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diff --git a/1876-h/1876-h.htm b/1876-h/1876-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..409be7a --- /dev/null +++ b/1876-h/1876-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3506 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <title> + The Shape of Fear, by Elia Wilkinson Peattie + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shape of Fear, by Elia W. Peattie + +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: The Shape of Fear + +Author: Elia W. Peattie + +Release Date: November 20, 2008 [EBook #1876] +Last Updated: March 10, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHAPE OF FEAR *** + + + + +Produced by Judy Boss, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE SHAPE OF FEAR + </h1> + <h2> + AND OTHER GHOSTLY TALES + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Elia Wilkinson Peattie + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="mynote"> + <p> + Original Transcriber's Note: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I have omitted signature indicators and italicization of the + running heads. In addition, I have made the following changes + to the text: + + PAGE LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO + 156 1 where as were as + 156 4 mouth mouth. + 165 5 Wedgwood Wedgewood + 166 9 Wedgwood Wedgewood + 167 6 surperfluous superfluous + 172 11 every ever + 173 17 Bogg Boggs +</pre> + </div> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#linkfear"> THE SHAPE OF FEAR </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> ON THE NORTHERN ICE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THEIR DEAR LITTLE GHOST </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> A SPECTRAL COLLIE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> THE HOUSE THAT WAS NOT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> STORY OF AN OBSTINATE CORPSE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> A CHILD OF THE RAIN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE ROOM OF THE EVIL THOUGHT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> STORY OF THE VANISHING PATIENT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> THE PIANO NEXT DOOR </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> AN ASTRAL ONION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> FROM THE LOOM OF THE DEAD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> A GRAMMATICAL GHOST </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><a name="linkfear" id="linkfear"></a> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + THE SHAPE OF FEAR + </h2> + <p> + TIM O'CONNOR—who was descended from the O'Conors with one N—— + started life as a poet and an enthusiast. His mother had designed him for + the priesthood, and at the age of fifteen, most of his verses had an + ecclesiastical tinge, but, somehow or other, he got into the newspaper + business instead, and became a pessimistic gentleman, with a literary + style of great beauty and an income of modest proportions. He fell in with + men who talked of art for art's sake,—though what right they had to + speak of art at all nobody knew,—and little by little his view of + life and love became more or less profane. He met a woman who sucked his + heart's blood, and he knew it and made no protest; nay, to the great + amusement of the fellows who talked of art for art's sake, he went the + length of marrying her. He could not in decency explain that he had the + traditions of fine gentlemen behind him and so had to do as he did, + because his friends might not have understood. He laughed at the days when + he had thought of the priesthood, blushed when he ran across any of those + tender and exquisite old verses he had written in his youth, and became + addicted to absinthe and other less peculiar drinks, and to gaming a + little to escape a madness of ennui. + </p> + <p> + As the years went by he avoided, with more and more scorn, that part of + the world which he denominated Philistine, and consorted only with the + fellows who flocked about Jim O'Malley's saloon. He was pleased with + solitude, or with these convivial wits, and with not very much else + beside. Jim O'Malley was a sort of Irish poem, set to inspiring measure. + He was, in fact, a Hibernian Mæcenas, who knew better than to put bad + whiskey before a man of talent, or tell a trite tale in the presence of a + wit. The recountal of his disquisitions on politics and other current + matters had enabled no less than three men to acquire national + reputations; and a number of wretches, having gone the way of men who talk + of art for art's sake, and dying in foreign lands, or hospitals, or + asylums, having no one else to be homesick for, had been homesick for Jim + O'Malley, and wept for the sound of his voice and the grasp of his hearty + hand. + </p> + <p> + When Tim O'Connor turned his back upon most of the things he was born to + and took up with the life which he consistently lived till the unspeakable + end, he was unable to get rid of certain peculiarities. For example, in + spite of all his debauchery, he continued to look like the Beloved + Apostle. Notwithstanding abject friendships he wrote limpid and noble + English. Purity seemed to dog his heels, no matter how violently he + attempted to escape from her. He was never so drunk that he was not an + exquisite, and even his creditors, who had become inured to his + deceptions, confessed it was a privilege to meet so perfect a gentleman. + The creature who held him in bondage, body and soul, actually came to love + him for his gentleness, and for some quality which baffled her, and made + her ache with a strange longing which she could not define. Not that she + ever defined anything, poor little beast! She had skin the color of pale + gold, and yellow eyes with brown lights in them, and great plaits of + straw-colored hair. About her lips was a fatal and sensuous smile, which, + when it got hold of a man's imagination, would not let it go, but held to + it, and mocked it till the day of his death. She was the incarnation of + the Eternal Feminine, with all the wifeliness and the maternity left out—she + was ancient, yet ever young, and familiar as joy or tears or sin. + </p> + <p> + She took good care of Tim in some ways: fed him well, nursed him back to + reason after a period of hard drinking, saw that he put on overshoes when + the walks were wet, and looked after his money. She even prized his brain, + for she discovered that it was a delicate little machine which produced + gold. By association with him and his friends, she learned that a number + of apparently useless things had value in the eyes of certain convenient + fools, and so she treasured the autographs of distinguished persons who + wrote to him—autographs which he disdainfully tossed in the waste + basket. She was careful with presentation copies from authors, and she + went the length of urging Tim to write a book himself. But at that he + balked. + </p> + <p> + “Write a book!” he cried to her, his gentle face suddenly white with + passion. “Who am I to commit such a profanation?” + </p> + <p> + She didn't know what he meant, but she had a theory that it was dangerous + to excite him, and so she sat up till midnight to cook a chop for him when + he came home that night. + </p> + <p> + He preferred to have her sitting up for him, and he wanted every electric + light in their apartments turned to the full. If, by any chance, they + returned together to a dark house, he would not enter till she touched the + button in the hall, and illuminated the room. Or if it so happened that + the lights were turned off in the night time, and he awoke to find himself + in darkness, he shrieked till the woman came running to his relief, and, + with derisive laughter, turned them on again. But when she found that + after these frights he lay trembling and white in his bed, she began to be + alarmed for the clever, gold-making little machine, and to renew her + assiduities, and to horde more tenaciously than ever, those valuable + curios on which she some day expected to realize when he was out of the + way, and no longer in a position to object to their barter. + </p> + <p> + O'Connor's idiosyncrasy of fear was a source of much amusement among the + boys at the office where he worked. They made open sport of it, and yet, + recognizing him for a sensitive plant, and granting that genius was + entitled to whimsicalities, it was their custom when they called for him + after work hours, to permit him to reach the lighted corridor before they + turned out the gas over his desk. This, they reasoned, was but a slight + service to perform for the most enchanting beggar in the world. + </p> + <p> + “Dear fellow,” said Rick Dodson, who loved him, “is it the Devil you + expect to see? And if so, why are you averse? Surely the Devil is not such + a bad old chap.” + </p> + <p> + “You haven't found him so?” + </p> + <p> + “Tim, by heaven, you know, you ought to explain to me. A citizen of the + world and a student of its purlieus, like myself, ought to know what there + is to know! Now you're a man of sense, in spite of a few bad habits—such + as myself, for example. Is this fad of yours madness?—which would be + quite to your credit,—for gadzooks, I like a lunatic! Or is it the + complaint of a man who has gathered too much data on the subject of Old + Rye? Or is it, as I suspect, something more occult, and therefore more + interesting?” + </p> + <p> + “Rick, boy,” said Tim, “you're too—inquiring!” And he turned to his + desk with a look of delicate hauteur. + </p> + <p> + It was the very next night that these two tippling pessimists spent + together talking about certain disgruntled but immortal gentlemen, who, + having said their say and made the world quite uncomfortable, had now + journeyed on to inquire into the nothingness which they postulated. The + dawn was breaking in the muggy east; the bottles were empty, the cigars + burnt out. Tim turned toward his friend with a sharp breaking of sociable + silence. + </p> + <p> + “Rick,” he said, “do you know that Fear has a Shape?” + </p> + <p> + “And so has my nose!” + </p> + <p> + “You asked me the other night what I feared. Holy father, I make my + confession to you. What I fear is Fear.” + </p> + <p> + “That's because you've drunk too much—or not enough. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of Spring + Your winter garment of repentance fling—'” + </pre> + <p> + “My costume then would be too nebulous for this weather, dear boy. But + it's true what I was saying. I am afraid of ghosts.” + </p> + <p> + “For an agnostic that seems a bit—” + </p> + <p> + “Agnostic! Yes, so completely an agnostic that I do not even know that I + do not know! God, man, do you mean you have no ghosts—no—no + things which shape themselves? Why, there are things I have done—” + </p> + <p> + “Don't think of them, my boy! See, 'night's candles are burnt out, and + jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain top.'” + </p> + <p> + Tim looked about him with a sickly smile. He looked behind him and there + was nothing there; stared at the blank window, where the smoky dawn showed + its offensive face, and there was nothing there. He pushed away the moist + hair from his haggard face—that face which would look like the + blessed St. John, and leaned heavily back in his chair. + </p> + <p> + “'Yon light is not daylight, I know it, I,'” he murmured drowsily, “'it is + some meteor which the sun exhales, to be to thee this night—'” + </p> + <p> + The words floated off in languid nothingness, and he slept. Dodson arose + preparatory to stretching himself on his couch. But first he bent over his + friend with a sense of tragic appreciation. + </p> + <p> + “Damned by the skin of his teeth!” he muttered. “A little more, and he + would have gone right, and the Devil would have lost a good fellow. As it + is”—he smiled with his usual conceited delight in his own sayings, + even when they were uttered in soliloquy—“he is merely one of those + splendid gentlemen one will meet with in hell.” Then Dodson had a + momentary nostalgia for goodness himself, but he soon overcame it, and + stretching himself on his sofa, he, too, slept. + </p> + <p> + That night he and O'Connor went together to hear “Faust” sung, and + returning to the office, Dodson prepared to write his criticism. Except + for the distant clatter of telegraph instruments, or the peremptory cries + of “copy” from an upper room, the office was still. Dodson wrote and + smoked his interminable cigarettes; O' Connor rested his head in his hands + on the desk, and sat in perfect silence. He did not know when Dodson + finished, or when, arising, and absent-mindedly extinguishing the lights, + he moved to the door with his copy in his hands. Dodson gathered up the + hats and coats as he passed them where they lay on a chair, and called: + </p> + <p> + “It is done, Tim. Come, let's get out of this.” + </p> + <p> + There was no answer, and he thought Tim was following, but after he had + handed his criticism to the city editor, he saw he was still alone, and + returned to the room for his friend. He advanced no further than the + doorway, for, as he stood in the dusky corridor and looked within the + darkened room, he saw before his friend a Shape, white, of perfect + loveliness, divinely delicate and pure and ethereal, which seemed as the + embodiment of all goodness. From it came a soft radiance and a perfume + softer than the wind when “it breathes upon a bank of violets stealing and + giving odor.” Staring at it, with eyes immovable, sat his friend. + </p> + <p> + It was strange that at sight of a thing so unspeakably fair, a coldness + like that which comes from the jewel-blue lips of a Muir crevasse should + have fallen upon Dodson, or that it was only by summoning all the manhood + that was left in him, that he was able to restore light to the room, and + to rush to his friend. When he reached poor Tim he was stone-still with + paralysis. They took him home to the woman, who nursed him out of that + attack—and later on worried him into another. + </p> + <p> + When he was able to sit up and jeer at things a little again, and help + himself to the quail the woman broiled for him, Dodson, sitting beside + him, said: + </p> + <p> + “Did you call that little exhibition of yours legerdemain, Tim, you sweep? + Or are you really the Devil's bairn?” + </p> + <p> + “It was the Shape of Fear,” said Tim, quite seriously. + </p> + <p> + “But it seemed mild as mother's milk.” + </p> + <p> + “It was compounded of the good I might have done. It is that which I + fear.” + </p> + <p> + He would explain no more. Later—many months later—he died + patiently and sweetly in the madhouse, praying for rest. The little beast + with the yellow eyes had high mass celebrated for him, which, all things + considered, was almost as pathetic as it was amusing. + </p> + <p> + Dodson was in Vienna when he heard of it. + </p> + <p> + “Sa, sa!” cried he. “I wish it wasn't so dark in the tomb! What do you + suppose Tim is looking at?” + </p> + <p> + As for Jim O'Malley, he was with difficulty kept from illuminating the + grave with electricity. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ON THE NORTHERN ICE + </h2> + <p> + THE winter nights up at Sault Ste. Marie are as white and luminous as the + Milky Way. The silence which rests upon the solitude appears to be white + also. Even sound has been included in Nature's arrestment, for, indeed, + save the still white frost, all things seem to be obliterated. The stars + have a poignant brightness, but they belong to heaven and not to earth, + and between their immeasurable height and the still ice rolls the ebon + ether in vast, liquid billows. + </p> + <p> + In such a place it is difficult to believe that the world is actually + peopled. It seems as if it might be the dark of the day after Cain killed + Abel, and as if all of humanity's remainder was huddled in affright away + from the awful spaciousness of Creation. + </p> + <p> + The night Ralph Hagadorn started out for Echo Bay—bent on a pleasant + duty—he laughed to himself, and said that he did not at all object + to being the only man in the world, so long as the world remained as + unspeakably beautiful as it was when he buckled on his skates and shot + away into the solitude. He was bent on reaching his best friend in time to + act as groomsman, and business had delayed him till time was at its + briefest. So he journeyed by night and journeyed alone, and when the tang + of the frost got at his blood, he felt as a spirited horse feels when it + gets free of bit and bridle. The ice was as glass, his skates were keen, + his frame fit, and his venture to his taste! So he laughed, and cut + through the air as a sharp stone cleaves the water. He could hear the + whistling of the air as he cleft it. + </p> + <p> + As he went on and on in the black stillness, he began to have fancies. He + imagined himself enormously tall—a great Viking of the Northland, + hastening over icy fiords to his love. And that reminded him that he had a + love—though, indeed, that thought was always present with him as a + background for other thoughts. To be sure, he had not told her that she + was his love, for he had seen her only a few times, and the auspicious + occasion had not yet presented itself. She lived at Echo Bay also, and was + to be the maid of honor to his friend's bride—which was one more + reason why he skated almost as swiftly as the wind, and why, now and then, + he let out a shout of exultation. + </p> + <p> + The one cloud that crossed Hagadorn's sun of expectancy was the knowledge + that Marie Beaujeu's father had money, and that Marie lived in a house + with two stories to it, and wore otter skin about her throat and little + satin-lined mink boots on her feet when she went sledding. Moreover, in + the locket in which she treasured a bit of her dead mother's hair, there + was a black pearl as big as a pea. These things made it difficult—perhaps + impossible—for Ralph Hagadorn to say more than, “I love you.” But + that much he meant to say though he were scourged with chagrin for his + temerity. + </p> + <p> + This determination grew upon him as he swept along the ice under the + starlight. Venus made a glowing path toward the west and seemed eager to + reassure him. He was sorry he could not skim down that avenue of light + which flowed from the love-star, but he was forced to turn his back upon + it and face the black northeast. + </p> + <p> + It came to him with a shock that he was not alone. His eyelashes were + frosted and his eyeballs blurred with the cold, so at first he thought it + might be an illusion. But when he had rubbed his eyes hard, he made sure + that not very far in front of him was a long white skater in fluttering + garments who sped over the ice as fast as ever werewolf went. + </p> + <p> + He called aloud, but there was no answer. He shaped his hands and + trumpeted through them, but the silence was as before—it was + complete. So then he gave chase, setting his teeth hard and putting a + tension on his firm young muscles. But go however he would, the white + skater went faster. After a time, as he glanced at the cold gleam of the + north star, he perceived that he was being led from his direct path. For a + moment he hesitated, wondering if he would not better keep to his road, + but his weird companion seemed to draw him on irresistibly, and finding it + sweet to follow, he followed. + </p> + <p> + Of course it came to him more than once in that strange pursuit, that the + white skater was no earthly guide. Up in those latitudes men see curious + things when the hoar frost is on the earth. Hagadorn's own father—to + hark no further than that for an instance!—who lived up there with + the Lake Superior Indians, and worked in the copper mines, had welcomed a + woman at his hut one bitter night, who was gone by morning, leaving wolf + tracks on the snow! Yes, it was so, and John Fontanelle, the half-breed, + could tell you about it any day—if he were alive. (Alack, the snow + where the wolf tracks were, is melted now!) + </p> + <p> + Well, Hagadorn followed the white skater all the night, and when the ice + flushed pink at dawn, and arrows of lovely light shot up into the cold + heavens, she was gone, and Hagadorn was at his destination. The sun + climbed arrogantly up to his place above all other things, and as Hagadorn + took off his skates and glanced carelessly lakeward, he beheld a great + wind-rift in the ice, and the waves showing blue and hungry between white + fields. Had he rushed along his intended path, watching the stars to guide + him, his glance turned upward, all his body at magnificent momentum, he + must certainly have gone into that cold grave. + </p> + <p> + How wonderful that it had been sweet to follow the white skater, and that + he followed! + </p> + <p> + His heart beat hard as he hurried to his friend's house. But he + encountered no wedding furore. His friend met him as men meet in houses of + mourning. + </p> + <p> + “Is this your wedding face?” cried Hagadorn. “Why, man, starved as I am, I + look more like a bridegroom than you!” + </p> + <p> + “There's no wedding to-day!” + </p> + <p> + “No wedding! Why, you're not—” + </p> + <p> + “Marie Beaujeu died last night—” + </p> + <p> + “Marie—” + </p> + <p> + “Died last night. She had been skating in the afternoon, and she came home + chilled and wandering in her mind, as if the frost had got in it somehow. + She grew worse and worse, and all the time she talked of you.” + </p> + <p> + “Of me?” + </p> + <p> + “We wondered what it meant. No one knew you were lovers.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know it myself; more's the pity. At least, I didn't know—” + </p> + <p> + “She said you were on the ice, and that you didn't know about the big + breaking-up, and she cried to us that the wind was off shore and the rift + widening. She cried over and over again that you could come in by the old + French creek if you only knew—” + </p> + <p> + “I came in that way.” + </p> + <p> + “But how did you come to do that? It's out of the path. We thought perhaps—” + </p> + <p> + But Hagadorn broke in with his story and told him all as it had come to + pass. + </p> + <p> + That day they watched beside the maiden, who lay with tapers at her head + and at her feet, and in the little church the bride who might have been at + her wedding said prayers for her friend. They buried Marie Beaujeu in her + bridesmaid white, and Hagadorn was before the altar with her, as he had + intended from the first! Then at midnight the lovers who were to wed + whispered their vows in the gloom of the cold church, and walked together + through the snow to lay their bridal wreaths upon a grave. + </p> + <p> + Three nights later, Hagadorn skated back again to his home. They wanted + him to go by sunlight, but he had his way, and went when Venus made her + bright path on the ice. + </p> + <p> + The truth was, he had hoped for the companionship of the white skater. But + he did not have it. His only companion was the wind. The only voice he + heard was the baying of a wolf on the north shore. The world was as empty + and as white as if God had just created it, and the sun had not yet + colored nor man defiled it. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THEIR DEAR LITTLE GHOST + </h2> + <p> + THE first time one looked at Elsbeth, one was not prepossessed. She was + thin and brown, her nose turned slightly upward, her toes went in just a + perceptible degree, and her hair was perfectly straight. But when one + looked longer, one perceived that she was a charming little creature. The + straight hair was as fine as silk, and hung in funny little braids down + her back; there was not a flaw in her soft brown skin, and her mouth was + tender and shapely. But her particular charm lay in a look which she + habitually had, of seeming to know curious things—such as it is not + allotted to ordinary persons to know. One felt tempted to say to her: + </p> + <p> + “What are these beautiful things which you know, and of which others are + ignorant? What is it you see with those wise and pellucid eyes? Why is it + that everybody loves you?” + </p> + <p> + Elsbeth was my little godchild, and I knew her better than I knew any + other child in the world. But still I could not truthfully say that I was + familiar with her, for to me her spirit was like a fair and fragrant road + in the midst of which I might walk in peace and joy, but where I was + continually to discover something new. The last time I saw her quite well + and strong was over in the woods where she had gone with her two little + brothers and her nurse to pass the hottest weeks of summer. I followed + her, foolish old creature that I was, just to be near her, for I needed to + dwell where the sweet aroma of her life could reach me. + </p> + <p> + One morning when I came from my room, limping a little, because I am not + so young as I used to be, and the lake wind works havoc with me, my little + godchild came dancing to me singing: + </p> + <p> + “Come with me and I'll show you my places, my places, my places!” + </p> + <p> + Miriam, when she chanted by the Red Sea might have been more exultant, but + she could not have been more bewitching. Of course I knew what “places” + were, because I had once been a little girl myself, but unless you are + acquainted with the real meaning of “places,” it would be useless to try + to explain. Either you know “places” or you do not—just as you + understand the meaning of poetry or you do not. There are things in the + world which cannot be taught. + </p> + <p> + Elsbeth's two tiny brothers were present, and I took one by each hand and + followed her. No sooner had we got out of doors in the woods than a sort + of mystery fell upon the world and upon us. We were cautioned to move + silently, and we did so, avoiding the crunching of dry twigs. + </p> + <p> + “The fairies hate noise,” whispered my little godchild, her eyes narrowing + like a cat's. + </p> + <p> + “I must get my wand first thing I do,” she said in an awed undertone. “It + is useless to try to do anything without a wand.” + </p> + <p> + The tiny boys were profoundly impressed, and, indeed, so was I. I felt + that at last, I should, if I behaved properly, see the fairies, which had + hitherto avoided my materialistic gaze. It was an enchanting moment, for + there appeared, just then, to be nothing commonplace about life. + </p> + <p> + There was a swale near by, and into this the little girl plunged. I could + see her red straw hat bobbing about among the tall rushes, and I wondered + if there were snakes. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think there are snakes?” I asked one of the tiny boys. + </p> + <p> + “If there are,” he said with conviction, “they won't dare hurt her.” + </p> + <p> + He convinced me. I feared no more. Presently Elsbeth came out of the + swale. In her hand was a brown “cattail,” perfectly full and round. She + carried it as queens carry their sceptres—the beautiful queens we + dream of in our youth. + </p> + <p> + “Come,” she commanded, and waved the sceptre in a fine manner. So we + followed, each tiny boy gripping my hand tight. We were all three a trifle + awed. Elsbeth led us into a dark underbrush. The branches, as they flew + back in our faces, left them wet with dew. A wee path, made by the girl's + dear feet, guided our footsteps. Perfumes of elderberry and wild cucumber + scented the air. A bird, frightened from its nest, made frantic cries + above our heads. The underbrush thickened. Presently the gloom of the + hemlocks was over us, and in the midst of the shadowy green a tulip tree + flaunted its leaves. Waves boomed and broke upon the shore below. There + was a growing dampness as we went on, treading very lightly. A little + green snake ran coquettishly from us. A fat and glossy squirrel chattered + at us from a safe height, stroking his whiskers with a complaisant air. + </p> + <p> + At length we reached the “place.” It was a circle of velvet grass, bright + as the first blades of spring, delicate as fine sea-ferns. The sunlight, + falling down the shaft between the hemlocks, flooded it with a softened + light and made the forest round about look like deep purple velvet. My + little godchild stood in the midst and raised her wand impressively. + </p> + <p> + “This is my place,” she said, with a sort of wonderful gladness in her + tone. “This is where I come to the fairy balls. Do you see them?” + </p> + <p> + “See what?” whispered one tiny boy. + </p> + <p> + “The fairies.” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence. The older boy pulled at my skirt. + </p> + <p> + “Do YOU see them?” he asked, his voice trembling with expectancy. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed,” I said, “I fear I am too old and wicked to see fairies, and yet—are + their hats red?” + </p> + <p> + “They are,” laughed my little girl. “Their hats are red, and as small—as + small!” She held up the pearly nail of her wee finger to give us the + correct idea. + </p> + <p> + “And their shoes are very pointed at the toes?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, very pointed!” + </p> + <p> + “And their garments are green?” + </p> + <p> + “As green as grass.” + </p> + <p> + “And they blow little horns?” + </p> + <p> + “The sweetest little horns!” + </p> + <p> + “I think I see them,” I cried. + </p> + <p> + “We think we see them too,” said the tiny boys, laughing in perfect glee. + </p> + <p> + “And you hear their horns, don't you?” my little godchild asked somewhat + anxiously. + </p> + <p> + “Don't we hear their horns?” I asked the tiny boys. + </p> + <p> + “We think we hear their horns,” they cried. “Don't you think we do?” + </p> + <p> + “It must be we do,” I said. “Aren't we very, very happy?” + </p> + <p> + We all laughed softly. Then we kissed each other and Elsbeth led us out, + her wand high in the air. + </p> + <p> + And so my feet found the lost path to Arcady. + </p> + <p> + The next day I was called to the Pacific coast, and duty kept me there + till well into December. A few days before the date set for my return to + my home, a letter came from Elsbeth's mother. + </p> + <p> + “Our little girl is gone into the Unknown,” she wrote—“that Unknown + in which she seemed to be forever trying to pry. We knew she was going, + and we told her. She was quite brave, but she begged us to try some way to + keep her till after Christmas. 'My presents are not finished yet,' she + made moan. 'And I did so want to see what I was going to have. You can't + have a very happy Christmas without me, I should think. Can you arrange to + keep me somehow till after then?' We could not 'arrange' either with God + in heaven or science upon earth, and she is gone.” + </p> + <p> + She was only my little godchild, and I am an old maid, with no business + fretting over children, but it seemed as if the medium of light and beauty + had been taken from me. Through this crystal soul I had perceived whatever + was loveliest. However, what was, was! I returned to my home and took up a + course of Egyptian history, and determined to concern myself with nothing + this side the Ptolemies. + </p> + <p> + Her mother has told me how, on Christmas eve, as usual, she and Elsbeth's + father filled the stockings of the little ones, and hung them, where they + had always hung, by the fireplace. They had little heart for the task, but + they had been prodigal that year in their expenditures, and had heaped + upon the two tiny boys all the treasures they thought would appeal to + them. They asked themselves how they could have been so insane previously + as to exercise economy at Christmas time, and what they meant by not + getting Elsbeth the autoharp she had asked for the year before. + </p> + <p> + “And now—” began her father, thinking of harps. But he could not + complete this sentence, of course, and the two went on passionately and + almost angrily with their task. There were two stockings and two piles of + toys. Two stockings only, and only two piles of toys! Two is very little! + </p> + <p> + They went away and left the darkened room, and after a time they slept—after + a long time. Perhaps that was about the time the tiny boys awoke, and, + putting on their little dressing gowns and bed slippers, made a dash for + the room where the Christmas things were always placed. The older one + carried a candle which gave out a feeble light. The other followed behind + through the silent house. They were very impatient and eager, but when + they reached the door of the sitting-room they stopped, for they saw that + another child was before them. + </p> + <p> + It was a delicate little creature, sitting in her white night gown, with + two rumpled funny braids falling down her back, and she seemed to be + weeping. As they watched, she arose, and putting out one slender finger as + a child does when she counts, she made sure over and over again—three + sad times—that there were only two stockings and two piles of toys! + Only those and no more. + </p> + <p> + The little figure looked so familiar that the boys started toward it, but + just then, putting up her arm and bowing her face in it, as Elsbeth had + been used to do when she wept or was offended, the little thing glided + away and went out. That's what the boys said. It went out as a candle goes + out. + </p> + <p> + They ran and woke their parents with the tale, and all the house was + searched in a wonderment, and disbelief, and hope, and tumult! But nothing + was found. For nights they watched. But there was only the silent house. + Only the empty rooms. They told the boys they must have been mistaken. But + the boys shook their heads. + </p> + <p> + “We know our Elsbeth,” said they. “It was our Elsbeth, cryin' 'cause she + hadn't no stockin' an' no toys, and we would have given her all ours, only + she went out—jus' went out!” + </p> + <p> + Alack! + </p> + <p> + The next Christmas I helped with the little festival. It was none of my + affair, but I asked to help, and they let me, and when we were all through + there were three stockings and three piles of toys, and in the largest one + was all the things that I could think of that my dear child would love. I + locked the boys' chamber that night, and I slept on the divan in the + parlor off the sitting-room. I slept but little, and the night was very + still—so windless and white and still that I think I must have heard + the slightest noise. Yet I heard none. Had I been in my grave I think my + ears would not have remained more unsaluted. + </p> + <p> + Yet when daylight came and I went to unlock the boys' bedchamber door, I + saw that the stocking and all the treasures which I had bought for my + little godchild were gone. There was not a vestige of them remaining! + </p> + <p> + Of course we told the boys nothing. As for me, after dinner I went home + and buried myself once more in my history, and so interested was I that + midnight came without my knowing it. I should not have looked up at all, I + suppose, to become aware of the time, had it not been for a faint, sweet + sound as of a child striking a stringed instrument. It was so delicate and + remote that I hardly heard it, but so joyous and tender that I could not + but listen, and when I heard it a second time it seemed as if I caught the + echo of a child's laugh. At first I was puzzled. Then I remembered the + little autoharp I had placed among the other things in that pile of + vanished toys. I said aloud: + </p> + <p> + “Farewell, dear little ghost. Go rest. Rest in joy, dear little ghost. + Farewell, farewell.” + </p> + <p> + That was years ago, but there has been silence since. Elsbeth was always + an obedient little thing. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A SPECTRAL COLLIE + </h2> + <p> + WILLIAM PERCY CECIL happened to be a younger son, so he left home—which + was England—and went to Kansas to ranch it. Thousands of younger + sons do the same, only their destination is not invariably Kansas. + </p> + <p> + An agent at Wichita picked out Cecil's farm for him and sent the deeds + over to England before Cecil left. He said there was a house on the place. + So Cecil's mother fitted him out for America just as she had fitted out + another superfluous boy for Africa, and parted from him with an heroic + front and big agonies of mother-ache which she kept to herself. + </p> + <p> + The boy bore up the way a man of his blood ought, but when he went out to + the kennel to see Nita, his collie, he went to pieces somehow, and rolled + on the grass with her in his arms and wept like a booby. But the + remarkable part of it was that Nita wept too, big, hot dog tears which her + master wiped away. When he went off she howled like a hungry baby, and had + to be switched before she would give any one a night's sleep. + </p> + <p> + When Cecil got over on his Kansas place he fitted up the shack as cosily + as he could, and learned how to fry bacon and make soda biscuits. + Incidentally, he did farming, and sunk a heap of money, finding out how + not to do things. Meantime, the Americans laughed at him, and were + inclined to turn the cold shoulder, and his compatriots, of whom there + were a number in the county, did not prove to his liking. They consoled + themselves for their exiled state in fashions not in keeping with Cecil's + traditions. His homesickness went deeper than theirs, perhaps, and + American whiskey could not make up for the loss of his English home, nor + flirtations with the gay American village girls quite compensate him for + the loss of his English mother. So he kept to himself and had nostalgia as + some men have consumption. + </p> + <p> + At length the loneliness got so bad that he had to see some living thing + from home, or make a flunk of it and go back like a cry baby. He had a + stiff pride still, though he sobbed himself to sleep more than one night, + as many a pioneer has done before him. So he wrote home for Nita, the + collie, and got word that she would be sent. Arrangements were made for + her care all along the line, and she was properly boxed and shipped. + </p> + <p> + As the time drew near for her arrival, Cecil could hardly eat. He was too + excited to apply himself to anything. The day of her expected arrival he + actually got up at five o'clock to clean the house and make it look as + fine as possible for her inspection. Then he hitched up and drove fifteen + miles to get her. The train pulled out just before he reached the station, + so Nita in her box was waiting for him on the platform. He could see her + in a queer way, as one sees the purple centre of a revolving circle of + light; for, to tell the truth, with the long ride in the morning sun, and + the beating of his heart, Cecil was only about half-conscious of anything. + He wanted to yell, but he didn't. He kept himself in hand and lifted up + the sliding side of the box and called to Nita, and she came out. + </p> + <p> + But it wasn't the man who fainted, though he might have done so, being + crazy homesick as he was, and half-fed and overworked while he was yet + soft from an easy life. No, it was the dog! She looked at her master's + face, gave one cry of inexpressible joy, and fell over in a real feminine + sort of a faint, and had to be brought to like any other lady, with + camphor and water and a few drops of spirit down her throat. Then Cecil + got up on the wagon seat, and she sat beside him with her head on his arm, + and they rode home in absolute silence, each feeling too much for speech. + After they reached home, however, Cecil showed her all over the place, and + she barked out her ideas in glad sociability. + </p> + <p> + After that Cecil and Nita were inseparable. She walked beside him all day + when he was out with the cultivator, or when he was mowing or reaping. She + ate beside him at table and slept across his feet at night. Evenings when + he looked over the Graphic from home, or read the books his mother sent + him, that he might keep in touch with the world, Nita was beside him, + patient, but jealous. Then, when he threw his book or paper down and took + her on his knee and looked into her pretty eyes, or frolicked with her, + she fairly laughed with delight. + </p> + <p> + In short, she was faithful with that faith of which only a dog is capable—that + unquestioning faith to which even the most loving women never quite + attain. + </p> + <p> + However, Fate was annoyed at this perfect friendship. It didn't give her + enough to do, and Fate is a restless thing with a horrible appetite for + variety. So poor Nita died one day mysteriously, and gave her last look to + Cecil as a matter of course; and he held her paws till the last moment, as + a stanch friend should, and laid her away decently in a pine box in the + cornfield, where he could be shielded from public view if he chose to go + there now and then and sit beside her grave. + </p> + <p> + He went to bed very lonely, indeed, the first night. The shack seemed to + him to be removed endless miles from the other habitations of men. He + seemed cut off from the world, and ached to hear the cheerful little barks + which Nita had been in the habit of giving him by way of good night. Her + amiable eye with its friendly light was missing, the gay wag of her tail + was gone; all her ridiculous ways, at which he was never tired of + laughing, were things of the past. + </p> + <p> + He lay down, busy with these thoughts, yet so habituated to Nita's + presence, that when her weight rested upon his feet, as usual, he felt no + surprise. But after a moment it came to him that as she was dead the + weight he felt upon his feet could not be hers. And yet, there it was, + warm and comfortable, cuddling down in the familiar way. He actually sat + up and put his hand down to the foot of the bed to discover what was + there. But there was nothing there, save the weight. And that stayed with + him that night and many nights after. + </p> + <p> + It happened that Cecil was a fool, as men will be when they are young, and + he worked too hard, and didn't take proper care of himself; and so it came + about that he fell sick with a low fever. He struggled around for a few + days, trying to work it off, but one morning he awoke only to the + consciousness of absurd dreams. He seemed to be on the sea, sailing for + home, and the boat was tossing and pitching in a weary circle, and could + make no headway. His heart was burning with impatience, but the boat went + round and round in that endless circle till he shrieked out with agony. + </p> + <p> + The next neighbors were the Taylors, who lived two miles and a half away. + They were awakened that morning by the howling of a dog before their door. + It was a hideous sound and would give them no peace. So Charlie Taylor got + up and opened the door, discovering there an excited little collie. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Tom,” he called, “I thought Cecil's collie was dead!” + </p> + <p> + “She is,” called back Tom. + </p> + <p> + “No, she ain't neither, for here she is, shakin' like an aspin, and a + beggin' me to go with her. Come out, Tom, and see.” + </p> + <p> + It was Nita, no denying, and the men, perplexed, followed her to Cecil's + shack, where they found him babbling. + </p> + <p> + But that was the last of her. Cecil said he never felt her on his feet + again. She had performed her final service for him, he said. The neighbors + tried to laugh at the story at first, but they knew the Taylors wouldn't + take the trouble to lie, and as for Cecil, no one would have ventured to + chaff him. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE HOUSE THAT WAS NOT + </h2> + <p> + BART FLEMING took his bride out to his ranch on the plains when she was + but seventeen years old, and the two set up housekeeping in three hundred + and twenty acres of corn and rye. Off toward the west there was an + unbroken sea of tossing corn at that time of the year when the bride came + out, and as her sewing window was on the side of the house which faced the + sunset, she passed a good part of each day looking into that great + rustling mass, breathing in its succulent odors and listening to its + sibilant melody. It was her picture gallery, her opera, her spectacle, + and, being sensible,—or perhaps, being merely happy,—she made + the most of it. + </p> + <p> + When harvesting time came and the corn was cut, she had much entertainment + in discovering what lay beyond. The town was east, and it chanced that she + had never ridden west. So, when the rolling hills of this newly beholden + land lifted themselves for her contemplation, and the harvest sun, all in + an angry and sanguinary glow sank in the veiled horizon, and at noon a + scarf of golden vapor wavered up and down along the earth line, it was as + if a new world had been made for her. Sometimes, at the coming of a storm, + a whip-lash of purple cloud, full of electric agility, snapped along the + western horizon. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you'll see a lot of queer things on these here plains,” her husband + said when she spoke to him of these phenomena. “I guess what you see is + the wind.” + </p> + <p> + “The wind!” cried Flora. “You can't see the wind, Bart.” + </p> + <p> + “Now look here, Flora,” returned Bart, with benevolent emphasis, “you're a + smart one, but you don't know all I know about this here country. I've + lived here three mortal years, waitin' for you to git up out of your + mother's arms and come out to keep me company, and I know what there is to + know. Some things out here is queer—so queer folks wouldn't believe + 'em unless they saw. An' some's so pig-headed they don't believe their own + eyes. As for th' wind, if you lay down flat and squint toward th' west, + you can see it blowin' along near th' ground, like a big ribbon; an' + sometimes it's th' color of air, an' sometimes it's silver an' gold, an' + sometimes, when a storm is comin', it's purple.” + </p> + <p> + “If you got so tired looking at the wind, why didn't you marry some other + girl, Bart, instead of waiting for me?” + </p> + <p> + Flora was more interested in the first part of Bart's speech than in the + last. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, come on!” protested Bart, and he picked her up in his arms and jumped + her toward the ceiling of the low shack as if she were a little girl—but + then, to be sure, she wasn't much more. + </p> + <p> + Of all the things Flora saw when the corn was cut down, nothing interested + her so much as a low cottage, something like her own, which lay away in + the distance. She could not guess how far it might be, because distances + are deceiving out there, where the altitude is high and the air is as + clear as one of those mystic balls of glass in which the sallow mystics of + India see the moving shadows of the future. + </p> + <p> + She had not known there were neighbors so near, and she wondered for + several days about them before she ventured to say anything to Bart on the + subject. Indeed, for some reason which she did not attempt to explain to + herself, she felt shy about broaching the matter. Perhaps Bart did not + want her to know the people. The thought came to her, as naughty thoughts + will come, even to the best of persons, that some handsome young men might + be “baching” it out there by themselves, and Bart didn't wish her to make + their acquaintance. Bart had flattered her so much that she had actually + begun to think herself beautiful, though as a matter of fact she was only + a nice little girl with a lot of reddish-brown hair, and a bright pair of + reddish-brown eyes in a white face. + </p> + <p> + “Bart,” she ventured one evening, as the sun, at its fiercest, rushed + toward the great black hollow of the west, “who lives over there in that + shack?” + </p> + <p> + She turned away from the window where she had been looking at the + incarnadined disk, and she thought she saw Bart turn pale. But then, her + eyes were so blurred with the glory she had been gazing at, that she might + easily have been mistaken. + </p> + <p> + “I say, Bart, why don't you speak? If there's any one around to associate + with, I should think you'd let me have the benefit of their company. It + isn't as funny as you think, staying here alone days and days.” + </p> + <p> + “You ain't gettin' homesick, be you, sweetheart?” cried Bart, putting his + arms around her. “You ain't gettin' tired of my society, be yeh?” + </p> + <p> + It took some time to answer this question in a satisfactory manner, but at + length Flora was able to return to her original topic. + </p> + <p> + “But the shack, Bart! Who lives there, anyway?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not acquainted with 'em,” said Bart, sharply. “Ain't them biscuits + done, Flora?” + </p> + <p> + Then, of course, she grew obstinate. + </p> + <p> + “Those biscuits will never be done, Bart, till I know about that house, + and why you never spoke of it, and why nobody ever comes down the road + from there. Some one lives there I know, for in the mornings and at night + I see the smoke coming out of the chimney.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you now?” cried Bart, opening his eyes and looking at her with + unfeigned interest. “Well, do you know, sometimes I've fancied I seen that + too?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, why not,” cried Flora, in half anger. “Why shouldn't you?” + </p> + <p> + “See here, Flora, take them biscuits out an' listen to me. There ain't no + house there. Hello! I didn't know you'd go for to drop the biscuits. Wait, + I'll help you pick 'em up. By cracky, they're hot, ain't they? What you + puttin' a towel over 'em for? Well, you set down here on my knee, so. Now + you look over at that there house. You see it, don't yeh? Well, it ain't + there! No! I saw it the first week I was out here. I was jus' half dyin', + thinkin' of you an' wonderin' why you didn't write. That was the time you + was mad at me. So I rode over there one day—lookin' up company, so + t' speak—and there wa'n't no house there. I spent all one Sunday + lookin' for it. Then I spoke to Jim Geary about it. He laughed an' got a + little white about th' gills, an' he said he guessed I'd have to look a + good while before I found it. He said that there shack was an ole joke.” + </p> + <p> + “Why—what—” + </p> + <p> + “Well, this here is th' story he tol' me. He said a man an' his wife come + out here t' live an' put up that there little place. An' she was young, + you know, an' kind o' skeery, and she got lonesome. It worked on her an' + worked on her, an' one day she up an' killed the baby an' her husband an' + herself. Th' folks found 'em and buried 'em right there on their own + ground. Well, about two weeks after that, th' house was burned down. Don't + know how. Tramps, maybe. Anyhow, it burned. At least, I guess it burned!” + </p> + <p> + “You guess it burned!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, it ain't there, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “But if it burned the ashes are there.” + </p> + <p> + “All right, girlie, they're there then. Now let's have tea.” + </p> + <p> + This they proceeded to do, and were happy and cheerful all evening, but + that didn't keep Flora from rising at the first flush of dawn and stealing + out of the house. She looked away over west as she went to the barn and + there, dark and firm against the horizon, stood the little house against + the pellucid sky of morning. She got on Ginger's back—Ginger being + her own yellow broncho—and set off at a hard pace for the house. It + didn't appear to come any nearer, but the objects which had seemed to be + beside it came closer into view, and Flora pressed on, with her mind + steeled for anything. But as she approached the poplar windbreak which + stood to the north of the house, the little shack waned like a shadow + before her. It faded and dimmed before her eyes. + </p> + <p> + She slapped Ginger's flanks and kept him going, and she at last got him up + to the spot. But there was nothing there. The bunch grass grew tall and + rank and in the midst of it lay a baby's shoe. Flora thought of picking it + up, but something cold in her veins withheld her. Then she grew angry, and + set Ginger's head toward the place and tried to drive him over it. But the + yellow broncho gave one snort of fear, gathered himself in a bunch, and + then, all tense, leaping muscles, made for home as only a broncho can. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + STORY OF AN OBSTINATE CORPSE + </h2> + <p> + VIRGIL HOYT is a photographer's assistant up at St. Paul, and enjoys his + work without being consumed by it. He has been in search of the + picturesque all over the West and hundreds of miles to the north, in + Canada, and can speak three or four Indian dialects and put a canoe + through the rapids. That is to say, he is a man of adventure, and no + dreamer. He can fight well and shoot better, and swim so as to put up a + winning race with the Indian boys, and he can sit in the saddle all day + and not worry about it to-morrow. + </p> + <p> + Wherever he goes, he carries a camera. + </p> + <p> + “The world,” Hoyt is in the habit of saying to those who sit with him when + he smokes his pipe, “was created in six days to be photographed. Man—and + particularly woman—was made for the same purpose. Clouds are not + made to give moisture nor trees to cast shade. They have been created in + order to give the camera obscura something to do.” + </p> + <p> + In short, Virgil Hoyt's view of the world is whimsical, and he likes to be + bothered neither with the disagreeable nor the mysterious. That is the + reason he loathes and detests going to a house of mourning to photograph a + corpse. The bad taste of it offends him, but above all, he doesn't like + the necessity of shouldering, even for a few moments, a part of the burden + of sorrow which belongs to some one else. He dislikes sorrow, and would + willingly canoe five hundred miles up the cold Canadian rivers to get rid + of it. Nevertheless, as assistant photographer, it is often his duty to do + this very kind of thing. + </p> + <p> + Not long ago he was sent for by a rich Jewish family to photograph the + remains of the mother, who had just died. He was put out, but he was only + an assistant, and he went. He was taken to the front parlor, where the + dead woman lay in her coffin. It was evident to him that there was some + excitement in the household, and that a discussion was going on. But Hoyt + said to himself that it didn't concern him, and he therefore paid no + attention to it. + </p> + <p> + The daughter wanted the coffin turned on end in order that the corpse + might face the camera properly, but Hoyt said he could overcome the + recumbent attitude and make it appear that the face was taken in the + position it would naturally hold in life, and so they went out and left + him alone with the dead. + </p> + <p> + The face of the deceased was a strong and positive one, such as may often + be seen among Jewish matrons. Hoyt regarded it with some admiration, + thinking to himself that she was a woman who had known what she wanted, + and who, once having made up her mind, would prove immovable. Such a + character appealed to Hoyt. He reflected that he might have married if + only he could have found a woman with strength of character sufficient to + disagree with him. There was a strand of hair out of place on the dead + woman's brow, and he gently pushed it back. A bud lifted its head too high + from among the roses on her breast and spoiled the contour of the chin, so + he broke it off. He remembered these things later with keen distinctness, + and that his hand touched her chill face two or three times in the making + of his arrangements. + </p> + <p> + Then he took the impression, and left the house. + </p> + <p> + He was busy at the time with some railroad work, and several days passed + before he found opportunity to develop the plates. He took them from the + bath in which they had lain with a number of others, and went + energetically to work upon them, whistling some very saucy songs he had + learned of the guide in the Red River country, and trying to forget that + the face which was presently to appear was that of a dead woman. He had + used three plates as a precaution against accident, and they came up well. + But as they developed, he became aware of the existence of something in + the photograph which had not been apparent to his eye in the subject. He + was irritated, and without attempting to face the mystery, he made a few + prints and laid them aside, ardently hoping that by some chance they would + never be called for. + </p> + <p> + However, as luck would have it,—and Hoyt's luck never had been good,—his + employer asked one day what had become of those photographs. Hoyt tried to + evade making an answer, but the effort was futile, and he had to get out + the finished prints and exhibit them. The older man sat staring at them a + long time. + </p> + <p> + “Hoyt,” he said, “you're a young man, and very likely you have never seen + anything like this before. But I have. Not exactly the same thing, + perhaps, but similar phenomena have come my way a number of times since I + went in the business, and I want to tell you there are things in heaven + and earth not dreamt of—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I know all that tommy-rot,” cried Hoyt, angrily, “but when anything + happens I want to know the reason why and how it is done.” + </p> + <p> + “All right,” answered his employer, “then you might explain why and how + the sun rises.” + </p> + <p> + But he humored the young man sufficiently to examine with him the baths in + which the plates were submerged, and the plates themselves. All was as it + should be; but the mystery was there, and could not be done away with. + </p> + <p> + Hoyt hoped against hope that the friends of the dead woman would somehow + forget about the photographs; but the idea was unreasonable, and one day, + as a matter of course, the daughter appeared and asked to see the pictures + of her mother. + </p> + <p> + “Well, to tell the truth,” stammered Hoyt, “they didn't come out quite—quite + as well as we could wish.” + </p> + <p> + “But let me see them,” persisted the lady. “I'd like to look at them + anyhow.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, now,” said Hoyt, trying to be soothing, as he believed it was + always best to be with women,—to tell the truth he was an ignoramus + where women were concerned,—“I think it would be better if you + didn't look at them. There are reasons why—” he ambled on like this, + stupid man that he was, till the lady naturally insisted upon seeing the + pictures without a moment's delay. + </p> + <p> + So poor Hoyt brought them out and placed them in her hand, and then ran + for the water pitcher, and had to be at the bother of bathing her forehead + to keep her from fainting. + </p> + <p> + For what the lady saw was this: Over face and flowers and the head of the + coffin fell a thick veil, the edges of which touched the floor in some + places. It covered the features so well that not a hint of them was + visible. + </p> + <p> + “There was nothing over mother's face!” cried the lady at length. + </p> + <p> + “Not a thing,” acquiesced Hoyt. “I know, because I had occasion to touch + her face just before I took the picture. I put some of her hair back from + her brow.” + </p> + <p> + “What does it mean, then?” asked the lady. + </p> + <p> + “You know better than I. There is no explanation in science. Perhaps there + is some in—in psychology.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said the young woman, stammering a little and coloring, “mother + was a good woman, but she always wanted her own way, and she always had + it, too.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “And she never would have her picture taken. She didn't admire her own + appearance. She said no one should ever see a picture of her.” + </p> + <p> + “So?” said Hoyt, meditatively. “Well, she's kept her word, hasn't she?” + </p> + <p> + The two stood looking at the photographs for a time. Then Hoyt pointed to + the open blaze in the grate. + </p> + <p> + “Throw them in,” he commanded. “Don't let your father see them—don't + keep them yourself. They wouldn't be agreeable things to keep.” + </p> + <p> + “That's true enough,” admitted the lady. And she threw them in the fire. + Then Virgil Hoyt brought out the plates and broke them before her eyes. + </p> + <p> + And that was the end of it—except that Hoyt sometimes tells the + story to those who sit beside him when his pipe is lighted. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A CHILD OF THE RAIN + </h2> + <p> + IT was the night that Mona Meeks, the dressmaker, told him she didn't love + him. He couldn't believe it at first, because he had so long been + accustomed to the idea that she did, and no matter how rough the weather + or how irascible the passengers, he felt a song in his heart as he punched + transfers, and rang his bell punch, and signalled the driver when to let + people off and on. + </p> + <p> + Now, suddenly, with no reason except a woman's, she had changed her mind. + He dropped in to see her at five o'clock, just before time for the night + shift, and to give her two red apples he had been saving for her. She + looked at the apples as if they were invisible and she could not see them, + and standing in her disorderly little dressmaking parlor, with its + cuttings and scraps and litter of fabrics, she said: + </p> + <p> + “It is no use, John. I shall have to work here like this all my life—work + here alone. For I don't love you, John. No, I don't. I thought I did, but + it is a mistake.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean it?” asked John, bringing up the words in a great gasp. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said, white and trembling and putting out her hands as if to + beg for his mercy. And then—big, lumbering fool—he turned + around and strode down the stairs and stood at the corner in the beating + rain waiting for his car. It came along at length, spluttering on the wet + rails and spitting out blue fire, and he took his shift after a gruff + “Good night” to Johnson, the man he relieved. + </p> + <p> + He was glad the rain was bitter cold and drove in his face fiercely. He + rejoiced at the cruelty of the wind, and when it hustled pedestrians + before it, lashing them, twisting their clothes, and threatening their + equilibrium, he felt amused. He was pleased at the chill in his bones and + at the hunger that tortured him. At least, at first he thought it was + hunger till he remembered that he had just eaten. The hours passed + confusedly. He had no consciousness of time. But it must have been late,—near + midnight,—judging by the fact that there were few persons visible + anywhere in the black storm, when he noticed a little figure sitting at + the far end of the car. He had not seen the child when she got on, but all + was so curious and wild to him that evening—he himself seemed to + himself the most curious and the wildest of all things—that it was + not surprising that he should not have observed the little creature. + </p> + <p> + She was wrapped in a coat so much too large that it had become frayed at + the bottom from dragging on the pavement. Her hair hung in unkempt + stringiness about her bent shoulders, and her feet were covered with old + arctics, many sizes too big, from which the soles hung loose. + </p> + <p> + Beside the little figure was a chest of dark wood, with curiously wrought + hasps. From this depended a stout strap by which it could be carried over + the shoulders. John Billings stared in, fascinated by the poor little + thing with its head sadly drooping upon its breast, its thin blue hands + relaxed upon its lap, and its whole attitude so suggestive of hunger, + loneliness, and fatigue, that he made up his mind he would collect no fare + from it. + </p> + <p> + “It will need its nickel for breakfast,” he said to himself. “The company + can stand this for once. Or, come to think of it, I might celebrate my + hard luck. Here's to the brotherhood of failures!” And he took a nickel + from one pocket of his great-coat and dropped it in another, ringing his + bell punch to record the transfer. + </p> + <p> + The car plunged along in the darkness, and the rain beat more viciously + than ever in his face. The night was full of the rushing sound of the + storm. Owing to some change of temperature the glass of the car became + obscured so that the young conductor could no longer see the little figure + distinctly, and he grew anxious about the child. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if it's all right,” he said to himself. “I never saw living + creature sit so still.” + </p> + <p> + He opened the car door, intending to speak with the child, but just then + something went wrong with the lights. There was a blue and green + flickering, then darkness, a sudden halting of the car, and a great sweep + of wind and rain in at the door. When, after a moment, light and motion + reasserted themselves, and Billings had got the door together, he turned + to look at the little passenger. But the car was empty. + </p> + <p> + It was a fact. There was no child there—not even moisture on the + seat where she had been sitting. + </p> + <p> + “Bill,” said he, going to the front door and addressing the driver, “what + became of that little kid in the old cloak?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't see no kid,” said Bill, crossly. “For Gawd's sake, close the + door, John, and git that draught off my back.” + </p> + <p> + “Draught!” said John, indignantly, “where's the draught?” + </p> + <p> + “You've left the hind door open,” growled Bill, and John saw him shivering + as a blast struck him and ruffled the fur on his bear-skin coat. But the + door was not open, and yet John had to admit to himself that the car + seemed filled with wind and a strange coldness. + </p> + <p> + However, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered! Still, it was as well no + doubt to look under the seats just to make sure no little crouching figure + was there, and so he did. But there was nothing. In fact, John said to + himself, he seemed to be getting expert in finding nothing where there + ought to be something. + </p> + <p> + He might have stayed in the car, for there was no likelihood of more + passengers that evening, but somehow he preferred going out where the rain + could drench him and the wind pommel him. How horribly tired he was! If + there were only some still place away from the blare of the city where a + man could lie down and listen to the sound of the sea or the storm—or + if one could grow suddenly old and get through with the bother of living—or + if— + </p> + <p> + The car gave a sudden lurch as it rounded a curve, and for a moment it + seemed to be a mere chance whether Conductor Billings would stay on his + platform or go off under those fire-spitting wheels. He caught + instinctively at his brake, saved himself, and stood still for a moment, + panting. + </p> + <p> + “I must have dozed,” he said to himself. + </p> + <p> + Just then, dimly, through the blurred window, he saw again the little + figure of the child, its head on its breast as before, its blue hands + lying in its lap and the curious box beside it. John Billings felt a + coldness beyond the coldness of the night run through his blood. Then, + with a half-stifled cry, he threw back the door, and made a desperate + spring at the corner where the eerie thing sat. + </p> + <p> + And he touched the green carpeting on the seat, which was quite dry and + warm, as if no dripping, miserable little wretch had ever crouched there. + </p> + <p> + He rushed to the front door. + </p> + <p> + “Bill,” he roared, “I want to know about that kid.” + </p> + <p> + “What kid?” + </p> + <p> + “The same kid! The wet one with the old coat and the box with iron hasps! + The one that's been sitting here in the car!” + </p> + <p> + Bill turned his surly face to confront the young conductor. + </p> + <p> + “You've been drinking, you fool,” said he. “Fust thing you know you'll be + reported.” + </p> + <p> + The conductor said not a word. He went slowly and weakly back to his post + and stood there the rest of the way leaning against the end of the car for + support. Once or twice he muttered: + </p> + <p> + “The poor little brat!” And again he said, “So you didn't love me after + all!” + </p> + <p> + He never knew how he reached home, but he sank to sleep as dying men sink + to death. All the same, being a hearty young man, he was on duty again + next day but one, and again the night was rainy and cold. + </p> + <p> + It was the last run, and the car was spinning along at its limit, when + there came a sudden soft shock. John Billings knew what that meant. He had + felt something of the kind once before. He turned sick for a moment, and + held on to the brake. Then he summoned his courage and went around to the + side of the car, which had stopped. Bill, the driver, was before him, and + had a limp little figure in his arms, and was carrying it to the gaslight. + John gave one look and cried: + </p> + <p> + “It's the same kid, Bill! The one I told you of!” + </p> + <p> + True as truth were the ragged coat dangling from the pitiful body, the + little blue hands, the thin shoulders, the stringy hair, the big arctics + on the feet. And in the road not far off was the curious chest of dark + wood with iron hasps. + </p> + <p> + “She ran under the car deliberate!” cried Bill. “I yelled to her, but she + looked at me and ran straight on!” + </p> + <p> + He was white in spite of his weather-beaten skin. + </p> + <p> + “I guess you wasn't drunk last night after all, John,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “You—you are sure the kid is—is there?” gasped John. + </p> + <p> + “Not so damned sure!” said Bill. + </p> + <p> + But a few minutes later it was taken away in a patrol wagon, and with it + the little box with iron hasps. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE ROOM OF THE EVIL THOUGHT + </h2> + <p> + THEY called it the room of the Evil Thought. It was really the pleasantest + room in the house, and when the place had been used as the rectory, was + the minister's study. It looked out on a mournful clump of larches, such + as may often be seen in the old-fashioned yards in Michigan, and these + threw a tender gloom over the apartment. + </p> + <p> + There was a wide fireplace in the room, and it had been the young + minister's habit to sit there hours and hours, staring ahead of him at the + fire, and smoking moodily. The replenishing of the fire and of his pipe, + it was said, would afford him occupation all the day long, and that was + how it came about that his parochial duties were neglected so that, little + by little, the people became dissatisfied with him, though he was an + eloquent young man, who could send his congregation away drunk on his + influence. However, the calmer pulsed among his parish began to whisper + that it was indeed the influence of the young minister and not that of the + Holy Ghost which they felt, and it was finally decided that neither animal + magnetism nor hypnotism were good substitutes for religion. And so they + let him go. + </p> + <p> + The new rector moved into a smart brick house on the other side of the + church, and gave receptions and dinner parties, and was punctilious about + making his calls. The people therefore liked him very much—so much + that they raised the debt on the church and bought a chime of bells, in + their enthusiasm. Every one was lighter of heart than under the + ministration of the previous rector. A burden appeared to be lifted from + the community. True, there were a few who confessed the new man did not + give them the food for thought which the old one had done, but, then, the + former rector had made them uncomfortable! He had not only made them + conscious of the sins of which they were already guilty, but also of those + for which they had the latent capacity. A strange and fatal man, whom + women loved to their sorrow, and whom simple men could not understand! It + was generally agreed that the parish was well rid of him. + </p> + <p> + “He was a genius,” said the people in commiseration. The word was an + uncomplimentary epithet with them. + </p> + <p> + When the Hanscoms moved in the house which had been the old rectory, they + gave Grandma Hanscom the room with the fireplace. Grandma was well + pleased. The roaring fire warmed her heart as well as her chill old body, + and she wept with weak joy when she looked at the larches, because they + reminded her of the house she had lived in when she was first married. All + the forenoon of the first day she was busy putting things away in bureau + drawers and closets, but by afternoon she was ready to sit down in her + high-backed rocker and enjoy the comforts of her room. + </p> + <p> + She nodded a bit before the fire, as she usually did after luncheon, and + then she awoke with an awful start and sat staring before her with such a + look in her gentle, filmy old eyes as had never been there before. She did + not move, except to rock slightly, and the Thought grew and grew till her + face was disguised as by some hideous mask of tragedy. + </p> + <p> + By and by the children came pounding at the door. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, grandma, let us in, please. We want to see your new room, and mamma + gave us some ginger cookies on a plate, and we want to give some to you.” + </p> + <p> + The door gave way under their assaults, and the three little ones stood + peeping in, waiting for permission to enter. But it did not seem to be + their grandma—their own dear grandma—who arose and tottered + toward them in fierce haste, crying: + </p> + <p> + “Away, away! Out of my sight! Out of my sight before I do the thing I want + to do! Such a terrible thing! Send some one to me quick, children, + children! Send some one quick!” + </p> + <p> + They fled with feet shod with fear, and their mother came, and Grandma + Hanscom sank down and clung about her skirts and sobbed: + </p> + <p> + “Tie me, Miranda. Make me fast to the bed or the wall. Get some one to + watch me. For I want to do an awful thing!” + </p> + <p> + They put the trembling old creature in bed, and she raved there all the + night long and cried out to be held, and to be kept from doing the fearful + thing, whatever it was—for she never said what it was. + </p> + <p> + The next morning some one suggested taking her in the sitting-room where + she would be with the family. So they laid her on the sofa, hemmed around + with cushions, and before long she was her quiet self again, though + exhausted, naturally, with the tumult of the previous night. Now and then, + as the children played about her, a shadow crept over her face—a + shadow as of cold remembrance—and then the perplexed tears followed. + </p> + <p> + When she seemed as well as ever they put her back in her room. But though + the fire glowed and the lamp burned, as soon as ever she was alone they + heard her shrill cries ringing to them that the Evil Thought had come + again. So Hal, who was home from college, carried her up to his room, + which she seemed to like very well. Then he went down to have a smoke + before grandma's fire. + </p> + <p> + The next morning he was absent from breakfast. They thought he might have + gone for an early walk, and waited for him a few minutes. Then his sister + went to the room that looked upon the larches, and found him dressed and + pacing the floor with a face set and stern. He had not been in bed at all, + as she saw at once. His eyes were bloodshot, his face stricken as if with + old age or sin or—but she could not make it out. When he saw her he + sank in a chair and covered his face with his hands, and between the + trembling fingers she could see drops of perspiration on his forehead. + </p> + <p> + “Hal!” she cried, “Hal, what is it?” + </p> + <p> + But for answer he threw his arms about the little table and clung to it, + and looked at her with tortured eyes, in which she fancied she saw a gleam + of hate. She ran, screaming, from the room, and her father came and went + up to him and laid his hands on the boy's shoulders. And then a fearful + thing happened. All the family saw it. There could be no mistake. Hal's + hands found their way with frantic eagerness toward his father's throat as + if they would choke him, and the look in his eyes was so like a madman's + that his father raised his fist and felled him as he used to fell men + years before in the college fights, and then dragged him into the + sitting-room and wept over him. + </p> + <p> + By evening, however, Hal was all right, and the family said it must have + been a fever,—perhaps from overstudy,—at which Hal covertly + smiled. But his father was still too anxious about him to let him out of + his sight, so he put him on a cot in his room, and thus it chanced that + the mother and Grace concluded to sleep together downstairs. + </p> + <p> + The two women made a sort of festival of it, and drank little cups of + chocolate before the fire, and undid and brushed their brown braids, and + smiled at each other, understandingly, with that sweet intuitive sympathy + which women have, and Grace told her mother a number of things which she + had been waiting for just such an auspicious occasion to confide. + </p> + <p> + But the larches were noisy and cried out with wild voices, and the flame + of the fire grew blue and swirled about in the draught sinuously, so that + a chill crept upon the two. Something cold appeared to envelop them—such + a chill as pleasure voyagers feel when a berg steals beyond Newfoundland + and glows blue and threatening upon their ocean path. + </p> + <p> + Then came something else which was not cold, but hot as the flames of hell—and + they saw red, and stared at each other with maddened eyes, and then ran + together from the room and clasped in close embrace safe beyond the fatal + place, and thanked God they had not done the thing that they dared not + speak of—the thing which suddenly came to them to do. + </p> + <p> + So they called it the room of the Evil Thought. They could not account for + it. They avoided the thought of it, being healthy and happy folk. But none + entered it more. The door was locked. + </p> + <p> + One day, Hal, reading the paper, came across a paragraph concerning the + young minister who had once lived there, and who had thought and written + there and so influenced the lives of those about him that they remembered + him even while they disapproved. + </p> + <p> + “He cut a man's throat on board ship for Australia,” said he, “and then he + cut his own, without fatal effect—and jumped overboard, and so ended + it. What a strange thing!” + </p> + <p> + Then they all looked at one another with subtle looks, and a shadow fell + upon them and stayed the blood at their hearts. + </p> + <p> + The next week the room of the Evil Thought was pulled down to make way for + a pansy bed, which is quite gay and innocent, and blooms all the better + because the larches, with their eternal murmuring, have been laid low and + carted away to the sawmill. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + STORY OF THE VANISHING PATIENT + </h2> + <p> + THERE had always been strange stories about the house, but it was a + sensible, comfortable sort of a neighborhood, and people took pains to say + to one another that there was nothing in these tales—of course not! + Absolutely nothing! How could there be? It was a matter of common remark, + however, that considering the amount of money the Nethertons had spent on + the place, it was curious they lived there so little. They were nearly + always away,—up North in the summer and down South in the winter, + and over to Paris or London now and then,—and when they did come + home it was only to entertain a number of guests from the city. The place + was either plunged in gloom or gayety. The old gardener who kept house by + himself in the cottage at the back of the yard had things much his own way + by far the greater part of the time. + </p> + <p> + Dr. Block and his wife lived next door to the Nethertons, and he and his + wife, who were so absurd as to be very happy in each other's company, had + the benefit of the beautiful yard. They walked there mornings when the + leaves were silvered with dew, and evenings they sat beside the lily pond + and listened for the whip-poor-will. The doctor's wife moved her room over + to that side of the house which commanded a view of the yard, and thus + made the honeysuckles and laurel and clematis and all the masses of + tossing greenery her own. Sitting there day after day with her sewing, she + speculated about the mystery which hung impalpably yet undeniably over the + house. + </p> + <p> + It happened one night when she and her husband had gone to their room, and + were congratulating themselves on the fact that he had no very sick + patients and was likely to enjoy a good night's rest, that a ring came at + the door. + </p> + <p> + “If it's any one wanting you to leave home,” warned his wife, “you must + tell them you are all worn out. You've been disturbed every night this + week, and it's too much!” + </p> + <p> + The young physician went downstairs. At the door stood a man whom he had + never seen before. + </p> + <p> + “My wife is lying very ill next door,” said the stranger, “so ill that I + fear she will not live till morning. Will you please come to her at once?” + </p> + <p> + “Next door?” cried the physician. “I didn't know the Nethertons were + home!” + </p> + <p> + “Please hasten,” begged the man. “I must go back to her. Follow as quickly + as you can.” + </p> + <p> + The doctor went back upstairs to complete his toilet. + </p> + <p> + “How absurd,” protested his wife when she heard the story. “There is no + one at the Nethertons'. I sit where I can see the front door, and no one + can enter without my knowing it, and I have been sewing by the window all + day. If there were any one in the house, the gardener would have the porch + lantern lighted. It is some plot. Some one has designs on you. You must + not go.” + </p> + <p> + But he went. As he left the room his wife placed a revolver in his pocket. + </p> + <p> + The great porch of the mansion was dark, but the physician made out that + the door was open, and he entered. A feeble light came from the bronze + lamp at the turn of the stairs, and by it he found his way, his feet + sinking noiselessly in the rich carpets. At the head of the stairs the man + met him. The doctor thought himself a tall man, but the stranger topped + him by half a head. He motioned the physician to follow him, and the two + went down the hall to the front room. The place was flushed with a + rose-colored glow from several lamps. On a silken couch, in the midst of + pillows, lay a woman dying with consumption. She was like a lily, white, + shapely, graceful, with feeble yet charming movements. She looked at the + doctor appealingly, then, seeing in his eyes the involuntary verdict that + her hour was at hand, she turned toward her companion with a glance of + anguish. Dr. Block asked a few questions. The man answered them, the woman + remaining silent. The physician administered something stimulating, and + then wrote a prescription which he placed on the mantel-shelf. + </p> + <p> + “The drug store is closed to-night,” he said, “and I fear the druggist has + gone home. You can have the prescription filled the first thing in the + morning, and I will be over before breakfast.” + </p> + <p> + After that, there was no reason why he should not have gone home. Yet, + oddly enough, he preferred to stay. Nor was it professional anxiety that + prompted this delay. He longed to watch those mysterious persons, who, + almost oblivious of his presence, were speaking their mortal farewells in + their glances, which were impassioned and of unutterable sadness. + </p> + <p> + He sat as if fascinated. He watched the glitter of rings on the woman's + long, white hands, he noted the waving of light hair about her temples, he + observed the details of her gown of soft white silk which fell about her + in voluminous folds. Now and then the man gave her of the stimulant which + the doctor had provided; sometimes he bathed her face with water. Once he + paced the floor for a moment till a motion of her hand quieted him. + </p> + <p> + After a time, feeling that it would be more sensible and considerate of + him to leave, the doctor made his way home. His wife was awake, impatient + to hear of his experiences. She listened to his tale in silence, and when + he had finished she turned her face to the wall and made no comment. + </p> + <p> + “You seem to be ill, my dear,” he said. “You have a chill. You are + shivering.” + </p> + <p> + “I have no chill,” she replied sharply. “But I—well, you may leave + the light burning.” + </p> + <p> + The next morning before breakfast the doctor crossed the dewy sward to the + Netherton house. The front door was locked, and no one answered to his + repeated ringings. The old gardener chanced to be cutting the grass near + at hand, and he came running up. + </p> + <p> + “What you ringin' that door-bell for, doctor?” said he. “The folks ain't + come home yet. There ain't nobody there.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, there is, Jim. I was called here last night. A man came for me to + attend his wife. They must both have fallen asleep that the bell is not + answered. I wouldn't be surprised to find her dead, as a matter of fact. + She was a desperately sick woman. Perhaps she is dead and something has + happened to him. You have the key to the door, Jim. Let me in.” + </p> + <p> + But the old man was shaking in every limb, and refused to do as he was + bid. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you never go in there, doctor,” whispered he, with chattering + teeth. “Don't you go for to 'tend no one. You jus' come tell me when you + sent for that way. No, I ain't goin' in, doctor, nohow. It ain't part of + my duties to go in. That's been stipulated by Mr. Netherton. It's my + business to look after the garden.” + </p> + <p> + Argument was useless. Dr. Block took the bunch of keys from the old man's + pocket and himself unlocked the front door and entered. He mounted the + steps and made his way to the upper room. There was no evidence of + occupancy. The place was silent, and, so far as living creature went, + vacant. The dust lay over everything. It covered the delicate damask of + the sofa where he had seen the dying woman. It rested on the pillows. The + place smelled musty and evil, as if it had not been used for a long time. + The lamps of the room held not a drop of oil. + </p> + <p> + But on the mantel-shelf was the prescription which the doctor had written + the night before. He read it, folded it, and put it in his pocket. + </p> + <p> + As he locked the outside door the old gardener came running to him. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you never go up there again, will you?” he pleaded, “not unless you + see all the Nethertons home and I come for you myself. You won't, doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said the doctor. + </p> + <p> + When he told his wife she kissed him, and said: + </p> + <p> + “Next time when I tell you to stay at home, you must stay!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE PIANO NEXT DOOR + </h2> + <p> + BABETTE had gone away for the summer; the furniture was in its summer + linens; the curtains were down, and Babette's husband, John Boyce, was + alone in the house. It was the first year of his marriage, and he missed + Babette. But then, as he often said to himself, he ought never to have + married her. He did it from pure selfishness, and because he was + determined to possess the most illusive, tantalizing, elegant, and utterly + unmoral little creature that the sun shone upon. He wanted her because she + reminded him of birds, and flowers, and summer winds, and other exquisite + things created for the delectation of mankind. He neither expected nor + desired her to think. He had half-frightened her into marrying him, had + taken her to a poor man's home, provided her with no society such as she + had been accustomed to, and he had no reasonable cause of complaint when + she answered the call of summer and flitted away, like a butterfly in the + morning sunshine, to the place where the flowers grew. + </p> + <p> + He wrote to her every evening, sitting in the stifling, ugly house, and + poured out his soul as if it were a libation to a goddess. She sometimes + answered by telegraph, sometimes by a perfumed note. He schooled himself + not to feel hurt. Why should Babette write? Does a goldfinch indict + epistles; or a humming-bird study composition; or a glancing, red-scaled + fish in summer shallows consider the meaning of words? + </p> + <p> + He knew at the beginning what Babette was—guessed her limitations—trembled + when he buttoned her tiny glove—kissed her dainty slipper when he + found it in the closet after she was gone—thrilled at the sound of + her laugh, or the memory of it! That was all. A mere case of love. He was + in bonds. Babette was not. Therefore he was in the city, working overhours + to pay for Babette's pretty follies down at the seaside. It was quite + right and proper. He was a grub in the furrow; she a lark in the blue. + Those had always been and always must be their relative positions. + </p> + <p> + Having attained a mood of philosophic calm, in which he was prepared to + spend his evenings alone—as became a grub—and to await with + dignified patience the return of his wife, it was in the nature of an + inconsistency that he should have walked the floor of the dull little + drawing-room like a lion in cage. It did not seem in keeping with the + position of superior serenity which he had assumed, that, reading + Babette's notes, he should have raged with jealousy, or that, in the + loneliness of his unkempt chamber, he should have stretched out arms of + longing. Even if Babette had been present, she would only have smiled her + gay little smile and coquetted with him. She could not understand. He had + known, of course, from the first moment, that she could not understand! + And so, why the ache, ache, ache of the heart! Or WAS it the heart, or the + brain, or the soul? + </p> + <p> + Sometimes, when the evenings were so hot that he could not endure the + close air of the house, he sat on the narrow, dusty front porch and looked + about him at his neighbors. The street had once been smart and aspiring, + but it had fallen into decay and dejection. Pale young men, with + flurried-looking wives, seemed to Boyce to occupy most of the houses. + Sometimes three or four couples would live in one house. Most of these + appeared to be childless. The women made a pretence at fashionable + dressing, and wore their hair elaborately in fashions which somehow + suggested boarding-houses to Boyce, though he could not have told why. + Every house in the block needed fresh paint. Lacking this renovation, the + householders tried to make up for it by a display of lace curtains which, + at every window, swayed in the smoke-weighted breeze. Strips of carpeting + were laid down the front steps of the houses where the communities of + young couples lived, and here, evenings, the inmates of the houses + gathered, committing mild extravagances such as the treating of each other + to ginger ale, or beer, or ice-cream. + </p> + <p> + Boyce watched these tawdry makeshifts at sociability with bitterness and + loathing. He wondered how he could have been such a fool as to bring his + exquisite Babette to this neighborhood. How could he expect that she would + return to him? It was not reasonable. He ought to go down on his knees + with gratitude that she even condescended to write him. + </p> + <p> + Sitting one night till late,—so late that the fashionable young + wives with their husbands had retired from the strips of stair carpeting,—and + raging at the loneliness which ate at his heart like a cancer, he heard, + softly creeping through the windows of the house adjoining his own, the + sound of comfortable melody. + </p> + <p> + It breathed upon his ear like a spirit of consolation, speaking of peace, + of love which needs no reward save its own sweetness, of aspiration which + looks forever beyond the thing of the hour to find attainment in that + which is eternal. So insidiously did it whisper these things, so + delicately did the simple and perfect melodies creep upon the spirit—that + Boyce felt no resentment, but from the first listened as one who listens + to learn, or as one who, fainting on the hot road, hears, far in the ferny + deeps below, the gurgle of a spring. + </p> + <p> + Then came harmonies more intricate: fair fabrics of woven sound, in the + midst of which gleamed golden threads of joy; a tapestry of sound, + multi-tinted, gallant with story and achievement, and beautiful things. + Boyce, sitting on his absurd piazza, with his knees jambed against the + balustrade, and his chair back against the dun-colored wall of his house, + seemed to be walking in the cathedral of the redwood forest, with blue + above him, a vast hymn in his ears, pungent perfume in his nostrils, and + mighty shafts of trees lifting themselves to heaven, proud and erect as + pure men before their Judge. He stood on a mountain at sunrise, and saw + the marvels of the amethystine clouds below his feet, heard an eternal and + white silence, such as broods among the everlasting snows, and saw an + eagle winging for the sun. He was in a city, and away from him, diverging + like the spokes of a wheel, ran thronging streets, and to his sense came + the beat, beat, beat of the city's heart. He saw the golden alchemy of a + chosen race; saw greed transmitted to progress; saw that which had + enslaved men, work at last to their liberation; heard the roar of mighty + mills, and on the streets all the peoples of earth walking with common + purpose, in fealty and understanding. And then, from the swelling of this + concourse of great sounds, came a diminuendo, calm as philosophy, and from + that, nothingness. + </p> + <p> + Boyce sat still for a long time, listening to the echoes which this music + had awakened in his soul. He retired, at length, content, but determined + that upon the morrow he would watch—the day being Sunday—for + the musician who had so moved and taught him. + </p> + <p> + He arose early, therefore, and having prepared his own simple breakfast of + fruit and coffee, took his station by the window to watch for the man. For + he felt convinced that the exposition he had heard was that of a masculine + mind. The long, hot hours of the morning went by, but the front door of + the house next to his did not open. + </p> + <p> + “These artists sleep late,” he complained. Still he watched. He was too + much afraid of losing him to go out for dinner. By three in the afternoon + he had grown impatient. He went to the house next door and rang the bell. + There was no response. He thundered another appeal. An old woman with a + cloth about her head answered the door. She was very deaf, and Boyce had + difficulty in making himself understood. + </p> + <p> + “The family is in the country,” was all she would say. “The family will + not be home till September.” + </p> + <p> + “But there is some one living here?” shouted Boyce. + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> live here,” she said with dignity, putting back a wisp of dirty + gray hair behind her ear. “It is my house. I sublet to the family.” + </p> + <p> + “What family?” + </p> + <p> + But the old creature was not communicative. + </p> + <p> + “The family that lives here,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Then who plays the piano in this house?” roared Boyce. “Do you?” + </p> + <p> + He thought a shade of pallor showed itself on her ash-colored cheeks. Yet + she smiled a little at the idea of her playing. + </p> + <p> + “There is no piano,” she said, and she put an enigmatical emphasis to the + words. + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense,” cried Boyce, indignantly. “I heard a piano being played in + this very house for hours last night!” + </p> + <p> + “You may enter,” said the old woman, with an accent more vicious than + hospitable. + </p> + <p> + Boyce almost burst into the drawing-room. It was a dusty and forbidding + place, with ugly furniture and gaudy walls. No piano nor any other musical + instrument stood in it. The intruder turned an angry and baffled face to + the old woman, who was smiling with ill-concealed exultation. + </p> + <p> + “I shall see the other rooms,” he announced. The old woman did not appear + to be surprised at his impertinence. + </p> + <p> + “As you please,” she said. + </p> + <p> + So, with the hobbling creature, with her bandaged head, for a guide, he + explored every room of the house, which being identical with his own, he + could do without fear of leaving any apartment unentered. But no piano did + he find! + </p> + <p> + “Explain,” roared Boyce at length, turning upon the leering old hag beside + him. “Explain! For surely I heard music more beautiful than I can tell.” + </p> + <p> + “I know nothing,” she said. “But it is true I once had a lodger who rented + the front room, and that he played upon the piano. I am poor at hearing, + but he must have played well, for all the neighbors used to come in front + of the house to listen, and sometimes they applauded him, and sometimes + they were still. I could tell by watching their hands. Sometimes little + children came and danced. Other times young men and women came and + listened. But the young man died. The neighbors were angry. They came to + look at him and said he had starved to death. It was no fault of mine. I + sold his piano to pay his funeral expenses—and it took every cent to + pay for them too, I'd have you know. But since then, sometimes—still, + it must be nonsense, for I never heard it—folks say that he plays + the piano in my room. It has kept me out of the letting of it more than + once. But the family doesn't seem to mind—the family that lives + here, you know. They will be back in September. Yes.” + </p> + <p> + Boyce left her nodding her thanks at what he had placed in her hand, and + went home to write it all to Babette—Babette who would laugh so + merrily when she read it! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AN ASTRAL ONION + </h2> + <p> + WHEN Tig Braddock came to Nora Finnegan he was red-headed and freckled, + and, truth to tell, he remained with these features to the end of his life—a + life prolonged by a lucky, if somewhat improbable, incident, as you shall + hear. + </p> + <p> + Tig had shuffled off his parents as saurians, of some sorts, do their + skins. During the temporary absence from home of his mother, who was at + the bridewell, and the more extended vacation of his father, who, like + Villon, loved the open road and the life of it, Tig, who was not a + well-domesticated animal, wandered away. The humane society never heard of + him, the neighbors did not miss him, and the law took no cognizance of + this detached citizen—this lost pleiad. Tig would have sunk into + that melancholy which is attendant upon hunger,—the only form of + despair which babyhood knows,—if he had not wandered across the path + of Nora Finnegan. Now Nora shone with steady brightness in her orbit, and + no sooner had Tig entered her atmosphere, than he was warmed and + comforted. Hunger could not live where Nora was. The basement room where + she kept house was redolent with savory smells; and in the stove in her + front room—which was also her bedroom—there was a bright fire + glowing when fire was needed. + </p> + <p> + Nora went out washing for a living. But she was not a poor washerwoman. + Not at all. She was a washerwoman triumphant. She had perfect health, an + enormous frame, an abounding enthusiasm for life, and a rich abundance of + professional pride. She believed herself to be the best washer of white + clothes she had ever had the pleasure of knowing, and the value placed + upon her services, and her long connection with certain families with + large weekly washings, bore out this estimate of herself—an estimate + which she never endeavored to conceal. + </p> + <p> + Nora had buried two husbands without being unduly depressed by the fact. + The first husband had been a disappointment, and Nora winked at Providence + when an accident in a tunnel carried him off—that is to say, carried + the husband off. The second husband was not so much of a disappointment as + a surprise. He developed ability of a literary order, and wrote songs + which sold and made him a small fortune. Then he ran away with another + woman. The woman spent his fortune, drove him to dissipation, and when he + was dying he came back to Nora, who received him cordially, attended him + to the end, and cheered his last hours by singing his own songs to him. + Then she raised a headstone recounting his virtues, which were quite + numerous, and refraining from any reference to those peculiarities which + had caused him to be such a surprise. + </p> + <p> + Only one actual chagrin had ever nibbled at the sound heart of Nora + Finnegan—a cruel chagrin, with long, white teeth, such as rodents + have! She had never held a child to her breast, nor laughed in its eyes; + never bathed the pink form of a little son or daughter; never felt a + tugging of tiny hands at her voluminous calico skirts! Nora had burnt many + candles before the statue of the blessed Virgin without remedying this + deplorable condition. She had sent up unavailing prayers—she had, at + times, wept hot tears of longing and loneliness. Sometimes in her sleep + she dreamed that a wee form, warm and exquisitely soft, was pressed + against her firm body, and that a hand with tiniest pink nails crept + within her bosom. But as she reached out to snatch this delicious little + creature closer, she woke to realize a barren woman's grief, and turned + herself in anguish on her lonely pillow. + </p> + <p> + So when Tig came along, accompanied by two curs, who had faithfully + followed him from his home, and when she learned the details of his story, + she took him in, curs and all, and, having bathed the three of them, made + them part and parcel of her home. This was after the demise of the second + husband, and at a time when Nora felt that she had done all a woman could + be expected to do for Hymen. + </p> + <p> + Tig was a preposterous baby. The curs were preposterous curs. Nora had + always been afflicted with a surplus amount of laughter—laughter + which had difficulty in attaching itself to anything, owing to the lack of + the really comic in the surroundings of the poor. But with a red-headed + and freckled baby boy and two trick dogs in the house, she found a good + and sufficient excuse for her hilarity, and would have torn the cave where + echo lies with her mirth, had that cave not been at such an immeasurable + distance from the crowded neighborhood where she lived. + </p> + <p> + At the age of four Tig went to free kindergarten; at the age of six he was + in school, and made three grades the first year and two the next. At + fifteen he was graduated from the high school and went to work as errand + boy in a newspaper office, with the fixed determination to make a + journalist of himself. + </p> + <p> + Nora was a trifle worried about his morals when she discovered his + intellect, but as time went on, and Tig showed no devotion for any woman + save herself, and no consciousness that there were such things as bad boys + or saloons in the world, she began to have confidence. All of his earnings + were brought to her. Every holiday was spent with her. He told her his + secrets and his aspirations. He admitted that he expected to become a + great man, and, though he had not quite decided upon the nature of his + career,—saving, of course, the makeshift of journalism,—it was + not unlikely that he would elect to be a novelist like—well, + probably like Thackeray. + </p> + <p> + Hope, always a charming creature, put on her most alluring smiles for Tig, + and he made her his mistress, and feasted on the light of her eyes. + Moreover, he was chaperoned, so to speak, by Nora Finnegan, who listened + to every line Tig wrote, and made a mighty applause, and filled him up + with good Irish stew, many colored as the coat of Joseph, and pungent with + the inimitable perfume of “the rose of the cellar.” Nora Finnegan + understood the onion, and used it lovingly. She perceived the difference + between the use and abuse of this pleasant and obvious friend of hungry + man, and employed it with enthusiasm, but discretion. Thus it came about + that whoever ate of her dinners, found the meals of other cooks strangely + lacking in savor, and remembered with regret the soups and stews, the + broiled steaks, and stuffed chickens of the woman who appreciated the + onion. + </p> + <p> + When Nora Finnegan came home with a cold one day, she took it in such a + jocular fashion that Tig felt not the least concern about her, and when, + two days later, she died of pneumonia, he almost thought, at first, that + it must be one of her jokes. She had departed with decision, such as had + characterized every act of her life, and had made as little trouble for + others as possible. When she was dead the community had the opportunity of + discovering the number of her friends. Miserable children with faces which + revealed two generations of hunger, homeless boys with vicious + countenances, miserable wrecks of humanity, women with bloated faces, came + to weep over Nora's bier, and to lay a flower there, and to scuttle away, + more abjectly lonely than even sin could make them. If the cats and the + dogs, the sparrows and horses to which she had shown kindness, could also + have attended her funeral, the procession would have been, from a point of + numbers, one of the most imposing the city had ever known. Tig used up all + their savings to bury her, and the next week, by some peculiar fatality, + he had a falling out with the night editor of his paper, and was + discharged. This sank deep into his sensitive soul, and he swore he would + be an underling no longer—which foolish resolution was directly + traceable to his hair, the color of which, it will be recollected, was + red. + </p> + <p> + Not being an underling, he was obliged to make himself into something + else, and he recurred passionately to his old idea of becoming a novelist. + He settled down in Nora's basement rooms, went to work on a battered + type-writer, did his own cooking, and occasionally pawned something to + keep him in food. The environment was calculated to further impress him + with the idea of his genius. + </p> + <p> + A certain magazine offered an alluring prize for a short story, and Tig + wrote one, and rewrote it, making alterations, revisions, annotations, and + interlineations which would have reflected credit upon Honoré; Balzac + himself. Then he wrought all together, with splendid brevity and dramatic + force,—Tig's own words,—and mailed the same. He was convinced + he would get the prize. He was just as much convinced of it as Nora + Finnegan would have been if she had been with him. + </p> + <p> + So he went about doing more fiction, taking no especial care of himself, + and wrapt in rosy dreams, which, not being warm enough for the weather, + permitted him to come down with rheumatic fever. + </p> + <p> + He lay alone in his room and suffered such torments as the condemned and + rheumatic know, depending on one of Nora's former friends to come in twice + a day and keep up the fire for him. This friend was aged ten, and looked + like a sparrow who had been in a cyclone, but somewhere inside his bones + was a wit which had spelled out devotion. He found fuel for the cracked + stove, somehow or other. He brought it in a dirty sack which he carried on + his back, and he kept warmth in Tig's miserable body. Moreover, he found + food of a sort—cold, horrible bits often, and Tig wept when he saw + them, remembering the meals Nora had served him. + </p> + <p> + Tig was getting better, though he was conscious of a weak heart and a + lamenting stomach, when, to his amazement, the Sparrow ceased to visit + him. Not for a moment did Tig suspect desertion. He knew that only + something in the nature of an act of Providence, as the insurance + companies would designate it, could keep the little bundle of bones away + from him. As the days went by, he became convinced of it, for no Sparrow + came, and no coal lay upon the hearth. The basement window fortunately + looked toward the south, and the pale April sunshine was beginning to make + itself felt, so that the temperature of the room was not unbearable. But + Tig languished; sank, sank, day by day, and was kept alive only by the + conviction that the letter announcing the award of the thousand-dollar + prize would presently come to him. One night he reached a place, where, + for hunger and dejection, his mind wandered, and he seemed to be + complaining all night to Nora of his woes. When the chill dawn came, with + chittering of little birds on the dirty pavement, and an agitation of the + scrawny willow “pussies,” he was not able to lift his hand to his head. + The window before his sight was but “a glimmering square.” He said to + himself that the end must be at hand. Yet it was cruel, cruel, with fame + and fortune so near! If only he had some food, he might summon strength to + rally—just for a little while! Impossible that he should die! And + yet without food there was no choice. + </p> + <p> + Dreaming so of Nora's dinners, thinking how one spoonful of a stew such as + she often compounded would now be his salvation, he became conscious of + the presence of a strong perfume in the room. It was so familiar that it + seemed like a sub-consciousness, yet he found no name for this friendly + odor for a bewildered minute or two. Little by little, however, it grew + upon him, that it was the onion—that fragrant and kindly bulb which + had attained its apotheosis in the cuisine of Nora Finnegan of sacred + memory. He opened his languid eyes, to see if, mayhap, the plant had not + attained some more palpable materialization. + </p> + <p> + Behold, it was so! Before him, in a brown earthen dish,—a most + familiar dish,—was an onion, pearly white, in placid seas of gravy, + smoking and delectable. With unexpected strength he raised himself, and + reached for the dish, which floated before him in a halo made by its own + steam. It moved toward him, offered a spoon to his hand, and as he ate he + heard about the room the rustle of Nora Finnegan's starched skirts, and + now and then a faint, faint echo of her old-time laugh—such an echo + as one may find of the sea in the heart of a shell. + </p> + <p> + The noble bulb disappeared little by little before his voracity, and in + contentment greater than virtue can give, he sank back upon his pillow and + slept. + </p> + <p> + Two hours later the postman knocked at the door, and receiving no answer, + forced his way in. Tig, half awake, saw him enter with no surprise. He + felt no surprise when he put a letter in his hand bearing the name of the + magazine to which he had sent his short story. He was not even surprised, + when, tearing it open with suddenly alert hands, he found within the check + for the first prize—the check he had expected. + </p> + <p> + All that day, as the April sunlight spread itself upon his floor, he felt + his strength grow. Late in the afternoon the Sparrow came back, paler, and + more bony than ever, and sank, breathing hard, upon the floor, with his + sack of coal. + </p> + <p> + “I've been sick,” he said, trying to smile. “Terrible sick, but I come as + soon as I could.” + </p> + <p> + “Build up the fire,” cried Tig, in a voice so strong it made the Sparrow + start as if a stone had struck him. “Build up the fire, and forget you are + sick. For, by the shade of Nora Finnegan, you shall be hungry no more!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + FROM THE LOOM OF THE DEAD + </h2> + <p> + WHEN Urda Bjarnason tells a tale all the men stop their talking to listen, + for they know her to be wise with the wisdom of the old people, and that + she has more learning than can be got even from the great schools at + Reykjavik. She is especially prized by them here in this new country where + the Icelandmen are settled—this America, so new in letters, where + the people speak foolishly and write unthinking books. So the men who know + that it is given to the mothers of earth to be very wise, stop their six + part singing, or their jangles about the free-thinkers, and give attentive + ear when Urda Bjarnason lights her pipe and begins her tale. + </p> + <p> + She is very old. Her daughters and sons are all dead, but her + granddaughter, who is most respectable, and the cousin of a physician, + says that Urda is twenty-four and a hundred, and there are others who say + that she is older still. She watches all that the Iceland people do in the + new land; she knows about the building of the five villages on the North + Dakota plain, and of the founding of the churches and the schools, and the + tilling of the wheat farms. She notes with suspicion the actions of the + women who bring home webs of cloth from the store, instead of spinning + them as their mothers did before them; and she shakes her head at the + wives who run to the village grocery store every fortnight, imitating the + wasteful American women, who throw butter in the fire faster than it can + be turned from the churn. + </p> + <p> + She watches yet other things. All winter long the white snows reach across + the gently rolling plains as far as the eye can behold. In the morning she + sees them tinted pink at the east; at noon she notes golden lights + flashing across them; when the sky is gray—which is not often—she + notes that they grow as ashen as a face with the death shadow on it. + Sometimes they glitter with silver-like tips of ocean waves. But at these + things she looks only casually. It is when the blue shadows dance on the + snow that she leaves her corner behind the iron stove, and stands before + the window, resting her two hands on the stout bar of her cane, and gazing + out across the waste with eyes which age has restored after four decades + of decrepitude. + </p> + <p> + The young Icelandmen say: + </p> + <p> + “Mother, it is the clouds hurrying across the sky that make the dance of + the shadows.” + </p> + <p> + “There are no clouds,” she replies, and points to the jewel-like blue of + the arching sky. + </p> + <p> + “It is the drifting air,” explains Fridrik Halldersson, he who has been in + the Northern seas. “As the wind buffets the air, it looks blue against the + white of the snow. 'Tis the air that makes the dancing shadows.” + </p> + <p> + But Urda shakes her head, and points with her dried finger, and those who + stand beside her see figures moving, and airy shapes, and contortions of + strange things, such as are seen in a beryl stone. + </p> + <p> + “But Urda Bjarnason,” says Ingeborg Christianson, the pert young wife with + the blue-eyed twins, “why is it we see these things only when we stand + beside you and you help us to the sight?” + </p> + <p> + “Because,” says the mother, with a steel-blue flash of her old eyes, + “having eyes ye will not see!” Then the men laugh. They like to hear + Ingeborg worsted. For did she not jilt two men from Gardar, and one from + Mountain, and another from Winnipeg? + </p> + <p> + Not even Ingeborg can deny that Mother Urda tells true things. + </p> + <p> + “To-day,” says Urda, standing by the little window and watching the dance + of the shadows, “a child breathed thrice on a farm at the West, and then + it died.” + </p> + <p> + The next week at the church gathering, when all the sledges stopped at the + house of Urda's granddaughter, they said it was so—that John + Christianson's wife Margaret never heard the voice of her son, but that he + breathed thrice in his nurse's arms and died. + </p> + <p> + “Three sledges run over the snow toward Milton,” says Urda; “all are laden + with wheat, and in one is a stranger. He has with him a strange engine, + but its purpose I do not know.” + </p> + <p> + Six hours later the drivers of three empty sledges stop at the house. + </p> + <p> + “We have been to Milton with wheat,” they say, “and Christian Johnson + here, carried a photographer from St. Paul.” + </p> + <p> + Now it stands to reason that the farmers like to amuse themselves through + the silent and white winters. And they prefer above all things to talk or + to listen, as has been the fashion of their race for a thousand years. + Among all the story-tellers there is none like Urda, for she is the + daughter and the granddaughter and the great-granddaughter of + storytellers. It is given to her to talk, as it is given to John + Thorlaksson to sing—he who sings so as his sledge flies over the + snow at night, that the people come out in the bitter air from their doors + to listen, and the dogs put up their noses and howl, not liking music. + </p> + <p> + In the little cabin of Peter Christianson, the husband of Urda's + granddaughter, it sometimes happens that twenty men will gather about the + stove. They hang their bear-skin coats on the wall, put their fur + gauntlets underneath the stove, where they will keep warm, and then + stretch their stout, felt-covered legs to the wood fire. The room is + fetid; the coffee steams eternally on the stove; and from her chair in the + warmest corner Urda speaks out to the listening men, who shake their heads + with joy as they hear the pure old Icelandic flow in sweet rhythm from + between her lips. Among the many, many tales she tells is that of the dead + weaver, and she tells it in the simplest language in all the world—language + so simple that even great scholars could find no simpler, and the children + crawling on the floor can understand. + </p> + <p> + “Jon and Loa lived with their father and mother far to the north of the + Island of Fire, and when the children looked from their windows they saw + only wild scaurs and jagged lava rocks, and a distant, deep gleam of the + sea. They caught the shine of the sea through an eye-shaped opening in the + rocks, and all the long night of winter it gleamed up at them, like the + eye of a dead witch. But when it sparkled and began to laugh, the children + danced about the hut and sang, for they knew the bright summer time was at + hand. Then their father fished, and their mother was gay. But it is true + that even in the winter and the darkness they were happy, for they made + fishing nets and baskets and cloth together,—Jon and Loa and their + father and mother,—and the children were taught to read in the + books, and were told the sagas, and given instruction in the part singing. + </p> + <p> + “They did not know there was such a thing as sorrow in the world, for no + one had ever mentioned it to them. But one day their mother died. Then + they had to learn how to keep the fire on the hearth, and to smoke the + fish, and make the black coffee. And also they had to learn how to live + when there is sorrow at the heart. + </p> + <p> + “They wept together at night for lack of their mother's kisses, and in the + morning they were loath to rise because they could not see her face. The + dead cold eye of the sea watching them from among the lava rocks made them + afraid, so they hung a shawl over the window to keep it out. And the + house, try as they would, did not look clean and cheerful as it had used + to do when their mother sang and worked about it. + </p> + <p> + “One day, when a mist rested over the eye of the sea, like that which one + beholds on the eyes of the blind, a greater sorrow came to them, for a + stepmother crossed the threshold. She looked at Jon and Loa, and made + complaint to their father that they were still very small and not likely + to be of much use. After that they had to rise earlier than ever, and to + work as only those who have their growth should work, till their hearts + cracked for weariness and shame. They had not much to eat, for their + stepmother said she would trust to the gratitude of no other woman's + child, and that she believed in laying up against old age. So she put the + few coins that came to the house in a strong box, and bought little food. + Neither did she buy the children clothes, though those which their dear + mother had made for them were so worn that the warp stood apart from the + woof, and there were holes at the elbows and little warmth to be found in + them anywhere. + </p> + <p> + “Moreover, the quilts on their beds were too short for their growing + length, so that at night either their purple feet or their thin shoulders + were uncovered, and they wept for the cold, and in the morning, when they + crept into the larger room to build the fire, they were so stiff they + could not stand straight, and there was pain at their joints. + </p> + <p> + “The wife scolded all the time, and her brow was like a storm sweeping + down from the Northwest. There was no peace to be had in the house. The + children might not repeat to each other the sagas their mother had taught + them, nor try their part singing, nor make little doll cradles of rushes. + Always they had to work, always they were scolded, always their clothes + grew thinner. + </p> + <p> + “'Stepmother,' cried Loa one day,—she whom her mother had called the + little bird,—'we are a-cold because of our rags. Our mother would + have woven blue cloth for us and made it into garments.' + </p> + <p> + “'Your mother is where she will weave no cloth!' said the stepmother, and + she laughed many times. + </p> + <p> + “All in the cold and still of that night, the stepmother wakened, and she + knew not why. She sat up in her bed, and knew not why. She knew not why, + and she looked into the room, and there, by the light of a burning fish's + tail—'twas such a light the folk used in those days—was a + woman, weaving. She had no loom, and shuttle she had none. All with her + hands she wove a wondrous cloth. Stooping and bending, rising and swaying + with motions beautiful as those the Northern Lights make in a midwinter + sky, she wove a cloth. The warp was blue and mystical to see, the woof was + white, and shone with its whiteness, so that of all the webs the + stepmother had ever seen, she had seen none like to this. + </p> + <p> + “Yet the sight delighted her not, for beyond the drifting web, and beyond + the weaver she saw the room and furniture—aye, saw them through the + body of the weaver and the drifting of the cloth. Then she knew—as + the haunted are made to know—that 'twas the mother of the children + come to show her she could still weave cloth. The heart of the stepmother + was cold as ice, yet she could not move to waken her husband at her side, + for her hands were as fixed as if they were crossed on her dead breast. + The voice in her was silent, and her tongue stood to the roof of her + mouth. + </p> + <p> + “After a time the wraith of the dead mother moved toward her—the + wraith of the weaver moved her way—and round and about her body was + wound the shining cloth. Wherever it touched the body of the stepmother, + it was as hateful to her as the touch of a monster out of sea-slime, so + that her flesh crept away from it, and her senses swooned. + </p> + <p> + “In the early morning she awoke to the voices of the children, whispering + in the inner room as they dressed with half-frozen fingers. Still about + her was the hateful, beautiful web, filling her soul with loathing and + with fear. She thought she saw the task set for her, and when the children + crept in to light the fire—very purple and thin were their little + bodies, and the rags hung from them—she arose and held out the + shining cloth, and cried: + </p> + <p> + “'Here is the web your mother wove for you. I will make it into garments!' + But even as she spoke the cloth faded and fell into nothingness, and the + children cried: + </p> + <p> + “'Stepmother, you have the fever!' + </p> + <p> + “And then: + </p> + <p> + “'Stepmother, what makes the strange light in the room?' + </p> + <p> + “That day the stepmother was too weak to rise from her bed, and the + children thought she must be going to die, for she did not scold as they + cleared the house and braided their baskets, and she did not frown at + them, but looked at them with wistful eyes. + </p> + <p> + “By fall of night she was as weary as if she had wept all the day, and so + she slept. But again she was awakened and knew not why. And again she sat + up in her bed and knew not why. And again, not knowing why, she looked and + saw a woman weaving cloth. All that had happened the night before happened + this night. Then, when the morning came, and the children crept in + shivering from their beds, she arose and dressed herself, and from her + strong box she took coins, and bade her husband go with her to the town. + </p> + <p> + “So that night a web of cloth, woven by one of the best weavers in all + Iceland, was in the house; and on the beds of the children were blankets + of lamb's wool, soft to the touch and fair to the eye. After that the + children slept warm and were at peace; for now, when they told the sagas + their mother had taught them, or tried their part songs as they sat + together on their bench, the stepmother was silent. For she feared to + chide, lest she should wake at night, not knowing why, and see the + mother's wraith.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A GRAMMATICAL GHOST + </h2> + <p> + THERE was only one possible objection to the drawing-room, and that was + the occasional presence of Miss Carew; and only one possible objection to + Miss Carew. And that was, that she was dead. + </p> + <p> + She had been dead twenty years, as a matter of fact and record, and to the + last of her life sacredly preserved the treasures and traditions of her + family, a family bound up—as it is quite unnecessary to explain to + any one in good society—with all that is most venerable and heroic + in the history of the Republic. Miss Carew never relaxed the proverbial + hospitality of her house, even when she remained its sole representative. + She continued to preside at her table with dignity and state, and to set + an example of excessive modesty and gentle decorum to a generation of + restless young women. + </p> + <p> + It is not likely that having lived a life of such irreproachable gentility + as this, Miss Carew would have the bad taste to die in any way not + pleasant to mention in fastidious society. She could be trusted to the + last, not to outrage those friends who quoted her as an exemplar of + propriety. She died very unobtrusively of an affection of the heart, one + June morning, while trimming her rose trellis, and her lavender-colored + print was not even rumpled when she fell, nor were more than the tips of + her little bronze slippers visible. + </p> + <p> + “Isn't it dreadful,” said the Philadelphians, “that the property should go + to a very, very distant cousin in Iowa or somewhere else on the frontier, + about whom nobody knows anything at all?” + </p> + <p> + The Carew treasures were packed in boxes and sent away into the Iowa + wilderness; the Carew traditions were preserved by the Historical Society; + the Carew property, standing in one of the most umbrageous and + aristocratic suburbs of Philadelphia, was rented to all manner of folk—anybody + who had money enough to pay the rental—and society entered its doors + no more. + </p> + <p> + But at last, after twenty years, and when all save the oldest + Philadelphians had forgotten Miss Lydia Carew, the very, very distant + cousin appeared. He was quite in the prime of life, and so agreeable and + unassuming that nothing could be urged against him save his patronymic, + which, being Boggs, did not commend itself to the euphemists. With him + were two maiden sisters, ladies of excellent taste and manners, who + restored the Carew china to its ancient cabinets, and replaced the Carew + pictures upon the walls, with additions not out of keeping with the + elegance of these heirlooms. Society, with a magnanimity almost dramatic, + overlooked the name of Boggs—and called. + </p> + <p> + All was well. At least, to an outsider all seemed to be well. But, in + truth, there was a certain distress in the old mansion, and in the hearts + of the well-behaved Misses Boggs. It came about most unexpectedly. The + sisters had been sitting upstairs, looking out at the beautiful grounds of + the old place, and marvelling at the violets, which lifted their heads + from every possible cranny about the house, and talking over the + cordiality which they had been receiving by those upon whom they had no + claim, and they were filled with amiable satisfaction. Life looked + attractive. They had often been grateful to Miss Lydia Carew for leaving + their brother her fortune. Now they felt even more grateful to her. She + had left them a Social Position—one, which even after twenty years + of desuetude, was fit for use. + </p> + <p> + They descended the stairs together, with arms clasped about each other's + waists, and as they did so presented a placid and pleasing sight. They + entered their drawing-room with the intention of brewing a cup of tea, and + drinking it in calm sociability in the twilight. But as they entered the + room they became aware of the presence of a lady, who was already seated + at their tea-table, regarding their old Wedgewood with the air of a + connoisseur. + </p> + <p> + There were a number of peculiarities about this intruder. To begin with, + she was hatless, quite as if she were a habitué; of the house, and was + costumed in a prim lilac-colored lawn of the style of two decades past. + But a greater peculiarity was the resemblance this lady bore to a faded + daguerrotype. If looked at one way, she was perfectly discernible; if + looked at another, she went out in a sort of blur. Notwithstanding this + comparative invisibility, she exhaled a delicate perfume of sweet + lavender, very pleasing to the nostrils of the Misses Boggs, who stood + looking at her in gentle and unprotesting surprise. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon,” began Miss Prudence, the younger of the Misses Boggs, + “but—” + </p> + <p> + But at this moment the Daguerrotype became a blur, and Miss Prudence found + herself addressing space. The Misses Boggs were irritated. They had never + encountered any mysteries in Iowa. They began an impatient search behind + doors and portières, and even under sofas, though it was quite absurd to + suppose that a lady recognizing the merits of the Carew Wedgewood would so + far forget herself as to crawl under a sofa. + </p> + <p> + When they had given up all hope of discovering the intruder, they saw her + standing at the far end of the drawing-room critically examining a + water-color marine. The elder Miss Boggs started toward her with stern + decision, but the little Daguerrotype turned with a shadowy smile, became + a blur and an imperceptibility. + </p> + <p> + Miss Boggs looked at Miss Prudence Boggs. + </p> + <p> + “If there were ghosts,” she said, “this would be one.” + </p> + <p> + “If there were ghosts,” said Miss Prudence Boggs, “this would be the ghost + of Lydia Carew.” + </p> + <p> + The twilight was settling into blackness, and Miss Boggs nervously lit the + gas while Miss Prudence ran for other tea-cups, preferring, for reasons + superfluous to mention, not to drink out of the Carew china that evening. + </p> + <p> + The next day, on taking up her embroidery frame, Miss Boggs found a number + of oldfashioned cross-stitches added to her Kensington. Prudence, she + knew, would never have degraded herself by taking a cross-stitch, and the + parlor-maid was above taking such a liberty. Miss Boggs mentioned the + incident that night at a dinner given by an ancient friend of the Carews. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that's the work of Lydia Carew, without a doubt!” cried the hostess. + “She visits every new family that moves to the house, but she never + remains more than a week or two with any one.” + </p> + <p> + “It must be that she disapproves of them,” suggested Miss Boggs. + </p> + <p> + “I think that's it,” said the hostess. “She doesn't like their china, or + their fiction.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope she'll disapprove of us,” added Miss Prudence. + </p> + <p> + The hostess belonged to a very old Philadelphian family, and she shook her + head. + </p> + <p> + “I should say it was a compliment for even the ghost of Miss Lydia Carew + to approve of one,” she said severely. + </p> + <p> + The next morning, when the sisters entered their drawing-room there were + numerous evidences of an occupant during their absence. The sofa pillows + had been rearranged so that the effect of their grouping was less bizarre + than that favored by the Western women; a horrid little Buddhist idol with + its eyes fixed on its abdomen, had been chastely hidden behind a Dresden + shepherdess, as unfit for the scrutiny of polite eyes; and on the table + where Miss Prudence did work in water colors, after the fashion of the + impressionists, lay a prim and impossible composition representing a + moss-rose and a number of heartsease, colored with that caution which + modest spinster artists instinctively exercise. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there's no doubt it's the work of Miss Lydia Carew,” said Miss + Prudence, contemptuously. “There's no mistaking the drawing of that rigid + little rose. Don't you remember those wreaths and bouquets framed, among + the pictures we got when the Carew pictures were sent to us? I gave some + of them to an orphan asylum and burned up the rest.” + </p> + <p> + “Hush!” cried Miss Boggs, involuntarily. “If she heard you, it would hurt + her feelings terribly. Of course, I mean—” and she blushed. “It + might hurt her feelings—but how perfectly ridiculous! It's + impossible!” + </p> + <p> + Miss Prudence held up the sketch of the moss-rose. + </p> + <p> + “THAT may be impossible in an artistic sense, but it is a palpable thing.” + </p> + <p> + “Bosh!” cried Miss Boggs. + </p> + <p> + “But,” protested Miss Prudence, “how do you explain it?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't,” said Miss Boggs, and left the room. + </p> + <p> + That evening the sisters made a point of being in the drawing-room before + the dusk came on, and of lighting the gas at the first hint of twilight. + They didn't believe in Miss Lydia Carew—but still they meant to be + beforehand with her. They talked with unwonted vivacity and in a louder + tone than was their custom. But as they drank their tea even their utmost + verbosity could not make them oblivious to the fact that the perfume of + sweet lavender was stealing insidiously through the room. They tacitly + refused to recognize this odor and all that it indicated, when suddenly, + with a sharp crash, one of the old Carew tea-cups fell from the tea-table + to the floor and was broken. The disaster was followed by what sounded + like a sigh of pain and dismay. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't suppose Miss Lydia Carew would ever be as awkward as that,” + cried the younger Miss Boggs, petulantly. + </p> + <p> + “Prudence,” said her sister with a stern accent, “please try not to be a + fool. You brushed the cup off with the sleeve of your dress.” + </p> + <p> + “Your theory wouldn't be so bad,” said Miss Prudence, half laughing and + half crying, “if there were any sleeves to my dress, but, as you see, + there aren't,” and then Miss Prudence had something as near hysterics as a + healthy young woman from the West can have. + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn't think such a perfect lady as Lydia Carew,” she ejaculated + between her sobs, “would make herself so disagreeable! You may talk about + good-breeding all you please, but I call such intrusion exceedingly bad + taste. I have a horrible idea that she likes us and means to stay with us. + She left those other people because she did not approve of their habits or + their grammar. It would be just our luck to please her.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I like your egotism,” said Miss Boggs. + </p> + <p> + However, the view Miss Prudence took of the case appeared to be the right + one. Time went by and Miss Lydia Carew still remained. When the ladies + entered their drawing-room they would see the little lady-like + Daguerrotype revolving itself into a blur before one of the family + portraits. Or they noticed that the yellow sofa cushion, toward which she + appeared to feel a peculiar antipathy, had been dropped behind the sofa + upon the floor, or that one of Jane Austen's novels, which none of the + family ever read, had been removed from the book shelves and left open + upon the table. + </p> + <p> + “I cannot become reconciled to it,” complained Miss Boggs to Miss + Prudence. “I wish we had remained in Iowa where we belong. Of course I + don't believe in the thing! No sensible person would. But still I cannot + become reconciled.” + </p> + <p> + But their liberation was to come, and in a most unexpected manner. + </p> + <p> + A relative by marriage visited them from the West. He was a friendly man + and had much to say, so he talked all through dinner, and afterward + followed the ladies to the drawing-room to finish his gossip. The gas in + the room was turned very low, and as they entered Miss Prudence caught + sight of Miss Carew, in company attire, sitting in upright propriety in a + stiff-backed chair at the extremity of the apartment. + </p> + <p> + Miss Prudence had a sudden idea. + </p> + <p> + “We will not turn up the gas,” she said, with an emphasis intended to + convey private information to her sister. “It will be more agreeable to + sit here and talk in this soft light.” + </p> + <p> + Neither her brother nor the man from the West made any objection. Miss + Boggs and Miss Prudence, clasping each other's hands, divided their + attention between their corporeal and their incorporeal guests. Miss Boggs + was confident that her sister had an idea, and was willing to await its + development. As the guest from Iowa spoke, Miss Carew bent a politely + attentive ear to what he said. + </p> + <p> + “Ever since Richards took sick that time,” he said briskly, “it seemed + like he shed all responsibility.” (The Misses Boggs saw the Daguerrotype + put up her shadowy head with a movement of doubt and apprehension.) “The + fact of the matter was, Richards didn't seem to scarcely get on the way he + might have been expected to.” (At this conscienceless split to the + infinitive and misplacing of the preposition, Miss Carew arose trembling + perceptibly.) “I saw it wasn't no use for him to count on a quick recovery—” + </p> + <p> + The Misses Boggs lost the rest of the sentence, for at the utterance of + the double negative Miss Lydia Carew had flashed out, not in a blur, but + with mortal haste, as when life goes out at a pistol shot! + </p> + <p> + The man from the West wondered why Miss Prudence should have cried at so + pathetic a part of his story: + </p> + <p> + “Thank Goodness!” + </p> + <p> + And their brother was amazed to see Miss Boggs kiss Miss Prudence with + passion and energy. + </p> + <p> + It was the end. Miss Carew returned no more. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shape of Fear, by Elia W. Peattie + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHAPE OF FEAR *** + +***** This file should be named 1876-h.htm or 1876-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/7/1876/ + +Produced by Judy Boss, and David Widger + +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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