past any +elephant patriarch in the jungle, curled up his trunk when he saw him +come. He knew very well what would happen. And because no one knows +better than the jungle people what a good thing it is to take the +offensive in all battles, and because it was fitting his place and +dignity, he uttered the challenge himself. + +The silence dropped as something from the sky. The little pink calves +who had never seen the herd grow still in this same way before, felt the +dawn of the storm that they could not understand, and took shelter +beneath their mothers' bellies. But they did not squeal. The silence +was too deep for them to dare to break. + +It is always an epoch in the life of the herd when a young bull contests +for leadership. It is a much more serious thing than in the herds of +deer and buffalo. The latter only live a handful of years, then grow +weak and die. A great bull who has attained strength and wisdom enough +to obtain the leadership of an elephant herd may often keep it for forty +years. Kings do not rise and fall half so often as in the kingdoms of +Europe. For, as most men know, an elephant is not really old until he +has seen a hundred summers come and go. Then he will linger fifty years +more, wise and grey and wrinkled and strange and full of memories of a +time no man can possibly remember. + +Long years had passed since the leader's place had been questioned. The +aristocracy of strength is drawn on quite inflexible lines. It would +have been simply absurd for an elephant of the Dwasala or Mierga grades +to covet the leadership. They had grown old without making the attempt. +Only the great Kumiria, the grand dukes in the aristocracy, had ever +made the trial at all. And besides, the bull was a better fighter after +thirty years of leadership than on the day he had gained the honour. + +The herd stood like heroic figures in stone for a long moment--until +Muztagh had replied to the challenge. He was so surprised that he +couldn't make any sound at all at first. He had expected to do the +challenging himself. The fact that the leader had done it shook his +self-confidence to some slight degree. Evidently the old leader still +felt able to handle any young and arrogant bulls that desired his place. + +Then the herd began to shift. The cows drew back with their calves, the +bulls surged forward, and slowly they made a hollow ring, not greatly +different from the pugilistic ring known to fight-fans. The calves began +to squeal, but their mothers silenced them. Very slowly and grandly, +with infinite dignity, Muztagh stamped into the circle. His tusks +gleamed. His eyes glowed red. And those appraising old bulls in the ring +knew that such an elephant had not been born since the time of their +grandfathers. + +They looked him over from tail to trunk. They marked the symmetrical +form, the legs like mighty pillars, the sloping back, the wide-apart, +intelligent eyes. His shoulders were an expression of latent +might--power to break a tree-trunk at its base; by the conformity of his +muscles he was agile and quick as a tiger. And knowing these things, and +recognizing them, and honouring them, devotees of strength that they +were, they threw their trunks in the air till they touched their +foreheads and blared their full-voiced salute. + +They gave it the same instant--as musicians strike the same note at +their leader's signal. It was a perfect explosion of sound, a terrible +blare, that crashed out through the jungles and wakened every sleeping +thing. The dew fell from the trees. A great tawny tiger, lingering in +hope of an elephant calf, slipped silently away. The sound rang true and +loud to the surrounding hills and echoed and re-echoed softer and +softer, until it was just a tiny tremour in the air. + +Not only the jungle folk marvelled at the sound. At an encampment three +miles distant Ahmad Din and his men heard the wild call, and looked with +wondering eyes upon each other. Then out of the silence spoke Langur +Dass. + +"My lord Muztagh has come back to his herd--that is his salute," he +said. + +Ahmad Din looked darkly about the circle. "And how long shall he stay?" +he asked. + +The trap was almost ready. The hour to strike had almost come. + +Meanwhile the grand old leader stamped into the circle, seeming +unconscious of the eyes upon him, battle-scarred and old. Even if this +fight were his last, he meant to preserve his dignity. + +Again the salute sounded--shattering out like a thunderclap over the +jungle. Then challenger and challenged closed. + +At first the watchers were silent. Then as the battle grew ever fiercer +and more terrible, they began to grunt and squeal, surging back and +forth, stamping the earth and crashing the underbrush. All the +jungle-folk for miles about knew what was occurring. And Ahmad Din +wished his _keddah_ were completed, for never could there be a better +opportunity to surround the herd than at the present moment, when they +had forgotten all things except the battling monsters in the centre of +the ring. + +The two bulls were quite evenly matched. The patriarch knew more of +fighting, had learned more wiles, but he had neither the strength nor +the agility of Muztagh. The late twilight deepened into the intense +dark, and the stars of midnight rose above the eastern hills. + +All at once, Muztagh went to his knees. But as might a tiger, he sprang +aside in time to avoid a terrible tusk blow to his shoulder. And his +counter-blow, a lashing cut with the head, shattered the great leader to +the earth. The elephants bounded forward, but the old leader had a trick +left in his trunk. As Muztagh bore down upon him he reared up beneath, +and almost turned the tables. Only the youngster's superior strength +saved him from immediate defeat. + +But as the night drew to morning, the bulls began to see that the tide +of the battle had turned. Youth was conquering--too mighty and agile to +resist. The rushes of the patriarch were ever weaker. He still could +inflict punishment, and the hides of both of them were terrible to see, +but he was no longer able to take advantage of his openings. Then +Muztagh did a thing that reassured the old bulls as to his craft and +wisdom. Just as a pugilist will invite a blow to draw his opponent +within range, Muztagh pretended to leave his great shoulder exposed. The +old bull failed to see the plot. He bore down, and Muztagh was ready +with flashing tusk. + +What happened thereafter occurred too quickly for the eyes of the +elephants to follow. They saw the great bull go down and Muztagh stand +lunging above him. And the battle was over. + +The great leader, seriously hurt, backed away into the shadowed jungle. +His trunk was lowered in token of defeat. Then the ring was empty except +for a great red-eyed elephant, whose hide was no longer white, standing +blaring his triumph to the stars. + +Three times the elephant salute crashed out into the jungle silence--the +full voiced salaam to a new king. Muztagh had come into his birthright. + + +VII + +The _keddah_ was built at last. It was a strong stockade, opening with +great wings spreading out one hundred yards, and equipped with the great +gate that lowered like a portcullis at the funnel end of the wings. The +herd had been surrounded by the drivers and beaters, and slowly they had +been driven, for long days, toward the _keddah_ mouth. They had guns +loaded with blank cartridges, and firebrands ready to light. At a given +signal they would close down quickly about the herd, and stampede it +into the yawning mouth of the stockade. + +No detail had been overlooked. No expense had been spared. The profit +was assured in advance, not only from the matchless Muztagh, but from +the herd as well. The king of the jungle, free now as the winds or the +waters, was about to go back to his chains. These had been such days! He +had led the herd through the hills, and had known the rapture of living +as never before. It had been his work to clear the trail of all dangers +for the herd. It was his pride to find them the coolest watering-places, +the greenest hills. One night a tiger had tried to kill a calf that had +wandered from its mother's side. Muztagh lifted his trunk high and +charged down with great, driving strides--four tons and over of majestic +wrath. The tiger leaped to meet him, but the elephant was ready. He had +met tigers before. He avoided the terrible stroke of outstretched claws, +and his tusks lashed to one side as the tiger was in midspring. Then he +lunged out, and the great knees descended slowly, as a hydraulic press +descends on yellow apples. And soon after that the kites were dropping +out of the sky for a feast. + +His word was law in the herd. And slowly he began to overcome the doubt +that the great bulls had of him--doubt of his youth and experience. If +he had had three months more of leadership, their trust would have been +absolute. But in the meantime, the slow herding toward the _keddah_ had +begun. + +"We will need brave men to stand at the end of the wings of the +_keddah_," said Ahmad Din. He spoke no less than truth. The man who +stands at the end of the wings, or wide-stretching gates, of the +_keddah_ is of course in the greatest danger of being charged and +killed. The herd, mad with fright, is only slightly less afraid of the +spreading wings of the stockade than of the yelling, whooping beaters +behind. Often they will try to break through the circle rather than +enter the wings. + +"For two rupees additional I will hold one of the wings," replied old +Langur Dass. Ahmad Din glanced at him--at his hard, bright eyes and +determined face. Then he peered hard, and tried in vain to read the +thoughts behind the eyes. "You are a madman, Langur Dass," he said +wonderingly. "But thou shalt lie behind the right-wing men to pass them +torches. I have spoken." + +"And the two extra rupees?" Langur asked cunningly. + +"Maybe." One does not throw away rupees in Upper Burma. + +Within the hour the signal of _"Mail, mail!"_ (Go on, go on!) was given, +and the final laps of the drive began. + +The hills grew full of sound. The beaters sprang up with firebrand and +rifle, and closed swiftly about the herd. The animals moved slowly at +first. The time was not quite ripe to throw them into a panic. Many +times the herd would leave their trail and start to dip into a valley or +a creek-bed, but always there was a new crowd of beaters to block their +path. But presently the beaters closed in on them. Then the animals +began a wild descent squarely toward the mouth of the _keddah_. + +_"Hai!"_ the wild men cried. "Oh, you forest pigs! On, on! Block the way +through that valley, you brainless sons of jackals! Are you afraid? +_Ai!_ Stand close! Watch, Puran! Guard your post, Khusru! Now on, on--do +not let them halt! _Arre! Aihai!_" + +Firebrands waved, rifles cracked, the wild shout of beaters increased +in volume. The men closed in, driving the beasts before them. + +But there was one man that did not raise his voice. Through all the +turmoil and pandemonium he crouched at the end of the stockade wing, +tense, and silent and alone. To one that could have looked into his +eyes, it would have seemed that his thoughts were far and far away. It +was just old Langur Dass, named for a monkey and despised of men. + +He was waiting for the instant that the herd would come thundering down +the hill, in order to pass lighted firebrands to the bold men who held +that corner. He was not certain that he could do the thing he had set +out to do. Perhaps the herd would sweep past him, through the gates. If +he did win, he would have to face alone the screaming, infuriated +hillmen, whose knives were always ready to draw. But knives did not +matter now. Langur Dass had only his own faith and his own creed, and no +fear could make him betray them. + +Muztagh had lost control of his herd. At their head ran the old leader +that he had worsted. In their hour of fear they had turned back to him. +What did this youngster know of elephant-drives? Ever the waving +firebrands drew nearer, the beaters lessened their circle, the avenues +of escape became more narrow. The yawning arms of the stockade stretched +just beyond. + +"Will I win, jungle gods?" a little grey man at the _keddah_ wing was +whispering to the forests. "Will I save you, great one that I knew in +babyhood? Will you go down into chains before the night is done? _Ai!_ I +hear the thunder of your feet! The moment is almost here. And now--your +last chance, Muztagh!" + +"Close down, close down!" Ahmad Din was shouting to his beaters. "The +thing is done in another moment. Hasten, pigs of the hills! Raise your +voice! Now! _Aihai!_" + +The herd was at the very wings of the stockade. They had halted an +instant, milling, and the beaters increased their shouts. Only one of +all the herd seemed to know the danger--Muztagh himself, and he had +dropped from the front rank to the very rear. He stood with uplifted +trunk, facing the approaching rows of beaters. And there seemed to be +no break in the whole line. + +The herd started to move on into the wings of captitivity; and they did +not heed his warning squeals to turn. The circle of fire drew nearer. +Then his trunk seemed to droop, and he turned, too. He could not break +the line. He turned, too, toward the mouth of the _keddah_. + +But even as he turned, a brown figure darted toward him from the end of +the wing. A voice known long ago was calling to him--a voice that +penetrated high and clear above the babble of the beaters. "Muztagh!" it +was crying. "Muztagh!" + +But it was not the words that turned Muztagh. An elephant cannot +understand words, except a few elemental sounds such as a horse or dog +can learn. Rather it was the smell of the man, remembered from long ago, +and the sound of his voice, never quite forgotten. For an elephant never +forgets. + +"Muztagh! Muztagh!" + +The elephant knew him now. He remembered his one friend among all the +human beings that he knew in his calfhood; the one mortal from whom he +had received love and given love in exchange. + +"More firebrands!" yelled the men who held that corner of the wing. +"Firebrands! Where is Langur Dass?" but instead of firebrands that would +have frightened beast and aided men, Langur Dass stepped out from behind +a tree and beat at the heads of the right-wing guards with a bamboo cane +that whistled and whacked and scattered them into panic--yelling all the +while--"Muztagh! O my Muztagh! Here is an opening! Muztagh, come!". + +And Muztagh did come--trumpeting--crashing like an avalanche, with +Langur Dass hard after him afraid, now that he had done the trick. And +hot on the trail of Langur Dass ran Ahmad Din, with his knife drawn not +meaning to let that prize be lost to him at less than the cost of the +trickster's life. + +But it was not written that the knife should ever enter the flesh of +Langur Dass. + +The elephant never forgets, and Muztagh was monarch of his breed. He +turned back two paces, and struck with his trunk. Ahmad Din was knocked +aside as the wind whips a straw. + +For an instant elephant and man stood front to front. To the left of +them the gates of the stockade dropped shut behind the herd. The +elephant stood with trunk slightly lifted, for the moment motionless. +The long-haired man who saved him stood lifting upstretched arms. + +It was such as scene as one might remember in an old legend, wherein +beasts and men were brothers, or such as sometimes might steal, likely +something remembered from another age, into a man's dreams. Nowhere but +in India, where men have a little knowledge of the mystery of the +elephant, could it have taken place at all. + +For Langur Dass was speaking to my lord the elephant: + +"Take me with thee, Muztagh! Monarch of the hills! Thou and I are not of +the world of men, but of the jungle and the rain, the silence, and the +cold touch of rivers. We are brothers, Muztagh. O beloved, wilt thou +leave me here to die!" + +The elephant slowly turned his head and looked scornfully at the group +of beaters bearing down on Langur Dass, murder shining no less from +their knives than from their lighted eyes. + +"Take me," the old man pleaded; "thy herd is gone." + +The elephant seemed to know what he was asking. He had lifted him to his +great shoulders many times, in the last days of his captivity. And +besides, his old love for Langur Dass had never been forgotten. It all +returned, full and strong as ever. For an elephant never can forget. + +It was not one of the man-herd that stood pleading before him. It was +one of his own jungle people, just as, deep in his heart, he had always +known. So with one motion light as air, he swung him gently to his +shoulder. + +The jungle, vast and mysterious and still, closed its gates behind them. + + + + +TURKEY RED + + +BY FRANCES GILCHRIST WOOD + +From _Pictorial Review_ + +The old mail-sled running between Haney and Le Beau, in the days when +Dakota was still a Territory, was nearing the end of its hundred-mile +route. + +It was a desolate country in those days; geographers still described it +as The Great American Desert, and in looks it deserved the title. Never +was there anything so lonesome as that endless stretch of snow reaching +across the world until it cut into a cold grey sky, excepting the same +desert burned to a brown tinder by the hot wind of summer. + +Nothing but sky and plain and its voice, the wind, unless you might +count a lonely sod shack blocked against the horizon, miles away from a +neighbour, miles from anywhere, its red-curtained square of window +glowing through the early twilight. + +There were three men in the sled; Dan, the mail-carrier, crusty, +belligerently Western, the self-elected guardian of every one on his +route; Hillas, a younger man, hardly more than a boy, living on his +pre-emption claim near the upper reaches of the stage line; the third a +stranger from that part of the country vaguely defined as "the East." He +was travelling, had given him name as Smith, and was as inquisitive +about the country as he was reticent about his business there. Dan +plainly disapproved of him. + +They had driven the last cold miles in silence when the stage-driver +turned to his neighbour. "Letter didn't say anything about coming out in +the spring to look over the country, did it?" + +Hillas shook his head. "It was like all the rest, Dan. Don't want to +build a railroad at all until the country's settled." + +"God! Can't they see the other side of it? What it means to the folks +already here to wait for it?" + +The stranger thrust a suddenly interested profile above the handsome +collar of his fur coat. He looked out over the waste of snow. + +"You say there's no timber here?" + +Dan maintained unfriendly silence and Hillas answered: "Nothing but +scrub on the banks of the creeks. Years of prairie fires have burned out +the trees, we think." + +"Any ores--mines?" + +The boy shook his head as he slid farther down in his worn buffalo coat +of the plains. + +"We're too busy rustling for something to eat first. And you can't +develop mines without tools." + +"Tools?" + +"Yes, a railroad first of all." + +Dan shifted the lines from one fur-mittened hand to the other, swinging +the freed numbed arm in rhythmic beating against his body as he looked +along the horizon a bit anxiously. The stranger shivered visibly. + +"It's a god-forsaken country. Why don't you get out?" + +Hillas, following Dan's glance around the blurred sky line, answered +absently, "Usual answer is 'Leave? It's all I can do to stay here.'" + +Smith regarded him irritably. "Why should any sane man ever have chosen +this frozen wilderness?" + +Hillas closed his eyes wearily. "We came in the spring." + +"I see!" The edged voice snapped, "Visionaries!" + +Hillas's eyes opened again, wide, and then the boy was looking beyond +the man with the far-seeing eyes of the plainsman. He spoke under his +breath as if he were alone. + +"Visionary, pioneer, American. That was the evolution in the beginning. +Perhaps that is what we are." Suddenly the endurance in his voice went +down before a wave of bitterness. "The first pioneers had to wait, too. +How could they stand it so long!" + +The young shoulders drooped as he thrust stiff fingers deep within the +shapeless coat pockets. He slowly withdrew his right hand holding a +parcel wrapped in brown paper. He tore a three-cornered flap in the +cover, looked at the brightly coloured contents, replaced the flap and +returned the parcel, his chin a little higher. + +Dan watched the northern sky-line restlessly. "It won't be snow. Look +like a blizzard to you, Hillas?" + +The traveller sat up. "Blizzard?" + +"Yes," Dan drawled in willing contribution to his uneasiness, "the real +Dakota article where blizzards are made. None of your eastern +imitations, but a ninety-mile wind that whets slivers of ice off the +frozen drifts all the way down from the North Pole. Only one good thing +about a blizzard--it's over in a hurry. You get to shelter or you freeze +to death." + +A gust of wind flung a powder of snow stingingly against their faces. +The traveller withdrew his head turtlewise within the handsome collar in +final condemnation. "No man in his senses would ever have deliberately +come here to live." + +Dan turned. "Wouldn't, eh?" + +"No." + +"You're American?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"I was born here. It's my country." + +"Ever read about your Pilgrim Fathers?" + +"Why, of course." + +"Frontiersmen, same as us. You're living on what they did. We're getting +this frontier ready for those who come after. Want our children to have +a better chance than we had. Our reason's same as theirs. Hillas told +you the truth. Country's all right if we had a railroad." + +"Humph!" With a contemptuous look across the desert. "Where's your +freight, your grain, cattle--" + +"_West_-bound freight, coal, feed, seed-grain, work, and more +neighbours." + +"One-sided bargain. Road that hauls empties one way doesn't pay. No +company would risk a line through here." + +The angles of Dan's jaw showed white. "Maybe. Ever get a chance to pay +your debt to those Pilgrim pioneers? Ever take it? Think the stock was +worth saving?" + +He lifted his whip-handle toward a pin-point of light across the stretch +of snow. "Donovan lives over there and Mis' Donovan. We call them 'old +folks' now; their hair has turned white as these drifts in two years. +All they've got is here. He's a real farmer and a lot of help to the +country, but they won't last long like this." + +Dan swung his arm toward a glimmer nor' by nor'east. "Mis' Clark lives +there, a mile back from the stage road. Clark's down in Yankton earning +money to keep them going. She's alone with her baby holding down the +claim." Dan's arm sagged. "We've had women go crazy out here." + +The whip-stock followed the empty horizon half round the compass to a +lighted red square not more than two miles away. "Mis' Carson died in +the spring. Carson stayed until he was too poor to get away. There's +three children--oldest's Katy, just eleven." Dan's words failed, but his +eyes told. "Somebody will brag of them as ancestors some day. They'll +deserve it if they live through this." + +Dan's jaw squared as he leveled his whip-handle straight at the +traveller. "I've answered your questions, now you answer mine! We know +your opinion of the country--you're not travelling for pleasure or your +health. What are you here for?" + +"Business. My own!" + +"There's two kinds of business out here this time of year. Tain't +healthy for either of them." Dan's words were measured and clipped. +"You've damned the West and all that's in it good and plenty. Now I say, +damn the people anywhere in the whole country that won't pay their debts +from pioneer to pioneer; that lets us fight the wilderness barehanded +and die fighting; that won't risk--" + +A grey film dropped down over the world, a leaden shroud that was not +the coming of twilight. Dan jerked about, his whip cracked out over the +heads of the leaders and they broke into a quick trot. The shriek of the +runners along the frozen snow cut through the ominous darkness. + +"Hillas," Dan's voice came sharply, "stand up and look for the light on +Clark's guide-pole about a mile to the right. God help us if it ain't +burning." + +Hillas struggled up, one clumsy mitten thatching his eyes from the +blinding needles. "I don't see it, Dan. We can't be more than a mile +away. Hadn't you better break toward it?" + +"Got to keep the track 'til we--see--light!" + +The wind tore the words from his mouth as it struck them in lashing +fury. The leaders had disappeared in a wall of snow, but Dan's lash +whistled forward in reminding authority. There was a moment's lull. + +"See it, Hillas?" + +"No, Dan." + +Tiger-like the storm leaped again, bandying them about in its paws like +captive mice. The horses swerved before the punishing blows, bunched, +backed, tangled. Dan stood up shouting his orders of menacing appeal +above the storm. + +Again a breathing space before the next deadly impact. As it came Hillas +shouted, "I see it--there, Dan! It's a red light. She's in trouble." + +Through the whirling smother and chaos of Dan's cries and the struggling +horses the sled lunged out of the road into unbroken drifts. Again the +leaders swung sidewise before the lashing of a thousand lariats of ice +and bunched against the wheel-horses. Dan swore, prayed, mastered them +with far-reaching lash, then the off leader went down. Dan felt behind +him for Hillas and shoved the reins against his arm. + +"I'll get him up--or cut leaders--loose! If I don't--come back--drive to +light. _Don't--get--out!_" + +Dan disappeared in the white fury. There were sounds of a struggle; the +sled jerked sharply and stood still. Slowly it strained forward. + +Hillas was standing, one foot outside on the runner, as they travelled +a team's length ahead. He gave a cry--"Dan! Dan!" and gripped a furry +bulk that lumbered up out of the drift. + +"All--right--son." Dan reached for the reins. + +Frantically they fought their slow way toward the blurred light, +staggering on in a fight with the odds too savage to last. They stopped +abruptly as the winded leaders leaned against a wall interposed between +themselves and insatiable fury. + +Dan stepped over the dashboard, groped his way along the tongue between +the wheel-horses and reached the leeway of a shadowy square. "It's the +shed, Hillas. Help get the team in." The exhausted animals crowded into +the narrow space without protest. + +"Find the guide-rope to the house, Dan?" + +"On the other side, toward the shack. Where's--Smith?" + +"Here, by the shed." + +Dan turned toward the stranger's voice. + +"We're going 'round to the blizzard-line tied from shed to shack. Take +hold of it and don't let go. If you do you'll freeze before we can find +you. When the wind comes, turn your back and wait. Go on when it dies +down and never let go the rope. Ready? The wind's dropped. Here, Hillas, +next to me." + +Three blurs hugged the sod walls around to the north-east corner. The +forward shadow reached upward to a swaying rope, lifted the hand of the +second who guided the third. + +"Hang on to my belt, too, Hillas. Ready--Smith? Got the rope?" + +They crawled forward, three barely visible figures, six, eight, ten +steps. With a shriek the wind tore at them, beat the breath from their +bodies, cut them with stinging needle-points and threw them aside. Dan +reached back to make sure of Hillas who fumbled through the darkness for +the stranger. + +Slowly they struggled ahead, the cold growing more intense; two steps, +four, and the mounting fury of the blizzard reached its zenith. The +blurs swayed like battered leaves on a vine that the wind tore in two +at last and flung the living beings wide. Dan, clinging to the broken +rope, rolled over and found Hillas with the frayed end of the line in +his hand, reaching about through the black drifts for the stranger. Dan +crept closer, his mouth at Hillas's ear, shouting, "Quick! Right behind +me if we're to live through it!" + +The next moment Hillas let go the rope. Dan reached madly. "Boy, you +can't find him--it'll only be two instead of one! Hillas! Hillas!" + +The storm screamed louder than the plainsman and began heaping the snow +over three obstructions in its path, two that groped slowly and one that +lay still. Dan fumbled at his belt, unfastened it, slipped the rope +through the buckle, knotted it and crept its full length back toward the +boy. A snow-covered something moved forward guiding another, one arm +groping in blind search, reached and touched the man clinging to the +belt. + +Beaten and buffeted by the ceaseless fury that no longer gave quarter, +they slowly fought their way hand-over-hand along the rope, Dan now +crawling last. After a frozen eternity they reached the end of the line +fastened man-high against a second haven of wall. Hillas pushed open the +unlocked door, the three men staggered in and fell panting against the +side of the room. + +The stage-driver recovered first, pulled off his mittens, examined his +fingers and felt quickly of nose, ears, and chin. He looked sharply at +Hillas and nodded. Unceremoniously they stripped off the stranger's +gloves, reached for a pan, opened the door, dipped it into the drift and +plunged Smith's fingers down in the snow. + +"Your nose is white, too. Thaw it out." + +Abruptly Dan indicated a bench against the wall where the two men seated +would take up less space. + +"I'm--" The stranger's voice was unsteady. "I--," but Dan had turned his +back and his attention to the homesteader. + +The eight by ten room constituted the entire home. A shed roof slanted +from eight feet high on the door and window side to a bit more than five +on the other. A bed in one corner took up most of the space, and the +remaining necessities were bestowed with the compactness of a ship's +cabin. The rough boards of the roof and walls had been hidden by a +covering of newspapers, with a row of illustrations pasted picture +height. Cushions and curtains of turkey-red calico brightened the homely +shack. + +The driver had slipped off his buffalo coat and was bending over a baby +exhaustedly fighting for breath that whistled shrilly through a closing +throat. The mother, scarcely more than a girl, held her in tensely +extended arms. + +"How long's she been this way?" + +"She began to choke up day before yesterday, just after you passed on +the down trip." + +The driver laid big finger tips on the restless wrist. + +"She always has the croup when she cuts a tooth, Dan, but this is +different. I've used all the medicines I have--nothing relieves the +choking." + +The girl lifted heavy eyelids above blue semicircles of fatigue and the +compelling terror back of her eyes forced a question through dry lips. + +"Dan, do you know what membranous croup is like? Is this it?" + +The stage-driver picked up the lamp and held it close to the child's +face, bringing out with distressing clearness the blue-veined pallour, +sunken eyes, and effort of impeded breathing. He frowned, putting the +lamp back quickly. + +"Mebbe it is, Mis' Clark, but don't you be scared. We'll help you a +spell." + +Dan lifted the red curtain from the cupboard, found an emptied +lard-pail, half filled it with water and placed it on an oil-stove that +stood in the center of the room. He looked questioningly about the four +walls, discovered a cleverly contrived tool-box beneath the cupboard +shelves, sorted out a pair of pincers and bits of iron, laying the +latter in a row over the oil blaze. He took down a can of condensed +milk, poured a spoonful of the thick stuff into a cup of water and made +room for it near the bits of heating iron. + +He turned to the girl, opened his lips as if to speak and stood with a +face full of pity. + +Along the four-foot space between the end of the bed and the opposite +wall the girl walked, crooning to the sick child she carried. As they +watched, the low song died away, her shoulder rubbed heavily against the +boarding, her eyelids dropped and she stood sound asleep. The next +hard-drawn breath of the baby roused her and she stumbled on, crooning a +lullaby. + +Smith clutched the younger man's shoulder. "God, Hillas, look where +she's marked the wall rubbing against it! Do you suppose she's been +walking that way for three days and nights? Why, she's only a child--no +older than my own daughter!" + +Hillas nodded. + +"Where are her people? Where's her husband?" + +"Down in Yankton, Dan told you, working for the winter. Got to have the +money to live." + +"Where's the doctor?" + +"Nearest one's in Haney--four days' trip away by stage." + +The traveller stared, frowningly. + +Dan was looking about the room again and after prodding the gay seat in +the corner, lifted the cover and picked up a folded blanket, shaking out +the erstwhile padded cushion. He hung the blanket over the back of a +chair. + +"Mis' Clark, there's nothing but steam will touch membreenous croup. We +saved my baby that way last year. Set here and I'll fix things." + +He put the steaming lard-pail on the floor beside the mother and lifted +the blanket over the baby's head. She put up her hand. + +"She's so little, Dan, and weak. How am I going to know if she--if +she--" + +Dan rearranged the blanket tent. "Jest get under with her yourself, Mis' +Clark, then you'll know all that's happening." + +With the pincers he picked up a bit of hot iron and dropped it hissing +into the pail, which he pushed beneath the tent. The room was +oppressively quiet, walled in by the thick sod from the storm. The +blanket muffled the sound of the child's breathing and the girl no +longer stumbled against the wall. + +Dan lifted the corner of the blanket and another bit of iron hissed as +it struck the water. The older man leaned toward the younger. + +"Stove--fire?" with a gesture of protest against the inadequate oil +blaze. + +Hillas whispered, "Can't afford it. Coal is $9.00 in Haney, $18.00 +here." + +They sat with heads thrust forward, listening in the intolerable +silence. Dan lifted the blanket, hearkened a moment, then--"pst!" +another bit of iron fell into the pail. Dan stooped to the tool-chest +for a reserve supply when a strangling cough made him spring to his feet +and hurriedly lift the blanket. + +The child was beating the air with tiny fists, fighting for breath. The +mother stood rigid, arms out. + +"Turn her this way!" Dan shifted the struggling child, face out. "Now +watch out for the--" + +The strangling cough broke and a horrible something--"It's the membrane! +She's too weak--let me have her!" + +Dan snatched the child and turned it face downward. The blue-faced baby +fought in a supreme effort--again the horrible something--then Dan laid +the child, white and motionless, in her mother's arms. She held the limp +body close, her eyes wide with fear. + +"Dan, is--is she--?" + +A faint sobbing breath of relief fluttered the pale lips that moved in +the merest ghost of a smile. The heavy eyelids half-lifted and the child +nestled against its mother's breast. The girl swayed, shaking with sobs, +"Baby--baby!" + +She struggled for self-control and stood up straight and pale. "Dan, I +ought to tell you. When it began to get dark with the storm and time to +put up the lantern, I was afraid to leave the baby. If she strangled +when I was gone--with no one to help her--she would die!" + +Her lips quivered as she drew the child closer. "I didn't go right away +but--I did--at last. I propped her up in bed and ran. If I hadn't--" Her +eyes were wide with the shadowy edge of horror, "if I hadn't--you'd have +been lost in the blizzard and--my baby would have died!" + +She stood before the men as if for judgment, her face wet with unchecked +tears. Dan patted her shoulder dumbly and touched a fresh, livid bruise +that ran from the curling hair on her temple down across cheek and chin. + +"Did you get this then?" + +She nodded. "The storm threw me against the pole when I hoisted the +lantern. I thought I'd--never--get back!" + +It was Smith who translated Dan's look of appeal for the cup of warm +milk and held it to the girl's lips. + +"Drink it, Mis' Clark, you need it." + +She made heroic attempts to swallow, her head drooped lower over the cup +and fell against the driver's rough sleeve. "Poor kid, dead asleep!" + +Dan guided her stumbling feet toward the bed that the traveller sprang +to open. She guarded the baby in the protecting angle of her arm into +safety upon the pillow, then fell like a log beside her. Dan slipped off +the felt boots, lifted her feet to the bed and softly drew covers over +mother and child. + +"Poor kid, but she's grit, clear through!" + +Dan walked to the window, looked out at the lessening storm, then at the +tiny alarm-clock on the cupboard. "Be over pretty soon now!" He seated +himself by the table, dropped his head wearily forward on folded arms +and was asleep. + +The traveller's face had lost some of its shrewdness. It was as if the +white frontier had seized and shaken him into a new conception of life. +He moved restlessly along the bench, then stepped softly to the side of +the bed and straightened the coverlet into greater nicety while his lips +twitched. + +With consuming care he folded the blanket and restored the corner seat +to its accustomed appearance of luxury. He looked about the room, picked +up the grey kitten sleeping contentedly on the floor and settled it on +the red cushion with anxious attention to comfort. + +He examined with curiosity the few books carefully covered on a corner +shelf, took down an old hand-tooled volume and lifted his eyebrows at +the ancient coat of arms on the book plate. He tiptoed across to the +bench and pointed to the script beneath the plate. "Edward Winslow (7) +to his dear daughter, Alice (8)." + +He motioned toward the bed. "Her name?" + +Hillas nodded, Smith grinned. "Dan's right. Blood will tell, even to +damning the rest of us." + +He sat down on the bench. "I understand more than I did Hillas, +since--you crawled back after me--out there. But how can you stand it +here? I know you and the Clarks are people of education and, oh, all the +rest; you could make your way anywhere." + +Hillas spoke slowly. "I think you have to live here to know. It means +something to be a pioneer. You can't be one if you've got it in you to +be a quitter. The country will be all right some day." He reached for +his greatcoat, bringing out a brown-paper parcel. He smiled at it oddly +and went on as if talking to himself. + +"When the drought and the hot winds come in the summer and burn the +buffalo grass to a tinder and the monotony of the plains weighs on you +as it does now, there's a common, low-growing cactus scattered over the +prairie that blooms into the gayest red flower you ever saw. + +"It wouldn't count for much anywhere else, but the pluck of it, without +rain for months, dew even. It's the 'colours of courage.'" + +He turned the torn parcel, showing the bright red within, and looked at +the cupboard and window with shining, tired eyes. + +"Up and down the frontier in these shacks, homes, you'll find things +made of turkey-red calico, cheap, common elsewhere--" He fingered the +three-cornered flap. "Its our 'colours.'" He put the parcel back in his +pocket. "I bought two yards yesterday after--I got a letter at Haney." + +Smith sat looking at the gay curtains before him. The fury of the storm +was dying down into fitful gusts. Dan stirred, looked quickly toward the +bed, then the window, and got up quietly. + +"I'll hitch up. We'll stop at Peterson's and tell her to come over." He +closed the door noiselessly. + +The traveller was frowning intently. Finally he turned toward the boy +who sat with his head leaning back against the wall, eyes closed. + +"Hillas," his very tones were awkward, "they call me a shrewd business +man. I am, it's a selfish job and I'm not reforming now. But twice +to-night you--children have risked your lives, without thought for a +stranger. I've been thinking about that railroad. Haven't you raised any +grain or cattle that could be used for freight?" + +The low answer was toneless. "Drought killed the crops, prairie fires +burned the hay, of course the cattle starved." + +"There's no timber, ore, nothing that could be used for east-bound +shipment?" + +The plainsman looked searchingly into the face of the older man. +"There's no timber this side the Missouri. Across the river it's +reservation--Sioux. We--" He frowned and stopped. + +Smith stood up, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. "I admitted I was +shrewd, Hillas, but I'm not yellow clear through, not enough to betray +this part of the frontier anyhow. I had a man along here last fall +spying for minerals. That's why I'm out here now. If you know the +location, and we both think you do, I'll put capital in your way to +develop the mines and use what pull I have to get the road in." + +He looked down at the boy and thrust out a masterful jaw. There was a +ring of sincerity no one could mistake when he spoke again. + +"This country's a desert now, but I'd back the Sahara peopled with your +kind. This is on the square, Hillas, don't tell me you won't believe +I'm--American enough to trust?" + +The boy tried to speak. With stiffened body and clenched hands he +struggled for self-control. Finally in a ragged whisper, "If I try to +tell you what--it means--I can't talk! Dan and I know of outcropping +coal over in the Buttes." He nodded in the direction of the Missouri, +"but we haven't had enough money to file mining claims." + +"Know where to dig for samples under this snow?" + +The boy nodded. "Some in my shack too. I--" His head went down upon the +crossed arms. Smith laid an awkward hand on the heaving shoulders, then +rose and crossed the room to where the girl had stumbled in her vigil. +Gently he touched the darkened streak where her shoulders had rubbed and +blurred the newspaper print. He looked from the relentless white desert +outside to the gay bravery within and bent his head. +"Turkey-red--calico!" + +There was the sound of jingling harness and the crunch of runners. The +men bundled into fur coats. + +"Hillas, the draw right by the house here," Smith stopped and looked +sharply at the plainsman, then went on with firm carelessness, "This +draw ought to strike a low grade that would come out near the river +level. Does Dan know Clark's address?" Hillas nodded. + +They tiptoed out and closed the door behind them softly. The wind had +swept every cloud from the sky and the light of the northern stars +etched a dazzling world. Dan was checking up the leaders as Hillas +caught him by the shoulder and shook him like a clumsy bear. + +"Dan, you blind old mole, can you see the headlight of the Overland +Freight blazing and thundering down that draw over the Great Missouri +and Eastern?" + +Dan stared. + +"I knew you couldn't!" Hillas thumped him with furry fist. "Dan," the +wind might easily have drowned the unsteady voice, "I've told Mr. Smith +about the coal--for freight. He's going to help us get capital for +mining and after that the road." + +"Smith! Smith! Well, I'll be--aren't you a claim spotter?" + +He turned abruptly and crunched toward the stage. His passengers +followed. Dan paused with his foot on the runner and looked steadily at +the traveller from under lowered, shaggy brows. + +"You're going to get a road out here?" + +"I've told Hillas I'll put money in your way to mine the coal. Then the +railroad will come." + +Dan's voice rasped with tension. "We'll get out the coal. Are you going +to see that the road is built?" + +Unconsciously the traveller held up his right hand. "I am!" + +Dan searched his face sharply. Smith nodded. "I'm making my bet on the +people--friend!" + +It was a new Dan who lifted his bronzed face to a white world. His voice +was low and very gentle. "To bring a road here," he swung his +whip-handle from Donovan's light around to Carson's square, sweeping in +all that lay behind, "out here to them--" The pioneer faced the wide +desert that reached into a misty space ablaze with stars, "would be +like--playing God!" + +The whip thudded softly into the socket and Dan rolled up on the +driver's seat. Two men climbed in behind him. The long lash swung out +over the leaders as Dan headed the old mail-sled across the drifted +right-of-way of the Great Missouri and Eastern. + + + + +FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD + + +By MELVILLE DAVISSON POST + +From _Saturday Evening Post_ + +I was before one of those difficult positions unavoidable to a man of +letters. My visitor must have some answer. He had come back for the +manuscript of his memoir and for my opinion. It was the twilight of an +early Washington winter. The lights in the great library, softened with +delicate shades, had been turned on. Outside, Sheridan Circle was almost +a thing of beauty in its vague outline; even the squat ridiculous bronze +horse had a certain dignity in the blue shadow. + +If one had been speculating on the man, from his physical aspect one +would have taken Walker for an engineer of some sort, rather than the +head of the United States Secret Service. His lean face and his angular +manner gave that impression. Even now, motionless in the big chair +beyond the table, he seemed--how shall I say it?--mechanical. + +And that was the very defect in his memoir. He had cut the great cases +into a dry recital. There was no longer in them any pressure of a human +impulse. The glow of inspired detail had been dissected out. Everything +startling and wonderful had been devitalized. + +The memoir was a report. + +The bulky typewritten manuscript lay on the table beside the electric +lamp, and I stood about uncertain how to tell him. + +"Walker," I said, "did nothing wonderful ever happen to you in the +adventure of these cases?" + +"What precisely do you mean?" he replied. + +The practical nature of the man tempted me to extravagance. + +"Well," I said, "for example, were you never kissed in a lonely street +by a mysterious woman and the flash of your dark lantern reveal a face +of startling beauty?" + +"No," he said, as though he were answering a sensible question, "that +never happened to me." + +"Then," I continued, "perhaps you have found a prince of the church, +pale as alabaster, sitting in his red robe, who put together the +indicatory evidence of the crime that baffled you with such uncanny +acumen that you stood aghast at his perspicacity?" + +"No," he said; and then his face lighted. "But I'll tell you what I did +find. I found a drunken hobo at Atlantic City who was the best detective +I ever saw." + +I sat down and tapped the manuscript with my fingers. + +"It's not here," I said. "Why did you leave it out?" + +He took a big gold watch out of his pocket and turned it about in his +hand. The case was covered with an inscription. + +"Well," he said, "the boys in the department think a good deal of me. I +shouldn't like them to know how a dirty tramp faked me at Atlantic City. +I don't mind telling you, but I couldn't print it in a memoir." + +He went directly ahead with the story and I was careful not to interrupt +him: + +"I was sitting in a rolling chair out there on the Boardwalk before the +Traymore. I was nearly all in, and I had taken a run to Atlantic for a +day or two of the sea air. The fact is the whole department was down and +out. You may remember what we were up against; it finally got into the +newspapers. + +"The government plates of the Third Liberty Bond issue had disappeared. +We knew how they had gotten out and we thought we knew the man at the +head of the thing. It was a Mulehaus job, as we figured it. + +"It was too big a thing for a little crook. With the government plates +they could print Liberty Bonds just as the Treasury would. And they +could sow the world with them." + +He paused and moved his gold-rimmed spectacles a little closer in on his +nose. + +"You see these war bonds are scattered all over the country. They are +held by everybody. It's not what it used to be, a banker's business +that we could round up. Nobody could round up the holders of these +bonds. + +"A big crook like Mulehaus could slip a hundred million of them into the +country and never raise a ripple." + +He paused and drew his fingers across his bony protruding chin. + +"I'll say this for Mulehaus: He's the hardest man to identify in the +whole kingdom of crooks. Scotland Yard, the Service de la Surete, +everybody, says that. I don't mean dime-novel disguises--false whiskers +and a limp. I mean the ability to be the character he pretends--the +thing that used to make Joe Jefferson Rip Van Winkle--and not an actor +made up to look like it. That's the reason nobody could keep track of +Mulehaus, especially in South American cities. He was a French banker in +the Egypt business and a Swiss banker in the Argentine." + +He turned back from the digression: + +"And it was a clean job. They had got away with the plates. We didn't +have a clue. We thought, naturally, that they'd make for Mexico or some +South American country to start their printing press. And we had the +ports and the border netted up. Nothing could have gone out across the +border or through any port. All the customs officers were working with +us, and every agent of the Department of Justice." + +He looked at me steadily across the table. + +"You see the government had to get those plates back before the crook +started to print, or else take up every bond of that issue over the +whole country. It was a hell of a thing! + +"Of course we had gone right after the record of all the big crooks to +see whose line this sort of job was. And the thing narrowed down to +Mulehaus or old Vronsky. We soon found out it wasn't Vronsky. He was in +Joliet. It was Mulehaus. But we couldn't find him. + +"We didn't even know that Mulehaus was in America. He's a big crook with +a genius for selecting men. He might be directing the job from Rio or a +Mexican port. But we were sure it was a Mulehaus job. He sold the +French securities in Egypt in '90; and he's the man who put the bogus +Argentine bonds on our market--you'll find the case in the 115th Federal +Reporter. + +"Well," he went on, "I was sitting out there in the rolling chair, +looking at the sun on the sea and thinking about the thing, when I +noticed this hobo that I've been talking about. He was my chair +attendant, but I hadn't looked at him before. He had moved round from +behind me and was now leaning against the galvanized-pipe railing. + +"He was a big human creature, a little stooped, unshaved and dirty; his +mouth was slack and loose, and he had a big mobile nose that seemed to +move about like a piece of soft rubber. He had hardly any clothing; a +cap that must have been fished out of an ash barrel, no shirt whatever, +merely an old ragged coat buttoned round him, a pair of canvas breeches +and carpet slippers tied on to his feet with burlap, and wrapped round +his ankles to conceal the fact that he wore no socks. + +"As I looked at him he darted out, picked up the stump of a cigarette +that someone had thrown down, and came back to the railing to smoke it, +his loose mouth and his big soft nose moving like kneaded putty. + +"Altogether this tramp was the worst human derelict I ever saw. And it +occurred to me that this was the one place in the whole of America where +any sort of a creature could get a kind of employment and no questions +asked. + +"Anything that could move and push a chair could get fifteen cents an +hour from McDuyal. Wise man, poor man, beggar man, thief, it as all one +to McDuyal. And the creatures could sleep in the shed behind the rolling +chairs. + +"I suppose an impulse to offer the man a garment of some sort moved me +to address him. 'You're nearly naked,' I said. + +"He crossed one leg over the other with the toe of the carpet slipper +touching the walk, in the manner a burlesque actor, took the cigarette +out of his mouth with a little flourish, and replied to me: 'Sure, +Governor, I ain't dolled up like John Drew.' + +"There was a sort of cocky unconcern about the creature that gave his +miserable state a kind of beggarly distinction. He was in among the very +dregs of life, and he was not depressed about it. + +"'But if I had a sawbuck,' he continued, 'I could bulge your eye.... +Couldn't point the way to one?' + +"He arrested my answer with the little flourish of his fingers holding +the stump of the cigarette. + +"'Not work, Governor,' and he made a little duck of his head, 'and not +murder.... Go as far as you please between 'em.' + +"The fantastic manner of the derelict was infectious. + +"'O.K.,' I said. 'Go out and find me a man who is a deserter from the +German Army, was a tanner in Bale and began life as a sailor, and I'll +double your money--I'll give you a twenty-dollar bill.' + +"The creature whistled softly in two short staccato notes. + +"'Some little order,' he said. And taking a toothpick out of his pocket +he stuck it into the stump of the cigarette which had become too short +to hold between his fingers. + +"At this moment a boy from the postoffice came to me with the daily +report from Washington, and I got out of the chair, tipped the creature, +and went into the hotel, stopping to pay McDuyal as I passed. + +"There was nothing new from the department except that our organization +over the country was in close touch. We had offered five thousand +dollars reward for the recovery of the plates, and the Postoffice +Department was now posting the notice all over America in every office. +The Secretary thought we had better let the public in on it and not keep +it an underground offer to the service. + +"I had forgotten the hobo, when about five o'clock he passed me a little +below the Steel Pier. He was in a big stride and he had something +clutched in his hand. + +"He called to me as he hurried along: 'I got him, Governor.... See you +later!' + +"'See me now,' I said. 'What's the hurry?' + +"He flashed his hand open, holding a silver dollar with his thumb +against the palm. + +"'Can't stop now, I'm going to get drunk. See you later.' + +"I smiled at the disingenuous creature. He was saving me for the dry hour. +He could point out Mulehaus in any passing chair, and I would give some +coin to be rid of his pretension." + +Walker paused. Then he went on: + +"I was right. The hobo was waiting for me when I came out of the hotel +the following morning. + +"'Howdy, Governor,' he said; 'I located your man.' + +"I was interested to see how he would frame up his case. + +"'How did you find him?' I said. + +"He grinned, moving his lip and his loose nose. + +"'Some luck, Governor, and some sleuthin'. It was like this: I thought +you was stringin' me. But I said to myself I'll keep out an eye; maybe +it's on the level--any damn thing can happen.' + +"He put up his hand as though to hook his thumb into the armhole of his +vest, remembered that he had only a coat buttoned round him and dropped +it. + +"'And believe me or not, Governor, it's the God's truth. About four +o'clock up toward the Inlet I passed a big, well-dressed, banker-looking +gent walking stiff from the hip and throwing out his leg. "Come eleven!" +I said to myself. "It's the goose-step!" I had an empty roller, and I +took a turn over to him. + +"'"Chair, Admiral?" I said. + +"'He looked at me sort of queer. + +"'"What makes you think I'm an admiral, my man?" he answers. + +"'"Well," I says, lounging over on one foot reflective like, "nobody +could be a-viewin' the sea with that lovin', ownership look unless he'd +bossed her a bit.... If I'm right, Admiral, you takes the chair." + +"'He laughed, but he got in. "I'm not an admiral," he said, "but it is +true that I've followed the sea."' + +"The hobo paused, and put up his first and second fingers spread like a +V. + +"'Two points, Governor--the gent had been a sailor and a soldier; now +how about the tanner business?' + +"He scratched his head, moving the ridiculous cap. + +"'That sort of puzzled me, and I pussyfooted along toward the Inlet +thinkin' about it. If a man was a tanner, and especially a foreign, +hand-workin' tanner, what would his markin's be? + +"'I tried to remember everybody that I'd ever seen handlin' a hide, and +all at once I recollected that the first thing a dago shoemaker done +when he picked up a piece of leather was to smooth it out with his +thumbs. An' I said to myself, now that'll be what a tanner does, only he +does it more ... he's always doing it. Then I asks myself what would be +the markin's?' + +"The hobo paused, his mouth open, his head twisted to one side. Then he +jerked up as under a released spring. + +"'And right away, Governor, I got the answer to it--flat thumbs!' + +"The hobo stepped back with an air of victory and flashed his hand up. + +"'And he had 'em! I asked him what time it was so I could keep the hour +straight for McDuyal, I told him, but the real reason was so I could see +his hands.'" + +Walker crossed one leg over the other. + +"It was clever," he said, "and I hesitated to shatter it. But the +question had to come. + +"'Where is your man?' I said. + +"The hobo executed a little deprecatory step, with his fingers picking +at his coat pockets. + +"'That's the trouble, Governor,' he answered; 'I intended to sleuth him +for you, but he give me a dollar and I got drunk ... you saw me. That +man had got out at McDuyal's place not five minutes before. I was +flashin' to the booze can when you tried to stop me.... Nothin' doin' +when I get the price.'" + +Walker paused. + +"It was a good fairy story and worth something. I offered him half a +dollar. Then I got a surprise. + +"The creature looked eagerly at the coin in my fingers, and he moved +toward it. He was crazy for the liquor it would buy. But he set his +teeth and pulled up. + +"'No, Governor,' he said, 'I'm in it for the sawbuck. Where'll I find +you about noon?' + +"I promised to be on the Boardwalk before Heinz's Pier at two o clock +and he turned to shuffle away. I called an inquiry after him.... You see +there were two things in his story: How did he get a dollar tip, and how +did he happen to make his imaginary man banker-looking? Mulehaus had +been banker-looking in both the Egypt and the Argentine affairs. I left +the latter point suspended, as we say. But I asked about the dollar. He +came back at once. + +"'I forgot about that, Governor,' he said. 'It was like this: The +admiral kept looking out at the sea where an old freighter was going +South. You know, the fruit line to New York. One of them goes by every +day or two. And I kept pushing him along. Finally we got up to the +Inlet, and I was about to turn when he stopped me. You know the neck of +ground out beyond where the street cars loop; there's an old board fence +by the road, then sand to the sea, and about halfway between the fence +and the water there's a shed with some junk in it. You've seen it. They +made the old America out there and the shed was a tool house. + +"'When I stopped the admiral says: "Cut across to the hole in that old +board fence and see if an automobile has been there, and I'll give you a +dollar." An' I done it, an' I got it.' + +"Then he shuffled off. + +"'Be on the spot, Governor, an' I'll lead him to you.'" + +Walker leaned over, rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, and +linked his fingers together. + +"That gave me a new flash on the creature. He was a slicker article than +I imagined. I was not to get off with a tip. He was taking some pains to +touch me for a greenback. I thought I saw his line. It would not account +for his hitting the description of Mulehaus in the make-up of his straw +man, but it would furnish the data for the dollar story. I had drawn the +latter a little before he was ready. It belonged in what he planned to +give me at two o'clock. But I thought I saw what the creature was about. +And I was right." + +Walker put out his hand and moved the pages of his memoir on the table. +Then he went on: + +"I was smoking a cigar on a bench at the entrance to Heinz's Pier when +the hobo shuffled up. He came down one of the streets from Pacific +Avenue, and the direction confirmed me in my theory. It also confirmed +me in the opinion that I was all kinds of a fool to let this dirty hobo +get a further chance at me. + +"I was not in a very good humour. Everything I had set going after +Mulehaus was marking time. The only report was progress in linking +things up; not only along the Canadian and Mexican borders and the +custom houses, but we had also done a further unusual thing, we had an +agent on every ship going out of America to follow through to the +foreign port and look out for anything picked up on the way. + +"It was a plan I had set at immediately the robbery was discovered. It +would cut out the trick of reshipping at sea from some fishing craft or +small boat. The reports were encouraging enough in that respect. We had +the whole country as tight as a drum. But it was slender comfort when +the Treasury was raising the devil for the plates and we hadn't a clue +to them." + +Walker stopped a moment. Then he went on: + +"I felt like kicking the hobo when he got to me, he was so obviously the +extreme of all worthless creatures, with that apologetic, confidential +manner which seems to be an abominable attendant on human degeneracy. +One may put up with it for a little while, but it presently becomes +intolerable. + +"'Governor,' he began, when he shuffled up, 'you won't get mad if I say +a little somethin'?' + +"'Go on and say it,' I said. + +"The expression on his dirty unshaved face became, if possible, more +foolish. + +"'Well, then, Governor, askin' your pardon, you ain't Mr. Henry P. +Johnson, from Erie; you're the Chief of the United States Secret +Service, from Washington.'" + +Walker moved in his chair. + +"That made me ugly," he went on, "the assurance of the creature and my +unspeakable carelessness in permitting the official letters brought to +me on the day before by the postoffice messenger to be seen. In my +relaxation I had forgotten the eye of the chair attendant. I took the +cigar out of my teeth and looked at him. + +"'And I'll say a little something myself!' I could hardly keep my foot +clear of him. 'When you got sober this morning and remembered who I was, +you took a turn up round the postoffice to make sure of it, and while +you were in there you saw the notice of the reward for the stolen bond +plates. That gave you the notion with which you pieced out your fairy +story about how you got the dollar tip. Having discovered my identity +through a piece of damned carelessness on my part and having seen the +postal notice of the reward, you undertook to enlarge your little game. +That's the reason you wouldn't take fifty cents. It was your notion in +the beginning to make a touch for a tip. And it would have worked. But +now you can't get a damned cent out of me.' Then I threw a little brush +into him: 'I'd have stood a touch for your finding the fake tanner, +because there isn't any such person.' + +"I intended to put the hobo out of business," Walker went on, "but the +effect of my words on him were even more startling than I anticipated. +His jaw dropped and he looked at me in astonishment. + +"'No such person!' he repeated. 'Why, Governor, before God, I found a +man like that, an' he was a banker--one of the big ones, sure as there's +a hell!'" + +Walker put out his hands in a puzzled gesture. + +"There it was again, the description of Mulehaus! And it puzzled me up. +Every motion of this hobo's mind in every direction about this affair +was perfectly clear to me. I saw his intention in every turn of it and +just where he got the material for the details of his story. But this +absolutely distinguishing description of Mulehaus was beyond me. +Everybody, of course, knew that we were looking for the lost plates, for +there was the reward offered by the Treasury; but no human soul outside +of the trusted agents of the department knew that we were looking for +Mulehaus." + +Walker did not move, but he stopped in his recital for a moment. + +"The tramp shuffled up a step closer to the bench where I sat The +anxiety in his big slack face was sincere beyond question. + +"'I can't find the banker man, Governor; he's skipped the coop. But I +believe I can find what he's hid.' + +"'Well' I said, 'go on and find it.' + +"The hobo jerked out his limp hands in a sort of hopeless gesture. + +"'Now, Governor,' he whimpered, 'what good would it do me to find them +plates?' + +"'You'd get five thousand dollars,' I said. + +"'I'd git kicked into the discard by the first cop that got to me,' he +answered, 'that's what I'd git.' + +"The creature's dirty, unshaved jowls began to shake, and his voice +became wholly a whimper. + +"'I've got a line on this thing, Governor, sure as there's a hell. That +banker man was viewin' the layout. I've thought it all over, an' this is +the way it would be. They're afraid of the border an' they're afraid of +the custom houses, so they runs the loot down here in an automobile, +hides it up about the Inlet, and plans to go out with it to one of them +fruit steamers passing on the way to Tampico. They'd have them plates +bundled up in a sailor's chest most like. + +"'Now, Governor, you'd say why ain't they already done it; an' I'd +answer, the main guy--this banker man--didn't know the automobile had +got here until he sent me to look, and there ain't been no ship along +since then.... I've been special careful to find that out.' And then the +creature began to whine. 'Have a heart, Governor, come along with me. +Gimme a show!' + +"It was not the creature's plea that moved me, nor his pretended +deductions; I'm a bit old to be soft. It was the 'banker man' sticking +like a bur in the hobo's talk. I wanted to keep him in right until I +understood where he got it. No doubt that seems a slight reason for +going out to the Inlet with the creature; but you must remember that +slight things are often big signboards in our business." + +He continued, his voice precise and even: "We went directly from the +end of the Boardwalk to the old shed; it was open, an unfastened door on +a pair of leather hinges. The shed is small, about twenty feet by +eleven, with a hard dirt floor packed down by the workmen who had used +it, a combination of clay and sand like the Jersey roads put in to make +a floor. All round it, from the sea to the board fence was soft sand. +There were some pieces of old junk lying about in the shed; but nothing +of value or it would have been nailed up. + +"The hobo led right off with his deductions. There was the track of a +man, clearly outlined in the soft sand, leading from the board fence to +the shed and returning, and no other track anywhere about. + +"'Now, Governor,' he began, when he had taken a look at the tracks, 'the +man that made them tracks carried something into this shed, and he left +it here, and it was something heavy.' + +"I was fairly certain that the hobo had salted the place for me, made +the tracks himself; but I played out a line to him. + +"'How do you know that?' I said. + +"'Well, Governor,' he answered, 'take a look at them two line of tracks. +In the one comin' to the shed the man was walkin' with his feet apart +and in the one goin' back he was walkin' with his feet in front of one +another; that's because he was carryin' somethin' heavy when he come an' +nothin' when he left.' + +"It was an observation on footprints," he went on, "that had never +occurred to me. The hobo saw my awakened interest, and he added: + +"'Did you never notice a man carryin a heavy load? He kind of totters, +walkin' with his feet apart to keep his balance. That makes his foot +tracks side by side like, instead of one before the other as he makes +them when he's goin' light.'" + +Walker interrupted his narrative with a comment: "It's the truth I've +verified it a thousand times since that hobo put me onto it. A line +running through the center of the heel prints of a man carrying a heavy +burden will be a zigzag, while one through the heel prints of the same +man without the burden will be almost straight. + +"The tramp went right on with his deductions: + +"'If it come in and didn't go out, it's here.' + +"And he began to go over the inside of the shed. He searched it like a +man searching a box for a jewel. He moved the pieces of old castings and +he literally fingered the shed from end to end. He would have found a +bird's egg. + +"Finally he stopped and stood with hand spread out over his mouth. And I +selected this critical moment to touch the powder off under his game. + +"'Suppose,' I said, 'that this man with the heavy load wished to mislead +us; suppose that instead of bringing something here he took one of these +old castings away?' + +"The hobo looked at me without changing his position. + +"'How could he, Governor; he was pointin' this way with the load?' + +"'By walking backward,' I said. For it had occurred to me that perhaps +the creature had manufactured this evidence for the occasion, and I +wished to test the theory." + +Walker went on in his slow, even voice: + +"The test produced more action than I expected. The hobo dived out +through the door. I followed to see him disappear. But he was not in +flight; he was squatting down over the foot prints. And a moment later +he rocked back on his haunches with a little exultant yelp. + +"'Dope's wrong, Governor,' he said; 'he was sure comin' this way.' Then +he explained: 'If a man's walkin' forward in sand or mud or snow the toe +of his shoe flirts out a little of it, an' if he's walkin' backward his +heel flirts it out.' + +"At this point I began to have some respect for the creature's ability. +He got up and came back into the shed. And there he stood, in his old +position, with his fingers over his mouth, looking round at the empty +shed, in which, as I have said, one could not have concealed a bird's +egg. + +"I watched him without offering any suggestion, for my interest in the +thing had awakened and was curious to see what he would do. He stood +perfectly motionless for about a minute; and then suddenly he snapped +his fingers and the light came into his face. + +"'I got it, Governor!' Then he came over to where I stood. 'Gimme a +quarter to get a bucket' + +"I gave him the coin, for I was now profoundly puzzled, and he went out. +He was gone perhaps twenty minutes, and when he came in he had a bucket +of water. But he had evidently been thinking on the way, for he set the +bucket down carefully, wiped his hands on his canvas breeches, and began +to speak, with a little apologetic whimper in his voice. + +"'Now look here, Governor,' he said, 'I'm a-goin' to talk turkey; do I +get the five thousand if I find this stuff?' + +"'Surely,' I answered him. + +"'An' there'll be no monkey'n', Governor; you'll take me down to a bank +yourself an' put the money in my hand?' + +"'I promise you that,' I assured him. + +"But he was not entirely quiet in his mind about it. He shifted uneasily +from one foot to the other, and his soft rubber nose worked. + +"'Now, Governor,' he said, 'I'm leery about jokers--I gotta be. I don't +want any string to this money. If I get it I want to go and blow it in. +I don't want you to hand me the roll an' then start any reformin' +stunt--a-holdin' of it in trust an' a probation officer a-pussy-footin' +me, or any funny business. I want the wad an' a clear road to the bright +lights with no word passed along to pinch me. Do I git it?' + +"'It's a trade!" I said. + +"'O.K.,' he answered, and he took up the bucket. He began at the door +and poured the water carefully on the hard tramped earth. When the +bucket was empty he brought another and another. Finally about midway of +the floor space he stopped. + +"'Here it is!' he said. + +"I was following beside him, but I saw nothing to justify his words. + +"Why do you think the plates are buried here?' I said. + +"'Look at the air bubbles comin' up, Governor,' he answered." + +Walker stopped, then he added: + +"It's a thing which I did not know until that moment, but it's the +truth. If hard-packed earth is dug up and repacked air gets into it, and +if one pours water on the place air bubbles will come up." + +He did not go on, and I flung the big query of his story at him. + +"And you found the plates there?" + +"Yes," he replied, "in the false bottom of an old steamer trunk." + +"And the hobo got the money?" + +"Certainly," he answered. "I put it into his hand, and let him go with +it, as I promised." + +Again he was silent, and I turned toward him in astonishment. + +"Then," I said, "why did you begin this story by saying the hobo faked +you? I don't see the fake; he found the plates and he was entitled to +the reward." + +Walker put his hand into his pocket, took out a leather case, selected a +paper from among its contents and handed it to me. "I didn't see the +fake either," he said, "until I got this letter." + +I unfolded the letter carefully. It was neatly written in a hand like +copper plate and dated from Buenos Aires: + +_Dear Colonel Walker_: When I discovered that you were planting an agent +on every ship I had to abandon the plates and try for the reward. Thank +you for the five thousand; it covered expenses. Very sincerely yours, + +D. MULEHAUS. + + + + +THE BLOOD OF THE DRAGON + + +BY THOMAS GRANT SPRINGER + +From _Live Stories_ + +Kan Wong, the sampan boatman, sat in the bow of his tiny craft, looking +with dream-misted eyes upon the oily, yellow flood of the Yangtze River. +Far across on the opposite shore, blurred by the mist that the alchemy +of the setting sun transmuted from miasmic vapour to a veil of gold, +rose the purple-shadowed, stone-tumbled ruins of Hang Gow, ruins that +had been a proud, walled city in the days before the Tai-ping Rebellion. + +Viewing its slowly dimming powers as they sank into the fading gold of +the mist that the coming night thickened and darkened as it wiped out +the light with a damp hand, Kan Wong dreamed over the stories that his +father's father--now revered dust somewhere off toward the hills that +dimly met the melting sky line--had told him of that ruined city, +wherein he, Kan Wong, had not Fate made men mad, would now be ruling a +lordly household, even wearing the peacock feather and embroidered +jacket that were his by right of the Dragon's blood, that blood now +hidden under the sun-browned skin of a river coolie. Kan Wong stuffed +fine-cut into his brass-bowled pipe and struck a spark from his tinder +box. Through his wide nostrils twin streamers of smoke writhed out, +twisting fantastically together and mixing slowly with the rising river +mist. His pipe became a wand of dreams summoning the genii of glorious +memory. The blood of the Dragon in his veins quickened from the lethargy +to which drudgery had cooled it, and raced hotly as he thought of the +battle past of his forefathers. Off Somewhere along the river's winding +length, where it crawled slowly to the sea, lay the great coast cities. +The lazy ripples, light-tipped, beckoned with luring fingers. There was +naught to stay him. His sampan was his home and movable, therefore the +morrow would see him turning its bow downstream to seek that strange +city where he had heard, dwelt many Foreign Devils who now and then +scattered wealth with a prodigal hand. + +In that pale hour when the mist, not yet dissipated by the rising sun, +lay in a cold, silver veil upon the night-chilled water, he pushed out +from the shore and pointed the sampan's prow downstream. Days it took +him to reach salt water. He loitered for light cargoes at village edges, +or picked up the price of his daily rice at odd tasks ashore, but +always, were it day or night for travel, his tiny craft bore surely +seaward. Mile after slow mile dropped behind him, like the praying beads +of a lama's chain, but at last the river salted slightly, and his tiny +craft was lifted by the slow swell of the sea's hand reaching for +inland. + +The river became more populous. The crowding sampans, houseboats, and +junks stretched far out into its oily, oozy flow, making a floating city +as he neared the congested life of the coast, where the ever-increasing +population failed to find ground space in its maggoty swarming. As the +stream widened until the farther bank disappeared in the artificial mist +of rising smoke and man-stirred dust, the Foreign Devils' fire junks +appeared, majestically steaming up and down--swift swans that scorned +the logy, lumbering native craft, the mat sails and toiling sweeps of +which made them appear motionless by comparison. A day or two of this +and then the coast, with Shanghai sprawling upon the bank, writhing with +life, odoriferous, noisy, perpetually awake. + +Kan Wong slid into its waterfront turmoil, an infinitesimal human atom +added to it. His tiny craft fixed itself upon the outer edge of the +wriggling river life like a coral cell attaching itself to a slow +growing atoll. From there he worked his way inshore, crawling over the +craft that stretched out from the low banks as a water beetle might move +over the flotsam and jetsam caught in the back-water of a sluggish +stream. Once in the narrow, crowded streets of the city itself, he +roamed aimlessly, open-eyed to its wonders, dreamily observant. Out of +the native quarter and into the foreign section he moved, accustoming +himself to these masters of mystery whom he was about to serve, calling +sluggish memory to his aid as his cars strove to reconstruct The meaning +of the barbarous jargon. + +Into the quarter where the Foreign Devils and the native population came +together to barter and to trade, he strayed one day. A Foreign Devil in +a strangely unattractive uniform was addressing a crowd of coolies in +their own tongue. Kan Wong attached himself to the outer edge of the +impassively curious throng, his ears alert, his features, as ever, an +imperturbable mask. The foreign officer, for such he seemed to be, was +making an offer to the assemblage for contract labour: one dollar a day, +with rice, fish, and tea rations, for work in a foreign land. Kan Wong +translated the money quickly into _yens_. The sum seemed incredible to +him. What service would he not perform for such payment? Why, within a +year, or two at the very most, with careful frugality, he might return +and buy himself a junk worthy of his Dragon dreams of the river. And +then ... + +The officer talked on, persuading, holding out the glittering lure of +profit and adventure. Kan Wong listened eagerly. He had thought there +was a ban on contract labour, but perhaps this new Republican +Government, so friendly to the Foreign Devil, had removed it. Surely one +who wore the uniform of a soldier and an officer could not thus publicly +solicit coolies without the sanction of the mandarins, or escape their +notice. + +Kan Wong studied the crowd. It contained a few Chinese soldiers, who +were obviously keeping order. He was satisfied, and edged his way closer +to the speaker. There, already, ranged to one side was a line of his own +kind, jabbering to a Celestial who put down their names on slips of rice +paper and accepted their marks, which they made with a bamboo brush, +that they bonded themselves to the adventure. Kan Wong gained the +signing table. Picking up the brush, he set his name, the name of one +of the Dragon's blood, to the contract, accepted a duplicate, and +stepped back into the waiting line. + +His pay and his rations, he was told, would begin two days hence, when +he was to report to the fire junk now lying at the dock, awaiting the +human cargo of which he was a part. Kan Wong memorized the directions as +he turned away from his instructing countryman. Of the Foreign Devil he +took no further notice. Time enough for that when he passed into +service. The God of Luck had smiled upon his boldness, and, reflecting +upon it Kan Wong turned back to the river and the sampan that had so +long been his floating home. No sentimental memories, however, clung +about it for him. Its freight of dreams he had landed here in Shanghai, +marketing them for a realization. The sampan now was but the empty shell +of a water beetle, that had crawled upon the bank into the sun of +Fortune to spill forth a dragon fly to try newly found wings of +adventure. + +He found a customer, and, with much haggling after the manner of his +kind, disposed of his boat, the last tie, if tie there was, that bound +him to his present life. Waterman he had always been, and now had come +to him the call of the Father of All Waters. The tang of the salt in his +nostrils conjured up dreams as magical as those invoked by the wand of +the poppy god. Wrapped in their rosy mantle, he walked the streets for +the next two days, and on the third he took his way to the dock where +lay the fire junk that was to bear him forth into the wonders of the +Foreign Devils' land. Larger she loomed than any he had ever seen, +larger, oh, much larger, than those which had steamed up the Yangtze in +swanlike majesty. But this huge bulk was grey--grey and squat and +powerful. Once aboard, he found it crowded with an army of chattering +coolies. They swarmed in the hold like maggots. Every inch of space was +given over to them, an army, it seemed to Kan Wong, in which he was all +but lost. + +Day after day across the waste of water the ship took its eastern way. +Never had Kan Wong dreamed there was so much water in the world. The +broad, long river that had been his life's path seemed but a narrow +trickle on the earth's face compared with this stretch of sea that never +ended, though the days ran into weeks. The land coolies chafed and found +much sickness in the swell but Kan Wong, used ever to a moving deck, +round the way none too long, and smiled softly to himself as he counted +up the dollars they were paying him for the keenest pleasure he had ever +known. + +At last land appeared. The ship swung into the dock, disclosing to the +questioning eyes of Kan Won and his kind a new strange land. In orderly +discipline they were marched off the vessel and on to the dock. But rest +was not theirs as yet, nor was this their final destination. From the +fire junk they boarded the flying iron horse of the Foreign Devils; +again they were on the move. Swiftly across the land they went, over +high mountains crowded with eternal snow, thence down upon brown, +rolling plains as wide as the flat stretches of the broad Yangtze +Valley; eastward, ever eastward, through a land sparsely peopled for all +its virgin fertility. Behind their flying progress the days +dropped--one, two, three, four, at last five; and then they entered a +more populous region. Kan Wong, his nose flattened against the glass +that held the moving picture as in a frame, wondered much at the magic +that unrolled to his never-sated eyes. Yet the journey's end was beyond +his questioning. + +Once more they came to a seaport. Marching from the carriages, once more +they beheld the sea. But this time it was different--more turbulent, +harsher, more sombre with the hint of waiting storms. Was there, then, +more than one ocean, Kan Wong asked himself? He found that it was indeed +so when once more a fire junk received them. This one was greyer than +the first that they had known. Upon her decks were guns and at her side +were other junks, low, menacing, with a demon flurry of vicious speed, +and short, squat funnels that belched dense smoke clouds. Within the +town were many Foreign Devils, all dressed alike in strange drab +uniforms; on the docks and here and there at other places they bore +arms and other unmistakable equipment of fighting men, which even Kan +Wong could not but notice. + +The grey ship moved into a cold grey fog. With it other ships as grey +and as crowded, ships that crawled with men, strange Foreign Devils who +clanked with weapons as they walked aboard. Again a waste of water, +through which the ship seemed to crawl with a caution that Kan Wong +felt, but did not understand. With it on either side, moved those other +junks--squat, menacing, standing low on the horizon, but as haunting as +dark ghosts. Where were they bound, this strangely mixed fleet? Often +Kan Wong pondered this, but gave it no tongue to his fellow-passengers, +holding a bit aloof from them by virtue of his caste. + +Again they neared the shore, where other boats, low-built and bristling +with guns, flew swiftly out to meet them like fierce ocean birds of +prey. Now they skirted high, bleak cliffs, their feet hid in a lather of +white foam; then they rounded the cliffs and passed into a storm-struck +stretch of sea through which they rolled to a more level land, off which +they cast anchor. The long ocean journey was finished at last. + +There was a frantic bustle at this port, increasing a hundredfold when +once they set foot upon the land. Men--men were everywhere; men in +various uniforms, men who spoke various tongues in a confusing babel, +yet they all seemed intent upon one purpose, the import of which Kan +Wong could but vaguely guess. All about them was endless movement, but +no confusion, and once ashore their work commenced immediately. + +From the fleet of fire junks various cargoes were to be unloaded with +all speed, and at this the coolies toiled. Numberless crates, boxes, and +bags came ashore to be stowed away in long, low buildings, or loaded +into long lines of rough, boxlike carriages that then went scurrying off +behind countless snorting and puffing fire-horses to the east, always to +the east and north. Strange engines, which the Foreign Devils saw to it +that they handled most tenderly, were also much in evidence, and always, +at all hours the uniformed men with their bristling arms and clanking +equipment crowded into the carriages and were whisked off to the east, +always to the east and north. They went with much strange shouting and, +to Kan Wong's ears, discordant sounds that they mistook for music. Yet +now and then other strings of carriages came back from the east and +north, with other men--men broken, bloody, lacking limbs, groping in +blindness, their faces twisted with pain as they were loaded into the +waiting fire-junks to recross the rough sea. + +Then came the turn of the coolies to be crowded into the boxlike +carriages and to be whisked off to the east. With them went +tools--picks, shovels, and the like--for further work, upon the nature +of which Kan Wong, unquestioning, speculated. It was a slow, broken +journey that they made. Every now and then they stopped that other +traffic might pass them, going either way; mostly the strange men in +uniforms, bristling with guns, hurrying always to the east and north. + +At last they too turned north, and as they did so the country, which had +been smiling, low, filled with soft fields and pretty, nestling houses, +little towns and quiet, orderly cities, changed to bleak fields, cut and +seared as by a simoom's angry breath. Still there were little towns--or +what had been little towns, now tumbled ruins--fire-smitten, gutted, +their windows gaping like blind eyes in the face of a twisted cripple. +Off to the east hung angry clouds from which the thunder echoed +distantly; a thunder low, grumbling, continual, menacing, and through +the clouds at night were lightning flashes of an angry red. Toward this +storm it seemed that all the men were hurrying, and so too were the +coolies of whom Kan Wong was one. Often they chattered speculatively of +the storm beyond. What did it mean? Why did the men hurry toward instead +of away from it? Truly the ways of the Foreign Devils were strange! + +As they drew nearer to the storm, the river dreams of Kan Wong returned. +This was indeed the land of the Dragon's wrath. The torn and harrowed +fields, the empty, broken towns, the distant, grumbling storm, and the +armed men, hurrying, always hurrying toward the east and north where the +clouds darkened and spread--all this was in the tales that his father's +father had told him of those fifteen mad years when the Yangtze Valley +crouched trembling under the fiery breath of the Dragon's wrath. Here +once more he saw the crumbling towers and walls of Hang Gow in fresh +rain. Here was the ruthless wreck that even nature in her fiercest mood +could never make. Truly the lure of the Dragon's blood in him was +drawing him, magnet-like, to the glory of his ancestors. + +The one who had them in charge and spoke their tongue gave them their +tools and bade them dig narrow ditches head deep. From them they ran +tunnels into deep caves hollowed out far under the ground. They burrowed +like moles, cutting galleries here and there, reinforcing them with +timbers, and lining them with a stone which they made out of dust and +water. Many they cut, stretching far back behind the ever present storm +in front of them, while from that storm cloud, in swift and unseen +lightning bolts that roared and burst and destroyed their work often as +fast as it was completed, fell death among them, who were only +labourers, not soldiers, as Kan Wong now knew those Foreign Devils in +the strange and dirty uniforms to be. + +As the storm roared on, never ceasing, it stirred the Dragon's blood in +Kan Wong's veins. The pick and shovel irked his hands as he swung them; +his palms began to itch for the weapons that the soldiers bore. Now and +then he came upon a gun where it had dropped from its owner's useless +hands. He studied its mechanism, even asking the Foreign Devil overseer +how it was worked, and, being shown, he remembered and practised its use +whenever opportunity offered. He took to talking with his +fellow-workers, some of whom had themselves fought with the rebels of +New China, who, with just such Foreign Devils' tools, had clipped the +claws of the Manchu Dragon, freeing the Celestial Kingdom forever from +its crooked grip. He took much interest in these war implements. He +became more intimate and friendly with his fellows, feeling them now to +be brothers in a danger that had awakened the soldier soul beneath the +brown of his coolie skin. + +Little could he make of all the strife about him. All of which he was +sure was that this was the Dragon's Field, and he, a Son of the Dragon, +had been guided to it to fulfil a destiny his forefathers had begun in +the Yangtze Valley when with the "Hairy Rebels" they had waged such war +as this. The flying death all about him that now and then claimed toll +of one of his own kind was but a part of it; but all the time he grew to +hate his humble work and long for a part, a real part, in the fighting +that raged ahead, where an unseen enemy, of whom he grew to think as his +own, hurled destruction among them. Often he spoke of this to the gang +under him, imbuing them with the spirit of the Dragon's blood that, +eager to fulfil its destiny, once more boiled within him. + +Then one day the storm grew more furious. The thunder was a continual +roll, and both from the front and rear flew the whining lightning bolts, +spewing out death and destruction. Many a coolie fell, his dust buried +under the dust of this fierce foreign land, never to be returned and +mixed with that of his own Flowery Kingdom. Now and then came "stink +pots," filling the air with such foul vapours that men coughed out their +lives in the putrid fumes. The breath of the Dragon, fresh from his +awful mouth, was wrapped about them in hot wrath. + +Past them the soldiers streamed, foul with fight, their hot guns +spitting viciously back into the rolling, pungent grey fog that followed +them malignantly. Confusion reigned, and in that confusion a perfect +riot of death. On all sides the soldiers fell, blighted by the Dragon's +breath. The coolies crouched in the heaped-up ruins of their newly dug +ditches, knowing not which way to turn, bereft of leadership since the +Foreign Devil who commanded them was gone, buried beneath a pile of +earth where a giant cracker had fallen. + +Suddenly Kan Wong noticed that there were no more soldiers save only +those who lay writhing or in still, twisted heaps upon the harrowed +ground. The coolie crowd huddled here alone, clutching their futile +picks and shovels, grovelling in helpless panic. Disaster had overtaken +them. The Dragon was upon them, and they were unprotected. All about +them in scattered heaps lay discarded equipment, guns, even the +sharp-barking death-spitting, tiny instrument that the soldiers handled +so lovingly and so gently when it was not in action. But those who +manned the weapons had passed on, back through the thick curtain of +smoke that hung between them and the comparative safety of the rear. + +Kan Wong's eyes were ahead, striving to pierce the pungent veil that hid +the enemy. Suddenly his keen eyes noted them--the strange uniforms and +stranger faces, ducking forward here and there through the hell of their +own making. The blood of the Dragon within him boiled up, now that the +enemy was really near enough to feel the teeth and claws of the Dragon's +whelps. This was the hour for which he had lived. This was the Tai-ping +glory come again for him to share. Reaching down, he picked up the rifle +of a fallen soldier, fondled its mechanism lovingly for a moment, and +then, cuddling it tenderly beneath his chin, his finger bade it spit +death at the misty grey figures crawling through the greyer fog in +front. + +When the magazine was exhausted he filled it with fresh clips and turned +with the authority he had always wielded, and a new one that they +instantly recognized, upon his shivering countrymen. + +"What are ye?" he yelled with withering scorn. "Sons of pigs who root in +the dung of this Foreign Devil's land, or men of the Dragon's blood? Are +ye the scum of the Yangtze River or honourable descendants of the Hairy +Rebels? Would ye avenge your brothers who have choked to death in the +breath of the stink-pots that have been flung among us? Will ye let +escape this horde of Foreign Devil enemies who have hurled at us giant +crackers that have spit death, now that they are near enough to feel how +the Dragon's blood can strike? Here are the Dragon's claws!" He waved +his bayoneted gun aloft. "Will ye die like men, or like slinking rats +stamped into the earth? All who are not cowards--come!" He waved the way +through the smoke to the grey figures emerging from it. + +The Chinaman is no coward when once aroused. Death he faces as he faces +life, stoically, imperturbably. The coolies, reaching for the nearest +weapons, followed the man who showed the Dragon's blood. Many of them +understood the use of arms, having borne them for New China. Death was +upon them, and they went to meet it with death in their hands. + +Kan Wong dragged up an uninjured machine gun the crew of which lay about +it. Fitting the bands of cartridges as he had seen the gunners do, he +turned the crank and swung it round on its revolving tripod. Before its +vicious rain he saw the grey figures fall, and a great joy welled up in +his breast. He signalled for other belts and worked the gun faster. +Round him the coolies rallied; others beyond the sound of his voice +joined in from pure instinct. The grey figures wavered, hesitated, +melted back into the smoke, and then strove to work around the fire of +the death-spitting group. But the Dragon's blood was up, the voice of +the Dragon's son cheered and directed the snarling, roused whelps to +whom war was an old, old trade, forgotten, and now remembered in this +strange, wild land. The joy of slaughter came savagely upon them. The +death that they had received they now gave back. In the place the white +men had fled, the yellow men now stood, descendants of the Tai-pings, as +fierce and wild as their once Hairy brothers. + +Meanwhile, behind them the retreating line halted, stiffened by hurried +reinforcements. The officers rallied their men, paused and looked back +through the smoke. The line had given way and they must meet the +oncoming wave. Quickly reforming, they picked their ground for a stand +and waited. The moments passed, but no sign of the victors. + +"What the hell is up?" snarled one of the reinforcing officers. "I +thought the line had given way." + +"It has," replied the panting, battle-torn commander. "My men are all +back here; there's no one in front but the enemy!" + +"What's that ahead, then?" The sharp bark of rifles, the _rat-a-tat_ of +machine guns, the boom of bursting grenades, and the yells, groans, +screams and shouts of the hand-to-hand conflict came through the +curtaining smoke in a mad jumble of savage sound. + +"Damned if I know! We'd better find out!" They began moving their now +rallied men back into it. + +Suddenly they came upon it--a writhing mass of jeans-clad coolies, +wild-eyed, their teeth bared in devilish, savage grins, their hands busy +with the implements of death, standing doggedly at bay before grey waves +that broke upon them as a sullen sea breaks and recedes before a jutting +point of land ... + +With the reinforcements the tide turned, ebbing back in a struggling, +writhing fury, and soon the ground was clear again of all save the wreck +that such a wave leaves behind it. Once the line was re-established and +the soldiers holding it steadily, the coolies, once more the wielders of +pick and shovel, returned to the work of trench repairing, leaving the +fighting to those to whom it belonged. + +The officers were puzzled. What had started them? What had injected that +mad fighting spirit into their yellow hides? What had caused them to +make that swift, wild, wonderful stand? + +"Hey, you, John!" The commanding officer addressed one of them when a +lull came and they were busy again at the tumbled earth. "What you fight +for, hey?" + +The coolie grinned foolishly. + +"Him say fight. Him heap big man, alle same have Dlagon's blood. Him say +fight, we fight, _sabe_?" And he pointed to Kan Wong--Kan Wong, his head +bleeding from a wound, his eyes glowing with a green fury from between +their narrow lids, his long, strong hands, red with blood other than his +own, still clutching his rifle with a grip that had a tenderly savage +joy _in_ it. + +The officer approached him. + +"Are you the man who rallied the coolies and held the line?" he asked +shortly. + +Kan Wong stiffened with a dignity to which he now felt he had a right. + +"Me fight," he said quietly--"me fight, coolie fight, too. Me belong +Dlagon's blood. One time my people fighting men; long time I wait." + +"You'll wait no longer," said the officer. He unpinned the cross from +his tunic and fastened it to the torn, bloody blouse of Kan Wong. "Off +to the east are men of your own race, fighting-men from China, +Cochin-China. That is the place for a man of the Dragon's blood--and +that is the tool that belongs in your hand till we're done with this +mess." He pointed to the rifle that Kan Wong still held with a stiff, +loving, lingering grip. + +And so, on the other side of the world, the son of the Dragon came to +his own and realized the dreams of a glory he had missed. + + + + +"HUMORESQUE" + + +By FANNIE HURST + +From _Cosmopolitan_ + +On either side of the Bowery, which cuts through like a drain to catch +its sewage, Every Man's Land, a reeking march of humanity and humidity, +steams with the excrement of seventeen languages, flung in _patois_ from +tenement windows, fire-escapes, curbs, stoops, and cellars whose walls +are terrible and spongy with fungi. + +By that impregnable chemistry of race whereby the red blood of the +Mongolian and the red blood of the Caucasian become as oil and water in +the mingling, Mulberry Street, bounded by sixteen languages, runs its +intact Latin length of push-carts, clothes-lines, naked babies, drying +vermicelli; black-eyed women in rhinestone combs and perennially big +with child; whole families of button-hole makers, who first saw the +blue-and-gold light of Sorrento, bent at home work around a single gas +flare; pomaded barbers of a thousand Neapolitan amours. And then, just +as suddenly, almost without osmosis and by the mere stepping-down from +the curb, Mulberry becomes Mott Street, hung in grill-work balconies, +the mouldy smell of poverty touched up with incense. Orientals, whose +feet shuffle and whose faces are carved out of satinwood. Forbidden +women, their white, drugged faces behind upper windows. Yellow children, +incongruous enough in Western clothing. A drafty areaway with an oblique +of gaslight and a black well of descending staircase. Show-windows of +jade and tea and Chinese porcelains. + +More streets emanating out from Mott like a handful of crooked, +rheumatic fingers, then suddenly the Bowery again, cowering beneath +elevated trains, where men, burned down to the butt end of soiled lives, +pass in and out and out and in of the knee-high swinging doors--a +veiny-nosed, acid-eaten race in themselves. + +Allen Street, too, still more easterly and half as wide, is straddled +its entire width by the steely, long-legged skeleton of elevated +traffic, so that its third-floor windows no sooner shudder into silence +from the rushing shock of one train than they are shaken into chatter by +the passage of another. Indeed, third-floor dwellers of Allen Street, +reaching out, can almost touch the serrated edges of the elevated +structure, and in summer the smell of its hot rails becomes an actual +taste in the mouth. Passengers, in turn, look in upon this horizontal of +life as they whiz by. Once, in fact, the blurry figure of what might +have been a woman leaned out as she passed to toss into one Abrahm +Kantor's apartment a short-stemmed pink carnation. It hit softly on +little Leon Kantor's crib, brushing him fragrantly across the mouth and +causing him to pucker up. + +Beneath, where, even in August noonday, the sun cannot find its way by a +chink, and babies lie stark naked in the cavernous shade, Allen Street +presents a sort of submarine and greenish gloom, as if its humanity were +actually moving through a sea of aqueous shadows, faces rather bleached +and shrunk from sunlessness as water can bleach and shrink. And then, +like a shimmering background of orange-finned and copper-flanked marine +life, the brass shops of Allen Street, whole rows of them, burn +flamelessly and without benefit of fuel. + +To enter Abrahm Kantor's--Brasses--was three steps down, so that his +casement show-window, at best filmed over with the constant rain of dust +ground down from the rails above, was obscure enough, but crammed with +the copied loot of khedive and of czar. The seven-branch candlestick so +Biblical and supplicating of arms. An urn, shaped like Rebecca's, of +brass all beaten over with little poks. Things: cups, trays, knockers, +ikons, gargoyles, bowls, and teapots. A symphony of bells in graduated +sizes. Jardinieres with fat sides. A pot-bellied samovar. A swinging +lamp for the dead, star-shaped. Against the door, an octave of tubular +chimes, prisms of voiceless harmony and of heatless light. + +Opening this door, they rang gently, like melody heard through water +and behind glass. Another bell rang, too, in tilted singsong from a +pulley operating somewhere in the catacomb rear of this lambent vale of +things and things and things. In turn, this pulley set in toll still +another bell, two flights up in Abrahm Kantor's tenement, which +overlooked the front of whizzing rails and a rear wilderness of +gibbet-looking clothes-lines, dangling perpetual specters of flapping +union suits in a mid-air flaky with soot. + +Often at lunch, or even the evening meal, this bell would ring in on +Abrahm Kantor's digestive well-being, and while he hurried down, napkin +often bib-fashion still about his neck, and into the smouldering lanes +of copper, would leave an eloquent void at the head of his +well-surrounded table. + +This bell was ringing now, jingling in upon the slumber of a still newer +Kantor, snuggling peacefully enough within the ammoniac depths of a +cradle recently evacuated by Leon, heretofore impinged upon you. + +On her knees before an oven that billowed forth hotly into her face, +Mrs. Kantor, fairly fat and not yet forty, and at the immemorial task of +plumbing a delicately swelling layer-cake with broom-straw, raised her +face, reddened and faintly moist. + +"Isadore, run down and say your papa is out until six. If it's a +customer, remember the first asking-price is the two middle figures on +the tag, and the last asking-price is the two outside figures. See once, +with your papa out to buy your little brother his birthday present, and +your mother in a cake, if you can't make a sale for first price." + +Isadore Kantor, aged eleven and hunched with a younger Kantor over an +oilcloth-covered table, hunched himself still deeper in barter for a +large crystal marble with a candy stripe down its center. + +"Izzie, did you hear me?" + +"Yes'm." + +"Go down this minute--do you hear? Rudolph, stop always letting your big +brother get the best of you in marbles. Iz-zy!" + +"In--a--minute." + +"Don't let me have to ask you again, Isadore Kantor!" + +"Aw, ma; I got some 'rithmetic to do. Let Esther go." + +"Always Esther! Your sister stays right in the front room with her +spelling." + +"Aw, ma; I got spelling, too." + +"Every time I ask that boy he should do me one thing, right away he gets +lessons! With me, that lessons-talk don't go no more. Every time you get +put down in school, I'm surprised there's a place left lower where they +can put you. Working-papers for such a boy like you!" + +"I'll woik--" + +"How I worried myself! Violin lessons yet--thirty cents lesson out of +your papa's pants while he slept! That's how I wanted to have in the +family a profession--maybe a musician on the violin. Lessons for you out +of money I had to lie to your papa about! Honest, when I think of it--my +own husband--it's a wonder I don't potch you just for remembering it. +Rudolph, will you stop licking that cake-pan? It's saved for your little +brother Leon. Ain't you ashamed even on your little brother's birthday +to steal from him?" + +"Ma, gimme the spoon?" + +"I'll give you the spoon, Isadore Kantor, where you don't want it. If +you don't hurry down the way that bell is ringing, not one bite out of +your little brother's birthday-cake to-night!" + +"I'm goin', ain't I?" + +"Always on my children's birthdays a meanness sets into this house! +Ru-dolph, will you put down that bowl? Iz-zy--for the last time I ask +you--for the last time--" + +Erect now, Mrs. Kantor lifted a portentous hand, letting it hover. + +"I'm goin', ma; for golly sakes, I'm goin'!" said her recalcitrant one, +shuffling off toward the staircase, shuffling, shuffling. + +Then Mrs. Kantor resumed her plumbing, and through the little apartment, +its middle and only bedroom of three beds and a crib lighted vicariously +by the front room and kitchen, began to wind the warm, the golden-brown +fragrance of cake in the rising. + +By six o'clock, the shades were drawn against the dirty dusk of Allen +Street, and the oilcloth-covered table dragged out center and spread by +Esther Kantor, nine in years, in the sturdy little legs bulging over +shoe-tops, in the pink cheeks that sagged slightly of plumpness, and in +the utter roundness of face and gaze, but mysteriously older in the +little-mother lore of crib and knee-dandling ditties and in the ropy +length and thickness of the two brown plaits down her back. + +There was an eloquence to that waiting, laid-out table, the print of the +family already gathered about it; the dynastic high chair, throne of +each succeeding Kantor; an armchair drawn up before the paternal +moustache-cup; the ordinary kitchen chair of Mannie Kantor, who spilled +things, an oilcloth sort of bib dangling from its back; the little chair +of Leon Kantor, cushioned in an old family album that raised his chin +above the table. Even in cutlery, the Kantor family was not lacking in +variety. Surrounding a centerpiece of thick Russian lace were Russian +spoons washed in washed-off gilt, forks of one, two, and three tines. +Steel knives with black handles. A hart's-horn carving-knife. +Thick-lipped china in stacks before the armchair. A round +four-pound-loaf of black bread waiting to be torn, and to-night, on the +festive mat of cotton lace, a cake of pinkly gleaming icing, encircled +with five pink little twisted candles. + +At slightly after six, Abrahm Kantor returned, leading by a resisting +wrist Leon Kantor, his stemlike little legs, hit midship, as it were, by +not sufficiently cut-down trousers and so narrow and birdlike of face +that his eyes quite obliterated the remaining map of his features, like +those of a still wet nestling. All except his ears. They poised at the +sides of Leon's shaved head of black bristles, as if butterflies had +just lighted there, whispering, with very spread wings, their message, +and presently would fly off again. By some sort of muscular contraction, +he could wiggle these ears at will, and would do so for a penny, a +whistle, and upon one occasion for his brother Rudolph's dead rat, so +devised as to dangle from string and window before the unhappy +passer-by. They were quivering now, these ears, but because the entire +little face was twitching back tears and gulp of sobs. + +"Abrahm--Leon--what is it?" Her hands and her forearms instantly out +from the business of kneading something meaty and floury, Mrs. Kantor +rushed forward, her glance quick from one to the other of them. "Abrahm, +what's wrong?" + +"I'll feedle him! I'll feedle him!" + +The little pulling wrist still in clutch, Mr. Kantor regarded his wife, +the lower half of his face, well covered with reddish bristles, +undershot, his free hand and even his eyes violently lifted. To those +who see in a man a perpetual kinship to that animal kingdom of which he +is supreme, there was something undeniably anthropoidal about Abrahm +Kantor, a certain simian width between the eyes and long, rather agile +hands with hairy backs. + +"Hush it!" cried Mr. Kantor, his free hand raised in threat of descent +and cowering his small son to still more undersized proportions. "Hush +it, or, by golly, I'll--" + +"Abrahm--Abrahm--what is it?" + +Then Mr. Kantor gave vent in acridity of word and feature. + +"_Schlemmil!_" he cried. "_Momser! Ganef! Nebich!_" By which Abrahm +Kantor, in smiting mother tongue, branded his offspring with attributes +of apostate and ne'er-do-well, of idiot and thief. + +"Abrahm!" + +"_Schlemmil!_" repeated Mr. Abrahm, swinging Leon so that he described a +large semi-circle that landed him into the meaty and waiting embrace of +his mother. "Take him! You should be proud of such a little _Momser_ for +a son! Take him--and here you got back his birthday dollar. A feedle! +Honest--when I think on it--a feedle!" + +Such a rush of outrage seemed fairly to strangle Mr. Kantor that he +stood, hand still upraised, choking and inarticulate above the now +frankly howling huddle of his son. + +"Abrahm you should just once touch this child! How he trembles! +Leon--mamma's baby--what is it--is this how you come back when papa +takes out to buy your birthday present? Ain't you ashamed?" + +Mouth distended to a large and blackly hollow O, Leon between terrifying +spells of breath-holding, continued to howl. + +"All the way to Naftel's toy store I drag him. A birthday present for a +dollar his mother wants he should have--all right, a birthday present! I +give you my word till I'm ashamed for Naftel, every toy on his shelves +is pulled down. Such a cow--that shakes with his head--" + +"No--no--no!" This from young Leon, beating at his mother's skirts. + +Again the upraised but never quite descending hand of his father. + +"By golly, I'll 'no--no' you!" + +"Abrahm--go way! Baby, what did papa do?" + +Then Mr. Kantor broke into an actual tarantella of rage, his hands palms +up and dancing. + +"'What did papa do?' she asks. She's got easy asking. 'What did papa +do?' The whole shop, I tell you. A sheep with a baa inside when you +squeeze on him--games--a horn so he can holler my head off--such a knife +like Izzy's with a scissors in it! 'Leon,' I said, ashamed for Naftel, +'that's a fine knife like Izzy's so you can cut up with.' 'All right +then'--when I see how he hollers--'such a box full of soldiers to have +war with.' 'Dollar seventy-five,' says Naftel. 'All right then,' I +says--when I seen how he keeps hollering--'give you a dollar fifteen for +'em.' I should make myself small for fifteen cents more. 'Dollar +fifteen,' I says--anything so he should shut up with his hollering for +what he seen in the window." + +"He seen something in the window he wanted, Abrahm?" + +"Didn't I tell you? A feedle! A four-dollar feedle! A moosiker, so we +should have another feedler in the family for some thirty-cents +lessons." + +"Abrahm--you mean--he--our Leon--wanted a violin?" + +"'Wanted,' she says. I could potch him again this minute for how he +wanted it! _Du_--you little bum you--_Chammer_--_Momser_--I'll feedle +you!" + +Across Mrs. Kantor's face as she knelt there in the shapeless +cotton-stuff uniform of poverty, through the very tenement of her body, +a light had flashed up into her eyes. She drew her son closer, crushing +his puny cheek up against hers, cupping his bristly little head in her +by no means immaculate palms. + +"He wanted a violin--it's come, Abrahm! The dream of all my life--it's +come! I knew it must be one of my children if I waited long enough--and +prayed enough. A musician! He wants a violin. He cried for a violin. My +baby! Why, darlink, mamma'll sell her clothes off her back to get you a +violin. He's a musician, Abrahm! I should have known it the way he's +fooling always around the chimes and the bells in the store!" + +Then Mrs. Kantor took to rocking his head between her palms. + +"_Oi--oi!_ The mother is crazier as her son. A moosican! A _Fresser_ you +mean. Such an eater, it's a wonder he ain't twice too big instead of +twice too little for his age." + +"That's a sign, Abrahm; they all eat big. For all we know he's a genius. +I swear to you, Abrahm, all the months before he was born, I prayed for +it. Each one before they came, I prayed it should be the one. I thought +that time the way our Isadore ran after the organ-grinder he would be +the one. How could I know it was the monkey he wanted? When Isadore +wouldn't take it, I prayed my next one and then my next one should have +the talent. I've prayed for it, Abrahm. If he wants a violin, please, he +should have it." + +"Not with my money." + +"With mine! I've got enough saved, Abrahm. Them three extra dollars +right here inside my own waist, that I saved toward that cape down on +Grand Street. I wouldn't have it now the way they say the wind blows up +them--" + +"I tell you the woman's crazy!" + +"I feel it! I know he's got talent! I know my children so well. A--a +father don't understand. I'm so next to them. It's like I can tell +always everything that will happen to them--it's like a pain--somewheres +here--in back of my heart." + +"A pain in the heart she gets!" + +"For my own children I'm always a prophet, I tell you. You think I +didn't know that--that terrible night after the pogrom after we got out +of Kief to cross the border! You remember, Abrahm, how I predicted it to +you then--how our Mannie would be born too soon and--and not right from +my suffering? Did it happen on the ship to America just the way I said +it would? Did it happen just exactly how I predicted our Izzy would +break his leg that time playing on the fire-escape? I tell you, Abrahm, +I get a real pain here under my heart that tells me what comes to my +children. Didn't I tell you how Esther would be the first in her +confirmation-class and our baby Boris would be red-headed? At only five +years, our Leon all by himself cries for a fiddle--get it for him, +Abrahm--get it for him!" + +"I tell you, Sarah, I got a crazy woman for a wife! It ain't enough we +celebrate eight birthdays a year with one-dollar presents each time and +copper goods every day higher. It ain't enough that right to-morrow I +got a fifty-dollar note over me from Sol Ginsberg--a four-dollar present +she wants for a child that don't even know the name of a feedle!" + +"Leon baby, stop hollering--papa will go back and get the fiddle for you +now before supper. See--mamma's got money here in her waist--" + +"Papa will go back for the feedle not--three dollars she's saved for +herself he can holler out of her for a feedle!" + +"Abrahm, he's screaming so he--he'll have a fit." + +"He should have two fits." + +"Darlink--" + +"I tell you the way you spoil your children it will some day come back +on us." + +"It's his birthday night, Abrahm--five years since his little head +first lay on the pillow next to me." + +"All right--all right--drive me crazy because he's got a birthday." + +"Leon baby--if you don't stop hollering you'll make yourself sick. +Abrahm, I never saw him like this--he's green--" + +"I'll green him. Where is that old feedle from Isadora--that +seventy-five-cents one?" + +"I never thought of that! You broke it that time you got mad at +Isadore's lessons. I'll run down. Maybe it's with the junk behind the +store. I never thought of that fiddle, Leon darlink--wait--mamma'll run +down and look--wait, Leon, till mamma finds you a fiddle." + +The raucous screams stopped then suddenly, and on their very lustiest +crest, leaving an echoing gash across silence. On willing feet of haste, +Mrs. Kantor wound down backward the high, ladderlike staircase that led +to the brass shop. + +Meanwhile, to a gnawing consciousness of dinner-hour, had assembled the +house of Kantor. Attuned to the intimate atmosphere of the tenement +which is so constantly rent with cry of child, child-bearing, delirium, +delirium-tremens, Leon Kantor had howled no impression into the motley +din of things. Isadore, already astride his chair, well into +center-table, for first vociferous tear at the four-pound loaf; Esther +Kantor, old at chores, settled an infant into the high chair, careful of +tiny fingers in lowering the wooden bib. + +"Papa, Izzy's eating first again." + +"Put down that loaf and wait until your mother dishes up or you'll get a +potch you won't soon forget." + +"Say, pop--" + +"Don't 'say pop' me! I don't want no street-bum freshness from you!" + +"I mean, papa, there was an uptown swell in, and she bought one of them +seventy-five-cent candlesticks for the first price," + +"_Schlemmil--Chammer!_" said Mr. Kantor, rinsing his hands at the sink. +"Didn't I always tell you it's the first price times two when you see +up-town business come in? Haven't I learned it to you often enough a +slummer must pay for her nosiness?" + +There entered then, on poor shuffling feet, Mannie Kantor so marred in +the mysterious and ceramic process of life that the brain and the soul +had stayed back sooner than inhabit him. Seventeen in years, in the down +upon his face, and in growth unretarded by any great nervosity of +system, his vacuity of face was not that of childhood but rather as if +his light eyes were peering out from some hinterland and wanting so +terribly and so dumbly to communicate what they beheld to brain-cells +closed against himself. + +At sight of Mannie, Leon Kantor, the tears still wetly and dirtily down +his cheeks, left off his black, fierce-eyed stare of waiting long enough +to smile, darkly, it is true, but sweetly. + +"Giddy-ap!" he cried. "Giddy-ap!" + +And then Mannie, true to habit, would scamper and scamper. + +Up out of the traplike stair-opening came the head of Mrs. Kantor, +disheveled and a smudge of soot across her face, but beneath her arm, +triumphant, a violin of one string and a broken back. + +"See, Leon--what mamma got! A violin! A fiddle! Look--the bow, too, I +found. It ain't much, baby, but it's a fiddle." + +"Aw, ma--that's my old violin--gimme--I want it--where'd you find--" + +"Hush up, Izzy! This ain't yours no more. See, Leon, what mamma brought +you! A violin!" + +"Now, you little _Chammer_, you got a feedle, and if you ever let me +hear you holler again for a feedle, by golly if I don't--" + +From his corner, Leon Kantor reached out, taking the instrument and +fitting it beneath his chin, the bow immediately feeling, surely and +lightly for string. + +"Look, Abrahm! He knows how to hold it! What did I tell you? A child +that never in his life seen a fiddle, except a beggar's on the street!" + +Little Esther suddenly cantered down-floor, clapping her chubby hands. + +"Looky--looky--Leon!" + +The baby ceased clattering his spoon against the wooden bib. A silence +seemed to shape itself. + +So black and so bristly of head, his little clawlike hands hovering over +the bow, Leon Kantor withdrew a note, strangely round and given up +almost sobbingly from the single string. A note of warm twining quality, +like a baby's finger. + +"Leon--darlink!" + +Fumbling for string and for notes the instrument could not yield up to +him, the birdlike mouth began once more to open widely and terribly into +the orificial O. + +It was then Abrahm Kantor came down with a large hollow resonance of +palm against the aperture, lifting his small son and depositing him plop +upon the family album. + +"Take that! By golly, one more whimper out of you and if I don't make +you black-and-blue, birthday or no birthday! Dish up, Sarah, quick, or +I'll give him something to cry about." + +The five pink candles had been lighted, burning pointedly and with +slender little smoke wisps. Regarding them owlishly, the tears dried on +Leon's face, his little tongue licking up at them. + +"Look how solemn he is, like he was thinking of something a million +miles away except how lucky he is he should have a pink birthday-cake! +Uh--uh--uh! Don't you begin to holler again--Here, I'm putting the +feedle next to you--uh--uh--uh!" + +To a meal plentifully ladled out directly from stove to table, the +Kantor family drew up, dipping first into the rich black soup of the +occasion. All except Mrs. Kantor. + +"Esther, you dish up; I'm going somewhere. I'll be back in a minute." + +"Where you going, Sarah? Won't it keep until--" + +But even in the face of query, Sarah Kantor was two flights down and +well through the lambent aisles of the copper shop. Outside, she broke +into a run, through two blocks of the indescribable bazaar atmosphere of +Grand Street, then one block to the right. + +Before Naftel's show-window, a jet of bright gas burned into a +jibberwock land of toys. There was that in Sarah Kantor's face that was +actually lyrical, as, fumbling at the bosom of her dress, she entered. + +To Leon Kantor, by who knows what symphonic scheme of things, life was a +chromatic scale, yielding up to him through throbbing, living nerves of +sheep-gut, the sheerest semitones of man's emotions. + +When he tucked his Stradivarius beneath his chin, the Book of Life +seemed suddenly translated to him in melody. Even Sarah Kantor, who +still brewed for him, on a small portable stove carried from city to +city and surreptitiously unpacked in hotel suites, the blackest of +soups, and, despite his protestation, would incase his ears of nights in +an old home-made device against their flightiness, would often times +bleed inwardly at this sense of his isolation. + +There was a realm into which he went alone, leaving her as detached as +the merest ticket purchaser at the box-office. + +At seventeen, Leon Kantor had played before the crowned heads of Europe, +the aching heads of American capital, and even the shaved head of a +South Sea prince. There was a layout of anecdotal gifts, from the molar +tooth of the South Sea prince set in a South Sea pearl to a +blue-enamelled snuff-box encrusted with the rearing-lion coat of arms of +a very royal house. + +At eighteen, came the purchase of a king's Stradivarius for a king's +ransom, and acclaimed by Sunday supplements to repose of nights in an +ivory cradle. + +At nineteen, under careful auspices of press-agent, the ten singing +digits of the son of Abrahm Kantor were insured at ten thousand dollars +the finger. + +At twenty, he had emerged surely and safely from the perilous quicksands +which have sucked down whole Lilliputian worlds of infant prodigies. + +At twenty-one, when Leon Kantor played a Sunday-night concert, there was +a human queue curling entirely around the square block of the +opera-house, waiting its one, two, even three and four hours for the +privilege of standing-room only. + +Usually these were Leon Kantor's own people pouring up from the lowly +lands of the East Side to the white lands of Broadway, parched for +music, these burning brethren of his--old men in that line, frequently +carrying their own little folding camp-chairs, not against weariness of +the spirit but of the flesh; youth with Slavic eyes and cheek-bones. +These were the six-deep human phalanx which would presently slant down +at him from tiers of steepest balconies and stand frankly emotional and +jammed in the unreserved space behind the railing which shut them off +from the three-dollar seats of the reserved. + +At a very special one of these concerts, dedicated to the meager purses +of just these, and held in New York's super-opera-house, the +Amphitheater, a great bowl of humanity, the metaphor made perfect by +tiers of seats placed upon the stage, rose from orchestra to dome. A +gigantic Colosseum of a cup, lined in stacks and stacks of faces. From +the door of his dressing-room, leaning out, Leon Kantor could see a +great segment of it, buzzing down into adjustment, orchestra twitting +and tuning into it. + +In a bare little room, illuminated by a sheaf of roses just arrived, +Mrs. Kantor drew him back by the elbow. + +"Leon, you're in a draft." + +The amazing years had dealt kindly with Mrs. Kantor. Stouter, softer, +apparently even taller, she was full of small new authorities that could +shut out cranks, newspaper reporters, and autograph fiends. A +fitted-over-corsets black taffeta and a high comb in the greying hair +had done their best with her. Pride, too, had left its flush upon her +cheeks, like two round spots of fever. + +"Leon, it's thirty minutes till your first number. Close that door. Do +you want to let your papa and his excitement in on you?" + +The son of Sarah Kantor obeyed, leaning on his short, rather narrow form +in silhouette against the closed door. In spite of slimly dark evening +clothes worked out by an astute manager to the last detail in boyish +effects, there was that about him which defied long-haired precedent. +Slimly and straightly he had shot up into an unmannered, a short, even +a bristly-haired young manhood, disqualifying by a close shave for the +older school of hirsute virtuosity. + +But his nerves did not spare him. On concert nights they seemed to +emerge almost to the surface of him and shriek their exposure. + +"Just feel my hands, ma. Like ice." + +She dived down into her large silk what-not of a reticule. + +"I've got your fleece-lined gloves here, son." + +"No--no. For God's--sake--not those things! No!" + +He was back at the door again, opening it to a slit, peering through. + +"They're bringing more seats on the stage. If they crowd me in I won't +go on. I can't play if I hear them breathe. Hi--out there--no more +chairs--pa--Hancock--" + +"Leon, Leon, ain't you ashamed to get so worked up? Close that door. +Have you got a manager who is paid just to see to your comfort? When +papa comes, I'll have him go out and tell Hancock you don't want chairs +so close to you. Leon, will you mind mamma and sit down?" + +"It's a bigger house than the royal concert in Madrid, ma. Why, I never +saw anything like it! It's a stampede. God, this is real--this is what +gets me, playing for my own! I should have given a concert like this +three years ago. I'll do it every year now. I'd rather play before them +than all the crowned heads on earth. It's the biggest night of my +life--they're rioting out there, ma--rioting to get in." + +"Leon, Leon, won't you sit down if mamma begs you to?" + +He sat then, strumming with all ten fingers upon his knees. + +"Try to get quiet, son. Count--like you always do. One--two--three--" + +"Please ma--for God's sake--please--please!" + +"Look--such beautiful roses! From Sol Ginsberg, an old friend of papa's +he used to buy brasses from eighteen years ago. Six years he's been +away with his daughter in Munich. Such a beautiful mezzo, they say, +engaged already for Metropolitan next season." + +"I hate it, ma, if they breathe on my neck." + +"Leon darlink, did mamma promise to fix it? Have I ever let you plan a +concert where you wouldn't be comfortable?" + +His long, slim hands suddenly prehensile and cutting a long, upward +gesture, Leon Kantor rose to his feet, face whitening. + +"Do it now! Now, I tell you! I won't have them breathe on me. Do you +hear me? Now! Now! Now!" + +Risen also, her face soft and tremulous for him, Mrs. Kantor put out a +gentle, a sedative hand upon his sleeve. + +"Son," she said, with an edge of authority even behind her smile, "don't +holler at me." + +He grasped her hand with his two, and, immediately quiet, placed a close +string of kisses along it. + +"Mamma," he said, kissing them again and again into the palm, +"mamma--mamma!" + +"I know, son; it's nerves." + +"They eat me, ma. Feel--I'm like ice. I didn't mean it; you know I +didn't mean it." + +"My baby," she said, "my wonderful boy, it's like I can never get used +to the wonder of having you! The greatest one of them all should be +mine--a plain woman's like mine!" + +He teased her, eager to conciliate and ride down his own state of +quivering. + +"Now, ma--now--now--don't forget Rimsky!" + +"'Rimsky!' A man three times your age who was playing concerts before +you was born! Is that a comparison? From your clippings-books I can show +Rimsky who the world considers the greatest violinist. Rimsky he rubs +into me!" + +"All right then, the press-clippings, but did Elsass, the greatest +manager of them all, bring me a contract for thirty concerts at two +thousand a concert? Now I've got you! Now!" + +She would not meet his laughter. + +"'Elsass!' Believe me, he'll come to you yet. My boy should worry if he +makes fifty thousand a year more or less. Rimsky should have that +honour--for so long as he can hold it. But he won't hold it long. +Believe me, I don't rest easy in my bed till Elsass comes after you. Not +for so big a contract like Rimsky's, but bigger--not for thirty concerts +but for fifty!" + +"_Brava! Brava!_ There's a woman for you. More money than she knows what +to do with, and then not satisfied!" + +She was still too tremulous for banter. + +"'Not satisfied?' Why, Leon, I never stop praying my thanks for you!" + +"All right then," he cried, laying his icy fingers on her cheek; +"to-morrow we'll call a _Mignon_--a regular old-fashioned Allen Street +prayer-party!" + +"Leon, you mustn't make fun." + +"Make fun of the sweetest girl in this room?" + +"'Girl!' Ah, if I could only hold you by me this way, Leon! Always a +boy--with me--your poor old mother--your only girl. That's a fear I +suffer with, Leon--to lose you to a--girl! That's how selfish the mother +of such a wonder-child like mine can get to be." + +"All right. Trying to get me married off again. Nice! Fine!" + +"Is it any wonder I suffer, son? Twenty-one years to have kept you by me +a child. A boy that's never in his life was out after midnight except to +catch trains. A boy that never has so much as looked at a girl and could +have looked at princesses. To have kept you all these years--mine--is it +any wonder, son, I never stop praying my thanks for you? You don't +believe Hancock, son, the way he keeps teasing you always you should +have a--what he calls--affair--a love-affair? Such talk is not nice, +Leon--an affair!" + +"Love-affair poppycock!" said Leon Kantor, lifting his mothers face and +kissing her on eyes about ready to tear. "Why, I've got something, ma, +right here in my heart for you that--" + +"Leon, be careful your shirt-front!" + +"That's so--so what you call 'tender,' for my best sweetheart that +I--oh, love affair--poppycock!" + +She would not let her tears come. "My boy--my wonder-boy!" + +"There goes the overture, ma." + +"Here, darlink--your glass of water." + +"I can't stand it in here; I'm suffocating!" + +"Got your mute in your pocket, son?" + +"Yes, ma; for God's sake, yes! Yes! Don't keep asking things." + +"Ain't you ashamed, Leon, to be in such an excitement? For every concert +you get worse." + +"The chairs--they'll breathe on my neck." + +"Leon, did mamma promise you those chairs would be moved?" + +"Where's Hancock?" + +"Say--I'm grateful if he stays out. It took me enough work to get this +room cleared. You know your papa he likes to drag in the whole world to +show you off--always just before you play. The minute he walks in the +room, right away he gets everybody to trembling just from his own +excitements. I dare him this time he should bring people--no dignity has +that man got, the way he brings everyone." + +Even upon her words came a rattling of door, of door-knob and a voice +through the clamour. + +"Open--quick--Sarah! Leon!" + +A stiffening raced over Mrs. Kantor, so that she sat rigid on her +chair-edge, lips compressed, eye darkly upon the shivering door. + +"Open--Sarah!" + +With a narrowing glance, Mrs. Kantor laid to her lips a forefinger of +silence. + +"Sarah, it's me! Quick, I say!" + +Then Leon Kantor sprang up, the old prehensile gesture of curving +fingers shooting up. + +"For God's sake, ma, let him in! I can't stand that infernal battering." + +"Abrahm, go away! Leon's got to have quiet before his concert." + +"Just a minute, Sarah. Open quick!" + +With a spring, his son was at the door, unlocking and flinging it back. + +"Come in, pa." + +The years had weighed heavily upon Abrahm Kantor in avoirdupois only. He +was himself plus eighteen years, fifty pounds, and a new sleek pomposity +that was absolutely oleaginous. It shone roundly in his face, doubling +of chin, in the bulge of waistcoat, heavily gold-chained, and in eyes +that behind the gold-rimmed glasses gave sparklingly forth his estate of +well-being. + +"Abrahm, didn't I tell you not to dare to--" + +On excited balls of feet that fairly bounced him, Abrahm Kantor burst +in. + +"Leon--mamma--I got out here an old friend--Sol Ginsberg--you remember, +mamma, from brasses--" + +"Abrahm--not now--" + +"Go way with your 'not now!' I want Leon should meet him. Sol, this is +him--a little grown-up from such a _Nebich_ like you remember him--_nu_? +Sarah, you remember Sol Ginsberg? Say--I should ask you if you remember +your right hand? Ginsberg & Esel, the firm. This is his girl, a five +years' contract signed yesterday--five hundred dollars an opera for a +beginner--six roles--not bad--_nu_?" + +"Abrahm, you must ask Mr. Ginsberg please to excuse Leon until after his +concert--" + +"Shake hands with him, Ginsberg. He's had his hand shook enough in his +life, and by kings, too--shake it once more with an old bouncer like +you!" + +Mr. Ginsberg, not unlike his colleague in rotundities, held out a short, +a dimpled hand. + +"It's a proud day," he said, "for me to shake the hands from mine old +friend's son and the finest violinist living to-day. My little +daughter--" + +"Yes, yes, Gina. Here shake hands with him. Leon, they say a voice like +a fountain. Gina Berg--eh, Ginsberg--is how you stage-named her? You +hear, mamma, how fancy--Gina Berg? We go hear her, eh?" + +There was about Miss Gina Berg, whose voice could soar to the +tirra-lirra of a lark and then deepen to mezzo, something of the actual +slimness of the poor, maligned Elsa so long buried beneath the buxomness +of divas. She was like a little flower that in its crannied nook keeps +dewy longest. + +"How do you do, Leon Kantor?" + +There was a whir through her English of three acquired languages. + +"How do _you_ do?" + +"We--father and I--travelled once all the way from Brussels to Dresden +to hear you play. It was worth it. I shall never forget how you played +the 'Humoresque.' It made me laugh and cry." + +"You like Brussels?" + +She laid her little hand to her heart, half closing her eyes. + +"I will never be so happy again as with the sweet little people of +Brussels." + +"I, too, love Brussels. I studied there four years with Ahrenfest." + +"I know you did. My teacher, Lyndahl, in Berlin, was his +brother-in-law." + +"You have studied with Lyndahl?" + +"He is my master." + +"I--will I sometime hear you sing?" + +"I am not yet great. When I am foremost like you, yes." + +"Gina--Gina Berg, that is a beautiful name to make famous." + +"You see how it is done? Gins--Berg. Gina Berg. + +"Clev-er!" + +They stood then smiling across a chasm of the diffidence of youth, she +fumbling at the great fur pelt out of which her face flowered so dewily. + +"I--well--we--we are in the fourth box--I guess we had better be +going--fourth box left." He wanted to find words, but for consciousness +of self could not "It's a wonderful house out there waiting for you, +Leon Kantor, and you--you're wonderful, too!" + +"The--flowers--thanks!" + +"My father, he sent them. Come, father--quick!" + +Suddenly there was a tight tensity that seemed to crowd up the little +room. + +"Abrahm--quick--get Hancock--that first rows of chairs has got to be +moved--there he is, in the wings--see the piano ain't dragged down too +far! Leon, got your mute on your pocket? Please Mr. Ginsberg--you must +excuse--Here, Leon, is your glass of water. Drink it, I say. Shut that +door out there, boy, so there ain't a draft in the wings. Here, Leon, +your violin. Got neckerchief? Listen how they're shouting--it's for +you--Leon--darlink--go!" + +In the center of that vast human bowl which had finally shouted itself +out, slim, boylike, and in his supreme isolation, Leon Kantor drew bow +and a first thin, pellucid, and perfect note into a silence breathless +to receive it. + +Throughout the arduous flexuosities of the Mendelssohn E-minor concerto, +singing, winding from tonal to tonal climax, and out of the slow +movement, which is like a tourniquet twisting the heart into the +spirited _allegro molto vivace_, it was as if beneath Leon Kantor's +fingers the strings were living vein-cords, youth, vitality, and the +very foam of exuberance racing through them. + +That was the power of him--the Vichy and the sparkle of youth, so that, +playing, the melody poured round him like wine and went down seething +and singing into the hearts of his hearers. + +Later, and because these were his people and because they were dark and +Slavic with his Slavic darkness, he played, as if his very blood were +weeping, the "Kol Nidre," which is the prayer of his race for atonement. + +And then the super-amphitheater, filled with those whose emotions lie +next to the surface and whose pores have not been closed over with a +water-tight veneer, burst into its cheers and its tears. + +There were fifteen recalls from the wings, Abrahm Kantor standing +counting them off on his fingers, and trembling to receive the +Stradivarius. Then, finally, and against the frantic negative pantomime +of his manager, a scherzo, played so lacily that it swept the house in +lightest laughter. + +When Leon Kantor finally completed his program, they were loath to let +him go, crowding down the aisles upon him, applauding up, down, round +him, until the great disheveled house was like the roaring of a sea, +and he would laugh and throw out his arm in wide-spread helplessness, +and always his manager in the background, gesticulating against too much +of his precious product for the money, ushers already slamming up +chairs, his father's arms out for the Stradivarius, and, deepest in the +gloom of the wings, Sarah Kantor, in a rocker especially dragged out for +her, and from the depths of the black-silk reticule, darning his socks. + +"_Bravo_--_bravo_! Give us the 'Humoresque'--Chopin +nocturne--polonaise--'Humoresque'! _Bravo_--_bravo_!" + +And even as they stood, hatted and coated, importuning and pressing in +upon him, and with a wisp of a smile to the fourth left box, Leon Kantor +played them the "Humoresque" of Dvorak, skedaddling, plucking, +quirking--that laugh on life with a tear behind it. Then suddenly, +because he could escape no other way, rushed straight back for his +dressing-room, bursting in upon a flood of family already there before +him. Isadora Kantor, blue-shaven, aquiline, and already greying at the +temples; his five-year-old son, Leon; a soft little pouter-pigeon of a +wife, too, enormous of bust, in glittering ear-drops and a wrist-watch +of diamonds half buried in chubby wrist; Miss Esther Kantor, pink and +pretty; Rudolph; Boris, not yet done with growing-pains. + +At the door, Miss Kantor met her brother, her eyes as sweetly moist as +her kiss. + +"Leon, darling, you surpassed even yourself!" + +"Quit crowding, children! Let him sit down. Here, Leon, let mamma give +you a fresh collar. Look how the child's perspired! Pull down that +window, Boris. Rudolph, don't let no one in. I give you my word if +to-night wasn't as near as I ever came to seeing a house go crazy. Not +even that time in Milan, darlink--when they broke down the doors, was it +like to-night--" + +"Ought to seen, ma, the row of police outside--" + +"Hush up, Roody! Don't you see your brother is trying to get his +breath?" + +From Mrs. Isadore Kantor: "You ought to seen the balconies, mother. +Isadore and I went up just to see the jam." + +"Six thousand dollars in the house to-night if there was a cent," said +Isadore Kantor. + +"Hand me my violin please, Esther. I must have scratched it, the way +they pushed." + +"No, son; you didn't. I've already rubbed it up. Sit quiet, darlink!" + +He was limply white, as if the vitality had flowed out of him. + +"God! Wasn't it--tremendous?" + +"Six thousand if there was a cent," repeated Isadore Kantor; "more than +Rimsky ever played to in his life!" + +"Oh, Izzy, you make me sick, always counting--counting." + +"Your sister's right, Isadore. You got nothing to complain of if there +was only six hundred in the house. A boy whose fiddle has made already +enough to set you up in such a fine business, his brother Boris in such +a fine college, automobiles--style--and now because Vladimir Rimsky, +three times his age, gets signed up with Elsass for a few thousand more +a year, right away the family gets a long face--" + +"Ma, please; Isadore didn't mean it that way!" + +"Pa's knocking, ma; shall I let him in?" + +"Let him in, Roody. I'd like to know what good it will do to try to keep +him out." + +In an actual rain of perspiration, his tie slid well under one ear, +Abrahm Kantor burst in, mouthing the words before his acute state of +strangulation would let them out. + +"Elsass--it's Elsass outside--he--wants--to sign--Leon--fifty +concerts--coast to coast--two thousand--next season--he's got the +papers--already drawn up--the pen outside waiting--" + +"Abrahm!" + +"Pa!" + +In the silence that followed, Isadore Kantor, a poppiness of stare and a +violent redness set in, suddenly turned to his five-year-old son, sticky +with lollypop, and came down soundly and with smack against the +infantile, the slightly outstanding, and unsuspecting ear. + +"_Momser!_" he cried. "_Chammer! Lump! Ganef!_ You hear that? Two +thousand! Two thousand! Didn't I tell you--didn't I tell you to +practise?" + +Even as Leon Kantor put pen to this princely document, Francis Ferdinand +of Austria, the assassin's bullet true, lay dead in state, and let slip +were the dogs of war. + +In the next years, men, forty deep, were to die in piles; hayricks of +fields to become human hayricks of battlefields; Belgium disembowelled, +her very entrails dragging to find all the civilized world her champion, +and between the poppies of Flanders, crosses, thousands upon thousands +of them, to mark the places where the youth of her allies fell, avenging +outrage. Seas, even when calmest, were to become terrible, and men's +heart-beats, a bit sluggish with the fatty degeneration of a sluggard +peace, to quicken and then to throb with the rat-a-tat-tat, the +rat-a-tat-tat of the most peremptory, the most reverberating call to +arms in the history of the world. + +In June, 1917, Leon Kantor, answering that rat-a-tat-tat, enlisted. + +In November, honed by the interim of training to even a new leanness, +and sailing orders heavy and light in his heart, Lieutenant Kantor, on +two day's home-leave, took leave of his home, which can be cruelest when +it is tenderest. + +Standing there in the expensive, the formal, the enormous French parlour +of his up-town apartment de luxe, from not one of whose chairs would his +mother's feet touch floor, a wall of living flesh, mortared in blood, +was throbbing and hedging him in. + +He would pace up and down the long room, heavy with the faces of those +who mourn, with a laugh too ready, too facetious in his fear for them. + +"Well, well, what is this, anyway, a wake? Where's the coffin? Who's +dead?" + +His sister-in-law shot out her plump, watch-incrusted wrist. + +"Don't, Leon" she cried. "Such talk is a sin! It might come true." + +"Rosie-Posy-butter-ball," he said pausing beside her chair to pinch her +deeply soft cheek. "Cry-baby-roly-poly, you can't shove me off in a +wooden kimono that way." + +From his place before the white-and-gold mantel, staring steadfastly at +the floor-tiling, Isadore Kantor turned suddenly, a bit whiter and older +at the temples. + +"Don't get your comedy, Leon. + +"'Wooden kimono'--Leon?" + +"That's the way the fellows at camp joke about coffins, ma. I didn't +mean anything but fun. Great Scott--can't anyone take a joke?" + +"O God! O God!" His mother fell to swaying, softly hugging herself +against shivering. + +"Did you sign over power of attorney to pa, Leon?" + +"All fixed, Izzy." + +"I'm so afraid, son, you don't take with you enough money in your +pockets. You know how you lose it. If only you would let mamma sew that +little bag inside your uniform with a little place for bills and a +little place for the asfitidy!" + +"Now, please, ma--please! If I needed more, wouldn't I take it? Wouldn't +I be a pretty joke among the fellows, tied up in that smelling stuff? +Orders are orders, ma; I know what to take and what not to take." + +"Please, Leon, don't get mad at me, but if you will let me put in your +suitcase just one little box of that salve for your finger tips, so they +don't crack--" + +Pausing as he paced to lay cheek to her hair, he patted her. + +"Three boxes if you want. Now, how's that?" + +"And you won't take it out so soon as my back is turned?" + +"Cross my heart." + +His touch seemed to set her trembling again, all her illy concealed +emotions rushing up. + +"I can't stand it! Can't! Can't! Take my life--take my blood, but don't +take my boy--don't take my boy--" + +"Mamma, mamma, is that the way you're going to begin all over again +after your promise?" + +She clung to him, heaving against the rising storm of sobs. + +"I can't help it--can't--cut out my heart from me, but let me keep my +boy--my wonder-boy--" + +"Oughtn't she be ashamed of herself? Just listen to her, Esther! What +will we do with her? Talks like she had a guarantee I wasn't coming +back. Why I wouldn't be surprised if by spring I wasn't tuning up again +for a coast-to-coast tour--" + +"'Spring'--that talk don't fool me--without my boy, the springs in my +life are over--" + +"Why, ma, you talk like every soldier who goes to war was killed. +There's only the smallest percentage of them die in battle--" + +"'Spring,' he says; 'spring!' Crossing the seas from me! To live through +months with that sea between us--my boy maybe shot--my--" + +"Mamma, please!" + +"I can't help it, Leon; I'm not one of those fine mothers that can be so +brave. Cut out my heart, but leave my boy--my wonder-boy--my child I +prayed for!" + +"There's other mothers, ma, with sons." + +"Yes, but not wonder-sons! A genius like you could so easy get excused, +Leon. Give it up. Genius it should be the last to be sent to--the +slaughter-pen. Leon darlink--don't go!" + +"Ma, ma--you don't mean what you're saying. You wouldn't want me to +reason that way. You wouldn't want me to hide behind my--violin." + +"I would! Would! You should wait for the draft. With my Roody and even +my baby Boris enlisted, ain't it enough for one mother? Since they got +to be in camp, all right I say, let them be there, if my heart breaks +for it, but not my wonder-child! You get the exemption, Leon, right away +for the asking. Stay with me Leon! Don't go away! The people at home got +to be kept happy with music. That's being a soldier, too, playing their +troubles away. Stay with me, Leon! Don't go leave me--don't--don't--" + +He suffered her to lie, tear-drenched, back into his arms, holding her +close in his compassion for her, his own face twisting. + +"God, ma, his--is awful! Please--you make us ashamed--all of us! I +don't know what to say. Esther, come quiet her--for God's sake quiet +her!" + +From her place in the sobbing circle, Esther Kantor crossed to kneel +beside her mother. + +"Mamma, darling, you're killing yourself! What if every family went on +this way? You want papa to come in and find us all crying? Is this the +way you want Leon to spend his last hour with us--" + +"O God--God!" + +"I mean his last hour until he comes back, darling. Didn't you just hear +him say, darling, it may be by spring?" + +"'Spring'--'spring'--never no more springs for me--" + +"Just think, darling, how proud we should be. Our Leon, who could so +easily have been excused, not even to wait for the draft." + +"It's not too late yet--please, Leon--" + +"Our Roody and Boris both in camp, too, training to serve their country. +Why, mamma, we ought to be crying for happiness! As Leon says, surely +the Kantor family who fled out of Russia to escape massacre should know +how terrible slavery can be. That's why we must help our boys, mamma, in +their fight to make the world free. Right, Leon?"--trying to smile with +her red-rimmed eyes. + +"We've got no fight with no one! Not a child of mine was ever raised to +so much as lift a finger against no one. We've got no fight with no +one." + +"We have got a fight with some one. With autocracy! Only, this time it +happens to be Hunnish autocracy. You should know it, mamma; oh, you +should know it deeper down in you than any of us, the fight our family +right here has got with autocracy!" + +"Leon's right, mamma darling, the way you and papa were beaten out of +your country--" + +"There's not a day in your life you don't curse it without knowing it! +Every time we three boys look at your son and our brother Mannie, born +an--an imbecile--because of autocracy, we know what we're fighting for. +We know. You know, too. Look at him over there, even before he was +born, ruined by autocracy! Know what I'm fighting for? Why, this whole +family knows! What's music, what's art, what's life itself in a world +without freedom? Every time, ma, you get to thinking we've got a fight +with no one, all you have to do is look at our poor Mannie. He's the +answer! He's the answer!" + +In a foaming sort of silence, Mannie Kantor smiled softly from his chair +beneath the pink-and-gold shade of the piano-lamp. The heterogeneous +sounds of women weeping had ceased. Straight in her chair, her great +shelf of bust heaving, sat Rosa Kantor, suddenly dry of eye; Isadore +Kantor head up. Erect now, and out from the embrace of her daughter, +Sarah looked up at her son. + +"What time do you leave, Leon?" she asked, actually firm of lip. + +"Any minute, ma. Getting late." + +This time she pulled her lips to a smile, waggling her forefinger. + +"Don't let them little devils of French girls fall in love with my dude +in his uniform." + +Her pretense at pleasantry was almost more than he could bear. + +"Hear! Hear! Our mother thinks I'm a regular lady-killer! Hear that, +Esther?"--pinching her cheek. + +"You are, Leon--only--only, you don't know it." + +"Don't you bring down too many beaus while I'm gone, either, Miss +Kantor!" + +"I--won't, Leon." + +_Sotto voce_ to her: "Remember, Esther, while I'm gone, the royalties +from the Discaphone records are yours. I want you to have them for +pin-money and--maybe a dowry?" + +She turned from him. + +"Don't, Leon--don't--" + +"I like him! Nice fellow, but too slow! Why, if I were in his shoes, I'd +have popped long ago." + +She smiled with her lashes dewy. + +There entered then, in a violet-scented little whirl, Miss Gina Berg, +rosy with the sting of a winter's night, and, as usual, swathed in the +high-napped furs. + +"Gina!" + +She was for greeting everyone, a wafted kiss to Mrs. Kantor, and then +arms wide, a great bunch of violets in one outstretched hand, her glance +straight sure and sparkling for Leon Kantor. + +"Surprise--everybody--surprise!" + +"Why, Gina--we read--we thought you were singing in Philadelphia +to-night!" + +"So did I, Esther darling, until a little bird whispered to me that +Lieutenant Kantor was home on farewell leave." + +He advanced to her down the great length of room, lowering his head over +her hand, his puttee-clad legs clicked together. + +"You mean, Miss Gina--Gina--you didn't sing?" + +"Of course I didn't! Hasn't every prima donna a larynx to hid behind?" +She lifted off her fur cap, spilling curls. + +"Well, I--I'll be hanged!" said Lieutenant Kantor, his eyes lakes of her +reflected loveliness. + +She let her hand linger in his. + +"Leon--you--really going--how--terrible--how--how--wonderful!" + +"How wonderful--your coming!" + +"I--you think it was not nice of me--to come?" + +"I think it was the nicest thing that ever happened in the world." + +"All the way here in the train, I kept saying--crazy--crazy--running to +tell Leon--Lieutenant--Kantor good-bye--when you haven't even seen him +three times in three years--" + +"But each--each of those three times we--we've remembered, Gina." + +"But that's how I feel toward all the boys, Leon--our fighting +boys--just like flying to them to kiss them each one good-bye." + +"Come over, Gina. You'll be a treat to our mother. I--well, I'm +hanged--all the way from Philadelphia!" + +There was even a sparkle to talk then, and a let-up of pressure. After +a while, Sarah Kantor looked up at her son, tremulous but smiling. + +"Well, son, you going to play--for your old mother before--you go? It'll +be many a month--spring--maybe longer before I hear my boy again except +on the discaphone." + +He shot a quick glance to his sister. + +"Why, I--I don't know. I--I'd love it, ma if--if you think, Esther, I'd +better." + +"You don't need to be afraid of me, darlink. There's nothing can give me +strength to bear--what's before me like--like my boy's music. That's my +life, his music." + +"Why, yes; if mamma is sure she feels that way, play for us, Leon." + +He was already at the instrument, where it lay swathed, atop the grand +piano. + +"What'll it be, folks?" + +"Something to make ma laugh, Leon--something light, something funny." + +"'Humoresque'?" he said, with a quick glance for Miss Berg. + +"'Humoresque,'" she said, smiling back at him. + +He capered through, cutting and playful of bow, the melody of Dvorak's, +which is as ironic as a grinning mask. + +Finished, he smiled at his parent, her face still untearful. + +"How's that?" + +"It's like life, son, that piece. Laughing and making fun of--the way +just as we think we got--we ain't got." + +"Play that new piece, Leon, the one you set to music. You know. The +words by that young boy in the war who wrote such grand poetry before he +was killed. The one that always makes poor Mannie laugh. Play it for +him, Leon." + +Her plump little unlined face innocent of fault, Mrs. Isadore Kantor +ventured her request, her smile tired with tears." + +"No, no--Rosa--not now--ma wouldn't want that." + +"I do, son; I do! Even Mannie should have his share of good-bye." + +To Gina Berg: "They want me to play that little setting of mine of +Allan Seeger's poem, 'I have a rendezvous.'" + +"It--it's beautiful, Leon! I was to have sung it on my program +to-night--only, I'm afraid you had better not--" + +"Please, Leon! Nothing you play can ever make me as sad as it makes me +glad. Mannie should have too his good-bye." + +"All right then, ma, if--if you're sure you want it. Will you sing it, +Gina?" + +She had risen. + +"Why, yes, Leon." + +She sang it then, quite purely, her hands clasped simply together and +her glance mistily off, the beautiful, the heroic, the lyrical prophecy +of a soldier-poet and a poet-soldier. + + But I've a rendezvous with Death + On some scarred slope of battered hill, + When spring comes round again this year + And the first meadow-flowers appear. + +In the silence that followed, a sob burst out stifled from Esther +Kantor, this time her mother holding her in arms that were strong. + +"That, Leon, is the most beautiful of all your compositions. What does +it mean, son, that word, 'rondy-voo'?" + +"Why, I--I don't exactly know. A rendezvous--it's a sort of meeting, an +engagement, isn't it, Miss Gina? Gina?" + +"That's it, Leon--an engagement." + +"Have I an engagement with you, Gina?" + +"Oh, how--how I hope you have, Leon!" + +"When?" + +"In the spring?" + +"That's it--in the spring." + +Then they smiled, these two, who had never felt more than the merest +butterfly wings of love brushing them, light as lashes. No word between +them, only an unfinished sweetness, waiting to be linked up. + +Suddenly there burst in Abrahm Kantor. + +"Quick, Leon! I got the car downstairs. Just fifteen minutes to make the +ferry. Quick! The sooner we get him over there the sooner we get him +back! I'm right, mamma? Now--now--no water-works! Get your brother's +suitcase, Isadore. Now--now--no nonsense--quick!" + +With a deftly manoeuvred round of good-byes, a grip-laden dash for door, +a throbbing moment of turning back when it seemed as though Sarah +Kantor's arms could not unlock their deadlock of him, Leon Kantor was +out and gone, the group of faces point-etched into the silence behind +him. The poor mute face of Mannie, laughing softly. Rosa Kantor crying +into her hands. Esther, grief-crumpled, but rich in the enormous hope of +youth. The sweet Gina, to whom the waiting months had already begun +their reality. + +Not so, Sarah Kantor. In a bedroom adjoining, its high-ceilinged +vastness as cold as a cathedral to her lowness of stature, sobs dry and +terrible were rumbling up from her, only to dash against lips tightly +restraining them. + +On her knees beside a chest of drawers, and unwrapping it from +swaddling-clothes, she withdrew what at best had been a sorry sort of +fiddle. Cracked of back and solitary of string it was as if her +trembling arms, raising it above her head, would make of themselves and +her swaying body the tripod of an altar. The old twisting and prophetic +pain was behind her heart. Like the painted billows of music that the +old Italian masters loved to do, there wound and wreathed about her +clouds of song. + + But I've a rendezvous with Death + On some scarred slope of battered hill, + When spring comes round again this year + And the first meadow-flowers appear. + + + + +THE LUBBENY KISS + + +BY LOUISE RICE + +From _Ainslee's Magazine_ + +For many hours the hot July sun had beaten down upon the upland meadows +and the pine woods of the lower New Jersey hills. So, when the dew began +to fall, there arose from them a heady brew, distilled from blossoming +milkweed and fruiting wild raspberry canes and mountain laurel and dried +pine needles. + +The Princess Dora Parse took this perfume into her lusty young lungs and +blew it out again in a long sigh, after which she bent her first finger +over her thumb as one must when one returns what all Romanys know to be +"the breath of God." She did this almost unconsciously, for all her +faculties were busied in another matter. + +The eyes of a gorgio, weakened by an indoor life, would never have been +able to distinguish the small object for which the princess looked, for +she was perched up on the high seat of the red Romany _wardo_, and she +drove her two strong, shaggy horses with a free and careless hand. But +to Dora Parse the blur of vague shadows gliding by each wheel was not +vague at all. Suddenly she checked her horses and sprang down. + +The patteran for which she was looking was laid beneath a clump of the +flowering weed which the Romanys call "stars in the sky." The gorgios +know it as Queen Ann's lace, and the farmers curse it by the name of the +wild carrot. The patteran was like a miniature log cabin without a roof, +and across the top one large stick was laid, pointing upward along the +mountain road. + +Two brown and slender fingers on the big braid which dropped over her +shoulder, the princess meditated, a shiver of fear running through her. +What, she asked herself, could this mean? Why, for the first time in +years, were the wagons to go to the farm of Jan Jacobus? Even if it were +only a chance happening, it was a most unfortunate one, for young Jan, +the fair-haired, giant son of old Jacobus, with his light blue eyes and +his drawling, insolent speech, was the last person in the world that she +wanted to see, especially with her man near. + +For she had meant no harm. Many and many a time she had smiled into the +eyes of men and felt pride in her power over them. Still--and yet--The +princess scattered the patteran with her foot, for she knew that all the +wagons must be ahead of her, since she had lagged so, and she leaped to +her seat with one easy, lithe swing and drove on up the darkening road. + +Jan Jacobus, like several other descendants of the Dutch settlers of New +Jersey, held his upland farm on shares with John Lane's tribe of +gypsies. Jacobuses and Bantas and Koppfs, they made no bones about +having business dealings with the tribe of English Romanys which had +followed a regular route, twice a year, from Maryland to the upper part +of New Jersey, since before the beginning of the Revolutionary days. The +descendants of the English settlers, the Hardys, the Lesters, the +Vincents, and the Farrands, looked with still persisting English reserve +upon the roamers of the woods and would have no traffic with them, +though a good many of their sons and daughters had to know the few +Romany young people who were left, by twos and threes in the towns for +occasional years of schooling. + +The tribe, trading in land in the two States which they frequented, and +breeding horses, was very rich, but not very many people knew that. +However, they were conceded to be shrewd bargainers, and when old John +bought Martin Debbins' upland and rocky farm one year, with the money +that he had made by a lucky purchase of a gangling colt whose owner had +failed rightly to appraise its possibilities as a racer, Boonton and +Dover and Morristown laughed. + +"_Sal_ away," old John retorted pleasantly to the cashier of the bank in +Boonton, where the tube had deposited its surplus funds for many years, +"but you won't _sal_ so much when you _dik_ what I will make out of +that joke." + +The cashier thereupon looked thoughtful. It might well be that he and +others would not laugh when they saw good fortune which might have been +theirs following this genial old outlaw. + +That summer the wagons camped on the Debbins place, and old John stocked +it with a lot of fine hogs, for which the land was especially adapted. +They fattened on the many acres, wooded with wild nut trees, and +Jacobus--as keen a bargainer as any Romany, upon whom John Lane had had +his eye all the time--took the farm on shares, and every year thereafter +the cashier at the bank added a neat little total to the big balance +which the tribe was rolling up. + +And every year, as the wagons beat up toward Dover in July, old John +would drive on ahead and spend a night of mingled business and pleasure +with old Jan, reckoning up the profits on the Berkshires for which the +farm was now famous, and putting down big mugs of the "black drink" for +which Aunty Alice Lee, John Lane's ancient cousin, was equally famous. +The amount of this fiery and head-splitting liquor which the two old men +thus got away with was afterward gleefully recounted in the wagons and +fearfully whispered of in the little Dutch church at Horse's Neck which +the Jacobuses had attended for over a hundred years. + +But never, as wagon after wagon had gone up the turning that led to the +upward farm, had there been a patteran pointing that way. Always, it had +shown the way onward and downward, to the little hamlet of Rockaway, +where there was an old and friendly camping place, back of the +blacksmith shop beyond the church. Old John never encouraged the wagons +to visit any of the properties held by the tribe. + +"Silver blackens the salt of friendship," he would say. + +Dora Parse was driving her own _wardo_, a very fine one which had +belonged to her mother. Lester Montague, of Sea Tack, Maryland, who +makes the wagons of Romanys for all the Atlantic coast tribes, like his +father before him, had done an especially good job of it. The princess +had been certified, by the Romany rites, to old John's eldest son, +George, for she had flatly refused to be married according to the gorgio +ways. Not having been married a full year, he was not yet entitled to +carry the heavy, silver-topped stick which is the badge of the married +man, nor could he demand a place in his wife's tent or wagon unless she +expressly invited him. Dora Parse and George Lane were passionately in +love with each other, and their meeting and mating had been the +flowering romance of the tribe, the previous summer. + +The princess, being descended from a very old Romany family, as her name +showed, was far higher in rank than any one in the Lane tribe. Her +aristocratic lineage showed in the set of her magnificent head, in the +small, delicate fingers of her hand, and in the fire and richness of her +eyes. Also, her skin was of the colour of old ivory upon which is cast a +distant, faint reflection of the sunset, and her mouth, thinner than +those of most Romanys, was of the colour of a ripe pomegranate. + +"A _rauni, a puro rauni_," all the tribes of the eastern coast murmured +respectfully, when Dora Parse's name was mentioned. + +She was, indeed, a very great lady, but she was a flirtatious and +headstrong girl. She was one of the few modern gypsies who still hold to +the unadulterated worship of "those." All the members of John Lane's +tribe were Methodists--had been since before they had migrated from +England. In every wagon, save Dora's, a large illustrated Bible lay on a +little table, and those who could, read them aloud to the rest of a +Sunday afternoon. This did not mean, however, that the Romanys had +descended to gorgio ways, or that they had wholly left off their +attentions to "those". They combined the two. Old John was known as a +fervent and eloquent leader in prayer at the Wednesday-night prayer +meetings in the Maryland town where his church membership was held, but +he had not ceased to carry the "box of meanings," as befitted the chief +of the tribe. + +This was a very beautifully worked box of pure gold, made by the great +Nikola of Budapest, whose boxes can be found inside the shirt of every +gypsy chief, where they are always carried. In them are some grains of +wheat, garnered by moonlight, a peacock's feather, and a small silver +bell with a coiled snake for a handle. When anything is to be decided, a +few of the grains are taken out and counted. If they are even, the omen +is bad, but if they are odd, all is well. Old John had an elastic and +accommodating mind, like all Romanys, so he never thought it strange +that he should ask the "box of meanings" whether or not it was going to +storm on prayer-meeting nights. + +Dora Parse thought of the box now, and wished that she might have the +peacock's feather for a minute, so that her uneasy sense of impending +bad luck would leave her. Then she stopped beside a cross-barred gate +where an old man was evidently waiting for her. + +"Lane was gettin' troubled about yuh," he said, as he turned the horses +and peered curiously up at her. He knew who she was, not only because +John Lane had said who it was who was late, but because Dora Parse's +appearance was well known to the whole countryside. She was the only +member of the tribe who kept to the full Romany dress. There were big +gold loops in her small ears, and on her arms, many gold bracelets, +whose lightness testified to their freedom from alloy. Her skirt was of +red, heavily embroidered in blue, and her waist, with short sleeves, was +of sheer white cloth, with an embroidered bolero. Her hair she wore in +the ancient fashion, in two braids on either side of her face. She could +well afford to, the chis muttered among themselves. Any girl with hair +like that-- + +There was a long lane leading to the barns and to the meadow back of +them, and there, said Jan, the tribe was to camp. As the princess drove +along the short distance, she swiftly snatched off her little bolero, +put it on wrong side out, and then snatched it off and righted it. That +much, at least, she could do to avert ill luck. And her heart bounded as +she drove in among the other wagons, for her husband came running to +meet her and held out his arms. + +She dropped into them and laid each finger tip, delicately, in +succession, upon his eyes and his ears and his mouth, the seal of a +betrothal and the sign whereby a Romany chal may know that a chi intends +to accept him when he speaks for her before the tribe; a sign that +lovers repeat as a sacred and intimate caress. She leaned, hard, into +his arms, and he held her, pressing the tender, confidential kiss that +is given to children behind her little ear. + +Dora Parse suddenly ran both hands through his thick hair and gave it a +little pull. She always did that when her spirits rose. Then she turned +and looked at the scene, and at once she knew that there was to be some +special occasion. Aunty Alice Lee was seated by a cooking fire, on which +stood the enormous iron pot in which the "big meals" were prepared, when +the tribe was to eat together and not in separate groups, as it usually +did. There were some boards laid on wooden horses, and Pyramus Lee, +aunty's grandson, was bringing blocks of wood from the woodshed for +seats. Dora Parse clapped her hands with delight and looked at her man. + +"_Tetcho_!" she exclaimed, approvingly, using the word that spells all +degrees of satisfaction. "And what is it for, stickless one? Is it a +talk over silver?" + +"Yes, it is some business," George Lane replied, "but first there will +be a _gillie shoon_." + +A _gillie shoon_ has its counterpart in the English word "singsong," as +it is beginning to be used now, with this exception: Romanys have few +"fixed" songs. They have strains which are set, which every one knows, +but a _gillie shoon_ means that the performers improvise coninually; and +in this sense it is a mystic ceremony, never held at an appointed time, +except a "time of Mul-cerus," which really means a sort of religious +wave of feeling, which strikes tribe after tribe, usually in the spring. + +"Marda has come back," Aunty Lee called out to Dora Parse. No one ever +called her by her full name of Marda Lee, because she was a Lee only by +courtesy, having been adopted from a distant wagon when both her parents +were killed in a thunderstorm. Marda, wearing the trim tailored skirt +and waist that were her usual costume, was putting the big red +tablecloth of the "big meals" on the boards. Dora went quickly toward +the young girl and embraced her. + +"How is our little scholar?" she asked affectionately. + +"I am very well, Dora Parse, but a little tired," Marda answered. + +"And did you receive another paper?" + +"Yes. I passed my exams. It will save me half a year in Dover." + +"That is good," Dora Parse replied, although she had only the dimmest +idea of what Marda meant. The young girl knew that. She had just come +from taking a special course in Columbia, and she was feeling the breach +between herself and her people to be especially wide. Because of that, +perhaps, she also felt more loving toward all of them than she ever had, +and especially toward Dora about whom she knew something that was most +alarming. Dora Parse noted the pale, grave face of her favourite friend +with concern. + +"Smile, bird of my heart," she entreated, "for we are to have a _gillie +shoon_. Sit near me, that I may follow your heaven voice." + +There was no flattery meant. The Romanys call the soprano "the heaven +voice," the tenor "the sky voice," the contralto "the earth voice," and +the basso "the sea voice." Dora had a really wonderful earth voice, +almost as wonderful as Marda's heaven voice, which would have been +remarkable even among opera singers, and the two were known everywhere +for their improvisations. In answer to the remark of the princess, Marda +gave her a strange look and said: + +"I shall be near you, Dora Parse. Do not forget." + +Her manner was certainly peculiar, the princess thought, as she walked +away. But then one never knew what Marda was thinking about. Her great +education set her apart from others. Any chi who habitually read herself +to sleep over those most _puro libros_, "The Works of William +Shakespeare, in Eight Volumes, Complete, with Glossary and Appendix," +must not be judged by ordinary standards. The princess knew the full +title of those _puro libros_, having painfully spelled it out, all one +rainy afternoon, in Marda's mother's wagon, with repeated assitance and +explanations from Marda, which had left the princess with a headache. + +Now Aunty Lee took off the heavy iron cover of the pot and the odour of +Romany duck stew, than which there is nothing in the world more +appetizing, mingled with the sweet fragrance of the drying hay. Aunty +thrust a fork as long as a poker into the bubbling mass and then gave +the call that brings the tribe in a hurry. + +"Empo!" she said in her shrill, cracked voice. "Empo! Empo!" + +Laughing, teasing, jostling, talking, they all came, spilling out from +the wagons, running from the barn, sauntering in, the lovers, by twos, +and sat down before the plates heaped high with the duck and the +vegetables with which it was cooked and the big loaves of Italian bread +which the Romanys like and always buy as they pass through towns where +there are Italian bakeries. + +But they sat quiet then, and each one looked toward the princess, as +politeness demanded, since she was the highest in rank among them. + +She drew a sliver of meat from her plate and tossed it over her +shoulder. + +"To the great _re_" she said. + +"To the _shule_," each one murmured. Then, having paid their compliments +to the sun and the moon, as all good Romanys must before eating, they +fell to with heartiness. + +When they were through, the mothers and the old men cleared away the +tables and put the younger children to bed in the wagons, and the +princess and George Lane and Marda and young Adam Lane, George's +youngest brother, walked up and down, outside the glow from the cooking +fire, taking the deep, full breaths which cleanse the mouth and prepare +the soul for the ecstasy of song. + +The men took away the table and the lanterns which had been standing +about, and put out the cooking fire, for the big moon was rolling up +over the treetops, and Romanys sing by her light alone, if they can. +Frogs were calling in the shallow stretches of the Upper Rockaway. +People began to sit down in a big circle. + +Then Marda started the _gillie shoon_. At first you could not have been +sure whether the sound was far or near, for she "covered" her tones, in +a way that many a gorgio gives years and much silver to learn. Then the +wonderful tone swelled out, as if an organ stop were being pulled open, +and one by one, the four leaders cast in the dropping notes which +followed and sustained the theme that Marda was weaving: + +"Lal--la--ai--lala--lalu! Ai--l-a-a-a--lalu!" + +Old John, who had not appeared before, slid into the circle, holding by +the sleeve a giant of a man who seemed to come half unwillingly. Dora +Parse saw him, and she could not repress the shiver that ran through her +at the sight of young Jan Jacobus, yet she sang on. The deep, majestic +basses throbbed out the foundation of the great fuguelike chorus, and +the sopranos soared and soared until they were singing falsetto, +according to gorgio standards, only it sounded like the sweetly piercing +high notes of violins, and the tenors and contraltos wove a garland of +glancing melody between the two. They were all singing now. Rocking back +and forth a little, swaying gently from side to side, lovers clasped +together, mothers in their young sons' arms, and fathers clasping their +daughters, they sent out to the velvet arch above them the heart cry of +a race, proud and humble, cleanly voluptuous, strong and cruel, +passionate and loving, elemental like the north wind and subtle as the +fragrance of the poppy. + +"Ai--lallu! Ai--lala--lala! Ai--lallu!" + +Jan Jacobus sat with his big jaw dropping. Stupid boor that he was, he +could not have explained the terrifying effect which this wild music and +those tense, uplifting faces had upon him, but he would have given +anything to be back in his mother's kitchen, with the lamp lit and the +dark, unfamiliar night shut out. + +As suddenly as the singing had begun, it stopped. People coughed, moved +a little, whispered to one another. Then George Lane stood upon his +feet, pulling Dora Parse with him. + +"You see her?" he asked them all, holding out his wife in his arms. + +Dora Parse knew then, for he was beginning the ritual of the man or +woman who accuses a partner, before the tribe, of unfaithfulness. He was +using the most _puro_ Romany _jib_, for only so can the serious affairs +of the tribe tribunal be conducted. Dora Parse struggled in the strong +hands of her man. + +"No! No!" she cried. "No--no!" + +"You see her?" George Lane repeated to the circle. + +"We see her," they answered in a murmur that ran around from end to end. + +"She is mine?" + +"She is yours." + +"What shall be done to her if she has lost the spirit of our love?" + +Again Dora Parse furiously struggled, but George Lane held her. + +"What shall be done with her? If that is so?" + +Aunty Lee, as the oldest woman present, now took up the replies, as was +her right and duty: + +"Let her go to that other, if she wishes, and do you close your tent and +your wagon against her." + +"And if she does not wish?" + +"Then punish her." + +"What shall be done to the man?" + +"Is he a Romany?" + +"No." + +Jan Jacobus half started up, but strong hands instantly jerked him down. + +"He is a gorgio?" + +"Yes." + +"Do nothing. We do not soil our hands with gorgios. Let the woman bear +the blame. She is a Romany. She should have known better. She is a +woman, the wiser sex. It is her fault. Let her be punished." + +"Do you all say so?" George Lane demanded. + +"We say so." Again the rippling murmur. + +Jan Jacobus made a desperate attempt to get on his feet, but, for all +his strength, he might as well have tried to uncoil the folds of a great +snake as to unbind the many hands that held him, for the Romanys have +as many secret ways of restraining a person as the Japanese. + +George Lane drew his wife tenderly close to him. + +"She shall be punished," he said, "but first she shall hear, before you +all, that I love her and that I know she has not lost the spirit of our +love. Her fault was born of lightness of heart and vanity, not of evil." + +"What is her fault? Name it," commanded Aunty Lee. + +George Lane looked over at Jan. + +"Her fault is that she trusted a gorgio to understand the ways of a +Romany. For our girls have the spirit of love in their eyes, but no man +among us would kiss a girl unless he received the sign from her. But the +gorgio men are without honour. To-day, as this woman who is mine stopped +to talk with a gorgio, among some trees where I waited, thinking to +enter her wagon there, he kissed her, and she kissed him, in return." + +"Not with the _lubbeny_ kiss--not with that kiss!" Dora Parse cried. +"May I be lost as Pharaoh was in the sea if I speak not the truth!" + +The solemn oath, never taken by any Romany lightly and never falsely +sworn to, rang out on the still night air. A cold, but firm little hand +was slipped into Dora Parse's. Marda was near, as she had promised, and +the hot palm of the princess closed gratefully upon it. + +George Lane drew his wife upon his breast, and over her glossy head he +looked for encouragement to Aunty Lee, who knew what he must do. He was +very pale, but he must not hesitate. + +"Kiss me, my love," he said, loudly and clearly, "here before my people, +that I may punish you. Give me the kiss of love, when tongues and lips +meet, that you may know your fault." + +Now Dora Parse grew very pale, too, and she leaned far back against her +man's arms, her eyes wide with terror. And no one spoke, for in all the +history of the tribe this thing had never happened before, though every +one had heard of it. Dora Parse knew that, if she refused, her oath +would be considered false, and she would be cast out, not only from her +husband's tent and wagon, but from all Romany tribes. And slowly she +leaned forward, and George Lane bent down. + +Jan Jacobus, although he had not understood the words of the ritual, +thought he knew what had happened. The gypsy fool was forgiving his +pretty wife. The young Dutchman settled back on his haunches, suddenly +aware that he was no longer held. And then, with all the others, he +sprang to his feet, for Dora Parse was hanging in her husband's arms, +with blood pouring from her mouth and George Lane was sobbing aloud as +he called her name. + +"What--what--what happened?" Jan stammered. "Gawd--did he kill her?" + +Old John Lane, his serene face unruffled, turned the bewildered and +frightened boy toward the lane and spoke, in the silky, incisive tones +which were half of his enchanting charm. + +"Nothing much has happened. One of our girls allowed a gorgio to kiss +her, so her man bit off the tip of her tongue. It is not necessary, +often, to do it, but it is not a serious matter. It will soon heal. She +will be able to talk--a little. It is really nothing, but I thought you +might like to see it. It is seldom that gorgios are allowed to see a +thing like that. + +"Please say to your father that I will spend the evening as usual with +him. My people will pass on." + + + + +THE TRIAL IN TOM BELCHER'S STORE + + +BY SAMUEL A. DERIEUX + +From _The American Magazine_ + +It was a plain case of affinity between Davy Allen and Old Man +Thornycroft's hound dog Buck. Davy, hurrying home along the country road +one cold winter afternoon, his mind intent on finishing his chores +before dark, looking back after passing Old Man Thornycroft's house to +find Buck trying to follow him--_trying_ to, because the old man, who +hated to see anybody or anything but himself have his way, had chained a +heavy block to him to keep him from doing what nature had intended him +to do--roam the woods and poke his long nose in every briar patch after +rabbits. + +At the sight Davy stopped, and the dog came on, dragging behind him in +the road the block of wood fastened by a chain to his collar, and trying +at the same time to wag his tail. He was tan-coloured, lean as a rail, +long-eared, a hound every inch; and Davy was a ragged country boy who +lived alone with his mother, and who had an old single-barrel shotgun at +home, and who had in his grave boy's eyes a look, clear and +unmistakable, of woods and fields. + +To say it was love at first sight when that hound, dragging his prison +around with him, looked up into the boy's face, and when that ragged boy +who loved the woods and had a gun at home looked down into the hound's +eyes, would hardly be putting it strong enough. It was more than +love--it was perfect understanding, perfect comprehension. "I'm your +dog," said the hound's upraised, melancholy eyes. "I'll jump rabbits and +bring them around for you to shoot. I'll make the frosty hills echo with +music for you. I'll follow you everywhere you go. I'm your dog if you +want me--yours to the end of my days." + +And Davy looking down into those upraised beseeching eyes, and at that +heavy block of wood, and at the raw place the collar had worn on the +neck, then at Old Man Thornycroft's bleak, unpainted house on the hill, +with the unhomelike yard and the tumble-down fences, felt a great pity, +the pity of the free for the imprisoned, and a great longing to own, not +a dog, but _this_ dog. + +"Want to come along?" he grinned. + +The hound sat down on his haunches, elevated his long nose and poured +out to the cold winter sky the passion and longing of his soul. Davy +understood, shook his head, looked once more into the pleading eyes, +then at the bleak house from which this prisoner had dragged himself. + +"That ol' devil!" he said. "He ain't fitten to own a dog. Oh, I wish he +was mine!" + +A moment he hesitated there in the road, then he turned and hurried away +from temptation. + +"He _ain't_ mine," he muttered. "Oh' dammit all!" + +But temptation followed him as it has followed many a boy and man. A +little way down the road was a pasture through which by a footpath he +could cut off half a mile of the three miles that lay between him and +home. Poised on top of the high rail fence that bordered the road, he +looked back. The hound was still trying to follow, walking +straddle-legged, head down, all entangled with the taut chain that +dragged the heavy block. The boy watched the frantic efforts, pity and +longing on his face; then he jumped off the fence inside the pasture and +hurried on down the hill, face set straight ahead. + +He had entered a pine thicket when he heard behind the frantic, choking +yelps of a dog in dire distress. Knowing what had happened, he ran back. +Within the pasture the hound, only his hind feet touching the ground, +was struggling and pawing at the fence. He had jumped, the block had +caught, and was hanging him. Davy rushed to him. Breathing fast, he +unclicked the chain. The block an chain fell on the other side of the +fence, and the dog was free. Shrewdly the boy looked back up the road; +the woods hid the old man's house from view, and no one was to be seen. +With a little grin of triumph he turned and broke into a run down the +pasture hill toward the pines, the wind blowing gloriously into his +face, the dog galloping beside him. + +Still running, the two came out into the road that led home, and +suddenly Davy stopped short and his face flushed. Yonder around the bend +on his grey mare jogged Squire Kirby toward them, his pipe in his mouth, +his white beard stuck cozily inside the bosom of his big overcoat There +was no use to run, no use to try to make the dog hide, no use to try to +hide himself--the old man had seen them both. Suppose he knew whose dog +this was! Heart pounding, Davy waited beside the road. + +Mr. Kirby drew rein opposite them and looked down with eyes that +twinkled under his bushy white brows. He always stopped to ask the boy +how his mother was, and how they were getting along. Davy had been to +his house many a time with eggs and chickens to sell, or with a load of +seasoned oak wood. Many a time he had warmed before Mr. Kirby's fire in +the big living- and bedroom combined, and eaten Mrs. Kirby's fine white +cake covered with frosting. Never before had he felt ill at ease in the +presence of the kindly old man. + +"That's a genuine hound you got there, son, ain't it?" + +"Yes, sir," said Davy. + +"Good for rabbits an' 'possums an' coons, eh?" + +"He shore is!" + +"Well, next big fat 'possum you an' him ketch, you bring that 'possum +'round an' me an' you'll talk business. Maybe we'll strike a bargain. +Got any good sweet potatoes? Well, you bring four or five bushels along +to eat that 'possum with. Haulin' any wood these days? Bring me a load +or two of good, dry oak--pick it out, son, hear? How's your ma? All +right? That's good. Here--" + +He reached deep down in a pocket of his enormous faded overcoat, brought +out two red apples, and leaned down out of his saddle, that creaked +under the strain of his weight. + +"Try one of 'em yourself, an' take one of 'em home to your ma. Git up, +Mag!" + +He jogged on down the road, and the boy, sobered walked on. One thing +was certain, though, Mr Kirby hadn't known whose dog this was. What +difference did it make anyhow? He hadn't stolen anything. He couldn't +let a dog choke to death before his eyes. What did Old Man Thornycroft +care about a dog, anyhow, the hard-hearted old skin-flint! + +He remembered the trouble his mother had had when his father died and +Old Man Thornycroft pushed her for a note he had given. He had heard +people talk about it at the time, and he remembered how white his +mother's face had been. Old Man Thornycroft had refused to wait, and his +mother had had to sell five acres of the best land on the little farm to +pay the note. It was after the sale that Mr. Kirby, who lived five miles +away, had ridden over. + +"Why didn't you let me know, Mrs. Allen!" he had demanded. "I would have +loaned you the money--gladly, gladly!" He had risen from the fire and +pulled on the same overcoat he wore now. It was faded then, and that was +two years ago. + +It was sunset when Davy reached home to find his mother out in the +clean-swept yard picking up chips in her apron. From the bedroom window +of the little one-storied unpainted house came a bright red glow, and +from the kitchen the smell of cooking meat. His mother straightened up +from her task with a smile when with his new-found partner he entered +the yard. + +"Why, Davy," she asked, "where did you get him?" + +"He--he just followed me, Ma." + +"But whose dog is he?" + +"He's mine, Ma--he just took up with me." + +"Where, Davy?" + +"Oh, way back down the road--in a pasture." + +"He must belong to somebody." + +"He's just a ol' hound dog, Ma, that's all he is. Lots of hounds don't +belong to nobody--everybody knows that, Ma. Look at him, Ma. Mighty nigh +starved to death. Lemme keep him. We can feed him on scraps. He can +sleep under the house. Me an' him will keep you in rabbits. You won't +have to kill no more chickens. Nobody don't want him but me!" + +From her gaunt height she looked down into the boy's eager eyes, then at +the dog beside him. "All right, son," she said. "If he don't belong to +anybody." + +That night Davy alternately whistled and talked to the dog beside him as +he husked the corn he had raised with his own hands, and chopped the +wood he had cut and hauled--for since his father's death he had kept +things going. He ate supper in a sort of haze; he hurried out with a tin +plate of scraps; he fed the grateful, hungry dog on the kitchen steps. +He begged some vaseline from his mother and rubbed it on the sore neck. +Then he got two or three empty gunnysacks out of the corncrib, crawled +under the house to a warm place beside the chimney and spread them out +for a bed. He went into the house whistling; he didn't hear a word of +the chapter his mother read out of the Bible. Before he went to bed in +the shed-room, he raised the window. + +"You all right, old feller?" he called. + +Underneath the house he heard the responsive tap-tap of a tail in the +dry dust. He climbed out of his clothes, leaving them in a pile in the +middle of the floor, tumbled into bed, and pulled the covers high over +him. + +"Golly!" he said. "Oh, golly!" + +Next day he hunted till sundown. The Christmas holidays were on and +there was no thought of school. He went only now and then, anyway, for +since his father's death there was too much for him to do at home. He +hunted in the opposite direction from Old Man Thornycroft's. It was +three miles away; barriers of woods and bottoms and hills lay between, +and the old man seldom stirred beyond the boundaries of his own farm; +but Davy wanted to be on the safe side. + +There were moments, though, when he thought of the old man, and wondered +if he had missed the dog and whether he would make any search for him. +There were sober moments, too, when he thought of his mother and Mr. +Kirby, and wished he had told them the truth. But then the long-drawn +bay of the hound would come from the bottoms ahead, and he would hurry +to the summons, his face flushed and eager. The music of the dog +running, the sound of the shots, and his own triumphant yells started +many an echo among the silent frosted hills that day. He came home with +enough meat to last a week--six rabbits. As he hurried into the yard he +held them up for the inspection of his mother, who was feeding the +chickens. + +"He's the finest rabbit dog ever was, Ma! Oh, golly, he can follow a +trail! I never see anything like it, Ma, I never did! I'll skin 'em an' +clean 'em after supper. You ought to have saw him, Ma! Golly!" + +And while he chopped the wood and milked the cow and fed the mule, and +skinned the rabbits, he saw other days ahead like this, and whistled and +sang and talked to the hound, who followed close at his heels every step +he took. + +Then one afternoon, while he was patching the lot fence, with Buck +sunning himself near the woodpile, came Old Man Thornycroft. Davy +recognized his buggy as it turned the bend in the road. He quickly +dropped his tools, called Buck to him and got behind the house where he +could see without being seen. The buggy stopped in the road, and the old +man, his hard, pinched face working, his buggy whip in his hand, came +down the walk and called Mrs. Alien out on the porch. + +"I just come to tell you," he cried, "that your boy Davy run off with my +dog las' Friday evenin'! There ain't no use to deny it. I know all about +it. I seen him when he passed in front of the house. I found the block I +had chained to the dog beside the road. I heered Squire Jim Kirby +talkin' to some men in Tom Belcher's sto' this very mornin'; just +happened to overhear him as I come in. 'A boy an' a dog,' he says, 'is +the happiest combination in nater.' Then he went on to tell about your +boy an' a tan dog. He had met 'em in the road. Met 'em when? Last Friday +evenin'. Oh, there ain't no use to deny it, Mrs. Allen! Your boy +Davy--he _stole_ my dog!" + +"Mr. Thornycroft"--Davy could not see his mother, but he could hear her +voice tremble--"he did _not_ know whose dog it was!" + +"He didn't? He didn't?" yelled the old man. "An' him a boy that knows +ever' dog for ten miles around! Right in front of my house, I tell +you--that's where he picked him up--that's where he tolled him off! +Didn't I tell you, woman, I seen him pass? Didn't I tell you I found he +block down the road? Didn't know whose dog it was? Ridiculous, +ridiculous! Call him, ask him, face him with it. Likely he'll lie--but +you'll see his face. Call him, that's all I ask. Call him!" + +"Davy!" called Mrs. Allen. "Davy!" + +Just a moment the boy hesitated. Then he went around the house. The +hound stuck very close to him, eyes full of terror, tail tucked as he +looked at the old man. + +"There he is--with my dog!" cried the old man. "You didn't know whose +dog it was, did you, son? Eh? You didn't know, now, did you?" + +"Yes!" cried the boy "I knowed!" + +"Hear that, Mrs. Allen? Did he know? What do you say now? He stole my +dog, didn't he? That's what he done, didn't he? Answer me, woman! You +come here!" he yelled, his face livid, and started, whip raised, toward +boy and dog. + +There were some smooth white stones the size of hen eggs arranged around +a flower bed in the yard, and Davy stood near these stones--and now, +quick as a flash, he stooped down and picked one up. + +"You stop!" he panted, his face very white. + +His mother cried out and came running toward him, but Thornycroft had +stopped. No man in his right mind wants to advance on a country boy with +a rock. Goliath tried it once. + +"All right!" screamed the old man. "You steal first--then you try to +assault an old man! I didn't come here to raise no row. I just came hear +to warn you, Mrs. Allen. I'll have the law on that boy--I'll have the +law on him before another sun sets!" + +He turned and hurried toward the buggy. Davy dropped the rock. Mrs. +Allen stood looking at the old miser, who was clambering into his +buggy, with a sort of horror. Then she ran toward the boy. + +"Oh, Davy! run after him. Take the dog to him. He's terrible, Davy, +terrible! Run after him--anything--anything!" + +But the boy looked up at her with grim mouth and hard eyes. + +"I ain't a-goin' to do it, Ma!" he said. + +It was after supper that very night that the summons came. Bob Kelley, +rural policeman, brought it. + +"Me an' Squire Kirby went to town this mornin'," he said, "to look up +some things about court in the mornin.' This evenin' we run into Old Man +Thornycroft on the street, lookin' for us. He was awful excited. He had +been to Mr. Kirby's house, an' found out Mr. Kirby was in town, an' +followed us. He wanted a warrant swore out right there. Mr. Kirby tried +to argue with him, but it warn't no use. So at last Mr. Kirby turned to +me. 'You go on back, Bob,' he said. 'This'll give me some more lookin' +up to do. Tell my wife I'll just spend the night with Judge Fowler, an' +git back in time for court in Belcher's sto' in the mornin'. An', Bob, +you just stop by Mrs. Allen's--she's guardian of the boy--an' tell her I +say to bring him to Belcher's sto' to-morrow mornin' at nine. You be +there, too, Mr. Thornycroft--an,' by the way, bring that block of wood +you been talkin' about." + +That was all the squire had said, declared the rural policeman. No, he +hadn't sent any other message--just said he would read up on the case. +The rural policeman went out and closed the door behind him. It had been +informal, hap-hazard, like the life of the community in which they +lived. But, for all that, the law had knocked at the door of the Widow +Allen, and left a white-faced mother and a bewildered boy behind. + +They tried to resume their usual employments. Mrs. Allen sat down beside +the table, picked up her sewing and put her glasses on, but her hands +trembled when she tried to thread the needle. Davy sat on a split-bottom +chair in the corner, his feet up on the rungs, and tried to be still; +but his heart was pounding fast and there was a lump in his throat. +Presently he got up and went out of doors, to get in some kindling on +the back porch before it snowed, he told his mother. But he went because +he couldn't sit there any longer, because he was about to explode with +rage and grief and fear and bitterness. + +He did not go toward the woodpile--what difference did dry kindling make +now? At the side of the house he stooped down and softly called Buck. +The hound came to him, wriggling along under the beams, and he leaned +against the house and lovingly pulled the briar-torn ears. A long time +he stayed there, feeling on his face already the fine mist of snow. +To-morrow the ground would be white; it didn't snow often in that +country; day after to-morrow everybody would hunt rabbits--everybody but +him and Buck. + +It was snowing hard when at last he went back into the warm room, so +warm that he pulled off his coat. Once more he tried to sit still in the +split-bottom chair. But there is no rage that consumes like the rage of +a boy. In its presence he is so helpless! If he were a man, thought +Davy, he would go to Old Man Thornycroft's house that night, call him +out, and thrash him in the road. If he were a man, he would curse, he +would do something. He looked wildly about the room, the hopelessness of +it all coming over him in a wave. Then suddenly, because he wasn't a +man, because he couldn't do what he wanted to do, he began to cry, not +as a boy cries, but more as a man cries, in shame and bitterness, his +shoulders shaken by great convulsive sobs, his head buried in his hands, +his fingers running through his tangled mop of hair. + +"Davy, Davy!" The sewing and the scissors slipped to the floor. His +mother was down on her knees beside him, one arm about his shoulders, +trying to pry his face from his hands, trying to look into his eyes. +"You're my man, Davy! You're the only man, the only help I've got. +You're my life, Davy. Poor boy! Poor child!" + +He caught hold of her convulsively, and she pressed his head against her +breast. Then he saw that she was crying, and he grew quiet, and wiped +his eyes with his ragged coat sleeve. + +"I'm all right now, Ma," he said; but he looked at her wildly. + +She did not follow him into his little unceiled bedroom. She must have +known that he had reached that age where no woman could help him. It +must be a man now to whom he could pin his faith. And while he lay +awake, tumbling and tossing, along with bitter thoughts of Old Man +Thornycroft came other bitter thoughts of Mr. Kirby, whom, deep down in +his boy's heart he had worshipped--Mr. Kirby, who had sided with Old Man +Thornycroft and sent a summons with--no message for him. "God!" he said. +"God!" And pulled his hair, down there under the covers; and he hated +the law that would take a dog from him and give it back to that old +man--the law that Mr. Kirby represented. + +It was still snowing when next morning he and his mother drove out of +the yard and he turned the head of the reluctant old mule in the +direction of Belcher's store. A bitter wind cut their faces, but it was +not as bitter as the heart of the boy. Only twice on that five-mile ride +did he speak. The first time was when he looked back to find Buck, whom +they had left at home, thinking he would stay under the house on such a +day, following very close behind the buggy. + +"Might as well let him come on," said the boy. + +The second time was when they came in sight of Belcher's store, dim +yonder through the swirling snow. Then he looked up into his mother's +face. + +"Ma," he said grimly, "I ain't no thief!" + +She smiled as bravely as she could with her stiffened face and with the +tears so near the surface. She told him that she knew it, and that +everybody knew it. But there was no answering smile on the boys set +face. + +The squire's gray mare, standing huddled up in the midst of other horses +and of buggies under the shed near the store, told that court had +probably already convened. Hands numb, the boy hitched the old mule to +the only rack left under the shed, then made Buck lie down under the +buggy. Heart pounding, he went up on the store porch with his mother and +pushed the door open. + +There was a commotion when they entered. The men, standing about the +pot-bellied stove, their overcoats steaming, made way for them. Old Man +Thornycroft looked quickly and triumphantly around. In the rear of the +store the squire rose from a table, in front of which was a cleared +space. + +"Pull up a chair nigh the stove for Mrs. Allen, Tom Belcher," he said. +"I'm busy tryin' this chicken-stealin' nigger. When I get through, Mrs. +Allen, if you're ready I'll call your case." + +Davy stood beside his mother while the trial of the negro proceeded. +Some of the fight had left him now, crowded down here among all these +grown men, and especially in the presence of Mr. Kirby, for it is hard +for a boy to be bitter long. But with growing anxiety he heard the sharp +questions the magistrate asked the negro; he saw the frown of justice; +he heard the sentence "sixty days on the gang." And the negro had stolen +only a chicken--and he had run off with another man's dog! + +"The old man's rough this mornin'," a man whispered to another above +him; and he saw the furtive grin on the face of Old Man Thornycroft, who +leaned against the counter, waiting. + +His heart jumped into his mouth when after a silence the magistrate +spoke: "Mr. Thornycroft, step forward, sir. Put your hand on the book +here. Now tell us about that dog of yours that was stole." + +Looking first at the magistrate, then at the crowd, as if to impress +them also, the old man told in a high-pitched, excited voice all the +details--his seeing Davy Allen pass in front of his house last Friday +afternoon, his missing the dog, his finding the block of wood down the +road beside the pasture fence, his over-hearing the squire's talk right +here in the store, his calling on Mrs. Allen, the boy's threatening him. + +"I tell you," he cried, "that's a dangerous character--that boy!" + +"Is that all you've got to say?" asked the squire. + +"It's enough, ain't it?" demanded Thornycroft angrily. + +The squire nodded and spat into the cuspidor between his feet. "I think +so," he said quietly, "Stand aside. Davy Alien step forward. Put your +hand on the book here, son. Davy, how old are you?" + +The boy gulped. "Thirteen years old, goin' on fo'teen." + +"You're old enough, son, to know the nater of the oath you're about to +take. For over two years you've been the mainstay an' support of your +mother. You've had to carry the burdens and responsibilities of a man, +Davy. The testimony you give in this case will be the truth, the whole +truth an' nothin' but the truth, so help you God. What about it?" + +Davy nodded, his face very white. + +"All right now. Tell us about it. Talk loud so we can hear--all of us." + +The boy's eyes never left Mr. Kirby's while he talked. Something in them +held him, fascinated him, overawed him. Very large and imposing he +looked there behind his little table, with his faded old overcoat on, +and there was no sound in the room but the boy's clear voice. + +"An' you come off an' left the dog at first?" + +"Yes, sir," + +"An' you didn't unfasten the chain from the block till the dog got +caught in the fence?" + +"No, sir, I didn't." + +"Did you try to get him to follow you then?" + +"No, sir, he wanted to." + +"Ask him, Mr. Kirby," broke in Thornycroft angrily, "if he tried to +drive him home!" + +"I'll ask him whatever seems fit an' right to me, sir," said Mr. Kirby. +"What did you tell your ma, Davy, when you got home?" + +"I told her he followed me." + +"Did you tell her whose dog he was? + +"No, sir." + +"Ain't that what you ought to have done? Ain't it?" + +Davy hesitated. "Yes, sir." + +There was a slight shuffling movement amoung the men crowded about. +Somebody cleared his throat. Mr. Kirby resumed. + +"This block you been tellin' about--how was it fastened to the dog?" + +"Thar was a chain fastened to the block by a staple. The other end was +fastened to the collar." + +"How heavy do you think that block was?" + +"About ten pound. I reckon." + +"Five," broke in Old Man Thornycroft with a sneer. + +Mr. Kirby turned to him. "You fetched it with you, didn't you? I told +you to. It's evidence. Bob Kelley, go out to Mr. Thornycroft's buggy an' +bring that block of wood into court." + +The room was silent while the rural policeman was gone. Davy still stood +in the cleared space before Mr. Kirby, his ragged overcoat on, his +tattered hat in his hand, breathing fast, afraid to look at his mother. +Everybody turned when Kelley came in with the block of wood. Everybody +craned their necks to watch, while at the magistrate's order Kelley +weighed the block of wood on the store's scales, which he put on the +magistrate's table. + +"Fo'teen punds," said Mr. Kirby. "Take the scales away." + +"It had rubbed all the skin off'n the dog's neck," broke in Davy +impulsively. "It was all raw an' bleedin'." + +"Aw, that ain't so!" cried Thornycroft. + +"Is the dog out there?" asked Mr. Kirby. + +"Yes, sir, under the buggy." + +"Bob Kelley, you go out an' bring that dog into court." + +The rural policeman went out, and came back with the hound, who looked +eagerly up from one face to the other, then, seeing Davy, came to him +and stood against him, still looking around with that expression of +melancholy on his face that a hound dog always wears except when he's in +action. + +"Bring the dog here, son!" commanded Mr. Kirby. He examined the raw +place on the neck. "Any of you gentlemen care to take a look?" he asked. + +"It was worse than that," declared Davy, "till I rubbed vase-leen on +it." + +Old Man Thornycroft pushed forward, face quivering. "What's all this got +to do with the boy stealin' the dog?" he demanded. "That's what I want +to know--what's it got to do?" + +"Mr. Thornycroft," said Kirby, "at nine o'clock this mornin' this place +ceased to be Tom Belcher's sto', an' become a court of justice. Some +things are seemly in a court, some not. You stand back there!" + +The old man stepped back to the counter, and stood julling his chin, his +eyes running over the crowd of faces. + +"Davy Allen," spoke Mr. Kirby, "you stand back there with your ma. Tom +Belcher make way for him. And, Tom, s'pose you put another stick of wood +in that stove an' poke up the fire." He took off his glasses, blew on +them, polished them with his handkerchief and readjusted them. Then, +leaning back in his chair, he spoke. + +"Gentlemen, from the beginnin' of time, as fur back as records go, a +dog's been the friend, companion, an' protector of man. Folks say he +come from the wolf, but that ain't no reflection on him, seem' that we +come from monkeys ourselves, an' I believe, takin' all things into +account, I'd as soon have a wolf for a ancestor as a monkey, an' a +little ruther. + +"Last night in the libery of my old friend Judge Fowler in town, I +looked up some things about this dog question. I find that there have +been some queer decisions handed down by the courts, showin' that the +law does recognize the fact that a dog is different from other +four-footed critters. For instance, it has been held that a dog has a +right to protect not only his life but his dignity; that where a man +worries a dog beyond what would be reasonable to expect any self +respectin' critter to stand, that dog has a right to bite that man, an' +that man can't collect any damages--provided the bitin' is done at the +time of the worryin' an' in sudden heat an' passion. That has been held +in the courts, gentlemen. The law that holds for man holds for dogs. + +"Another thing: If the engineer of a railroad train sees a cow or a +horse or a sheep on the track, or a hog, he must stop the train or the +road is liable for any damage done 'em. But if he sees a man walkin' +along the track he has a right to presume that the man, bein' a critter +of more or less intelligence, will git off, an' he is not called on to +stop under ordinary circumstances. The same thing holds true of a dog. +The engineer has a right to presume that the dog, bein' a critter of +intelligence, will get off the track. Here again the law is the same for +dog an' man. + +"_But_--if the engineer has reason to believe that the man's mind is +took up with some object of an engrossin' nater, he is supposed to stop +the train till the man comes to himself an' looks around. The same thing +holds true of a dog. If the engineer has reason to suspect that the +dog's mind is occupied with some engrossin' topic, he must stop the +train. That case has been tested in this very state, where a dog was on +the track settin' a covey of birds in the adjoinin' field. The railroad +was held responsible for the death of that dog, because the engineer +ought to have known by the action of the dog that his mind was on +somethin' else beside railroad trains an' locomotives." + +Again the magistrate spat into the cuspidor between his feet. Davy, +still watching him, felt his mother's grip on his arm. Everyone was +listening so closely that the whispered sneering comment of Old Man +Thornycroft to the man next to him was audible, "What's all this got to +do with the case?" + +"The p'int I'm gettin' to is this," went on Mr. Kirby, not paying +attention to him: "a dog is not like a cow or a horse or any four-footed +critter. He's a individual, an' so the courts have held in spirit if not +in actual words. Now this court of mine here in Tom Belcher's sto, ain't +like other courts. I have to do the decidin' myself; I have to interpret +the true spirit of the law, without technicalities an' quibbles such as +becloud it in other an' higher courts. An' I hold that since a dog is +_de facto_ an' _de jure_ an individual, he has a right to life, liberty +an' the pursuit of happiness. + +"Therefore, gentlemen, I hold that that houn' dog, Buck, had a perfect +right to follow that boy, Davy Allen, there; an' I hold that Davy Allen +was not called on to drive that dog back, or interfere in any way with +that dog followin' him if the dog so chose. You've heard the evidence of +the boy. You know, an' I know, he has spoke the truth this day, an' +there ain't no evidence to the contrary. The boy did not entice the dog. +He even went down the road, leavin' him behind. He run back only when +the dog was in dire need an' chokin' to death. He wasn't called on to +put that block an' chain back on the dog. He couldn't help it if the dog +followed him. He no more stole that dog than I stole him. He's no more a +thief than I am. I dismiss this case, Mr. Thornycroft, this case you've +brought against Davy Allen. I declare him innocent of the charge of +theft. I set it down right here on the records of this court." + +"Davy!" gasped Mrs. Allen. "Davy!" + +But, face working, eyes blazing, Old Man Thornycroft started forward, +and the dog, panting, shrank between boy and mother. "Jim Kirby!" cried +the old man, stopping for a moment in the cleared space. "You're +magistrate. What you say goes. But that dog thar--he's mine! He's my +property--mine by law!" He jerked a piece of rope out of his overcoat +pocket and came on toward the cowering dog. "Tom Belcher, Bob Kelley! +Stop that dog! He's mine!" + +"Davy!" Mrs. Alien was holding the boy. "Don't--don't say anything. +You're free to go home. Your record's clear. The dog's his!" + +"Hold on!" Mr. Kirby had risen from his chair. "You come back here, Mr. +Thornycroft. This court's not adjourned yet. If you don't get back, I'll +stick a fine to you for contempt you'll remember the rest of your days. +You stand where you are, sir! Right there! Don't move till I'm through!" + +Quivering the old man stood where he was. Mr. Kirby sat down, face +flushed, eyes blazing. "Punch up that fire, Tom Belcher," he said. "I +ain't through yet." + +The hound came trembling back to Davy, looked up in his face, licked his +hand, then sat down at the side opposite his former master, looking +around now and then at the old man, terror in his eyes. In the midst of +a deathly silence the magistrate resumed. + +"What I was goin' to say, gentlemen, is this: I'm not only magistrate, +I'm an officer in an organization that you country fellers likely don't +know of, an organization known as the Society for the Prevention of +Cruelty to Animals. As such an officer it's my duty to report an' bring +to trial any man who treats a dumb brute in a cruel an' inhuman way. Mr +Thornycroft, judgin' by the looks of that houn', you ain't give him +enough to eat to keep a cat alive--an' a cat we all know, don't eat +much, just messes over her vittles. You condemned that po' beast, for no +fault of his own, to the life of a felon. A houn' that ain't happy at +best, he's melancholy; an' a houn' that ain't allowed to run free is of +all critters the wretchedest. This houn's neck is rubbed raw. God only +knows what he's suffered in mind an' body. A man that would treat a dog +that way ain't fitten to own one. An' I hereby notify you that, on the +evidence of this boy, an' the evidence before our eyes, I will indict +you for breakin' the law regardin' the treatment of animals; an' I +notify you, furthermore, that as magistrate I'll put the law on you for +that same thing. An' it might be interestin' to you to know, sir, that I +can find you as much as five hundred dollars, or send you to jail for +one year, or both, if I see fit--an' there ain't no tellin' but what I +will see fit, sir." + +He looked sternly at Thornycroft. + +"Now I'm goin' to make a proposition that I advise you to jump at like +you never jumped at anything before. If you will give up that houn' +Buck--to me, say, or to anybody I decide will be kind to him--I will let +the matter drop. If you will go home like a peaceable citizen, you won't +hear no more about it from me; but if you don't--" + +"Git out of my way!" cried Old Man Thornycroft. "All of you! I'm +goin'--I'm goin'!" + +"Hold on!" said Mr. Kirby, when he had got almost to the door. "Do you, +in the presence of these witnesses, turn over this dog to me, +relinquishin' all claims to him, on the conditions named? Answer Yes or +No?" + +There was a moment's silence; then the old man cried out: + +"Take the old hound! He ain't wuth the salt in his vittles!" + +He jerked the door open. + +"Yes or no?" called Mr. Kirby inexorably. + +"Yes!" yelled the old man, and slammed the door behind him. + +"One minute, gentlemen," said Mr. Kirby, rising from the table and +gathering his papers and records together. "Just one more thing: If +anybody here has any evidence, or knows of any, tendin' to show that +this boy Davy Allen is not the proper person to turn over a houn' dog +to, I hope he will speak up." He waited a moment. "In the absence of any +objections, an' considerin' the evidence that's been given here this +mornin', I think I'll just let that dog go back the way he come. Thank +you, gentlemen. Court's adjourned!" + + + + +PORCELAIN CUPS + + +BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL + +From _Century Magazine_ + + +I + +OF GREATNESS INTIMATELY VIEWED + +"Oh, but they are beyond praise," said Cynthia Allonby, enraptured, "and +certainly you should have presented them to the Queen." + +"Her majesty already possesses a cup of that ware," replied Lord +Pevensey. "It was one of her New Year's gifts, from Robert Cecil. Hers +is, I believe, not quite so fine as either of yours; but then, they tell +me, there is not the like of this pair in England, nor indeed on the +hither side of Cataia." + +He set the two pieces of Chinese pottery upon the shelves in the south +corner of the room. These cups were of that sea-green tint called +celadon, with a very wonderful glow and radiance. Such oddities were the +last vogue at court in this year of grace 1593: and Cynthia could not +but speculate as to what monstrous sum Lord Pevensey had paid for this +his last gift to her. + +Now he turned, smiling, a really superb creature in his blue and gold. +"I had another message from the Queen--" + +"George," Cynthia said, with fond concern, "it frightens me to see you +thus foolhardy, in tempting alike the Queen's anger and the Plague." + +"Eh, as goes the Plague, it spares nine out of ten," he answered, +lightly. "The Queen, I grant you, is another pair of sleeves, for an +irritated Tudor spares nobody." + +But Cynthia Allonby kept silence, and did not exactly smile, while she +appraised her famous young kinsman. She was flattered by, and a little +afraid of, the gay self-confidence which led anybody to take such +chances. Two weeks ago it was that the painted terrible old Queen had +named Lord Pevensey to go straightway into France, where rumour had it, +King Henri was preparing to renounce the Reformed Religion, and making +his peace with the Pope: and for two weeks Pevensey had lingered, on one +pretence or another, at his house in London, with the Plague creeping +about the city like an invisible incalculable flame, and the Queen +asking questions at Windsor. Of all the monarchs that had ever reigned +in England, Elizabeth was the least used to having her orders +disregarded. Meanwhile Lord Pevensey came every day to the Marquis of +Falmouth's lodgings at Deptford; and every day Lord Pevensey pointed out +to the marquis's daughter that Pevensey, whose wife had died in +childbirth a year back, did not intend to go into France, for nobody +could foretell how long a stay, as a widower. Certainly it was all very +flattering ... + +"Yes, and you would be an excellent match," said Cynthia, aloud, "if +that were all. And yet, what must I reasonably expect in marrying, sir, +the famous Earl of Pevensey?" + +"A great deal of love and petting, my dear. And if there were anything +else to which you had a fancy, I would get it for you." + +Her glance went to those lovely cups and lingered fondly. "Yes, dear +Master Generosity, if it could be purchased or manufactured, you would +get it for me--" + +"If it exists I will get it for you," he declared. + +"I think that it exists. But I am not learned enough to know what it is. +George, if I married you I would have money and fine clothes and soft +hours and many lackeys to wait on me, and honour from all men. And you +would be kind to me, I know when you returned from the day's work at +Windsor--or Holyrood or the Louvre. But do you not see that I would +always be to you only a rather costly luxury, like those cups, which the +Queen's minister could afford to keep for his hours of leisure?" + +He answered: "You are all in all to me. You know it. Oh, very well do +you know and abuse your power, you adorable and lovely baggage, who have +kept me dancing attendance for a fortnight, without ever giving me an +honest yes or no." He gesticulated. "Well, but life is very dull in +Deptford village, and it amuses you to twist a Queen's adviser around +your finger! I see it plainly, you minx, and I acquiesce because, it +delights me to give you pleasure, even at the cost of some dignity. Yet +I may no longer shirk the Queen's business,--no, not even to amuse you, +my dear." + +"You said you had heard from her--again?" + +"I had this morning my orders, under Glorianna's own fair hand, either +to depart to-morrow into France or else to come to-morrow to Windsor. I +need not say that in the circumstances I consider France the more +wholesome." + +Now the girl's voice was hurt and wistful. "So, for the thousandth time, +is it proven the Queen's business means more to you than I do. Yes, +certainly it is just as I said, George." + +He observed, unruffled: "My dear, I scent unreason. This is a high +matter. If the French King compounds with Rome, it means war for +Protestant England. Even you must see that." + +She replied, sadly: "Yes, even I! oh, certainly, my lord, even a +half-witted child of seventeen can perceive as much as that." + +"I was not speaking of half-witted persons, as I remember. Well, it +chances that I am honoured by the friendship of our gallant Bearnais, +and am supposed to have some claim upon him, thanks to my good fortune +last year in saving his life from the assassin Barriere. It chances that +I may perhaps become, under providence, the instrument of preserving my +fellow countrymen from much grief and trumpet-sounding and +throat-cutting. Instead of pursuing that chance, two weeks ago--as was +my duty--I have dangled at your apron-strings, in the vain hope of +softening the most variable and hardest heart in the world. Now, +clearly, I have not the right to do that any longer." + +She admired the ennobled, the slightly rapt look which, she knew, +denoted that George Bulmer was doing his duty as he saw it, even in her +disappointment. "No, you have not the right. You are wedded to your +state-craft, to your patriotism, to your self-advancement, or christen +it what you will. You are wedded, at all events, to your man's business. +You have not time for such trifles as giving a maid that foolish and +lovely sort of wooing to which every maid looks forward in her heart of +hearts. Indeed, when you married the first time it was a kind of +infidelity; and I am certain that poor dear mouse-like Mary must have +felt that often and over again. Why, do you not see, George, even now, +that your wife will always come second to your real love?" + +"In my heart, dear sophist, you will always come first. But it is not +permitted that any loyal gentleman devote every hour of his life to +sighing and making sonnets, and to the general solacing of a maid's +loneliness in this dull little Deptford. Nor would you, I am sure, +desire me to do so." + +"I hardly know what I desire," she told him ruefully. "But I know that +when you talk of your man's business I am lonely and chilled and far +away from you. And I know that I cannot understand more than half your +fine high notions about duty and patriotism and serving England and so +on," the girl declared: and she flung wide her lovely little hands, in a +despairing gesture. "I admire you, sir, when you talk of England. It +makes you handsomer--yes, even handsomer!--somehow. But all the while I +am remembering that England is just an ordinary island inhabited by a +number of ordinary persons, for the most of whom I have no particular +feeling one way or the other.". + +Pevensey looked at her for a while with queer tenderness. Then he +smiled. "No, I could not quite make you understand, my dear. But, ah, +why fuddle that quaint little brain by trying to understand such matters +as lie without your realm? For a woman's kingdom is the home, my dear, +and her throne is in the heart of her husband--" + +"All this is but another way of saying your lordship would have us cups +upon a shelf," she pointed out--"in readiness for your leisure." + +He shrugged, said "Nonsense!" and began more lightly to talk of other +matters. Thus and thus he would do in France, such and such trinkets he +would fetch back--"as toys for the most whimsical, the loveliest and the +most obstinate child in all the world," he phrased it. And they would be +married, Pevensey declared, in September: nor (he gaily said) did he +propose to have any further argument about it. Children should be +seen--the proverb was dusty, but it particularly applied to pretty +children. + +Cynthia let him talk. She was just a little afraid of his self +confidence, and of this tall nobleman's habit of getting what he wanted, +in the end: but she dispiritedly felt that Pevensey had failed her. He +treated her as a silly infant: and his want of her, even in that +capacity, was a secondary matter: he was going into France, for all his +petting talk, and was leaving her to shift as she best might, until he +could spare the time to resume his love-making.... + + +II + +WHAT COMES OF SCRIBBLING + +Now when Pevensey had gone the room seemed darkened by the withdrawal of +so much magnificence. Cynthia watched from the window as the tall earl +rode away, with three handsomely clad retainers. Yes, George was very +fine and admirable, no doubt of it: even so, there was relief in the +reflection that for a month or two she was rid of him. + +Turning, she faced a lean dishevelled man who stood by the Magdalen +tapestry scratching his chin. He had unquiet bright eyes, this +out-at-elbows poet whom a marquis's daughter was pleased to patronize, +and his red hair to-day was unpardonably puzzled. Nor were his manners +beyond reproach, for now, without saying anything, he too went to the +window. He dragged one foot a little as he walked. + +"So my lord Pevensey departs! Look how he rides in triumph! like lame +Tamburlaine, with Techelles and Usumcasane and Theridamas to attend him, +and with the sunset turning the dust raised by their horses' hoofs into +a sort of golden haze about them. It is a beautiful world. And truly, +Mistress Cyn," the poet said, reflectively, "that Pevensey is a very +splendid ephemera. If not a king himself, at least he goes magnificently +to settle the affairs of kings. Were modesty not my failing Mistress +Cyn, I would acclaim you as strangely lucky, in being beloved by two +fine fellows that have not their like in England." + +"Truly you are not always thus modest, Kit Marlowe--" + +"But, Lord, how seriously Pevensey takes it all! and himself in +particular! Why, there departs from us, in befitting state, a personage +whose opinion as to every topic in the world is written legibly in the +carriage of those fine shoulders, even when seen from behind and from so +considerable a distance. And in not one syllable do any of these +opinions differ from the opinions of his great-great-grandfathers. Oho, +and hark to Deptford! now all the oafs in the Corn-market are cheering +this bulwark of Protestant England, this rising young hero of a people +with no nonsense about them. Yes, it is a very quaint and rather +splendid ephemera." + +A marquis's daughter could not quite approve of the way in which this +shoemaker's son, however talented, railed at his betters. "Pevensey will +be the greatest man in these kingdoms some day. Indeed, Kit Marlowe, +there are those who say he is that much already." + +"Oh very probably! Still, I am puzzled by human greatness. A century +hence what will he matter, this Pevensey? His ascent and his declension +will have been completed, and his foolish battles and treaties will have +given place to other foolish battles and treaties and oblivion will have +swallowed this glistening bluebottle, plumes and fine lace and stately +ruff and all. Why, he is but an adviser to the queen of half an island, +whereas my Tamburlaine was lord of all the golden ancient East: and what +does my Tamburlaine matter now, save that he gave Kit Marlowe the +subject of a drama? Hah, softly though! for does even that very greatly +matter? Who really cares to-day about what scratches were made upon wax +by that old Euripides, the latchet of whose sandals I am not worthy to +unloose? No, not quite worthy, as yet!" + +And thereupon the shabby fellow sat down in the tall leather-covered +chair which Pevensey had just vacated: and this Marlowe nodded his +flaming head portentously. "Hoh, look you, I am displeased, Mistress +Cyn, I cannot lend my approval to this over-greedy oblivion that gapes +for all. No, it is not a satisfying arrangement that I should teeter +insecurely through the void on a gob of mud, and be expected bye and bye +to relinquish even that crazy foothold. Even for Kit Marlowe death lies +in wait! and it may be, not anything more after death, not even any +lovely words to play with. Yes, and this Marlowe may amount to nothing, +after all: and his one chance of amounting to that which he intends may +be taken away from him at any moment!" + +He touched the breast of a weather-beaten doublet. He gave her that +queer twisted sort of smile which the girl could not but find +attractive, somehow. He said: "Why but this heart thumping here inside +me may stop any moment like a broken clock. Here is Euripides writing +better than I: and here in my body, under my hand, is the mechanism upon +which depend all those masterpieces that are to blot the Athenian from +the reckoning, and I have no control of it!" + +"Indeed, I fear that you control few things," she told him, "and that +least of all do you control your taste for taverns and bad women. Oh, I +hear tales of you!" And Cynthia raised a reproving fore-finger. + +"True tales, no doubt." He shrugged. "Lacking the moon he vainly cried +for, the child learns to content himself with a penny whistle." + +"Ah, but the moon is far away," the girl said, smiling--"too far to hear +the sound of human crying: and besides, the moon, as I remember it, was +never a very amorous goddess--" + +"Just so," he answered: "also she was called Cynthia, and she, too, was +beautiful." + +"Yet is it the heart that cries to me, my poet?" she asked him, softly, +"or just the lips?" + +"Oh, both of them, most beautiful and inaccessible of goddesses." Then +Marlowe leaned toward her, laughing and shaking that disreputable red +head. "Still you are very foolish, in your latest incarnation, to be +wasting your rays upon carpet earls who will not outwear a century. Were +modesty not my failing, I repeat, I could name somebody who will last +longer. Yes, and--if, but I lacked that plaguey virtue--I would advise +you to go a-gypsying with that nameless somebody, so that two manikins +might snatch their little share of the big things that are eternal, just +as the butterfly fares intrepidly and joyously, with the sun for his +torch-boy, through a universe wherein thought cannot estimate the +unimportance of a butterfly, and wherein not even the chaste moon is +very important. Yes, certainly I would advise you to have done with this +vanity of courts and masques, of satins and fans and fiddles, this +dallying with tinsels and bright vapours; and very movingly I would +exhort you to seek out Arcadia, travelling hand in hand with that still +nameless somebody." And of a sudden the restless man began to sing. + +Sang Kit Marlowe: + + "Come live with me and be my love, + And we will all the pleasures prove + That hills and valleys, dales and fields, + Woods or sleepy mountain yields. + + "And we will sit upon the rocks, + And see the shepherds feed their flocks + By shallow rivers, to whose falls + Melodious birds sing madrigals--" + +But the girl shook her small, wise head decisively. "That is all very +fine, but, as it happens, there is no such place as this Arcadia, where +people can frolic in perpetual sunlight the year round, and find their +food and clothing miraculously provided. No, nor can you, I am afraid, +give me what all maids really, in their heart of hearts, desire far +more than any sugar-candy Arcadia. Oh, as I have so often told you, Kit, +I think you love no woman. You love words. And your seraglio is tenanted +by very beautiful words, I grant you, thought there is no longer any +Sestos builded of agate and crystal, either, Kit Marlowe. For, as you +may perceive, sir, I have read all that lovely poem you left with me +last Thursday--" + +She saw how interested he was, saw how he almost smirked. "Aha, so you +think it not quite bad, eh, the conclusion of my 'Hero and Leander'?" + +"It is your best. And your middlemost, my poet, is better than aught +else in English," she said, politely, and knowing how much he delighted +to hear such remarks. + +"Come, I retract my charge of foolishness, for you are plainly a wench +of rare discrimination. And yet you say I do not love you! Cynthia, you +are beautiful, you are perfect in all things. You are that heavenly +Helen of whom I wrote, some persons say, acceptably enough--How strange +it was I did not know that Helen was dark-haired and pale! for certainly +yours is that immortal loveliness which must be served by poets in life +and death." + +"And I wonder how much of these ardours," she thought, "is kindled by my +praise of his verses?" She bit her lip, and she regarded him with a hint +of sadness. She said, aloud: "But I did not, after all, speak to Lord +Pevensey concerning the printing of your poem. Instead, I burned your +'Hero and Leander'." + +She saw him jump, as under a whip-lash. Then he smiled again, in that +wry fashion of his. "I lament the loss to letters, for it was my only +copy. But you knew that." + +"Yes, Kit, I knew it was your only copy." + +"Oho! and for what reason did you burn it, may one ask?" + +"I thought you loved it more than you loved me. It was my rival, I +thought--" The girl was conscious of remorse, and yet it was remorse +commingled with a mounting joy. + +"And so you thought a jingle scribbled upon a bit of paper could be +your rival with me!" + +Then Cynthia no longer doubted, but gave a joyous little sobbing laugh, +for the love of her disreputable dear poet was sustaining the stringent +testing she had devised. She touched his freckled hand caressingly, and +her face was as no man had ever seen it, and her voice, too, caressed +him. + +"Ah, you have made me the happiest of women, Kit! Kit, I am almost +disappointed in you, though, that you do not grieve more for the loss of +that beautiful poem." + +His smiling did not waver; yet the lean, red-haired man stayed +motionless. "Do I appear perturbed?" he said. "Why, but see how lightly +I take the destruction of my life-work in this, my masterpiece! For I +can assure you it was a masterpiece, the fruit of two years' toil and of +much loving repolishment--" + +"Ah, but you love me better than such matters, do you not?" she asked +him, tenderly. "Kit Marlowe, I adore you! Sweetheart, do you not +understand that a woman wants to be loved utterly and entirely? She +wants no rivals, not even paper rivals. And so often when you talked of +poetry I have felt lonely and chilled and far away from you, and I have +been half envious, dear, of your Heros and your Helens, and your other +good-for-nothing Greek minxes. But now I do not mind them at all. And I +will make amends, quite prodigal amends, for my naughty jealousy; and my +poet shall write me some more lovely poems, so he shall--" + +He said "You fool!" + +And she drew away from him, for this man was no longer smiling. + +"You burned my 'Hero and Leander'! You! you big-eyed fool! You lisping +idiot! you wriggling, cuddling worm! you silken bag of guts! had not +even you the wit to perceive it was immortal beauty which would have +lived long after you and I were stinking dirt? And you, a half-witted +animal, a shining, chattering parrot, lay claws to it!" Marlowe had +risen in a sort of seizure, in a condition which was really quite +unreasonable when you considered that only a poem was at stake, even a +rather long poem. + +And Cynthia began to smile, with tremulous hurt-looking young lips. "So +my poet's love is very much the same as Pevensey's love! And I was +right, after all." + +"Oh, oh!" said Marlowe, "that ever a poet should love a woman! What +jokes does the lewd flesh contrive!" Of a sudden he was calmer: and then +rage fell from him like a dropped cloak and he viewed her as with +respectful wonder. "Why, but you sitting there, with goggling innocent +bright eyes, are an allegory of all that is most droll and tragic. Yes, +and indeed there is no reason to blame you. It is not your fault that +every now and then is born a man who serves an idea which is to him the +most important thing in the world. It is not your fault that this man +perforce inhabits a body to which the most important thing in the world +is a woman. Certainly it is not your fault that this compost makes yet +another jumble of his two desires, and persuades himself that the two +are somehow allied. The woman inspires, the woman uplifts, the woman +strengthens him for his high work, saith he! Well, well, perhaps there +are such women, but by land and sea I have encountered none of them." + +All this was said while Marlowe shuffled about the room, with bent +shoulders, and nodding his tousled red head, and limping as he walked. +Now Marlowe turned, futile and shabby-looking, just where Pevensey had +loomed resplendent a while since. Again she saw the poet's queer, +twisted, jeering smile. + +"What do you care for my ideals? What do you care for the ideals of that +tall earl whom you have held from his proper business for a fortnight? +or for the ideals of any man alive? Why, not one thread of that dark +hair, not one snap of those white little fingers, except when ideals +irritate you by distracting a man's attention from Cynthia Allonby. +Otherwise, he is welcome enough to play with his incomprehensible toys." + +He jerked a thumb toward the shelves behind him. + +"Oho, you virtuous pretty ladies! what all you value is such matters as +those cups: they please the eye, they are worth sound money, and people +envy you the possession of them. So you cherish your shiny mud cups, and +you burn my 'Hero and Leander': and I declaim all this dull nonsense, +over the ashes of my ruined dreams, thinking at bottom of how pretty you +are, and of how much I would like to kiss you. That is the real tragedy, +the immortal tragedy, that I should still hanker after you, my +Cynthia--" + +His voice dwelt tenderly upon her name. His fever-haunted eyes were +tender, too, for just a moment. Then he grimaced. + +"No, I am wrong--the tragedy strikes deeper. The root of it is that +there is in you and in all your glittering kind no malice, no will to do +harm nor to hurt anything, but just a bland and invincible and, upon the +whole, a well-meaning stupidity, informing a bright and soft and +delicately scented animal. So you work ruin among those men who serve +ideals, not foreplanning ruin, not desiring to ruin anything, not even +having sufficient wit to perceive the ruin when it is accomplished. You +are, when all is done, not even detestable, not even a worthy peg +whereon to hang denunciatory sonnets, you shallow-pated pretty creatures +whom poets--oh, and in youth all men are poets!--whom poets, now and +always, are doomed to hanker after to the detriment of their poesy. No, +I concede it: you kill without premeditation, and without ever +suspecting your hands to be anything but stainless. So in logic I must +retract all my harsh words; and I must, without any hint or reproach, +endeavour to bid you a somewhat more civil farewell." + +She had regarded him, throughout this preposterous and uncalled-for +harangue, with sad composure, with a forgiving pity. Now she asked him, +very quietly, "Where are you going, Kit?" + +"To the Golden Hind, O gentle, patient and unjustly persecuted virgin +martyr!" he answered, with an exaggerated how--"since that is the part +in which you now elect to posture." + +"Not to that low, vile place again!" + +"But certainly I intend in that tavern to get tipsy as quickly as +possible: for then the first woman I see will for the time become the +woman whom I desire and who exists nowhere." And with that the +red-haired man departed, limping and singing as he went to look for a +trull in a pot-house. + +Sang Kit Marlowe: + + "And I will make her beds of roses + And a thousand fragrant posies; + A cap of flowers, and a kirtle + Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle. + + "A gown made of the finest wool + Which from our pretty lambs we pull; + Fair-lined slippers for the cold, + With buckles of the purest gold--" + + +III + +ECONOMICS OF EGERIA + +She sat quite still when Marlowe had gone. + +"He will get drunk again," she thought despondently. "Well, and why +should it matter to me if he does, after all that outrageous ranting? He +has been unforgivably insulting--Oh, but none the less, I do not want to +have him babbling of the roses and gold of that impossible fairy world +which the poor, frantic child really believes in, to some painted woman +of the town who will laugh at him. I loathe the thought of her laughing +at him--and kissing him! His notions are wild foolishness; but I at +least wish that they were not foolishness, and that hateful woman will +not care one way or the other." + +So Cynthia sighed, and to comfort her forlorn condition fetched a +hand-mirror from the shelves whereon glowed her green cups. She touched +each cup caressingly in passing; and that which she found in the mirror, +too, she regarded not unappreciatively, from varying angles.... Yes +after all, dark hair and a pale skin had their advantages at a court +where pink and yellow women were so much the fashion as to be common. +Men remembered you more distinctively. Though nobody cared for men, in +view of their unreasonable behaviour, and their absolute +self-centeredness.... Oh, it was pitiable, it was grotesque, she +reflected sadly, how Pevensey and Kitt Marlowe had both failed her, +after so many pretty speeches. + +Still, there was a queer pleasure in being wooed by Kit: his insane +notions went to one's head like wine. She would send Meg for him again +to-morrow. And Pevensey was, of course, the best match imaginable.... +No, it would be too heartless to dismiss George Bulmer outright. It was +unreasonable of him to desert her because a Gascon threatened to go to +mass; but, after all, she would probably marry George in the end. He was +really almost unendurably silly, though, about England and freedom and +religion, and right and wrong things like that. Yes, it would be tedious +to have a husband who often talked to you as though he were addressing a +public meeting.... However, he was very handsome, particularly in his +highflown and most tedious moments; that year-old son of his was sickly +and would probably die soon, the sweet, forlorn little pet, and not be a +bother to anybody: and her dear old father would be profoundly delighted +by the marriage of his daughter to a man whose wife could have at will a +dozen celadon cups, and anything else she chose to ask for.... + +But now the sun had set, and the room was growing quite dark. So Cynthia +stood a-tiptoe, and replaced the mirror upon the shelves, setting it +upright behind those wonderful green cups which had anew reminded her of +Pevensey's wealth and generosity. She smiled a little, to think of what +fun it had been to hold George back, for two whole weeks, from +discharging that horrible old queen's stupid errands. + + +IV + +TREATS PHILOSOPHICALLY OF BREAKAGE + +The door opened. Stalwart young Captain Edward Musgrave came with a +lighted candle, which he placed carefully upon the table in the room's +centre. + +He said: "They told me you were here. I come from London. I bring news +for you." + +"You bring no pleasant tidings, I fear--" + +"As Lord Pevensey rode through the Strand this afternoon, on his way +home, the Plague smote him. That is my sad news. I grieve to bring such +news, for your cousin was a worthy gentleman and universally respected." + +"Ah," Cynthia said, very quiet, "so Pevensey is dead. But the Plague +kills quickly!" + +"Yes, yes, that is a comfort, certainly. Yes, he turned quite black in +the face, they report, and before his men could reach him had fallen +from his horse. It was all over almost instantly. I saw him afterward, +hardly a pleasant sight. I came to you as soon as I could. I was +vexatiously detained--" + +"So George Bulmer is dead, in a London gutter! It seems strange, because +he was here, befriended by monarchs, and very strong and handsome and +self-confident, hardly two hours ago. Is that his blood upon your +sleeve?" + +"But of course not! I told you I was vexatiously detained, almost at +your gates. Yes, I had the ill luck to blunder into a disgusting +business. The two rapscallions tumbled out of a doorway under my horse's +very nose, egad! It was a near thing I did not ride them down. So I +stopped, naturally. I regretted stopping, afterward, for I was too late +to be of help. It was at the Golden Hind, of course. Something really +ought to be done about that place. Yes, and that rogue Marler bled all +over a new doublet, as you see. And the Deptford constables held me with +their foolish interrogatories--" + +"So one of the fighting men was named Marlowe! Is he dead, too, dead in +another gutter?" + +"Marlowe or Marler, or something of the sort--wrote plays and sonnets +and such stuff, they tell me. I do not know anything about him--though, +I give you my word now, those greasy constables treated me as though I +were a noted frequenter of pot-houses. That sort of thing is most +annoying. At all events, he was drunk as David's sow, and squabbling +over, saving your presence, a woman of the sort one looks to find in +that abominable hole. And so, as I was saying, this other drunken rascal +dug a knife into him--" + +But now, to Captain Musgrave's discomfort, Cynthia Allonby had begun to +weep heartbrokenly. + +So he cleared his throat, and he patted the back of her hand. "It is a +great shock to you, naturally--oh, most naturally, and does you great +credit. But come now, Pevensey is gone, as we must all go some day, and +our tears cannot bring him back, my dear. We can but hope he is better +off, poor fellow, and look on it as a mysterious dispensation and that +sort of thing, my dear--" + +"Oh, Ned, but people are so cruel! People will be saying that it was I +who kept poor Cousin George in London this past two weeks, and that but +for me he would have been in France long ago. And then the Queen, +Ned!--why, that pig-headed old woman will be blaming it on me, that +there is nobody to prevent that detestable French King from turning +Catholic and dragging England into new wars, and I shall not be able to +go to any of the court dances! nor to the masque!" sobbed Cynthia, "nor +anywhere!" + +"Now you talk tender-hearted and angelic nonsense. It is noble of you to +feel that way, of course. But Pevensey did not take proper care of +himself, and that is all there is to it. Now I have remained in London +since the Plague's outbreak. I stayed with my regiment, naturally. We +have had a few deaths, of course. People die everywhere. But the Plague +has never bothered me. And why has it never bothered me? Simply because +I was sensible, took the pains to consult an astrologer, and by his +advice wear about my neck, night and day, a bag of dried toad's blood +and powdered cinnamon. It is an infallible specific for men born in +February. No, not for a moment do I wish to speak harshly of the dead, +but sensible persons cannot but consider Lord Pevensey's death to have +been caused by his own carelessness." + +"Now, certainly that is true," the girl said, brightening. "It was +really his own carelessness, and his dear, lovable rashness. And +somebody could explain it to the Queen. Besides, I often think that wars +are good for the public spirit of a nation, and bring out its true +manhood. But then it upset me, too, a little, Ned, to hear about this +Marlowe--for I must tell you that I knew the poor man, very slightly. So +I happen to know that today he flung off in a rage, and began drinking, +because somebody, almost by pure accident, had burned a packet of his +verses--" + +Thereupon Captain Musgrave raised heavy eyebrows, and guffawed so +heartily that the candle flickered. "To think of the fellow's putting it +on that plea! when he could so easily have written some more verses. +That is the trouble with these poets, if you ask me: they are not +practical even in their ordinary, everyday lying. No, no, the truth of +it was that the rogue wanted a pretext for making a beast of himself, +and seized the first that came to hand. Egad, my dear, it is a daily +practice with these poets. They hardly draw a sober breath. Everybody +knows that." + +Cynthia was looking at him in the half-lit room with very flattering +admiration.... Seen thus, with her scarlet lips a little +parted--disclosing pearls--and with her naive dark eyes aglow, she was +quite incredibly pretty and caressable. She had almost forgotten until +now that this stalwart soldier, too, was in love with her. But now her +spirits were rising venturously, and she knew that she liked Ned +Musgrave. He had sensible notions; he saw things as they really were, +and with him there would never be any nonsense about top-lofty ideas. +Then, too, her dear old white-haired father would be pleased, because +there was a very fair estate.... + +So Cynthia said: "I believe you are right, Ned. I often wonder how they +can be so lacking in self-respect. Oh, I am certain you must be right, +for it is just what I felt without being able quite to express it You +will stay for supper with us, of course. Yes, but you must, because it +is always a great comfort for me to talk with really sensible persons. I +do not wonder that you are not very eager to stay, though, for I am +probably a fright, with my eyes red, and with my hair all tumbling down, +like an old witch's. Well, let us see what can be done about it, sir! +There was a hand-mirror--" + +And thus speaking, she tripped, with very much the reputed grace of a +fairy, toward the far end of the room, and standing a-tiptoe, groped at +the obscure shelves, with a resultant crash of falling china. + +"Oh, but my lovely cups!" said Cynthia, in dismay. "I had forgotten they +were up there: and now I have smashed both of them, in looking for my +mirror, sir, and trying to prettify myself for you. And I had so fancied +them, because they had not their like in England!" + +She looked at the fragments, and then at Musgrave, with wide, innocent +hurt eyes. She was honestly grieved by the loss of her quaint toys. But +Musgrave, in his sturdy, common-sense way, only laughed at her +seriousness over such kickshaws. + +"I am for an honest earthenware tankard myself!" he said, jovially, as +the two went in to supper. + + + + +THE HIGH COST OF CONSCIENCE + + +_BY BEATRICE RAVENEL_ + +From _Harper's Magazine_ + +"Any woman who can accept money from a gentleman who is in no way +related to her--" Miss Fowler delivered judgment. + +"My dear Aunt Maria, you mean a gentleman's disembodied spirit," Hugh's +light, pleasant tones intervened. + +"A legacy, Maria, is not quite the same thing. Mr. Winthrop Fowler's +perfect intonation carried its usual implication that the subject was +closed. + +"---- is what I call an adventuress," Miss Fowler summed up. She had a +way of ignoring objections, of reappearing beyond them like a submarine +with the ultimate and detonating answer. "And now she wants to reopen +the matter when the whole thing's over and done with. After three years. +Extraordinary taste." She hitched her black-velvet Voltaire arm-chair a +little away from the fire and spread a vast knitting-bag of Chinese +brocade over her knees. "I suppose she isn't satisfied; she wants more." + +"Naturally. I cannot imagine what other reason she could have for +insisting on a personal interview," her brother agreed, dryly. He +retired into the _Transcript_ as a Trappist withdraws into his vows. A +chastened client of Mr. Fowler's once observed that a half-hour's +encounter with him resulted in a rueful of asphyxiated topics. + +Miss Maria, however, preferred disemboweling hers, "I shouldn't have +consented," she snapped. "Hugh, if you would be so good as to sit down. +You are obstructing the light. And the curtain-cord. If you could +refrain from twisting it for a few moments." + +Hugh let his long, high-shouldered figure lapse into the window-seat. +"And besides, we're all dying to know what she looks like," he +suggested. + +"Speak for yourself, please," said Miss Fowler, with the vivacity of the +lady who protests too much. + +"I do, I do! Good Lord! I'm just as bad as the rest of you. All my life +I've been consumed to know what Uncle Hugh could have seen in a +perfectly obscure little person to make him do what he did. There must +have been something." His eyes travelled to a sketch in pencil of a +man's head which hung in the shadow of the chimneypiece, a sketch whose +uncanny suggestion might have come from the quality of the sitter or +merely from a smudging of the medium. "Everything he did always seemed +to me perfectly natural," he went on, as though conscious of new +discovery. "Even those years when he was knocking about the world, +hiding his address. Even when he had that fancy that people were +persecuting him. Most people did worry him horribly." + +A glance flashed between the two middle-aged listeners. It was a +peculiar glance, full of a half-denied portent. Then Miss Fowler's +fingers, true to their traditions, loosened their grip on her needles +and casually smoothed out her work. + +"I have asked you not to speak of that," she mentioned, quietly. + +"I know. But of course there was no doubt at all that he was sa--was +entirely recovered before his death. Don't you think so, sir?" + +His uncle laid down the paper and fixed the young man with the gray, +unsheathed keenness that had sent so many witnesses grovelling to the +naked truth. "No doubt whatever. I always held, and so did both the +physicians, that his lack of balance was a temporary and sporadic thing, +brought on by overwork--and certain unhappy conditions of his life. +There has never been any such taint in our branch of the family." + +"No-o, so they say," Hugh agreed. "One of our forebears did see ghosts, +but that was rather the fashion. And his father, that old Johnnie over +the fireplace--you take after him, Aunt Maria--he was the prize +witch-smeller of his generation, and he condemned all the young and +pretty ones. That hardly seems well-balanced." + +"Collaterals on the distaff side," Mr. Fowler put in hastily. "If you +would read Mendel--" + +"Mendel? I have read about him." He raised the forefinger of his right +hand. "Very suggestive. If your father was a black rabbit"--he raised +the forefinger of his left--"and your mother was a white rabbit, then +your male children would be"--he raised all the other fingers and paused +as though taken aback by the size of the family--"would be blue +guinea-pigs, with a tendency to club-foot and astigmatism, but your +female children might only be rather clumsy tangoists with a weakness +for cutting their poor relations. That's all I remember, but I _do_ know +that because I studied the charts." + +"Very amusing," said Mr. Fowler, indulgently. + +Hugh flushed. + +"I am sure it can't be that way." Miss Maria flapped her knitting over. +"But everything has changed since my day, and _not_ for the better. The +curtain-cord." + +"Beg pardon," muttered Hugh. His mind went on churning nonsense. "There +are two days it is useless to flee from--the day of your death and the +day when your family doesn't care for your jokes. + + "For a joke is an intellectual thing, + And a _mot_ is the sword of an angel king. + +"Good old Blake. Why do the best people always see jokes? Why does a +really good one make a whole frozen crowd feel jolly and united all of a +sudden?" He pondered on the beneficence of the comic spirit. Hugh was a +born Deist. It gave him no trouble at all to believe that since the +paintings of Velasquez and the great outdoors which he had seen, were +beautiful, so much the more beautiful must be that God whom he had not +seen. It seemed reasonable. As for the horrors like Uncle Hugh's +affair--well, they must be put in for chiaroscuro. A thing couldn't be +all white without being blank. The thought of the shadows, however, +always made him profoundly uncomfortable, and his instinct +right-about-faced to the lighter surface of life. "Anyhow," he broke +silence, "the daughter of Heth must be game. Three to one, and on our +native heath." + +He looked appraisingly about the room, pausing at the stiff, +distinguished, grey-haired couple, one on either side of the fire. The +effect was of a highly finished genre picture: the rich wainscot between +low book-shelves, the brooding portraits, the black-blue rug bordered by +a veiled Oriental motive, the black-velvet cushions that brought out the +watery reflections of old Sheraton as even the ancient horsehair had not +done; the silver candlesticks, the miniatures, and on the mantel those +two royal flower-pots whose precarious existence was to his aunt a very +fearful joy. Even the tortoise-shell cat, sprawled between the two +figures like a tiny tiger-skin, was in the picture. It was a room that +gently put you into your place. Hugh recalled with a faint grin certain +meetings here of philanthropic ladies whose paths had seldom turned into +the interiors of older Beacon Street. The state of life to which it had +pleased their Maker to call them, he reflected, would express itself +preferably in gilding and vast pale-tinted upholstery and pink +bibelots--oh, quite a lot of pink. This place had worried them into a +condition of disconcerted awe. + +He tried to fancy what it was going to do to the unbidden, resented +guest. A queer protest against its enmity, an impulse to give her a +square deal, surged up in him from nowhere. After all, whatever else she +might be, she was Uncle Hugh's girl. Like all the world, Hugh loved the +dispossessed lover. He knew what it felt like. One does not reach the +mature age of twenty-four without having at least begun the passionate +pilgrimage. His few tindery and tinselly affairs suspected of following +the obvious formula: three parts curiosity, three parts the literary +sense, three parts crude young impulse, one part distilled moonshine. +The real love of his life had been Uncle Hugh. + +He sprang up with an abruptness to which his elders seemed to be used. +He stopped before a brass-trimmed desk and jerked at the second drawer. +"Where are those letters, sir?" + +"You mean--" + +"Yes, the one you wrote her about the money, and her answer. You put +them with his papers, didn't you? Where's the key?" + +The older man drew from his waistcoat pocket a carved bit of brass. +"What do you want with them?" he asked, cautiously. + +"I want to refresh my memory--and Aunt Maria's." He took out a neat +little pile of papers and began to sort them intently. "Here they are on +top." He laid out a docketed envelope on the desk. "And here are the +essays and poems that you wouldn't publish. I considered them the best +things he ever did." + +"You were not his literary executor," said his uncle, coldly. Another +stifled glance passed between the seniors, but this time Miss Maria made +no effort to restore the gloss of the surface. She sat idle, staring at +the papers with a sort of horror. + +"Put them back," she said. "Winthrop, I do think you might burn them. If +you keep things like that too long the wrong people are sure to get +them." + +"Wait a bit. I haven't seen them for years, not since you published the +collected works--with Hamlet left out." The young man lifted a worn +brown-morocco portfolio tied with a frazzled red ribbon. "And here"--his +voice dropped--"here is It--the letters he wrote to her and never sent. +It was a sort of diary, wasn't it, going on for years? What a howling +pity we couldn't print that!" + +"Hugh!" + +"Don't faint, Aunt Maria. You wouldn't catch me doing anything so +indecent. But suppose Dante's dear family had suppressed the _Vita +Nuova_. And it ought to be one of the most extraordinary human documents +in the world, perfectly intimate, all the bars down, full of those +flashes of his. Just the man, _ipsissimus_, that never happened but that +once. Uncle Winthrop, don't you think that I might read it?" + +"Do you think so? I never did." + +"Oh, if you put it up to me like that! Of course I can't. But what luck +that he didn't ask you to send it to her--supposing she's the wrong +kind--wasn't it ..." His voice trailed off, leaving his lips foolishly +open. "You don't mean--he did?" + +"Yes, at the end, after you had left the room," said Mr. Fowler, firmly. + +"And you--didn't? Why not?" + +"As you said, for fear she was the wrong kind" + +"It was too much to hope that she would be anything else," his aunt +broke in, harshly. "Shut your mouth, Hugh; you look like a fool. Think +what she might have done with them--she and some of those unspeakable +papers." + +"Oh, I see! I see!" groaned the young man. "But how awful not to do the +very last thing he wanted! Did you ever try to find out what kind of a +person she was?" + +"She took the money. That was enough," cried Miss Fowler. "She got her +share, just as though she had been his legal wife." + +Hugh gave her a dazed look. "You don't mean that she was his illegal +one? I never--" + +"Oh no, no!" Mr. Fowler interposed. "We have no reason to think that she +was otherwise than respectable. Maria, you allow most unfortunate +implications to result from your choice of words. We know very little, +really." + +"He met her in Paris when he gave that course of lectures over there. We +know that much. And she was an American student--from Virginia, wasn't +it? But that was over twenty years ago. Didn't he see her after that?" + +"I am sure he did not." + +"She wasn't with him when he was knocking about Europe?" + +"Certainly not. She came home that very year and married. As her letter +states, she was a widow with three children at the time of his death." + +"I have always considered it providential that he didn't know she was a +widow," observed Miss Maria, primly. + +Her nephew shot her a look that admitted his intermittent amusement in +his aunt Maria, but definitely gave her up. He carefully leaned the +portfolio inside the arm of the sofa that neighboured the desk, and +picked up the long envelope. + +"A copy of my letter," said Mr. Fowler. + +To his sister, watching him as he watched Hugh, came the unaccountable +impression that his sure and chiselled surface covered a nervous +anxiety. Then Miss Maria, being a product of the same school, dismissed +the idea as absurd. + +Hugh raised bewildered eyes from the letters. "I can't exactly +remember," he said. "I was so cut up at the time. Did I ever actually +read this before or was I merely told about it? I went back for +Midyear's, you know, almost at once. I know my consent was asked, but--" + +"You--did not see it." + +"And you, Aunt Maria, of course you knew about it!" + +"Certainly," said Miss Fowler, on the defensive. "As usual in business +matters, your uncle decided for me. We have been accustomed to act as a +family always. To me the solidarity of the family it more than the +interest of any member of it." + +"Oh, I know that the Fowler family is the noblest work of God." The +young man looked from one to the other as he might have regarded two +strangers whose motives it was his intention to find out. "I've been +brought up on that. But what I want to know now is the whyness of this +letter." + +"What do you mean?" Mr. Fowler's voice cut the pause like a trowel +executing the middle justice on an earthworm. + +"Why--why--" Hugh began, desperately. "I mean, why wasn't the money +turned over to her at once--all of it?" + +"It is customary to notify legatees." + +"And she wasn't even a legatee," added Miss Maria, grimly. He never made +a will." + +"No," said Hugh, with an ugly laugh, "he merely trusted to our +promises." + +There was a brief but violent silence. + +"I think, Winthrop," Miss Maria broke it, "that instead of questioning +the propriety of my language, you might do well to consider your +nephew's." + +Hugh half-tendered the letter. "You're so confoundedly clever. Uncle +Winthrop. You--you just put the whole thing up to the poor woman. I +can't pick out a word to show where you said it, but the tone of your +letter is exactly this, 'Here's the money for you, and if you take it +you're doing an unheard-of thing.' _She_ saw it right enough. Her answer +is just defence of why she has to take it--some of it. She's a mother +with three children, struggling to keep above water. She's a human +animal fighting for her young. So she takes, most apologetically, most +unhappily, a part of what he left her, and she hates to take that. It's +the most pitiful thing--" + +"Piteous," corrected Miss Maria, in a tone like a bite. + +Mr. Fowler laid the tips of his fingers very delicately on his nephew's +knee. "Will you show me the place or places where I make these very +damaging observations?" + +"That's just it. I can't pick them out, but--" + +"I am sure that you cannot, because they exist only in your +somewhat--shall we say, lyrical imagination? I laid the circumstances +before the woman and she acted as she saw fit to act. Hugh, my dear boy, +I wish that you would try to restrain your--your growing tendency to +excitability. I know that this is a trying day for all of us." + +"O Lord, yes! It brings it all back," said Hugh, miserably. "I'm sorry +if I said anything offensive sir, but--" He gave it up. "You know I have +a devil, sometimes." He gave a half-embarrassed laugh. + +"Offensive--if you have said anything offensive?" Miss Fowler boiled +over. "Is that all you are going to say, Winthrop? If so--" + +Mr. Fowler lifted a warning hand. The house door was opening. Then the +discreet steps of Gannett came up the hall, followed by something +lighter and more resilient. + +"At least don't give me away to the lady the very first thing," said +Hugh, lightly. He shoved the papers into the drawers and swung it shut. +His heart was beating quite ridiculously. He would know at last--What +wouldn't he know? "Uncle Hugh's girl, Uncle Hugh's girl," he told +himself, and his temperamental responsiveness to the interest and the +mystery of life expanded like a sea-anemone in the Gulf Stream. + +Gannett opened the door, announced in his impeccable English, "Mrs. +Shirley," and was not. + + * * * * * + +A very small, very graceful woman hesitated in the doorway. Hugh's first +impression was surprise that there was so little of her. Then his always +alert subconsciousness registered: + +"A lady, yes, but a country lady; not _de par le monde_. Pleasantly +rather than well dressed; those veils are out." He had met her at once +with outstretched hand and the most cordial, "I am glad to see you, Mrs. +Shirley." Then he mentioned the names of his aunt and uncle. He did not +dare to leave anything to Aunt Maria. + +That lady made a movement that might or might not have been a gesture of +recognition. Mr. Fowler, who had risen, inclined his handsome head with +a polite murmur and indicated a chair which faced the light. Mrs. +Shirley sat, instead, upon the edge of the sofa, which happened to be +nearer. With her coming Hugh's expansiveness had suffered a sudden +rebuff. A feeling of dismal conventionality permeated the room like a +fog. He plumbed it in vain for the wonder and the magic that ought to +have been the inescapable aura of Uncle Hugh's girl. Was this the mighty +ocean, was this all? She was a little nervous, too. That was a pity. +Nervousness in social relations was one of the numerous things that Aunt +Maria never forgave. + +Then the stranger spoke, and Hugh's friendliness went out to the sound +as to something familiar for which he had been waiting. + +"It is very good of you to let me come," she said. + +"But she must be over forty," Hugh told himself, "and her voice is +young. So was his always." It was also very natural and moving and not +untinged by what Miss Fowler called the Southern patois. "And her feet +are young." + +Mr. Fowler uttered another polite murmur. There was no help from that +quarter. She made another start. + +"It seemed to me--" she addressed Miss Fowler, who looked obdurate. She +cast a helpless glance at the cat, who opened surprising topaz eyes and +looked supercilious. Then she turned to Hugh. "It seemed to me," she +said, steadily, "that I could make you understand--I mean I could +express myself more clearly if I could see you, than I could by writing, +but--it is rather difficult." + +The overheated, inclement room waited. Hugh restrained his foot from +twitching. Why didn't Aunt Maria say something? She was behaving +abominably. She was still seething with her suppressed outburst like a +tea-kettle under the cozy of civilization. And it was catching. + +"I explained at the time, three years ago," Mrs. Shirley made the +plunge, "why I took the--money at all." The hard word was out, and Hugh +relaxed. "I don't know what you thought of me, but at the time it seemed +like the mercy of Heaven. I had to educate the children. We were +horribly poor. I was almost in despair. And I felt that if I could take +it from any one I could take it from him ..." + +"Yes," said Hugh, unhappily. The depression that dropped on him at +intervals seemed waiting to pounce. He glanced at his uncle's judicial +mask, knowing utterly the distaste for sentimental encounters that it +covered. He detested his aunt's aloofness. He was almost angry with this +little woman's ingenuousness that put her so candidly at their cynical +mercy. + +"But now," she went on, "some land we have that seemed worth nothing at +the time has become very valuable. The town grew out in that direction. +And my eldest boy is doing very well indeed, and my daughter is studying +for a library position." + +"The short and simple annals of the poor," sighed Hugh to Hugh. + +"And so," said little Mrs. Shirley, with astounding simplicity, "I came +to ask you please to take it back again." She gave an involuntary sigh +of relief, as though she had returned a rather valuable umbrella. Mr. +Fowl's eyeglasses dropped from his nose as his eyebrows shot up. + +"Good Lord!" ejaculated Miss Maria with all the unexpectedness of +Galatea. "You don't really mean it?" Her bag slid to the floor and the +cat became thoroughly intrigued. + +"Do I understand you to say"--Mr. Fowler's voice was almost +stirred--"that you wish to return my brother's legacy to the family?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Shirley, "only, it wasn't a legacy. It was merely +kindness that let me have it. You never can know how kind it was. But we +can get on without it now." + +Mr. Fowler cleared his throat. To Hugh his manner faintly suggested the +cat busy with the yarn, full of a sort of devout curiosity. "Pardon me," +he said, gently, "but are you sure--have you given this matter +sufficient thought? The sum is a considerable one. Your children--" + +"I have talked it over with them. They feel just as I do." + +"A very proper feeling," said Miss Fowler, approvingly. "I must say that +I never expected it. I shall add part of my share of it to the Marian +Fowler Ward in the Home for Deficient Children. A most worthy charity. +Perhaps I could interest you--" + +"Oh, that would be lovely!" cried Mrs. Shirley. "Anything for +children.... I've already spoken to my cousin, who is a lawyer, about +transferring the securities back to you." + +"I shall communicate with him at once," said Mr. Fowler. His court-room +manner had bourgeoned into his best drawing-room blend of faintly +implied gallantry and deep consideration. One almost caught Winter +getting out of the lap of Spring. Then the three heads which had +unconsciously leaned together suddenly straightened up and turned in the +same direction. + +Hugh stood almost over them. In one hand he held his aunt's knitting, +which he had mechanically rescued from the cat. Now he drew out one of +the ivory needles and snapped it into accurate halves. "This is +atrocious!" he said, with care and precision. His voice shook. "I shall +not touch a cent of it and"--he embraced his uncle and aunt in the same +devastating look--"neither will you if you have any sense of decency." + +"I think--" + +"It doesn't matter remotely what you--we think sir. What matters is what +Uncle Hugh thought." He turned to Mrs. Shirley with an extraordinary +softening of tone. "Couldn't you keep it? When he died ... in the room +over this"--with a little gasp her glance flew to the ceiling as though +this topographical detail had brought her a sharp realization of that +long-past scene--"he made us promise that you should have it, all of it. +He felt that you needed it; he worried about it." + +"Oh, how kind of him--how kind!" cried the little woman. The poignancy +of her voice cut into his disappointment like a sharp ray of light. +"Even then--to think of me. But don't you understand that he wouldn't +want me to--to take anything that I felt I ought not to take?" + +"That's the way out," rippled across Mr. Fowler's face. He was +experiencing a variety of mental disturbances, but this came to the +surface just in time for Hugh to catch it. + +"Oh well," he murmured, wearily. "Only, none for this deficient child, +thank you." He walked to the window and stood looking out into the blown +spring green of the elm opposite. His ebbed anger had left a residuum of +stubbornness. There was still an act of justice to be consummated and +the position of grand-justicer offered a certain righteous attraction. +As he reminded himself, if you put your will to work on a difficult +action you were fain to commit, after a while the will worked +automatically and your mind functioned without aid from you, and the +action bloomed of itself. This kinetic process was a constant device of +the freakish impulse that he called his devil. He deliberately laid the +train. + +"There is one more thing," the alien was saying. Her voice had gained a +wonderful fluency amid the general thaw. "I didn't dare to ask before, +but if we thought of me then--I have always hoped he left some message +for me ... a letter, perhaps." + +Hugh smiled agreeably. "In just a moment," he considered, "I am going to +do something so outrageous that I can't even imagine how my dear +families are going to take it." He was about to hurt them severely, but +that was all right. His uncle was a tempered weapon of war that despised +quarter; and as for Aunt Maria, he rather wanted to hurt Aunt Maria for +her own good. + +Into the eloquent and mendacious silence that was a gift of their caste +the voice fell humbly: "So there wasn't? I suppose I oughtn't to have +expected it." + +"Any time now, Gridley," Hugh signalled to his familiar. Like a +response, a thin breeze tickled the roots of his hair. He swung around +with the pivot of a definite purpose. With an economy of movement that +would have contented an efficiency expert he set a straight +fiddle-backed chair squarely in front of Uncle Hugh's girl and settled +himself in it with his back to his own people. + +"Mrs. Shirley," he began, quietly, "will you talk to me, please? I hope +I shan't startle you, but there are things I absolutely have to know, +and this is my one chance. I am entirely determined not to let it slip. +Talk to me, please, not to them. As you have doubtless noticed, though +excellent people where the things not flatly of this world are +concerned, my uncle is a graven image and my aunt is a deaf mute. As for +me, I am just unbalanced enough to understand anything." He was aware of +the rustle of consternation behind him and hurried on, ignoring that and +whatever else might be happening there. "That's what I'm banking on now. +I intend to say my say and they are going to allow it, because it is +dangerous to thwart queer people--very dangerous indeed. You know, they +thwarted Uncle Hugh in every possible way. My grandfather was a +composite of those two, and all of them adored my uncle and contradicted +him and watched him until he went over the border. And they're so dead +scared that I'm going to follow him some day that they let me do quite +as I please." He passed his hand across his eyes as though brushing away +cobwebs. "Will you be so good as to put your veil up." + +"Why--why, certainly!" Mrs. Shirley faltered. She uncovered her face and +Hugh nodded to the witness within. + +"Yes, he'd have liked that," he told himself. "Lots of expression and +those beautiful haunted shadows about the eyes." He laughed gently. +"Don't look so frightened. I don't bite. Just humour me, as Uncle +Winthrop is signalling you to do. You understand, don't you, that Uncle +Hugh was the romance and the adventure of my life? I'm still saturated +with him, but there was lots of him that I could never get through to. +There never was a creature better worth knowing, and he couldn't show +me, or else I had blind spots. There were vast tracts of undiscovered +country in him, as far as I was concerned--lands of wonder, east of the +sun and west of the moon--that sort of thing. But I knew that there was +a certain woman who must have been there, who held the heart of the +mystery, and to-day, when this incredible chance came--when you came--I +made up my mind that I was not going to be restrained nor baffled by the +customs of my tribe. I want the truth and I'm prepared to give it. From +the shoulder. If you will tell me everything you know about him I +promise to tell you everything I know. You'll want to--" The sound of +the closing door made him turn. The room behind him was empty. His +manner quieted instantly. "That's uncommonly tactful of them.... You +won't think that they meant any discourtesy by leaving?" he added, +anxiously. "They wouldn't do that." + +"Oh, I'm sure not! Your uncle made me understand," faltered Mrs. +Shirley. "They knew you could speak more freely without them." + +"He's wonderful with the wireless," Hugh agreed. "But they were in +terror, anyway, as to how freely I was about to speak before them. They +can't stand this. Everything really human seems pretty well alien to +Uncle Winthrop. He's exhibit A of the people who consider civilization +a mistake. And my aunt Maria is a truly good woman--charities and all +that--but if you put a rabbit in her brain it would incontinently curl +up and die in convulsions." + +She laughed helplessly, and Hugh reported an advance. + +"Nevertheless," he added quaintly, "we don't really dislike each other." + +"I'm the last of the family, you see; I'm the future.... Can't we skip +the preliminaries?" he broke out. "You don't feel that I am a stranger, +do you?" He halted on the verge of the confidence that he found no +barrier in her advanced age. He knew plenty of women of forty who had +never grown up much and who met him on perfectly equal terms. This, +however, was a case by itself. He plunged back into the memories of +Uncle Hugh. He spoke of his charm, his outlook on life, sometimes +curiously veiled, often uncannily clairvoyant; his periods of restless +suffering tending to queer, unsocial impulses; then the flowering of an +interval of hard work and its reward of almost supernatural joy. + +"He used to go around in a rainbow," said Hugh, "a sort of holy soap +bubble. I hardly dared to speak to him for fear of breaking it. It came +with a new inspiration, and while it lasted nothing on earth was so +important. Then when it was finished he never wanted to see the thing +again." + +"Go on," said his listener. Her grey eyes plumbed his with a child's +directness. He was conscious of his will playing on her. He was keeping +his part of the contract, but he was also breaking the way for hers. He +must not let them go for a moment, those grey eyes like a girl's that +grew absent-minded so easily. Only a little more and his mood would +curve around both them, a glamorous mist of feeling. + +"You go on," he murmured. "Can't you see how much I want you to? Can't +you feel how much I'm the right person to know?" + +"I could never tell any one. You want--" + +"Anything, everything. You must have known him better than anybody in +he world did." + +"I think so," she said, slowly "And I saw him alone only twice in my +life." + +For some time he had sat with his long fingers over his mouth, afraid of +checking her by an untimely word. + +"Of course I was in his classes. You know he had an extraordinary +success; he struck twelve at once, as they say there. The French really +discovered him as a poet, just as Mallarme discovered Poe; some of them +used that parallel. And the girls--he was a matinee idol and a +cult--even the French girls. We went into that classroom thrilling as we +never went to any ball. I worked that winter for him harder than I had +ever worked in my life, and about Easter he began to single me out for +the most merciless fault-finding. That was his way of showing that he +considered you worth while. He had a habit of standing over you in +class, holding your paper like a knout. And once or twice--I called +myself a conceited little idiot--but once or twice--" + +Hugh nodded. His pulses were singing like morning stars at the spectacle +of a new world. + +"He used to say of a certain excited, happy feeling, a sort of fey +feeling, that you seemed to have swallowed a heavenly pigeon. And--well, +he looked like that. But I knocked my vanity on the head and told it, +'Down to the other dogs.' I was used to young men; I knew how little +such manifestations could mean. But after that I used to set little +lines in the things I wrote for him, very delicately, and sometimes I +fancied I had caught a fish. It was most exciting." + +Hugh again impersonated a Chinese mandarin. + +"You see, he allowed so few people to know him, he moved with such +difficulty in that formally laid-out small, professional world, with its +endless leaving of cards and showing yourself on the proper days. I +think they considered him a sort of Huron afflicted with genius, and +forgave him. He ran away from them, he fought them off. And to feel that +there was a magic spiderweb between this creature and me, new every day +and invisible to everybody else and dripping with poetry like dewdrops! +Can't you fancy the intoxication? I was nineteen.... I had engaged +myself to be married to Beverly Shirley. I had known him all my +life--before I left home--but I had absolutely no conviction of +disloyalty. This was different; this was another life." + +"Another you," agreed Hugh, as one who took exotic states of mind for +granted. + +"Well, yes.... It was one of the awful at-homes of Madame Normand's. She +took American girls _en pension_, and she was supposed to look after us +severely; but as she was an American herself, of course she gave us a +great deal of liberty. She was the wife of a _professeur_, and she had +rather an imposing _salon_, so she received just so often, and you had +to go or she never stopped asking you why. You have been to those French +receptions?" + +"Where they serve music and syrup and little hard cakes, and you carry +away the impression of a lordly function because of the scenery and the +manners? Indeed yes!" + +"I slid away after a while, out upon the iron balcony, filled with new +lilacs, that overhung the garden. Something had hurt my little feelings; +a letter hadn't come, perhaps. I remember how dark and warm the night +was, like a gulf under me, and the stars and the lights of Paris seemed +very much alike and rather disappointing. Then I heard his voice behind +me, and I was as overwhelmed as--as Daphne or Danae or one of those +pagan ladies might have been when the god came. + +"He said, 'What are you doing, hanging over this dark, romantic chasm?' +And I just had presence of mind enough to play up. + +"'Naturally, I'm waiting for a phantom lover.' Then the answer to that +flashed on me and I said in a hurry, 'I thought you never came to these +things.' + +"'I came to see you'--he really said it--and then, 'And--am I +sufficiently demoniacal?' And he _had_ swallowed a pigeon. + +"'Oh dear, no!' said I. 'You are much too respectable. You are from +Boston.' + +"'And you from Virginia,' said he. 'I hear that a certain Stewart once +unjustifiably claimed kinship with your branch of the family and has +since been known as the Pretender.' + +"'That is quite true,' said I. 'And I hear that once when the Ark ran +aground a little voice was heard piping: 'Save me! save me! I am a +Fowler of Boston!' + +"That was the silly way we began. Isn't it incredible?" + +"He could be silly--that was one of the lovable things," Hugh mused. +"And he could say the most nakedly natural things. But he generally used +the mandarin dialect. He thought in it, I suppose." + +"No," the stranger corrected him. "He thought in thoughts. Brilliant +people always do. The words just wait like a--a--" + +"Layette," said Hugh. "What else did he say?" + +"The next I remember we were leaning together, all but touching. And he +was telling me about the little green gate." + +Hugh's hand shut. "He always called it that. Was he thinking of it even +then?" + +"Oh yes!" + +"He never was like a person of this world," said Hugh, under his breath. + +"The loneliest creature I ever knew." + +They fell silent, like two old friends whose sorrow is the same. + +"He believed," Hugh went on, after a moment, "that when life became +intolerable you had a perfect right to take the shortest way out. And he +thought of it as a little green gate, swinging with its shadow in the +twilight so that a touch would let you into the sweetest, dimmest old +garden." + +"But he loved life." + +"Sometimes. The colour of it and the unexpectedness. He believed the +word didn't have any definite plan, but just wandered along the road and +picked up adventures. And he loved that. He said God made a new earth +every day and he rather fancied a new heaven oftener. But he got so +dead tired at the end, homesick for the underground.... I wonder ..." + +The little woman was looking past him, straight into an evocation of a +vanished presence that was so real, so nearly tangible, that Hugh was +forced to lay violent hands upon his absurd impulse to glance over his +shoulder "I wouldn't let him," she said, in a tone the young man had +never heard before. + +"You mean ..." + +"I couldn't bear it. I made him promise me that he wouldn't. I can't +tell you that. We talked for a long time and the night was full of doom. +He was tired then, but that wasn't all. He felt what was coming--the +Shadow ... and he was in terror. What he dreaded most was that it might +change him in some way, make him something beastly and devilish--he who +had always loved whatever was lovely and merciful and of good report." + +Hugh got up with a shudder. "Hush!" he said, sharply. "It's too ghastly. +Don't tell me any more about it." He wandered across the room, pulling a +leaf from the azaleas, stopping at the window for a long look out. The +wind was blowing some riotous young clouds over the sky like +inarticulate shouts. There was an arrogant bird in the elm; there were +pert crocus-buds in the window-boxes. The place was full of foolhardy +little dare-devils who trusted their fate and might never find it out. +After all, that was the way to live--as long as one was allowed. He +turned suddenly with his whimsical smile. "I look out o' window quite a +bit," he explained, "well, because of my aunt Maria." When he sat down +again in the Sheraton chair Mrs. Shirley shifted her story to the plane +of the smile. + +"I don't know how late it was when Madame Normand popped her head out of +the balcony door." + +"'Who was then surprised? It was the lady,' as dear old Brantome says?" + +"It was everybody. The company had gone and Melanie the _bonne_ was +putting out the candles. + +"'Miss Stewart and I have just discovered that we are very nearly +related,' said he. + +"'But how delightful,' said Madame, thoroughly annoyed." + +"And the other time," Hugh hinted. What he wanted to say was, "So you +prevented it, you kept him here, God bless you!" His natural resilience +had asserted itself. Vistas were opening. The Hugh who accepted life for +what it was worth was again in the ascendant, but he found a second to +call up the other Hugh, whose legal residence was somewhere near the +threshold of consciousness, to take notice. He had always known that +there must have been something in Uncle Hugh's girl. + +"That was a few days later, the afternoon before I left Paris. I went +quite suddenly. Somebody was sick at home, and I had the chance to +travel with some friends who were going. He had sent me flowers--no, not +roses." + +"Narcissus?" + +"Yes. Old Monsieur Normand was scandalized; it seems one doesn't send +yellow flowers to a _jeune fille_. To me it was the most incredibly +thoughtful and original thing. All the other girls had gone with Madame +to a very special piano recital, in spite of a drizzling rain. It had +turned cool, too, I remember, because there was a wood fire in the +little sitting-room--not the _salon_, but the girls' room. Being an +American, Madame was almost lavish about fires. And it was a most +un-French room, the most careless little place, where the second-best +piano lived, and the lilacs, when they were taken in out of the cold. +There were sweet old curtains, and a long sofa in front of the fireplace +instead of the traditional armchairs. Anybody's books and bibelots lay +about. I was playing." + +"What?" This was important. + +"What would a girl play, over twenty years ago, in Paris? In the +_crepuscule_, with the lilacs that _embaument_, as they say there, and +with a sort of panic in her mind? Because, after all, the man to whom +one is engaged is a man whom one knows very slightly." + +"Absolutely," said Hugh. + +"And I didn't want to leave Paris.... Of course I was playing Chopin +bits, with an ache in my heart to match, that I couldn't bear and was +enjoying to the utmost. What do girls play now? Then all of us had +attacks of Chopin. Madame used to laugh and say, 'I hear the harbour bar +still moaning,' and order that particular girl's favourite dessert. She +spoiled us. And Monsieur would say something about _si jeunesse savait_. +He was a nice old man, not very successful; his colleagues patronized +him. Oh yes he was obvious! + +"And then Melanie opened the door and announced, '_Monsieur, le cousin +de Mademoiselle_.' I don't know what made her do it except a general +wish to be kind. She remembered from the other night, and, besides, she +hated to attempt English names; she made salmi of them." + +Hugh had ceased to hold her eyes long ago. They looked into the window's +square of light. He had no wish to intrude his presence. She was finding +it natural to tell him, just as he had acknowledged her right to explore +the intimate places of his soul. Things simply happened that way +sometimes, and one was humbly thankful. + +"'Go on,' he said. 'Don't stop.' He sat in a corner of the sofa, and for +a while the impetus of my start carried me on. Then the bottom dropped +out of Chopin. I went over and sat in the other corner. It was a long +sofa; it felt as long as the world. + +"Do you remember that heart-breakingly beautiful voice of his that could +make you feel anything he was feeling? It was like magic. He said at +last: + +"'So you are going home to be married?' + +"I nodded. + +"'Betty,' he said, 'are you happy, quite happy, about--everything?' + +"'Oh yes!' I said. 'Oh yes, Professor Fowler!' The curious thing about +it was that I spoke the truth when I considered it seriously. + +"He said, 'Then that's all right.' Then he laughed a little and said, +'Do you always call me Professor Fowler, even when you shut your door on +the world at night and are all alone with God and the silence?' + +"'And Claudia Jones,' I added, stupidly. + +"He considered that seriously and said, 'I didn't know about Claudia +Jones; she may inhibit even the silence and the other ingredient. I +suppose you call me Teacher.' + +"I cried out at that. 'I might call you _cher maitre_, as they do her.' + +"He said, 'That may do for the present.' + +"'We looked into the fire and the lilacs filled the pause as adequately +as Chopin could have done. All at once he got up and came over to me--it +seemed the most natural thing in the world--across that wilderness of +sofa. + +"'I suppose,' he said, 'that you won't let me off that promise.' + +"'No, no!' I cried, all my old panic flooding over me again. I threw my +hands out, and suddenly he had caught them in his and was holding me +half away from him, and he was saying, in that tragic voice of his: + +"'No, no! But give me something to make it bearable.'" + +"Allah, the compassionate!" sighed Hugh, in ecstasy. He had never dared +hope for all this. His very being went on tiptoe for fear of breathing +too loud. + +"We sat there for ages and ages, gazing into the fire, not saying a +word. Then he spoke ... every now and then. He said: + +"'The horrible thing would have been never to have known you. Now that +I've touched you I'm magnetized for life. I can't lose you again.' + +"'It isn't I,' I told him. 'It's only what you think me.' + +"'You are the only creature outside of myself that I ever found myself +in,' he said. 'And I could look into you like Narcissus until I died. +You are home and Nirvana. That's what you are. When I look at you I +believe in God. You gallantest, most foolhardy, little, fragile thing, +you, you're not afraid of anything. You trust this rotten life, don't +you? You expect to find lovely things everywhere, and you will, just +because they'll spring up around your feet. You'll save your world like +all redeemers simply by being in it.' + +"No woman ever had such things said to her as he said to me. But most +of the time we said nothing. There wasn't any past or future; there was +only the touch of his shoulder and his hands all around mine. It was +like coming in out of the cold; it was like being on a hill above the +sea, and listening to the wind in the pines until you don't know which +is the wind and which is you.... + +"It couldn't last forever. After a while something like a little point +of pain began worrying my mind. + +"'But there won't be.... This is good-bye,' I cried. + +"'Don't you believe it,' he said. 'God Himself couldn't make us say +good-bye again.' He got up and drew me with him. It was quite dark now +except for the fire, and his eyes ... they were like those of the Djinns +who were made out of elemental fire instead of earth. 'You'll come to me +in the blessed sunshine,' he said, 'and in music, and in the best +impulses of my own soul. If I were an old-fashioned lover I should +promise to wait for you in heaven.... Betty, Betty, I have you in heaven +now and forever!' ... I felt his cheek on mine. Then he was gone. That +was all; that was every bit of all." + +"And he had that to live on for the rest of his life." Hugh broke the +silence under his breath. "Well, thank God he had _something_!" + +The little woman fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief and shamelessly +dried her eyes. As she moved, a brown object fell from the corner of the +couch across her lap. Hugh held his hand out for the morocco portfolio. + +"It seems to have the homing instinct," he observed; then, abruptly, +"Wait a moment; I'm going to call them back." He paused, as usual, +before his favourite confidant, the window. "The larger consciousness, +the Universal Togetherness," he muttered. "I really believe he must have +touched it that once. O Lord! how--" His spacious vocabulary gave it up. + +When he followed his uncle and aunt into the room Mrs. Shirley came +forward, her thin veil again covering her face. + +"I must go," she said. "Thank you once more for letting me come." + +With a curious young touch of solemnity Hugh laid the brown case in her +hands. "This belongs to you," he said, "and I wanted them to see you +receive it." + + * * * * * + +"And you intend to permit this, Winthrop?" + +Miss Fowler turned on her brother. She had suppressed her emotions +before the intruder; she had even said some proper things without unduly +speeding the parting guest. But if you can't be hateful to your own +family, to whom, in the name of the domestic pieties, can you be +hateful? + +Mr. Fowler swiveled on her the glassy eye of one who does not suffer +fools gladly. "I permit anything," he responded, icily, "that will keep +that boy ... sane." He retired anew behind the monastic newspaper and +rattled it. + +Miss Maria received a sudden chill apprehension that Winthrop was +looking much older lately. "But--" she faltered. Then she resolutely +returned to the baiting. "I suppose you recall her saying that she has a +daughter. Probably," admitted Miss Maria, grudgingly, "an attractive +daughter." + +"It might be a very good thing," said the world-weary voice, and left +her gasping. "Two excellent Virginia families." He faced his sister's +appalled expression. "He might do something much more impossible--marry +a cheap actress or go into a monastery. His behaviour to-day prepares me +for anything. And"--a note of difficulty came into what Hugh had once +called his uncle's chiselled voice--"you do not appear to realize, +Maria, that what Mrs. Shirley has done is rather a remarkable thing, a +thing that you and I, with our undoubted appreciation of the value of +money, should probably have felt that we could not afford to do." + +Hugh came in blithely, bringing a spring-smelling whiff of outdoors with +him. "I got her a taxi," he announced, "and she asked me to come down to +their place for Easter. There's a hunting club. Oh cheer up, Aunt Maria! +At least she left the money behind." + +"Look at my needle!" cried the long-suffering lady. "_You_ did that. I +must say, Hugh, I find your conduct most disrespectful." + +"All right, I grovel," Hugh agreed, pleasantly. He picked up the cat and +rubbed her tenderly the wrong way. + +"As for the money, I don't see how her conscience could have allowed her +to accept everything. And she married somebody else, too." + +"So did Dante's girl. That doesn't seem to make all the difference. +Conscience?" Hugh went on, absently. "Conscience? Haven't I heard that +word somewhere before? You are the only person I know, Aunt Maria, who +has a really good, staunch, weather-proof one, because, like the laws of +the Medes and Persians, it altereth not." + +"I should hope not, indeed," said Miss Fowler, half mollified. + +Hugh smiled sleepily. The cat opened one yellow eye and moved mystified +whiskers. She profoundly distrusted this affectionate young admirer. Was +she being stroked the wrong way or ruffled the right way? + +"Tiger, tiger, burning bright," murmured Hugh. "Puzzle, Kitty: find the +Adventuress." + + + + +THE KITCHEN GODS + + +BY G.F. ALSOP + +From _Century Magazine_ + +The lilies bloomed that day. Out in the courtyard in their fantastic +green-dragoned pots, one by one the tiny, ethereal petals opened. +Dong-Yung went rapturously among them, stooping low to inhale their +faint fragrance. The square courtyard, guarded on three sides by the +wings of the house, facing the windowless blank wall on the fourth, was +mottled with sunlight. Just this side of the wall a black shadow, as +straight and opaque as the wall itself, banded the court with darkness; +but on the hither side, where the lilies bloomed and Dong-Yung moved +among them, lay glittering, yellow sunlight. The little box of a house +where the gate-keeper lived made a bulge in the uniform blackness of the +wall and its shadow. The two tall poles, with the upturned baskets, the +devil-catches, rose like flagstaffs from both sides of the door. A huge +china griffon stood at the right of the gate. From beyond the wall came +the sounds of early morning--the click of wooden sandals on cobbled +streets and the panting cries of the coolies bringing in fresh +vegetables or carrying back to the denuded land the refuse of the city. +The gate-keeper was awake, brushing out his house with a broom of twigs. +He was quite bald, and the top of his head was as tanned and brown as +the legs of small summer children. + +"Good morning, Honourable One," he called. "It is a good omen. The +lilies have opened." + +An amah, blue-trousered, blue-jacketed, blue-aproned, cluttered across +the courtyard with two pails of steaming water. + +"Good morning, Honourable One. The water for the great wife is hot and +heavy." She dropped her buckets, the water splashing over in runnels +and puddles at her feet, and stooped to smell the lilies. "It is an +auspicious day." + +From the casement-window in the right balcony a voice called: + +"Thou dunce! Here I am waiting already half the day. Quicker! quicker!" + +It sounded elderly and querulous a voice accustomed to be obeyed and to +dominate. The great wife's face appeared a moment at the casement. Her +eyes swept over the courtyard scene--over the blooming lilies, and +Dong-Yung standing among them. + +"Behold the small wife, cursed of the gods!" she cried in her high, +shrill voice. "Not even a girl can she bear her master. May she eat +bitterness all her days!" + +The amah shouldered the steaming buckets and splashed across the bare +boards of the ancestral hall beyond. + +"The great wife is angry," murmured the gate-keeper. "Oh, Honourable +One, shall I admit the flower-girl? She has fresh orchids." + +Dong-Yung nodded. The flower girl came slowly in under the guarded +gateway. She was a country child, with brown cheeks and merry eyes. Her +shallow basket was steadied by a ribbon over one shoulder, and caught +between an arm and a swaying hip. In the flat, round basket, on green +little leaves, lay the wired perfumed orchids. + +"How many? It is an auspicious day. See, the lilies have bloomed. One +for the hair and two for the buttonholes. They smell sweet as the breath +of heaven itself." + +Dong-Yung smiled as the flower-girl stuck one of the fragrant, fragile, +green-striped orchids in her hair, and hung two others, caught on +delicate loops of wire, on the jade studs of her jacket, buttoned on the +right shoulder. + +"Ah, you are beautiful-come-death!" said the flower-girl. "Great +happiness be thine!" + +"Even a small wife can be happy at times." Dong-Yung took out a little +woven purse and paid over two coppers apiece to the flower-girl. + +At the gate the girl and the gate-keeper fell a-talking. + +"Is the morning rice ready?" called a man's voice from the room behind. + +Dong-Yung turned quickly. Her whole face changed. It had been smiling +and pleased before at the sight of the faint, white lily-petals and the +sunlight on her feet and the fragrance of the orchids in her hair; but +now it was lit with an inner radiance. + +"My beloved Master!" Dong-Yung made a little instinctive gesture toward +the approaching man, which in a second was caught and curbed by Chinese +etiquette. Dressed, as she was, in pale-gray satin trousers, loose, and +banded at the knee with wide blue stripes, and with a soft jacket to +match, she was as beautiful in the eyes of the approaching man as the +newly opened lilies. What he was in her eyes it would be hard for any +modern woman to grasp: that rapture of adoration, that bliss of worship, +has lingered only in rare hearts and rarer spots on the earth's surface. + +Foh-Kyung came out slowly through the ancestral hall. The sunlight edged +it like a bright border. The floors were wide open, and Dong-Yung saw +the decorous rows of square chairs and square tables set rhythmically +along the walls, and the covered dais at the head for the guest of +honour. Long crimson scrolls, sprawled with gold ideographs, hung from +ceiling to floor. A rosewood cabinet, filled with vases, peach bloom, +imperial yellow, and turquoise blue, gleamed like a lighted lamp in the +shadowy morning light of the room. + +Foh-Kyung stooped to smell the lilies. + +"They perfume the very air we breathe. Little Jewel, I love our old +Chinese ways. I love the custom of the lily-planting and the day the +lilies bloom. I love to think the gods smell them in heaven, and are +gracious to mortals for their fragrance's sake." + +"I am so happy!" Dong-Yung said, poking the toe of her slipper in and +out the sunlight. She looked up at the man before her, and saw he was +tall and slim and as subtle-featured as the cross-legged bronze Buddha +himself. His long thin hands were hid, crossed and slipped along the +wrists within the loose apricot satin sleeves of his brocaded garment. +His feet, in their black satin slippers and tight-fitting white muslin +socks, were austere and aristocratic. Dong-Yung, when he was absent, +loved best to think of him thus, with his hands hidden and his eyes +smiling. + +"The willow-leaves will bud soon," answered Dong-Yung, glancing over her +shoulder at the tapering, yellowing twigs of the ancient tree. + +"And the beech-blossoms," continued Foh-Kyung. "'The earth is the +Lord's, and the fullness thereof.'" + +"The foreign devil's wisdom," answered Dong-Yung. + +"It is greater than ours, Dong-Yung; greater and lovelier. To-day, +to-day, I will go to their hall of ceremonial worship and say to their +holy priest that I think and believe the Jesus way." + +"Oh, most-beloved Master, is it also permitted to women, to a small +wife, to believe the Jesus way?" + +"I will believe for thee, too, little Lotus Flower in the Pond." + +"Tell me, O Teacher of Knowledge--tell me that in my heart and in my +mind I may follow a little way whither thou goest in thy heart and in +thy mind!" + +Foh-Kyung moved out of the shadow of the ancestral hall and stood in the +warm sunlight beside Dong-Yung, his small wife. His hands were still +withheld and hidden, clasping his wrists within the wide, loose apricot +sleeves of his gown, but his eyes looked as if they touched her. +Dong-Yung hid her happiness even as the flowers hide theirs, within +silent, incurving petals. + +"The water is cold as the chill of death. Go, bring me hot water--water +hot enough to scald an egg." + +Foh-Kyung and Dong-Yung turned to the casement in the upper right-hand +wing and listened apprehensively. The quick chatter of angry voices +rushed out into the sunlight. + +"The honourable great wife is very cross this morning." Dong-Yung +shivered and turned back to the lilies. "To-day perhaps she will beat me +again. Would that at least I had borne my lord a young prince for a +son; then perhaps--" + +"Go not near her, little Jewel. Stay in thine own rooms. Nay, I have +sons a-plenty. Do not regret the childlessness. I would not have your +body go down one foot into the grave for a child. I love thee for +thyself. + +"Now my lord speaks truly, as do the foreign devils to the shameless, +open-faced women. I like the ways of the outside kingdom well. Tell me +more of them, my Master." + +Foh-Kyung moved his hands as if he would have withdrawn them from his +apricot-coloured sleeves. Dong-Yung saw the withheld motion, and swayed +nearer. For a moment Dong-Yung saw the look in his eyes that engulfed +her in happiness; then it was gone, and he looked away past her, across +the opening lily-buds and the black rampart of the wall, at something +distant, yet precious. Foh-Kyung moved closer. His face changed. His +eyes held that hidden rapture that only Dong-Yung and the foreign-born +priest had seen. + +"Little Jewel, wilt thou go with me to the priest of the foreign-born +faith? Come!" He withdrew his hand from his sleeve and touched Dong-Yung +on the shoulder. "Come, we will go hand in hand, thou and I, even as the +men and women of the Jesus thinking; not as Chinese, I before, and thou +six paces behind. Their God loves men and women alike." + +"Is it permitted to a small wife to worship the foreign-born God?" +Dong-Yung lifted her eyes to the face of Foh-Kyung. "Teach me, O my Lord +Master! My understanding is but young and fearful--" + +Foh-Kyung moved into the sunlight beside her. + +"Their God loves all the world. Their God is different, little Flower, +from the painted images, full of blessings, not curses. He loves even +little girl babies that mothers would throw away. Truly his heart is +still more loving than the heart of a mother." + +"And yet I am fearful--" Dong-Yung looked back into the shadows of the +guest-hall, where the ancestral tablets glowed upon the wall, and +crimson tapers stood ready before them. "Our gods I have touched and +handled." + +"Nay, in the Jesus way there is no fear left." Foh-Kyung's voice dropped +lower. Its sound filled Dong-Yung with longing. "When the wind screams +in the chimneys at night, it is but the wind, not evil spirits. When the +summer breeze blows in at the open door, we need not bar it. It is but +the summer breeze from the rice-fields, uninhabited by witch-ghosts. +When we eat our morning rice, we are compelled to make no offering to +the kitchen gods in the stove corner. They cannot curse our food. Ah, in +the Jesus way there is no more fear!" + +Dong-Yung drew away from her lord and master and looked at him +anxiously. He was not seeing her at all. His eyes looked beyond, across +the fragile, lily-petals, through the solid black wall, at a vision he +saw in the world. Dong-Yung bent her head to sniff the familiar sweet +springtime orchid hanging from the jade stud on her shoulder. + +"Your words are words of good hearing, O beloved Teacher. Nevertheless, +let me follow six paces behind. I am not worthy to touch your hand. Six +paces behind, when the sun shines in your face, my feet walk in the +shadow of your garments." + +Foh-Kyung gathered his gaze back from his visions and looked at his +small wife, standing in a pool of sunshine before him. Overhead the lazy +crows flew by, winging out from their city roosts to the rice-fields for +the day's food. + +"Tea-boiled eggs!" cried a vender from beyond the wall. A man stopped at +the gate, put down his shoulder-tray of food, and bargained with the +ancient, mahogany-scalped gate-keeper. Faint odours of food frying in +oil stole out from the depths of the house behind him. And Dong-Yung, +very quiet and passive in the pose of her body, gazed up at Foh-Kyung +with those strange, secretive, ardent eyes. All around him was China, +its very essence and sound and smell. Dong-Yung was a part of it all; +nay, she was even the very heart of it, swaying there in the yellow +light among the lily-petals. + +"Precious Jewel! Yet it is sweeter to walk side by side, our feet +stepping out into the sunlight together, and our shadows mingling +behind. I want you beside me." + +The last words rang with sudden warmth. Dong-Yung trembled and +crimsoned. It was not seemly that a man speak to a woman thus, even +though that man was a husband and the woman his wife, not even though +the words were said in an open court, where the eyes of the great wife +might spy and listen. And yet Dong-Yung thrilled to those words. + +An amah called, "The morning rice is ready." + +Dong-Yung hurried into the open room, where the light was still faint, +filtering in through a high-silled window and the door. A round, brown +table stood in the center of the room. In the corner of the room behind +stood the crescentic, white plaster stove, with its dull wooden +kettle-lids and its crackling straw. Two cooks, country women, sat in +the hidden corner behind the stove, and poked in the great bales of +straw and gossiped. Their voices and the answers of the serving amah +filled the kitchen with noise. In their decorous niche at the upper +right hand of the stove sat the two kitchen gods, small ancient idols, +with hidden hands and crossed feet, gazing out upon a continually hungry +world. Since time was they had sat there, ensconced at the very root of +life, seemingly placid and unseeing and unhearing, yet venomously +watching to be placated with food. Opposite the stove, on the white +wall, hung a row of brass hooks, from which dangled porcelain spoons +with pierced handles. On a serving-table stood the piled bowls for the +day, blue-and-white rice patterns, of a thin, translucent ware, showing +the delicate light through the rice seeds; red-and-green dragoned bowls +for the puddings; and tiny saucer-like platters for the vegetables. The +tea-cups, saucered and lidded, but unhandled, stood in a row before the +polished brass hot-water kettle. + +The whole room was full of a stirring, wakening life, of the crackling +straw fire, of the steaming rice, all white and separate-kerneled in its +great, shallow, black iron kettles lidded with those heavy hand-made +wooden lids while the boiling tea water hissed, and spat out a snake of +white steam. + +With that curious democracy of China, where high and low alike are +friendly, Dong-Yung hurried into her beloved kitchen. + +"Has the master come?" asked the serving maid. + +"Coming, coming," Dong-Yung answered, "I myself will take in his morning +rice, after I have offered the morning oblations to the gods." + +Dong-Yung selected two of the daintiest blue-and-white rice-pattern +bowls. The cook lifted off the wooden lid of the rice-kettle, and +Dong-Yung scooped up a dipperful of the snow-white kernels. On the tiny +shelf before each god, the father and mother god of the household, +Dong-Yung placed her offering. She stood off a moment, surveying them in +pleased satisfaction--the round, blue bowls, with the faint tracery of +light; the complacent gods above, red and green and crimson, so +age-long, comfortably ensconced in their warm stove corner. She made +swift obeisance with her hands and body before those ancient idols. A +slant of sunshine swept in from the high windows and fell over her in a +shaft of light. The thoughts of her heart were all warm and mixed and +confused. She was happy. She loved her kitchen, her gods, all the +familiar ways of Chinese life. She loved her silken, satin clothes, +perfumed and embroidered and orchid-crowned, yet most of all she loved +her lord and master. Perhaps it was this love for him that made all the +rest of life so precious, that made each bowl of white rice an oblation, +each daily act a glorification. So she flung out her arms and bent her +head before the kitchen gods, the symbol of her ancient happiness. + +"Dong-Yung, I do not wish you to do this any more." + +Dong-Yung turned, her obeisance half arrested in mid-air. Foh-Kyung +stood in the doorway. + +"My lord," stammered Dong-Yung, "I did not understand your meaning." + +"I know that, little Flower in my House. The new meaning is hard to +understand. I, too, am but a blind child unused to the touch of the +road. But the kitchen gods matter no more; we pray to a spirit." + +Foh-Kyung, in his long apricot-coloured garment, crossed the threshold +of the kitchen, crossed the shadow and sunlight that stripped the bare +board floor, and stood before the kitchen gods. His eyes were on a level +with theirs, strange, painted wooden eyes that stared forth inscrutably +into the eating centuries. Dong-Yung stood half bowed, breathless with a +quick, cold fear. The cook, one hand holding a shiny brown dipper, the +other a porcelain dish, stood motionless at the wooden table under the +window. From behind the stove peeped the frightened face of one of the +fire-tenders. The whole room was turned to stone, motionless, expectant, +awaiting the releasing moment of arousement--all, that is, but the +creeping sunshine, sliding nearer and nearer the crossed feet of the +kitchen gods; and the hissing steam fire, warming, coddling the hearts +of the gods. Sun at their feet, fire at their hearts, food before them, +and mortals turned to stone! + +Foh-Kyung laughed softly, standing there, eye-level with the kitchen +gods. He stretched out his two hands, and caught a god in each. A +shudder ran through the motionless room. + +"It is wickedness!" The porcelain dish fell from the hand of the cook, +and a thousand rice-kernels, like scattered pearls, ran over the floor. + +"A blasphemer," the fire-tender whispered, peering around the stove with +terrified eyes. "This household will bite off great bitterness." + +Foh-Kyung walked around the corner of the stove. The fire sparked and +hissed. The sunshine filled the empty niche. Not since the building of +the house and the planting of the tall black cypress-trees around it, a +hundred years ago, had the sunlight touched the wall behind the kitchen +gods. + +Dong-Yung sprang into life. She caught Foh-Kyung's sleeve. + +"O my Lord and Master, I pray you, do not utterly cast them away into +the burning, fiery furnace! I fear some evil will befall us." + +Foh-Kyung, a green-and-gold god in each hand, stopped and turned. His +eyes smiled at Dong-Yung. She was so little and so precious and so +afraid! Dong-Yung saw the look of relenting. She held his sleeve the +tighter. + +"Light of my Eyes, do good deeds to me. My faith is but a little faith. +How could it be great unto thy great faith? Be gentle with my kitchen +gods. Do not utterly destroy them. I will hide them." + +Foh-Kyung smiled yet more, and gave the plaster gods into her hands as +one would give a toy to a child. + +"They are thine. Do with them as thou wilt, but no more set them up in +this stove corner and offer them morning rice. They are but painted, +plastered gods. I worship the spirit above." + +Foh-Kyung sat down at the men's table in the men's room beyond. An amah +brought him rice and tea. Other men of the household there was none, and +he ate his meal alone. From the women's room across the court came a +shrill round of voices. The voice of the great wife was loudest and +shrillest. The voices of the children, his sons and daughters, rose and +fell with clear childish insistence among the older voices. The amah's +voice laughed with an equal gaiety. + +Dong-Yung hid away the plastered green-and-gold gods. Her heart was +filled with a delicious fear. Her lord was even master of the gods. He +picked them up in his two hands, he carried them about as carelessly as +a man carries a boy child astride his shoulder; he would even have cast +them into the fire! Truly, she shivered with delight. Nevertheless, she +was glad she had hidden them safely away. In the corner of the kitchen +stood a box of white pigskin with beaten brass clasps made like the +outspread wings of a butterfly. Underneath the piles of satin she had +hidden them, and the key to the butterfly clasps was safe in her +belt-jacket. + +Dong-Yung stood in the kitchen door and watched Foh-Kyung. + +"Does my lord wish for anything?" + +Foh-Kyung turned, and saw her standing there in the doorway. Behind her +were the white stove and the sun-filled, empty niche. The light flooded +through the doorway. Foh-Kyung set down his rice-bowl from his left hand +and his ivory chop-sticks from his right. He stood before her. + +"Truly, Dong-Yung, I want thee. Do not go away and leave me. Do not +cross to the eating-room of the women and children. Eat with me." + +"It has not been heard of in the Middle Kingdom for a woman to eat with +a man." + +"Nevertheless, it shall be. Come!" + +Dong-Yung entered slowly. The light in this dim room was all gathered +upon the person of Foh-Kyung, in the gleaming patterned roses of his +gown, in his deep amethyst ring, in his eyes. Dong-Yung came because of +his eyes. She crossed the room slowly, swaying with that peculiar grace +of small-footed women, till she stood at the table beside Foh-Kyung. She +was now even more afraid than when he would have cast the kitchen gods +into the fire. They were but gods, kitchen gods, that he was about to +break; this was the primeval bondage of the land, ancient custom. + +"Give me thy hand and look up with thine eyes and thy heart." + +Dong-Yung touched his hand. Foh-Kyung looked up as if he saw into the +ether beyond, and there saw a spirit vision of ineffable radiance. But +Dong-Yung watched him. She saw him transfigured with an inner light. His +eyes moved in prayer. The exaltation spread out from him to her, it +tingled through their finger-tips, it covered her from head to foot. + +Foh-Kyung drooped her hand and moved. Dong-Yung leaned nearer. + +"I, too, would believe the Jesus way." + +In the peculiar quiet of mid-afternoon, when the shadows begin to creep +down from the eaves of the pagodas and zigzag across the rice-fields to +bed, Foh-Kyung and Dong-Yung arrived at the camp-ground of the +foreigners. The lazy native streets were still dull with the end of +labour. At the gate of the camp-ground the rickshaw coolies tipped down +the bamboo shafts, to the ground. Dong-Yung stepped out quickly, and +looked at her lord and master. He smiled. + +"Nay, I do not fear," Dong-Yung answered, with her eyes on his face. +"Yet this place is strange, and lays a coldness around my heart." + +"Regard not their awkward ways," said Foh-Kyung, as he turned in at the +gate; "in their hearts they have the secret of life." + +The gate-keeper bowed, and slipped the coin, warm from Foh-Kyung's hand, +into his ready pocket. + +"Walk beside me, little Wife of my Heart." Foh-Kyung stopped in the wide +gravelled road and waited for Dong-Yung. Standing there in the sunlight, +more vivid yet than the light itself, in his imperial yellow robes he +was the end of life, nay, life itself, to Dong-Yung. "We go to the house +of the foreign priest to seek until we find the foreign God. Let us go +side by side." + +Dong-Yung, stepping with slow, small-footed grace, walked beside him. + +"My understanding is as the understanding of a little child, beloved +Teacher; but my heart lies like a shell in thy hand, its words but as +the echo of thine. My honour is great that thou do not forget me in the +magnitude of the search." + +Dong-Yung's pleated satin skirts swayed to and fro against the imperial +yellow of Foh-Kyung's robe. Her face coloured like a pale spring +blossom, looked strangely ethereal above her brocade jacket. Her heart +still beat thickly, half with fear and half with the secret rapture of +their quest and her lord's desire for her. + +Foh-Kyung took a silken and ivory fan from an inner pocket and spread it +in the air. Dong-Yung knew the fan well. It came from a famous +jeweller's on Nanking Road, and had been designed by an old court poet +of long ago. The tiny ivory spokes were fretted like ivy-twigs in the +North, but on the leaves of silk was painted a love-story of the South. +There was a tea-house, with a maiden playing a lute, and the words of +the song, fantastic black ideographs, floated off to the ears of her +lover. Foh-Kyung spread out its leaves in the sun, and looked at it and +smiled." + +"Never is the heart of man satisfied," he said, "alone. Neither when the +willow fuzz flies in the spring, or when the midnight snow silvers the +palms. Least of all is it satisfied when it seeks the presence of God +above. I want thee beside me." + +Dong-Yung hid her delight. Already for the third time he said those +words--those words that changed all the world from one of a loving +following-after to a marvelous oneness. + +So they stepped across the lawn together. It was to Dong-Yung as if she +stepped into an unknown land. She walked on flat green grass. Flowers in +stiff and ordered rows went sedately round and round beneath a lurid red +brick wall. A strange, square-cornered, flat-topped house squatted in +the midst of the flat green grass. On the lawn at one side was a +white-covered table, with a man and a woman sitting beside it. The four +corners of the table-cloth dripped downward to the flat green grass. It +was all very strange and ugly. Perhaps it was a garden, but no one would +have guessed it. Dong-Yung longed to put each flower plant in a dragon +bowl by itself and place it where the sun caught its petals one by one +as the hours flew by. She longed for a narrow, tile-edged patch to guide +her feet through all that flat green expanse. A little shiver ran over +her. She looked back, down the wide gravelled way, through the gate, +where the gate-keeper sat, tipped back against the wall on his stool, to +the shop of the money-changer's opposite. A boy leaned half across the +polished wood counter and shook his fist in the face of the +money-changer. "Thou thief!" he cried. "Give me my two cash!" Dong-Yung +was reassured. Around her lay all the dear familiar things; at her side +walked her lord and master. And he had said they were seeking a new +freedom, a God of love. Her thoughts stirred at her heart and caught her +breath away. + +The foreigners rose to greet them. Dong-Yung touched the hand of an +alien man. She did not like it at all. The foreign-born woman made her +sit down beside her, and offered her bitter, strong tea in delicate, +lidless cups, with handles bent like a twisted flower-branch. + +"I have been meaning to call for a long time, Mrs. Li," said the +foreign-born woman. + +"The great wife will receive thee with much honour," Dong-Yung answered. + +"I am so glad you came with your husband." + +"Yes," Dong-Yung answered, with a little smile. "The customs of the +foreign-born are pleasant to our eyes." + +"I am glad you like them," said the foreign-born woman. "I couldn't bear +not to go everywhere with my husband." + +Dong-Yung liked her suddenly on account of the look that sprang up a +moment in her eyes and vanished again. She looked across at the priest, +her husband, a man in black, with thin lips and seeing eyes. The eyes of +the foreign woman, looking at the priest, her husband, showed how much +she loved him. "She loves him even as a small wife loves," Dong-Yung +thought to herself. Dong-Yung watched the two men, the one in imperial +yellow, the one in black, sitting beside each other and talking. +Dong-Yung knew they were talking of the search. The foreign-born woman +was speaking to her again. + +"The doctor told me I would die if I came to China, but John felt he had +a call. I would not stand in his way." + +The woman's face was illumined. + +"And now you are very happy?" Dong-Yung announced. + +"And now I am very happy; just as you will be very happy." + +"I am always happy since my lord took me for his small wife." Dong-Yung +matched her happiness with the happiness of the foreign-born woman, +proudly, with assurance. In her heart she knew no woman, born to eat +bitterness, had ever been so happy as she in all the worlds beneath the +heavens. She looked around her, beyond the failure of the foreign +woman's garden, at the piled, peaked roofs of China looking over the +wall. The fragrance of a blossoming plum-tree stole across from a +Chinese courtyard, and a peach-branch waved pink in the air. A wonder of +contentment filled Dong-Yung. + +All the while Foh-Kyung was talking. Dong-Yung turned back from all the +greenness around her to listen. He sat very still, with his hands hid in +his sleeves. The wave-ridged hem of his robe--blue and green and purple +and red and yellow--was spread out decorously above his feet. Dong-Yung +looked and looked at him, so still and motionless and so gorgeously +arrayed. She looked from his feet, long, slim, in black satin slippers, +and close-fitting white muslin socks, to the feet of the foreign priest. +His feet were huge, ugly black things. From his feet Dong-Yung's eyes +crept up to his face, over his priestly black clothes, rimmed with stiff +white at wrist and throat. Yes, his face was even as the face of a +priest, of one who serves between the gods and men, a face of seeing +eyes and a rigid mouth. Dong-Yung shuddered. + +"And so we have come, even as the foreign-born God tells us, a man and +his wife, to believe the Jesus way." + +Foh-Kyung spoke in a low voice, but his face smiled. Dong-Yung smiled, +too, at his open, triumphant declarations. She said over his words to +herself, under her breath, so that she would remember them surely when +she wanted to call them back to whisper to her heart in the dark of some +night. "We two, a man and his wife"--only dimly, with the heart of a +little child, did Dong-Yung understand and follow Foh-Kyung; but the +throb of her heart answered the hidden light in his eyes. + +The foreign-born priest stood up. The same light shone in his eyes. It +was a rapture, an exaltation. Suddenly an unheard-of thing happened. The +outside kingdom woman put her arms around Dong-Yung! Dong-Yung was +terrified. She was held tight against the other woman's shoulder. The +foreign-born woman used a strange perfume. Dong-Yung only half heard her +whispered words. + +"We are like that, too. We could not be separated. Oh, you will be +happy!" + +Dong-Yung thought of the other woman. "In her heart she is humble and +seemly. It is only her speech and her ways that are unfitting." + +"We are going into the chapel a moment," said the priest. "Will you +come, too?" + +Dong-Yung looked at Foh-Kyung, a swift upward glance, like the sudden +sweep of wings. She read his answer in his eyes. He wanted her to come. +Not even in the temple of the foreign-born God did he wish to be without +her. + +A coolie called the foreign-born woman away. + +The priest, in his tight trousers, and jacket, black and covered with a +multitude of round flat buttons, stood up, and led the way into the +house and down a long corridor to a closed door at the end. Dong-Yung +hurried behind the two men. At the door the priest stood aside and held +it open for her to pass in first. She hesitated. Foh-Kyung nodded. + +"Do not think fearful things, little Princess," he whispered. "Enter, +and be not afraid. There is no fear in the worship of Jesus." + +So Dong-Yung crossed the threshold first. Something caught her breath +away, just as the chanting of the dragon priests always did. She took a +few steps forward and stood behind a low-backed bench. Before her, the +light streamed into the little chapel through one luminous window of +coloured glass above the altar. It lay all over the grey-tiled floor in +roses and sunflowers of pink and god. A deep purple stripe fell across +the head of the black-robed priest. Dong-Yung was glad of that. It made +his robe less hideous, and she could not understand how one could serve +a god unless in beautiful robes. On the altar beneath the window of +coloured flowers were two tall silver candlesticks, with smooth white +tapers. A wide-mouthed vase filled with Chinese lilies stood between +them. The whole chapel was faintly fragrant with their incense. So even +the foreign-born worshipers lit candles, and offered the scent of the +lilies to their spirit God. Truly, all the gods of all the earth and in +the sky are lovers of lit candles and flowers. Also, one prays to all +gods. + +The place was very quiet and peaceful, mottled with the gorgeous, +flowerlike splashes of colour. The waiting candles, the echoes of many +prayers, the blossom of worship filled the tiny chapel. Dong-Yung liked +it, despite herself, despite the strangeness of the imageless altar, +despite the clothes of the priest. She stood quite still behind the +bench flooded and filled with an all-pervading sense of happiness. + +Foh-Kyung and the black-robed priest walked past her, down the little +aisle, to a shiny brass railing that went like a fence round before the +altar. The foreign-born priest laid one hand on the railing as if to +kneel down, but Foh-Kyung turned and beckoned with his chin to Dong-Yung +to come. She obeyed at once. She was surprisingly unafraid. Her feet +walked through the patterns of colour, which slid over her head and +hands, gold from the gold of a cross and purple from the robe of a king. +As if stepping through a rainbow, she came slowly down the aisle to the +waiting men, and in her heart and in her eyes lay the light of all love +and trust. + +Foh-Kyung caught her hand. + +"See, I take her hand," he said to the priest, "even as you would take +the hand of your wife, proud and unashamed in the presence of your God. +Even as your love is, so shall ours be. Where the thoughts of my heart +lead, the heart of my small wife follows. Give us your blessing." + +Foh-Kyung drew Dong-Yung to her knees beside him. His face was hidden, +after the manner of the foreign worshipers; but hers was uplifted, her +eyes gazing at the glass with the colours of many flowers and the shapes +of men and angels. She was happier than she had ever been--happier even +than when she had first worshiped the ancestral tablets with her lord +and master, happier even than at the feast of the dead, when they laid +their food offerings on the shaven grave-mounds. She felt closer to +Foh-Kyung than in all her life before. + +She waited. The silence grew and grew till in the heart of it something +ominous took the place of its all-pervading peace. Foh-Kyung lifted his +face from his hands and rose to his feet. Dong-Yung turned, still +kneeling, to scan his eyes. The black-robed priest stood off and looked +at them with horror. Surely it was horror! Never had Dong-Yung really +liked him. Slowly she rose, and stood beside and a little behind +Foh-Kyung. He had not blessed them. Faintly, from beyond the walls of +the Christian chapel came the beating of drums. Devil-drums they were. +Dong-Yung half smiled at the long-known familiar sound. + +"Your small wife?" said the priest. "Have you another wife?" + +"Assuredly," Foh-Kyung answered. "All men have a great wife first; but +this, my small wife, is the wife of my heart. Together we have come to +seek and find the Jesus way." + +The priest wiped his hand across his face. Dong-Yung saw that it was wet +with tiny round balls of sweat. His mouth had suddenly become one thin +red line, but in his eyes lay pain. + +"Impossible," he said. His voice was quite different now, and sounded +like bits of metal falling on stone. "No man can enter the church while +living in sin with a woman other than his lawful wife. If your desire is +real, put her away." + +With instant response, Foh-Kyung made a stately bow. "Alas! I have made +a grievous mistake. The responsibility will be on my body. I thought all +were welcome. We go. Later on, perhaps, we may meet again." + +The priest spoke hurriedly. + +"I do not understand your meaning. Is this belief of such light weight +that you will toss it away for a sinful woman? Put her away, and come +and believe." But Foh-Kyung did not hear his words. As he turned away, +Dong-Yung followed close behind her lord and master, only half +comprehending, yet filled with a great fear. They went out again into +the sunshine, out across the flat green grass, under the iron gateway, +back into the Land of the Flowery Kingdom. Foh-Kyung did not speak until +he put Dong-Yung in the rickshaw. + +"Little Wife of my Heart," he said, "stop at the jeweller's and buy thee +new ear-rings, these ear-rings of the sky-blue stone and sea-tears, and +have thy hair dressed and thy gowns perfumed, and place the two red +circles on the smile of thy cheeks. To-night we will feast. Hast thou +forgotten that to-night is the Feast of the Lanterns, when all good +Buddhists rejoice?" + +He stood beside her rickshaw, in his imperial yellow garment hemmed with +the rainbow waves of the sea, and smiled down into her eyes. + +"But the spirit God of love, the foreign-born spirit God?" said +Dong-Yung. "Shall we feast to him too?" + +"Nay, it is not fitting to feast to two gods at once," said Foh-Kyung. +"Do as I have said." + +He left her. Dong-Yung, riding through the sun-splashed afternoon, +buying coloured jewels and flowery perfume and making herself beautiful, +yet felt uneasy. She had not quite understood. A dim knowledge advanced +toward her like a wall of fog. She pressed her two hands against it and +held it off--held it off by sheer mental refusal to understand. In the +courtyard at home the children were playing with their lighted animals, +drawing their gaudy paper ducks, luminous with candle-light, to and fro +on little standards set on four wheels. At the gate hung a tall +red-and-white lantern, and over the roof floated a string of candle-lit +balloons. In the ancestral hall the great wife had lit the red candles, +speared on their slender spikes, before the tablets. In the kitchen the +cooks and amahs were busy with the feast-cooking. Candles were stuck +everywhere on the tables and benches. They threw little pools of light +on the floor before the stove and looked at the empty niche. In the +night it was merely a black hole in the stove filled with formless +shadow. She wished-- + +"Dong-Yung, Flower in the House, where hast thou hidden the kitchen +gods? Put them in their place." Foh-Kyung, still in imperial yellow, +stood like a sun in the doorway. + +Dong-Yung turned. + +"But--" + +"Put them back, little Jewel in the Hair. It is not permitted to worship +the spirit God. There are bars and gates. The spirit of man must turn +back in the searching, turn back to the images of plaster and paint." + +Dong-Yung let the wall of fog slide over her. She dropped her +resistance. She knew. + +"Nay, not the spirit of man. It is but natural that the great God does +not wish the importunings of a small wife. Worship thou alone the great +God, and the shadow of that worship will fall on my heart." + +"Nay, I cannot worship alone. My worship is not acceptable in the sight +of the foreign God. My ways are not his ways." + +Foh-Kyung's face was unlined and calm, yet Dong-Yung felt the hidden +agony of his soul, flung back from its quest upon gods of plaster and +paint. + +"But I know the thoughts of thy heart, O Lord and Master, white and +fragrant as the lily-buds that opened to-day. Has thy wish changed?" + +"Nay, my wish is even the same, but it is not permitted to a man of two +wives to be a follower of the spirit God." + +Dong-Yung had known it all along. This knowledge came with no surprise. +It was she who kept him from the path of his desire! + +"Put back the kitchen gods," said Foh-Kyung. "We will live and believe +and die even as our fathers have done. The gate to the God of love is +closed." + +The feast was served. In the sky one moon blotted out a world of stars. +Foh-Kyung sat alone, smoking. Laughter and talk filled the women's wing. +The amahs and coolies were resting outside. A thin reed of music crept +in and out among the laughter and talk, from the reed flute of the cook. +The kitchen was quite empty. One candle on the table sent up a long +smoky tongue of flame. The fire still smouldered in the corner. A little +wind shook the cypress-branches without, and carried the scent of the +opened lilies into the room. + +Dong-Yung, still arrayed for feasting, went to the pigskin trunk in the +corner, fitted the key from her belt into the carven brass wings of the +butterfly, and lifted out the kitchen gods. One in each hand, she held +them, green and gold. She put them back in their niche, and lifted up a +bowl of rice to their feet, and beat her head on the ground before them. + +"Forgive me, O my kitchen gods, forgive my injurious hands and heart; +but the love of my master is even greater than my fear of thee. Thou and +I, we bar the gates of heaven from him." + +When she had finished, she tiptoed around the room, touching the chairs +and tables with caressing fingers. She stole out into the courtyard, and +bent to inhale the lily fragrance, sweeter by night than by day. "An +auspicious day," the gate-keeper had said that morning. Foh-Kyung had +stood beside her, with his feet in the sunshine; she remembered the +light in his eyes. She bent her head till the fingers of the lily-petals +touched her cheek. She crept back through the house, and looked at +Foh-Kyung smoking. His eyes were dull, even as are the eyes of sightless +bronze Buddhas. No, she would never risk going in to speak to him. If +she heard the sound of his voice, if he called her "little Flower of the +House," she would never have the strength to go. So she stood in the +doorway and looked at him much as one looks at a sun, till wherever else +one looks, one sees the same sun against the sky. + +In the formless shadow she made a great obeisance, spreading out her +arms and pressing the palms of her hands against the floor. + +"O my Lord and Master," she said, with her lips against the boards of +the floor, softly, so that none might hear her--"O my Lord and Master, I +go. Even a small wife may unbar the gates of heaven." + +First, before she went, she cast the two kitchen gods, green and gold, +of ancient plaster, into the embers of the fire. There in the morning +the cook-rice amahs found the onyx stones that had been their eyes. The +house was still unlocked, the gate-keeper at the feast. Like a shadow +she moved along the wall and through the gate. The smell of the lilies +blew past her. Drums and chants echoed up the road, and the sounds of +manifold feastings. She crept away down by the wall, where the moon laid +a strip of blackness, crept away to unbar the gates of heaven for her +lord and master. + + + + +APRIL 25TH, AS USUAL + + +By EDNA FERBER + +From _Ladies Home Journal_ + +Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster always cleaned house in September and April. She +started with the attic and worked her purifying path down to the cellar +in strict accordance with Article I, Section I, Unwritten Rules for +House Cleaning. For twenty-five years she had done it. For twenty-five +years she had hated it--being an intelligent woman. For twenty-five +years, towel swathed about her head, skirt pinned back, sleeves rolled +up--the costume dedicated to house cleaning since the days of +What's-Her-Name, mother of Lemuel (see Proverbs)--Mrs. Brewster had gone +through the ceremony twice a year. + +Furniture on the porch, woolens on the line, mattresses in the +yard--everything that could be pounded, beaten, whisked, rubbed, +flapped, shaken or aired was dragged out and subjected to one or all of +these indignities. After which, completely cowed, they were dragged in +again and set in their places. Year after year, in attic and in cellar, +things had piled up higher and higher--useless things, sentimental +things; things in trunks; things in chests; shelves full of things +wrapped up in brown-paper parcels. + +And boxes--oh, above all, boxes; pasteboard boxes, long and flat, square +and oblong, each bearing weird and cryptic pencilings on one end; +cryptic, that, is to anyone except Mrs. Brewster and you who have owned +an attic. Thus "H's Fshg Tckl" jabberwocked one long slim box. Another +stunned you with "Cur Ted Slpg Pch." A cabalistic third hid its contents +under "Slp Cov Pinky Rm." To say nothing of such curt yet intriguing +fragments as "Blk Nt Drs" and "Sun Par Val." Once you had the code key +they translated themselves simply enough into such homely items as +Hosey's fishing tackle, canvas curtains for Ted's sleeping porch, +slip-covers for Pinky's room, black net dress, sun-parlour valence. + +The contents of those boxes formed a commentary on normal American +household life as lived by Mr. and Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster, of Winnebago, +Wisconsin. Hosey's rheumatism had prohibited trout fishing these ten +years; Ted wrote from Arizona that "the li'l' ol' sky" was his +sleeping-porch roof and you didn't have to worry out there about the +neighbours seeing you in your pyjamas; Pink's rose-cretonne room had +lacked an occupant since Pinky left the Winnebago High School for the +Chicago Art Institute, thence to New York and those amazingly successful +magazine covers that stare up at you from your table--young lady, hollow +chested (she'd need to be with that decolletage), carrying feather fan. +You could tell a Brewster cover at sight, without the fan. That leaves +the black net dress and sun-parlour valance. The first had grown too +tight under the arms (Mrs. Brewster's arms); the second had faded. + +Now don't gather from this that Mrs. Brewster was an ample, pie-baking, +ginghamed old soul who wore black silk and a crushed-looking hat with a +palsied rose atop it. Nor that Hosea C. Brewster was spectacled and +slippered. Not at all. The Hosea C. Brewsters, of Winnebago, Wisconsin, +were the people you've met on the veranda of the Moana Hotel at +Honolulu, or at the top of Pike's Peak, or peering into the restless +heart of Vesuvius. They were the prosperous Middle-Western type of +citizen who runs down to Chicago to see the new plays and buy a hat, and +to order a dozen Wedgwood salad plates at Field's. + +Mrs. Brewster knew about Dunsany and Georgette and alligator pears; and +Hosea Brewster was in the habit of dropping around to the Elks' Club, up +above Schirmer's furniture store on Elm Street, at about five in the +afternoon on his way home from the cold-storage plant. The Brewster +house was honeycombed with sleeping porches and sun parlours and linen +closets, and laundry chutes and vegetable bins and electric surprises +as well-to-do Middle Western home is likely to be. + +That home had long ago grown too large for the two of them--physically, +that is. But as the big frame house had expanded, so had +they--intolerance and understanding humanness--until now, as you talked +with them, you felt that there was room and to spare of sun-filled +mental chambers, and shelves well stored with experience, and pantries +and bins and closets for all your worries and confidences. + +But the attic! And the cellar! The attic was the kind of attic every +woman longs for who hasn't one and every woman loathes who has. "If I +only had some place to put things in!" wails the first. And, "If it +weren't for the attic I'd have thrown this stuff away long ago," +complains the second. Mrs. Brewster herself had helped plan it. Hardwood +floored, spacious light, the Brewster attic revealed to you the social, +aesthetic, educational and spiritual progress of the entire family as +clearly as if a sociologist had chartered it. + +Take, for example (before we run down to the cellar for a minute), the +crayon portraits of Gran'ma and Gran'pa Brewster. When Ted had been a +junior and Pinky a freshman at the Winnebago High School the crayon +portraits had beamed down upon them from the living-room wall. To each +of these worthy old people the artist had given a pair of hectic pink +cheeks. Gran'ma Brewster especially, simpering down at you from the +labyrinthian scrolls of her sextuple gold frame, was rouged like a +soubrette and further embellished with a pair of gentian-blue eyes +behind steel-bowed specs. Pinky--and in fact the entire Brewster +household--had thought these massive atrocities the last word in +artistic ornament. By the time she reached her sophomore year, Pinky had +prevailed upon her mother to banish them to the dining-room. Then two +years later, when the Chicago decorator did over the living-room and the +dining-room, the crayons were relegated to the upstairs hall. + +Ted and Pinky, away at school, began to bring their friends back with +them for the vacations Pinky's room had been done over in cream enamel +and rose-flowered cretonne. She said the chromos in the hall spoiled the +entire second floor. So the gold frames, glittering undimmed, the checks +as rosily glowing as ever, found temporary resting-places in a +nondescript back chamber known as the serving room. Then the new +sleeping porch was built for Ted, and the portraits ended their +journeying in the attic. + +One paragraph will cover the cellar. Stationary tubs, laundry stove. +Behind that, bin for potatoes, bin for carrots, bins for onions, apples, +cabbages. Boxed shelves for preserves. And behind that Hosea C. +Brewster's _bete noir_ and plaything, tyrant and slave--the furnace. +"She's eating up coal this winter," Hosea Brewster would complain. Or: +"Give her a little more draft, Fred." Fred, of the furnace and lawn +mower, would shake a doleful head. "She ain't drawin' good. I do' know +what's got into her." + +By noon of this particular September day--a blue-and-gold Wisconsin +September day--Mrs. Brewster had reached that stage in the cleaning of +the attic when it looked as if it would never be clean and orderly +again. Taking into consideration Miz' Merz (Mis' Merz by-the-day, you +understand) and Gussie, the girl, and Fred, there was very little +necessity for Mrs. Brewster's official house-cleaning uniform. She might +have unpinned her skirt, unbound her head, rolled down her sleeves and +left for the day, serene in the knowledge that no corner, no chandelier, +no mirror, no curlicue so hidden, so high, so glittering, so ornate that +it might hope to escape the rag or brush of one or the other of this +relentless and expert crew. + +Every year, twice a year, as this box, that trunk or chest was opened +and its contents revealed, Mis' Merz would say "You keepin' this, Miz' +Brewster?" + +"That? Oh, dear yes!" Or: "Well--I don't know. You can take that home +with you if you want it. It might make over for Minnie." + +Yet why, in the name of all that's ridiculous, did she treasure the +funeral wheat wreath in the walnut frame? Nothing is more _passe_ than +a last summer's hat, yet the leghorn and pink-cambric-rose thing in the +tin trunk was the one Mrs. Brewster had worn when a bride. Then the +plaid kilted dress with the black velvet monkey jacket that Pinky had +worn when she spoke her first piece at the age of seven--well, these +were things that even the rapacious eye of Miz' Merz (by-the-day) passed +by unbrightened by covetousness. + +The smell of soap and water, and cedar, and moth balls, and dust, and +the ghost of a perfumery that Pinky used to use pervaded the hot attic. +Mrs. Brewster, head and shoulders in a trunk, was trying not to listen +and not to seem not to listen to Miz' Merz' recital of her husband's +relations' latest flagrancy. + +"'Families is nix,' I says. 'I got my own family to look out fuh,' I +says. Like that. 'Well,' s's he, 'w'en it comes to _that_,' s's he, 'I +guess I got some--'" Punctuated by thumps, spatterings, swashings and +much heavy breathing, so that the sound of light footsteps along the +second-floor hallway, a young clear voice calling, then the same +footsteps, fleeter now, on the attic stairway, were quite unheard. + +Pinky's arm were around her mother's neck and for one awful moment it +looked as if both were to be decapitated by the trunk lid, so violent +had been Mrs. Brewster's start of surprise. + +Incoherent little cries, and sentences unfinished. + +"Pinky! Why--my baby! We didn't get your telegram. Did you--" + +"No; I didn't. I just thought I--Don't look so dazed, mummy--You're all +smudged too--what in the world!" Pinky straightened her hat and looked +about the attic. "Why, mother! You're--you're house cleaning!" There was +a stunned sort of look on her face. Pinky's last visit home had been in +June, all hammocks, and roses, and especially baked things, and motor +trips into the country. + +"Of course. This is September. But if I'd known you were coming--Come +here to the window. Let mother see you. Is that the kind of hat +they're--why, its a winter one, isn't it? Already! Dear me, I've just +got used to the angle of my summer one. You must telephone father." + +Miz' Merz damply calicoed, rose from a corner and came forward, wiping a +moist and parboiled hand on her skirt. "Ha' do, Pinky? Ain't forgot your +old friends, have you?" + +"It's Mrs. Merz!" Pinky put her cool, sweet fingers into the other +woman's spongy clasp. "Why, hello, Mrs. Merz! Of course when there's +house cleaning--I'd forgotten all about house cleaning--that there was +such a thing, I mean." + +"It's got to be done," replied Miz' Merz severely. + +Pinky, suddenly looking like one of her own magazine covers (in tailor +clothes), turned swiftly to her mother. "Nothing of the kind," she said +crisply. She looked about the hot, dusty, littered room. She included +and then banished it all with one sweeping gesture. "Nothing of the +kind. This is--this is an anachronism." + +"Mebbe so," retorted Miz' Merz with equal crispness. "But it's got to be +cleaned just the same. Yessir; it's got to be cleaned." + +They smiled at each other then, the mother and daughter. They descended +the winding attic stairs happily, talking very fast and interrupting +each other. + +Mrs. Brewster's skirt was still pinned up. Her hair was bound in the +protecting towel. "You must telephone father. No, let's surprise him. +You'll hate the dinner--built around Miz' Merz; you know--boiled. Well, +you know what a despot she is." + +It was hot for September, in Wisconsin. As they came out to the porch +Pinky saw that there were tiny beads of moisture under her mother's eyes +and about her chin. The sight infuriated her somehow. "Well, really, +mother!" + +Mrs. Brewster unpinned her skirt and smoothed it down and smiled at +Pinky, all unconscious that she looked like a plump, pink Sister of +Mercy with that towel bound tightly about her hair. With a swift +movement Pinky unpinned the towel, unwound it, dabbed with it tenderly +at her mother's chin and brow, rolled it into a vicious wad and hurled +it through the open doorway. + +"Now just what does that mean?" said Mrs. Brewster equably. "Take off +your hat and coat, Pinky, but don't treat them that way--unless that's +the way they're doing in New York. Everything is so informal since the +war." She had a pretty wit of her own, Mrs. Brewster. + +Of course Pinky laughed then, and kissed her mother and hugged her hard. +"It's just that it seems idiotic--your digging around in an attic in +this day and age! Why it's--it's--" Pinky could express herself much +more clearly in colours than in words. "There is no such thing as an +attic. People don't clean them any more. I never realized before--this +huge house. It has been wonderful to come back to, of course. But just +you and dad." She stopped. She raised two young fists high in important +anger. "Do you _like_ cleaning the attic?" + +"Why, no. I hate it." + +"Then why in the world--" + +"I've always done it, Pinky. And while they may not be wearing attics in +New York, we haven't taken them off in Winnebago. Come on up to your +room, dear. It looks bare. If I'd known you were coming--the slip +covers--" + +"Are they in the box in the attic labeled 'Slp Cov Pinky Rum'?" She +succeeded in slurring it ludicrously. + +It brought an appreciative giggle from Mrs. Brewster. A giggle need not +be inconsistent with fifty years, especially if one's nose wrinkles up +delightfully in the act. But no smile curved the daughter's stern young +lips. Together they went up to Pinky's old room (the older woman stopped +to pick up the crumpled towel on the hall floor). On the way they paused +at the door of Mrs. Brewster's bedroom, so cool, so spacious, all soft +greys and blues. + +Suddenly Pinky's eyes widened with horror. She pointed an accusing +forefinger at a large dark object in a corner near a window. "That's the +old walnut desk! she exclaimed. + +"I know it." + +The girl turned, half amused, half annoyed. "Oh, mother dear! That's +the situation in a nutshell. Without a shadow of doubt, there's an +eradicable streak of black walnut in your grey-enamel make-up." + +"Eradicable! That's a grand word, Pinky. Stylish! I never expected to +meet it out of a book. And fu'thermore, as Miz' Merz would say, I didn't +know there was any situation." + +"I meant the attic. And it's more than a situation. It's a state of +mind." + +Mrs. Brewster had disappeared into the depths of her clothes closet. Her +voice sounded muffled. "Pinky, you're talking the way they did at that +tea you gave for father and me when we visited New York last winter." +She emerged with a cool-looking blue kimono. "Here. Put this on. +Father'll be home at twelve-thirty, for dinner, you know. You'll want a +bath, won't you, dear?" + +"Yes. Mummy, is it boiled--honestly?--on a day like this?" + +"With onions," said Mrs. Brewster firmly. + +Fifteen minutes later Pinky, splashing in a cool tub, heard the voice of +Miz' Merz, high-pitched with excitement and a certain awful joy: "Miz' +Brewster! Oh, Miz' Brewster! I found a moth in Mr. Brewster's winter +flannels!" + +"Oh!" in choked accents of fury from Pinky; and she brought a hard young +fist down in the water--spat!--so that it splashed ceiling, hair and +floor impartially. + +Still, it was a cool and serene young daughter who greeted Hosea +Brewster as he came limping up the porch stairs. He placed the flat of +the foot down at each step, instead of heel and ball. It gave him a +queer, hitching gait. The girl felt a sharp little constriction of her +throat as she marked that rheumatic limp. "It's the beastly Wisconsin +winters," she told herself. Then, darting out at him from the corner +where she had been hiding: "S'prise! S'prise!" + +His plump blond face, flushed with the unwonted heat went darkly red. He +dropped his hat. His arms gathered her in. Her fresh young cheek was +pressed against his dear, prickly one. So they stood for a long +minute--close. + +"Need a shave, dad." + +"Well gosh how did I know my best girl was coming!" He held her off. +"What's the matter, Pink? Don't they like your covers any more?" + +"Not a thing, Hosey. Don't get fresh. They're redecorating my +studio--you know--plasterers and stuff. I couldn't work. And I was +lonesome for you." + +Hosea Brewster went to the open doorway and gave a long whistle with a +little quirk at the end. Then he came back to Pinky in the wide-seated +porch swing. "You know," he said, his voice lowered confidentially, "I +thought I'd take mother to New York for ten days or so. See the shows, +and run around and eat at the dens of wickedness. She likes it for a +change." + +Pinky sat up, tense. "For a change? Dad, I want to talk to you about +that. Mother needs--" + +Mrs. Brewster's light footstep sounded in the hall. She wore an +all-enveloping gingham apron. "How did you like your surprise, father?" +She came over to him and kissed the top of his head. "I'm getting dinner +so that Gussie can go on with the attic. Everything's ready if you want +to come in. I didn't want to dish up until you were at the table, so's +everything would be hot." She threw a laughing glance at Pinky. + +But when they were seated, there appeared a platter of cold, thinly +sliced ham for Pinky, and a crisp salad, and a featherweight cheese +souffle, and iced tea, and a dessert coolly capped with whipped cream. + +"But, mother, you shouldn't have--" feebly. + +"There are always a lot of things in the house. You know that. I just +wanted to tease you." + +Father Brewster lingered for an unwonted hour after the midday meal. But +two o'clock found him back at the cold-storage plant. Pinky watched him +go, a speculative look in her eyes. + +She visited the attic that afternoon at four, when it was again neat, +clean, orderly, smelling of soap and sunshine. Standing there in the +centre of the big room, freshly napped, smartly coiffed, blue-serged, +trim, the very concentrated essence of modernity, she eyed with stern +deliberation the funeral wheat wreath in its walnut frame; the trunks; +the chests; the boxes all shelved and neatly inscribed with their "H's +Fshg Tckl" and "Blk Nt Drs." + +"Barbaric!" she said aloud, though she stood there alone. "Medieval! +Mad! It has got to be stopped. Slavery!" After which she went downstairs +and picked golden glow for the living-room vases and scarlet salvia for +the bowl in the dining-room. + +Still, as one saw Mrs. Brewster's tired droop at supper that night, +there is no denying that there seemed some justification for Pinky's +volcanic remarks. + +Hosea Brewster announced, after supper, that he and Fred were going to +have a session with the furnace; she needed going over in September +before they began firing up for the winter. + +"I'll go down with you," said Pinky. + +"No, you stay up here with mother. You'll get all ashes and coal dust." + +But Pinky was firm. "Mother's half dead. She's going straight up to bed, +after that darned old attic. I'll come up to tuck you in, mummy." + +And though she did not descend to the cellar until the overhauling +process was nearly completed she did come down in time for the last of +the scene. She perched at the foot of the stairs and watched the two +men, overalled, sooty, tobacco-wreathed and happy. When finally, Hosea +Brewster knocked the ashes out of his stubby black pipe, dusted his +sooty hands together briskly and began to peel his overalls, Pinky came +forward. + +She put her hand on his arm. "Dad, I want to talk to you." + +"Careful there. Better not touch me. I'm all dirt. G'night, Fred." + +"Listen, dad. Mother isn't well." + +He stopped then, with one overall leg off and the other on, and looked +at her. "Huh? What d'you mean--isn't well? Mother." His mouth was open. +His eyes looked suddenly strained. + +"This house--it's killing her. She could hardly keep here eyes open at +supper. It's too much for her. She ought to be enjoying herself--like +those huge rooms. And you're another." + +"Me?" feebly. + +"Yes. A slave to his furnace. You said yourself to Fred, just now, that +it was all worn out, and needed new pipes or something--I don't know +what. And that coal was so high it would be cheaper using dollar bills +for fuel. Oh, I know you were just being funny. But it was partly true. +Wasn't it? Wasn't it?" + +"Yeh, but listen here, Paula." He never called her Paula unless he was +terribly disturbed. "About mother--you said--" + +"You and she ought to go away this winter--not just for a trip, but to +stay. You"--she drew a long breath and made the plunge--"you ought to +give up the house." + +"Give up--" + +"Permanently. Mother and you are buried alive here. You ought to come to +New York to live. Both of you will love it when you are there for a few +days. I don't mean to come to a hotel. I mean to take a little +apartment, a furnished apartment at first to see how you like it--two +rooms and kitchenette, like a play-house." + +Hosey Brewster looked down at his own big bulk. Then around the great +furnace room. "Oh, but listen--" + +"No, I want you to listen first. Mother's worn out, I tell you. It isn't +as if she were the old-fashioned kind; she isn't. She loves the +theatres, and pretty hats, and shoes with buckles, and lobster, and +concerts." + +He broke in again: "Sure; she likes 'em for change. But for a steady +diet--Besides, I've got a business to 'tend to. My gosh! I've got a +business to--" + +"You know perfectly well that Wetzler practically runs the whole +thing--or could, if you'd let him." Youth is cruel like that, when it +wants its way. + +He did not even deny it. He seemed suddenly old. Pinky's heart smote her +a little. "It's just that you've got so used to this great barracks you +don't know how unhappy it's making you. Why, mother said to-day that she +hated it. I asked about the attic--the cleaning and all--and she said +that she hated it." + +"Did she say that, Paula?" + +"Yes." + +He dusted his hands together, slowly, spiritlessly. His eyes looked +pained and dull. "She did, h'm? You say she did?" He was talking to +himself, and thinking, thinking. + +Pinky, sensing victory, left him. She ran lightly up the cellar stairs, +through the first-floor rooms and up to the second floor. Her mother's +bedroom door was open. + +A little mauve lamp shed its glow upon the tired woman in one of the +plump, grey-enamel beds. "No, I'm not sleeping. Come here, dear. What in +the world have you been doing in the cellar all this time?" + +"Talking to dad." She came over and perched herself on the side of the +bed. She looked down at her mother. Then she bent and kissed her. Mrs. +Brewster looked incredibly girlish with the lamp's rosy glow on her face +and her hair, warmly brown and profuse, rippling out over the pillow. +Scarcely a thread of grey in it. "You know, mother, I think dad isn't +well. He ought to go away." + +As if by magic the youth and glow faded out of the face on the pillow. +As she sat up, clutching her nightgown to her breast, she looked +suddenly pinched and old. "What do you mean, Pinky! Father--but he isn't +sick. He--" + +"Not sick. I don't mean sick exactly. But sort of worn out. That +furnace. He's sick and tired of the thing; that's what he said to Fred. +He needs a change. He ought to retire and enjoy life. He could. This +house is killing both of you. Why in the world don't you close it up, or +sell it, and come to New York?" + +"But we do. We did. Last winter--" + +"I don't mean just for a little trip. I mean to live. Take a little +two-room apartment in one of the new buildings--near my studio--and +relax. Enjoy yourselves. Meet new men and women. Live! You're in a +rut--both of you. Besides, dad needs it. That rheumatism of his, with +these Wisconsin winters--" + +"But California--we could go to California--" + +"That's only a stop-gap. Get your little place in New York all settled, +and then run away whenever you like, without feeling that this great +bulk of a house is waiting for you. Father hates it; I know it." + +"Did he ever say so?" + +"Well, practically. He thinks you're fond of it. He--" + +Slow steps ascending the stairs--heavy, painful steps. The two women +listened in silence. Every footfall seemed to emphasize Pinky's words. +The older woman turned her face toward the sound, her lips parted, her +eyes anxious, tender. + +"How tired he sounds," said Pinky; "and old. And he's only--why, dad's +only fifty-eight." + +"Fifty-seven," snapped Mrs. Brewster sharply, protectingly. + +Pinky leaned forward and kissed her. "Good night, mummy dear. You're so +tired, aren't you?" + +Her father stood in the doorway. + +"Good night, dear. I ought to be tucking you into bed. It's all turned +around, isn't it? Biscuits and honey for breakfast, remember." + +So Pinky went off to her own room (_sans_ "slp cov") and slept soundly, +dreamlessly, as does one whose work is well done. + +Three days later Pinky left. She waved a good-bye from the car platform, +a radiant, electric, confident Pinky, her work well done. + +"_Au 'voir!_ The first of November! Everything begins then. You'll love +it. You'll be real New Yorkers by Christmas. Now, no changing your +minds, remember." + +And by Christmas, somehow, miraculously, there they were, real New +Yorkers; or as real and as New York as anyone can be who is living in a +studio apartment (duplex) that has been rented (furnished) from a lady +who turned out to be from Des Moines. + +When they arrived, Pinky had four apartments waiting for their +inspection. She told them this in triumph and well she might, it being +the winter after the war when New York apartments were as scarce as +black diamonds and twice as costly. + +Father Brewster, on hearing the price, emitted a long low whistle and +said: "How many rooms did you say?" + +Two--and a kitchenette, of course." + +"Well, then, all I can say is the furniture ought to be solid gold for +that; inlaid with rubies and picked out with platinum." + +But it wasn't. In fact, it wasn't solid anything, being mostly of a very +impermanent structure and style. Pinky explained that she had kept the +best for the last. The thing that worried Father Brewster was that, no +matter at what hour of the day they might happen to call on the +prospective lessor, that person was always feminine and hatted. Once it +was eleven in the morning. Once five in the afternoon. + +"Do these New York women wear hats in the house all the time?" demanded +Hosea Brewster worriedly. "I think they sleep in 'em. It's a wonder they +ain't bald. Maybe they are. Maybe that's why. Anyway, it makes you feel +like a book agent." + +He sounded excited and tired. "Now, father!" said Mrs. Brewster, +soothingly. + +They were in the elevator that was taking them up to the fourth and +(according to Pinky) choicest apartment. The building was what is known +as a studio apartment, in the West Sixties. The corridors were done in +red flagstones, with grey-tone walls. The metal doors were painted grey. + +Pinky was snickering. "Now she'll say: 'Well, we've been very +comfortable here.' They always do. Don't look too eager." + +"No fear," put in Hosey Brewster. + +"It's really lovely. And a real fireplace. Everything new and good. +She's asking two hundred and twenty-five. Offer her one seventy-five. +She'll take two hundred" + +"You bet she will," growled Hosea. + +She answered the door--hatted; hatted in henna, that being the season's +chosen colour. A small dark foyer, overcrowded with furniture; a studio +living-room, bright, high-ceilinged, smallish; one entire side was +window. There were Japanese prints, and a baby grand piano, and a lot of +tables, and a davenport placed the way they do it on the stage, with its +back to the room and its arms to the fireplace, and a long table just +behind it, with a lamp on it, and books, and a dull jar thing, just as +you've seen it in the second-act library. + +Hosea Brewster twisted his head around and up to gaze at the lofty +ceiling. "Feel's if I was standing at the bottom of a well," he +remarked. + +But the hatted one did not hear him. "No; no dining-room," she was +saying briskly. "No, indeed. I always use this gate-legged table. You +see? It pulls out like this. You can easily seat six--eight, in fact." + +"Heaven forbid!" in fervent _sotto voce_ from Father Brewster. + +"It's an enormous saving in time and labour." + +"The--kitchen!" inquired Mrs. Brewster. + +The hat waxed playful. "You'll never guess where the kitchen is!" She +skipped across the room. "You see this screen?" They saw it. A really +handsome affair, and so placed at one end of the room that it looked a +part of it. "Come here." They came. The reverse side of the screen was +dotted with hooks, and on each hook hung a pot, a pan, a ladle, a spoon. +And there was the tiny gas range, the infinitesimal ice chest, the +miniature sink. The whole would have been lost in one corner of the +Brewster's Winnebago china closet. + +"Why, how--how wonderful!" breathed Mrs. Brewster. + +"Isn't it? So complete--and so convenient. I've cooked roasts, steaks, +chops, everything, right here. It's just play." + +A terrible fear seized upon Father Brewster. He eyed the sink and the +tiny range with a suspicious eye. "The beds," he demanded, "where are +the beds?" + +She opened the little oven door and his heart sank. But, "They're +upstairs," she said. "This is a duplex, you know." + +A little flight of winding stairs ended in a balcony. The rail was hung +with a gay mandarin robe. Two more steps and you were in the bedroom--a +rather breathless little bedroom, profusely rose-coloured, and with +whole battalions of photographs in flat silver frames standing about on +dressing table, shelf, desk. The one window faced a grey brick wall. + +They took the apartment. And thus began a life of ease and gayety for +Mr. and Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster, of Winnebago, Wisconsin. + +Pinky had dinner with them the first night, and they laughed a great +deal, what with one thing and another. She sprang up to the balcony, and +let down her bright hair, and leaned over the railing, _a la Juliet_, +having first decked Hosey out in a sketchy but effective Romeo costume, +consisting of a hastily snatched up scarf over one shoulder, Pinky's +little turban, and a frying pan for a lute. Mother Brewster did the +Nurse, and by the time Hosea began his limping climb up the balcony, the +turban over one eye and the scarf winding itself about his stocky legs, +they ended by tumbling in a heap of tearful laughter. + +After Pinky left there came upon them, in that cozy, little, two-room +apartment, a feeling of desolation and vastness, and a terrible +loneliness such as they had never dreamed of in the great twelve-room +house in Winnebago. They kept close to each other. They toiled up the +winding stairs together and stood a moment on the balcony, feigning a +light-heartedness that neither of them felt. + +They lay very still in the little stuffy rose-coloured room and the +street noises of New York came up to them--a loose chain flapping +against the mud guard of a Taxi; the jolt of a flat-wheeled Eighth +Avenue street car the roar of an L train; laughter; the bleat of a motor +horn; a piano in the apartment next door, or upstairs or down. + +She thought, as she lay there, choking of the great gracious +grey-and-blue room at home, many-windowed, sweet-smelling, quiet. Quiet! + +He thought, as he lay there, choking, of the gracious grey-blue room at +home; many-windowed, sweet-smelling, quiet. Quiet! + +Then, as he had said that night in September: "Sleeping, mother?" + +"N-no. Not yet. Just dozing off." + +"It's the strange beds, I guess. This is going to be great, though. +Great!" + +"My, yes!" agreed Mrs. Brewster, heartily. + +They awoke next morning unrefreshed. Pa Brewster, back home in +Winnebago, always whistled mournfully off key, when he shaved. The more +doleful his tune the happier his wife knew him to be. Also, she had +learned to mark his progress by this or that passage in a refrain. +Sometimes he sang, too (also off key), and you heard his genial roar all +over the house. The louder he roared, and the more doleful the tune, the +happier his frame of mind. Milly Brewster knew this. She had never known +that she knew it. Neither had he. It was just one of those subconscious +bits of marital knowledge that make for happiness and understanding. + +When he sang "The Dying Cowboy's Lament" and came to the passage, "Oh, +take me to the churchyard and lay the sod o-o-over me," Mrs. Brewster +used to say: "Gussie, Mr. Brewster'll be down in ten minutes. You can +start the eggs." + +In the months of their gay life in Sixty-seventh Street, Hosey Brewster +never once sang "The Dying Cowboy's Lament," nor whistled "In the Sweet +By-and-By." No; he whistled not at all, or, when he did, gay bits of +jazz heard at the theatre or in a restaurant the night before. He +deceived no one, least of all himself. Sometimes his voice would trail +off into nothingness, but he would catch the tune and toss it up again, +heavily, as though it were a physical weight. + +Theatres! Music! Restaurants! Teas! Shopping! The gay life! + +"Enjoying yourself, Milly?" he would say. + +"Time of my life, father." + +She had had her hair dressed in those geometrical, undulations without +which no New York audience feels itself clothed. They saw Pinky less +frequently as time went on and her feeling or responsibility lessened. +Besides, the magazine covers took most of her day. She gave a tea for +her father and mother at her own studio, and Mrs. Brewster's hat, +slippers, gown and manner equalled in line, style, cut and texture those +of any other woman present, which rather surprised her until she had +talked to five or six of them. + +She and Hosey drifted together and compared notes. + +"Say, Milly," he confided, "they're all from Wisconsin--or +approximately; Michigan and Minnesota, and Iowa, and around. Far's I can +make out there's only one New Yorker, really, in the whole caboodle of +'em." + +"Which one?" + +"That kind of plain little one over there--sensible looking, with the +blue suit. I was talking to her. She was born right here in New York, +but she doesn't live here--that is, not in the city. Lives in some place +in the country, in a house." + +A sort of look came into Mrs. Brewster's eyes. "Is that so? I'd like to +talk to her, Hosey. Take me over." + +She did talk to the quiet little woman in the plain blue suit. And the +quiet little woman said: "Oh, dear, yes!" She ignored her r's +fascinatingly, as New Yorkers do". We live in Connecticut. You see, you +Wisconsin people have crowded us out of New York; no breathing space. +Besides, how can one live here? I mean to say--live. And then the +children--it's no place for children, grown up or otherwise. I love +it--oh, yes indeed. I love it. But it's too difficult." + +Mrs. Brewster defended it like a true Westerner. "But if you have just a +tiny apartment, with a kitchenette--" + +The New York woman laughed. There was nothing malicious about her. But +she laughed. "I tried it. There's one corner of my soul that's still +wrinkled from the crushing. Everything in a heap. Not to speak of the +slavery of it. That--that deceitful, lying kitchenette." + +This was the first woman that Mrs. Brewster had talked to--really talked +to--since leaving Winnebago. And she liked women. She missed them. At +first she had eyed wonderingly, speculatively, the women she saw on +Fifth Avenue. Swathed luxuriously in precious pelts, marvelously coiffed +and hatted, wearing the frailest of boots and hose, exhaling a +mysterious heady scent they were more like strange exotic birds than +women. + +The clerks in the shops, too--they were so remote, so contemptuous. When +she went into Gerretson's, back home Nellie Monahan was likely to say: +"You've certainly had a lot of wear out of that blue, Mrs. Brewster. +Let's see, you've had it two--three years this spring? My land! Let me +show you our new taupes." + +Pa Brewster had taken to conversing with the doorman. That adamantine +individual, unaccustomed to being addressed as a human being, was +startled at first, surly and distrustful. But he mellowed under Hosey's +simple and friendly advances. They became quite pals, these two--perhaps +two as lonely men as you could find in all lonely New York. + +"I guess you ain't a New Yorker, huh?" Mike said. + +"Me? No." + +"Th' most of the folks in th' buildin' ain't." + +"Ain't!" Hosea Brewster was startled into it. "They're artists, aren't +they? Most of 'em?" + +"No! Out-of-town folks, like you. West, East an' Californy, an' around +there. Livin' here, though. Seem t' like it better'n where they come +from. I dunno." + +Hosey Brewster took to eying them as Mrs. Brewster had eyed the women. +He wondered about them, these tight, trim men, rather short of breath, +buttoned so snugly into their shining shoes and their tailored clothes, +with their necks bulging in a fold of fat above the back of their white +linen collar. He knew that he would never be like them. It wasn't his +square-toe shoes that made the difference, or his grey hat, or his baggy +trousers. It was something inside him--something he lacked, he thought. +It never occurred to him that it was something he possessed that they +did not. + +"Enjoying yourself, Milly?" + +"I should say I am, father." + +"That's good. No housework and responsibility to this, is there?" + +"It's play." + +She hated the toy gas stove, and the tiny ice chest and the screen +pantry. All her married life she had kept house in a big, bounteous way; +apples in barrels; butter in firkins; flour in sacks; eggs in boxes; +sugar in bins; cream in crocks. Sometimes she told herself, bitterly, +that it was easier to keep twelve rooms tidy and habitable than one +combination kitchen-dining-and-living room. + +"Chops taste good, Hosey?" + +"Grand. But you oughtn't to be cooking around like this. We'll eat out +to-morrow night somewhere, and go to a show." + +"You're enjoying it, aren't you, Hosey, h'm?" + +"It's the life, mother! It's the life!" + +His ruddy colour began to fade. He took to haunting department-store +kitchenware sections. He would come home with a new kind of cream +whipper, or a patent device for the bathroom. He would tinker happily +with this, driving a nail, adjusting a screw. At such times he was even +known to begin to whistle some scrap of a doleful tune such as he used +to hum. But he would change, quickly, into something lovely. The price +of butter, eggs, milk, cream and the like horrified his Wisconsin +cold-storage sensibilities. He used often to go down to Fulton Market +before daylight and walk about among the stalls and shops, piled with +tons of food of all kinds. He would talk to the marketmen, and the +buyers and grocers, and come away feeling almost happy for a time. + +Then, one day, with a sort of shock, he remembered a farmer he had known +back home in Winnebago. He knew the farmers for miles around, naturally, +in his business. This man had been a steady butter-and-egg acquaintance, +one of the wealthy farmers in that prosperous farming community. For +his family's sake he had moved into town, a ruddy, rufous-bearded, +clumping fellow, intelligent, kindly. They had sold the farm with a fine +profit and had taken a boxlike house on Franklin Street. He had nothing +to do but enjoy himself. You saw him out on the porch early, very early +summer mornings. + +You saw him ambling about the yard, poking at a weed here, a plant +there. A terrible loneliness was upon him; a loneliness for the soil he +had deserted. And slowly, resistlessly, the soil pulled at him with its +black strength and its green tendrils, down, down, until he ceased to +struggle and lay there clasped gently to her breast, the mistress he had +thought to desert and who had him again at last, and forever. + +"I don't know what ailed him," his widow had said, weeping. "He just +seemed to kind of pine away." + +It was one morning in April--one soft, golden April morning--when this +memory had struck Hosey Brewster. He had been down at Fulton Market. +Something about the place--the dewy fresh vegetables, the crates of +eggs, the butter, the cheese--had brought such a surge of homesickness +to him as to amount to an actual nausea. Riding uptown in the subway he +had caught a glimpse of himself in a slot-machine mirror. His face was +pale and somehow shrunken. He looked at his hands. The skin hung loose +where the little pads of fat had plumped them out. + +"Gosh!" he said. "Gosh, I--" + +He thought, then, of the red-faced farmer who used to come clumping into +the cold-storage warehouse in his big boots and his buffalo coat. A +great fear swept over him and left him weak and sick. + +The chill grandeur of the studio-building foyer stabbed him. The +glittering lift made him dizzy, somehow, this morning. He shouldn't have +gone out without some breakfast perhaps. He walked down the flagged +corridor softly; turned the key ever so cautiously. She might still be +sleeping. He turned the knob, gently; tiptoed in and, turning, fell over +a heavy wooden object that lay directly in his path in the dim little +hall. A barked shin. A good round oath. + +"Hosey! What's the matter? What--" She came running to him. She led him +into the bright front room. + +"What was that thing? A box or something, right there in front of the +door. What the--" + +"Oh, I'm so sorry, Hosey. You sometimes have breakfast downtown. I +didn't know-" + +Something in her voice--he stopped rubbing the injured shin to look up +at her. Then he straightened slowly, his mouth ludicrously open. Her +head was bound in a white towel. Her skirt was pinned back. Her sleeves +were rolled up. Chairs, tables, rugs, ornaments were huddled in a +promiscuous heap. Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster was cleaning house. + +"Milly!" he began, sternly. "And that's just the thing you came here to +get away from. If Pinky--" + +"I didn't mean to, father. But when I got up this morning there was a +letter--a letter from the woman who owns this apartment, you know. She +asked if I'd go to the hall closet--the one she reserved for her own +things, you know--and unlock it, and get out a box she told me about, +and have the hall boy express it to her. And I did, and--look!" + +Limping a little he followed her. She turned on the light that hung in +the closet. Boxes--pasteboard boxes--each one bearing a cryptic +penciling on the end that stared out at you. "Drp Stud Win," said one; +"Sum Slp Cov Bedrm," another; "Toil. Set & Pic. Frms." + +Mrs Brewster turned to her husband, almost shamefacedly, and yet with a +little air of defiance. "It--I don't know--it made me--not homesick, +Hosey. Not homesick, exactly; but--well, I guess I'm not the only woman +with a walnut streak in her modern make-up. Here's the woman--she came +to the door with her hat on, and yet--" + +Truth--blinding, white-hot truth--burst in upon him. "Mother," he +said--and he stood up, suddenly robust, virile, alert--"mother, let's go +home." + +Mechanically she began to unpin the looped-back skirt. + +"When?" + +"Now." + +"But, Hosey! Pinky--this flat--until June--" + +"Now! Unless you want to stay. Unless you like it here in this--this +make-believe, double-barreled, duplex do-funny of a studio thing. Let's +go home, mother. Let's go home--and breathe." + +In Wisconsin you are likely to find snow in April--snow or slush. The +Brewsters found both. Yet on their way up from the station in 'Gene +Buck's flivver taxi, they beamed out at it as if it were a carpet of +daisies. + +At the corner of Elm and Jackson Streets Hosey Brewster stuck his head +out of the window. "Stop here a minute, will you, 'Gene?" + +They stopped in front of Hengel's meat market, and Hosey went in. Mrs. +Brewster leaned back without comment. + +Inside the shop. "Well, I see you're back from the East," said Aug +Hengel. + +"Yep." + +"We thought you'd given us the go-by, you stayed away so long." + +"No, sir-ree! Say, Aug, give me that piece of bacon--the big piece. And +send me up some corned beef to-morrow, for corned beef and cabbage. I'll +take a steak along for to-night. Oh, about four pounds. That's right." + +It seemed to him that nothing less than a side of beef could take out of +his mouth the taste of those fiddling little lamb chops and the +restaurant fare of the past six months. + +All through the winter Fred had kept up a little heat in the house, with +an eye to frozen water pipes. But there was a chill upon the place as +they opened the door now. It was late afternoon. The house was very +still, with the stillness of a dwelling that has long been uninhabited. +The two stood there a moment, peering into the darkened rooms. Then +Hosea Brewster strode forward, jerked up this curtain, that curtain with +a sharp snap, flap! He stamped his feet to rid them of slush. He took +off his hat and threw it high in the air and opened his arms wide and +emitted a whoop of sheer joy and relief. + +"Welcome home! Home!" + +She clung to him. "Oh, Hosey, isn't it wonderful? How big it looks! +Huge!" + +"Land, yes." He strode from hall to dining-room, from kitchen to +library. "I know how a jack-in-the-box feels when the lid's opened. No +wonder it grins and throws out its arms." + +They did little talking after that. By five o'clock he was down in the +cellar. She heard him making a great sound of rattling and bumping and +shaking and pounding and shoveling. She smelled the acrid odour of his +stubby black pipe. + +"Hosey!"--from the top of the cellar stairs. "Hosey bring up a can of +preserves when you come." + +"What?" + +"Can of preserves." + +"What kind?" + +"Any kind you like." + +"Can I have two kinds?" + +He brought up quince marmalade and her choicest damson plums. He put +them down on the kitchen table and looked around, spatting his hands +together briskly to rid them of dust. "She's burning pretty good now. +That Fred! Don't any more know how to handle a boiler than a baby does. +Is the house getting warmer?" + +He clumped into the dining-room, through the butler's pantry, but he was +back again in a wink, his eyes round. "Why, say, mother! You've got out +the best dishes, and the silver, and the candles and all. And the +tablecloth with the do-dads on it. Why--" + +"I know it" She opened the oven door, took out a pan of biscuits and +slid it deftly to one side. "It seems as if I can't spread enough. I'm +going to use the biggest platter, and I've got two extra boards in the +table. It's big enough to seat ten. I want everything big somehow. I've +cooked enough potatoes for a regiment, and I know it's wasteful, and I +don't care. I'll eat in my kitchen apron, if you'll keep on your +overalls. Come on." + +He cut into the steak--a great thick slice. He knew she could never eat +it, and she knew she could never eat it. But she did eat it all, +ecstatically. And in a sort of ecstatic Nirvana the quiet and vastness +and peace of the big old frame house settled down upon them. + +The telephone in the hall rang startlingly, unexpectedly. + +"Let me go, Milly." + +"But who in the world! Nobody knows we're--" + +He was at the telephone. "Who? Who? Oh." He turned: "It's Miz' Merz. She +says her little Minnie went by at six and saw a light in the house. +She--Hello! What?... She says she wants to know if she's to save time +for you at the end of the month for the April cleaning." + +Mrs. Brewster took the receiver from him: "The twenty-fifth, as usual, +Miz' Merz. The twenty-fifth, as usual. The attic must be a sight." + + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories +of 1919, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK O HENRY MEMORIAL PRIZES *** + +***** This file should be named 12094.txt or 12094.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/0/9/12094/ + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Gene Smethers and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +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. 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